“What’s wrong with you — your mom calls you that too.”

Qingqing was wearing small black leather shoes with a two or three centimeter heel — solid and heavy. The stamp had been thorough. Xu Ye’s eyes were watering.

She turned away and refused to look at him. “My mom is my mom. You are you. You don’t get to call me that without my permission.”

Xu Ye sat down on a stone bollard at the edge of the road and stayed there for a while, waiting for the pain to subside.

Qingqing, who had decisively turned her back on him, quietly glanced over twice. Seeing Xu Ye’s face scrunched into something approaching actual suffering, she felt a small twinge of guilt. That might have been slightly harder than intended.

“Can you… can you walk?”

“No.”

“Then you can’t walk. Stop yelling about it.”

Xu Ye was about to say something when an elderly man shuffled between them, leaning on his walking stick. He looked at Xu Ye, then at Qingqing, then back at Xu Ye, and delivered his verdict with the gravity of someone who had seen it all:

“Don’t fight, don’t fight. Young couples argue — it happens. Don’t let it damage what you have…”

The old man continued on his way, entirely unbothered, completely oblivious to the fact that Qingqing’s face had gone the color of a ripe tomato.

Xu Ye said nothing. He let it sit.

Wang Ruxue pulled up to the curb. Qingqing bolted into the car.

Xu Ye was just pushing himself to his feet to follow — and the car drove off.

“Hey — hey — I’m not in yet!”

Ruxue watched in the rearview mirror as Xu Ye jogged after them for a few steps before stopping, hands on his knees, breathing hard. She looked at Qingqing’s face — still deep red — and finally had to ask.

“Qingqing. Are we really leaving him?”

“Yes.”

Ruxue kept driving.

Xu Ye watched the car disappear around the corner.

He limped forward a few steps, then pulled out his phone, considered sending Pei Youwei a message saying he’d be late, decided he could still make it if he grabbed something to eat and flagged a cab, and put the phone away.

He found a low wall to sit on, pulled off his shoe and sock, and looked at his foot.

The nail of his left big toe had gone purple.

What he didn’t notice — sitting there on that low wall, inspecting the damage — was that a familiar black commercial van had turned around and parked at the side of the road behind him.

Chen Qingqing pressed down the window.

She looked at Xu Ye sitting alone on the wall at the edge of the street, shoe off, and went still.

She’d spent the two minutes since leaving him running back through what she’d done, and now, seeing the result up close, the guilt sat heavier than she’d expected. She knew, if she was honest with herself, that she’d overreacted. She was too sensitive about her name. That was her problem, not his.

She got out of the car.

She walked over. And saw, for the first time, the small purple bruise forming under his nail.

The guilt deepened.

“I’m sorry.”

It was the first time Chen Qingqing had ever said those two words to another person.

Xu Ye looked up slowly. Qingqing’s face filled his vision — composed and precise and, right now, genuinely apologetic.

The irritation he’d been sitting with dissolved before he could decide what to do with it.

They looked at each other for a moment.

Then Xu Ye spoke. “Are you still buying me hotpot?”

Qingqing blinked. She turned her head slightly to the side, tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, and gave a small nod.

“Yes.”

In the slant of the evening sun, her profile had a quality to it that made the rest of the world feel like it had dimmed a little. The tips of her ears were pink.

Xu Ye put his sock and shoe back on. They got in the car together.

At the mall, they had the most extravagant hotpot meal Xu Ye had ever eaten in this life or the previous one. Qingqing, compensating for her guilt with generosity, told him to order whatever he wanted and meant it. Xu Ye, sitting directly across from Chen Qingqing, ate with absolutely no restraint whatsoever.

Qingqing herself ate almost nothing, as usual. She spent most of the meal watching him.

After a while she started laughing.

“What?”

“You eat like a pig.”

Xu Ye rolled his eyes and went back to the food.

When he finally put down his chopsticks, he patted his stomach, let out a satisfied exhale, and said: “I need to get to work.”

“Does your foot need a doctor?”

“It’s fine. I’ll sleep it off. I’ve been stepped on playing basketball plenty of times — never this hard, but still.”

Qingqing hesitated. “If I hadn’t come back… would you have just…?”

“No.”

He knew what she was asking. He shook his head, folded his napkin, and said with an easy smile:

“Heaven specifically sent me down here to be your friend.”

On the ride back, after dropping Xu Ye at the bar, Chen Qingqing sat in the car and couldn’t stop turning that last line over.

The first time — by the lake. The second time — at the bar. The third time — at the bank.

Could three coincidences really just be coincidences?

Wang Ruxue dropped her off and left. The security at Red Leaf Estate was rigorous enough that even delivery drivers couldn’t get in, which was one of the reasons Jiang Meilin had paid what she did for the place. Qingqing alone in the house wasn’t something she worried about.

Qingqing changed into white slippers, walked into the living room, and lay down on the couch. She stared at the ceiling for a long time.

Then she picked up her phone.

She opened WeChat. Hovered over his name. Put the phone down. Picked it up again.

Finally typed something, sent it before she could talk herself out of it, and immediately flipped the phone face-down on the cushion.

Qingqing: I’ve made a decision.

Xu Ye had just arrived at the bar. He saw the message and typed back.

Xu Ye: decision about what?

Qingqing lay there with the phone face-down, gathering herself. Then she picked it up, pecked at the screen through her fingers, sent it, and immediately put it back down.

Qingqing: I’ve decided to be friends with you.

Xu Ye: only friends now? what were we before?

She lay there for a while before picking up the phone to read it. Then:

Qingqing: I don’t know.

Xu Ye: I’m a guy, right?

Qingqing: yes.

Xu Ye: and I’m your friend now, right?

Qingqing: yes…

Xu Ye: then you can tell people I’m your boyfriend. I’ll be telling people you’re my girlfriend too.

Qingqing: NO.

Qingqing: NO.

Qingqing: ABSOLUTELY NOT.

Xu Ye: why are you so worked up.

Qingqing: Xu Ye, I am telling you, do NOT do that.

Xu Ye: okay okay, understood.

Qingqing: even though we’re friends now, you’re not allowed to like me.

Xu Ye: no.

(End of Chapter)