That scene unfolded so far beyond anything she had imagined.

That even years later, when Yunque looked back on it, she could still recall the flutter in her heart with perfect clarity.

The person she had assumed she would never cross paths with again was simply standing there.

Standing right before her, close enough to touch, radiant, breathing the same air as her.

No matter how slow one might be, anyone in that moment would have had some realization.

Yunque simply didn’t understand. Didn’t understand how, after a year and a half that was neither short nor long, she still hadn’t managed to forget him — nor built up any resistance against him.

Everything seemed to stop being under her control.

Yunque’s gaze shimmered softly. She heard the faint sound of her own breath catching. “How are you here?”

People streamed past on all sides.

No small number of them glanced over at the two of them.

Lu Rangchen’s eyes were calm and still. “Didn’t Xu Linda tell you?”

He raised his brow slightly, but his tone was entirely straightforward.

Yunque’s fingertips were clenched very tight.

She didn’t know how to answer him, nor what answer he was looking for.

It was Lu Rangchen who spoke first. “How many classes do you have today?”

“A full day.”

Lu Rangchen made a sound of acknowledgment. “I only have this one class this morning.”

This carried quite the air of reporting his schedule.

Yunque swallowed quietly and, without quite knowing how, agreed.

She said, “Lunch is fine, but it’ll have to be the cafeteria — there isn’t enough time otherwise.”

Lu Rangchen laughed in that knowing way of his, half murmuring, “Even in university there’s still not enough to keep up with you.”

“……”

Yunque looked directly at him. “Which dorm building are you in?”

“I’m not in a dorm.”

Yunque was mildly taken aback.

Lu Rangchen raised a hand to rub the back of his neck, his tone lazy. “Just got here yesterday. Haven’t sorted out the housing registration yet.”

He had missed the entire month of military training.

He and his family had been in the middle of a fierce falling-out, and he hadn’t had the presence of mind to deal with the school side of things. By the time he arrived, the dorm assignments were almost entirely settled.

He couldn’t slot himself in at the last minute.

And he didn’t want to.

Lu Rangchen let his gaze rest on her, his eyes meaningful. “Don’t know my way around anywhere. Quite inconvenient.”

“……”

“Just wanted to find you and show me around.”

Yunque’s gaze drifted involuntarily to the faint suggestion of a dark cord around his collar, and she went still for two seconds before pulling her attention away.

She said, “I’ll do what I can.”

She hadn’t expected Lu Rangchen to raise an eyebrow slightly. “What about tonight?”

Yunque looked up. “Tonight?”

Lu Rangchen said mildly, “Surely you don’t have evening study sessions either.”

There was a faint tease in his voice. His lips curved without warning. “I don’t usually take people to eat in the cafeteria.”

“……”

There didn’t seem to be any reason to refuse.

Yunque nodded. “Tonight, then.”

Lu Rangchen’s expression remained perfectly even, but the end of his sentence lifted ever so slightly. “All right. Tell me before class ends — I’ll come pick you up.”

The brief encounter finally ended when Lu Rangchen watched her walk back into the classroom.

The whole thing drew quite a bit of attention.

Setting aside Yunque’s striking appearance — Lu Rangchen’s bearing and looks alone were enough to arrest any onlooker.

On top of that, he was the rumored “parachute drop” — someone with a remarkable background who had supposedly been given special treatment — and he immediately attracted considerable attention.

Especially from the three girls in her dorm.

The moment Yunque sat back down, all three were looking at her with wide, eager eyes, as if waiting for her to say something.

Liang Tian couldn’t hold back. “Yunque, is he your boyfriend?”

The warmth in her ears gradually faded.

Yunque picked up her ballpoint pen again, clicked it twice, and said distractedly, “No.”

She paused, then added, “Just a classmate from high school.”

That explanation immediately made Han Xiao and Li Yuqing exchange a look of exaggerated disbelief. Li Yuqing asked with a hopeful tilt in her voice, “Well, does he have a girlfriend?”

“……”

Yunque, not quite sure what she was thinking, said on impulse, “Probably yes.”

A beat of silence.

Then she shook her head. “Not entirely sure.”

Li Yuqing deflated with a little murmur of disappointment.

Han Xiao took it in stride. “Hardly surprising, right? Someone that exceptionally good-looking — you can tell at a glance he’s the type who’s always surrounded by girls wherever he goes. How could he not have someone?”

Li Yuqing thought about it and agreed.

She consoled herself: “Maybe he’s actually a massive flirt.”

Yunque: “……”

Still said nothing.

The other two chattered on.

Liang Tian leaned over softly and hooked her arm through Yunque’s, dropping her voice so only the two of them could hear. “He’s chasing you, isn’t he.”

Yunque’s lips trembled slightly. She looked at Liang Tian, and for a moment couldn’t find the words to deny it.

They looked at each other for two seconds.

She shook her head, at a loss. “I don’t know.”

Liang Tian suddenly dissolved into quiet laughter.

Her eyes were bright and sly, like a little fox.

In her mischievous, spirited way she said, “What do you mean you don’t know — you definitely know.”

“‘The eyes of the beloved are the eighth ocean.’ Ever heard that?”

Liang Tian spoke with great authority, keeping her voice low. “That’s exactly how he looks at you.”

Yunque: “……”

Those words settled against her ear, leaving a soft, tingling warmth.

Later in class, she couldn’t resist looking it up — and discovered it was a line from Dream of the Red Chamber, spoken by Jia Baoyu.

Yunque sat lost in thought for a long time after that.

Before the final class ended, she quietly unblocked Lu Rangchen’s social media posts.

During that year and a half, the only way she had found to sever her thoughts of him was to hide his feed — even knowing that Lu Rangchen would very likely post nothing at all.

She had kept it blocked long enough that she gradually broke the habit of checking on him, and had never once imagined she might scroll through it again in the future.

Yet after all this time, his social media was just as it had always been.

Nothing posted.

The one thing that was different, if anything, was a new profile picture.

No longer the photograph of a figure seen from behind, but a self-portrait cropped below the neck.

In the photo he wore a white T-shirt and a pale striped button-down, and around his neck hung a dark cord with an ink-green leisure pendant — the only focal point of the entire image.

That cord, woven in a uniquely intricate pattern, distinct from any other — she had just glimpsed it at his collar only moments ago.

No one knew that over the winter holiday of their senior year, she had spent an entire night braiding it.

She was clumsy with her hands, and it was her first time. She had tried to follow along with a video tutorial for the diamond knot but couldn’t get it right no matter how many times she attempted.

Eventually she got so frustrated she thought of just buying a proper, sturdy cord online.

But then she thought again — the ink-green leisure pendant was something she had personally sought from a temple, and it was very likely the only gift she would ever give Lu Rangchen — and so she refused to give up, climbing out of bed in the middle of the night to sit alone, watching the video over and over, braiding and unbraiding.

Three nights of practice.

The dark cord at last became neat and strong.

The ink-touched, subtly green leisure pendant hung from it, far more refined and beautiful than the cord that had come with it from the temple.

Yet Yunque could never have imagined.

That Lu Rangchen would actually wear that leisure pendant — wear it all the way to their reunion.

—

After his one morning class, Lu Rangchen went home to feed the cat.

For the past year and a half, he had been living in the capital to accompany the family elders.

The Cheng family’s grandparents — his grandparents in every meaningful sense — doted on him utterly and had bought him a villa in the outer ring of the city.

While the old matriarch was still alive, the villa had been rented at a low rate to his friend Peng Yuan, who was in the capital pursuing music. After she passed, he had moved in.

The villa was neither too large nor too small.

Two people and a cat fit well enough, but the problem was that the place was simply too far from Capital University.

Lu Rangchen couldn’t be bothered with the hassle and pushed Peng Yuan to find him an apartment near campus.

As it turned out, Peng Yuan actually had quite good connections.

It didn’t take long before he came back with a lead, saying there was a decent apartment two streets from Capital University — a large one-bedroom, fully furnished, sure to be comfortable.

Lu Rangchen was in the middle of putting eye drops in the cat.

He read the message, picked up the cat, and took it over to the couch, then called straight back.

Peng Yuan’s voice was robust and full of energy. “Hold on — you live alone, right? Why do you need a two-bedroom?”

A pause, then genuine surprise. “Wait, you already sorted that out in one night?”

Lu Rangchen finished with the eye drops and set the cat down on the floor, giving it a light nudge with his foot.

The fat cat scrambled away in a flash.

Lu Rangchen spoke with a certain wry amusement. “Buying things took me one night. Something wrong with that?”

“Damn, you scared me.”

Peng Yuan said, “I thought I was about to have a sister-in-law.”

As the person in the capital most closely in Lu Rangchen’s orbit, Peng Yuan was the only one who knew the real reason behind Lu Rangchen’s decision to attend Capital University.

Not wanting to go abroad was genuine.

Wanting to keep playing tennis was also genuine.

And there was someone he hadn’t been able to let go of — also genuine. Especially since that person had come to study in the capital as well.

Peng Yuan didn’t know much about the girl. He only knew she was someone Lu Rangchen had met in Nancheng, a rather quiet and introverted type — not the sort he would have expected Lu Rangchen to be hung up on.

From what he remembered, Lu Rangchen tended to appreciate girls with a stronger presence, someone who could hold their own against him, or at least someone interesting — someone he could actually have fun with.

So it had never crossed his mind that Lu Rangchen could fall for someone this soft-spoken and gentle.

Then again, precisely that sort of girl, once she got under his skin, was genuinely hard to shake.

Peng Yuan said, “If it’s for a future living-together situation, you need the two-bedroom even less — a one-bedroom would be way cozier.”

He sounded annoyingly knowing.

Lu Rangchen laughed despite himself and said one word: “Get lost.” “Do you think everyone’s like you?”

Peng Yuan said, “Fine, fine, two-bedroom then. Not like you’re short on money.”

Lu Rangchen gave a casual reply.

Peng Yuan asked, “Oh right, you still haven’t told me — when you saw that girl, what was her reaction? Was she happy?”

Lu Rangchen leaned back into the couch, swirling the ice in his glass, eyelids drooping. “Couldn’t tell.”

He couldn’t read whether she was happy or not.

But she really was different from before — she no longer tensed up the moment she saw him, so tightly wound that Lu Rangchen had never once felt she liked him.

Back then, his impression of her was simply that she was well-behaved, and cool-mannered.

Cool and distant with everyone, keeping a certain measured distance at all times.

As though only with that Zhao Qijia she was different.

As if sensing the trace of self-deprecation in his voice, Peng Yuan chuckled. “Come on — can’t you have a little more confidence in your own appeal? You’ve barely even seen her. Maybe she looks calm on the surface and she’s been lying awake all night in excitement.”

“……”

“Besides, didn’t your buddy Deng Zhe tell you this girl had a secret crush on you back in the day? What are you worried about?”

His fingertip tapped lightly against the side of the glass twice. Lu Rangchen gave a lazy, dismissive laugh. “Can you shut your mouth for two seconds.”

“One time I said something after a few too many drinks and you just keep throwing it back at me.”

Peng Yuan laughed so hard he could barely breathe. “Ha ha ha ha, Lu Rangchen, karma’s got you.”

Lu Rangchen snapped “Get lost” with no patience left.

The call ended.

He reached for the cigarette box on the coffee table.

Bit one between his teeth and lit it.

He had learned to smoke quite young. Back then in the capital, messing around with Peng Yuan and their crew playing in a band — he’d gotten up to all sorts of things. Smoking and drinking were the mild ones; at his wildest he’d gone out to get tattoos and get into fights, nearly putting one guy in the hospital.

Later, because of certain things, Lu Rangchen had something of a personal reformation — had the tattoos on his arm removed.

After arriving in Nancheng, he’d quit smoking too.

He was like a changed person, rule-abiding, wanting simply to be steady, so Cheng Liru could rest easy and be happy.

Until the year he left Nancheng.

The decision was abrupt.

Cheng Liru had always felt she owed a debt to her own mother, so when the Cheng family matriarch was near the end, she immediately said without hesitation that she would send Lu Rangchen back to the capital to be by the old woman’s side.

Lu Rangchen hadn’t expected it to be so urgent.

So urgent he hadn’t even had time to think about what to say to Yunque before he had to go.

He still remembered that winter — Yunque sitting alone with an IV drip. He had gone to find her and tentatively asked if she would miss him.

He still wasn’t sure, even now, what he had been hoping to hear.

By the time he realized he was overstepping, Yunque had already sidestepped the question.

She said it was getting late and he should head home soon.

Right then.

Lu Rangchen had suddenly felt that whatever he said or didn’t say, it probably made no difference.

This girl might never have needed him in the first place.

What a pointless feeling.

He couldn’t put a name to it exactly — just felt it was all very pointless.

He was a proud man by nature, used to everyone orbiting around him. He had never orbited anyone himself.

And he was certain that in this life, he would never become the kind of person who revolved desperately around some girl.

So he hadn’t told Yunque in advance. Not even a hint.

When the group message was sent about a gathering, he hadn’t reached out to her separately — just included everyone.

Lu Rangchen knew perfectly well he was being petty.

He just wanted to test it.

To see whether Yunque cared at all.

Later, at the group gathering at a karaoke bar, Yunque hadn’t come.

He heard from Deng Zhe that Yunque had found out that afternoon that he was leaving, and had said exactly two words.

— “That’s good.”

That evening, Lu Rangchen happened to pass by and see Yunque and Zhao Qijia walking into the subway together.

Suddenly he understood everything.

The tips of his fingers had been cold in the winter air.

He drank cocktails that were quite strong — one glass after another.

The craving for cigarettes had resurfaced that night for no particular reason.

Someone made a joke that the smoke in the private room was so thick it looked like the karaoke bar was on fire. Everyone burst out laughing. But Lu Rangchen, from beginning to end, hadn’t made a single sound in response.

Looking back on it, that day was the most self-destructive Lu Rangchen had ever been during his time in Nancheng.

Fortunately, one good night’s sleep, and returning to the capital — life seemed to turn to a new chapter.

The following year.

After his grandmother passed, Lu Rangchen was preparing to enter the new tennis league.

Then one day, out of nowhere, Deng Zhe called him late at night.

He told Lu Rangchen that Xu Linda had gotten into a fight with him and had been drinking — she was sobbing uncontrollably.

At first Lu Rangchen wasn’t surprised.

He gave a couple of casual replies and asked how he was going to handle it.

Deng Zhe sounded like he was at his wit’s end. “What is there to handle? First get her home, then endure whatever she puts me through.”

He paused. “Don’t worry about me — she’s always like this when she’s drunk, I’m used to it. I’m just a bit surprised.”

Lu Rangchen was uninterested. “Surprised by what?”

Before the answer came, the sound of Xu Linda’s drunken shouting came through the phone on the other end — something like “you’re all pieces of trash.”

Deng Zhe inhaled deeply. “See? Here we go again.”

“……”

“I genuinely want to record this and play it back for her.”

Lu Rangchen let out a muffled laugh.

Deng Zhe shot back with sarcasm, “You can stop laughing — she’s not just cursing me.”

Lu Rangchen made a sound of acknowledgment and watched with curious amusement from the sidelines. “I’m getting a share of it too.”

Deng Zhe was exasperated. “If you keep this up, I won’t say another word, and then you can go regret it on your own.”

Lu Rangchen gave a low, amused scoff.

He was genuinely curious what Deng Zhe was about to stir up.

But he really hadn’t expected that what Deng Zhe had for him that night would be something this significant.

Deng Zhe told him: Yunque had actually been secretly in love with him all along. From a very early point, she had harbored feelings for him.

Lu Rangchen sat there gripping his phone, the darkness in his eyes deepening.

Two seconds of silence.

He let out a short, derisive laugh. “Deng Zhe, have you lost it?”