Zhui Ye picked up Wu Man’s phone to answer, slightly turning his body to watch the restroom door. His tone was unhurried.

“Just kidding. Of course I know who you are.”

Yu Jiaze on the other end of the phone laughed ambiguously: “Zhui Ye?”

“Good ears.”

Separated by thousands of miles, the flames of war between the young man and the older man burned on both shores.

Yu Jiaze’s voice suddenly dropped: “Where is she?”

Zhui Ye countered: “Did you bully her?”

“What position are you in to ask me this question?” Yu Jiaze sneered. “A deleted colleague? Ha.”

Zhui Ye secretly clenched his palm, then slowly released it, grabbing the lighter on the table to fiddle with.

“But on a holiday like Christmas, she’d rather spend it with me, this deleted colleague, than with the person she’s been with for ten years. Why is that?”

The sound of fingers tapping came through the phone. Yu Jiaze said in a low voice: “You’re not qualified to speak with me. Put her on the phone. Don’t make me say it twice.”

“Don’t let me see Wu Man looking so disheveled because of you again. If there’s a second time, I won’t consider her wishes anymore—I’ll snatch her to my side.”

The other end paused slightly, then laughed.

“Living in this world, the most important thing is self-awareness. This is why you went from being a Cannes Best Actor to mixing with third-rate variety shows now. Understand?” His voice was slow and light. “You can’t even guarantee your own resources—what resources can you bring Wu Man? What do you have to compete with me?”

“What you can bring her, I’ll be able to bring her one day too. But what I can bring her… you never will in your lifetime.” Zhui Ye noticed a figure about to emerge from the restroom and said quickly, “If you don’t believe me, just wait and see.”

He decisively cut off the call, turned off the phone, and took back the power bank.

Wu Man walked over shaking her hands, just in time to see him putting away the power bank.

“What’s wrong?”

He lied without changing expression: “It ran out of battery.”

Wu Man pressed her phone—still pitch black—and muttered: “Still hasn’t charged.”

In her heart, though, she breathed a sigh of relief, the ostrich mentality of feeling fortunate at work. This was heaven’s will. She could feel at ease escaping a little longer, not thinking about the butterfly effect that would follow.

“Still eating?”

Wu Man touched her stomach, her face a bit pale: “…No more.”

“Did you get an upset stomach?” Zhui Ye opened Google Maps to check. “There’s a Don Quijote nearby. Let’s buy some medicine.”

She wrinkled her nose, shaking her head carelessly: “Why make such a fuss? No need to go to the trouble.”

Zhui Ye’s fingers paused. He raised his head, his expression serious.

“Sister, can you take yourself a bit more seriously?”

Wu Man was stunned by his suddenly serious demeanor, her voice gradually softening: “…But it really isn’t anything.”

Zhui Ye lowered his head again, his expression blurred.

“I’m not just talking about this.”

*

The two walked out of the izakaya. The heavy snow had stopped, but the accumulation was thicker. Wu Man’s high heels couldn’t possibly step down.

Zhui Ye squatted in front of her and patted his back: “Come on up. I’ll carry you.”

Wu Man hesitated: “Forget it. How about we don’t go? Just call a car.”

“Won’t let me carry you?” Zhui Ye stood up. “Then I’ll hold you.”

“…”

Wu Man wrapped her arms around his neck before Zhui Ye could reach around her waist.

Then his lean, strong arms slid over through the coat, from the outside to center, firmly circling around, but not tightening too much to make her uncomfortable.

Clearly so much younger than her, this back was very reliable. The only piece of driftwood in a white ocean.

Perched on shoulders one meter eighty-seven tall, her view suddenly broadened. Sapporo became a miniature model in a snow globe, visible in its entirety. Wu Man saw white snow covering cars, manhole covers, and narrow alleys between buildings. So beautiful she couldn’t bear to step on it.

With a crunch, Zhui Ye stepped on it without mercy.

Wu Man looked down at the crushed snow and teased: “Suddenly feel like you’ve become the unromantic one now.”

Zhui Ye seemed to understand the meaning in her words and said without hesitation: “Because right now the most important thing is buying medicine for Sister.”

Wu Man on his back instantly fell silent.

Her body rose and fell with Zhui Ye’s steps. He walked through the snow, sometimes deep, sometimes shallow. His breath released white vapor—the scorching vitality in the icy cold night that would melt the accumulated snow, along with cold, hard hearts.

She imperceptibly tightened her arms slightly, softening her body and resting her chin on his shoulder.

*

The hotel booked by the magazine team was Hoshino Resort, very far from downtown Sapporo. By the time the two bought medicine from Don Quijote and returned, dawn was nearly breaking.

They said goodbye in the corridor, as their room doors happened to face each other.

Wu Man took off the coat and returned it to Zhui Ye: “Thank you. Get some rest early.” After speaking, she pushed open her room door and slipped inside, as if afraid of being seen together with him.

Zhui Ye helplessly dropped his shoulders, turned to retrieve his room card from the coat, but touched a cold object.

What’s this?

Zhui Ye froze, immediately pulling the item out. It was also a badge—merchandise from the animated film “Howl’s Moving Castle.”

…Did Sister secretly buy this at Don Quijote when he wasn’t paying attention?

On the badge was carved the scene where Howl grabbed both of Sophie’s hands in his palms, taking her fleeing into the sky, leaping across rooftops.

Zhui Ye still remembered in the film, Sophie looked down in fright at the bustling fair below, while Howl’s ice-blue eyes looked at her tenderly. The pink and black plaid cape on his shoulders billowed along with his flying golden hair, and grand symphonic music played because of their escape.

He felt around in his pocket again and pulled out a note.

On it was Wu Man’s scrawled handwriting, written in haste.

“Merry Christmas. May you forever remain young.”

*

When Wu Man woke again, it was five in the afternoon. She reflexively went to turn on her phone and discovered it could actually power on.

Before sleeping, she clearly hadn’t had time to charge it…

Wu Man was puzzled to find the phone battery still had quite a bit of charge.

Maybe due to the temperature rising, it finally responded. She didn’t think much of it, calling room service for a charger. Just after plugging it in, Wu Man heard a video call request from the bathroom.

Thinking about who was making this call… the hand gripping her toothbrush unconsciously trembled.

Wu Man took a deep breath facing the mirror, knowing she couldn’t escape anymore.

She hurriedly spit out the toothpaste foam and ran to the bedside to answer the call.

Strangely, Yu Jiaze didn’t appear on the other side. The image flashed from a ceiling to pitch black. As if the phone had been placed face-down on a table.

No image, but there was sound—only this voice wasn’t Yu Jiaze’s either.

“You’re talking about ‘Spring Night’? That film is indeed being reviewed by our group.”

Hearing the words “Spring Night,” Wu Man’s heart seized. Her eyelids jumped. An extremely bad premonition rushed forward.

Then she finally heard Yu Jiaze’s voice—

“Although I invested in this film, at the time I was only looking at Director Wang’s reputation and didn’t carefully understand the project. After watching the rough cut, I thought, oh no, I’m afraid it will bring you trouble.”

Someone Yu Jiaze would address as “you” formally…

Yu Jiaze continued: “The film’s values are extremely problematic—affairs, divorce, seducing students. Don’t mind me. Whatever needs to happen with this film’s review, let it happen.”

Hearing this, the other voice laughed, sounding like a broken bellows, quite grating.

“Young President Yu is truly understanding of the big picture. I get it now. Don’t worry.”

Then the screen flipped again. Wu Man saw the ceiling, and the next second, it was cut off.

They were going to block “Spring Night’s” distribution certificate?!

Wu Man sat down on the floor in shock.

This wasn’t just the production she valued most in her career—it was also an artwork that so many staff members had worked hard on for so long to create. If they couldn’t get the distribution certificate, they couldn’t even submit it to Cannes for awards, let alone release it.

How could Yu Jiaze use such a ruthless method to retaliate against her?

She thought at most it would still be just being humiliated or tormented a bit before it passed.

The development of events exceeded her expectations. That Yu Jiaze could be so angry, even willing to lose his own interests… there must be another catalyst in all this.

Wu Man was at a loss, wanting to call him directly to ask clearly, but discovered an extremely horrifying piece of information in the call interface—

There was actually a record of a connected call with Yu Jiaze, at the time when she and Zhui Ye were eating sukiyaki at the izakaya last night.

She reacted in a flash of lightning and immediately, caring about nothing else, rushed urgently to the opposite door and knocked loudly.

Zhui Ye’s voice came vaguely from inside: “Who is it?”

“It’s me.”

Only then did she calm down, looking left and right. Fortunately, no one was passing by.

Inside the room was quiet for a few more seconds before the door pulled open from the inside. Zhui Ye seemed to have just showered. His body hadn’t been dried yet—his upper body was wet, dripping with water droplets that slowly flowed down his abdominal grooves into the edge of the towel wrapped around him.

This image carried a wild impact. The water droplets magnified into splashing waterfalls, his solid muscles a mountain range carrying the flowing water.

Wu Man froze, but didn’t dare linger at the door and still slipped inside.

She tried to only look above his neck, holding up her phone and demanding aggressively: “Explain this?”

Zhui Ye glanced at the call record and calmly swept his wet hair back, revealing a beautiful widow’s peak.

“I answered it.” He showed no panic at being caught. “I was wrong not to tell you I answered your phone without permission. I apologize. But if it happened again, I’d still choose to answer.”

“Why did you answer it?”

Zhui Ye was concise: “To warn him.”

Wu Man sucked in a cold breath: “Warn? You warned him?”

“You flying to Hokkaido so abnormally definitely has something to do with Yu Jiaze. I didn’t ask you because I knew you absolutely wouldn’t say.” Zhui Ye stared into her eyes. “Isn’t that right?”

“…”

Wu Man hadn’t expected his thoughts to be so delicate and precise. Just from seeing her at the airport, he could see through everything like fire, guessing exactly right.

But what good was being delicate? Recklessness was taboo.

“Haven’t you heard? If a shark bites you and you immediately bite back, you’ll very likely die. But do you know what the shark thinks? He might only feel itchy.” Wu Man said coldly and bluntly, “You and Yu Jiaze—that’s your relationship. Your actions are too childish!”

Zhui Ye brushed aside the hair hanging in front of his eyes and smiled.

“Childish?”

He slowly closed in on Wu Man. Her body sensed some kind of crisis, her temples throbbing. A crushing pressure transmitted from Zhui Ye’s body, making Wu Man somewhat regret having said that just now.

She hesitated for a moment—should she not have been so direct in attacking his self-esteem?

But the words were already out, spilled water couldn’t be recovered. The thing was indeed done by him, even if the starting point was for her sake. But now this matter had been turned into hell-level difficulty by him.

She completely couldn’t imagine what Yu Jiaze’s reaction would be after receiving the call and hearing Zhui Ye’s voice, and being warned by him.

Therefore, she wasn’t at all surprised that Yu Jiaze would make this kind of retaliation.

Thinking of this, the bit of guilt that had just surged up receded like the tide. She stubbornly met his gaze, expressing her attitude.

Zhui Ye suddenly pressed the curtain remote on the wall. The floor-to-ceiling window’s drapes automatically gathered inward, squeezing the light into thin slices.

Inside the room, five in the afternoon instantly became as pitch dark as five in the morning of a winter night.

Wu Man’s field of vision became dim. She uneasily retreated two steps. Just as she raised her hand to touch the doorknob, she felt Zhui Ye lean over.

The damp air after bathing rushed toward her face.

Her hand was grabbed by his damp one and pressed back against the door panel.

She glared at the figure enclosing her: “Let go.”

“No.”

Wu Man didn’t know what he wanted to do. A stifled emotion surged up. Her hands were held by him, her body pressed against the door panel, her whole body unable to move—this feeling made her very unhappy.

In front of Yu Jiaze was one thing—all these years she could only endure.

But in front of Zhui Ye, she was unwilling to hide it. Resolutely determined to vent this resentment, to tell him her feelings at this moment.

She stood on tiptoe and bit down on the muscle of his upper arm.

Zhui Ye groaned lowly in pain and indeed relaxed the force restraining her.

Wu Man took the opportunity to twist her body, bending down to get behind him, asking absurdly: “What exactly is going on right now?”

Zhui Ye rubbed his arm and turned to face her again.

“Sister, you’re too unaware.”

“I’m just demonstrating with my body that you’ve entered a man’s room.”

His tone was soft, but his actions were forceful. With one hand, he hoisted her up and just like that, walked toward the big bed in the darkness.