The silk sleep dress Xi Shi wore was very feminine—thin straps holding up a low neckline trimmed with lace, an open back, and a cut that accentuated her waist.
Her slightly damp hair slipped from her shoulders as she moved, and the thin-skinned areas like her neck and collarbones showed a fair complexion tinged with pink after her bath, a subtle fragrance wafting through the air. Yet her brows were tightly knit, her approach fierce.
It looked less like a threat and more like throwing herself into his arms.
Lin Youhe, whose shirt was being grabbed, paused for a moment, obediently letting himself be thrown into her arms…
Threatened.
The faint, warm breath from Xi Shi's lips and teeth fell near his ear, and Lin Youhe tilted his head slightly.
The sound of her shower with the bathroom door left open earlier had been alluring enough, and wearing nothing but a slip dress was certainly enough to bewitch anyone—but today was a particularly special day.
He still needed to keep some of his wits about him.
Lin Youhe knew very well that no matter what her motives were, Xi Shi wouldn't so easily bare her heart to an outsider.
He could sense that the moment she blurted out those words without restraint, she was already feeling regret.
Xi Shi seemed somewhat vexed. After a moment of silence, she finally released Lin Youhe's shirt and stepped back half a pace. The emotions in her eyes gradually grew clearer and more restrained, leaving only her chest rising and falling slightly.
The soft lace trim fluttered like butterfly wings, slowly opening and closing with her breaths.
Lin Youhe calmly withdrew his gaze from Xi Shi. "What exactly does Miss Xi mean by 'ulterior motives'…"
Xi Shi gradually regained her composure, suppressing the restless agitation and anxiety that had been charging around inside her.
She switched to an ambiguous, regretful tone, attempting to attribute her earlier loss of control to what had happened three days prior—
"It seems Mr. Lin doesn't have a very good memory."
Since moving in, Xi Shi had never cooked anything in this kitchen. The countertop was barren, holding only a pillbox and Lin Youhe's glass kettle filled with hot water.
Lin Youhe was indeed a man of steady emotions.
Even after being pushed against the wall and having his shirt wrinkled, he didn't lose his temper. He simply leaned obediently against the wall, pushed up his glasses, and quietly straightened his collar.
Perhaps recalling what had happened that night, he looked at her thoughtfully, in silence.
Xi Shi averted her gaze with a thousand turns of thought. "I thought I made myself quite clear that day. What, Mr. Lin now…"
She paused deliberately, then said with interest, "…are you regretting how conservative you were before?"
The honest man Lin Youhe said, "No, I understand what Miss Xi means."
Then if you understand, leave already.
Xi Shi dismissed him coolly. "How to take these medications should be written in the electronic medical records, right?"
Lin Youhe nodded. "It is."
Seeing that Lin Youhe still showed no sign of leaving, Xi Shi asked directly, "Doesn't Mr. Lin plan to go back to his own place?"
"I'm waiting for a delivery."
Lin Youhe pulled out his phone from his pants pocket, tapped it a few times, and said gently, "It should arrive soon…"
As if to confirm Lin Youhe's words, the doorbell at Xi Shi's place suddenly rang:
Ding-dong—ding-dong—
Lin Youhe walked out of the kitchen and opened the security door. Xi Shi heard him thank the delivery person politely: "Thank you, appreciate it."
Xi Shi assumed Lin Youhe had simply gone out of his way to order her something like dinner, and was prepared to casually toss out a few lines like "If you keep staying like this, I might start thinking Mr. Lin also has ulterior motives toward me" or "Is Mr. Lin planning to have something happen between us tonight?" to send him off.
She never expected Lin Youhe to walk back into the kitchen carrying an elegantly embossed cake box.
Lin Youhe set the cake box on the counter, opened it, and took out a small, delicate cake.
He said, "After thinking it over, a birthday should still have a cake."
How…
Xi Shi stared blankly at Lin Youhe.
Lin Youhe said softly, "I asked the doctor in advance. He said a little bit is fine."
Xi Shi remained silent.
Lin Youhe smiled gently. "Then I'll head back now."
Even after Lin Youhe picked up his long down coat from the entryway and left her apartment, Xi Shi hadn't uttered a single word.
She hadn't even bothered to look closely at the cake's design. At the sound of the door closing, she quickly turned and fled the kitchen, as if the cake were a ferocious beast with hands and feet that might chase after her and devour her…
Celebratory rituals like birthdays were extremely rare in Xi Shi's life.
When she was little, before her mother's whereabouts were known, every birthday her grandmother would miss her mother especially. Grandmother would boil a plain egg for Xi Shi and, with a distant, vacant smile, tell her over and over again the story of the day she was born.
After Xi Shi's mother was buried, her grandmother would take Xi Shi to sweep the grave on the date they'd received news of her mother—which happened to be the day before Xi Shi's birthday. The old woman, heartbroken with longing, would make the trip in the dead of winter, and upon returning, she'd always fall ill and have to lie in bed for several days before recovering her spirits.
Xi Shi's family had always been shrouded in an unshakable sorrow, and no one had the spare energy for romantic gestures.
For a time, Xi Shi even worried that her grandmother might suddenly leave her one day because she had lost her reason to hold on.
Although the birthday cake Lin Youhe bought wasn't large, its aroma drifted continuously from the kitchen—a sweet scent of chocolate and butterscotch.
The last time Xi Shi had eaten a proper cream birthday cake was back in middle school.
That year, in the lifeless existence Xi Shi and her grandmother shared, sealed up like a tin can, a splash of color finally appeared—
That summer, a new tenant moved in next door to Xi Shi's home—a gentle, fashionable auntie.
The auntie came knocking on Xi Shi's door with a gift in hand, apologetically explaining that she had been working abroad and had only recently returned to China, hoping to learn how to set up broadband and pay bills with her phone.
It was summer break, and Xi Shi had nothing but time on her hands. She was more than happy to help her new neighbor, who dressed boldly and stylishly.
As they grew closer over time, Xi Shi learned that the neighbor was a designer for an international lingerie brand.
On the neighbor's computer, Xi Shi watched models striding gracefully in beautiful lingerie—shocked, embarrassed, yet utterly captivated, unable to forget the sight.
She murmured to herself, "They're so beautiful."
She dragged her grandmother over to the neighbor's place to watch the lingerie fashion show together. Her grandmother stared wide-eyed, watching intently for a long time, then rubbed her wrinkled hands and sighed, "These girls are truly beautiful. We didn't have any of this in our day. Your mother's first bra was sewn by my own hands. Xiao Shi, if your mother could have worn clothes this nice, she would have been even more beautiful than them."
The neighbor auntie said, "You can wear them too!"
Her grandmother was horrified: "With these old bones of mine, I could never wear something like that!"
The neighbor auntie said, "Why not? I have a new design that would suit you perfectly."
Xi Shi felt that the neighbor auntie, who always wore high heels, was unlike any of the other neighbors. Curiosity got the better of her, and she asked why the auntie hadn't rented a place in a nicer neighborhood instead of living here.
The neighbor auntie named a famous noodle shop and said casually that she had moved here because she loved eating their noodles.
Xi Shi didn't think those noodles were all that good—at least, she wouldn't stay in this noisy, gossip-ridden dump just for a bowl of noodles.
She scribbled with a pen on paper: "When I make money someday, I'm not living here. I'm taking Grandma to live in a fancy neighborhood."
But the neighbor auntie looked at the patterns on the paper: "Xi Shi, you really have talent."
Xi Shi turned her head: "Huh?"
The neighbor auntie let out a pleased sigh: "Aesthetic sense isn't something everyone is born with, you know."
A few days later, Xi Shi began learning design from the neighbor auntie, who also found her a reputable art studio to study the fundamentals of drawing.
Xi Shi began to have dreams, expectations, and beautiful visions of the future.
On her birthday, the neighbor auntie gave Xi Shi a cake. Heart racing, Xi Shi gazed at the flickering flames and made a wish: "I want to become an excellent lingerie designer, creating beautiful, comfortable, and healthy undergarments."
Her grandmother added, "They should be durable too. The quality of things these days is terrible."
So Xi Shi added loudly, "They should be durable too!"
The year Xi Shi entered high school, the neighbor auntie bid farewell to Xi Shi and her grandmother, returning abroad to handle work and personal matters, promising to come back and visit them if she ever had the chance.
On the way back from seeing her off, Xi Shi and her grandmother received a sales flyer for Jinyue Jingyuan No. 1 while walking down the bustling street.
She said, "I'm going to work abroad someday too, and save up to buy Grandma a nice house like this."
Her grandmother squinted through her presbyopic eyes at the flyer: "Jin what… Jin tree what garden."
Grandmother said, "Xiao Shi! Is this a botanical garden?"
Her grandmother didn't hear well.
Xi Shi raised her voice: "No! It's a fancy residence! A big house!"
After all these years, her grandmother finally seemed to find something to look forward to: "Oh, then I'd better live a long, healthy life so I can wait for Xiao Shi to make money and buy a big house."
Outside the window, the honking of cars on the nearby streets merged with the sounds of the bustling roads in her memories.
Xi Shi unconsciously curled her knees up to her chest.
Just a little more…
And they could have been happy.
On the morning of her seventeenth birthday, when she left the house, Xi Shi thought it was just an ordinary, unremarkable day.
That day, Xi Shi lost her sketches. She asked her deskmate, and she asked the classmate in front of her.
They all said they hadn't seen them.
Xi Shi never showed her sketches to anyone else.
She had been designing a birthday gift for her grandmother those days, which was why she carried them with her every day.
The next day, during the break after the first afternoon class, math formulas still covered the blackboard, and the heat and drowsy sleepiness hung over the entire classroom.
She lay groggily on her desk, worrying about where on earth she could have dropped her sketches.
Suddenly, a tearing pain shot up from her scalp.
Before Xi Shi could even react, she heard the boy at her desk shout in terror: "Who the hell are you!"
It wasn't until she fell from her chair that Xi Shi, through the pain of the impact, sluggishly realized what had happened:
Someone had grabbed her by the hair and thrown her to the ground.
Xi Shi stood up with the help of her classmates.
A face caked in heavy makeup aggressively swung a stack of papers at her head and body, striking her several times, before finally slamming the bundle onto the desk as Xi Shi's classmates tried to intervene.
A few of the sketches flew out from the force of the impact, and the strange woman shrieked, "So you're the one seducing my son!"
The classmates looked on in bewilderment, and Xi Shi was stunned by the sudden assault.
After a long, dazed moment, the usually quiet and reserved girl flushed red and tried to calmly refute, "I haven't done anything. Who are you? I don't even know you."
The woman sneered, "You haven't?"
Then she swept all the sketches off the desk with a single motion.
The drawings depicting beautiful, graceful curves of the human body fell to the floor alongside sketches of lingerie designs.
The sketches were met with a brief silence and a few whispered murmurs.
Xi Shi scrambled to pick them up, "Don't step on them!"
They were the product of her painstaking effort, drawn stroke by stroke—including a design for her grandmother's birthday gift.
But the woman kicked at the papers, saying, "Let everyone get to know your classmate properly. Her name is Xi Shi, and she's the kind of slut who sends things like this to boys."
Xi Shi trembled with rage, clutching a few sketches as she tried to reason with the inexplicable woman before her. The two grappled with each other until a teacher rushed over to pull them apart—
"Parent!"
"Let go!"
"Please calm down!"
…
The sounds of classes drifted in from the hallway. Xi Shi stood at the office door, her hair disheveled, and amid the cicadas' chirping and the sound of reading aloud, she heard the woman's furious shouting and desk-slamming accusations.
The woman spoke with agitation, "I, Shen Meiyan, have never seen such a shameless student! Is this what your school and your class produce? Huh?! Teacher Chen, I give you this amount every year—not so my son can be seduced by a student like this at school!"
Xi Shi had no idea what was going on. After listening for a long while, she only managed to understand that the woman named Shen Meiyan was the mother of a male classmate.
While cleaning the house, Shen Meiyan had discovered Xi Shi's sketches and her son's diary—full of romantic feelings—under the boy's pillow.
The commotion in the office went on for a long time, until eventually Xi Shi was called in.
Chen Lintian, his face dark and grim, questioned Xi Shi, "Xi Shi, did you draw these?"
Xi Shi nodded.
Chen Lintian asked again, "And did you give them to someone?"
After all, Chen Lintian was Xi Shi's homeroom teacher.
Even though he was the kind of teacher who often showed up to class reeking of alcohol, arrived late to morning lessons, and had students who weren't studying fetch his breakfast from the cafeteria to eat at the lectern, Xi Shi had still believed that her homeroom teacher would surely stand up for her.
The tears she had been holding back suddenly became impossible to contain.
She shook her head, sobbing, "No, my sketches went missing yesterday. I never gave them to anyone."
The woman shot up from her seat and pointed at Xi Shi's nose, "Are you saying my son is a thief? Say that again!"
Chen Lintian, growing impatient, called for Shen Meiyan's son to come and confront her face to face.
Xi Shi had barely ever spoken to the boy. She thought, aggrieved, that at last the truth would come to light.
The boy, red-faced, kept his head lowered, "The sketches… Xi Shi gave them to me."
Xi Shi stared at him in disbelief, a brief ringing filling her ears.
The teachers' office wasn't very spacious; every desk was piled high with thick stacks of test papers or books.
All she remembered was Chen Lintian continuously pushing her from behind, forcing her to bow and apologize to Shen Meiyan and her son, shoving her so hard she nearly knocked over another teacher's books.
Chen Lintian wanted to smooth things over and make the problem disappear, and his tone even carried a hint of earnest persuasion—
"Look, you pick a time like this to cause trouble—how am I supposed to get my teaching evaluation? And it won't look good for you either. Just admit your mistake quickly and get back to class, alright?"
Shen Meiyan was far from satisfied with this resolution. "Teacher Chen! An apology isn't enough. She needs to write me a written guarantee—if my child ends up with any psychological issues in the future, her family takes responsibility. Full responsibility."
Then she added, "And Teacher Chen shouldn't just be concerned with having a brilliant son studying abroad…"
Chen Lintian couldn't very well lash out at a parent, so he pushed Xi Shi again, "Hey, of course, of course. Xi Shi, did you hear me? Write the guarantee. What are you glaring at? Who told you to give this kind of thing to a male classmate?"
Seventeen-year-old Xi Shi had no idea how to read the room or show weakness. Trembling all over, she wiped away her tears and looked defiantly at Chen Lintian, who smelled of alcohol, "I didn't do it! I never gave it to anyone! The one who should apologize is the person who stole my sketches, the person who slandered me, the person who hit me—and you."
She was deeply wronged, "You don't believe your own student and only care about your evaluation. You're not fit to be a homeroom teacher."
Those words enraged Chen Lintian. He hurled a thick stack of lesson plans at Xi Shi, "I'm not fit?"
After smashing it, he also fanned a book over Xi Shi's head. "I'm not worthy? Are you worthy, huh?"
Chen Lintian cursed under his breath. "Drawing something like this and expecting people to believe you—have you no shame?!"
Xi Shi clutched her forehead, still refusing to admit fault.
Chen Lintian said, "You go on back. I'll call this student's parents over to resolve the matter."
"Should've called the parents long ago."
Shen Meiyan sent her son off to class, then left the office complaining about Xi Shi's upbringing and her never-seen parents.
Chen Lintian actually started flipping through the class contact directory.
Xi Shi suddenly panicked: "Teacher, my grandmother is sick. Teacher, I'm begging you, please don't call my grandmother!"
……
"Teacher, I beg you, my grandmother really is ill."
"I'll write a letter of self-criticism. It was my fault."
"Teacher, teacher, please, I'm begging you."
……
"Get lost!"
Chen Lintian shoved Xi Shi aside, then walked out with the class directory and his phone.
Chen Lintian locked Xi Shi in the office from the outside, and amid Xi Shi's pleas, dialed her home landline number.
If only that call hadn't gone through…
These memories often resurfaced in Xi Shi's nightmares. Thinking of Chen Lintian and Shen Meiyan's faces, Xi Shi completely calmed down.
Xi Shi got up and pushed open the door to the second bedroom, gazing sorrowfully at the urn on the windowsill.
They had indeed moved into the upscale residential area, except reality was worlds apart from what they had originally envisioned.
Xi Shi pressed her forehead against the plain, cold ceramic surface and closed her eyes.
A moment later, she re-donned her impenetrable armor of painted skin.
Just as Xi Shi was pondering how to use the pretext of repaying the medical fees and cake money to re-strategize her approach to the target, a knock suddenly came from the entryway.
That unhurried, steady knocking could only be Lin Youhe.
Amid the knocking, Xi Shi closed the door to the second bedroom, returned to the sofa in the living room, and kept watch over her phone.
After the knocking stopped, the phone indeed rang—
[Open the door.]
Xi Shi's expression was subtle.
About a minute later, the phone rang again:
[Sorry, I'm about to enter the code myself.]
With the beeping sound of the code being entered, the door unlocked, and Xi Shi watched Lin Youhe stride in.
His gaze searched and found Xi Shi sitting safely on the sofa, and Lin Youhe seemed to let out a breath of relief.
He smiled and said, "I thought Miss Xi wasn't feeling well again. Sorry—I hope I didn't startle you by barging in like this?"
Xi Shi thought, she was the one who should be apologizing.
She put on an expression similar to the one she'd worn days ago when talking about her mother, looking up at Lin Youhe from the sofa: "Teacher Lin."
Lin Youhe quietly scanned Xi Shi's face for two or three seconds, then let out a barely audible sigh.
The main light in the living room wasn't on, and Xi Shi couldn't quite make out Lin Youhe's expression.
She knew she'd been erratic, and wasn't sure if he could still let bygones be bygones, so she said thoughtfully, "I've been in a bad mood today, and I didn't say very nice things…"
She paused, then added, "Are you angry with me?"
Lin Youhe took a few steps toward the sofa, standing with lowered eyelids within the glow of the floor lamp.
He didn't answer along her line of questioning, but instead asked, "Does Miss Xi know what time it is?"
Xi Shi instinctively glanced at the wall clock.
Eight thirty-seven.
Lin Youhe extended his hand to Xi Shi with a gentle expression: "I just finished cooking birthday noodles. Come over and eat together."
Xi Shi didn't hesitate. Silently and obediently, she placed her hand in Lin Youhe's palm and followed him to his place.
Lin Youhe's home still carried that warm sense of everyday life. On the dining table sat the birthday cake they'd just brought over and two steaming bowls of birthday noodles, and the roses on the coffee table were blooming as vibrantly as they had three days ago.
After all the twists and turns, she still had to keep weaving this web.
Lin Youhe bore no grudges at all: "Have a seat."
Xi Shi sat down, touched the emerald-green bok choy and the poached egg in her bowl with the tip of her chopsticks, and discovered that hidden beneath the noodles were two scallion-scored abalones and a handsome cut of pork rib.
Holding her chopsticks, Xi Shi looked at Lin Youhe.
Lin Youhe said with a smile, "My parents used to make birthday noodles like this for me. Their skills were far better than mine. Kneading, rolling, and stretching the dough was my dad's job, and my mom would personally simmer the broth. The two of them would bustle around the kitchen for half a day just to make me a bowl of birthday noodles."
This was the first time Xi Shi had heard Lin Youhe mention his family. His parents must have had a very loving relationship—that was probably why he was so fixated on stable romantic connections, right?
Lin Youhe said he was barely managing to copy the recipe—the noodles were store-bought handmade ones, and the broth only had lard and light soy sauce and such for seasoning. He urged Xi Shi to taste it while it was hot and see if it suited her palate.
Xi Shi took a slow bite: "It tastes wonderful."
The toppings in this bowl of noodles were almost too generous, and the portion was large. By the time she got to the second half of the bowl, Xi Shi's pace slowed somewhat, yet the blood in her body seemed to flow more freely.
The unfortunate part was that she hadn't eaten properly in a while, and the feeling now was a bit like the precursor to carb-crash drowsiness.
Xi Shi planned to settle this quickly while her mind was still clear. "Teacher Lin, you still haven't answered my earlier question."
Lin Youhe, who had been quietly eating his noodles, set down his chopsticks, dabbed the corner of his mouth with a napkin, and then looked seriously at Xi Shi. "I'm not angry with you. If I were in your shoes, I wouldn't be in a good mood these past few days either. You've been very strong—so strong that watching you always makes me worry."
Xi Shi took a few seconds to react, then guessed that Lin Youhe was probably referring to the fact that her mother's death anniversary fell right next to her birthday.
His heart is really soft.
She smiled and blinked at him. "Then I'm relieved."
Lin Youhe said, "After all, you just got out of the hospital. Once we finish the cake, you should head back early and rest."
Lin Youhe tapped the flashlight function on his phone, then turned it face-down on the table.
He stood up and turned off the lights in the house one by one, walking back to the dining room through the dimness.
Xi Shi wasn't looking forward to the candle-blowing part. Suppressing her inner resistance, she kept a smile on her face as she watched Lin Youhe pull a metal lighter from the drawer of the sideboard.
Click—a flame leapt up from the lighter, and Lin Youhe used it to light the candles on the cake.
The phone flashlight was switched off, and in the darkness, only the flames on the candles flickered.
Lin Youhe said, "Make a wish."
Xi Shi closed her eyes briefly, then opened them with a deliberately cheerful expression, turning her head to say, "Done!"
Xi Shi hadn't expected Lin Youhe to be standing right beside her dining chair, one hand on the table and the other on the back of her chair, leaning down to look at her.
When she turned her head, she nearly bumped into his jaw.
The dining room suddenly fell silent. Xi Shi met Lin Youhe's gaze in the wavering candlelight.
Xi Shi didn't understand why every time she locked eyes with Lin Youhe, all sorts of messy thoughts sprang up in her mind. Her throat felt dry and itchy, and for a moment she couldn't tear her gaze away, so she just kept staring at him.
By the time her breathing had started to grow unsteady, she finally heard Lin Youhe tease her with a laugh in his voice: "Making a wish means you have to blow out the candles. Just staring at me won't do anything."
Xi Shi kept her eyes fixed on him. "Won't it?"
Lin Youhe raised an eyebrow.
Xi Shi began to study the bridge of his nose and his lips. "What if you're the only one who can make it come true?"
Candle flames danced in both his glasses and his eyes as he held Xi Shi's gaze with full attention. "May I ask what kind of wish Miss Xi made?"
Xi Shi hadn't made any wish at all.
What she wanted to say was even more blatant.
But today she had grabbed his collar, pinned him against the wall, and snarled some harsh words at him. Their relationship had only just started to ease…
Xi Shi turned her carbon-dizzy mind over slowly and fabricated a reply: "Of course, I hope Teacher Lin will be magnanimous and forgive my rudeness, and I also hope Teacher Lin will keep his promise and save me an invitation to the New Year's Eve gala."
Lin Youhe said, "I will."
The conversation didn't interrupt their close-range eye contact. The flame on the candle, nearly burned to its end, flickered violently, making the carbon-dizzy Xi Shi even dizzier.
She pressed her lips together, almost tempted to ask Lin Youhe whether he was looking at her so tenderly because he really did want to go back on his word and sleep with her in a way that was anything but innocent.
The candle burned out with a soft "puff" and went dark.
The dining room plunged into darkness in an instant, and the scorched cream gave off a thicker, sweeter scent.
Xi Shi's heart gave a hard thump when the candle went out, because she sensed Lin Youhe drawing closer.
The fabric of his shirt brushed against her shoulder—light and ticklish—and then the dining room lights suddenly came on.
Xi Shi saw that Lin Youhe had reached past her to turn on the lights. She frowned silently and shifted away.
Lin Youhe seemed to misunderstand the meaning of her frown and explained, "Miss Xi, rest assured. I truly understood what you said that day. I won't pester you."
Xi Shi's brow furrowed even more tightly.
Lin Youhe smiled, gentle and pure. "But I think, since we're already so familiar with each other, and we're neighbors—even if we don't develop any other kind of relationship, there shouldn't be anything wrong with caring for each other, looking out for each other, or occasionally having a meal together, right?"