No one knew how long Lu Rangchen had been waiting for those words Yunque said that night — let’s make up.

Perhaps from the moment they crossed paths again.

Or perhaps from eight years before — from the moment she said “let’s break up” — he had already begun waiting.

Lu Rangchen had never felt time pass so slowly.

Every minute, every second seemed to stretch long and unbearable because of her. Yet now, looking at her before him, he suddenly felt as though all that long, drawn-out time had been worth it.

He and she — they truly still had a future.

The air between them flowed, tender and intimate.

Something dense and warm surged in the depths of Lu Rangchen’s eyes. His voice came out low and a little rough: “You’re sure? You’ve thought it through?”

Both the look in his eyes and his tone held a faint, barely hidden anxiety — and an eagerness that made no effort to conceal itself.

Yunque had never seen him like this. Something stirred deep in her, moved without restraint.

That feeling of having owed him far, far too much welled up very easily into her chest.

She sniffled softly and said, “I’ve thought it through. I’d already made up my mind when I first saw you.”

In that instant, all the emotion that had been dammed up at the breaking point came flooding out all at once.

She suddenly had no more patience for holding back. No more desire to look ahead and behind, to hesitate and linger. She just wanted to be with him — completely, freely.

As for whatever came after — she didn’t want to think about it anymore.

And she wouldn’t be afraid anymore.

Life was this short. She only wanted to be well with him.

Thinking this, her grip on his clothes tightened further. Lu Rangchen reached out and took her hand, threading his fingers between hers.

The moment Yunque looked up at Lu Rangchen, the kiss fell again.

Different from the one in the alley — that one had been an outlet for everything held back.

This moment’s Lu Rangchen was soft. Unhurried. He coaxed and wound his tongue with hers, sending a delicate, tingling current that moved through her whole body.

Like finally tasting a sweet he hadn’t been able to have for a very long time.

Giving in to craving.

Yunque’s lips parted again and again and were taken again. Her breathing grew ragged and then tangled with the deepening pressure of his kisses until it came undone all over again.

In an instant, even the air she breathed was filled with the scent that was his. Her heart moved with it, real and close.

Even his shirt — she had clutched it into the shape of her longing.

Only that kiss didn’t last too long. The phone on the center console began to ring.

The standard ringtone — nothing unusual about it ordinarily, but in this moment it felt somehow intrusive.

It was Yunque who pushed Lu Rangchen back, fingers curled around his collar, breath held lightly as she whispered, “Phone. Answer it first.”

But Lu Rangchen — who had never in his life done what he was told — heard her say this and did exactly the opposite. He curved his mouth into a wicked little arc, pressed his hand to the back of her head, and kissed her again, deep and unhurried.

Not caring about anything.

From her lips, to the tip of her nose, to her lashes — now shallow, now deep — until he was thoroughly satisfied. Only then did he leisurely reach for the phone on the center console.

The moment the call connected, an unfamiliar woman’s voice came through from the other end.

She was talking about miscellaneous business at the club — urgent enough that it needed Lu Rangchen’s personal return to sort out, though not so urgent that it couldn’t wait a little.

They were sitting close enough that both of them could hear everything.

Yunque glanced at him at those words.

She found Lu Rangchen already looking down at her.

Indulgent, and somewhere between a smile and not. All teasing insolence — entirely different from the brooding version of him these past weeks. Not quite two completely different people, yet unmistakably two different faces.

He saw that what little lipstick she’d had on to begin with was now more or less completely claimed by him. Without minding what the woman on the other end of the phone was saying, he reached up and casually wiped the trace of moisture from the corner of Yunque’s mouth, then raised an eyebrow and said, “Cream-flavored lip balm? I rather like it.”

“……”

Yunque’s cheeks flushed at his provocative tone.

The next second, the woman’s voice on the other end went completely quiet — and then, clearly thrown, the woman stuttered: “Wait — boss, are you — are you talking to me? I’m not wearing lip balm?”

Lu Rangchen found that utterly exasperating. He let out a short, dismissive laugh: “Who said I was talking to you?”

He gave Yunque a sidelong glance — performatively solemn about it — and said, “I’m talking about my girlfriend.”

The word “girlfriend” hit like a thunderbolt, and the woman on the other end was immediately stunned into silence. Then came a thoroughly unprofessional exclamation.

Her outburst only made the hot, flustered feeling in Yunque more sharply pronounced.

Yet at the same time there was something else — a quiet, fluttering thrill.

As though she had been waiting a very long time to be called that by Lu Rangchen.

By the time she came back to herself, the girl’s astonished voice was already ricocheting around the interior of the car.

She said, “Boss — you actually have a girlfriend! Is this for real? Since when? Is it Jiang Keyuan?!”

The name Jiang Keyuan was completely unfamiliar.

Yunque’s brow twitched at the sound of it, and she involuntarily glanced at Lu Rangchen.

Lu Rangchen, however, was entirely unruffled.

As though he had anticipated exactly this — he lifted his gaze and looked at Yunque too.

“……”

Yunque stared at him, completely unblinking.

The expression was outwardly calm enough, but anyone short of oblivious could read the scrutiny — and the jealousy — in it.

Lu Rangchen, the scoundrel, internally found this rather satisfying.

He let out a low, smug sound. Then, eyes still on Yunque, deliberately chose not to explain — and instead said to the girl on the phone: “Alright, stop gossiping, let’s get to the point. Start calming them down. I’ll come handle it shortly.”

The girl said, “What does shortly mean? Those clients are kicking up quite a fuss.”

Lu Rangchen glanced at his watch and said, “After I drop my girlfriend home.”

With that, he hung up cleanly.

One had to say — when Yunque was easy to coax, she was genuinely easy to coax.

The moment Lu Rangchen finished that sentence with “girlfriend,” she pressed her lips together and looked away slightly.

But she held herself just as stubbornly as ever.

That attitude of hers — as though she would die before asking “who is Jiang Keyuan?” — Lu Rangchen knew her far too well. Since she wasn’t asking, he certainly wasn’t volunteering the answer.

She was so good at stringing him along.

Now he’d try it too.

So Lu Rangchen simply waited for the engine to start, then shamelessly reached his right hand across and rested it on her elegantly curved leg, beckoning her with a small curl of his fingers.

“……”

Out of the corner of her eye, Yunque couldn’t help glancing over. She turned back to him, expression flat on that pretty face: “What?”

Lu Rangchen drawled lazily, “I’m driving my girlfriend home. Doesn’t she owe me a little something for the trouble?”

What he meant by “a little something” — Yunque understood perfectly well.

But she was having none of it.

She reached into her bag, pulled out a one-yuan coin, and placed it in Lu Rangchen’s palm.

The principle of meeting one’s match.

Lu Rangchen froze — then, in the next second, was laughed into speechlessness by her.

He was just about to say something when someone knocked on the car window.

A man, asking Lu Rangchen whether he was about to leave, and if so, could he please hurry — “I’ve been watching you two be all cozy in there for ages—”

He was about to say more.

But then he met Lu Rangchen’s gaze — sharp and cutting — and swallowed the rest on the spot.

Lu Rangchen was the kind of person who had never in his life cared what anyone else thought of him. But he cared what Yunque thought. And he knew perfectly well that whatever the man had been about to say next would amount to something crude and vulgar — it would only embarrass Yunque, for no reason at all.

So he simply cut it off at the start: he curved one corner of his mouth with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes and said, “Sorry about that — took up the parking spot a while longer. We’re going now.”

With that, he rolled the car window back up — nearly catching the man’s teeth in it.

Watching the man’s undignified scramble, Yunque couldn’t suppress a quiet laugh.

Lu Rangchen was driving with one hand. He heard her laugh, turned his head, and tilted his gaze toward her — deliberately teasing: “What, having a boyfriend makes you this happy?”

A breezy tone, effortlessly rotten.

If this had been before, Yunque would have given him a look and refused to respond the entire way home. Lu Rangchen had even prepared himself for exactly that outcome.

But unexpectedly, Yunque, at those words, only let an unease flicker briefly through her expression.

The car moved.

In that passing moment, Lu Rangchen suddenly heard her say, with all the candor of someone confessing: “Mm. I really am.”

The voice was very soft — a faint bashfulness woven through it — yet it was captivating.

And then she lowered her eyes, and her expression eased, and when she raised them again, there was a shyness in her gaze — like the girl she had been in her youth.

Just watching her like that, Lu Rangchen smiled. He reached over and took her hand. Yunque didn’t hold herself rigid this time — she simply opened her fingers, quietly and willingly, and let their hands come together, ten fingers interlaced.

The car moved on through the night.

Lu Rangchen’s voice was deep and low, soft at the edges, and his tone carried a smile: “Mm. I’m incredibly happy too.”

Nancheng’s traffic was always congested.

Especially that summer night — with the evening breeze drifting through and Lu Rangchen taking it slow — it was nearly nine o’clock by the time he brought Yunque home.

The club was pressing him.

Lu Rangchen didn’t say much — just went to check her windows and doors before he left.

When the moment of parting actually arrived, Yunque finally couldn’t hold herself back. She caught the hem of his clothes at the door and asked: “Do you not intend to explain anything to me?”

That question made Lu Rangchen laugh outright. “Explain?” he said. “Explain what?”

The tone was innocent enough to be infuriating.

Yunque held her silence for two seconds, then decided he was doing it on purpose.

She didn’t indulge him. She pressed her lips together, closed the door, and said “goodbye” with a perfectly blank face.

Rather childish of her — and the door shut with a satisfying slam.

Lu Rangchen seemed to have seen it coming. He stood on the other side with his hands in his pockets and let out a single, quietly shameless laugh.

Not even a little surprised.

What he didn’t know was that Yunque had been keeping an eye on his car the entire time.

Her building had a view of the outside. Every day before, morning and evening, she would always look to see if she could spot Lu Rangchen’s car.

Only back then, each time she waited, her feelings had been impossibly complicated. She had run from it, reined herself in, but never managed to resist the pull of wanting him.

That anxious, uncertain feeling from those days — Yunque still remembered it vividly, and had no desire to go through it again.

Fortunately, now she no longer had to be furtive about it. She could watch openly, without hiding.

Thinking this, Yunque’s lips curved, and for the first time in years, her heart felt genuinely light.

Just then, Lu Rangchen’s car moved out from the complex. That car, much like the person himself — even as a receding silhouette, it radiated an untamed, unruly energy.

The car’s shadow vanished from her line of sight. Only then did Yunque reluctantly look away, intending to message Xu Linda and let her know she and Lu Rangchen had made up.

But a message from Lu Rangchen had already appeared first.

The phone chimed softly.

Lu Rangchen: 【Jiang Keyuan is Jiang Sui’s older sister. She pursued me for a while.】

Reading that message, Yunque’s heart gave a small, startled leap.

Her fingers moved faster than her thoughts — she replied immediately: 【……And then?】

Lu Rangchen: 【And then — my ex-girlfriend had a change of heart.】

Lu Rangchen: 【Right now I’m going back to send red envelopes to the club staff.】

Two messages, sent one right after the other, like two pieces of candy unexpectedly placed in her mouth.

Yunque choked on them, and then — she could feel it — her heart actually started racing.

She stared at her phone screen in a daze, for several full seconds unable to think of what to say back. For one fleeting moment she wondered if she was imagining things.

But then, without warning, Lu Rangchen called.

The club was pushing him, and some things were too much to put into a message — so he called while driving.

He was direct by nature, and he got straight to the point.

So Yunque had barely pressed “accept” before the man’s deep voice was already settling against her ear, his tone threaded with a barely concealed smile — warm and disarming: “If I may ask, Teacher Zhu.”

“……”

“Would you be available tomorrow to meet with a student’s parent?”