Chapter 14

Wen Zenian clearly understood Meng Ning’s question.

But she raised an eyebrow and answered fairly: “Most of the time, people seem awfully tense whenever they see me.”

Meng Ning pursed her lips.

Qi Xiao glanced sideways at Wen Zenian, then at Meng Ning—wait, something wasn’t right. Why did it feel like there was an undercurrent surging between these two? Over the years, even if she hadn’t dated anyone, she’d devoured enough novels and shipped enough couples to spot this a mile away. No way were they fooling her.

Meng Ning stayed silent, so Wen Zenian asked again: “Where’s my milk candy?”

Qi Xiao was dumbfounded—candy? What candy? It felt like she’d missed a whole season’s worth of drama.

Meng Ning explained: “Because you didn’t reply to my message, I…”

Wen Zenian tilted her chin down slightly and gave a faint smile, the gesture saying “I get it.”

Then she nodded to them in farewell and walked back to the other colleagues.

Qi Xiao let out a huge sigh of relief. Only then did she head toward the dorms with Meng Ning. “No wonder you asked me this afternoon which brand of milk candy is the best. You didn’t buy any—is this my fault?”

Meng Ning shook her head. “The candy was just something she mentioned offhand when she called about the early training. There seemed to be other people around her at the time, so I wasn’t even sure if she was talking to me. Then I messaged her later, and she never replied, so…”

Meng Ning shrugged as she spoke.

Truth be told, if this had happened with anyone else, there wouldn’t be anything to agonize over. It was just a pack of milk candy—buy it and be done.

But with Wen Zenian, Meng Ning couldn’t help overthinking it.

If that comment about buying candy hadn’t been directed at her at all, and she went rushing off to deliver a pack anyway, what would that make her? Sucking up? Desperate? Their current positions and statuses guaranteed it wouldn’t be anything flattering.

Besides, the Wen Zenian of today was no longer the sort of person to fuss over a single pack of candy.

She could have the most dazzling macarons. The sweetest chocolate lava vanilla ice cream. All the sweets in the world, hers for the taking.

Qi Xiao probed cautiously: “Her attitude toward you seems pretty special, doesn’t it?”

“Does it?” Meng Ning replied with a question.

“Otherwise, why would she ask you to buy her candy?”

“She just got here out of nowhere and doesn’t know anyone else. I happened to be off duty on the mainland.” Meng Ning analyzed it. “Like you said, even five-star hotel food gets old after a while. She probably just wanted a change of pace.”

“If only you’d bought it for her.”

Meng Ning shook her head again. “It’s just candy. To her now, it wouldn’t mean a thing.”

That evening, back in the dorm, Meng Ning did a quick tidy-up and changed clothes, preparing to head out.

Qi Xiao said: “You’re going swimming again tonight? Skip it—save your energy for tomorrow’s early training.”

Meng Ning smiled. “Not swimming. Just taking a stroll. You go to bed early; don’t wait up.”

If she didn’t burn off some energy, there was no way she’d fall asleep.

The usual melatonin wasn’t cutting it anymore. And now that she’d stopped her meetings with Doctor Qin, no one could prescribe sleeping pills for her.

The nighttime sea brought a sense of calm, its deep expanse like something that could swallow countless secrets. Meng Ning shoved her hands in her pockets and strolled slowly along the shoreline, her V-strap sandals sinking into the shallow sand.

The moonlight was frozen ocean waves from the sky; the waves were flowing moonlight from the earth. The sound of the surf crashed gently at her ears, drowning out the many voices in her heart. Meng Ning kept her head down, scanning the beach for any fiddler crabs like the one that had once clung to Wen Zenian’s finger.

So it wasn’t until a pair of high heels entered her line of sight that she realized she wasn’t alone on the beach.

She’d been lost in thought; otherwise, she would have caught the scent of smoke from Wen Zenian’s fingertips long ago, mingled with the perfume that lit up the entire night.

She took a step back, earning a soft laugh from Wen Zenian—the laugh that said, See? I told you your courage fails you sometimes.

Moonlight cloaked Wen Zenian in a thin halo, making everything around her hazy, dreamlike, elusive. Even the fear in Meng Ning’s heart was veiled by the visual spell. She couldn’t believe the words that tumbled out: “So nothing happened that night, right?”

Because her courage really was that small.

Wen Zenian took the cigarette from between her lips. With no wind tonight, her slender fingers tapped twice along the thin cigarette, sending ash fluttering down to her feet like time itself reduced to cinders.

Wen Zenian countered: “Don’t you know yourself? What do you think happened?”

Why did this woman always dodge her questions head-on?

Meng Ning couldn’t fathom Wen Zenian’s thoughts. Just as she’d told Qi Xiao, they’d been apart too long, and Wen Zenian had changed so much. This wasn’t so much a reunion as getting to know a stranger all over again.

But she still had one more question for Wen Zenian: “Have you dated anyone?”

Wen Zenian glanced at her, the cigarette between her fingers, seemingly surprised by Meng Ning’s uncharacteristic boldness.

The current Wen Zenian was far too adept at beating around the bush—perhaps it was a key skill for a hotel manager.

She could have easily sidestepped the question, and Meng Ning wouldn’t have had any recourse.

But instead, she withdrew her gaze from Meng Ning and turned to the endless sea. “Yes.”

Something itched at Meng Ning’s feet. She looked down—not a hermit crab, but a fiddler crab. Its two claws were far more prominent. Just one glance, and it felt like those claws had given her heart a subtle pinch.

She pressed on: “How many?”

Wen Zenian glanced at her again.

Only when she looked back out to sea did she reply: “Two.”

Meng Ning nodded. Deep down, she harbored a rather scummy thought—even if she’d done something unforgivable in her drunken haze, at least she wasn’t Wen Zenian’s first… or only.

After all, someone like her could never be responsible for the Wen Zenian of today.

She didn’t have that capability.

Damn alcohol—it caused so much trouble. She really shouldn’t have drunk that much.

Wen Zenian asked in return: “What about you?”

“Never.”

“Why not?” Wen Zenian stared at the sea; Meng Ning stared down at the fiddler crab, which skirted her high heels and crawled toward another rocky outcrop. Wen Zenian continued: “Plenty of people must like you.”

“Not really.” Meng Ning smiled. “There just never seemed to be the right moment. Who knows what I’ve been busy with all this time—just spinning my wheels.”

“When would the timing be right?”

Meng Ning paused. “I don’t know.”

Some questions had no answers, not even for God.

Prying any deeper into each other’s romantic histories felt like crossing a line, given their current relationship. Silence fell, broken only by the waves lapping at their hearts.

Wen Zenian kept smoking. When she smoked, she always had that air about her, as if anyone’s approach was an unwelcome intrusion.

Meng Ning gave up on saying hello and walked away from her side.

But after two steps, she couldn’t resist turning back: “You sure smoke a lot.”

“Didn’t I tell you?” Wen Zenian stood with her back to Meng Ning. The moonlight and starlight were faint, but the pale expanse of her exposed nape from her updo was the most striking sight on the beach. “Smoking’s bad for the body, good for the mood.”

A moment of silence.

She turned, seeing Meng Ning still rooted in place, a few steps away. “You’ve gotten awfully quiet lately. By the usual chat routine, shouldn’t you be asking me right now if I’m in a bad mood?”

Meng Ning grinned.

For some inexplicable reason, she thought: Wen Zenian had been abroad so long, yet she still knew words like “routine.” Impressive.

Wen Zenian ignored her and answered her own question: “I’m in a bad mood because I didn’t get the candy I wanted.”

At that point, Meng Ning should have apologized and left, but she didn’t know why she was still standing there.

Wen Zenian approached step by step. Her high heels left shallow divots in the sand, each one deep enough to hold moonlight for brewing wine. Walking in heels on the beach was no easy feat; with every step, she had to lift her ankle deliberately, her foot arching subtly in a way that made the line from ankle to instep look especially elegant.

Her perfume wafted over, and Meng Ning instinctively wanted to step back. Before she could move, Wen Zenian slipped her hand into Meng Ning’s pocket.

It’s over, Meng Ning thought.

Wen Zenian pulled her hand out, palm open to reveal a pack of candy.

“I just said you’ve gotten much more honest lately, and here you are being dishonest again.”

Meng Ning dreaded her pressing further—asking why she’d bought the candy but lied about it.

But Wen Zenian asked nothing, simply handing the candy back. “Peel one for me.”

Meng Ning glanced at her. Wen Zenian raised the cigarette between her fingers, signaling it wasn’t convenient.

Meng Ning tore open the bag, fished out a piece, and unwrapped it. If Wen Zenian had been polite about it, Meng Ning might have felt awkward, as if she were deliberately highlighting the gap in their statuses and avoiding anything that could be misconstrued.

But Wen Zenian’s casual request actually put her at ease.

Meng Ning held the candy out on its cellophane wrapper. Wen Zenian pinched it with her fingers and slipped it into her mouth, her tongue tip darting subtly between her teeth to draw it in. Beyond that, though, her posture and expression remained cool and restrained, making the small gesture feel like deliberate teasing.

Like a single piece jarred loose from a perfectly fitted puzzle.

When they were together, Wen Zenian had these subtle little mannerisms. Right now, she must have tasted the hint of sea salt wrapped inside the milk candy, blending seamlessly with the waves behind them. Her eyes narrowed slightly—not sly like a fox’s, just faint creases at the corners that vanished in a blink.

All her micro-expressions were like that: subtle and fleeting, like a kite string slipping through your fingers, drawing you to chase after it with great strides.

When her hand reached out again, Meng Ning flinched. She’d given her the candy—what now?

Wen Zenian had switched the cigarette to her left hand to reach into Meng Ning’s other pocket.

Meng Ning never saw it coming. There was no dodging it now. She watched as another pack of candy appeared in Wen Zenian’s palm—this one a different brand, pure sweet, no sea salt.

“That one…”

She should explain her overly eager behavior.

But there was no teasing in Wen Zenian’s eyes. She kept her head down, as if reading the packaging word by word: “I thought you’d changed a lot, but then again, maybe you’re not so different from before.”

Of course Meng Ning knew what she meant.

That day in the classroom, sunset light filtered through the window, sliced into blocks by the standard grid panes. It spilled across desks and chairs, shattering on the floor like crumbled candy.

Meng Ning had straddled the chair in front of Wen Zenian, leaning on her desk and peering up from below to sneak a look: “Stop crying. I can see your snot.”

Wen Zenian had her face buried in her hands. The girl’s tears fell quietly, but the lower half of her face peeking out was dotted with uneven patches of red.

Staring at those little red flushes, Meng Ning realized Wen Zenian was truly heartbroken.

She pulled two packs of candy from the pocket of her school uniform and arranged them neatly on Wen Zenian’s desk. “Eating something sweet will lift your spirits. I wasn’t sure which kind you liked, so I bought both flavors of milk candy from the school shop.”

Wen Zenian finally lowered her hand.

Meng Ning recalled the stubborn patches of blush that had colored her face moments before, impossible to dispel. For some reason, she couldn’t bring herself to meet those red, swollen eyes, still bloodshot from crying.

Instead, she kept her gaze downcast, watching as Wen Zenian’s frostbitten hand toyed with the wrapper on one of the milk candies.

“Thank you,” the girl murmured, her voice barely above a whisper.