How to describe the feeling of that moment?

Yunque rummaged through the depths of her mind and ultimately arrived at the conclusion that she couldn’t find the words.

Every phrase she had ever learned fell short of capturing what she felt right now. She only felt as though she were caught inside an unreal dream.

In the dream, Lu Rangchen would make a point of doing something about a scarf she hadn’t even complained about.

He would also ask whether today was her birthday.

Watching Yunque freeze in helpless bewilderment, Lu Rangchen tilted his eyes upward, a trace of fond exasperation flickering in his gaze. “What, the fever got to your head?”

“……”

Yunque’s senses finally came back to her.

Her lashes fluttered. She exhaled softly. “I’m much better already.”

Though her voice was calm.

Inside her chest, it was as though countless fireworks had just burst into bloom.

Lu Rangchen, naturally, couldn’t tell that she was working hard to steady herself. He only felt that she looked genuinely unwell.

He cast a glance at the scarf he’d tossed aside, his gaze lowering. “Just you here? Where’s Zhao Qijia?”

Yunque answered a beat late. “He left — I asked him to go when they were putting in the needle.”

Lu Rangchen gave her a sidelong look that seemed almost offhand.

The girl’s eyes were clear and guileless, without the faintest trace of a lie.

Unsettled by that candid gaze, Lu Rangchen belatedly pulled back from the position he’d drifted too close into. “Does your mother know?”

“She knows.”

“Will she come to be with you in a bit?”

“Not necessarily.”

Yunque paused, then said in her unhurried way, “Why did you come? And how did you know today was my birthday?”

Tiny sparks of hope flickered in her eyes like small flames.

Lu Rangchen gave her a sidelong glance. “What do you think?”

A reply that deflected without committing, tossing the meaning back to her lightly.

As though the facts were right there in front of them — and whatever she made of them was entirely up to her.

Yunque’s fingertips curled together slightly, and something in her quietly deflated.

She wasn’t so conceited as to imagine Lu Rangchen had come specifically to see her, so she naturally assumed it was Xu Linda who had told him.

So she said, “I didn’t tell Xu Linda to let you know.”

Lu Rangchen’s gaze took on a meaningful pause. “So you were deliberately not telling me, after all that.”

……He could actually read it that way.

Yunque looked at him helplessly. “I wasn’t deliberately hiding it from you. I had thought about telling you… but.”

Lu Rangchen had all the patience in the world. “But Lin Zhinian showed up.”

That name was like a splinter lodged in the soft flesh of her heart.

Not enough to hurt, but always enough to make one uncomfortable.

Yunque did her best to conceal that discomfort. She said lightly, “I thought you were going to her house for dinner tonight.”

Lu Rangchen gave a short, lazy laugh. “Getting an invitation out of me isn’t that easy.”

Those words had the feel of a double meaning.

Yunque’s heart gave a quiet jolt. She looked at him.

The young man had already lowered his gaze and was replying to a message.

His slender hand had clear, fine veins, and the way he held his fingers while typing made those hands look even more captivating.

Yunque, greedy for the sight, watched for a second or two.

Then, before he could notice, quickly withdrew her gaze and turned to look at the IV drip bag.

Two-thirds remained. And after this one, there were two more bags. She had no idea how long she’d be here.

Lu Rangchen followed her eyes to the bag and asked with deliberate ease, “Have you eaten anything?”

Perhaps it’s a particular quality of the person you like — their concern always weighs heavier than anyone else’s.

Yunque’s fingertips curled inward as her heart gave a little flutter. She said quietly, “Not yet.”

Lu Rangchen made a sound of acknowledgment and stood.

Out of habit — that habit of anxious, fragile uncertainty — Yunque had one instant where she thought he was leaving. But she turned her head and saw his backpack still resting on the chair.

But by then, her hand had already reached out.

Yunque didn’t know what had come over her in her feverish state. She grabbed hold of Lu Rangchen’s down jacket without thinking.

Her hand was small and very pale, forming a stark contrast against his large black cargo-style jacket. Lu Rangchen caught a glimpse of it with a sweeping glance.

Yunque’s thin-skinned face went hot with embarrassment.

She nearly yanked her hand back immediately.

Lu Rangchen lowered his eyes to look at her, as though he could see right through her, and gave a light laugh. “You thought I was leaving?”

“……”

Yunque pressed her soft lips together and said nothing, eyes downcast.

“I’m not leaving.”

Lu Rangchen quirked the corner of his mouth, and his voice rang out clearly. “I’m going to get a few things. I’ll be right back.”

She wasn’t sure if it was her imagination.

But Yunque could have sworn she heard a coaxing note in his voice.

A faint, contented smile settled at the corner of her mouth. She nodded, her gaze following Lu Rangchen’s departing figure with reluctance.

Not until the glass door swung shut again did she exhale softly, finally convinced she wasn’t dreaming.

Not long after Lu Rangchen left, Xu Linda sent Yunque a message.

Xu Linda: 【Babe, how are you doing?】

Xu Linda: 【Did Rangchen go to find you?】

Perhaps one’s mood really is a powerful factor in illness.

Yunque felt considerably better than before. She even had the energy to type back: 【He’s here.】

Xu Linda: 【!!!】

Xu Linda: 【That’s my Rangchen, a man of his word!!!】

Yunque’s fingertips paused: 【Did he say anything?】

Xu Linda: 【Nothing much. He just asked where you were. I said, are you going to go see Yunque? He said mm and walked off.】

Xu Linda: 【I honestly couldn’t tell what he meant by that at the time.】

Xu Linda: 【And then he actually showed up!!】

Xu Linda: 【Oh right, before he left he made Lin Zhinian cry. Hahahahahahaha.】

Yunque: “……”

As though she’d been waiting to share this for quite some time, Xu Linda immediately sent a voice message with the full account.

It had happened after school. Lin Zhinian had gone to intercept Lu Rangchen and tried to take him home for dinner. But then Lu Rangchen heard from Xu Linda that today was Yunque’s birthday and that she’d fallen sick, and he immediately left Lin Zhinian standing there and walked away.

Lin Zhinian panicked and rushed to stop him.

But Lu Rangchen made himself perfectly clear right then and there — he said he wouldn’t tutor her, he wouldn’t go to her house for dinner, and he had absolutely no feelings of that kind for her.

Lin Zhinian’s face went crimson in an instant.

She had never seen Lu Rangchen take any particular interest in a girl before, and she had never expected him to be so blunt about it. Whether she was acting or whether it genuinely hurt her, no one knew — but her tears fell just like that.

At the time, Xu Linda and Deng Zhe had been standing right there on the staircase, not daring to breathe a word.

Once Lin Zhinian walked away in tears, Lu Rangchen seemed to remember something. He turned around and glanced up at Xu Linda, asking how Yunque was doing.

Xu Linda immediately stood at attention and told him everything in detail. Then, seizing the moment, she asked whether he was going to go see Yunque.

“He gave this pretty ambiguous pause at that point — I honestly couldn’t tell how serious he was, so I didn’t mention it to you,” Xu Linda said plainly. “But looking at it now, it seems Rangchen knows how to create a nice surprise.”

Yunque said nothing.

But the barely-breathing ember in her chest had already blazed to life.

She wasn’t sure what this meant. After all, Lu Rangchen had always been good to her.

What had caught her completely off guard was his attitude toward Lin Zhinian — as though, without warning, he had reached in and removed the thorn that had been stuck in her throat all along.

An anxious, unsettled feeling crept over her unbidden.

Yunque’s voice went a little tight. “It’s not necessarily a surprise he planned. It’s also possible he just happened to want to come.”

“There’s no such thing as that much ‘just happening to,'” Xu Linda refused to believe it. “You know your own problem? You have way too little confidence in yourself. I’m telling you, Rangchen treats you the most differently out of everyone.”

As those words trailed off.

The clinic door was pushed open again. Lu Rangchen was back.

The young man was dressed all in black, his presence as cool and distant as mist over a faraway mountain — yet when his gaze landed on her, it softened slightly.

Yunque pressed her lips together.

She said quietly, “He’s back,” and quickly ended the call.

When she looked up again, Lu Rangchen had already set an entire bag of snacks on the chair beside her.

What she hadn’t expected was the item in his other hand: a small, six-inch cake.

White frosting decorated with two red strawberries — a simple design.

Yunque’s heart lurched forward two beats. She stared up at Lu Rangchen, wide-eyed.

She’d already lost count of how many surprises this made for the evening.

Lu Rangchen tilted an eyebrow at her. “This is the best cake I could find nearby. Make do with it.”

He settled himself down casually next to her. He pried open the cake box, then drew the slender candles from their packaging, and shot her a glance. “Eighteen?”

Yunque watched his every move with unblinking eyes.

Several seconds passed before she registered that he was asking about her age.

Yunque’s gaze wavered faintly. “No, not quite eighteen yet.”

Lu Rangchen lazily raised his eyes, half-teasing. “So Xu Linda was right that time she said you were still seventeen.”

“When did she——”

The words came to the edge of her lips, and then Yunque suddenly remembered — Xu Linda’s birthday, the night the group had gone to the bar. Xu Linda had said something like, Yunque would also be seventeen if she had a birthday.

But that was such a long time ago… how had he remembered it all this time?

A quiet ripple stirred in her heart.

Yunque shook her head. “She meant that if my birthday came around, I’d be turning seventeen.”

Lu Rangchen gave a brief nod at that.

Then, for whatever reason that occurred to him, he stuck two candles into the cake at random — a number that had nothing to do with her age whatsoever.

Yunque: “……”

Lu Rangchen gave her an idle, slanted look, his Beijing-accented drawl at its most devil-may-care. “What, would you like to stick them in yourself?”

Yunque’s lips twitched.

She felt like laughing but managed to swallow it back.

Lu Rangchen let out a mildly aggrieved, long-suffering huff. “That’s what you get for not telling me in advance. This is what you get.”

He seemed to have caught a slight chill — his voice was a little hoarse and slightly nasal, which made him sound, somehow, even gentler than usual.

Yunque fell quiet for a moment, then murmured softly, “Then next time.”

Lu Rangchen glanced at her. “Hmm?”

Yunque met his direct gaze and gathered her courage. “Next birthday, I’ll tell you in advance.”

For two quiet seconds, they simply looked at each other.

Then Lu Rangchen’s mouth curved in a sudden, unhurried smile.

Yunque’s heart shot up into her throat from that smile that came so effortlessly — she thought for certain he’d give an easy, agreeable “sure.” She hadn’t imagined that the smile would simply stop there, at exactly that point.

Lu Rangchen said nothing more in reply.

His pale, elegant hand reached into his jacket pocket and drew out a cheap lighter. A click — and the two candles were lit.

The flame jumped to life all at once, and in an instant, it illuminated the dark depths of the girl’s eyes.

Yunque’s gaze settled there without meaning to. Her expression was like that of a forest sprite encountering a firefly for the first time — her eyes filled with warmth, with delight, and with joy.

Lu Rangchen’s gaze rested on her fair face and lingered there for a few involuntary seconds longer.

Then, all of a sudden, he spoke softly: “Little Yunque.”

“……”

Yunque’s heart gave a small, startled tremor. She looked at him through the candlelight with wide, dazed eyes.

In that instant, the young man’s gaze fell over her slowly, as though it were quietly breaking open the walls around her heart.

Lu Rangchen curved his lips, unhurried. “Happy birthday.”