That night, Yunque was the last to return to the dorm.

Though they had been in class all day, the girls of Room 0921 still had plenty of energy to burn.

Han Xiao and Li Yuqing were sitting at their computers enjoying a sweet evening gaming session together. Liang Tian was on a video call with the boyfriend she had been dating since high school.

Yunque was nowhere near as spirited as them. She washed up quietly and climbed into bed in preparation for sleep.

Perhaps because she’d spent so long walking Lu Rangchen around campus that evening, drowsiness came quickly — so quickly that Yunque was asleep even before lights-out.

For once, a night without dreams.

She slept better than she had on any night she could remember.

When she woke the next day, it was nearly ten o’clock.

Her phone was vibrating repeatedly against the pillow. Yunque turned over in a drowsy haze and picked it up, and saw messages from Xu Linda.

Xu Linda: 【What were you doing yesterday, why weren’t you replying to me】

Xu Linda: 【Oh god, please don’t tell me you’ve gone into silent shutdown mode out of sadness】

Xu Linda: 【I need to know you’re alive, say something】

Yunque: “……”

So that was how Xu Linda saw her.

With mild exasperation, Yunque typed back: 【I see your imagination is vivid enough to write a sequel to Dream of the Red Chamber.】

Xu Linda: 【!】

Xu Linda: 【She lives!】

Xu Linda: 【What’s going on with you, tell your big sister everything?】

A flash of memory — everything Xu Linda had told her that morning, and Lu Rangchen’s face — and suddenly Yunque had no idea how to begin.

After a few seconds of deliberation, she could only say: 【Nothing’s going on.】

She paused, then added: 【And I haven’t gone quiet either.】

Xu Linda: 【Good that you haven’t gone quiet.】

Xu Linda: 【That annoying jerk isn’t worth going quiet over.】

Yunque couldn’t hold back a small laugh, and climbed out of bed to wash up.

By the time she came back, Xu Linda was apparently having quite the productive conversation with herself. Yunque set her phone on the desk and, lowering her gaze to tie her hair, glanced over and caught the name “Lu Rangchen.”

Xu Linda: 【God, Lu Rangchen is seriously just like that insufferable Deng Zhe — barely started uni and already absolutely shameless】

Xu Linda: 【He’s actually showing off!!!】

Yunque’s gaze paused. She tapped to open the screenshot Xu Linda had sent.

It was Lu Rangchen’s social media post.

The photo was of the small pink donkey she had left in his car. The caption read:

“Love is a superstition that depends on the right time and the right place.”

The hair tie chose that exact moment to snap, snapping against her fingertip and leaving a numb sting.

Yunque stood completely still, soundless.

Xu Linda’s messages kept popping up: 【Do you think he and that person he has his sights on have actually gotten together?】

“……”

The tips of Yunque’s ears went oddly warm.

She thought: how could they have gotten together, there’s not even the beginning of a beginning yet.

She typed a few words into the message box, then waited a few seconds and deleted them.

In the end she said: 【I don’t know.】

It wasn’t that she didn’t want to open up to Xu Linda — it was that she genuinely couldn’t make sense of what Lu Rangchen intended.

She exited the conversation.

Then she opened social media and scrolled down, and sure enough, she found Lu Rangchen’s post.

The people they both knew numbered only a few in total.

Setting aside Xu Linda, the only comments she could see were two.

One was from Zhou Chuang, who had left something along the lines of “what’s going on.”

The other was from Deng Zhe, who had said nothing — just left a like.

Yunque held her breath against the faint flutter in her chest, looked at it for a few seconds, and ultimately decided to act as though she had seen nothing.

Around midday, Liang Tian came back and called Yunque to go to the cafeteria with her.

They went early, when the cafeteria wasn’t crowded yet.

The two of them ordered rice noodles each and sat across from each other.

Liang Tian had originally planned to eat with her boyfriend, but the two had gotten into an argument, and she had come back to find Yunque instead.

Apparently he had gotten angry when he found out Liang Tian had gone and spent twenty thousand of her own money on a camera without telling him.

Yunque was taken aback. “You spent his money?”

Liang Tian’s eyes went wide. “Of course not. That was my own savings.”

Yunque didn’t understand. “Then what right does he have to manage that?”

Liang Tian pursed her lips and said, “He said I’m not frugal enough, that I don’t take him seriously, that I should discuss major decisions with him.”

Yunque was quietly incredulous, debating internally whether to try to talk some sense into her — when Liang Tian rolled her eyes to the ceiling with the most magnificently contemptuous expression imaginable. “Scheming broke man.”

“……”

“I spend my own money and I have to report to him? We’re not even married and he’s already trying to control my finances — shameless!”

The girl ground her back molars together, getting more furious the more she thought about it, then pulled out her phone and sent her boyfriend a breakup message then and there.

Yunque had seen people move fast, but never quite this fast. She barely knew whether to laugh or despair.

Of course Liang Tian needed no comforting. With that breezy dispatch she waved her hand without looking back, took a couple of bites of her rice noodles, and turned the topic around. “Anyway, I haven’t even asked yet — how’d last night go with that supremely handsome man? You didn’t tell me anything when you came back.”

Yunque: “……”

Seeing she wasn’t talking, Liang Tian cut straight to it. “Do you like him?”

Her eyes were bright and clear, radiating knowing certainty.

Yunque had the sudden sense that she wouldn’t mind confiding a little.

She stirred the noodles in her bowl and said softly, “Back in high school… I had a secret thing for him.”

“And now?”

Liang Tian wasn’t surprised at all. “He likes you too, doesn’t he.”

“I don’t know.” Those three words had left Yunque’s mouth so many times they felt numb, yet she didn’t know what to say in their place. She settled for: “I’m not sure.”

“……”

“And the gap between us is too wide.”

“His family’s too well-off? That’s no problem — who goes looking for someone worse off than them?”

Yunque shook her head. “Any gap past a certain point stops being a good thing.”

Liang Tian stared at her in disbelief. “Now you’ve genuinely made me curious about what his family is like.”

“It’s probably…” Yunque struggled to find the words, “the kind of family where marriage isn’t your own choice to make, and a match has been arranged long in advance.”

“……”

Liang Tian gave a dry laugh. “Are you two filming a wealthy-family idol drama? And besides, how do you know? Did he tell you himself?”

“I heard it from another girl who liked him back in high school.”

Yunque’s tone was perfectly calm.

It had been the year after Lu Rangchen left Nancheng.

Yunque had received a birthday gift from him, and somehow the news had gotten out — passed from mouth to mouth until it reached Lin Zhinian’s ears.

The two had never had anything to do with each other.

But it was during finals, when Yunque had been asked to help post examination room numbers, that they happened to run into each other in the art studio.

Lin Zhinian noticed her immediately.

Even though Yunque kept her gaze down the entire time, Lin Zhinian called out to her anyway.

The art studio was nearly empty by then.

And with Lin Zhinian’s fearless nature, she said whatever she had to say right there in the room.

She reached into her collar and pulled out a silver necklace. One look and it was obvious it was the same as Yunque’s.

Yunque had genuinely been startled for a moment.

Then she heard Lin Zhinian say, “Lu Rangchen gave it to me.”

Her manner wasn’t arrogant the way it usually was — it was more like a bleak sort of warning.

Lin Zhinian curled her lips. “Surprised, right? I was surprised too.”

She sighed. “I guess that’s just how boys are — can’t even be bothered to vary the gifts they give.”

By then Yunque already understood exactly what she was trying to say, and turned to walk away without another word.

But Lin Zhinian wasn’t done, and actually grabbed her arm. “Zhu Yunque, I’m telling you, you’d be better off giving up on Lu Rangchen now. He and I are impossible. You and him are just as impossible. Do you know his family arranged his future a long time ago? Do you know he’s meant to marry his childhood sweetheart older sist——”

The last three words never made it out.

Yunque’s eyes had cut toward her and stopped them cold.

Perhaps her gaze in that moment was too searingly cold. Lin Zhinian was startled — but still pressed on: “You know that obsidian bracelet he wears? That’s a token of betrothal. They each have one.”

Those words landed like a hammer, and for just an instant, her heart — as if turned to stone — cracked nearly through.

The two of them looked at each other for a few seconds.

Yunque spoke, her voice emptied of feeling: “He and I were never possible to begin with.”

The suffocating sensation then — like the thick, dense winter smog pressing down so hard she couldn’t breathe.

Yunque had never mentioned it to anyone, from beginning to end.

And she didn’t want to bring it up.

As for the necklace Lu Rangchen had given her, she never wore it again after that. Yet even so, she had still sent him a return gift.

A few months before her college entrance exams, Feng Yanlai had taken her to a temple to pray for blessings, and bought things to give to friends.

One of those offerings was meant for Cheng Liru and Lu Rangchen.

Feng Yanlai had been busy, and asked Yunque to help mail them. In doing so, Yunque came to know Lu Rangchen’s delivery address in the capital.

Later, on her own, she went to the temple once more — specifically to seek out that ink-green leisure pendant for him.

She had never expected Lu Rangchen to actually wear something she’d given him. She had certainly never imagined he would wear it all the way to the day they met again, wearing it right in front of her.

It seemed that confiding in someone was the best way to release what had built up inside.

When Yunque finished telling Liang Tian all of this, she felt — without quite knowing why — slightly lighter.

Liang Tian, on the other hand, was left wide-eyed and a little amused. She told Yunque: you’re actually quite easy to fool, aren’t you.

Yunque blinked.

Liang Tian pursed her lips. “You never once talked to that guy directly. Some other girl tells you something and you just believe it? What if she bought herself the matching necklace to mess with you? You said she liked him too.”

“And that whole childhood sweetheart thing, the arranged match — you never confirmed any of that with him in person. How can you be so certain?”

The words hit like a splash of cold clarity. Yunque was left stunned and at a loss.

Liang Tian rested her chin in her hand with a sigh. “You, honestly — how does a duck get away from you when it’s practically in your mouth? If I were you, I’d go straight to him and get the truth.”

“……”

Yunque’s emotions were a complicated knot. “Actually, it’s not entirely because of those two things.”

“There’s more?”

“Yes. I can’t work out why he’d suddenly take an interest in me.”

Back in high school, the two of them hadn’t even been close to something that could be called ambiguous. He had left Nancheng for the capital without even thinking to tell her. Apart from that one necklace, they’d had no contact beyond the ordinary.

And yet all of a sudden — here he was, at the same university, even actively seeking her out.

At this, Liang Tian finally understood Yunque’s hesitation.

She nodded. “That’s fair. Who knows whether he just happened to see someone pretty and wanted some company for a while. If you’d never liked him it’d be one thing — but you have, and knowing you, you’d never want to get hurt over him again.”

Every word felt like it had been aimed straight at her chest.

Yunque lowered her gaze to the drifting oil slick and spring onion in her bowl. “Even if I still had feelings for him — I don’t want something that burns bright and disappears.”

“……”

“And I don’t want to be the one who gets left behind.”

—

That lunch turned into a proper heart-to-heart between the two of them.

Perhaps by comparison, Liang Tian was finding more and more things wrong with her own boyfriend.

What had started as a fight that might have blown over became a genuine breakup.

That same evening, the boy came running with flowers to the dorm building below, begging her to take him back. Liang Tian was steadfast to the end — once she said it was over, she meant it — and was accordingly dubbed by Han Xiao “the woman least susceptible to romance in the English department,” with a call for everyone to follow her example.

But only Liang Tian herself knew the truth.

She wasn’t the most clear-headed one when it came to feelings — Yunque was.

Liang Tian had half-expected Yunque to dissolve into lovesick daydreaming over Lu Rangchen after all this. But over the next two days, she never once heard Yunque mention his name. Life went on exactly as usual, as if that conversation had never happened.

Eventually she couldn’t hold back anymore and asked what was going on between the two of them.

Yunque only said, mildly, “Nothing’s going on. We haven’t been in touch.”

Liang Tian thought about it and supposed that made sense. Given how close — or rather, not close — they actually were, it wasn’t as if they could talk every single day.

Going by that logic, she quietly concluded that these two probably had no future after all.

But reality, as it turned out, had a flair for the dramatic.

She had barely finished drawing that conclusion in her mind when Wednesday’s elective class made a thorough mockery of it.

What extraordinary luck.

Lu Rangchen ended up in the exact same elective course as Yunque.

Loose black clothes, wide shoulders, long legs, and yet that pale, pale skin.

The moment his tall, upright figure walked into the classroom, the aristocratic air that was simply part of his nature instantly commanded the room. The auditorium went almost silent, and nearly every gaze turned toward him.

Including Yunque’s.

She was sitting in the fourth row where the light was best, her expression carrying a faint edge of surprise.

Liang Tian beside her was even more surprised.

She pinched Yunque’s slender arm, her voice full of disbelief. “What’s happening? Why is he going up to the podium?”

As she said it, Lu Rangchen had indeed stepped up to the podium, a thin booklet in hand. He lowered his gaze to open it, that whole loosely unhurried quality of his particularly striking.

Yunque couldn’t help but freeze.

Then in the very next second, Lu Rangchen suddenly lifted his eyes, and his gaze landed on her without much weight — and yet it carried a substance, a gravity, that made one feel inexplicably restless.

The eye contact lasted only a beat.

Then Lu Rangchen pulled his gaze back to the roll booklet on the podium and began reading out the first name.

The rich, slightly hoarse voice of someone caught between youth and adulthood filled the classroom. “Zhang Shuo.”

Only at that point did everyone realize — he must have come to take attendance for the professor.

The student named Zhang Shuo called out promptly. “Here.”

Lu Rangchen glanced up, and quite conscientiously marked a check beside the name.

From where Yunque sat, his fingers were long, lean, and capable. Even just lowering his gaze with that effortless composure and writing a few characters was enough to quietly stir something.

Even Liang Tian, the experienced one in matters of attraction, couldn’t help marveling. “Your secret crush is seriously so ridiculously handsome — how is he even handsomer today than the other day?”

She balled up her fist and looked at Yunque. “I finally understand why you feel so insecure. A man like that — who would dare make the first move?”

“……”

Yunque pressed her lips together lightly.

Her pulse, without her noticing, had begun to quicken.

Until Lu Rangchen called her name.

She couldn’t say whether it was deliberate. The way he read her name had a slight upward lilt — even his gaze was openly playful, bordering on audacious.

Meeting his eyes, Yunque’s lips parted, and she quietly said “here.”

She expected him to mark it off and move on.

Instead, without any apparent reason, this person frowned faintly, and called again: “Zhu Yunque.”

That tone — thoroughly, deliberately unhurried, and entirely self-possessed.

The classroom settled into silence again.

Easily five or six rows of students turned to look at her, gazes sharp as scythes.

“……”

Yunque thought this person was genuinely pointless.

But she had no choice but to say “here” again.

This time, loud enough. With, it seemed, a distinct note of irritation.

Lu Rangchen this time actually heard her clearly — and not only heard her, but appeared quite satisfied. He turned the corner of his mouth up and marked a check in the booklet.

Liang Tian beside her was in full lovesick mode. “Look — he’s deliberately trying to get your attention.”

Yunque: “……”

She gave Liang Tian a rather resigned look, but said nothing.

And as it turned out — it was exactly as Liang Tian had described.

When Lu Rangchen called anyone else’s name, he went through them in one quick breath, and toward the end barely even bothered lifting his head.

The roll was finished.

The professor entered shortly after.

It was the woman who had come out of the building with Lu Rangchen and his companions that evening — it turned out she was the professor of the human geography elective, Chu Lan.

Yunque was mildly surprised.

By the time she turned her attention back, Lu Rangchen had already stepped down from the podium.

The lecture hall was large, and there were empty seats in the front row. He walked straight past them without a glance, long-legged and unhurried, all the way to the fourth row, and stopped beside Yunque.

The faint scent of dark sandalwood drifted gradually into her awareness.

He had one hand in his pocket. The other — his long, spare knuckles — tapped lightly against Yunque’s desk.

Two quiet knocks.

Liang Tian on the inside blinked and looked up at him first, but Lu Rangchen’s gaze rested only and steadily on Yunque.

That look — how to describe it.

Somewhere between a smile and not, and deeply layered in meaning.

A trace of reined-in displeasure, and at the same time something like the desire to have Yunque for himself — barely suppressed.

Liang Tian had the inexplicable sense that Lu Rangchen must be very, very good at this.

She was in the middle of mentally drafting a certain kind of fiction about him and Yunque when Lu Rangchen raised an eyebrow and spoke up: “Move over a bit?”

An entirely innocent thing to say.

And yet somehow, there was an undeniably suggestive undertone.

Liang Tian looked at Yunque with eyes full of anticipation, and noticed that her ears had turned red at some point without her knowing.

And yet this girl was genuinely stubborn.

Even with him brought right to her door, she only raised her eyes with a perfectly calm expression, looked at him evenly — whatever she felt hidden away inside it — and then stood up.

That would have been fine on its own.

The problem was: she stood up and pulled Liang Tian up with her.

Liang Tian let out a stunned “huh?”

And then heard Yunque turn to her and say, “Let’s move — he wants to sit on the inside.”

The words landed.

A strange silence fell.

Lu Rangchen looked at her with steady eyes, then gave a short, quiet laugh.