No matter what setting, no matter what circumstance he was encountered in.

Lu Rangchen was always like that — dazzlingly brilliant.

Even now, dressed in training clothes barely different from everyone else’s, the impact he had was no less than being struck by ten thousand volts of electricity — landing squarely on Yunque’s heart.

Her expression flickered with discomfort, and without thinking she took half a step back.

From behind Lu Rangchen, Deng Zhe popped out. “Hey, isn’t this little Yunque? What are you doing here?”

“……”

A look of helpless, trapped embarrassment surfaced in Yunque’s eyes.

Lu Rangchen raised an eyebrow, with an expression half-smile, half-not, glancing at Deng Zhe sidelong. “I asked her to come. Problem with that?”

Deng Zhe laughed in that gossipy way of his, drawing out his words. “No problem, no problem at all.”

Yunque pressed her lips together, clutching the plastic bag with several cups of bubble tea, the handles digging painfully into her palm.

The moment the exchange ended, she stretched out her hand and said to Lu Rangchen, her voice a little tentative, “Bubble tea — it’s for all of you.”

Lu Rangchen lowered his gaze to look.

The girl was wearing a white seven-quarter-sleeve blouse with a denim skirt, a small backpack on her slight shoulders; the arm she extended was pale and slender.

On her wrist was a black mechanical watch, oversized for her frame — her only accessory — yet it made her look even more pristine and delicately thin, obediently endearing to the point of being unbearable.

Almost imperceptibly, the corner of his mouth twitched.

Lu Rangchen raised his hand to take the bag, and their fingertips brushed against each other in an unavoidable graze.

Yunque’s heartbeat quickened, soundlessly.

Lu Rangchen lifted the bag and looked inside. He found that all of the bubble teas she’d bought were large sizes, so generously packed with toppings they were practically porridge.

Deng Zhe was delighted. “There’s one for me too?”

Lu Rangchen accordingly opened the bag toward him and gestured for him to take one.

Yunque deliberately avoided looking at Lu Rangchen and said to Deng Zhe, “Remember to give Zhou Chuang one too. The rest — you can share, or drink them yourself, whatever you like.”

The subtext was as if she were saying she hadn’t come here specifically for anyone.

Yet Lu Rangchen’s gaze settled on her face — neither light nor heavy — probing, scorching, kneading her heart flat and rolling it round again.

Yunque held her breath slightly.

Lu Rangchen let out an ambiguous soft laugh. “You certainly know how to arrange things.”

He said this in that drawn-out, unhurried way of his.

With a light, breezy trace of mockery mixed in.

As a bystander, Deng Zhe was genuinely a little awkward, so he mumbled that Lu Rangchen would definitely pass it on.

Having said that, he made a show of heading inside, then asked Lu Rangchen, “Aren’t you taking little Yunque in to have a look around?”

Lu Rangchen hadn’t even opened his mouth when Yunque turned it down herself. “That’s alright, I have to head back.”

Deng Zhe made a sound of acknowledgment, said nothing more, and slipped inside first.

In an instant, the air fell silent.

At the entrance, it was just the two of them.

It was unclear what sort of situation, precisely, they were in.

— The one who had said she was leaving stayed where she was. The one who should have gone inside to train wasn’t moving.

Yunque was trying to steer the conversation toward the real point when Lu Rangchen suddenly spoke. “Did someone give you a hard time?”

The boy’s tone was casual, his thin eyelids lifting lazily.

Yunque hadn’t expected him to open with this — her lashes flickered.

“Not really.”

Lu Rangchen had one hand in his pocket, leaning idly against the wall — looking like he didn’t quite believe her.

Yunque wasn’t lying, though.

Even though Pang Shuo had been particularly hostile toward her, she hadn’t been especially angry about it.

Perhaps it was that her temperament was simply fairly even-keeled — or perhaps it was that during these past years living at Zhu Ping’an’s side, she had endured and suppressed so much that facing Pang Shuo, she couldn’t even muster the energy to feel anything.

But still, Lu Rangchen was concerned about her.

Her heart felt like a hydrogen-filled balloon lifting upward. Yunque heard her own voice, untethered and floating: “Thank you for standing up for me at noon. I heard from Xu Linda — it was very satisfying.”

“And then what?”

Lu Rangchen’s expression was half-amused, half-serious. “Just keep quietly enduring after that?”

Yunque paused. “Why would I keep enduring?”

She said this calmly and evenly, yet her eyes were unusually clear and steady.

It was a quality rarely seen in girls her age — cool, perceptive, outwardly unruffled but inwardly holding back a tide ready to surge.

Soft-looking on the outside, yet carrying thorns within.

Lu Rangchen curved his lips with quiet understanding and nodded. “Alright, I was worrying for nothing.”

Yunque: “……You weren’t worrying for nothing.”

Lu Rangchen made a show of lifting an eyebrow in great interest.

Yunque’s cheeks warmed, and she gently looked away. “I really have to go now.”

Lu Rangchen said nothing, just looked straight at her.

Yunque could only let her gaze drift to his trousers, which were quite clean and white — athletic track pants — and worked up the courage to say, “Xu Linda said your trousers got dirty.”

Why not take them and let me wash them?

But the words circled in her mouth and, no matter what, shame made it impossible to get them out.

It was Lu Rangchen who muffled a laugh and looked at her, not in any particularly dignified way. “Did Xu Linda tell you to wash my trousers?”

Suddenly caught.

Yunque’s thin face flushed red in an instant.

Lu Rangchen raised an eyebrow and bluntly said, “That’s a pretty weak tactic.”

“……”

Yunque had never been this flustered before. “Then forget it — it’s not like I’m that free anyway.”

The measured pace at which she normally spoke three words only after thinking for three seconds was, under Lu Rangchen’s pressure, accelerated to an instant.

By the time she caught herself, Lu Rangchen’s shoulders were already shaking with laughter.

Yunque felt as though her ears were on fire. She hastily threw out a “I’m leaving,” and truly turned and walked away.

But just at that moment, Lu Rangchen called her name.

Her footsteps halted involuntarily.

Yunque turned sideways, pressing her lips firmly together as she looked at him.

Lu Rangchen’s gaze was far-reaching; he seemed to be in a good mood. He raised his voice toward her. “If he gives you a hard time again——”

The boy, arrogant and unbridled, tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Just let me know.”

—

That evening, Yunque left the gymnasium with a flushed, feverish face and made her way home in an almost soul-less daze.

Xu Linda had a gathering at home that evening, and at around eight that night sent a message asking whether Yunque had managed to get Lu Rangchen’s trousers.

She hadn’t even asked yet — but once she did, Yunque found it mortifying.

What was even more absurd was that after Yunque relayed the whole story from start to finish, Xu Linda immediately sent a voice message. The moment Yunque tapped it open, she heard a completely unrestrained stretch of “hahahahahahaha.”

Yunque: “……” She honestly didn’t want to speak to her.

But Xu Linda just kept pestering her without stopping — sometimes talking about her and Lu Rangchen, sometimes venting about her frustrations with Deng Zhe.

Yunque was so thoroughly harassed that she couldn’t make progress on her homework, and could only set her phone to Do Not Disturb, then check it only once she had finished.

By that point Xu Linda had already sent her a large chunk of messages.

Of course, only the first few sentences were about Lu Rangchen.

Her point was that she felt Lu Rangchen treated Yunque rather differently, and she wanted Yunque to put in some effort — not wait until Lu Rangchen was truly caught by Lin Zhinian and live to regret it.

Yunque lay on the bed and couldn’t help but ask: 【Are those two very close?】

Xu Linda: 【From what I know, Lu Rangchen tutors her every week. Lin Zhinian also keeps clinging to him intermittently — she even took time off school to watch his match last week. And rumor has it after the competition, Lin Zhinian went and had dinner with him.】

Yunque looked at the text Xu Linda had sent, and something in her chest suddenly went stuffy.

She immediately thought of the screenshot Lu Rangchen had sent her that morning — the screenshot of his WeChat contacts, where Lin Zhinian, who shared the same profile picture as her, had messages stacked up into 10 red notification badges.

Compared to herself, Lin Zhinian was clearly far more familiar with Lu Rangchen.

Thinking this, Yunque hurriedly changed her matching profile picture to a random landscape photo she’d taken on her phone.

She asked Xu Linda: 【When did you find this out?】

Xu Linda: 【Heard from Deng Zhe today.】

Xu Linda: 【Why?】

Yunque was quiet for a good while, then said there was nothing.

She scrolled further down to read through what Xu Linda had shared about Deng Zhe.

To summarize: Deng Zhe was basically a blockhead when it came to feelings, with eyes only for eating, having fun, and his friends. He treated Xu Linda as a good friend too, and while they got along well, there was genuinely nothing romantic on his end.

The worst part was that recently a girl from Class C had been pursuing him.

Xu Linda said Deng Zhe hadn’t turned her down but hadn’t agreed either, and she had absolutely no idea what he was thinking.

Yunque asked her: 【So what are you planning to do?】

Xu Linda replied: 【No idea.】

Xu Linda: 【I want to confess but I’m scared. If I don’t, I’m scared someone else will take him.】

For other kinds of problems, Yunque was more than happy to offer advice and comfort.

But for this particular problem, Yunque herself was a tangled mess.

Yunque: 【Sorry, I don’t know how to comfort you either.】

She and Xu Linda were different.

Xu Linda had the capital to buy into her own youthful recklessness. Yunque could only study hard, do well in her exams, and get into a good university.

As for Lu Rangchen.

That was never a matter of whether she took initiative or not.

She wasn’t in a position to wander off the path she was supposed to walk — not even for him.

These things went unsaid, but Xu Linda knew them in her heart.

Xu Linda: 【Don’t be silly, I wasn’t counting on you to comfort me.】

Xu Linda: 【But I still envy you. You’re too calm, too rational. You’re destined not to get hurt badly where Lu Rangchen is concerned. But I’m different — I’m just a complete fool.】

Calm, rational.

For the first time, Yunque felt that these two words, applied to herself, were a kind of compliment.

In the eyes of the Zhu family relatives, these same two traits meant only that she was someone cold and without warmth.

Xu Linda didn’t want to keep talking about this topic, and changed the subject to ask what Yunque planned to do about “communicating” with Pang Shuo.

Yunque thought a moment, then said: 【Tomorrow.】

She left it mysterious: 【You’ll know by tomorrow.】

—

Since the National Day holiday, Nancheng No. 3 Middle School had stopped giving second-year students their two-day weekends.

Even though it was Saturday, the second-year students still had to come in as usual.

The only consolation was that on Saturday afternoons, the extended break between classes was lengthened from twenty minutes to forty. And so lately, every Saturday afternoon, the boys from each class would gather together for a fairly informal basketball game.

Not that it had anything to do with the girls.

But the girls were quite willing to go watch the excitement.

Xu Linda was one of them.

Deng Zhe was going to play ball, and she had basketball celebration cheers on her mind, terrified of falling behind the girl from Class C.

Yunque, meanwhile, used the extended break to go to the office and find Zheng Guoxiong.

When Zheng Guoxiong heard that she and Pang Shuo had been getting along poorly lately, he was quite surprised.

Pang Shuo was the scheming type — in front of teachers, he always put on the face of a good student and a teacher’s pet. And Yunque was quiet, gentle-natured; she didn’t look like the sort who would get into conflicts with others.

Zheng Guoxiong genuinely couldn’t imagine how these two sitting together had managed to produce friction.

Even less could he imagine that Yunque not only refused his offer of mediation, but also hoped he would separate the two of them.

Zheng Guoxiong hemmed and hawed, falling back on his official tone. “It’s not that I don’t want to help mediate. But tell me — do I move you to the back row, or do I move him to the back row?”

“Besides, seating arrangements can’t just be changed on a whim. If they could, everyone else would come to me with their complaints too, and I’d have to solve all of them, wouldn’t I?”

Facing the seemingly-helpless middle-aged man, Yunque said nothing.

Zheng Guoxiong waved her off. “Go back to class. I’ll talk to Pang Shuo separately later and have him give you a proper apology.”

He picked up his tea cup and took a sip, just about to spit out the tea leaves.

Yunque suddenly spoke. “I don’t accept that.”

Zheng Guoxiong’s hand paused.

Yunque, face composed and unflinching. “He said behind my back that I cheated on the exam. He said I was secretly getting cozy with boys. He was spreading rumors and personally attacking me.”

“Those things can’t just be resolved with a simple apology.”

The girl’s expression was cool, rational, and stubborn all at once.

He’d never seen a high school girl hold herself with this kind of bearing. Zheng Guoxiong let out a sound of amusement — the amusement of a spectator watching a scene unfold.

He set his cup down on the desk. “Then tell me — how do you want him to pay the price? How are you supposed to make him genuinely convinced?”

“I’ll compete against him alone in one test.”

Yunque’s eyes were resolute as she said the words she’d been refining in her mind all the previous night. “Whoever loses has to move to the back row.”

—

Perhaps it was that her unyielding attitude was too resolute.

That day, Zheng Guoxiong ultimately had no choice and agreed to her request.

And so the date of the competition was set for the weekend.

Zheng Guoxiong would contact several teachers and have questions from all subjects compiled into one test paper.

If her score was higher, Zheng Guoxiong would arrange for her to have a new deskmate. If Pang Shuo’s score was higher, she would not be allowed to raise any further objections about the seating arrangement.

Of course, Zheng Guoxiong had his sense of fairness too.

Regardless of whether she managed to outscore Pang Shuo or not, he would still make Pang Shuo apologize to her.

Whatever else could be said.

This outcome had already exceeded expectations.

Yunque had nothing more to say. Before leaving the office, she sincerely said, “Thank you, teacher.”

Zheng Guoxiong was left exasperated by her. “You just need to keep scoring like this next time too. That’s all I ask.”

Yunque pressed her lips together, and finally, a trace of the shyness she ought to have appeared on her face.

Coming out of the office, the extended break was already half over.

The corridor was empty and quiet.

Yunque stood at the office doorway, awash in sunlight, and couldn’t help but pause for two seconds. Her hands and feet suddenly went soft, as though all the energy had just drained out of her, and then just as suddenly, a rush of release.

Right at that moment, the phone in her pocket vibrated.

It was a message from Xu Linda: 【Where did you go, this is taking forever?? Get over here — Lu Rangchen is about to take the court.】

Today’s basketball game was exceptionally lively.

Because Lu Rangchen had joined.

Apparently he was representing Class A in a joint match against Class B, and Deng Zhe had also joined the Class A team, along with Zhou Chuang who was already in Class A.

At the thought of the boy charging about the basketball court, Yunque’s mood suddenly brimmed with anticipation.

She replied that she was on her way.

Xu Linda sent an adorable cat sticker: 【I saved you a spot. We’re in the third row.】

Yunque said okay.

Then jogged downstairs, and on impulse stopped at the nearby campus store to buy a few bottles of drinks — planning to share them with Xu Linda and Lu Rangchen and the others when she got there.

As it turned out, though, anything she could think of, others could think of too.

And do it better.

By the time Yunque arrived at the gym, Lu Rangchen had already come off the court to rest.

He was sitting in the first row near the inside, wearing a cream-white hoodie with gray sweatpants, holding a half-finished sports drink, listening to whoever was beside him talk — his slender frame conspicuously eye-catching.

Yunque had just sat down beside Xu Linda when Lin Zhinian appeared out of nowhere on the other side.

The girl was dressed in a pretty matching skirt set, her hair permed into curls, looking like an exquisitely crafted doll in a display window. She said a few words to Lu Rangchen and then slid in very naturally to sit beside him.

That scene was captured by Yunque’s eyes exactly.

It stung — inexplicably. She swallowed something down and quickly looked away.

Xu Linda was busy watching Deng Zhe pass the ball on the court, and only after he scored a goal and she cheered with a few excited shouts did she have the spare attention to turn to Yunque.

She twisted open one of the bottles Yunque had brought, then asked her, “Why don’t you take one over to Lu Rangchen?”

Yunque replied, with little enthusiasm, “Don’t feel like it.”

Xu Linda found this funny — and then looked up to find Lin Zhinian over on that side, chatting up a storm with the Class A boys.

Most galling of all, Lu Rangchen was still sitting right beside her.

Xu Linda clicked her tongue. “When did Lin Zhinian even show up?”

“No idea.”

Yunque just felt that the gym was noisy and stuffy — pointless to be here.

She was debating whether to ask Xu Linda to head back with her when a boy from Class B who had just come off the court sat down beside her.

That boy was Zhao Qijia — upper-middle of the class rankings in Class B, popular, good-natured, and one of the few boys Yunque could actually hold a conversation with.

She wasn’t sure how he’d noticed her, but by the time she realized, Zhao Qijia had already started chatting with her.

He tugged at his collar to fan himself, then asked Yunque, “Any of these drinks claimed? If not, can I have one? I’ll pay you.”

Looking at the boy’s open, cheerful smile, Yunque paused for a short second.

On instinct she pulled a bottle from the plastic bag and handed it over. “It’s fine, no charge. Go ahead.”

Zhao Qijia grinned and said thanks.

He must have been genuinely thirsty; within a few seconds he had downed most of it.

Yunque thought about how he had played hard for the class, and fished out the remaining half-pack of tissues from her pocket and held them out to him. “Use these.”

Zhao Qijia visibly froze.

Then he smiled — showing a row of even teeth — and very sincerely said thank you.

Yunque shook her head lightly and murmured that it was nothing.

Zhao Qijia wiped his face, then seemed to remember something, and asked, “I don’t think I have you on WeChat yet.”

Yunque had been watching the boys running back and forth on the court; hearing this, she settled her attention. “Probably not.”

“Alright.”

Zhao Qijia took out his phone, found her in the class group chat, and sent a friend request.

Once done, he reminded Yunque, “I just added you — accept it whenever you get a chance, and I’ll transfer the money.”

Yunque nodded.

Just as she was about to take out her phone, the corner of her vision swept lightly across something — and without meaning to, she met the unfathomably deep gaze that had turned toward her from a diagonal angle ahead.

Lu Rangchen was leaning back lazily against his chair, head tilted sideways, separated from her by two packed rows of people — his eyes carrying a faint, wordless amusement as he slanted them toward her.

Looking at her.

Not at Xu Linda, not at some unrelated bystander.

Her.

The tips of Yunque’s fingers, holding her phone, curled slightly.

She felt that the look in Lu Rangchen’s eyes at this moment was somehow different.

But before she’d had any chance to figure out how it was different.

Lu Rangchen withdrew his gaze, lowered his long, elegant neck, and with an expression of bored ease, began fiddling with his phone.

As though that brief glance just now had never happened — as though it had been nothing but her imagination.

Xu Linda nudged her arm. “Stop spacing out — check WeChat!”

Yunque: “……”

She came back to herself belatedly and found messages in the small group chat.

It was a photo Xu Linda had secretly taken — of Lu Rangchen and Lin Zhinian sitting together — and she had tagged Lu Rangchen with a pointed, passive-aggressive remark: 【Look at you, Lu Rangchen, getting beautiful company even during basketball.】

After quite a long pause.

Lu Rangchen replied with a long string of ellipses.

Then a few seconds later: 【You’re asking to be hit.】

The tone — utterly without any impulse to coddle — was a world apart from how he spoke to Yunque.

Xu Linda was so incensed she kept sending expression-pack stickers in the group chat to voice her indignation, and couldn’t resist taunting him: 【You have no loyalty at all. I and Yunque both bought you drinks and you say that to me — I’m heartbroken.】

Lu Rangchen shot back: 【Is that right. Then how did my drinks end up with someone else.】

Yunque’s spine stiffened when she saw that.

She seemed to understand now why Lu Rangchen had looked back at her, and with that particular expression.

Like wordless exasperation. Displeasure. A disdainful snort.

Xu Linda glanced over at Yunque, about to say “who got your drinks,” and then she saw Zhao Qijia beside them.

She pressed her lips together and swallowed the words back, then typed in the group to make up a cover story for Yunque: 【That was a guy from our class who asked her to buy it.】

After a pause, Xu Linda deliberately baited him: 【What, are you jealous?】

This time Lu Rangchen didn’t take the bait. Instead, he said: 【Walk back together in a bit.】

Then added: 【Bring my drink.】

Yunque, seeing the message: “……”

Xu Linda let out a snort of laughter and whispered in her ear in a gleeful, gossip-hungry voice, “Bring my drink~~”

Yunque found her maddening, giddy manner so absurd it made her ears burn. She could only reach over and pinch her leg in retaliation.

With someone else sitting nearby, Xu Linda didn’t make a bigger scene, and simply replied cheerfully in the group: 【Got it!】

Looking at the messages in the group chat, Yunque’s thoughts quietly overflowed, and her mood shifted imperceptibly — from overcast to clearing — lifting into happiness, little by little.

Before long, the game reached its conclusion. Class A won.

Class A students burst into cheers. Xu Linda jumped to her feet on high alert, pulled a bottle of ice-cold cola from Yunque’s plastic bag, got to her feet, and called out Deng Zhe’s name at full volume.

Those two had remarkable chemistry.

Deng Zhe was in the middle of talking to someone when he heard her call, and immediately reached out and caught the cola she flung across the distance.

It smacked into his hand with a crisp thwack. Deng Zhe swore breathlessly, saying what the hell, were you trying to kill me.

Xu Linda burst into laughter, overjoyed.

Just standing by and watching, Yunque found herself curving her lips without meaning to, her mood lifting along with theirs.

She thought — perhaps the way Xu Linda was, was what youth truly looked like.

While she — was destined to be the color within youth that dared not see the light of day.

With that thought, Yunque quietly looked toward Lu Rangchen diagonally ahead.

When he stood, Lin Zhinian stood too, trailing eagerly behind him.

Lu Rangchen walked forward with his easy, unhurried saunter — he didn’t exactly ignore Lin Zhinian, but he didn’t acknowledge her either.

The result of that was that even though he had said in WeChat that they’d “walk back together,” Yunque couldn’t brazenly insert herself between the two of them.

She could only quietly link arms with Xu Linda and keep a not-too-close, not-too-far distance, walking ahead of Lu Rangchen.

From behind, Lin Zhinian’s bright, chirpy chatter floated intermittently over — asking what Lu Rangchen planned to do over the weekend, asking what games he was playing lately, asking when the next tutoring session would be.

Lu Rangchen answered in his sluggish, unhurried way — clearly brushing her off.

“Sleep over the weekend.”

“Not playing anything.”

“We’ll see.”

Even though Yunque was walking along with Xu Linda, her entire attention was thoroughly fastened to Lu Rangchen behind her.

Every word he said, her nerves pulled taut another notch with it.

Apparently sensing that he wasn’t interested in engaging, Lin Zhinian left with some vexation, her female friend in tow — calling back a petulant “odious Lu Rangchen” as she went.

That one outburst was enough to give Xu Linda goosebumps head to toe.

Just then, Zhou Chuang joined them.

He walked alongside Deng Zhe, and pulled Lu Rangchen in too, the three of them walking out in front.

Yunque, seeing Zhou Chuang looking rather parched, handed him the green plum iced tea — leaving herself with only the most expensive one: an iced Starbucks coffee in a glass bottle.

Zhou Chuang promptly said all kinds of sweet things about how considerate she was.

Right at that moment, Lu Rangchen suddenly slowed his pace and remarked in a loaded tone, “Very considerate — giving away the drink meant for me to other people.”

The words fell.

Everyone went quiet at once.

Deng Zhe was suppressing a laugh. Zhou Chuang hadn’t quite caught it. “What do you mean, ‘yours’?”

Lu Rangchen chuckled in a noncommittal way, gave no direct answer, and only said, “Drink yours.”

“……”

Zhou Chuang was completely at a loss.

Behind them, Xu Linda was making exaggerated eyes at Yunque in rapid succession, her expression practically screaming: Did you see that? Lu Rangchen is in a bad mood again.

Yunque’s cheeks warmed. She didn’t say a single word.

Later it was Deng Zhe who spoke up, asking Xu Linda and Yunque whether they were free over the weekend — whether they wanted to go to his relative’s newly opened archery range and try it out.

Xu Linda was dying to spend time with Deng Zhe, and agreed without a second thought. “Let’s go.”

Deng Zhe said sure, and started counting heads, asking Lu Rangchen, “What about you? Coming?”

Lu Rangchen had his hands in his pockets, lost in some thought, and answered with, “Who’s going?”

Deng Zhe said: “Me, Zhou Chuang, Xu Linda, little Yunque——”

The words weren’t even finished when Yunque gently cut in. “I have something on tomorrow.”

Her words fell.

Lu Rangchen’s footstep faltered. He slanted a look at her.

This was the first direct look between the two of them all day.

Yunque’s pulse ticked up slightly.

Deng Zhe was a little let down. “Come on, don’t be like that.”

Xu Linda also urged her. “What could you possibly have going on over the weekend — you’re just going to study.”

But Yunque shook her head firmly. “I really can’t — I have plans tomorrow. You all go ahead.”

Since she’d already said as much, Deng Zhe had no choice but to drop it.

Xu Linda glared at her with exasperated resignation. “You’re so mysterious all the time.”

And so the group made their way back to the teaching building.

Deng Zhe peeled off and headed back to Class C on the second floor.

Class A and Class B were on the third floor, side by side.

Yunque clutched the ice-cold glass bottle of Starbucks coffee in her hand, suddenly nervous.

Xu Linda seemed to read her thoughts, and just before reaching Class A, said, “I need to use the bathroom,” then spun around and abandoned Yunque without a backward glance.

Zhou Chuang didn’t have that kind of perceptiveness.

It was Lu Rangchen who naturally slowed his pace, meandering into step beside Yunque without making it obvious.

The moment he came close, the air around them seemed to stop flowing.

Everywhere was the clean, appealing scent from him — like a poppy, slipping without obstacle into her senses — and the fabric of their clothes, with the distance between them now so small, brushed against each other, softly and with an intimacy that was impossible to name.

“What do you have on this weekend?”

Lu Rangchen’s magnetic voice was folded into the noise of the hallway.

Yunque experienced a second’s worth of unreality.

She told him honestly, “I have a test against Pang Shuo this weekend.”

She hadn’t originally intended to say it in advance — in case she lost, it would be embarrassing.

But Lu Rangchen had asked, and she found she was incapable of staying silent about it with him — as though in his presence, she always felt enough safety to speak.

Lu Rangchen asked: “Just the two of you, alone?”

Yunque made a sound of assent.

Lu Rangchen seemed to understand, and nodded. “That approach is quite outside-the-box.”

“……”

Yunque couldn’t resist looking at him, unable to tell whether he was teasing her or complimenting her.

Just then, they had arrived at Class A’s door.

Lu Rangchen tilted his chin toward her. “Go on in.”

Before the words were fully out.

Yunque’s hands moved faster than her brain — she thrust the Starbucks coffee bottle at him, the one she’d been warming in her hands until it wasn’t so cold anymore.

Like she’d been gathering all her courage for it.

Lu Rangchen’s brow furrowed slightly, he paused — then put on an air of dignified restraint and smiled with a hint of self-satisfaction. “Now it’s my turn?”

Yunque: “……”

Her tone was unhurried and even. “It was always meant for you.”

Lu Rangchen heard that, quirked an eyebrow, and took the coffee bottle from her hand.

The surface of the bottle was faintly misted with condensation.

Lu Rangchen looked down at Yunque, eyelids lowered, as though he had finally been coaxed back into a good mood — and just like that, the corner of his mouth curved upward.

“Then you treat me pretty well.”