The group walked on ahead and spotted a rest stop further along.

So they paused there, giving Qu Handong a chance to catch his breath.

Ning Sui was quietly wondering whether they should switch — it was the hottest part of the afternoon, a good deal of the snow had melted, and they were only about a kilometer from the end. But some of the downhill stretches ahead were genuinely treacherous.

She had arranged all of this to create an opportunity, yes — but she was also genuinely worried about whether Qu Handong had the stamina for it.

He said nothing about it, though.

He simply drank some water. They sat in the shade for fifteen minutes, and then set off again.

The sun blazed overhead. To keep his footing steady, Qu Handong took every step slowly. Yu Qin could clearly see the sweat running down the side of his face, his chest laboring with each breath.

It had been nearly half an hour now. Yu Qin leaned close to his ear, her voice slightly strained: “You…can put me down.”

Qu Handong didn’t take the offer. “Is your foot not hurting anymore?”

It still hurt. Back at the watchtower where they’d rested, Ning Sui had come over to look at the injury — it definitely wasn’t ready to bear weight yet.

Yu Qin didn’t know how to answer that honestly, so she said what she didn’t quite mean: “It’s okay, I felt a bit better just now.”

“Your ankle is swollen and you’re saying it’s okay?” Qu Handong looked down at the path beneath his feet. The warmth from the back of his neck was making her chest flutter. “There’s only a few hundred meters left.”

Yu Qin opened her mouth, about to say something — and then heard him pause, before continuing: “Could you…not hold on so tight?”

“Huh?” Her heart leapt.

He realized how that must have sounded.

“— That’s not what I meant.” Qu Handong’s throat moved. He turned his head slightly to the side, a little unnatural: “I’m just…having trouble breathing.”

They had come in two cars on the way there — eight people split between them. On the way back, not wanting Yu Qin to be squeezed in, Xie Yichen called for a seven-seater van and a regular car. Lin Shuyu and Hu Ke’er took the smaller car. Everyone else got into the van.

Qu Handong and Yu Qin sat in the middle row, one on each side.

Ning Sui had no idea exactly what had happened on the path — but right now, both of them had ears that were practically glowing red.

As the car pulled into the city, the driver had barely stopped at the curb when Qu Handong jumped out and disappeared into a pharmacy. He came back out not long after, carrying a paper bag. Once he was back in the car, he spread the contents out — he’d bought an impressive array of muscle ointments and bruise remedies, medicated oil, herbal plasters, everything — and pushed the entire collection over to her in one go: “Take a look. See which one you want.”

Yu Qin stared at it, a little stunned: “There’s so many?”

She could feel the entire car full of people watching with barely concealed interest. She bit her lip and pointed somewhat randomly at one of the bottles: “That one, the red flower oil?”

“Oh. Okay.” Qu Handong immediately turned to look pointedly out the window. “Then I guess I…won’t be applying it for you.”

Liu Chang genuinely could not hold it together upon hearing that.

He very nearly started laughing, caught himself, decided that was too obvious, and then forced out a single very deliberate, very loud cough.

Yu Qin: “…”

Help! What was he even saying?!

The car rode in complete silence toward the restaurant for dinner — though by the time everyone climbed out, a private group chat had already been created. It was called “Great Wall Gossip Group,” and it contained everyone except the two main characters in question.

Liu Chang: 【So NOW I finally understand why we went to climb the Great Wall today】

Liu Chang: 【I finally appreciate Ning Sui’s masterful scheming 🐶】

Sui Sui Sui: 【[cat-playing-it-cool.jpg]】

Liu Chang: 【you guys have NO IDEA how hard I had to work to keep it together lmaooo】

His girlfriend chimed in: 【SAME 🐶】

Paopao Ke: 【Wait there’s a group chat?! Did we miss something?!】

Paopao Ke: 【I KNEW my instincts were right!!】

Paopao Ke: 【I knew there was something going on between those two!!】

Kuge Lin, still completely lost: 【Which two?】

After Yu Qin got the ointment on her ankle, the pain eased considerably. Ning Sui decided it looked well enough that a hospital trip wasn’t necessary, and they carried on with the evening’s plan as scheduled.

They had dinner near the cinema, and with a few minutes to spare before the showing, they headed over at a leisurely pace.

Ning Sui had booked one of the small private VIP screening rooms — the whole space was theirs. Two rows, front and back, all plush sofa-style seating with adjustable recline, two people to a seat, no armrest in the middle.

Lin Shuyu, who was spectacularly oblivious and had taken a different car on the way back, had absolutely no idea what had been going on. But everyone else had a perfectly calibrated sense of the situation, and they all naturally paired off and spread out — making sure neither of the seats beside Qu Handong or Yu Qin were taken.

Qu Handong had chosen a seat on the left side of the front row. Lin Shuyu spotted the empty seat next to him and almost moved toward it — when Hu Ke’er shot out a hand and grabbed him, hauling him sideways. “You’re sitting with me.”

Lin Shuyu was bewildered. “Why? Isn’t it better this way — you girls together, me with Qu Handong?”

Hu Ke’er looked at him with an expression that defied easy description. Lightly, she said: “Now I finally understand why you’re still single.”

Lin Shuyu: “?”

Hu Ke’er patted his shoulder, gravely and meaningfully: “It’s a long story. Just go back to the subway and take some tips from the personal trainers.”

Lin Shuyu: “…”

On Yu Qin’s side — Ning Sui and Xie Yichen and the others had already found their seats, and now the only space left was the one beside Qu Handong. She gripped the strap of her crossbody bag and walked over in small steps. “So, I’ll sit here then?”

A quiet, barely audible “mm” from the air. He shifted slightly to one side.

Yu Qin looked at the sofa seat, which still seemed very narrow even after he moved. She pressed down the warmth rising to her earlobes and sat down beside Qu Handong.

With no armrest between them, their arms were only a few inches apart, and no matter how she positioned herself it felt intensely uncomfortable — she was very, very aware of him. The only saving grace was the seatback, wide enough to shield them from the pointed looks coming from behind.

Ning Sui had chosen the film. It was a foreign romantic fantasy from 2013 called About Time.

The description had sounded interesting, and when she asked around in the group chat, it seemed like no one had seen it — so that settled it.

The opening was light and easy. The male lead had the ability to travel back through time, and he quickly discovered that this was a kind of shortcut — he could return to the past and redo anything he wasn’t happy with.

Then he met a girl he liked. But everything he tried kept going wrong, so he kept traveling back to the beginning, leveling up from scratch, stumbling into all kinds of misunderstandings and awkward comedy along the way.

Until the atmosphere began to shift — slowly, unmistakably, into something softer.

The two of them drawn toward each other, each holding feelings for the other, and at the dinner table — a smile here, a look there — even the flickering candlelight seemed to reflect each other’s faces in their eyes. Looking, and not speaking.

The quiet stretched. He said: “I like your eyes. And everything else about you.”

Yu Qin’s fingers curled instinctively into the hem of her jacket.

The distance between them was so small. She could almost hear his steady breathing beside her.

Her heart started pounding. She was nearly squirming in her seat — her fingertips curled inward on their own.

She shifted slightly, almost unconsciously — and then her hand brushed against Qu Handong’s.

Broad. Defined knuckles. Heat transferred instantly.

Yu Qin sat motionless for a moment, and then, as though she’d touched something electric, she pulled her hand back and pressed it firmly into her own lap.

Her breath felt warm somehow, heavy. She kept her eyes fixed rigidly on the screen, not daring to look sideways. Unfortunately, what the film chose to do next was not helpful in the slightest — the two characters began undressing each other, kissing, touching, and then making love.

She felt as though her face was about to catch fire. She didn’t even need to touch it to know.

Their legs were nearly brushing. Yu Qin had no idea what was happening on his side — on her side, she kept leaning further away, sitting in rigid, frozen stillness, all the way to the end of the film.

When the warm amber lighting in the room came up and the credits began to roll from the bottom of the screen, Yu Qin still hadn’t quite come back to herself.

She also didn’t notice, in the row behind them, Ning Sui rising from the plush sofa with pink cheeks, while Xie Yichen, hands in his pockets, curved his lips just slightly and followed after her without any particular urgency.

Everyone filed out with great tact and awareness.

Only Qu Handong and Yu Qin remained in their seats.

“Should we…be going out?” Yu Qin murmured.

“Probably.”

Qu Handong’s voice was low. He said it, and then made no move to stand — still leaning back against the seat.

Out of the corner of her eye, she had a feeling he had turned his head and was looking at her.

“Is the pain still bad?”

“I…I feel much better.” Yu Qin swallowed nervously, not daring to look at him. “What about you?”

“Me?”

“You were carrying me this whole time,” she said, voice soft and small, worried. “Are you tired? Are you alright?”

“I’m fine.” His voice sounded as though it had gone just slightly rough.

“Good.”

A quiet settled between them. And then something else seemed to rise through it — a warmth that refused to stay contained.

Yu Qin sat with her spine rigid, constantly feeling as though someone might push open the door any second, and then they would never have another moment like this alone. On impulse, she threw caution aside, bit her lip, and said: “I want to ask you something.”

“Mm?”

“In the cross-discipline class — why is it that you…never talk to me?”

Qu Handong was quiet for a long moment. Then, in a low voice: “Don’t you dislike me? I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable again.”

“What?” She hadn’t expected that at all. Yu Qin stared at him, thrown completely off. “I don’t —”

Qu Handong’s expression shifted, and he said with some awkwardness: “After the amusement park, you seemed pretty cold toward me. I thought…”

Yu Qin rushed to say: “That’s not it — I don’t dislike you —”

Qu Handong went still.

She only then realized she’d reacted rather strongly. Her eyes had nowhere to go. She said: “Back then, I just wasn’t in a great headspace. I wasn’t really thinking about…things like that.”

“But it was absolutely not that I disliked you…”

Yu Qin paused, pressed her lips together, and said: “Though I guess it might be too late to say any of this.”

She could see out of the corner of her eye that he was about to look at her, and she hurried to say: “Don’t look at me yet.”

Qu Handong stopped, his throat moving, his gaze shifting back with a slightly lost uncertainty. “Mm.”

Yu Qin stared at the floor, gathering herself for a long moment. Finally she took a breath and said quietly: “Actually, I…I had a good impression of you from the beginning of this semester. I don’t even know when it started — somewhere along the way, without realizing it, I began to care about you more and more.”

“And today, when you were carrying me up the wall, I became even more sure of it.”

She touched her own cheek. It was warm. “I’ve never felt this way about someone before. Just this — constant awareness of you. But I know that you probably don’t feel the same way anymore, not the way you did before.” Her voice went tight. “Still. I wanted to tell you how I feel. Whatever happens after…”

“That’s not true.”

Qu Handong looked at her eyes. “I like you very much.”

It was like something sweet and sudden had burst open inside her chest — a wave of flustered, disoriented joy that left her standing very still.

The feelings she had been pressing down so carefully — they came flooding back at once, impossible to contain.

His reflection filled her eyes. The gaze between them seemed to thicken, to slow. Yu Qin’s lips parted and closed. She couldn’t find words. “…”

The person in front of her seemed to have moved closer.

And then — her fingers. His palm, closing over them.

That same warmth she had barely grazed during the film — this time it wrapped all the way around her, completely and unmistakably real.

Her chest was hammering. The light in the room wasn’t bright, but Yu Qin could still see that the tips of his ears had gone red.

Qu Handong was nervous too. He held her hand and wouldn’t let go — and then, his breath warm, he asked: “Can I hold your hand?”

He had already been holding it when he asked!

When the two of them walked out hand in hand, they found all six of the others still waiting out by the lobby — nobody had left.

Their eyes met, and then several pairs of knowing, delighted eyes started working very hard to communicate things across the space between them.

“Alright, boss, they’re out — you can close out the time now.”

It was only then that Yu Qin realized why no one had come in to interrupt them. They had coordinated ahead of time. Her face immediately went warm all over again.

She glanced up involuntarily and met Ning Sui’s eyes. There was so much she wanted to say — and then she thought that maybe, in a moment like this, nothing really needed to be said.

Liu Chang started clapping first, clicking his tongue in admiration: “Well done, Qu Handong. You finally pulled yourself together.”

Qu Handong’s grip tightened. He pulled Yu Qin — still rosy-faced — behind him, toward himself. “Alright. Stop scaring my girlfriend.”

Oh, oh.

They had barely just gotten together.

And he had already settled fully into the role.

What were they going to do with him later?

When Ning Sui got back, she saw that Qu Handong had posted to his social circle.

It looked extraordinarily pleased with itself.

A close-up photo of two hands, held together. Below it, a caption.

【I FINALLY HAVE A GIRLFRIEND!!! HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!! 😎】

Qu Handong: equal parts lovable fool and real one — sees the girl he likes and immediately loses his mind.

Kuge Lin: just a fool.

Ha.

Qu Handong is absolutely the type who would post to Xiaohongshu with a title like “uwu my girlfriend smells so nice, I love her so much, does anyone get this feeling” — with complete sincerity.

The line is quoted from About Time — highly recommend watching! Very fitting for the moment, and the male lead is also a little clueless, but the story is genuinely lovely.

Next chapter back to the main extra storyline!!