Hearing that he still didn't have a girlfriend, Xu Yumo was briefly stunned, a trace of disbelief creeping into her heart.
After all, back in high school, the girls who liked him could form a line from the teaching building all the way to the playground.
So many years had passed, and she'd instinctively assumed there was no way he'd ever be short of company.
"…Oh." Xu Yumo responded dryly, at a loss for how to follow up on that.
The car fell into a subtle stillness, broken only by the faint hum of the engine and the dim blue glow of the dashboard.
To mask the sudden awkwardness, Xu Yumo lowered her head and habitually pulled out her phone, opening her Moments and letting her fingertip scroll aimlessly downward.
Halfway through, however, her movement froze.
There on the screen, Zhou Shiye's post from that afternoon jumped out at her.
The photo showed a vast white ski resort under dazzling sunlight. He was wearing a black-and-red ski suit, grinning with wild, unbridled confidence, and standing beside his shoulder was a very pretty girl. She wore goggles, but her face was pressed almost against his shoulder—the two of them were close, the intimacy practically radiating through the screen.
Xu Yumo's heart clenched painfully, her fingertip trembling slightly.
She realized with a pang of sorrow that He Linxi had been right.
No matter how cold and clear-headed she'd pretended to be these past few days, no matter how hard she'd pushed herself at work, she still hadn't managed to walk away from a heartbreak that had never even truly begun.
She and Zhou Shiye came from families that had been close for generations—twenty-plus years of childhood friendship. He had been woven through nearly every significant moment of her life.
Trying to uproot him completely from that bone-deep web of connection was like carving out a piece of necrotic flesh without anesthesia—bloody, raw, and achingly prolonged.
Xu Yumo bit her lip, her fingers stiff as she tapped a few times on the screen and enabled the setting to stop seeing his posts.
That silent, one-tap block was the greatest severance she could manage in this moment.
She gently turned off her phone, tilted her head to look out the window at the blinking, counting-down red light, and unconsciously let out a soft breath of pent-up frustration.
Beside her, He Linxi's gaze slid back from the edge of her screen, unobtrusively, as she put the phone away.
He said nothing, but the moment the light turned green, he gripped the steering wheel hard.
So hard that his knuckles went faintly pale.
The car surged forward in an instant, the Aston Martin like a caged beast provoked into fury, tearing through the night and racing away.
In the suite at the northern suburb's top-tier resort, the heating was cranked up high. Zhou Shiye sprawled against the headboard, yet inexplicably felt a nameless, restless heat burning in his chest that he couldn't shake off.
His long fingers scrolled down the phone screen in irritation. Under the ski post he'd shared that afternoon, the red hearts of likes had already stacked into a long string, and plenty of his rowdy friends were stirring up trouble in the comments, all pestering him about the identity of the beauty pressed against him in the photo.
Zhou Shiye stared hard at those messages, not a trace of amusement in his eyes—instead, they were so dark they practically dripped with gloom.
It had been most of the day now, and from Xu Yumo—not a single peep.
In the past, whenever a woman of ambiguous proximity appeared by his side, her message would arrive within half an hour, right on schedule. Sometimes she'd feign casual concern about his itinerary, sometimes she'd ask when he was coming home under the pretext of his mother's inquiries—but every word was really just a roundabout, careful probe into the other woman's identity.
He'd grown used to her cautious little tests, and used to that nasty sense of control he felt when watching her flounder, afraid of losing him.
But now, she hadn't even sent a WeChat message, let alone left a comment.
That uncharacteristic silence only fanned the nameless irritation in Zhou Shiye's chest into a hotter blaze.
He tapped on Xu Yumo's profile picture, his fingers typing and deleting messages on the keyboard, yet he couldn't bring himself to hit send.
Just as his frustration peaked, a soft knock came at the door.
Assuming it was Lin Yuhang and the others looking to bum a light, Zhou Shiye suppressed his simmering anger and went to open the door with a dark expression.
The moment it swung open, a thick, cloying perfume hit him in the face.
Standing outside was the very girl who'd been pressed against him in the afternoon photo. As for her name, he hadn't bothered to remember it—only vaguely recalling she was someone's friend brought along to today's gathering.
She'd clearly just showered, wrapped loosely in a plain white resort bathrobe. Her half-dried hair hung teasingly over her collarbones, the neckline deliberately cut far too deep, and the look she gave him was laden with unapologetic suggestion and seduction.
"Master Zhou," she said, leaning half her body languidly against the doorframe, her voice syrupy and coquettish, "Master Lin and the others have started a game downstairs. They're asking if you want to come play a few rounds of cards?"
As she spoke, she deliberately leaned forward, revealing a large expanse of eye-catching fair skin, her tone growing even more suggestive. "If you think it's too noisy downstairs… I have a new deck of cards in my room. We could play something more exciting, just the two of us."
Had this been any other time, Zhou Shiye wouldn't have hesitated to go along with it, trading a few flirtatious remarks and playing out a mutually agreeable game of pretense.
But at this moment, looking at the deliberately provocative face before him, all his mind could conjure was the sight of Xu Yumo's eyes turning into dead water when she'd looked at him not long ago.
What he'd once found amusing as a pastime now struck him as utterly dull—even nauseating.
"Not interested. Get lost."
Zhou Shiye's expression was colder than the snow piled outside the window, his voice laced with frost.
The woman's seductive smile froze on her face. Before she could utter another word, Zhou Shiye had already grabbed the door handle and slammed the door shut in her face without a trace of mercy.
Bang!
The deafening sound of the door slamming echoed through the silent corridor, cutting off the stunned gaze outside.
Zhou Shiye collapsed back onto the bed and grabbed his phone. Clenching his jaw, he fumbled through the dim, sickly light of the bedside lamp, pulled out an unopened box of stomach medicine, tossed it onto the cluttered nightstand, and snapped a photo.
Then he opened his Moments, set the post to be visible only to Xu Yumo, and hit send.
Caption: [My stomach is killing me, and this crappy resort doesn't even have hot water.]
After posting, he pressed the phone to his chest and lay on his back in the darkness. That smug, self-righteous certainty of his reignited like dying embers catching wind.
Back in the States, when his stomach had acted up, she—the most rule-abiding good student—had skipped class to come to his apartment, bring him medicine, and watch him drink his porridge.
Now he'd shoved his pitiful state right under her nose. He refused to believe she could still sit still!
Time ticked by, second by second.
One minute. Three minutes. Five minutes…
The certainty in Zhou Shiye's heart was ground to dust with every sweep of the second hand.
He pulled down to refresh his feed almost neurotically. But that post hung there like a joke, utterly alone.
No likes. No comments. And certainly no frantic, expected phone call of concern.
This silence—as if he'd been completely abandoned—shattered the last shred of his composure.
He bolted upright in bed, chest heaving violently. He no longer cared about face or pride. He pulled up Xu Yumo's number and jabbed the call button.
Ring… ring… ring…
The phone rang for a long time. The cold waiting tone swelled in the empty room, each ring making Zhou Shiye's breathing heavier, his palms breaking out in a cold sweat.
Just as his eyes reddened and he thought Xu Yumo truly intended to ignore him completely, the line clicked—suddenly connected.
"Xu Yumo! Do you really have to keep this grudge going? I only—"
The anxiety, fury, and buried panic that had been building all night burst forth like a dam breaking, heedless of everything.
But before he could finish, a low, lazy male voice cut him off:
"Save it, Young Master Zhou. She doesn't have time for you."
Zhou Shiye froze, his fingers tightening around the phone, his heart slamming uncontrollably.
"Who are you? Why are you answering Momo's phone? Where is she?" His voice shot up, laced with a panic he didn't even recognize in himself.
On the other end, the man couldn't even be bothered to waste another word. He just let out a cold, mocking scoff.
Then—click.
The call was severed without mercy.
In the deathly quiet suite, only the cold dial tone remained.
Zhou Shiye sat frozen in the same position, phone still pressed to his ear, his eyes slowly turning bloodshot.
His stomach, which had only been cramping mildly, now felt like it was being squeezed by something vicious, twisting in waves of pain.