That night.

Inside the observation deck on the eighty-eighth floor of the Jin Mao Tower in Shanghai.

A crowd of young men and women who had come out for the evening were holding up their phones, shooting the vast night view of the city beyond the glass curtain wall.

After Zhang Ruowei had taken a good many photographs of it she suddenly turned to Zhao Ming behind her. "Could you take a few pictures of me?"

Zhao Ming agreed gladly. He took the phone and started looking for the best angle.

She got herself into position and didn't forget to remind him: "Crouch down to take it. That way I'll look taller."

"Sure thing."

Zhao Ming did in fact crouch. He hadn't expected that shooting from this angle would genuinely make her legs look longer, and with nobody moving around nearby he took a dozen in a row, then handed the phone back. "See what you think. If I've done them badly I'll shoot them again."

"They're very good."

At that, he got out his latest-model Apple phone. "Or — let's take a couple more on mine. A new phone should have slightly better resolution."

"Sure~"

Zhang Ruowei immediately struck another pose that lengthened them without looking staged.

Zhao Ming took a whole burst of them, sent several across to her, and kept every one of them in his own photo album as well.

"Shall we go down?"

"Yes."

The two of them took the elevator down from the Jin Mao Tower, then walked to the Lujiazui Central Green and found an open-air café nearby to sit at.

The view here was very good — distinctive lighting, easy music — and once they had sat down, time itself seemed to slow.

Zhao Ming took a light sip of coffee and started a topic of his own accord. "Are your mom and dad in Australia all year round?"

"Before I started university my mom stayed in the country with me. Once I started, since I was living at school, she went out to Australia with my dad. They only come back…