Nanchen. Summer Solstice.

The most ordinary of Wednesdays.

Late afternoon, and dark clouds hung low, threatening to fall.

A damp heaviness pressed down from all sides — rain was coming soon.

The air steamed with the wet peculiar to this season. Five minutes before the end-of-class bell, the students of Class Three, Year Two sat scattered and unfocused, unwilling to listen, like a flock of birds straining to leave their cage.

The last stroke of chalk touched the blackboard, and Zhu Yunque glanced at the clock on the wall.

She looked away, handed the test papers to the class representative, and received — as expected — a chorus of groans.

“More homework again?”

“There’s no way we can finish this.”

“Teacher, can’t you give us a break?”

“Teacher, aren’t you tired? Don’t you need to go on dates?”

Someone’s quip — it wasn’t clear whose — drew snickering from the students below.

Zhu Yunque remained unmoved, watching them with an expressionless face.

In the parlance of the day, she possessed a remarkably beautiful face.

It was a small, delicate face, its features finely sculpted and graceful, with something of the gentle, misty elegance of the southern waterways in the lines of her temples, brows, and eyes. When she said nothing, there was a kind of ethereal stubbornness to her beauty.

Her bearing, too, was elegant — her slender figure stood apart from the world, seeming fragile, yet radiating an undeniable authority. A few measured glances were all it took to silence the classroom.

Very soon, the room grew quiet.

It was only when the class representative had finished distributing the papers that the end-of-class bell finally rang.

The rustling and shuffling that followed was like a spring rain reviving the earth. Zhu Yunque lowered her eyes and closed her books.

“Homework is due at morning study tomorrow.”

With that, she stepped down from the podium, picked up her books and water bottle, and left the classroom. The moment she turned, another wave of lamenting broke out behind her.

She returned to the office to find it empty.

At this hour, all the other teachers had already left for the day.

Zhu Yunque sat at her desk, staring blankly out the window at the streams of people flowing out through the school gates. She sat there for a long while until her phone buzzed and drew her gaze back.

It was a message from Ye Tian, her stepmother’s son: 【The bar just opened. Come by when you have time.】

Zhu Yunque’s lashes stirred faintly. She replied with a single word: “Sure.”

Ye Tian: 【Done with work?】

Zhu Yunque: 【Mm.】

Perhaps her replies were too brief, because Ye Tian took several seconds to type before writing: 【Don’t worry about what my mom said. If you don’t want to go on blind dates, don’t go. Nobody can force you — it’s not like you depend on her for anything.】

Zhu Yunque: 【I know.】

Ye Tian: 【Don’t be unhappy.】

Ye Tian: 【We’re in the same city now. If you want to see him, you’ll get the chance eventually. Worst case, just go find him at his club.】

Those few words lodged themselves in her throat like sharp fish bones.

Her mind went blank for a moment. As if possessed, she typed three words: 【I don’t dare.】

She stared at it for two seconds, then deleted it with a suppressed breath.

Zhu Yunque: 【It’s fine.】

Zhu Yunque had returned to Nanchen this past April.

It was a season of unrelenting grey rain — hot, stuffy, and damp. After spending so long in the capital, she had barely arrived before she fell ill for several days.

Because of that, she missed out on a very good high school position, and by a twist of fate ended up teaching at this private high school instead.

On the day of her interview, Zhu Yunque had worn no makeup and had little color in her cheeks, yet she possessed a beauty like an orchid blooming alone in an empty valley.

The deputy principal who interviewed her had been visibly surprised by her résumé. He couldn’t understand why she would give up such a good position in the capital to come to a school like this.

Zhu Yunque gave a simple answer: her parents were here, and it was close to home.

Her credentials were strong, and the school moved quickly to offer her the position — but they were frank about one thing upfront. This private high school was no famous institution, and its students were difficult to manage.

Zhu Yunque looked gentle and fragile. They weren’t sure she could handle this kind of class.

They had expected her to look uncertain.

Instead, Zhu Yunque said calmly, “At my last school, I started with the most difficult class too.”

She wasn’t exaggerating.

Class Three, Year Two — formerly the most unruly class in the school — was well-behaved in her lessons.

When a colleague asked the students why, some said they were quiet because everyone else was quiet. Others said it was because Teacher Zhu respected them.

A portion of the students said Zhu Yunque was beautiful — beautiful as a fairy — and that everyone liked her too much to want to upset her.

The reason seemed absurd, yet it was consistently borne out by a number of the male teachers. In just over a month, three male teachers had expressed interest in her, and older teachers, knowing she was single, had eagerly tried to set her up with someone — all of whom she declined.

Eventually, Zhu Yunque grew tired of it and simply announced, “There’s someone I like,” which put an end to everyone’s attempts.

The excuse, however, was useless with her family.

When she went home for dinner with Ye Tian one weekend, her stepmother launched into the same topic with relentless persistence.

“Yunque, you’re twenty-eight, not eighteen. This can’t go on forever.”

“All the good ones will be taken if you wait any longer.”

“Working so hard doesn’t do a woman any good in the end — you’ll need to get married sooner or later.”

“Don’t tell me you still haven’t gotten over that Lu boy. I’m not trying to be harsh, but we truly aren’t the same kind of people as him.”

Of all the nagging, that last sentence was the one that truly pierced her.

Ye Tian’s expression immediately darkened. “Mom, are you done?”

Her father, Zhu Ping’an, was also visibly uncomfortable. “That’s enough.”

The dining table fell silent.

Zhu Yunque mechanically shoveled a few more bites of food into her mouth. When she looked up again, the emotion in her eyes had settled into a still, dead pool.

“There’s a parent-teacher meeting next week. I won’t be coming home for dinner.”

Ye Tian followed her out of the alley, walking one after another.

In the June warmth, the willows were lush and green, and the moss on the old stone paths of the historic district grew thicker than ever. When they reached the main road, Ye Tian handed her a parasol.

“The bar has a show tonight. Come.”

In the golden sunlight, Zhu Yunque was pale and luminous. “Can I bring someone?”

Ye Tian smiled. “Of course. Anyone you want — your call.”

Zhu Yunque nodded, made a “call me” gesture, and turned to get into a taxi.

Back at her dormitory at the school, she messaged Xu Linda on WeChat.

Xu Linda had been her closest friend in high school — she was now a beauty content creator, and just as fun-loving as ever. When she heard there was a free night out at a bar, Xu Linda was of course delighted.

The two agreed on a time and arrived at eight o’clock sharp at the small bar Ye Tian and some friends had opened together. It was on a lively strip near one of the city’s prominent universities, surrounded by restaurants, bars, and entertainment venues — a place particularly popular with young foreigners.

Ye Tian knew they had arrived and came personally to meet them, then led them to the reserved booth he had set aside especially for them.

Xu Linda hadn’t seen Ye Tian in a long time, and her eyes lit up.

The moment he left, she grabbed Zhu Yunque’s arm and shook it eagerly. “Your little brother turned out well! He’s so manly now — does he have a girlfriend?”

Zhu Yunque sipped her specialty cocktail through a straw and shook her head. “No.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

Xu Linda blinked, clearly baffled, and looked away.

Zhu Yunque smiled. “Why don’t you give it a try?”

Xu Linda nearly choked on her drink. She was about to laugh and scold her for trying to set her up, but she was stopped cold by Zhu Yunque’s expression.

That small, delicate face, tight and luminous, white as soft tofu — when she smiled, her eyes curved into gentle crescents, innocent and pure. That soft warmth hadn’t changed one bit from high school.

She looked nothing like twenty-eight. Someone could easily mistake her for a university student.

Xu Linda clicked her tongue twice. “You’re so much prettier when you smile. Why do you go around looking gloomy all the time?”

Zhu Yunque said nothing, and turned her gaze toward the stage.

A band was performing up there. After finishing a song by a well-known indie group, they moved into Wang Leehom’s “Things You Don’t Know.”

The tender opening notes filled the bar, and the whole space was instantly steeped in a wistful, romantic mood.

Xu Linda replied to a few messages on her phone. When she looked up again, Zhu Yunque was turned to the side, watching the stage with focused eyes, a misty, submerged emotion pooling in their depths.

Xu Linda held back for a long moment, but in the end couldn’t stop herself from murmuring, “Not nearly as good as when Lu Rangchen sang it back then.”

That name was like a dense rain cloud rooted deep in the heart. Whenever someone mentioned it, the air turned damp.

Zhu Yunque’s lashes trembled faintly. She slowly drew her gaze back, picked up a piece of watermelon from the table, and took a small, quiet bite.

Xu Linda sighed. “Nanchen isn’t that big and isn’t that small — how is this guy so impossible to run into? Maybe I should ask an old classmate to help make contact.”

Among the people close to Zhu Yunque, Xu Linda was the second person — after Ye Tian — to know the real reason she had come back from the capital.

Zhu Yunque chewed slowly for a long while before saying, “Ye Tian said the same thing.”

“And then?”

Zhu Yunque shook her head, and put another piece of watermelon in her mouth. “Nothing came of it.”

“…”

“If we don’t run into each other, so be it.”

Xu Linda’s lips gave a small twitch.

She truly marveled at this stubbornness of hers. Call it Buddhist detachment? No, because she was hopelessly single-minded. Call her single-minded? Yet she was always ready to say “so be it.” She liked to draw a boundary and lock herself within it — never adapting, always suffocating herself, and suffocating everyone around her.

But then, she had always been this stubborn — stubborn with everyone, and stubborn with Lu Rangchen too.

Yet every time, Lu Rangchen had yielded to her, indulged her.

He had spoiled her from the heights of heaven down to the depths of earth. And then — she had been the one to leave him.

Xu Linda sighed and let the subject drop. She propped her chin on her hand and listened to the music with Zhu Yunque in quiet companionship.

As the night deepened, the bar grew livelier and livelier.

But Zhu Yunque no longer wanted to stay.

She had an early English class at school on Monday. After a brief word with Xu Linda, the two agreed to leave early.

Xu Linda agreed.

But before they could make their exit, something happened at the bar.

Right at the table near the stage, a drunk man was loudly pestering a server girl, making scene after unreasonable scene.

The young woman was no pushover — she fired back at him in kind, word for word.

Zhu Yunque and Xu Linda hadn’t intended to rubberneck, but just as they rose to leave, they heard the sharp crack of a glass bottle smashing against someone’s head from that direction.

Then came a piercing scream. The festive atmosphere was instantly extinguished. Mixed with the sound of chairs and bottles crashing to the floor, the entire bar descended into chaos.

Xu Linda flinched in fright and pressed herself against Zhu Yunque. “What’s happening?”

Zhu Yunque said nothing, and turned in time to see Ye Tian push into the crowd with several of his friends, trying to break it up.

Strangely — her night vision was not particularly good. Yet in that very instant, she clearly made out the face of the server girl — the one with her hair grabbed by the man, looking utterly disheveled and wretched. It was a rather notorious problem student from Class Three, Year Two: Deng Jiao.

It had been Deng Jiao who had smashed the bottle over the man’s head.

The police arrived twenty minutes later.

By the time the bar had mostly cleared out, Zhu Yunque had seen Xu Linda off and boarded the police vehicle together with Deng Jiao.

Ye Tian had wanted to come as well, but he was injured, and the bar still needed him — so Zhu Yunque waved him off.

She sat calmly in the police vehicle, watching Deng Jiao with a cool, composed gaze.

However fierce the girl might act, she was still under eighteen.

After the recklessness came the fear.

Once she had finished crying, Deng Jiao asked her, “Teacher, will I go to prison? Will the school expel me?”

Zhu Yunque raised an eyebrow slightly. “Now you’re scared? Where was all that ferocity a moment ago?”

Deng Jiao said nothing.

Zhu Yunque patiently asked, “Why were you working there?”

Deng Jiao picked at her fingers and said nothing.

Zhu Yunque waited for a long time, then lost patience. “Not going to tell me? Then we’ll explain everything together when your guardian arrives.”

She crossed her arms, leaned back against the seat, and closed her eyes to rest.

Deng Jiao’s breath caught in her throat.

In the moonlight, she looked at Zhu Yunque through a pair of swollen, walnut-sized eyes.

The woman had won a genetic lottery of beauty — the kind that looked pure and gentle. Yet beneath that surface was a ruthless coldness.

It was as though no matter how serious the situation, she could maintain a complete absence of feeling, perfectly composed.

She still didn’t understand why the students in their class liked her so much.

Deng Jiao bit her lip and looked away resentfully out the window.

Perhaps knowing she had no way out, she was fairly cooperative after that. When they reached the police station, under the stern gaze of the officers, she obediently wrote down a phone number.

Zhu Yunque stayed to make sure those men wouldn’t intimidate her.

Midway through, Xu Linda called, asking what was going on. Zhu Yunque leaned against the wall nearby, sitting with her legs crossed.

“It’s fine. Just waiting for her guardian to arrive.”

As if on cue, the very moment those words left her mouth, the old aluminum-framed glass door creaked open.

With the opening of the door, the cool night air swept in, carrying someone’s scent — composed and sensual, like dark ebony and agarwood, with a faint edge of cold, refined hauteur.

The strands of hair by her cheeks were gently lifted by the breeze.

Zhu Yunque’s brow furrowed slightly.

Beside her, Deng Jiao’s eyes lit up at that same moment.

In the next instant, a tall, lean silhouette appeared in the doorway.

A dark green overshirt worn over a white T-shirt, sleeves half rolled up to reveal two forearms of taut, clean muscle — hands casually tucked into his pockets.

An aura that was impossible to ignore, standing at the boundary between light and shadow, radiating a cold, sharp pressure.

The men on the other side who had not been ready to let the matter go looked toward the sound, and quickly fell silent.

At that same moment, Zhu Yunque’s gaze landed on that figure.

At first, it was casual, unhurried.

Then gradually, with the aid of the dim light, she finally made out his face.

It was a man with strong, handsome features — striking in every regard.

His profile was sharp yet refined, his eyes deep-set, his bone structure well-defined and distinguished.

The kind of handsome face that could move someone at a single glance — identical to the one in her memory, not a detail changed, yet more mature now, more commanding.

In an instant, Zhu Yunque froze completely, caught entirely off guard.

Her mind went blank.

Then her heart began to tremble. To ache.

Only when Deng Jiao choked out the words “Brother Rangchen” did she manage to pull herself back.

The man responded with an unhurried, casual ease. His sharp, hawk-like gaze swept the small police station in a wide, leisurely arc, then settled — without hurrying — in Zhu Yunque’s direction.

Looking down at her from a height. Ungovernable. Untamed.

Still exactly as he had been all those years ago — he didn’t need to open his mouth; his eyes alone could command a room.

The difference was, when he looked at her now, there was no longer any indulgence or tenderness. Only a calm that bordered on total silence — distant and indifferent.

As though she were a complete stranger he had never encountered.

As though he had never once been entangled with her.

The thought surfaced in her mind, and the inside of her nose stung with an acrid heat. Yet she stubbornly held her ground and did not look away.

He, however, had no inclination to engage with her.

After only a brief moment of eye contact, barely a second, the man’s gaze shifted away without a ripple of emotion, and he looked at Deng Jiao beside her.

After nearly ten years, that magnetic voice — low and slightly husky — reached her ears.

Lu Rangchen tilted his chin up slightly, and gave a cold, contemptuous laugh. “So you’ve grown your wings, have you.”

“…”

“Did you really think I’d spoil you forever?”

It was strange. He was speaking to someone else entirely.

Yet Zhu Yunque’s eyes suddenly reddened at the corners.