Even after stepping into the elevator, Pei Qiansu was still scrolling back and forth through Chu Hui's Smoni account—she had never paid attention to him before, and if not for the fact that he had posted about Liang Qiao today, she wouldn't have known this account belonged to him.
A simple ID, a long-haired calico cat avatar—it was far more pleasant to look at than the man himself. Pei Qiansu held up the light screen for Liang Qiao to see and asked, "This cat isn't yours, is it?"
Liang Qiao said, "No, it was his childhood pet. It's gone now."
The cat's name was Tata, a stray Chu Hui had picked up as a child. It had kept him company for over a decade and passed away suddenly from a heart condition in his sophomore year of college. Because there had been no warning signs, they hadn't been able to save it.
At that time, Liang Qiao and he weren't close—they had collaborated twice but had no deeper contact. One day, taking a shortcut home after class, she passed through the courtyard garden behind the academy tower and vaguely heard someone crying, hidden by the roadside. That someone was Chu Hui, who had been grieving Tata's death for several days.
She had originally planned not to get involved, but Chu Hui happened to be highly alert—the moment he heard footsteps, he quickly raised his head. The two of them exchanged a distant glance through the shadowy branches, both aware of the other's presence.
After recognizing who it was, Liang Qiao found herself in a dilemma—if she didn't leave, she had no interest in why he was crying, and staying wouldn't comfort him either; but if she left, they did know each other, and simply walking past seemed rude. In the few seconds of her hesitation, Chu Hui shed two more tears and turned his head away with a blank expression.
Actually, at that moment, he was so immersed in his own emotions that he couldn't care less who was passing behind him. Even if it hadn't been Liang Qiao, he would have cried just the same. But others clearly weren't as dense as Liang Qiao—because after crying for a long while, he turned back and found that she was still standing there, completely motionless.
They exchanged another glance, and finally Liang Qiao made a move. She walked over and pulled two crumpled tissues from her pants pocket, holding them out to him.
Chu Hui sniffled, looking at what she offered with hesitation. Seeing his expression, she added stiffly, "They're unused."
Only then did he reach out to take them, mumbling a thank you in a muffled voice.
The tissues carried a faint scent of papyrus, warm and dry, with a hint of bitterness—whether it was her pheromone or something inherent to the tissue itself, he couldn't tell. After wiping his tears, the gloom that had weighed on him for days eased slightly. He was about to turn around and say something to her, but when he turned, there was no one behind him—only swaying leaves rustling in the wind.
…
By the time they boarded the Skyrail, Pei Qiansu had more or less finished browsing Chu Hui's Smoni homepage. The first post about Liang Qiao was a single short sentence—How can there be someone in this world who talks so little.
He didn't post much on Smoni—fewer than twenty posts in total. Pei Qiansu scrolled from the bottom up—on November 1st, 3793, he had posted a brief entry—Saw them at training, those two idiots were arguing again. I secretly smiled at her, and she nodded back at me.
Pei Qiansu found it hard to convince herself that Chu Hui wasn't calling her an idiot. She clicked her tongue, turned to Liang Qiao, and said, "This—"
Liang Qiao tried her best to make her expression look sincere and said, "If I said he didn't mean it that way, would you believe me?"
Pei Qiansu countered, "Do you believe it yourself?"
"…"
Seeing her fall silent with nothing to say, Pei Qiansu snorted and lowered her head to continue reading.
On January 1st, 3794, there was a message saying "Happy New Year"; on February 8th, a photo of a hand was posted, which looked like Liang Qiao's; on May 17th, three words were sent—"I like you"; on June 19th, it said—"The rain is heavy"; on September 16th, it said—"Happy birthday, love you"; on October 17th, it said—"If you don't coax me soon, I'll really be angry."
Aside from the photo sent today, the most recent entry was from the 31st of last month, saying "Congratulations on graduating."
Pei Qiansu studied it twice without finding what she wanted, and unable to suppress her curiosity any longer, she asked, "When exactly did you two get together? Why didn't I notice anything at all?"
"Year 94," Liang Qiao paused, then said, "May 17th."
With the specific date in hand, Pei Qiansu carefully thought about what had happened that day, even going so far as to search for her chat records with Liang Qiao from that day. She found that she had only said one thing to her—"I'm dead tired, going to sleep."
…Sleeping really ruins everything!
"But!" Pei Qiansu was somewhat exasperated, saying, "How did you two even meet in the first place?" It wasn't that Liang Qiao couldn't make friends on her own, but with Chu Hui's personality, she really found it hard to connect the two of them.
"Training assessment," Liang Qiao said. "We drew lots and ended up in the same group."
Pei Qiansu had a vague recollection and asked, "Don't tell me it was the time you drew the group leader?"
She nodded. "Mm."
That was something from their sophomore year. Everyone was still in the stage of choosing teammates, and to encourage students from different majors to interact, the academy organized three assessments with random groupings—even the group leaders were decided by drawing lots. Liang Qiao drew the red lot symbolizing group leader during the third assessment and was forced to take on that role.
Everyone has things they're not good at, and the thing Liang Qiao was least good at was communicating with others. So much so that the moment she saw her name marked in red, the first thought that popped into her head was—Is it too late to fake being sick now?
Clearly, it was already too late, because the very next second after that thought crossed her mind, the group member closest to her had already followed the directions to her side and called out with a smile, "Group leader."
That was her first formal meeting with Chu Hui.
And then?
There was no "and then." Liang Qiao was clearly not the type to share every detail of her love story with a friend, so faced with Pei Qiansu's expectant gaze, she merely glanced at the open Skyrail doors and said, "This is your stop."
Pei Qiansu got off the train, radiating resentment.
The Skyrail continued along its track, and Liang Qiao swiped open her Terminal, seeing that Chu Hui had sent a message three minutes ago asking, "Coming back? Where are you now?"
Liang Qiao replied, "A few more minutes."
Chu Hui responded, "Okay, I made some dishes. Once you're home, you can eat."
What?
Liang Qiao stared at that short line of text, feeling an inexplicable chill run down her spine. She hesitated before confirming: "…You made that?"
The last time Chu Hui had stepped into the kitchen and picked up a cooking utensil was half a year ago, when the two of them had argued over some messages in her Smoni public comment section—some unknown junior had said he'd given her his homemade cookies and asked if she liked them, and Liang Qiao, who had never replied to any comment, had read that one message alone.
She had no memory of it at all, so she could only chalk it up to an accidental tap, but Chu Hui refused to believe her. Not only did he storm into the kitchen in a fury, he also boasted shamelessly that homemade cookies were nothing difficult.
In the end, the smoke alarm went off continuously for two hours. Liang Qiao, who had been sitting on the balcony reading, couldn't bear it any longer and walked in, kindly switching the kitchen to fire-prevention mode for him.
That act was no different from pouring oil on the fire. Unable to soothe him, Liang Qiao had no choice but to steel herself and eat the product of his first-ever attempt at cooking—a baked cake the size of half a palm—while maintaining her usual expressionless demeanor, casually and naturally saying it was delicious, which barely passed as a genuine compliment in his eyes.
Remembering that incident, Liang Qiao found it hard to convince herself that he'd walked into the kitchen on a whim. Over on the other end, Chu Hui, seeing her hesitant question, quickly sent a question mark, followed by: "What do you mean? I can't cook?"
"…No."
"Get home now!"
"Okay."
These few messages felt like a warning, making Liang Qiao wary of what she might face after returning home. She entered the building, went upstairs, and slowed her steps when she was still a few paces from the front door. The door detected that only she was approaching and opened automatically, revealing a figure in the entryway.
Chu Hui stood at the door with his arms crossed, holding a spatula in one hand and wearing an apron he'd apparently bought at some point.
"You're back."
Liang Qiao didn't dare step inside rashly. She stopped and hummed in acknowledgment.
"Come in. Why are you standing at the door?"
Liang Qiao took another half-step back and said, "You didn't rig the door with explosives, did you?"
Chu Hui gave a smile that didn't reach his eyes and said, "Then wouldn't I be blowing myself up along with you?"
They locked eyes for two seconds. Liang Qiao very cautiously took a step forward, as if testing his reaction. Chu Hui's brow twitched, and he yanked her inside, slamming the door shut behind her. Then he pressed the spatula against the tip of her nose and demanded, "What did you do today? Confess honestly!"
"…" His self-righteous attitude actually made Liang Qiao ponder for a moment before she said, "…I went to register."
"What did you do while registering?"
"Logged my info, drew lots," she thought for a moment, then added, "came home."
Chu Hui asked, "Didn't you run into anyone when drawing lots?"
"…There were people everywhere."
"Someone who talked to you!"
"I only spoke with Pei Qiansu today…" Mid-sentence, she remembered Xi Yan's presence and slowly let out an "oh," saying, "There was an Alpha who drew the same assignment as me."
Seeing the dangerous look in Chu Hui's eyes, Liang Qiao belatedly realized and added, "Sheng Fuzhou is kind of annoying."
The tone of this remark was a bit adorable, and Chu Hui couldn't help but curl the corners of his mouth, then forced himself to suppress it, saying, "I don't care. She said it herself—her sister wants to chase after you, and you still went and added her contact info."
Liang Qiao defended herself, saying, "I added her contact info because we train at the same place. As for the first thing, I already turned her down."
Chu Hui tried to press his lips tightly together, but he really couldn't hold it in. A hint of a smile slipped out from the corners of his mouth as he tilted his chin up and asked, "How did you turn her down?"
"I said—" Liang Qiao knew he wasn't genuinely angry anymore. She deliberately paused for half a second, leaned forward, and stared straight at him with her gaze closing in.
Chu Hui was waiting for her answer, standing still in place, his eyes sweeping over her face as she drew nearer, until she breached the final safe distance, and he almost instinctively tilted his head up.
But the kiss he anticipated never came, and the confession he wanted to hear never materialized. Just as their lips were about to touch, Liang Qiao snatched the spatula from his hand, shifted the topic, and said, "I'm hungry."
"Ah—" Chu Hui wrapped his arms around her, stopping her from turning away, and said, "Finish what you were saying. Hurry up!"
Liang Qiao showed no mercy whatsoever. Going along with his embrace, she wrapped her arms around him in return and pulled him inside, saying, "Time to eat."
…
Dinner, of course, wasn't made by Chu Hui.
Although she had no idea why he'd put on that act of buying an apron and spatula, the spread of dishes before them was clearly the work of the kitchen's smart home system. The only two things he'd done were tossing the ingredients into the food washing sink at the start and carrying the plates to the table at the end.
After eating with little enthusiasm, Chu Hui sprawled out on the sofa to rest. Liang Qiao checked through the materials she'd brought back from her check-in today, then walked over to stand behind him.
He was scrolling through the photos he'd posted today.
After reading through the comments in a fairly good mood, he unconsciously hummed a few lines of a song, then slid down his feed. Liang Qiao didn't alert him to her presence, but instead followed along with his scrolling, browsing through those entries visible only to himself.
—3793.11.12, knew she wouldn't just leave me alone.
—12.1, tsk.
—12.7, annoyed.
—12.15, why won't she come find me.
—12.17, why won't she come find me yet!
—12.25, why won't she come find me why won't she come find me why won't she come find me why won't she come find me why won't she come find me why won't she come find me why won't she come find me why won't she come find me why won't she come find me why won't she come find me!
—3794.1.1, said happy new year, got a happy new year back.
—1.12, met up.
—1.15, met up.
—1.17, met up!
—1.18, met up!
—1.20, silence doesn't mean rejection. Does this idiot get it or not.
—2.1, sulked for a few days, no one paid me any attention at all. All that anger for nothing.
—2.8, no text, just posted a photo of her hand.
—2.12, held her hand. Progress. I'll send her a message to reward myself.
—2.15, finally managed a video call, and she asked me why I was wearing so little. I said I'm used to sleeping naked. She said oh, then go to sleep, and hung up. Sometimes I really just want to laugh. Ha.
——February 16th, she asked me why I was upset, and I told her to guess for herself. Then that was that—we barely spoke all afternoon. That evening, as we were heading back to the dorm, I said that no one likes a mute. She asked, "You don't like me either?"
There's absolutely no way around it—I'm madly in love with her.