On the windowsill of 312 sat a potted flower Qin Yue couldn’t identify. Its color was so pale it seemed almost translucent, but the fragrance was rich and heavy. Thick, fleshy leaves rustled softly as the air conditioner’s breeze swept past, layered with the woman’s voice drifting from behind Qin Yue.
Qin Yue watched the sway of leaves and petals. The rubbing motion of her fingers gradually stilled.
Behind her, Ren Jiawen, having received a clear answer, said no more.
Time ticked on. In the vast lab, only the low hum of testing equipment and the occasional turn of Shen Jianqing’s page remained.
About half an hour passed before Chen Wei called out in a grave tone, “Teacher Shen, come take a look. We’re not receiving data.”
Shen Jianqing asked, “Which data?”
High heels clicked behind her, carrying a light trace of perfume as she passed swiftly by Qin Yue and stopped at Chen Wei’s side.
“Run it again,” Shen Jianqing said in a low voice.
A beautiful woman was pleasing to look at even sitting still. Especially one like Shen Jianqing, whose looks were lavish, like a camellia blooming in winter. It should have been dramatic and eye-catching, but right now she was absorbed in her work, radiating an unhurried confidence.
It was a charm that flowed naturally from her brow and eyes, her bearing, or simply the lowered gaze when she concentrated. It clashed with her ornate yet unvulgar presence.
Contradictions bred attraction.
At least, for this one second, it was deeply attractive to most of the people in this lab.
“As expected of Teacher Shen. She just sits there and I already feel like next week’s experiments are in the bag.”
“Careful, if Teacher Chen hears she’ll drag you out herself.”
“Let her! Working alongside Teacher Shen, even being dragged out like a pincushion would be worth it.”
“Look at you, no dignity.”
“Right, because you have so much dignity. The one who couldn’t write her paper, cried in the hallway, and got caught by Teacher Shen, who personally tutored her until midnight.”
“Don’t bring that up. I get emotional just thinking about it.”
“……”
The lab buzzed with chatter.
Qin Yue grew drowsy from the noise and slowly fished her phone from her pocket to check the time.
Seven o’clock.
At this rate, Shen Jianqing would likely be stuck here very late tonight.
The unanswered WeChat message now had its answer.
“Teacher Chen, Teacher Shen, you two keep at it. I’ll head out.” Qin Yue stood.
Shen Jianqing was deep in a critical analysis and couldn’t spare attention. Chen Wei, sitting nearby, assumed it was just one of her own students speaking and replied offhandedly, “Go on, go on. Get back and work on your paper.”
Qin Yue said nothing. Her gaze rested on the fully absorbed Shen Jianqing for two seconds before she turned and left.
The air outside was still sweltering. Qin Yue walked into the setting sun at an unhurried pace.
It was still summer vacation. The campus was sparse. Following the small path all the way to the library, Qin Yue encountered only two students, both hurrying through the heat.
She was starting to sweat too, but there was no familiar sensation of steam baking at her neck.
She touched it, puzzled, and quickly realized what was different: Shen Jianqing’s hairpin was still fastened in her hair.
Judging by Chen Wei’s reaction, the hairpin must be important to Shen Jianqing.
Even if not important, it was surely something she needed for daily work.
But they only met once a week. If Qin Yue didn’t return it today, it would be seven days before she could.
How could something indispensable stay out of someone’s hands for that long?
Qin Yue slid her hands into her pockets, kicked a pebble left on the concrete into the grass, and turned back.
The new campus was absurdly large. Qin Yue walked from dusk until the streetlights came on before finally knocking on the door of 312.
The lights were on inside, but there was no sound.
Qin Yue waited a moment, then took out her phone and messaged Shen Jianqing.
【Where are you?】
The message sent successfully at the same moment a faint ding sounded from inside.
Shen Jianqing had left her phone behind.
In this kind of situation, she’d probably gone to eat or to another lab. She’d definitely be back later.
After some thought, Qin Yue walked toward the stairs and sent another message.
【I’ll wait for you downstairs.】
【Returning your hairpin.】
These messages, like the one from that morning, sank without a trace.
At ten o’clock that night, the debugging session came to a temporary halt.
Chen Wei, brimming with gratitude, bowed and cupped her hands, insisting on treating Shen Jianqing to a late-night snack.
Shen Jianqing was worn out. She had no appetite left.
She used the excuse of watching her weight, retrieved her car keys from the office, and headed for the parking lot.
Outside, wind had picked up at some point. Clouds hung low, threatening rain.
Shen Jianqing had no particular feelings about rain. She spent most of her time indoors. But she detested the dark, pressing sky before a storm, the way it seemed determined to squeeze every last breath from your chest. Arrogant. Add the wind, whipping up choking dust that followed you everywhere with no escape.
Shen Jianqing patiently brushed the hair blowing into her face several times to no effect. Her irritation mounted.
Assuming there was no one around at this hour, she undid her shirt buttons from one to three, fished out a slim case of women’s cigarettes from her bag, and lit one with cupped hands.
Clean smoke entered and left her lungs. The friction eased. Her pace turned languid.
The parking lot wasn’t far, just an open area in front of the building. But Shen Jianqing walked slowly and dawdled for five or six minutes before the outline of the car emerged from the thick darkness, overlapped with swaying tree shadows, hazy and indistinct.
Shen Jianqing strolled unhurriedly, the half-burned cigarette held in her right hand, its tip flaring and dimming in the careless wind.
Cough! Cough!
Suddenly, a few coughs sounded ahead, right near the car, but no one was visible.
Shen Jianqing stopped, alert. “Who’s there?”
A figure slowly rose from the swaying shadows.
Soon Qin Yue appeared at the rear of the car, having dozed off on the curb waiting.
“It’s me,” Qin Yue said. Her voice, still rough with sleep, wavered in the wind. Even hoarser than when she’d said “I can solder” that afternoon.
Shen Jianqing’s gaze focused instinctively on Qin Yue’s face. Not bad. Not only had the pallor faded, but sleeping on her arm had left a small flush on her cheek. Delicate. A different picture entirely.
Shen Jianqing exhaled a thin curl of smoke and walked over. “Why haven’t you left?”
Qin Yue leaned against the car and glanced at her. “You don’t check your phone.”
A statement of fact. Shen Jianqing’s mouth formed an “ah” and she couldn’t argue.
Her habit of ignoring her phone when absorbed in work was years old. It had genuinely offended people. She simply couldn’t change it. Once she was deep in work, her ears didn’t grow toward a phone.
“Sigh.” Shen Jianqing exhaled and held out the bag hooked over her arm. “Hold this.”
Qin Yue didn’t ask why. She took it.
Shen Jianqing added, “Unzip it.”
As Qin Yue moved, her gaze flicked to Shen Jianqing’s right hand, which hadn’t moved at all. A cigarette was pinched between her fingers.
Maybe the wind was strong, because Qin Yue couldn’t smell the distinctive scent of burning tobacco at all. But when Shen Jianqing bent her head to search the bag for her phone, her hair whipped chaotically against Qin Yue’s face, carrying an unexpected fragrance.
Qin Yue couldn’t name it exactly. Through the intermittent scent, she detected a faint powdery, vintage quality, rich and deep, intoxicating.
But fleeting.
“Found it.” Shen Jianqing held the phone and shifted sideways to lean against the car beside Qin Yue. She drawled, “Let Teacher Shen see what you’ve been sending.”
As she spoke, Shen Jianqing brushed the hair from her face, eyes half-lidded, head tilted, and took a practiced drag.
In that instant, the reckless wind filled her fitted shirt and the night served as pigment, carefully erasing the severity of “Teacher Shen” and sketching out instead a seductive, worldly “Shen Jianqing.”
A Shen Jianqing Qin Yue had never seen before, tinged with a languid, dissolute air. She opened WeChat and immediately smiled. “If you couldn’t reach me, why not come up? It’s not like you don’t know where.”
Qin Yue looked away from Shen Jianqing’s face, holding her bag. “You seemed busy.”
Shen Jianqing raised an eyebrow. “Even busy people can spare a second to reply.”
Qin Yue said, “Mm. But not enough to check WeChat.”
“……Why are you undermining me?” Shen Jianqing locked her phone and asked, “Are you upset?”
Qin Yue said, “No.”
“I knew it.” Shen Jianqing playfully tilted up Qin Yue’s chin with the corner of her phone, then tossed it back in the bag. “Master Qin is famously even-tempered. Sigh. Help me find the cigarette case in there.”
Qin Yue didn’t move immediately. She held the pose with her chin tilted up for a few seconds, then looked at the cigarette Shen Jianqing was bringing back to her lips. “Do you really like smoking?”
Shen Jianqing said, “Yeah. For years now. I forget about it when I’m busy, but when I’m free I can’t control myself.”
Qin Yue asked again. “Why?”
Shen Jianqing laughed. “There’s no why to smoking. It’s either for a thrill or because of stress.”
“Which one are you?”
“Stress.”
“Teachers get stressed?”
“Of course. We have fixed teaching and research quotas every semester. There’s no formal penalty for falling short, but it doesn’t look good.”
Shen Jianqing took a drag and exhaled slowly. “Every day I’m either holed up in the lab, teaching, running experiments, supervising undergraduate and graduate theses, or working on my own papers, patents, and projects. I wish I had three heads and six arms.”
Shen Jianqing rapped her knuckles on the bag, reminding Qin Yue. “The cigarette case.” Then she continued. “I don’t even know what I was thinking at the time. I had perfectly good research institutes available but insisted on becoming a teacher. Literally asked for it.”
Qin Yue reached into the bag and her fingers found a tube of lipstick. “Why did you have to become a teacher?”
Shen Jianqing’s hand holding the cigarette jerked as if burned. A beat later, she looked at Qin Yue through drifting strands of hair. “Have you said more today than in the past three years combined?”
Qin Yue pulled out the cigarette case and handed it over, answering a different question. “Today I discovered that Teacher Shen is quite skilled with hyperbole.”
She wasn’t mute. There was no way she’d only spoken this much to one person in three years.
Though…
Counted up, it really wasn’t much. And it was always in specific situations, with specific phrasing.
Shen Jianqing took the case, expertly knocked out a cigarette, lit it from the previous one, and took several long drags. Her expression, wreathed in curling smoke, grew even more languid.
“How long have you worked at Lead Science?” Shen Jianqing asked.
Qin Yue said, “Almost six years.”
“That long?!” Shen Jianqing was surprised. “How come I’ve never heard you mention it?” Plus, she vaguely recalled that Qin Yue was only twenty-four or twenty-five. Hadn’t she started working as a teenager??
Qin Yue ignored Shen Jianqing’s probing look and tilted her head up at the increasingly heavy clouds. “It never came up.”
Shen Jianqing paused.
Fair enough.
Their relationship was very simple. It could be summed up in a word that lacked a certain moral polish: friends with benefits.
Within those boundaries, discussing private matters was unnecessary.
Today’s meeting was unexpected. She’d inadvertently discovered some of Qin Yue’s “secrets” and had nearly been misled by the sudden warmth into forgetting that layer.
Shen Jianqing parted her red lips, steadied herself around the slim cigarette holder, and didn’t pursue why Qin Yue had started working so young. She changed the subject. “Thanks for today. I appreciate it.”
Qin Yue blinked. Her throat moved. “It was nothing. Teacher Chen already thanked me plenty.”
“She also told me to treat you to a meal.”
“Mm.” “Will you?”
Shen Jianqing tapped a finger lightly and flicked a length of ash onto a napkin. “Qin Yue, I’ve noticed something.”
Qin Yue asked, “What?”
Shen Jianqing crumpled the napkin and turned to look at her. “When you talk to Chen Wei, you use the formal ‘you.’ With me, it’s always casual.”
“What’s wrong with how I address people?”
“Chen Wei is thirty-one. I’m thirty-four. I’m a full three years older.”
“You don’t look your age.”
“Chen Wei has a baby face.”
“……”
Were all researchers this relentless?
Qin Yue’s worn white sneakers stood next to Shen Jianqing’s black heels. She asked, “Do you want me to call you by the formal ‘you’?”
Shen Jianqing thought about it and shook her head. “No.”
Their encounters happened in bed.
Being addressed formally by someone nine years younger than her in bed… the image had barely flickered through her mind before chills ran down her spine. Let alone the fact that this particular person knew exactly how to handle her.
Every time they were together, whether long or short, gentle or intense, she always ended up having to ask before Qin Yue would stroke her hair, lean in to embrace her, and then finish things quickly.
Having someone like that call her by the formal “you” felt absurdly wrong, like forcing a courtesan to become a lady.
Truly bizarre. And perversely amusing.
Shen Jianqing lowered her face and focused on her cigarette, having no intention of explaining her inconsistency.
But Qin Yue slung the bag from her side onto her lap and offered, “Maybe I should switch to calling you by the formal ‘you,’ so no one asks again.”
Qin Yue’s even, measured tone was unmistakably picking a fight.
Shen Jianqing turned to stare at her, tongue pressing against the inside of her cheek. “Don’t push your luck.”
Shen Jianqing’s look was dangerous. She could be intimidating like this. Unfortunately, her collar was open too wide and the bewitching elegance dissolved every trace of authority.
Besides, Qin Yue was her equal. There was no need to be deferential and obedient like one of her students.
Qin Yue calmly countered, “Was I?”
Shen Jianqing’s breathing thickened.
They stared at each other across the narrow distance, neither yielding. It looked like a standoff.
Except that Shen Jianqing let out a tiny yawn right after.
“Fine, fine. I know you’re not someone to mess with. I’ll drop it from now on, okay?” Shen Jianqing said.
The yawn had softened her voice, and the concession made the words come out like a sigh, tinged with helpless indulgence.
Qin Yue paused a beat, belatedly realizing she’d gone too far.
Their relationship was equal but thin. Nowhere near the level where bickering was appropriate.
She wanted to apologize but felt it would be forced.
After a silence, Qin Yue decided to let the topic die quietly.
Fortunately, Shen Jianqing had no intention of dwelling on it either. She lifted her head, savoring the comfort of the cigarette.
Soon the second cigarette burned out. Shen Jianqing straightened up, full of vigor, and twirled the car keys as she rounded toward the driver’s seat. “Get in. I’ll drive you home.”
Qin Yue lived far away and didn’t want to trouble Shen Jianqing.
Before she could say so, Shen Jianqing, remembering it was Friday, draped an arm over the car door and drawled with a lifted corner of her mouth, “It’s getting rather late. I wonder if Master Qin is still in the mood tonight?”
