Xu Ye clapped a hand over his mouth and very nearly sprayed a mouthful of rice across the table.

Chen Qingqing's hand stopped in mid-air, chopsticks and all.

This…

This was too much of a coincidence.

Tong Yuanyuan had no idea what was going on. She frowned. "What's the matter?"

Chen Qingqing was about to speak when Xu Ye waved it off, smiling. "Nothing, nothing. We have actually heard of that clothing brand. It's fairly big in Jiangzhou."

"See?"

Tong Yuanyuan went on, "HR told me the company's about to add a new brand and take it high-end. I'm applying as a designer's assistant."

Xu Ye picked up his drink and raised it over the middle of the table. "Good luck with the interview."

"I hope so."

After the three of them had finished dinner Tong Yuanyuan went back to her own place, and Xu Ye took Chen Qingqing's hand and walked along Guling Street with her for a while. It wasn't until the wind picked up outside that they went back to the hotel.

They hadn't been in the room long before Jiang Meilin called. While mother and daughter were on the phone, Xu Ye went into the bathroom for a shower.

The weather over these few days had gone exactly as Xu Ye had said it would. Yesterday was cloudy, today was cloudy turning clear, and the forecast for tomorrow hadn't changed either — still snow.

By the time he came out Chen Qingqing had already hung up. The room's air conditioning had started to work, so she had taken her thick down jacket off and put it on the sofa.

"Are we going down tomorrow evening, or the morning after?"

"We'll see. We've seen plenty of scenery these two days, so tomorrow let's go around some of the cultural sites. If we're done early we'll go down in the evening."

"Oh."

Chen Qingqing would have liked another couple of days on the mountain, but the New Year really was almost here and Xu Ye probably had plenty of other things to do, so she said nothing about…