Lu Rangchen had an eight o’clock flight the next morning.

He had very little to pack. He stayed at Qiangui with everyone until well past midnight, and then headed to the airport.

Xu Linda’s family kept a strict watch on her hours. She was picked up and taken home before ten.

She’d planned to see Lu Rangchen off at the airport the next morning, but Deng Zhe told her over the phone that Lu Rangchen had already left at the crack of dawn.

Xu Linda was stunned. “Then what about Yunque? I still haven’t been able to reach her.”

Deng Zhe actually found it a little funny. “Why do you need to reach her? It’s not like she wanted to see Lu Rangchen.”

Xu Linda didn’t quite follow. “How do you know she didn’t want to? Maybe she was just sick yesterday.”

“That’s what you don’t know,” Deng Zhe said, his tone drawn out and meaningful. “She sent Lu Rangchen a message in the early hours — said a few words of well-wishing, and in the end, still didn’t come to Qiangui.”

His voice carried a certain puzzlement, and perhaps a trace of quiet irony.

Deng Zhe half-laughed. “If she’d said she was coming, Lu Rangchen would have gone to pick her up himself.”

“But who knows.”

“……”

Xu Linda went quiet.

She thought back to Lu Rangchen in that private room the night before, smoking alone in silence.

The room had been loud, the colored lights disorienting.

People he knew and people he didn’t, all singing and laughing.

But this person — the one they’d all gathered for — hadn’t so much as glanced up from his phone the whole time. He’d sat there with that familiar lazy, weary look in his eyes, the defiant edge of his posture somehow sunken, as though he were waiting for something.

Xu Linda suddenly found herself at a loss.

She genuinely didn’t understand these two. But she couldn’t suppress her curiosity either.

So when the call ended, she sent Yunque a message.

It was nearly noon by then.

Yunque and Feng Yanlai were making a rare trip together to Yanliu Lane for a meal.

Zhu Ping’an had summoned them both. He said it had been a long time since he’d seen Yunque, and had invited Feng Yanlai to come along too.

Feng Yanlai truly had no desire to deal with Zhu Ping’an — but she didn’t want Yunque to grow distant from her father, so she went along for the greater good.

The visit turned out to be handled reasonably well for once.

Deng Jiali had not only prepared a full table of good dishes — the elderly grandmother’s attitude wasn’t as hostile as it had been in the past.

Yunque didn’t have much of an appetite and stepped away from the table after eating very little.

She’d barely picked up her phone when Xu Linda’s messages came tumbling in one after another.

Xu Linda: 【Rangchen left. Eight o’clock flight this morning.】

She seemed rather helpless about it too.

She’d even dropped her favorite exclamation marks.

Xu Linda: 【I don’t understand you.】

Xu Linda: 【Deng Zhe said if you’d gone to Qiangui last night, Rangchen would have gone to pick you up himself.】

Xu Linda: 【Why didn’t you go? Wasn’t it worth seeing him one last time?】

Even though she’d known this was coming, something in her heart still gave an unprepared, sudden tremor.

Yunque stared at the words on the screen without looking away, her gaze drifting for a moment. At last she chose to answer calmly.

Yunque: 【There’s no need.】

Xu Linda: 【……………………】

Xu Linda: 【Why not?】

The fingertips holding the phone pressed imperceptibly tighter.

Yunque held her heavy, still-aching eyes low and typed one character at a time.

She said — if she saw him, she’d never be able to forget.

And she didn’t want to be unable to forget.

Those feelings that were meant to decay away, that love that was supposed to stay hidden — she had already pulled them out by the roots last night.

They shouldn’t be allowed to interfere with the future anymore.

Human memory seems to have its own sense of what matters most.

Whenever Yunque looked back on those young, tender years, the months that overlapped with Lu Rangchen were always the ones that left the deepest impression.

Beyond that, her memories were little more than dull, tedious rounds of studying and exams.

On the whole, though, it was fair to say things went the way she’d hoped.

For instance, in the spring semester of her second year of high school, Yunque made it into Class A with an exceptional score.

Unlike Class B, Class A had an intensely studious atmosphere. Xu Linda had far less time to spend with her than before, and the two only managed to see each other during holidays.

In the same way, after that, Yunque had almost no further contact with Deng Zhe and Zhou Chuang.

Deng Zhe and Xu Linda were both in Class C, while Zhou Chuang’s grades had slipped to Class B.

Without Lu Rangchen as an invisible thread connecting them, the relationships between Yunque and the others seemed to grow more distant — or more precisely, it was her own conscious choice that drove the distance.

She didn’t want to hear anything about Lu Rangchen.

She even left the group of five.

Xu Linda had thought about pulling her back in, but given that there was hardly any time left to go out together anyway, she eventually let it go.

Though her friendships with the old crowd had grown a little distant, Yunque wasn’t particularly lonely.

After all, Zhao Qijia had also tested into Class A alongside her, and the two of them were even seatmates.

By coincidence, they’d been assigned the same spot Lu Rangchen had once occupied — the last row by the window.

And Zhao Qijia’s seat was exactly where Lu Rangchen used to sit.

There were a few times when Yunque was deep in problem sets and finally looked up to see Zhao Qijia lying face-down on his desk asleep — and suddenly had the strange sensation that it was Lu Rangchen sitting beside her.

By that point, she had already been out of contact with Lu Rangchen for over half a year.

And yet she could still feel it with perfect clarity — that particular flavor of regret and quiet ache.

She endured it and endured it. The second semester of her second year finally crawled past as though each second stretched into an eternity.

Yunque entered her third and final year.

Feng Yanlai suddenly grew very tense and began furiously buying supplements for Yunque — the most extreme instance being when Yunque ate so many dried longan berries that she got a nosebleed in the middle of the cafeteria, sending a whole crowd of people into a panic.

Xu Linda laughed herself half to death over it and posted a moment about it.

That very evening, Lu Rangchen — who had long since gone quiet — suddenly surfaced and liked the post.

Yunque stared at his name for a very long time.

After that, it was as though the name “Lu Rangchen” had broken free of any restraint and begun appearing in her world again, one thing after another.

She heard that Lu Rangchen’s grandmother had passed away.

She heard that he’d just competed in the latest tennis league tournament.

She heard he planned to study abroad after graduating from high school.

She heard he’d be coming back to Nancheng for New Year’s before the new year.

When Xu Linda told her this last piece of news, she asked — do you want to come with us to see him?

Yunque’s pen came to a stop. The gears in her mind seemed to have seized up — she couldn’t think.

Xu Linda watched her expression and sighed, and sighed again. She didn’t know whether she should urge her or not.

This was their third year of high school, after all. Not their second.

The college entrance exam was only half a year away. Not a single moment could be wasted. If seeing Lu Rangchen once were to throw off her focus and mood, that would truly be an irreparable loss.

But as it happened, even if she’d wanted to drag Yunque along, there would have been no opportunity.

That year, Lu Rangchen didn’t come back.

Apparently, Deng Zhe and Zhou Chuang waited for nothing — and were none too happy about it — but it wasn’t a total loss in the end. Lu Rangchen bought gifts for everyone to make it up to them.

Including Yunque.

Only her gift arrived a few days later than everyone else’s.

She remembered it clearly. The date was December 30th.

Her eighteenth birthday.

Unlike the year before, this birthday Yunque celebrated with Zhu Ping’an and Ye Tian. Feng Yanlai, determined to make up for her absence the year before, had cleared her schedule early and booked a restaurant.

Xu Linda couldn’t join her, so she brought Yunque her birthday gift before school ended that day.

A large, square pink gift box, filled with black raffia grass. Inside was a brand-new bottle of perfume and a small jewelry case.

The perfume was Issey Miyake’s L’Eau d’Issey — carefully chosen by Xu Linda, who said only this scent matched the cool, clear quality Yunque carried about her.

As for the jewelry case — Yunque opened it to find a necklace. A fine silver chain with a delicate pendant shaped like a bird caught mid-flight, set with low-saturation gemstones.

An extraordinarily beautiful and ethereal design. It had a satisfying weight in her palm.

Once Yunque got home and unwrapped the gift, she called Xu Linda right away, asking how she’d given her something this expensive — and not just one thing but two.

Xu Linda said, “The perfume’s not cheap, sure — but the necklace isn’t from me.”

A wave of feeling quietly rose inside Yunque’s chest. Before she could even say the name.

Xu Linda said it for her. “The necklace — Rangchen asked me to pass it on.”

Yunque: “……”

Several seconds of silence.

Xu Linda, with her air of complete indifference, said: “Anyway, I’ve done my part and delivered it. Whatever you two decide to do from here, that’s between you.”

It looked like she was about to hang up.

Yunque couldn’t stop herself from asking, “What did he send everyone else?”

Xu Linda made a brief sound. “Mine was a Lego set. Deng Zhe got a mechanical keyboard. Zhou Chuang got a pair of AJs.”

Each one was exactly what that person liked — though they’d each sent him links themselves, and Lu Rangchen had paid.

Only Yunque’s gift.

Was something Lu Rangchen had chosen himself, in the truest sense.

Yunque was suddenly struck speechless.

Xu Linda said, “If I were you, I’d call him. Ask him what he means by this.”

That night, Yunque looked at that necklace for a very long time. She couldn’t fall asleep.

Xu Linda’s words circled through her mind again and again.

After much hesitation, she finally got up and called Lu Rangchen.

The moon was bright and full.

She looked out at the quiet, still night through the sheer curtain, nerves wound so tight she could barely breathe — and then the call connected, and the next second she heard an unfamiliar woman’s voice.

The woman’s voice had a languid sweetness to it.

Young-sounding, with a certain rich, poised quality underneath.

Yunque’s breath stopped completely.

When she opened her mouth again, her words stumbled involuntarily.

She didn’t say who she was. She didn’t ask who she’d called for. She simply said she’d dialed the wrong number, and quickly hung up.

At the time, she hadn’t given up hope entirely.

She hoped it was just a strange, momentary coincidence — that before long, Lu Rangchen would call back.

In the end, he didn’t.

Lu Rangchen never called back.

And it seemed she no longer had any reason to ask.

She only thought of something, all at once — a year ago, when Lu Rangchen had sat with her in the clinic on her birthday, she had made a wish: that on her next birthday, he would still be there.

Perhaps Lu Rangchen had sent that necklace simply to make her wish come true.

All things considered.

That New Year’s, Yunque did not have a good time.

She stumbled through the new year in a daze, stumbled through her practice sets and revision, and even over the winter holiday, there was no time to relax.

In the blink of an eye, winter gave way to spring.

The college entrance exam, with the new semester underway, was now a matter of real and immediate urgency.

Yunque finally felt the pressure of an arrow on a drawn bow. She didn’t dare let her guard down for a single moment, let alone waste any thought on Lu Rangchen.

It was as though, in some blur of time, Lu Rangchen had quietly become a punctuation mark in the story of her past — one that had once mattered, yet no longer held any real weight.

Only the necklace remained, proof that he had once passed through her life.

A few more months passed, and the time finally wound its way around to the college entrance exam.

Those who work hard deserve to be rewarded.

In the end, Yunque’s results did not betray the three years she had put in. She surpassed her own mock exam scores and earned 658 points — ranking 22nd in Class A, 22nd in the entire year.

Feng Yanlai was beside herself with joy. Zhu Ping’an was overjoyed too, boasting to everyone he met. He even tracked down a professional consultant to help Yunque plan out her university applications.

In the end, neither of them was able to sway her. She chose what was comfortable and familiar to her: she applied to the English program at a well-known, top-tier university in the capital.

She had never been someone who enjoyed challenges and risk.

All she wanted was a steady, settled life.

With the application submitted, everything felt lighter.

Yunque spent a few days at home doing nothing much — eating, sleeping, and shuttling between classmates’ graduation and teacher appreciation banquets.

There were those who celebrated, and those who were disappointed.

Among the people she was close to, only she and Zhao Qijia had done well.

Zhou Chuang had a bad exam and was arranged by his family to repeat the year. Deng Zhe and Xu Linda went without saying — both had barely scraped together enough for a second-tier school.

On the night the scores came out, Yunque met up with Xu Linda.

The two of them sat by the basketball court in the park, letting the evening breeze wash over them. Yunque propped her chin in her hand and watched the people playing basketball nearby while she listened to Xu Linda talk through her feelings.

She said Deng Zhe might be going to the capital for university.

But her own family wanted her to study abroad.

In truth, none of that was the real issue.

The real issue was that Deng Zhe had never responded seriously to her feelings.

Sometimes Xu Linda felt like he cared about her. Other times she felt like he didn’t — that she was just a very good friend to him and nothing more.

Xu Linda let out a long breath. “Now I finally understand why you never had the courage to tell Lu Rangchen how you felt back then. Without enough certainty, saying it out loud would only have made things worse for you.”

Yunque smiled at the amber glow of the sunset on the horizon.

As though she’d suddenly come to see things clearly, she turned to Xu Linda and said, “Maybe there’s better scenery ahead. Why not go and see?”

Xu Linda was, at heart, the kind of person who could look on the bright side.

At the very least, she had no intention of playing the role of a tragic heroine in front of her friend. She heard those words and broke into a delighted laugh. “True enough — maybe I’ll find a ridiculously handsome foreigner and have the most gorgeous little mixed-heritage babies. Isn’t that already miles better than that useless Deng Zhe?”

A few lines like that, and the two of them burst out laughing together.

Unbridled, full-hearted laughter — the most beautiful thing about being young.

In the end, Xu Linda listened to her family’s advice and prepared to study in England.

As far as Yunque knew, the relationship between her and Deng Zhe had gradually cooled starting that summer, until they barely kept in touch anymore.

Yunque didn’t dare ask Xu Linda what was going on between them.

She simply went along with Xu Linda wherever she wanted to go, without questioning.

The last stop was Dali in Yunnan. Zhao Qijia came along as well.

The three of them had quite a good time, as it turned out. Zhao Qijia was attentive to both girls — the dirty work and the heavy lifting all fell to him.

Since they were traveling on a shoestring budget, the three of them ended up taking a sleeper train home.

In the middle of the night when no one could sleep, Xu Linda climbed down from the upper bunk and squeezed in beside Yunque. She pressed close to her ear and said in a barely-there breath, “I think Zhao Qijia likes you.”

“……”

Yunque’s fingertips paused on her book. She turned to look at her — somewhere between exasperated and amused.

Zhao Qijia was sleeping on the bunk above them.

Xu Linda made a meaningful face. “I think he’s a decent person. Worth considering. And he’s not bad looking either — not as handsome as Rangchen, sure, but perfectly presentable.”

She nudged her again. “Most importantly, he’s also going to the capital for university. If the two of you don’t start dating, it would practically be a crime against nature.”

Yunque was truly helpless with her.

She reached over, patted the back of Xu Linda’s head the way you might pet a small cat, and said, “You really want to eat grass from your own yard that badly?”

“……”

Xu Linda was silent for two seconds, then let out a soft, marveling sound. “Yunque. You are so much wilder than I imagined.”

Yunque smiled and said nothing.

Which was, in its own peculiar way, a method of steering the topic elsewhere.

At eighteen, nearly nineteen, her thoughts didn’t stretch nearly that far.

All she wanted at the time was to live through each day with peace and no regrets.

What she didn’t know was that fate had already quietly set its wheels in motion, making decisions of its own.

Just when Yunque was nearly on the verge of forgetting that she had once liked someone with such fierce and devoted intensity, as if evading destiny were simply impossible — she heard the name Lu Rangchen once more.

Not from Xu Linda.

Not from the alumni group chat of Nancheng No. 3 High School.

But in the first month after starting university.

That month, the first-year students had just finished the grueling stretch of military training.

On the very last day, students and instructors gathered in the cafeteria for a farewell meal. And it was at that table, from the girls at the adjacent table, that Yunque suddenly heard the three words “Lu Rangchen.”

The girl was quite good-looking, with heavy, smoky eye makeup. When she mentioned Lu Rangchen, there was a bright, quiet pride glowing in her eyes.

It seemed they had been debating which of the incoming male students was the best-looking and most eye-catching, and hadn’t been able to reach a conclusion — before this girl dismissed all the candidates outright.

“Just wait until you see him, and you’ll know. It’s on a completely different level. He could debut as a top-tier celebrity.”

“And his family background is incredible too — I heard his family has people who are…” the girl lowered her voice and said something, then added a knowing “you know what I mean.”

“He obviously wasn’t going to come here at first — they wanted him to go abroad, come back and take over the family business. But he didn’t want to. Apparently he had a falling out with his family over it, just randomly enrolled here.”

“Though some people say it was for a girlfriend — that she tested into this school, so he came along.”

“No, no, don’t look at me like that — my dad is just an ordinary department manager under one of their subsidiaries. I could never have any connection to them.”

“Right, in this school. Economics. The International Trade department next door.”

That phrase surfaced in her mind.

Yunque froze in a way she couldn’t quite account for. But the girl didn’t continue — the thread dropped there.

A few seconds later, the noise of voices around them swelled back to its usual level.

As though what she’d just heard had been nothing more than a hazy fragment of her imagination.

Yunque sat there in a daze, lost in her thoughts. It was only when her dormmate Liang Tian, with whom she’d grown close, asked what was wrong that she finally came back to herself.

The students around them were well-fed and satisfied. The boys and a few of the instructors had begun drinking and swapping stories.

The girls had gathered into small groups of their own, chatting.

Compared to them, Yunque — quieter and more introverted — felt like an outsider looking in.

She steadied herself for a moment, shook her head, and said it was nothing — she just wanted to go get some air.

Liang Tian was the soft, gentle type. She blinked and said, “Want me to come with you?”

Yunque smiled and said no, she wanted to be on her own for a while.

Liang Tian could tell something was on her mind. Not wanting to intrude, she shrugged and said alright — just remember to call me when you’re ready to head back to the dorm.

Yunque nodded, said she would, then rose and left the cafeteria.

The late September air in the capital was cool and refreshing.

Yunque walked along the edge of the main sports field toward the convenience store, and as she walked, she tried to call Xu Linda on a video call — no answer. She tried again and again.

After a few attempts, Yunque’s shoulders eased down slightly. She decided to give up.

Maybe it was just a coincidence. It would be too improbable for him to end up at this school.

And even if it really was him — it didn’t mean anything. He’d come because of a “girlfriend,” after all.

Yunque’s mouth formed a bitter smile, delayed.

In that moment, she caught herself laughing at her own overreaching thoughts.

She had been that close to him once, and still hadn’t managed to get what she’d hoped for. What made her think a chance encounter now could possibly lead anywhere?

She breathed in a lungful of evening breeze and exhaled. The restlessness drained from her, and she forced herself to stop imagining things.

Then, at an unhurried pace, she circled around the sports field, bought two cold drinks from the convenience store, and headed back the way she came.

But as she passed Yifu Hall, three figures were walking out of the building.

One tall, two shorter.

The shorter two were women.

Neither was young. Both were talking and laughing, clearly close to one another, and they made their way down the wide front steps.

Yunque only noticed them once all three had already stopped at the foot of the stairs.

Perhaps fate was simply that impatient to have its fun.

Yunque happened to glance their way — and locked eyes with that tall, upright silhouette.

A loose, dark-toned shirt and jeans. A matching bucket hat on his head. The darkness seemed ready to swallow him whole.

In the thin moonlight, the full shape of his face was almost impossible to make out.

Yet because the way he stood, hands in pockets, was so unmistakably his — and because that precisely defined lower face was so strikingly familiar — in an instant, Yunque felt something strike her like a bullet, and she froze in place.

At the exact same moment.

Lu Rangchen recognized her.

He raised his chin slightly. His deep, searching gaze crossed what felt like vast distances and fixed itself quietly in her eyes.

She didn’t know why.

But all at once, Yunque thought of a line of poetry she had seen circulating widely online a long time ago:

“The one I love is beyond mountains and seas, yet mountains and seas can be crossed.”

So just how much love would Lu Rangchen need to feel — in order to willingly cross mountains and seas?

A rush of complicated feeling turned over and over in her in the space of those brief two seconds. Yunque’s eyes went hot. She looked away with reddened eyes.

She thought: there’s no need.

No need to say “hello, it’s been so long.”

No need to go over there and invite trouble upon herself.

She and Lu Rangchen — they had long since become strangers who didn’t matter in each other’s lives. There was no need to even speak.

With that thought firm in her mind, Yunque’s steps carried her purposefully past the three of them, heading straight ahead.

She didn’t know that Lu Rangchen’s gaze had stayed fixed on her without moving an inch.

When he registered that she had absolutely no intention of acknowledging him, Lu Rangchen’s brow furrowed. A few seconds later, a quiet, stunned laugh escaped him.

Cheng Qinfang, who was in the middle of speaking with the school administrator, glanced toward him and asked, “What are you laughing at?”

Lu Rangchen’s gaze was lazy and insufferably self-satisfied, but he couldn’t bring himself to pull it away. “Someone I know.”

Cheng Qinfang frowned. “You have someone you know at this school?”

“I do.”

Lu Rangchen drew out the words with that signature casual ease. “Someone I know very well.”

It had only been a year and a half since they’d last seen each other, and already she couldn’t bring herself to say a word to him.

Her nerve had grown impressively.

The more he thought about it, the more it irritated him. He gave a quiet, amused snort, glanced at his phone, and said to Cheng Qinfang, “You two keep talking. I need to go for a moment.”

Cheng Qinfang’s expression shifted. “How important can this person be, that you have to go right now?”

As she spoke, she seemed to think of something. Her eyes widened slightly. “Don’t tell me you mean that…”

Lu Rangchen tilted his chin in a light, unabashed smile. “The very one.”

“……”

“Your nephew’s future girlfriend.”