Mu Ning had previously shared a rental with Meng Meng—a small two-bedroom in an old residential complex, perfectly suited to their meager salaries as fresh graduates.
Later, when Meng Meng’s company relocated and they ended their co-rental arrangement, Mu Ning, wanting to keep things simple, rented a single room in a chain-brand apartment building. Disliking the idea of sharing a bathroom with others, she gritted her teeth and paid an extra 700 yuan for a private en-suite.
At first, every month was a tight squeeze. But after receiving her year-end bonus and a standard salary raise, she’d built up a small nest egg and began to feel grateful for her earlier wise decision.
At this moment, she was even more grateful—otherwise, where would she have the space to be a bathroom diva without worrying about disturbing the neighbors?
She was actually a pretty good singer, equally at home with English and Japanese songs. Right now, she couldn’t help humming the slightly dated pop hit “Lemon.”
After her shower, she returned to the bedroom, opened up her various bottles and jars, and went through her hit-or-miss skincare routine.
Her phone screen lit up.
As she picked it up, facial recognition unlocked it, and Jing Xuan’s avatar floated up in her WeChat list.
“X: I’m home.”
Mu Ning did the math—roughly 25 minutes had passed.
“morning: You live that far away?”
“X: I walked.”
“morning: Still walking off your dinner?”
“X: No.”
“X: Sorting out my feelings.”
“morning: Feeling down?”
“X: Feeling too good.”
Mu Ning caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, smiling in a way that was a little too cheap.
She wanted to reply: Teacher Jing, do you know your online vibe really gives off major player energy?
“morning: Get washed up and rest soon?”
“X: /ValeriusOK”
Mu Ning lay down on the bed. Even though it was already late, she still had to patrol the new posts under her latest ship’s tag on Lofter before she could sleep.
Tonight she exercised some restraint—only scrolled for half an hour.
“Little Val, good night, I’m turning off the lights?”
The kitten, curled up in the transparent bowl-shaped cat bed at the top of the cat tree, graciously let out a “mew.”
The room went dark.
Mu Ning set a reminder to ship the item to her Xianyu buyer tomorrow, checked her alarm, and was about to lock her phone when she couldn’t resist tapping on Jing Xuan’s WeChat avatar again.
Was it appropriate to send “good night”? She didn’t know.
After a moment’s hesitation, she decided against it.
She exited, noticed a red dot on the “Discover” tab, and tapped in—only to find it was just a mutual-like notification for a colleague she’d liked earlier that day. Seriously, when would Zhang Xiaolong finally get rid of this useless feature?
Just as she was about to exit, she saw the Moments feed auto-refresh, and Jing Xuan’s avatar appeared.
Mu Ning froze.
Five minutes ago.
He’d shared a song from NetEase Cloud Music.
“Are You Still Up” — J Jackson
A song with only a dozen or so comments. She tapped in, and a female voice softly spoke: “Are You Still Up?”
Then came serene instrumentation, mixed with the sound of rain and thunder.
Mu Ning couldn’t help but turn onto her side, curling up, pressing her knees against her stomach to ease that palpitation in her chest.
—Are You Still Up?
—Yes.
Two days later, Mu Ning and Jing Xuan arranged a “quick and simple” dinner near the office park on a workday, so Jing Xuan could hand over the signed shikishi board.
This time, they skipped the chicken soup rice and went to a different place.
Mu Ning was held up by work and rushed to the restaurant, arriving fifteen minutes late.
Jing Xuan had naturally arrived first, seated at the table in the back, but facing the entrance—so she saw him the moment she walked in.
His phone was in landscape mode, seemingly playing some game. The instant she pushed open the door, he lifted his gaze from the screen to look at her.
Mu Ning quickened her pace: “Sorry, sorry—I was going over revision requests with the art team, got a bit delayed.”
“No problem.”
Mu Ning sat down across from him and first scanned the QR code with her phone. “Have you ordered yet?”
“Not yet.”
Mu Ning quickly selected her usual smoked salmon quinoa rice and mint lemon tea. Seeing Jing Xuan about to close out his game and turn his phone upright, she handed her phone—still on the ordering page—over to him. “Let’s order together.”
Jing Xuan said okay and took the phone.
“But I need to state something upfront.”
Jing Xuan looked at her. “Hmm?”
“Transfer me your share later. This meal doesn’t count as me treating you. It’s too cheap.”
Jing Xuan smiled. “Okay.”
He’d apparently eaten here before too, and quickly made his selections before handing the phone back.
Mu Ning glanced at the order screen. Jing Xuan had ordered a beef salad, an iced Americano, and a slice of yuzu cheesecake.
“Drinking coffee now—won’t you have trouble sleeping tonight?” Mu Ning asked.
“Build goes out tomorrow. I’ll probably be up all night anyway.”
Mu Ning let out a sigh, unable to help feeling a sense of shared plight—though her salary was hardly worthy of sympathizing with a producer big shot whose annual income could trigger the highest tax bracket. “We’re switching to a six-day workweek starting next week, until the next major version update.”
Jing Xuan chuckled. “Should we shake hands?”
“Mutual encouragement to get through this?”
Mu Ning extended her hand.
Jing Xuan paused for a moment, then raised his hand, but only grasped the front half of her four fingers, giving them a light shake before letting go.
Mu Ning picked up her glass and lowered her gaze to sip her lemon water.
Her ears were burning, and so were her fingertips. She used every ounce of her strength to act as if nothing was wrong.
If they kept sitting in silence, the atmosphere would inevitably turn awkward, so Mu Ning asked, “Were you just playing a game?”
“No. XXX released the PV for their new project.”
“The one that copies Stardew Valley?”
Jing Xuan smiled and hummed in affirmation.
“How’s the quality?”
“I think it’s mediocre.”
The video hadn’t even been closed yet—Jing Xuan simply turned his phone around in his hand and handed it to her.
A very light, effortless motion. She guessed he was probably a master pen-spinner during his school days.
Mu Ning took it, dragged the progress bar back to the beginning, and pressed play.
The PV was about a minute and thirty-something seconds long, with a simple gameplay demonstration. The character models were unremarkable, and the art style had nothing particularly eye-catching about it.
When there were about ten seconds left, Mu Ning paused the video.
She looked up, and happened to meet Jing Xuan’s gaze.
His brow bone was sharply defined, casting his eyes into a small patch of shadow where the light was blocked. He didn’t have an aggressive face, but at this moment, his gaze carried a certain sharpness born of focus.
As if he’d been watching her for a while.
Mu Ning panicked instantly, thrusting the phone forward. “Um… I’m done watching.”
Jing Xuan withdrew his gaze, nodded, and took his phone back.
Then his slender fingers picked up the glass, took a sip of water, glanced at her again, and said, “Does Teacher Mu’s work usually require makeup?”
Heat rushed to her face, adding fuel to the fire of her already burning ears.
“…Our planning team has a rotating design-sharing session, and it was my turn today, so I tidied up a bit.”
She was wearing a dress today—a dress she’d thought wouldn’t see the light of day until her next shopping trip with Meng Meng. Even now, when she went shopping with Meng Meng, she only had the patience to throw on a bit of makeup two out of five times.
She was around 165 centimeters tall, but because she had a small frame and little chest fat, she looked thin and tall even though she wasn’t exactly light. She wore a black spaghetti-strap dress, layered with a loose, light-blue commuter-style shirt.
She had fancier outfits than this, but every meeting with Jing Xuan had been sudden. That time they had chicken soup rice together, she’d assumed she was only picking up a charger and wouldn’t have much further contact, so even though she’d considered dressing up more nicely, she’d talked herself out of it.
So, a white T-shirt with everything—that was probably the entire impression she’d left on Jing Xuan until today.
A complete overhaul would be too deliberate.
“I see.” Jing Xuan nodded, his eyes dropping as he took another sip of water.
His eyelashes were long, and with his eyes lowered like that, he had a pitiful, innocent look like a puppy.
It made her want to impulsively admit: Yes, yes, it’s for you, I even curled my eyelashes for ages.
Before long, the server brought their food.
Mu Ning took a sip of her mint lemon tea first, then saw Jing Xuan slide the yuzu cheesecake that had been placed in front of him over to her.
“…You ordered this for me?”
“Yeah. My treat.”
“Why?”
Jing Xuan seemed stumped by the question. He raised a hand to lightly touch the tip of his nose, then finally said in a give-up tone, “Just felt like treating you.”
Mu Ning laughed.
Because they were in the same industry, because they shared similar interests, because only a tiny patch of their mutual curiosity map had been lit up, they talked from start to finish, stretching what should have been a thirty-minute workday quick meal into a full hour.
It wasn’t until they had to get back to the grind that they finally ended the dinner.
The two stood up and walked out of the restaurant. Mu Ning thought of something and paused. “Almost forgot the important thing again—did you bring the shikishi board?”
“You can forget it one more time.”
Mu Ning blinked, not knowing how to respond. A breeze blew past, and she hurriedly tucked a strand of hair that had fallen across her cheek.
Then she heard Jing Xuan say, “I brought it.”
It had rained the past couple of days, bringing a slight drop in temperature.
Jing Xuan had a very thin black workwear jacket draped over his arm. He reached into the pocket and pulled out the shikishi board.
The back was already signed—a gleaming gold “Jing Xuan,” with the vertical stroke of “Jing” drawn a bit long, giving the whole thing a casual, free-spirited look.
Mu Ning looked up at him and said with a smile, “Why didn’t you give me a personalized signature?”
“Then I’ll take it back and add one, and give it to you next time.”
With that, he slipped the shikishi board back out from between her fingers.
“Hey…” Mu Ning laughed helplessly. “You…”
“Hm?”
When he spoke to her, he would always incline his head slightly to accommodate her height, his voice low and resonant, sending her heart racing with nervous flutters.
“…I should get back to work.” Mu Ning stepped back half a pace and turned around.
Her ears caught a soft chuckle from Jing Xuan.
The lights in the buildings around the campus had all come on, and the evening breeze blew more frequently. Weather this pleasant and comfortable was a rare treat.
As they climbed the stairs, Jing Xuan’s phone vibrated.
He unlocked it and glanced at the screen—nothing important, could wait until he got back to the office.
When he looked up again, Mu Ning had already walked ahead, standing two steps above him.
Her figure was slim and light, the wind catching her ankle-length skirt and the hem of her shirt jacket. It made one think of a kaleidoscope in the night.
This time, they were dining on the other side, so Building C came first.
Mu Ning stopped in her tracks, about to speak.
A wave of off-duty workers streamed through the turnstiles, and a female voice greeted Mu Ning: “Heading back for overtime?”
It was Nangua, the UI designer from their team. Mu Ning smiled and nodded.
Nangua glanced at Jing Xuan beside her and asked with a grin: “Is this the official commissioned artist for next week’s comic convention? Cosplaying who?”
“No, no, he’s just a friend.”
That was about as much small talk as colleagues needed. Nangua nodded. “I’ll head off then, bye.”
“Bye.”
Once the crowd had passed, Mu Ning turned to Jing Xuan. “…I’ll head up then.”
Jing Xuan nodded, then added: “The BR expo next week?”
“Yeah. Does your company have an official booth?”
“The marketing team handles that; I haven’t paid attention.” Jing Xuan paused. “Want to go?”
“I only get one day off a week, and next Sunday is my only free day… let me check…” Mu Ning pulled out her phone and looked at her calendar. “I might not be able to make it. A friend of mine is coming over on Sunday, so I might need to host them.”
Jing Xuan nodded and said, “Okay.”
To boost revenue and daily active users, operations decided that in addition to Valerius’s regular birthday banner event, they would add an in-game collaboration with a high-end red wine brand—and make it a recurring feature for future male lead birthday events.
Mu Ning couldn’t help but vent to Sister Hua, her former lead writer who had moved to a big tech company: “I seriously think our game is doomed. They’ve already started swinging the big scythe to harvest the leeks.”
The collaboration event created resource demands for two additional cards: one six-star Concept Card for the gacha pool, and one four-star free event card as an activity reward.
This was also why their two-day weekend had been cut to one.
Every team was grumbling, and the art team reacted especially strongly—otome games were already a genre heavily reliant on art. To keep the art leads obediently working to spec, Mu Ning had to swallow her pride and placate them.
A mountain of miscellaneous tasks piled up. For an entire week, Mu Ning didn’t leave work until past ten. By the time she got home and tidied up, it was nearly midnight before she could exchange a few words with Jing Xuan on WeChat. Even their meal dates had to be squeezed into lunch breaks—half an hour to eat and then straight back to the office.
Keeping men and women of marriageable age with no time to date, no energy for intimacy, and driving marriage and birth rates to such lows—that must be the capitalists’ blessing to society at large.
On Sunday, Jiang Junlin, the senior who had originally referred Mu Ning for her internship at the game company, came for an interview and arranged to have dinner with Mu Ning and Meng Meng.
Since Jiang Junlin’s interview was at the campus, Mu Ning slept in until ten, got ready, went to the office, finished up the work she hadn’t completed the night before, and waited for him to finish his interview so they could head to the restaurant at the mall.
Around 11:30, Jiang Junlin’s interview concluded.
Jiang Junlin had actually lost weight since the last time they met. When asked, he said his wife was giving him grief—she wanted a second child, but he needed to lose ten pounds first.
From there, the conversation branched out, and over the course of the meal, Mu Ning and Meng Meng harvested a wealth of industry gossip, eating it all up with great satisfaction.
The senior said the interview had gone well. As they parted ways, Mu Ning wished him luck in getting the offer: “When you get promoted to lead designer, remember to pull me up.”
Jiang Junlin chuckled and said, “Of course, of course.”
Finally, she handed over the gift for the senior’s two-year-old: a Harry Potter-themed LEGO set she’d ordered the day before yesterday with next-day delivery.
Mu Ning was well-liked by everyone, likely thanks to being a chaotic-good omnivore who was unflappable about anyone or anything, with an open-minded attitude—and secrets that went in but never came out.
In the afternoon, Mu Ning went shopping with Meng Meng, bought a new outfit, skipped dinner, and went home to catch up on sleep.
She slept from three to seven in the evening, ordered takeout, and sent Jing Xuan a message.
“morning: Are you free next Sunday? I’ll treat you to a meal~”
Jing Xuan would reply instantly if he wasn’t busy; if he was too busy to respond right away, he’d always follow up with an explanation at the earliest opportunity.
While waiting for his reply, Mu Ning couldn’t help scrolling back through her chat history with Jing Xuan, like opening a candy jar filled to the brim with sweetness.
Perhaps they were chocolate liqueurs, because every single one left her feeling slightly tipsy.
The chat history wasn’t long—she’d read through all of it. Mu Ning switched out of the app, planning to find something else to do, when she saw Jing Xuan had replied.
“X: Sorry. I have plans next Sunday.”
“morning: What about the week after?”
“X: Not sure yet. Probably won’t have time either.”
“morning: Okay~ let’s see then~”
Although emotions inevitably get distorted in online chats, the perception of coldness versus warmth is probably never mistaken.
Mu Ning felt a sudden “thud” in her heart, like hearing bad news.
From then until Tuesday, Mu Ning didn’t receive a single proactive message from Jing Xuan.
She was terrified, but still mustered the courage to test it—she invited him to lunch near the park tomorrow, and was again politely but coldly declined.
That evening, she got home from work exhausted, in a terrible mood, and couldn’t help but call Meng Meng to ask her to help review the situation.
After listening, Meng Meng was equally baffled: “Sounds like you didn’t do anything wrong? Are you sure you didn’t miss any details?”
“Really, I didn’t. I showed you all my chat logs.”
“Is he maybe seeing someone else…”
Mu Ning stayed silent.
“Why not just ask him directly?”
“Forget it… that would be too tactless.”
Meng Meng was at a loss too: “With skin that thin, you’ll never land a good-looking guy in real life. Any guy with even a bit of looks has long been spoiled by the opposite sex. You should just stick to your 2D characters—like that Valer… whatever you wrote.”
“I need to seriously correct you.”
“Hm?”
“Valerius is someone I created—basically my son. Who dates their own son…”
“…”
A week that was busy, exhausting, and irritating finally passed.
On Saturday, when she got off work at 10:30, Mu Ning’s “will to live” had hit rock bottom. She had ten thousand impulses to set the entire building on fire.
But in the end, she just dragged her heavy, silent footsteps toward the entrance, expressionless.
Passing between Building C and Building B, two familiar cats meowed and circled around her.
Mu Ning instinctively looked up at the bench ahead. No one was there.
“…You two have good noses.”
Mu Ning sighed, crouched down, and pulled out the pill-feeding gadget “Churu Pocket” her colleague had recommended.
Tuna flavor—the moment she squeezed it out, they eagerly curled their tongues and snatched it from her palm.
One orange tabby, one tortoiseshell. Probably fed often, they were plump and sturdy.
Mu Ning patted each of their heads: “Have you two seen Brother Jing Xuan lately?”
The cats just focused on gobbling their food.
“Did he give you names? …Never mind, I’ll name you. You’re Xiao Nuo, and you’re Xiao Liu… no wait, orange tabby, you’re the better-looking one, so you’re Xiao Liu. Let me explain—I can’t call you Xiao Wa because Xiao Wa already belongs to a cat.”
The orange tabby and tortoiseshell kept eating happily, as if she could call them “poop” and they wouldn’t care.
Mu Ning rested her chin on her knees, squeezing the little treats out of the strip pouch one by one: “Since you’ve eaten my food, can you do me a favor?”
No one answered, but she continued talking to herself: “Next time you see Brother Jing Xuan, ask him why he suddenly stopped talking to me. I didn’t do anything wrong…”
The phone in her hand lit up with a WeChat notification.
Mu Ning unlocked her phone and opened WeChat.
Her heart skipped a beat.
Jing Xuan’s profile picture surfaced.
She looked down at “Xiao Nuo” and “Xiao Liu” and said in surprise: “You two aren’t secretly employed by the Temple of Yonghe, are you?”
Then, holding her breath, she looked at the message below his name.
“X: Cats can’t talk. Just ask me directly.”
Mu Ning looked up in shock, her gaze sweeping around. Without much effort, she spotted a figure under the tree to her right rear.
A person dressed all in black, wearing an extra black mask, blending into the night like they had stealth mode activated.
Had he heard everything she said?
Mu Ning didn’t know which emotion was stronger—embarrassment or hurt. Her only reaction was to look away, staring intently at the ground.
Footsteps approached her and stopped at her side.
The next moment, he crouched down too.