By the time Xu Ye came out of the hotel, the thunderstorm had softened to a quiet drizzle.

He rode the scooter back to campus, dashed into the dorm, grabbed two clean changes of clothes, swiped Zhang Xinzhou’s water card off his desk, and was in the bathroom in under a minute.

“Where’d you disappear to in all that rain?” Yang Fei called from his bed, not really looking up.

“My girlfriend came to find me.”

“Seriously?”

“Obviously. Why else would I go out in weather like that? Do I look unhinged to you?”

Just the thought of it — a girl showing up through a downpour like that to find Xu Ye — made Yang Fei feel the particular sting of envy that had become a recurring feature of his university experience.

Xu Ye was out of the bathroom in five or six minutes, dried his hair with Zhang Xinzhou’s dryer, decided a long-sleeved shirt felt a little cold, and pulled a jacket from the wardrobe. Then, thinking about how Chen Qingqing hadn’t brought anything heavier and how tomorrow was forecast to be even colder, he dug out a grey hoodie, stuffed it in a bag, and headed out. He changed into a dry pair of shoes, grabbed an umbrella, and made for the food street alone.

He knew her tastes well enough by now — they’d eaten together enough times for that. He found a stall, ordered three dishes, got two portions of rice packed to go, and walked back to the hotel.

“I’m here,” he texted.

Chen Qingqing got the message, pushed herself up off the couch, took two steps toward the door — then remembered she’d forgotten her shoes, turned back to put them on, and opened the door.

“What took you so long?” she demanded.

“There’s travel time, and shower time, and the guy had to actually cook the food. I don’t think I was gone that long?”

She wrinkled her nose. “One hour and seven minutes.”

Xu Ye laughed. “You were keeping track?”

“I… I wasn’t.”

He set the takeout containers on the coffee table and opened them one by one. She was genuinely hungry — she picked up her chopsticks and started eating immediately.

Xu Ye sat cross-legged across from her, grabbed his portion, and ate alongside her.

“I checked the forecast — more rain this afternoon, but tomorrow’s clear. I’ll take you around my campus tomorrow?”

“Okay.”

“Tie your hair back — it’s practically going into your mouth.”

“Tie it for me.” She held out her wrist toward him, a black elastic hair tie looped around it.

He slipped it off, stood up, walked around behind her, and gathered her hair back into a ponytail.

He’d just sat back down when his phone buzzed on the table.

Jiang Meilin: “Xiao Xu, I saw there’s a big temperature drop in Shanghai today — make sure you remind Qingqing to dress warm.”

Xu Ye: “Will do.”

Jiang Meilin: “Did you go see her this week?”

Xu Ye: “I didn’t, actually.”

Xu Ye: “But she came to find me today. The silly girl even missed her subway stop.”

Jiang Meilin, still at the office, stared at that message and wasn’t quite sure how to respond.

She knew her daughter. A commute of over an hour — Chen Qingqing would never make that trip on her own initiative for someone she was only casually close to. Jiang Meilin had known the two of them were drifting steadily toward something official, but she hadn’t expected things to be moving quite this quickly.

Jiang Meilin: “Are you two together right now?”

Xu Ye had started typing “we’re at a hotel having lunch” — then reconsidered, and changed it to: “Yes, we’re eating.”

Jiang Meilin: “Good. Auntie’s noted. You stay warm too.”

Xu Ye: “Will do.”

He put his phone down. Chen Qingqing looked up. “Who was that?”

“Our mom.”

She blinked. “Who exactly?”

“I said, our mom.”

The way he said it told her everything. She felt a flare of indignation. “My mom is my mom. She’s not our mom.”

“Right, right — I jumped ahead. I’ll save ‘our mom’ for later.”

“You—!”

She had no comeback that worked, so she channeled her exasperation into action — picking up a piece of fatty pork she’d just bitten off and dropping it straight into his bowl.

Xu Ye looked down at it with visible suffering.

“What’s wrong?” Chen Qingqing fixed him with a dangerous look. “Are you disgusted by me?”

“It’s just — I don’t really eat fatty pork.”

“You’re eating it right now.”

He picked it up helplessly with his chopsticks, barely chewed, and swallowed it whole.

Chen Qingqing let out a small, satisfied hmph and considered the matter settled.

…

It was past two in the afternoon by the time they finished.

Xu Ye went out to toss the containers in the bin down the hall. When he came back, Chen Qingqing had settled against the couch and was scrolling on her phone.

He pulled the hoodie out of the bag and held it out to her.

“What’s this?”

“It’s thicker than what you brought. Remember to put it on before you go out — it’s really cold now.”

She took it and looked it over. It was clearly several sizes too large for her. With some interest, she sat up straight and pulled it on right then and there, in front of him.

On Xu Ye it fit perfectly. On Chen Qingqing it became an oversized look — the sleeves well past her wrists, the hem dropping low. It was, objectively, very cute.

She stood up on the couch, did a small spin, and asked with a playful tilt of her head, “Does it look good?”

Xu Ye smiled. “You look good in everything.”

She made a dismissive sound — outwardly unimpressed with the answer, though her eyes told a completely different story.

Xu Ye sat back down beside her and started scrolling through QQ Zone and WeChat Moments. This was 2014 — no Douyin, no Xiaohongshu [TL: the two dominant short-video and lifestyle platforms of later years — in 2014 they didn’t yet exist; social life on Chinese smartphones ran mainly through QQ, WeChat, and video/music apps] — just social apps, music, video players, and whatever utilities you’d installed.

Chen Qingqing put on a video, but the couch didn’t seem to be sitting right for her, because over the next little while she cycled through about four or five different positions — upright, then leaning back against the cushions, then cross-legged, then finally migrating to one end of the couch and propping herself sideways against the armrest, her feet in their white socks resting against Xu Ye’s thigh.

She watched one episode of her drama and started feeling the weight of her eyelids.

She’d stayed up too late the night before, gotten up too early this morning, and spent the better part of ninety minutes on a packed subway. She was beginning to lose the battle with sleep.

“Tired?” Xu Ye asked quietly.

She nodded.

“Go lie down then.”

She climbed off the couch, shuffled over to the bed in her slippers, turned back the covers, and lay down. Then she heard what sounded like Xu Ye getting up from the couch, and she immediately pushed herself up on one elbow.

“Where are you going?”

He pointed. “Bathroom.”

“Will you still be here when you’re done?”

He smiled. “I’m not going anywhere. I’ll sit right here and keep watch. Happy?”

She made a small sound, then said under her breath, “If you’re not here when I wake up, you’re dead.”

“I’ll be here. I keep my word.”

Only then did she lie back down.

He came out of the bathroom and settled on the couch. He sat there — though he did take a few sneaky photos of her while she slept, when he was certain her eyes weren’t opening.

At some point she called out his name twice.

He answered both times. But when he went over to check, he found her eyes still closed, her breathing still even.

She was talking in her sleep.

Xu Ye smiled to himself, pulled her blanket up a little higher, and sat back down on the couch.

He stayed there the whole afternoon without moving.

(End of Chapter 116)