Chapter 5

Her heart pounded fiercely several times, but soon a hand conjured from nameless emotions pressed it back into temporary calm.

All the chaos lay hidden beneath the girl’s seemingly serene expression.

She hesitated for only three seconds before reaching out to accept the Wangzai the other person had kindly offered her.

Fu Xiangqing didn’t really want to take it. The hand’s owner had stirred ripples across the surface of her heart, and she didn’t dare contemplate whether something that hand had touched might provoke an even more alarming reaction in her.

But she had heard the young man’s words—

“If you don’t like it, I can get you something else.”

If she refused, he would likely go and exchange it for something different. After a few rounds of that, it would only draw attention from the others. Better to simply accept the first offering.

With that thought, she lowered her eyes to her hands.

One item in each.

When her gaze settled on the Wangzai, the girl’s slightly furrowed brows eased unconsciously.

To her delight, the already opened tin of Wangzai was steadily releasing a sweet, milky fragrance.

And that milky scent perfectly masked the aroma clinging to the young man.

Fu Xiangqing focused intently on it. The fragrance was rich; the more she inhaled, the calmer she grew, until at last her nostrils filled solely with that sweet aroma.

She had assumed the young man wouldn’t speak to her again after handing over the Wangzai, yet at that moment, he opened his mouth once more.

“Don’t you like it?”

His voice remained even, its cool timbre revealing nothing of his emotions.

The words inevitably evoked his earlier gesture of proactively opening the drink for her. From that steady tone, Fu Xiangqing somehow detected a hint of grievance.

She turned her head to look at him on instinct, hoping to gauge from his expression whether her guess held any truth.

Alas, she was disappointed.

That handsome face invited only another sigh of admiration for its flawless beauty; it concealed nothing else.

Fu Xiangqing swiftly discarded her groundless speculation. In the next instant, she recalled Jiang Shiyan’s earlier words.

My friend prefers quiet.

The statement suddenly struck her as even more absurd than her fleeting moment of pity.

Hadn’t he said he liked quiet?

Then why offer her a drink of his own accord?

Was it to thank her for yielding her seat?

If so, after presenting the gift, shouldn’t he have simply kept to himself, quietly playing on his phone? Why go out of his way to check if she’d consumed it?

Could “liking quiet” mean something entirely different from what she understood?

Hold on—

A spark of realization flashed through Fu Xiangqing’s mind. Every peculiar event since encountering the young man replayed swiftly before her eyes. Those subtle inconsistencies she’d already sensed finally coalesced into a single, direct question.

“Are you really Lu Zimin’s friend?”

She stared straight at him, her clear, limpid eyes shining brightly even in the dim light.

It was an expression that made deception feel utterly heartless.

He had ignored a similar question before.

This time, for reasons unknown, he didn’t evade it. Instead, he answered candidly: “Of everyone here, you’re the only one besides Jiang Shiyan whom I know.”

Fu Xiangqing couldn’t help but feel perplexed. “You know me?”

The young man seemed to chuckle softly. Upon closer listening, that faint sound of laughter might have been nothing more than her imagination.

“Now we know each other, don’t we? Though to be precise, I know you, but you don’t know me yet. My surname is Xu—Xu Zhiyao, to be exact. Hello, Fu Xiangqing. I’m Xu Zhiyao.”

It was the simplest of introductions, yet Fu Xiangqing sensed a weighty solemnity in it.

Especially when he pronounced her name at the end—his voice shed its habitual chill, laced instead with a tender lingering.

She dismissed the notion as ridiculous. After all, it was just an ordinary name.

Out of courtesy, Fu Xiangqing echoed his words. “Hello, Xu Zhiyao. I’m Fu Xiangqing.”

The young man let out a light chuckle. This time, Fu Xiangqing heard it distinctly—no illusion.

She had no idea what a typically aloof person looked like when they smiled.

Curiosity piqued, she stole a deliberate glance at him.

By the time the ambient lights illuminated his face once more, his amusement had faded.

She saw nothing and felt a twinge of regret.

“Earlier, while they were chatting, I overheard them mention you. I was planning to step out alone for some fresh air and spotted you getting out of the car right then. I wasn’t sure if you were the person they meant, but it turned out to be quite the coincidence. Sorry—I didn’t intend to mislead you. I simply couldn’t think of another excuse on the spot.”

Although the two hadn’t interacted much, Fu Xiangqing could already sense that the other wasn’t the talkative type.

For her to suddenly rattle off such a long explanation just to clear things up made Fu Xiangqing feel rather embarrassed.

“Um, you don’t have to apologize to me. If anything, I should be thanking you. Without you bringing me up here earlier, I don’t know how long I’d have been stuck down there alone.”

Xu Zhiyao said, “If you want to thank me, then drink the Wangzai I gave you.”

This time, Fu Xiangqing didn’t refuse.

She lowered her head and took a sip.

Wangzai’s magic was even greater than she’d imagined. Its fragrance drowned out the scent clinging to the young man, and the sweet, room-temperature milk flavor eased her body and mind completely.

The girl greedily took two more sips. Her long-lost composure finally returned with the motion.

She still had lingering questions, so after a moment’s thought, she turned to the person beside her.

“Didn’t Senior Jiang say you like quiet places? So why did you come here?”

Xu Zhiyao reached for a brightly colored orange that looked sweet at a glance and began peeling it carefully. At the same time, he answered her question. “They’re going to play games soon. If someone gets drunk, it’ll be a hassle.”

Fu Xiangqing got the gist—

Everyone would be playing games later, and Jiang Shiyan had a low tolerance for alcohol. If she got wasted in the dead of night, alone in a room full of mostly guys, it wouldn’t be safe.

She concluded, “Senior Jiang must really trust you.”

There were other female friends in the room, but at a moment like this, Jiang Shiyan had specifically called him over. Everyone knew what that meant.

She recalled that arm looped around the young man’s earlier, and the sweet milk she’d just swallowed suddenly turned bitter in her mouth.

Fu Xiangqing blinked and tried to shove those unwelcome thoughts aside.

She decided that after tonight, she needed to start interacting with more guys.

If she hadn’t had so little contact with the opposite sex, why would she be having these strange feelings for someone she’d only just met?

Xu Zhiyao had no idea what was going through her mind. He didn’t respond to Fu Xiangqing’s comment and, after peeling the orange clean, broke off half and offered it to her once more.

“Want some orange?”

Fu Xiangqing was riding a sweet high from the Wangzai. That perfectly balanced milky sweetness smothered all her misplaced emotions.

When Xu Zhiyao asked, she was mid-sip and couldn’t reply, so she shook her head in refusal.

Remembering what he’d said when he gave her the Wangzai, she worried he’d think she didn’t like it and fetch something else. She lifted the hand holding the apple chunk to show him—I still have this, so no orange.

But he took it the wrong way.

He tucked the half orange against one side of his palm, then used his free fingers to pluck the fork from her hand and toss it straight into the trash can nearby.

“The trash can’s right here by me. If you’ve got nowhere to ditch it, I can take care of it.”

After his thoughtful assist with the so-called trash, and under her complicated gaze, he placed the orange back in her hand.

“I had one not long ago. It’s super sweet—you’ll like it.”

Fu Xiangqing: “…”

In the end, she glanced at the orange in her palm and reluctantly accepted his kindness.

Xu Zhiyao wasn’t much of a talker.

Unlike the others in the room, who loved pulling their friends into endless gossip sessions.

But he wasn’t completely quiet either.

He seemed to take a peculiar pleasure in feeding Fu Xiangqing, and from then on, he kept the snacks coming without pause.

At first, she thought she should turn them down.

But then the young man paused with a handful of melon seed shells, his voice—free of any real chill—taking on a touch of feigned grievance.

“I only know you here. If I don’t have something to distract me in a place like this, I’ll suffocate.”

Fu Xiangqing reminded him, “Senior Jiang’s still here. You know more than just me. This can’t be your first time tagging along with her, right? How did you cope before?”

Xu Zhiyao replied without missing a beat, “There were other people I knew last time, but they had stuff today, so it was just me. I handled it the same way back then too—prepping snacks for others keeps me calm.”

She found the young man’s method of steadying his nerves a bit “wifey”. But then she remembered how she’d just used Wangzai to soothe her own turbulent emotions, and suddenly the young man’s approach didn’t seem so strange after all.

Sharing that rare camaraderie of fellow social anxiety sufferers, Fu Xiangqing hesitated for a moment before her heart softened, and she accepted the young man’s offering.

Fruits from the platter, bagged puffed snacks, candied treats coated in crunchy sugar… In the end, she sampled a little of everything on the table.

Her stomach felt comfortably full, but the real surprise came afterward. After this friendly exchange of snacks and murmured thanks with the young man, Fu Xiangqing realized she could face him calmly now—even without the aid of Wangzai.

It was nearly ten o’clock by then, and she let out an involuntary yawn.

Exhaustion was setting in. If Lu Zimin and the others showed no signs of wrapping up, she’d have to be the one to call it a night.

She’d just resolved to do so when everyone around her abruptly stood up, one after another.

Her drowsiness ebbed with the sudden shift. Wondering if this meant the evening was finally over, she heard Lu Zimin call out to her.

“Xiangqing, I know you turn in early most nights, but things are different tonight. We’ve only got one last game to go—it’s our standard closer for these get-togethers. So for my sake, just tough it out and stick with me till the end, okay?”

A new activity was underway, so the private room’s ambient lights had switched to a warm yellow glow, throwing Lu Zimin’s face into sharp relief. Every nuance of his expression lay bare.

It was utterly ordinary, nothing out of the ordinary at all. And yet, as Fu Xiangqing stared, a profound sense of wrongness washed over her.

Her heart thudded unevenly—an ominous rhythm that set her on edge.

She couldn’t quite put her finger on why. Recalling how the young man’s mere presence had rattled her not long before, she chalked it up to the unfamiliar setting playing tricks on her instincts. Shoving the unease aside, she nodded and agreed to her boyfriend’s plea.

The four tallest guys took charge of setting up the game space.

They borrowed wooden stools from the waiter—one for each person—shoved two glass coffee tables together, and began arranging unopened beer bottles across the surface.

Fu Xiangqing waited patiently off to the side. The setup was almost finished when she noticed the girl who’d handed the chips to Jiang Shiyan lean in close to her senior, whisper something in her ear, then flash a smile, wave goodbye, sling her bag over her shoulder, and slip out.

With the girl’s sudden departure, that suppressed anxiety bubbled back to the surface.

She wanted to leave too.

Their lips hovered so perilously close that Fu Xiangqing imagined the words emerged in the gentlest whisper.

“As a token of thanks, if your luck runs out later, whatever the punishment—no matter what it is—I’ll step in for you.”