“Did you get heatstroke?”

Mu Xiaowei’s black hair clung to her faintly flushed cheeks like damp silk, and she rose on tiptoe, palm on Yexiaobai’s forehead, spring-water eyes glinting with mischief.

Qingya Middle School’s uniform came in two styles, shirts and T‑shirts, each with male and female cuts; today, Mu Xiaowei wore the male shirt like a borrowed breeze.

To cool off, she undid the first button, and in that fist-sized distance, Yexiaobai only had to dip his chin to catch a flash of soft, dazzling skin.

No matter how close they were, that secret always felt like a red string he shouldn’t tug, a forbidden garden he shouldn’t gaze into.

“Too close.” Yexiaobai took a step back, like a fish slipping out of a net.

“Hehe. Shy now?” Mu Xiaowei pressed in, like a cat that found a warm patch of sun.

“Idiot. It’s just too hot.” He tried to push her away, but with his childhood friend squaring her shoulders like a shield, his hands had nowhere to land.

“Who’re you calling idiot? Idiot Xiaobai!” Mu Xiaowei flashed a little fang, bright as a fox’s tooth.

“Ah, ah. I mean,” Zhaomingming’s voice drifted over like a dry breeze, “can you not shove your PDA in our faces on a day this hot?”

“Jealous, are we, Mingming? I won’t ignore you.” Mu Xiaowei spun on a heel and bounced to Zhaomingming’s side, claws out, grin wicked as a crescent moon.

Yexiaobai could only shake his head, a leaf in the wind; with this childhood friend who refused to admit being one, every approach felt like stepping on thin ice.

“Looks like we can’t talk here.” He glanced up at the distant clock tower, its bronze face steady; in a blink, it was already half past one.

“Saturday night. After class ends. Is everyone free?” Yexiaobai asked, words dropping like pebbles into a still pond.

“Free.” Mu Xiaowei stopped her playful chase, agreeing in one breath, light as a dandelion seed.

Blushing again, Zhaomingming slipped from Mu Xiaowei’s grasp like a shadow at dusk. “Got a plan, Xiaobai?”

“Let’s hold a short meeting at night. Keep it simple, talk through the performance,” he said, thoughts gathering like clouds.

“Sounds fun!” Mu Xiaowei nodded at once, eyes bright as lanterns.

Zhaomingming hesitated, the pause like a held note. “Saturday night…”

She lifted her head and looked at Ye Weibai, her gaze suddenly serious, sharp as a blade under silk. “Why Saturday night? Is that timing special?”

Yexiaobai froze, a deer catching a light. “Nothing special. Why ask, Mingming?”

“…” Zhaomingming gave him a long look, deep as a well, gathered her coat closer like a shell, and shook her head. “Nothing. Saturday night it is.”

They settled on meeting at Yexiaobai’s place Saturday night. It was only Wednesday, so they also planned to pull a few more people in if fate sent them their way.

…

“So, the Hundred‑Day Oath Rally is almost here.”

“I think it’s this Saturday.”

The exchange happened when evening self‑study ended, the bell ringing like a brass hammer and a day of fighting test papers finally exhaling like a tired sea.

“The Hundred‑Day Oath Rally?” Yexiaobai, tidying his desk, picked up Mu Xiaowei’s thread like a kite string. “I remember it’s Saturday.”

“Right. Ming—”

He turned to his side, yet the seat sat empty, a chair like a shed skin.

“What’s wrong?” Mu Xiaowei looked at the dazed Xiaobai, voice soft as rain.

“Nothing. Mingming pulled another ghost vanish.” Yexiaobai shook his head, the motion slow as a pendulum.

“Now that you mention it… yeah, when did she slip away? Whatever. We’re used to it. Let’s go! The evening slot’s starting—be late and we’ll miss the tide!”

“Ah. You’re still watching that super long series from decades ago—Infinite Labyrinth.”

“Got a problem?” Mu Xiaowei shot him a glare, bright as a flare; when he shook his head, she smiled like a blossom. “Exactly. It’s good, that’s why it’s lasted. Move it! You’re the one dawdling, Xiaobai! Everyone else already left!”

Before her words finished, the girl darted out like a swallow, heart clearly racing toward the next twist like a river to the sea.

That show about time and space travel—was it that good?

Yexiaobai sighed, shouldered his backpack like a shell, and headed out.

At the door, he seemed to hear someone call his name, thin as wind through bamboo.

“Bai… quick…”

He turned on instinct, sweeping the empty classroom with a glance like a lantern’s beam, but saw nothing.

Only night wind lifting the curtains in a slow whoosh, tree shadows swaying outside like specters on strings.

“Don’t be cursed like that.” He shivered, locked the door, and strode away like a ship leaving a fog bank.

Left turn out the back door led straight to the stairs; on the steps, Yexiaobai hesitated, his face knotted like a tangled cord.

He stepped out, then drew back, like a tide teasing shore; after a long half‑beat, he gritted his teeth and turned around.

He didn’t return to the classroom. He walked straight ahead, toward the corridor’s end—Class One of Grade Three—his quick strides softening like rain as he neared.

He smoothed his hair, tugged at his shirt, and walked past as if nothing caught his eye, a passerby under lantern light.

He kept his gaze forward, yet he stole glances like a magpie, peeking into the room, trying to drink the scene without spilling.

No wonder it was the special class: other classes ended at nine, but they still studied, the air dense as ink, the effort steady as drumbeats, not at all like their loose Class Seven.

Always a slacker, Yexiaobai knew that if he stepped into Class One’s storm, it wouldn’t be just daydreaming in lectures—he’d likely spin into hysteria like a leaf in a whirlwind.

But that wasn’t his focus; among the heads bent over books like bowed reeds, he wanted only one face, one small moon.

“Huh? The seat changed again?”

“Where did she move?”

“Wow. The books are stacked so high, the person’s a mountain shadow—can’t see a face.”

“Ah. Got her.”

On his fifth pass, when Class One students were already looking at him with raised brows like drawn arrows, Yexiaobai finally found his target.

A petite girl hidden behind heavy towers of books, like a sparrow in a paper forest.

His eyes lit up like lanterns, and the gloom of not finding her melted in an instant like frost under sun.

He didn’t dare stare. His heart sprinted, his face stiff as carved wood; with just a corner-of-the-eye sweep, he caught only her long, glossy, waist-length hair, black as ink.

For Yexiaobai, that was enough; satisfaction bloomed like warm tea, and he hurried away, grinning like a kid who’d stolen candy from the house jar.

He didn’t know his flawless act, which he thought was stitched like seamless silk, had long been seen through by Class One.

Especially by the girls with hawk-bright eyes.

“There he is again.”

“So who is he looking for?”

“No idea. It has to be Zhiyao, right?”

“Feels like it. Plenty of boys sneak peeks in the daytime, but checking every night takes perseverance like bamboo.”

“Yeah. Every night, and he pretends he’s just passing by—who ‘passes by’ three times in one go? Cute.”

“Eh? You like that kind of boy?”

“I wouldn’t dare steal the great beauty Zhiyao’s man. Right, Zhiyao?”

The girl called Zhiyao raised her fine arched brows like willow leaves. In her clear, slightly blade-sharp phoenix eyes, light rippled like water; at her friend’s teasing, she didn’t spare the window a glance.

“Boring,” she said, two syllables cool as moonlight.