Chapter 22

The sunlight was soft; the breeze was light.

Ji Xiunian stood by the flower bed in a daze. The earring was truly gone.

She couldn’t work out how… She hadn’t worn them since Zhou Lang came back; they’d sat in her drawer. Yesterday she’d wanted to take them home, put them in her bag, and found one missing.

Then she remembered: a while ago, a glass of water had spilled into the drawer. She’d cleaned up, carried the dampened documents to the flower bed to dry. She must have lost it then.

It was the only possibility.

She’d thought about it all night, still awake at three or four in the morning.

She clenched the remaining earring in her palm and stood there a long time.

Lost was lost.

As long as… Zhou Lang never saw it.

What she’d said to Gao Qirui that day… she’d said it to herself as well.

She would allow no one to disturb Zhou Lang’s life. Including herself.

Hao Shuyou had just returned from his business trip and spotted her. “Teacher Ji?”

Ji Xiunian greeted him. “Dean Hao, welcome back.”

Hao Shuyou looked travel-worn. “I heard about the Gao Qirui business… as well.”

Ji Xiunian smiled, a little apologetic. “I’m sorry you had to witness the farce.”

“Not at all. I should thank you for the timing.”

Ji Xiunian and Gao Qirui were both Ning University Faction, and Hao Shuyou had only just transferred in—he’d been ill-placed to take sides anyway. One business trip later, everything had resolved itself, and it left him lighter than light.

“By the way, that specialist I mentioned finally has an opening. National Day holiday is almost here—shall I take you to see him this week?”

“Yes. Thank you so much!”

Ji Xiunian had waited a long time for this specialist, and worked hard to put the earring out of her mind. At the end of the school day she picked up Ji Anyang. “Anyang, ask your teacher for leave this week. The surgery we talked about—it can be scheduled now.”

His last class was PE; he’d played badminton for half an hour and his shirt was soaked with sweat, yet he showed a rare flash of youthful brightness. “After the surgery… will I be able to be like everyone else?”

It pained Ji Xiunian somewhere deep, but she kept her voice light. “Yes. Just this last one.”

Ji Anyang had been born with his condition. All these years, surgery after surgery, frequent leaves to recover, and stretches of quiet gloom.

“I…” Ji Anyang hesitated. “After the surgery, could I invite a classmate over?”

“The classmate you mentioned before? Of course.”

Ji Anyang took out his phone. “Then I’ll call now.”

The call connected almost at once.

Zhou Xiang’s insufferable voice came through. “What? Just lost to Dad at badminton and you’re sulking, huh?”

Before Ji Anyang could speak, a clear female voice on the other end was scolding him. “Zhou Xiang. Watch your mouth.”

“Fine, fine, fine, mercy, your majesty…” Zhou Xiang turned somewhat serious. “My sis bosses me around so much… Go ahead. What is it?”

“I can’t come play this week.”

“Why not?”

“I’m having a surgery.”

“A surgery…” The boy sounded shaken. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing much. Just…”

Ji Anyang paused. “After my surgery, want to hang out?”

Zhou Xiang seemed to say a few words to someone beside him, then answered, “My sis says come over to our place.”

Ji Anyang couldn’t help smiling. “Okay. Thank your sister for me.”

Zhou Xiang hung up and sighed.

“Your deskmate needs surgery at his age?”

“Who knows… He’s a genuine tight-lipped gourd. Couldn’t squeeze a word out of him in half a day.”

“Zhou Xiang!”

“I slap my own mouth. My bad. Swore again.”

He apologized with zero sincerity, still musing aloud. “Sis, you don’t know… he’s actually had it rough. Bad health since he was little, barely played with kids his own age, and after a while everyone decided he was just antisocial. Honestly, I think he’s got real loyalty. He hit those little punks plenty hard last time.”

“And who knows if his family even treats him well. Their kid gets in a fight and the parents won’t even come to school.”

“Right? Next time we should have him over. Mom and Dad will like him too.”

Zhou Lang smiled. “Maybe.”

“Sis, you’re in a good mood today?”

“What makes you say that?”

“Never mind that you came to pick me up yourself—you smiled three times on the way home. Did you notice?”

Zhou Lang’s face didn’t move a muscle. “Did I? I hadn’t noticed.”

The car pulled up at the house just then.

Zhou Xiang tossed off the remark, grabbed his schoolbag, hopped out, and followed his nose straight into the kitchen.

By the time Zhou Lang had parked and changed her shoes, she found her mother, Shen Shan, dabbing her eyes at some tearjerker drama. She sighed. “Mom, why are you watching these shows again? I’ve told you, all that crying is bad for you.”

“Mm… I know,” said Shen Shan, who had been a sickly, modern-day Lin Daiyu since childhood—willow-slender and born weepy. “I know I shouldn’t cry, it’s just, it’s just that this part…”

Zhou Lang sat down beside the Empress Dowager of the household and handed her a tissue. “What is it this time? A mother-in-law tormenting her daughter-in-law? An uncle refusing to school a poor orphaned child?”

Shen Shan wiped her tears. “Neither. It’s these parents forcing their daughter to marry into a rich family. And now the daughter’s pregnant, the husband’s cheating, and she’s lost the baby because of it… What’s the point of it all?”

Zhou Lang’s heart skipped. “So you think they shouldn’t have forced her?”

“Of course not! What good does forcing marriage do? A child’s happiness is what matters!”

Zhou Lang kept her voice very steady. “So marriage, divorce, whether or not to have children—none of it really matters?”

Shen Shan was still crying, just as an elderly couple on screen clutched their daughter and wept. “Of— of course.”

Zhou Lang made a small sound of acknowledgment, but inside, a thought had begun to sprout.

It had been only a tender shoot. Now it was growing wild. She just didn’t dare say it yet.

Wait a little longer.

Be patient, she told herself.

The second-to-last workday before the National Day holiday.

A light rain fell outside the window.

Ji Xiunian stood at a vase, arranging flowers. Newly bought Ecuadorian roses, silver and pearlescent, were in full bloom—vivid and lovely.

“These are gorgeous. Give me one?”

Ji Xiunian looked up to find Zhou Lang at the door. Her tone was flat. “There are plenty of flower shops. You can buy your own.”

But Zhou Lang, as if oblivious to the chill, came closer and asked with a smile, “Is Professor Ji still angry with me?”

The voice was soft and warm, and somehow intimate.

Ji Xiunian faltered, unaccustomed to her speaking this way.

Truthfully, “angry” wasn’t quite the word.

It was strange. She found it nearly impossible to stay truly angry at Zhou Lang.

She had even wondered whether her own temper was simply too good.

Zhou Lang smiled brightly. “I’m sorry.”

Ji Xiunian: “…What’s gotten into you today?”

Zhou Lang ignored the question. “Still angry?”

“Not anymore.”

Ji Xiunian finished arranging the flowers and returned to her desk to prepare for class.

Zhou Lang, meanwhile, leaned in to smell the cut stems, murmuring, “They’re pretty.”

Only then did Ji Xiunian notice the dark wet patch on her shoulder—caught in the rain again.

“You got rained on again,” she said, glancing away and thinking, please don’t announce you need to change clothes like last time.

“Don’t you have class?”

“I do. Third and fourth period. More than an hour to go.”

“Then why come so early?”

“Nothing else to do this morning.”

Zhou Lang seemed in unusually high spirits today. Her eyes settled on Ji Xiunian’s earrings. “These are lovely. Where did you buy them?”

“A friend gave them to me.”

“Then ask where for me?”

“Can’t be bothered.”

Zhou Lang nodded. Fine, then.

She didn’t push further—her sense of proportion was impeccable, quiet when quiet was called for. She opened her laptop and reviewed the courseware for today’s class.

Before long, she let out a tremendous sneeze that made Ji Xiunian jump.

Zhou Lang, acting as if nothing had happened, shut the office door and drew the folding screen. “I’m changing clothes.”

At the words “changing clothes,” Ji Xiunian’s mind flashed back to that rainy night. She picked up her book and stood, meaning to head to the classroom early—but before she reached the door, there was a loud thud.

Then, through gritted teeth: “Ss…”

She hesitated. “Zhou Lang?”

“I got my hair caught in the zipper and fell. Come help me up. It hurts.”

“I’ll go find someone else…”

“Fang Xun? She’s scared stiff of me—like a quail. You think she’d dare?”

“There are other people…”

“Like who? You’d really fetch a total stranger? You want people seeing me like this, a mess? Just give me a hand. What are you so nervous about?”

“…”

“Come on. I think I scraped my knee. It really hurts.”

Remembering that thud, Ji Xiunian couldn’t guess how hard she’d actually fallen. She walked over—and found Zhou Lang with her hair spilled across her shoulders, half her snow-white back bared, skin like white jade.

She reached out and pulled her up. “There. I’m leaving.”

“Not so fast. My hair’s caught in the zipper—it pulls when I move. Help me with it.”

“You’re already here. Just lend a hand while you’re at it.”

“…Fine. Let me try.”

Ji Xiunian carefully gathered the long hair over her shoulder and set about untangling the strands wound around the zipper.

“Ji Xiunian?”

“…Mm?”

Zhou Lang laughed. “I’m talking to you. What are you thinking about?”

“Nothing.”

Ji Xiunian pressed her lips together.

She tried to fix her gaze on the tiny zipper pull, but it kept drifting of its own accord… and she kept forcing it back.

Her fingertips inevitably brushed Zhou Lang’s back—smooth and supple as silk, and beneath it, it seemed, she could almost feel the pulse beneath the skin.

Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

Even their heartbeats seemed to be falling into step.

Her warm, soft breaths fell against the back of Zhou Lang’s neck, raising shiver after shiver. She knew she ought to look away—and yet it held an attraction she couldn’t resist.

“There.” Zhou Lang’s voice was light and easy, as if none of it touched her at all.

Ji Xiunian felt the trapped strands come loose and finally exhaled—but she relaxed too quickly. Her grip slipped from the zipper, and it nearly slid down the curve of her waist and back.

Luckily Zhou Lang had the presence of mind to reach back and catch it. Her smile was half-teasing. “Hands slipping, are they?”

Ji Xiunian said nothing. Her gentle, lovely eyes lowered, and she quickly drew the zipper back up, swallowing that jade-pale skin once more beneath the fabric.

“There. I’m leaving.”

Before Zhou Lang could even turn around, Ji Xiunian snatched her book off the desk and hurried out—she didn’t even want to hear a thank-you.

But this time, Zhou Lang saw the tips of her ears burning red.

“She’s still the same as before,” Zhou Lang thought. “She still blushes for me.”

And how was she any different herself?

In this body that had weathered wind and frost, crossed ten thousand mountains and rivers, and taken on the marks of time, there still beat a heart just like the one she’d had at twenty—the heart that pounded for the one she loved.