Mu Ning knew Jing Xuan was watching her, but she kept her eyes fixed on the ground, on the kittens.
She had thought she would never suffer such a sour, aggrieved feeling over matters of the heart.
When a paper husband lost her interest, she swapped him out without a second thought. When a promising prospect responded, she quickly lost the thrill. Even back in university, when she learned that the gentle, “yasashii” Japanese-major guy she’d had the biggest crush on actually had a long-distance girlfriend, she had merely added him to her blacklist with a perfectly calm heart.
She figured the reason she felt so wronged was precisely because she had no claim to the grievance: two grown adults, in the getting-to-know-you phase, sharing meals, chatting, and after mutual evaluation deciding it wasn’t a fit—wasn’t gradually fading out, starting with politely declining the next invitation, the standard and dignified move?
Jing Xuan wasn’t responsible for a crush she’d never even voiced.
No one spoke.
The two tubes of cat treats were finished, and the orange tabby and the tortoiseshell still wanted more.
Mu Ning said, “I can’t give you the last one—I need to take it back to mix with Xiao Wa’s medicine.”
Jing Xuan spoke up: “Is Xiao Wa sick?”
Was it because of the mask? His voice sounded a bit muffled.
Three or four seconds passed before Mu Ning let out a soft “Mm.”
“What’s wrong?”
“A bit of diarrhea.”
Mu Ning patted the orange tabby and the tortoiseshell on the head and murmured an apology to them. As if they understood, they darted under the bench in a flash, then slipped lightly into the night, their figures vanishing.
Mu Ning took out a bottle of hand sanitizer from her bag and pumped a dollop into her palm.
The scent of alcohol spread through the air, and her mind wandered for a moment—it was all his fault, planting some inexplicable anchor in her heart. From now on, every time she smelled alcohol, she’d remember that he liked the smell of it.
“Mu Ning…”
Hearing his voice, Mu Ning lifted her eyelids to glance at Jing Xuan. His entire face was hidden behind the mask, making it impossible to read his expression.
She looked away and said in a low voice, “If you have something to say, just say it directly.”
Yet Jing Xuan seemed at a loss for words, sinking back into silence.
Her feet were starting to go numb; she couldn’t crouch much longer.
Just as Mu Ning was about to stand up, she heard Jing Xuan suddenly say, “That bistro—after eating there twice, how much do you want to go a third time, on a scale of 1 to 10?”
Mu Ning looked up at him in surprise.
“You…”
“I have Jiang Junlin on WeChat.” Jing Xuan confirmed her guess.
That wasn’t surprising. The game development circle was small enough, though not exactly tiny.
“…How did you two meet?”
“Before I came to Spirit Whale, other companies reached out to me too, including his current one. I had an online chat with him before meeting their producer.”
Last Sunday, when Mu Ning had dinner with Meng Meng and Jiang Junlin, they’d gone to that Yunnan-Guizhou-Sichuan bistro, because Jiang Junlin said he’d seen their Moments posts last time and it looked pretty good.
That evening, Jiang Junlin posted photos of the dishes on his Moments, giving the place high praise.
“How did you know I was eating with him…”
“I saw it,” Jing Xuan said flatly. “I was working overtime at the office and went downstairs to grab coffee. I happened to see you two passing by Building D. You were wearing makeup, in a dress…” He paused, his voice turning husky. “…Very beautiful.”
Mu Ning didn’t want to seem easily startled, but she couldn’t help widening her eyes at those words.
Jing Xuan looked back at her and pressed on: “So, on a scale of 1 to 10, what’s your score?”
“…10.”
“Then let’s go.” He emphasized, “Tomorrow.”
“…I have to take Xiao Wa for a follow-up tomorrow.”
“…Does the follow-up take all day?” He tilted his head slightly, and a cough came from behind the mask.
“You have a cold?”
It took a while for the coughing to stop. Jing Xuan let out an “Mm.”
Mu Ning stared at him for a moment, tilted her head, and deliberately said, “Then if I eat with you, won’t you infect me?”
Jing Xuan lowered his head, burying it into the crook of his arm as if he had no way to counter that, then let out a sigh. “…Then I’ll just watch you eat?”
“Can’t it be next week?”
“I don’t want to be slotted into the fourth round.”
Mu Ning wished she could be a little more composed, but she could no longer control the corners of her mouth lifting. She asked, “…Is that why you left me hanging for a week?”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. There are some underlying reasons that made me…”
“What underlying reasons…”
“It’s a bit of a long story. If you’re willing to keep crouching there to listen, then I’ll tell you now…”
At the reminder, Mu Ning realized just how numb her feet had become. She stood up, and a dense wave of pins and needles prickled through her entire leg like snowflakes. Unsteady, she bent over, about to brace her hands on her knees, when Jing Xuan, who had also risen to his feet, reached out in time to steady her arm.
…It looked almost like a scene of her in old age, unsteady on her feet, with a kind-hearted stranger helping her cross the street.
She wanted to say: Thanks, but I don’t really need this. If you don’t mind, you could just hug me directly—same effect.
After a moment to recover, Mu Ning straightened up.
Jing Xuan let go of her hand at once and asked, “Want to find a place to grab a bite and chat?”
“It’s too late, and I still need to get back to check on Xiao Wa.”
“Then I’ll walk you to the entrance of the complex.”
Mu Ning said nothing more and walked shoulder to shoulder with him toward the gate.
“Oh…” Jing Xuan seemed to think of something. “Forgot to tell you—I named those two cats.”
“What are their names?”
“Sephiroth and Cloud.”
“Which one is Sephiroth?”
“The orange tabby.”
Mu Ning nodded. “Makes sense. Sephiroth is the better-looking one.”
Jing Xuan chuckled softly.
Mu Ning glanced at him. “I forgot to tell you something too.”
“Yeah?”
“Jiang Junlin’s already married—did you not know? They’re already planning for a second kid.”
“…Every single post on his Moments is about food. How was I supposed to know?” Jing Xuan said in a low, muffled voice.
The moment they stepped out of the complex, even the night breeze seemed to feel a little fresher.
Other cities had already entered winter, but this city had finally settled into a relatively comfortable temperature. The wind brushed past her ears, reminding Mu Ning of spring nights in Chucheng.
Perhaps because the exhaustion from work was practically radiating off her, Jing Xuan looked at her several times. “You look a bit tired. Are you okay?”
Mu Ning let out a sigh. “Work is driving me insane.”
“You can tell me about it.”
“For Walle’s birthday card, our team lead originally assigned it to another copywriter she’d brought over from a different team. She sent out a draft on Thursday, and after the team evaluated it, we all felt the storyline wasn’t working—it was boring, and the character’s behavior felt greasy. If we actually shipped it like that, we’d definitely get dragged on the trending searches again. Our lead designer made the call to demand a rework, and Sister Gua—our team lead—handed the rewrite to me. I was already working on the Six-Star Red Wine Concept Card, which needs 8,000 to 10,000 characters of text, and now she’s shoved a 5,000-character Five-Star Card on top of that… And if I write it well, it’s expected; if I write it badly, I’m definitely taking the fall.”
Jing Xuan looked at her. “Do you need advice, or do you just need me to listen while you vent?”
“I need…”
“Yeah?”
A hug. One that didn’t involve anything else—just a hug that could give her a bit of support.
“It’s fine… I already feel better just getting it out. Tell me about your ‘root cause.'”
Jing Xuan lowered his head, his pace slowing, as if he could sense his own mood growing heavier in an instant.
Mu Ning said nothing, waiting patiently.
Finally, Jing Xuan raised a hand and rubbed his temple, then spoke. “Before, I had two very close friends—one guy, one girl. We lived in the same building, and from kindergarten all the way through high school, we went to the same school.”
“Basically childhood friends?”
“Yeah.”
Mu Ning nodded.
Jing Xuan continued. “The guy was Zhou Yihang, and the girl was Chen Yao. If it’s hard to remember, I can just call them A and B.”
“Which characters are those?”
“Yihang from ‘yī wěi yǐ háng’—the ‘yǐ’ and ‘háng’ in that phrase. Chen is ‘ěr dōng Chén,’ and Yao is ‘yǎo tiǎo’s yǎo.'”
“Got it. Go on.”
The three of them had been friends since they were in diapers. Having grown up together, they were friends, but also like family. Each of them developed their own social circles, but when it came to “best friends,” it was always the other two.
In high school, Zhou Yihang and Chen Yao got together.
Zhou Yihang had liked Chen Yao since middle school and had pursued her for three or four years. So even though one pair among the three friends becoming a couple meant the third person would inevitably get a bit neglected, Jing Xuan didn’t mind—he was happy to see his best friends find happiness.
Sometimes when Zhou Yihang and Chen Yao had conflicts and needed mediation, they’d also rely on Jing Xuan.
“Second semester of junior year, something happened in Chen Yao’s family—maybe I can’t tell you exactly what it was, because… it wasn’t very dignified, and it involves her family’s privacy.”
Mu Ning nodded. “That’s fine. Go on.”
“Because I happened to find out about it at the time—I was the only other person who knew besides Chen Yao—so whenever it came up and she was feeling down, she’d be more inclined to come to me to talk.”
In senior year, one Saturday night, Jing Xuan got a call from Chen Yao. She was crying the whole time, her words jumbled and incoherent. Worried, Jing Xuan went to her house, and only then learned that the undignified matter had finally blown up.
The monthly exam had just ended, and Chen Yao had done terribly. She’d also just had a fight with Zhou Yihang.
With multiple factors stacking up, Chen Yao’s emotions completely collapsed. So when she hugged him, Jing Xuan didn’t push her away—out of his position as her close friend and someone like an older brother.
Chen Yao cried and poured out a lot of her troubles—family, school, relationships… Maybe at this age, none of it would seem like a big deal, but she was only seventeen then, and every single thing was another straw on a dying camel’s back.
Then Chen Yao said she wanted to break up with Zhou Yihang.
When he asked why, she just cried. Later, Jing Xuan asked whether she wanted him to call Zhou Yihang over for a proper talk—if Zhou Yihang had done something wrong, he could help mediate.
It was unclear which exact words triggered the final breakdown of Chen Yao’s composure, but she sobbed uncontrollably, saying that Zhou Yihang had no flaws whatsoever—on the contrary, he was simply too good, too good, so saint-like that she was tormented by guilt every day, unable to eat or sleep in peace.
Finally, as if she could no longer hold it in, she said: “Jing Xuan, don’t you really understand? The person I truly like is you…”
Dramatically enough, after Zhou Yihang’s anger had subsided, he went upstairs to find Chen Yao and apologize—only to overhear those very words at the door.
It was utterly devastating.
Zhou Yihang broke up with Chen Yao and cut ties with Jing Xuan.
“…For nearly half a year, I didn’t say a single word to Chen Yao. My intention was to prove to Zhou Yihang through this that my feelings for Chen Yao were purely platonic, with not a trace of crossing boundaries. But I never expected…”
—Chen Yao, who had always been prone to depression but had hidden it from everyone, was tormented by the simultaneous estrangement of her two former close friends. Believing herself to be the culprit behind the severed friendship between Jing Xuan and Zhou Yihang, she couldn’t bear the compounded pain of guilt and nearly took her own life. Fortunately, her family discovered her in time, and no irreparable tragedy occurred.
If there had been even one villain in this matter, perhaps all three could have found some relief—but unfortunately, they were all genuinely good people.
If not for Chen Yao’s near-suicide, perhaps given more time, all the rifts could have been mended. But precisely because of that incident, everyone was tormented by deep guilt, to the point that even when they ran into each other in the hallway during holidays, they could only exchange wordless glances.
They had already been near the entrance of the residential complex for a while, but Mu Ning stopped under a tree, patiently waiting as Jing Xuan, coughing intermittently, finished recounting this past story.
“…How are they doing now?”
“Chen Yao is working in the UK and posts on Instagram frequently. She has a boyfriend there and seems to be doing well. Zhou Yihang is still studying in the US and will probably graduate next year.”
Mu Ning looked up at Jing Xuan: “‘You didn’t actually do anything wrong’—hasn’t that been said to you many times?”
“…Yeah. My parents have both said it.”
“Honestly, that kind of words is quite powerless. Not doing anything wrong doesn’t mean you won’t feel guilt, because so many things in matters of the heart can’t be simply categorized as ‘right’ or ‘wrong.'”
“Yeah.”
“I… I don’t know how to comfort you. Because if I were to be truly honest, I would also say that you weren’t at fault.”
Jing Xuan lowered his gaze and looked at her for a moment before saying: “They’re both doing well now. For me, this matter is more or less in the past. What I want to tell you is that I don’t like getting involved in overly complicated emotional entanglements—I’m afraid I won’t handle them well… In college, a girl from the same club deliberately fabricated some facts to provoke her boyfriend, which also caused me some trouble. All of that was too annoying, so to keep things peaceful, I’d rather be alone most of the time.”
“So… you really planned to ignore me for this whole week?”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t even ask to clarify things first.”
“Today I came to ask you to clarify…” Jing Xuan coughed twice, then let out a self-deprecating laugh. “But the moment I saw you appear at the entrance, I realized I’d rather treat you to a meal.”
“…What kind of impression do you have of me, exactly?”
“The image of someone who has a hundred fish in her pond and scoffs at every single one of them.”
Mu Ning didn’t know whether to laugh or cry: “Thank you for such a high compliment.”
Jing Xuan lowered his head slightly, looking at her more closely. “So, Teacher Mu, have you encountered many character archetypes?”
It was the question he had asked that night at the bar, which she hadn’t answered directly at the time.
So he really cared about it that much.
“…I have 100 fictional husbands, but as for real-life husbands—unfortunately, from childhood to now, zero.”
Even with a mask on, just by looking at Jing Xuan’s eyes alone, one could tell how deep his smile was at that moment.
After a full day of work, that damp, moldy feeling like the humid season—when exactly had it dissipated? Mu Ning couldn’t say.
“…What if I really am keeping a pond of fish?”
“Then I’m not entirely without competitiveness, am I?”
Her heart turned into a buoyant pink helium balloon again, making her feel light and airy as she served the next ball in this game: “Take off your mask and let me take a look—only then can I judge whether you have competitiveness.”
Jing Xuan actually reached up and pulled the loop off his left ear.
The wind began to flow too, stirring the tips of his ink-black hair. In his eyes, lowered to gaze at her, there was nothing but smile after smile.
“Do I?” he asked.