It was an almost dreamlike sight. C Sea Island wasn’t really a habitat for seabirds—they weren’t particularly common there, and certainly not tame around people. And yet, at this very moment, one was resting on the terrace, right atop the delicate Baroque carvings.
Why wasn’t it sleeping? It didn’t even shy away at the sight of them.
Perhaps sharing the affliction of insomnia made Meng Ning feel an inexplicable fondness for this bold intruder. She studied its plump body wrapped in silver-gray feathers, its eyes shaded with gray, its long and slightly curved beak.
Wen Zenian glanced at Meng Ning.
Then she turned back and picked up the bread that had come with their dinner. “Want to feed it?”
“Will it eat?”
“No idea. Let’s try.”
Meng Ning held out her palm to Wen Zenian. Wen Zenian’s eyelashes fluttered down slightly, her gaze falling into it like moonlight from that evening. Suddenly, she smiled.
The smile flashed quick and vanished just as fast. Before Meng Ning could even ask what she was smiling about, the curve at the corner of her mouth had smoothed away, leaving only a trace of amusement lingering in her eyes. Wen Zenian broke off a bit more of the bread and placed the crumbs in her palm. “Go ahead.”
As Meng Ning started toward the terrace, a worry resurfaced: the coastline was closed at night, but if some rule-breaking guest wandered in and staff arrived to shoo them off, someone might spot her out on Wen Zenian’s private terrace.
Wen Zenian seemed to read her thoughts perfectly. “No one else will come.”
“It’s just us here.”
The words felt like a magic incantation. Or perhaps a promise.
Wen Zenian was the god of this dream realm, able to conjure clouds or summon rain with a mere gesture. And so she granted Meng Ning this pocket of serene seclusion—and here it was.
Nothing but the night breeze. The waves. Sheer curtains fluttering lightly. The uninvited seabird. And the two of them.
No disturbances. No prying eyes.
Meng Ning was naturally suspicious by nature, and yet somehow those words from Wen Zenian inspired utter trust. She stepped forward.
The seabird didn’t startle, as if to affirm that the night itself would remain undisturbed.
She could sense Wen Zenian following close behind, her footsteps feather-light, whispering like sand underfoot on a beach.
Everything here felt worlds away from ordinary life.
Meng Ning extended her palm. The seabird eyed them warily for a moment, paused in silence, then hopped over to peck at the crumbs.
Its beak wasn’t gentle; Meng Ning’s palm tingled with a faint itch and sting.
For no reason at all, the thought crossed her mind: no wonder fortune-tellers always kept sparrows for company. The steady peck of a beak into one’s palm, right along the love line or life line…
It planted the strange sensation that some mystical force was rewriting her fate.
The night breeze had begun to carry the first hints of early spring, tousling hair and thoughts alike toward the season ahead. Wen Zenian, standing beside her, spoke up. “Meng Ning.”
“No matter how it happened, I’m genuinely glad we ran into each other again.”
Meng Ning’s shoulders tensed. Right then, the seabird—evidently full—flapped its wings with a rustle and took off.
Wen Zenian drew over Meng Ning’s hand, still curled slightly and not yet withdrawn, and gently brushed away the last crumbs.
Perhaps everything about this night resembled a dream. Their embrace on the sofa while watching the documentary. The sudden arrival of the seabird. The wind laced with this year’s first breath of spring.
But if Meng Ning looked back on this night years from now, the memory that would linger was Wen Zenian clasping her fingertips after dusting off the crumbs—her slender fingers, chilled by the night breeze, tracing lightly across the lines in her palm.
Had she followed the life line? Or the love line?
The night was too dark to tell. Amid the shiver rippling through her soul, even sensation proved unreliable.
Wen Zenian released her hand. “It’s getting late. If you’re heading back, you should rest soon.”
Meng Ning slipped out through the hotel’s staff passageway and onto the gravel path leading to the dorms.
Everything here was serene and harmonious, governed by unerring routine. The one discordant note was her own heartbeat.
That fleeting stroke from Wen Zenian moments ago—the trembling sensation had raced up her forearm to her shoulder, then forked: one path stirring chaos in her heart, the other climbing toward the nape of her neck.
Until even there it grew taut.
Some people had a way of creating those singular, shining moments that left you marveling at the strangeness of fate. Meng Ning couldn’t say why she’d kept her palm clenched the whole way back; only belatedly did she realize she simply didn’t want the memory of Wen Zenian’s touch along her palm lines to fade.
How had Wen Zenian known to trace them right then, exactly when her thoughts had turned to those lines and the fate they foretold? She couldn’t read minds; there was no way she knew what was in Meng Ning’s head.
A coincidence, then? It had to be—probably one Wen Zenian herself was oblivious to, unaware of the earthquake it had triggered inside her.
Humans were emotional creatures at heart. Certain coincidences settled deep, transforming into something like destiny.
When Meng Ning reached the dorm, she was surprised to find Qi Xiao still awake, hunched over her phone and playing a game.
It startled her—Qi Xiao’s schedule was usually clockwork precise.
“Why aren’t you asleep?” Meng Ning asked softly as she kicked off her shoes.
Qi Xiao looked up from the screen, and Meng Ning nearly jumped; twin bruises of exhaustion ringed her eyes, dark enough to pass for a panda’s kin.
Qi Xiao’s voice was hoarse. “Finally caught you.”
“Something wrong?”
“Oh yeah—big time! How was yacht time with Gwyneth?”
“That’s what you waited up for?” Meng Ning chuckled. “You could’ve crashed and asked me tomorrow.”
“No dice. Holding out this long was torture enough.” Qi Xiao yawned hugely.
“Give me a sec to rinse off, then.”
Meng Ning crawled into her own bed and turned toward Qi Xiao. The overhead light was off; only the bedside lamp between their beds glowed, twisted to its dimmest setting.
And so Meng Ning recounted the yacht’s cabin, a dead ringer for the Whiskey Bar. The stack of vintage blue vinyl records. Liquor that never seemed to run out, ice that never melted. Dancing straight through the night. Wind whipping across the deck.
Until the sky began to pale with dawn—then down to the cabin’s second level, white curtains unfurled, a lush and romantic old film flickering to life.
At first, Qi Xiao alternated between goofy grins and sighs of “That sounds amazing.”
But gradually, she fell silent.
Meng Ning glanced over and saw she’d drifted off, cheek pillowed on her own hand, lips smacking softly—as if she’d slipped straight into the dreamscape of Meng Ning’s tale, boarding that yacht rocking on the waves, sipping a drink, stealing a moment’s bliss.
Meng Ning smiled quietly to herself and finished the story anyway: how she and Wen Zenian had left the yacht. She told the ending mostly for her own sake.
Qi Xiao’s late night made Meng Ning hesitate the next morning about waking her for their long run.
In the end, she did. If she didn’t push now, life would do it harshly later. Fail the fitness test, and Qi Xiao would have zero shot at renewing her contract with the C Hotel.
Qi Xiao dragged herself through the run like a corpse, then barely survived morning training before gasping that she was down to half a life. Meng Ning joined her in the staff cafeteria for breakfast and fetched her an extra triple-shot espresso.
“So,” she teased, “was the gossip worth that pain?”
Qi Xiao mumbled around a mouthful, “Totally! You have no idea—I fell asleep to your story last night and actually dreamed of that yacht! What about you? Any dreams?”
Meng Ning answered inwardly: Plenty.
Not of the yacht’s lavish clamor, though. She dreamed instead of the tranquil terrace, Wen Zenian pinching her fingertips, a finger grazing lightly along her palm lines.
As if rewriting her fate.
Qi Xiao flashed a sly grin. “But you held back some juicy details, right? Like, how you two… cough cough cough!”
She’d just crunched into a cherry tomato; juice nearly drowned her.
Meng Ning followed her gaze. Wen Zenian was approaching their table, tray in hand.
With perfect naturalness, she pulled out the empty chair beside Meng Ning. “Morning, Meng Ning.”
“Morning, Sharon.”
Qi Xiao blinked blankly. “Morning.”
Wen Zenian’s posture at the table was pure elegance—her fork and knife slicing through a pancake with poise fit for a European classical portrait. Beneath the table, though, she maintained the refined bearing of a hotel professional: her long legs in sheer stockings pressed primly together, one calf angled slightly outward, the six-centimeter heel of her pump tapping the floor.
All the same, her knee tilted toward Meng Ning’s side, brushing lightly against her leg.
Meng Ning kept her composure, though her grip tightened on her utensils and her lips pressed together in a way Qi Xiao, across the table, couldn’t detect.
But she sensed Wen Zenian had noticed. From the corner of her eye, Meng Ning caught the subtle curve at the edge of those earth-toned lips—a faint smile.
Fleeting, perceptible only to her.
Only then did Wen Zenian add an explanation. “One way we’re optimizing hotel finances is by scrapping the management cafeteria. A la carte dining is too extravagant and truly unnecessary—the staff meals are excellent enough. Management will be eating here going forward.”
Qi Xiao let out an “Ah.”
Wen Zenian glanced her way.
She waved her hands hastily. “No, no—not like that. It’s an honor!”
Wen Zenian replied, “No need to put on a front. Nobody enjoys sharing a table with the bosses, any more than I enjoy dealing with investors. But it can’t be helped—for cost control, business is business.”
She seemed the efficient type: she ate quickly and sparingly. Despite arriving after Meng Ning and Qi Xiao, she finished first. Tray in hand, she nodded to them. “I’ve got to get back to work.”
Highborn and refined as she appeared, she wasn’t above the small things; she cleared her own tray.
The moment she left, Qi Xiao exhaled in relief. “You scared me half to death.”
Then, to Meng Ning: “So, what’s it like?”
“What’s what like?”
Qi Xiao jerked her chin. Wen Zenian’s bold features carried a certain aggressive beauty—up close, people instinctively averted their eyes from that striking face. But as she turned to bus her tray and walk out, every gaze in the place followed her retreating figure.
“Everyone’s got a soft spot for Gwyneth,” Qi Xiao said. “Nobody would even dream of letting it go further. Except you—flirting away with those eyes.”
“When have I ever flirted with my eyes?”
“Right there! When she came over for breakfast!” Qi Xiao stared her down. “Your eyeballs were practically orbiting each other, and you still deny it?”
Meng Ning paused. Had it really been that obvious?
Qi Xiao laughed. “You two might as well be dating.”
