There’s a short story.

War breaks out. A husband, bound for a brutal front, tells his very young wife:

"I don’t know if I’ll make it back—if you meet someone right, remarry."

"If you do, tie a white silk scarf to the balcony rail outside our home. If I return and see it, I won’t disturb your new life. I’ll leave quietly."

"If I don’t come back, then none of this will happen."

"I don’t want to be the stone that trips you as you keep walking."

"Let’s agree on that."

…

Ye Weibai turns a tissue between his fingers. His voice is slow, like rain sliding down eaves. "The husband in that story is quite calculating. He never truly meant to let his wife go.

Tie a white scarf on the balcony. After she remarries, every time she sees it, she’ll think of her first husband. She’ll keep a fantasy that he’s still out there.

That scarf becomes a relic she misses and a snare at her ankles."

"Senior, your take is dark as always. It’s a warm, sad story—so what’s the ending?"

"The ending? After it’s over, I’ll tell you. Next, I have to do something cruel."

"But really—why refuse? Dating a middle schooler would spook most people, sure. But social morals are crap to you, right?"

"Ahaha—no wonder you’re Guozi. You speak right to my heart. ‘Lolicon,’ ‘siscon’—I don’t care about those labels. What I loathe—" Ye Weibai’s smile snaps shut. His gaze clouds like a storming lake. "I loathe being someone else’s placeholder."

Placeholder…?

Following Ye Weibai’s eyes, Li Mengguo sees who just pushed the door open—Xue Yutong. Then she understands him.

The moment Yutong steps in, her gaze locks on Ye Weibai. In that heartbeat, feeling in her eyes erupts like gasoline catching a spark—sudden, blinding, firework-bright. For a second, Li Mengguo can barely look, as if night exploded into flowers of light.

So dazzling and so hot—and yet empty.

Fireworks leave no trace once they bloom in the night. Just like Yutong now. She’s brimming with feeling for Ye Weibai—gratitude, maybe infatuation. Strip that away, and the girl is hollow.

It makes sense. A cloud hung over her heart; the sun finally burned through. A girl will clutch that shaft of light tight. But it also means this: if Ye Weibai leaves, she’ll collapse at once. Not just back to how she was, but down into an abyss.

But—why so urgent—

Slipping away, Li Mengguo still glances back at Ye Weibai. She knows he worries for Yutong. She’s puzzled though. The best way to soften such heat is time. He knows that. So why the rush—why cut with a single knife?

So urgent, like—

Time is running out.

…

"Xiaobai." She takes two steps like three, stops by his table, and stands bright and straight. The girl smiles, a sunrise breaking across her face, and greets him. Sunlight pours through the shop window. It lands on the ink-and-white clarity of her eyes, on shoulders smooth as porcelain, on a small soft body, on long straight hair that gleams like wet ink. The light makes her smile blaze. It isn’t about looks. It’s the heat of feeling made visible.

No words needed. Anyone can see it. She doesn’t hide it. If anything, she wants to shout it to the sky.

Xue Yutong is happy—seeing Xiaobai today makes her happy. No—super, super, super happy.

Ye Weibai looks up at her. Her radiance stings like noon sun; he can’t help but half-squint. But—even so, I still have to…

Begin.

"Yo, Classmate Xiaotong. Please, sit—"

Yutong’s smile stalls a fraction.

She’s always been sensitive.

Classmate Xiaotong—why that address? He only calls me that when he’s testing my ‘reading’ skill. Is he going to test me? Read which ‘book’… the waitress, the customers—or Xiaobai himself.

"What’s wrong, not sitting?" Ye Weibai keeps a smile on his lips.

"Oh—oh, okay." Yutong snaps back. Doubt flickers, but a girl in the heat of first love turns adorable and clumsy. Soon the sweetness returns to her face.

Where should I sit? At Xiaobai’s side or across? Across means eye contact. At his side… this isn’t the library with two seats split. Too close, if we sit together.

Her eyes drop to the seat on Ye Weibai’s right. He slides the glass in front of him to the right, an inch, without a change in his face.

Hmm… that’s a ‘clue,’ right? It means don’t sit beside him. So the test has begun. Yutong blinks, smooths her skirt, and sits across from him.

Ye Weibai watches her face the whole time. There’s no hint of loss, no sting. If anything, she looks proud—like she guessed right. She treats this refusal as a game they play.

"D-Do I look weird?" Ye Weibai’s silence rattles her. She thought she was fine, but in front of him, doubt rises like fog.

She touches a strand of hair, and her teeth worry a soft, wet lip.

…

Ye Weibai has never seen Yutong like this. Long hair down. School uniform swapped for day clothes. Her forearms on the table look like tender lotus roots just lifted from water. She’s even wearing makeup—honestly, not well. Did she do it herself?

He almost laughs. She’d be prettier without it.

Ugly, even.

He thinks that—then those moist, expectant eyes catch him. His breath trips.

Even if she can’t do makeup. Even if she’s shy dressing like this. Even if she was scared to walk alone through the crowded streets—she still came. For him.

He suddenly realizes he overrated himself. He isn’t as steely as he thought. Not enough to sever a schoolgirl’s love in one stroke. She’s twelve, a middle schooler. He could say, "You’re too young to know what liking is." Or, "Don’t mistake gratitude for love." But even he can’t swallow those lines. They’re too cruel.

"No—you look beautiful."

He flashes a bright smile.

…

But Yutong tucks her smile away. The fire in her eyes cools. Her gaze drops and fixes on her right hand, trembling a little on the table.

"Th-Then that’s good."

Simple words, yet somehow the air between them shifts completely.

The shop’s sounds drain out like water from a basin.

Yutong sits perfectly still. Only her lowered lashes quiver.

She’s still that sensitive girl. And after the bullying, she’s razor-sharp to fake smiles. She reads him.

She reads Ye Weibai’s smile.

A dead silence. It’s the first time that kind of awkwardness sits between them. Ye Weibai forces himself to speak first, the words dry in his throat. "Classmate Xiaotong—"

"Um, Xiaobai!" Desperate, the girl raises her voice and cuts him off.

Heads turn. Waitstaff and customers stare. She doesn’t notice. She sits rigid.

"On my way here, I had to cross that shopping street. I was scared at first. But I remembered what you said, and I tried to ‘read.’ Before I knew it, I walked through calmly."

"I—"

"Let me finish!" Her voice scrapes high. Ye Weibai closes his mouth.

"Before… I could never cross a place with that many people. Let alone walk into a café like this. No, not even walk in—just thinking about dealing with strangers, those strange eyes, words, gestures, what they think… things I can’t guess at—just thinking about it made me hurt, hurt so hard I couldn’t breathe. So, if—if—"

She keeps her head down. Her face has gone white, all the color leeched away. Her words race. Her hands fist so tight her nails must pierce her palms.

Ye Weibai suddenly finds it hard to breathe. He notices she painted her nails today—a whisper of pink. Probably her first time.

His mind reels. Her choked voice drifts in from a far shore and ripples through him.

"If—I hadn’t met you—I’d still be curled up in the library. Hiding in books. Sealed forever. Because it was you, Xiaobai, because you smiled at me so gently, I broke out.

So, please—only you, only you, Xiaobai—don’t show me that kind of smile!"

That smile with no smile in it.

Ye Weibai’s vision goes dark, like a blow between the eyes. He realizes what a stupid thing he just did.

How could he show that smile to this girl?

It was smiles like that—false and edged—that almost pushed her into the abyss. He pulled her out. And he was about to shove her back in.

Ye Weibai drags in a breath, stands up hard, and leans across to hold Xue Yutong tight. Only now does he feel it—beneath the ice, she’s shaking.

"I’m sorry!"

Her chin lands on his shoulder as he hugs her. Their hair tangles together like threads of black silk. Her face, white as paper a moment ago, comes alive when she hears "sorry." Tears well in those clear eyes at once. They run down her cheeks, gather at her chin, and drip into his white shirt.

"D-Don’t say sorry."

Xiaobai can’t be wrong.

"I’m sorry."

She bites her lip so hard it almost breaks skin. Her voice trembles. "So—please don’t say sorry!"

Xiaobai can’t be wrong. So don’t say it.

"I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry!"

No… even I make mistakes.

Ye Weibai’s voice carries. Everyone in the café watches the two of them locked together, like a statue carved from one heart.

Yutong doesn’t even blink. Her tears don’t stop. After a long time she speaks, words snagging. "…Does Yutong’s crush trouble you, Xiaobai?"

"Yes." Ye Weibai is blunt.

Held close, he feels her heartbeat miss a step. Then Yutong softens again in his arms.

"Do I make things hard for you?"

"You don’t."

"Will I… still get to see you?"

So many clues. Yutong has already ‘read’ the ending hidden in this ‘book’ named Ye Weibai. It’s more than rejecting her love. There’s a deeper ending that scares her. But she still wants to hear him say it.

"I probably won’t go to the library anymore." Ye Weibai’s voice drops like a gavel.

Her body shakes hard. She tries to pull away. He holds her fast.

"I won’t go. And I don’t want to see you there."

"So, from now on, don’t let me see you in the library again, Xue Yutong.

Do you understand—did you read it?"

Panic surged, hot and briny like a riptide.

Head tipped back, Xue Yutong gulped at the air like a fish flung on dry shore.

She dragged each breath as if she could cough out every shard of despair.

At last, the little girl squeezed her eyes shut, pain knifing through like cold iron.

The words fell one by one, like stones into a dry well: "I... can... read... it."

...

...