Lu Rangchen said this with an easy, unhurried air.

It seemed almost like something that slipped out on a whim, yet he read the moment just right — never overstepping, never making her feel cornered. With the lightest touch, he left Yunque flushed and her heart racing.

Fortunately the bar light was dim enough that Yunque could hide how rattled she was. She pressed her lips together and changed the subject. “How do you know about what happened between me and Gaoge?”

Lu Rangchen glanced lazily over at Deng Zhe.

Deng Zhe was in the middle of taking a selfie with Xu Linda — looking resigned but unable to escape, which was fairly funny to watch.

Lu Rangchen let out an amused breath. “With someone that loud around, how could I not know?”

Then, more seriously, he said, “So you don’t need to pay me back. Think of it as a small fee for the favor you did me.”

Yunque: “…”

Yunque had nothing to counter that with. She could only silently nod.

Thought about it, then said, “In that case — if there’s another chance for something like that, remember to call me.”

Hearing that, Lu Rangchen’s hand stilled mid-pour over the milk beer. He looked at her for a couple of seconds, clearly caught off guard.

His expression was one of undisguised surprise — as if to say: so you do know how to joke.

Yunque was thrown into total disarray by that look.

Just then his phone rang on the table. Lu Rangchen glanced at it and picked it up without hurry. It was the latest model from that certain fruit brand, no case whatsoever, carried around in his hand without a care.

Compared to him, the few-hundred-yuan Android phone in Yunque’s hand — the one that lagged all the time — looked downright shabby.

Perhaps the pride of youth always hits sharpest and breaks most easily.

Yunque pressed her lips together and quietly slipped her phone off the table and back into her crossbody bag.

When she looked up again, she happened to catch a glimpse of Lu Rangchen’s chat screen.

Whoever he was talking to seemed to be a girl. Lots of messages. The profile picture looked pretty.

Yunque suddenly remembered what Deng Zhe had said earlier — clingy again, did she call you back again.

She was still trying to process that when Lu Rangchen finished replying and looked sideways at her.

His narrow eyes lifted to reveal a deep, dark crease. His black eyes seemed to carry a natural hook — even looking at her in plain stillness, it felt like deliberate provocation.

He said, “What’s wrong.”

“…”

Yunque couldn’t say how many times her heart had stumbled tonight. She just shook her head mechanically.

And at that very moment, a sudden, saccharine female voice descended above their heads and broke the atmosphere between them. “Hey, handsome — can I get your WeChat?”

A heavy cloud of perfume drifted down, clumsily masking the pleasant sandalwood scent.

Yunque’s lashes gave an involuntary flutter, and she looked up almost simultaneously with Lu Rangchen to find a striking, full-figured woman smiling down at him.

The scene froze.

Deng Zhe and Xu Linda looked over too — their expressions openly, shamelessly curious.

The woman wasn’t embarrassed in the least. With several people watching, she remained completely composed, her fox-like eyes trained on Lu Rangchen with languid, teasing confidence.

The mood in Yunque’s chest sank without warning.

Her nerves pulled taut, though she wasn’t sure why.

But Lu Rangchen seemed as if he’d been through scenes like this a hundred times before. He tilted a brow with easy indifference. “Sorry, I’m in high school.”

His voice was low and a little rough, his refusal about as direct as it could get.

Deng Zhe, who had never been known for his tact, burst out laughing on the spot — never mind whether the woman’s face could take it.

Xu Linda also clamped down on a laugh and gave him a swat.

The two of them were insufferably obvious about it.

But the woman didn’t even glance their way. She shrugged with remarkable composure. “So what if he’s in high school? Another year and he’ll be in university.”

Her gaze swept over the table, undeterred. “Still, just add me, so we can get to know each other.”

As she spoke, the woman had already extended her phone toward Lu Rangchen.

But this time, too, Lu Rangchen refused. He looked the woman in the eye, sincere and smiling with the restrained arrogance particular to a young man. “Truly sorry — I have a girlfriend.”

The words landed.

A strange, dense silence settled over the table.

The woman was struck speechless.

And it was in that exact instant that a chair leg scraped against the floor with a sharp sound, and Yunque stood up.

Everyone’s eyes turned to her.

In the bar’s hazy, indistinct light, the girl’s face had gone pale. “Sorry — I need to use the restroom.”

—

The bar looked small from the outside, but the path to the restrooms was long and winding.

Yunque wandered for quite a while before she found it. The first thing she did upon entering was turn on the tap.

Nancheng’s summer heat was stifling and humid. Even with the indoor air conditioning, there was no escaping the stuffiness that lingered in every breath.

Yunque was careful not to ruin her makeup, so she simply cupped a little water and pressed it to her face. She was patting it dry with a paper towel when two women in revealing outfits came in to touch up.

Their high heels clacked against the floor, and their conversation carried the gloating edge of people enjoying someone else’s misfortune —

“You’ve got to admit, that woman had some nerve. She actually walked up and asked for the number. A little embarrassing, sure.”

“Exactly — does she think everyone’s as into casual hookups as she is?”

“By the way, I heard that guy is still in high school. Is that real?”

“No idea, but honestly, high school? So what? My cousin in high school already got his girlfriend pregnant. Kids these days, honestly.”

“True, true. Ha. Though I am curious — what type does that guy go for? The way he looks, he can’t possibly settle for average.”

“Of course not. In a place like this, beautiful women come and go all night. He’s obviously seen it all. Whatever he likes, it definitely isn’t the bland, boring, well-behaved type from some school.”

“Ha — when you put it that way I almost think I have a chance.”

“God, have a little self-awareness!”

The women’s brash laughter bounced off the walls of the empty restroom and gradually faded away.

Yunque had been staring blankly into the mirror at her own expressionless reflection all that while.

When the two women finally left, she slowly came back to herself and wiped the sparse lip color off her mouth with a paper towel.

When she came back out, Lu Rangchen had already gone.

Yunque returned to her seat, stared at the empty chair beside her and the half-finished bottle of milk beer on the table, and drifted for a few quiet seconds.

Unfortunately, Deng Zhe also had to go take care of things.

Xu Linda gave a resigned sigh and called a car to go home.

Afraid Yunque would slip away without her, Xu Linda hooked their arms together as they left the bar — a deliberate, affectionate anchor.

Deng Zhe walked them to the door. Seeing the two of them stuck together like conjoined twins, he teased Xu Linda. “Like a piece of sticky candy, aren’t you. Sticks to your teeth.”

A rare shyness crossed Xu Linda’s eyes. “Mind your own business.”

Deng Zhe poked at her on purpose. “You could stand to learn from little sister Zhu — look how composed she is.”

The topic landed on her without warning. Yunque blinked back to attention from somewhere else entirely. “What?”

Xu Linda curved her lips and pinched Yunque’s cheek. “He’s calling you adorable.”

Yunque: “…”

Then Deng Zhe seemed to remember something. “Oh right — Lu Rangchen asked me to pass along a message: could you both please keep it a secret that he works here part-time?”

That name — the name wired into the switches of her body — snapped her to attention the moment it was said.

Yunque’s eyes flickered.

Deng Zhe continued, “You know the crowd he draws. If a bunch more girls show up, he’d be overwhelmed, and my uncle’s little bar wouldn’t survive it either.”

Xu Linda made a dismissive sound. “What kind of people does he take us for? Yunque and I aren’t the gossiping type.”

Just then, the taxi arrived.

The two of them opened the door and got in.

Xu Linda leaned her head out of the car window and waved at Deng Zhe. “We’re going!” Deng Zhe held up a hand in a “call me” gesture.

The whole ride home, Xu Linda was happily filtering her photos.

She’d taken plenty that night — group shots, solo shots, candids, posed ones.

No sooner had they arrived back at Xu Linda’s villa on the outskirts of the Third Ring Road than a flood of photos from Xu Linda landed on Yunque’s phone.

After her bath, Yunque finally sat down to scroll through them — and found, to her surprise, that one of them was a photo of her and Lu Rangchen together.

The shot had captured the moment when she was talking to him about the money.

Yunque’s gaze locked on the young man. Her clear, luminous eyes seemed to shimmer with words they were too soft to say.

To hear what she was saying, Lu Rangchen had leaned down, accommodating her with a slight bow of his long neck. In the dim light, his profile looked patient and gentle.

Her heart beat in a way she couldn’t control as she stared at the photo without blinking.

Then Xu Linda appeared out of nowhere and bumped into her. “Well? Not bad, right? My photography.”

The sudden jolt made Yunque’s lashes startle.

Like someone caught doing something wrong, she instantly darkened the screen and said with a neutral face, “It’s pretty — you just blurred me out.”

“Only a few of them,” Xu Linda explained. “It happens with candids when the light is bad.”

Yunque pressed her lips together, relieved she hadn’t given anything away. She came over and sat on the sofa.

Xu Linda pressed in beside her like a sticky rice cake and asked with exaggerated seriousness, “Tell me honestly — do you have a thing for Lu Rangchen?”

The truth was she’d been wanting to ask for a while. She’d just never found the right moment.

Yunque unscrewed a bottle of water and drank a couple of sips.

The cool liquid swept down her throat, washing away the heat still burning inside her.

After a few seconds of steadying herself, she looked at Xu Linda with calm eyes. “Do you think that’s possible.”

Her expression was as cool and composed as ever, carrying just a trace of a quiet dignity, not a crack anywhere to be found.

It wasn’t that her acting was good — it was that, by this point, the news of Lu Rangchen having a girlfriend had numbed her so thoroughly that she had no remaining energy to feel anything at all.

She couldn’t help wondering, in that moment, what Lu Rangchen was doing with his girlfriend right now.

Her mind drifted, and she lost herself in it briefly.

Then Xu Linda muttered, almost to herself, “Actually, fair point. You two just don’t seem like the same kind of people.”

“He’s so outgoing, so popular with girls. And you — you’re so quiet. Your whole mind is just studying. I feel like if you were together, you’d have nothing to talk about.”

Something indistinct and unsettled stirred inside Yunque.

She let the faintest curve brush the corner of her mouth and said, in a quietly resigned tone, “So liking Lu Rangchen must be a very painful thing.”

Painful enough that it burns bright and hot, yet every minute, every second — it is a suffering only she endures.

Xu Linda agreed quite sincerely.

She grabbed the bag of chips from the coffee table and tore it open. “Isn’t it? Look at Gaoge — look at the class beauty from the art department. Neither of them came away with anything. A guy like that — you just admire him from a distance. Look, but don’t touch.”

She shook her head in a sage sort of way and turned on the TV.

Yunque was quiet for a moment.

Then she said, “You watch. I’ll go upstairs and do some problems.”

Xu Linda knew her ways and didn’t try to stop her. She just tossed her a bag of chips and happily went back to her own business.

The study in Xu Linda’s house was large. Yunque had barely found a spot to sit when Ye Tian sent her a message.

Ye Tian: 【Where are you? You’re not home.】

Yunque took out her pen and worksheets, arranged everything neatly, then replied: 【I’m staying at a friend’s place for a couple of days.】

Ye Tian: 【Your seatmate?】

Yunque: 【Yeah.】

Ye Tian: 【There are relatives coming over the day after tomorrow. Grandma says to tell you to come back for dinner.】

Yunque thought about it: 【Should be fine.】

Ye Tian: 【Okay.】

Ye Tian: 【Have a good time these couple of days.】

Maybe it was those words that stirred a faint thread of girlish sentiment.

She stared at her phone for a moment, then, almost without thinking, posted a Moments update.

The caption was simply the date. The pictures were a few shots she’d taken inside the bar.

No people — just corners and edges of the bar itself.

The photo quality wasn’t great, but the composition was decent, the filter worked well, and it looked passable overall.

It was only after she’d posted it that Yunque noticed one of the photos had accidentally captured Lu Rangchen’s hand.

It was the hand wearing the black obsidian stone.

Long, elegant fingers wrapped around a clear glass — the bones defined, the lines clean, the tendons and veins lean and strong.

An extraordinarily beautiful pair of hands.

Beautiful enough that anyone who knew Lu Rangchen well would recognize him from this single photo.

At that thought, a small, complicated guilt quietly surfaced in Yunque’s chest.

For a moment, she wanted to keep it. To seal this private memory of hers away in her own little corner of the world, where it could stay for a long time.

But — Lu Rangchen already had a girlfriend.

That fact sat like a slow-building storm cloud, long-settled and heavy in her heart.

Yunque thought it over for a while. In the end, she decided to delete it.

But before she could act, a new notification appeared in the comments of that Moments post.

Yunque went still. She tapped to open it —

Lu Rangchen: 【Pretty good shots.】