As long as it’s my little brother’s wish, I’ll see to it [she] gets it.

Yexiaokong said it with a light smile, sunlight dusting her cheek like a handful of untouched snow, quiet beauty with no flare. In Fang Mengyuan’s eyes, that smile carried a granite certainty; the tone wasn’t a blessing, it was a simple statement.

As long as it’s my brother’s wish, it will happen.

The sentence wasn’t a command; it was a vow turned fact.

Fang Mengyuan didn’t overthink; she only sighed, feeling how much Yexiaokong cherished her brother, like warm tea steaming in winter.

She hesitated, then said, “Then that ‘he’ is really lucky.”

At that, Yexiaokong glanced back; something unnamed rippled in her eyes like wind on a lake. Her smile lifted like the first edge of dawn. “Ah. Yes. [She] ought to be happy.”

“Because—” she said, “that’s Xiaobai’s wish.”

…

…

She is [here].

While Yexiaobai groped through the fog bank of his mind, the line rose up like a bell from mist.

And she should be [here].

Like clouds parting to sun, memory returned clean and bright.

That girl was in Class One. No question, like a flag planted solid.

Because if she wasn’t in Class One, then in three long years—so many nights of study hall, so many PE classes, so many daily fragments, so many dips of hope and spikes of joy—the person he saw, the back and side‑profile that grew familiar with time’s slow river, what were they?

Just a mirage?

It shouldn’t be.

After that night, they hadn’t spoken a single word; through three years—since their first meeting in tenth grade— their gazes never truly met, like stars that never align.

But that’s a crush, isn’t it?

Like the river of time, a crush flows one way, tide to sea.

Yet Yexiaobai thought—

Even if eyes never locked, those brushing glances that quickened his heart, that heat with a pepper sting, that sweetness like rock sugar melting on the tongue—those must be real.

If it’s real, and if he held tight like a knot in his fist, then something must carry it.

That carrier can’t be smoke.

He lifted his head and looked at Li Hang.

“Yes. She’s [here],” he said, tone firm like a nail set. “I’ve seen her so many times.”

“How could that be fake?”

…

…

Rooftop.

Sigh.

The girl let out a long breath, the kind that empties a cloud.

She crouched and tilted her head; her ponytail slipped free, long hair spilling to one side like ink on stone, fanning over hard concrete.

“It hurts.”

Pain pulled a cold hiss from her lips; she clutched her abdomen, words half complaint, half prayer.

“Shoving things in like this… it really hurts.”

…

…

“Mm, even so, I don’t really remember someone like that in Senior Year, Class One.”

Li Hang pushed his glasses, light glinting like a fish scale. “First, the name. I can’t claim I know everyone in Class One, but I’m sure there’s no one named Yuhan.”

He kept going, voice steady like a metronome. “Maybe it’s a nickname or an alias. Maybe you misheard. On name alone, we can’t prove anything.”

Yexiaobai’s eyes, dim as dusk a moment ago, sparked again like a match.

Catching the weather in his face, Li Hang opened his mouth, then paused, like a storm that decides not to break. “Though ‘not prying into clients’ motives’ is a basic rule of the organization… looking at you, I have to say a little more—”

“What?”

“You really only saw her once, right?”

Yexiaobai nodded, the motion small as a leaf.

“Then how pretty must she be, to make you so—”

“So?”

He watched Li Hang clamp his lips shut.

A shadow crossed Li Hang’s face like clouds over sun; he let out a long breath and shook his head. “No. Nothing. I shouldn’t talk too much.”

“Back to the point.” He swept past the half‑spoken line like wind skipping a puddle. “Class One has no ‘Yuhan’ on record. But since you’re sure you saw her there, there’ll be tracks. At the very least, she should be at this school.”

Li Hang fell quiet, thoughts pooling like still water. “All right. I’ll go back and dig through the organization’s files. Whether she’s in there or not, we’ll find something.”

…

…

“Hey!”

As the prep bell rang like a metal bird, their talk ended in a “to be continued.”

They cut off the spy‑like exchange to keep Li Hang’s so‑called “enemies of the organization” from sniffing their trail. Yexiaobai and Li Hang went up from different stairwells, one shadow ahead, one behind.

Yexiaobai took the west stairs.

Feet on stone, his eyes drifted like pollen on air; he sidestepped classmates rushing down, movements automatic as tide, mind knotted with the talk.

By rights, her identity was unknown fog, but the bounds were set like fences. She wore the school uniform, so she was from Qingya High. He had seen her several times in Class One, faces accruing like rings in a tree; so the girl named Yuhan must be on this campus.

The campus wasn’t that big. If he put his heart to it, someday he’d find her, like a needle surfacing in a shallow pond.

Yet something felt wrong, a thorn under the skin.

Even if he got a file… what then?

“Ah.”

He sighed; if he had courage, he’d have walked into Class One and done something, like a bird taking flight.

“Bottom line… the hundred‑day rally is near. If I start going wild now, isn’t it too much? Isn’t it looking down on the gaokao?”

The thought snagged like bramble.

Three years of feeling had finally taken a half‑step forward, yet his heart was more tangled, a skein of thread snarled tight; inside the knot, something nameless pricked like a hidden needle.

“Ah!”

Another heavy sigh. He caught a scent, familiar and strange, like rain on old stone.

“Huh?! That smell—”

His heart thumped like a drum; he stopped dead.

He had just reached a corridor landing. On the left, a half‑height rail of white tiles gleamed like bone; ahead, the stair turned upward; on the right, the hall ran long toward the far stair, a line clear as a river. One side held several classrooms with doors like portals; the other opened wide—below, a green football field lay like a velvet rug.

The prep bell had faded to echo; the corridor was empty; even the wind seemed to hold its breath, a quiet like another world.

Only the shadows of the railing stood in ranks, straight as spears, marching toward the corner where light failed, then dissolving into dark.

Yexiaobai stood there, frowning, staring down the hall, still as a statue — as if waiting for a figure to uncoil from shade.

Suddenly, sunlight shifted; a blade of light skated off glossy tiles and stabbed his eyes, sharp as glass.

He blinked; dust motes swam like stars. In that powdery field, a familiar silhouette rose.

The feeling returned—the cool fragrance, the hammering heart—bringing back that night when fireworks melted into the sky like molten gold pouring into deep blue.

In the far shadow, a figure with long hair flickered, appeared, and slid back into dusk; she was heading upstairs.

It’s her!

“Yu—”

His eyes widened like full moons, the shout still unborn.

A scream tore down from the rooftop, raw and shivering, a sound that made bones answer.

The next instant, a horror snapped him loose from the world like rope cut clean.

A long‑haired girl in a school jacket dropped straight past the corridor’s edge, a body falling like a loose flag. Then the sound—sickening, wet—like a ripe watermelon hurled from the seventh floor, splatting on concrete.

No buffer. No defense. No warning. As if someone meant to break it.

Green rind, red flesh, black seeds—splat scattered everywhere.

In a blink, the boy plunged into ice; cold climbed his skin like frost; his face went chalk; he froze hollow.

His body shook; his pupils trembled; his lips worked without words; after a long beat, he woke as if from a deep lake.

“K—”

“K—kidding… me?”

He lurched forward, almost spilling out of the corridor like a tipping bucket. He leaned out and looked down.

The expected red tide—

Didn’t come.

Gray concrete met green lawn, the old duet he’d seen for three years, so familiar it was dull; it almost made him cry.

Because it proved it was his mistake, a mirage on hot stone.

No girl had fallen. That meat‑mud thud was his mind’s cruel trick.

He turned and braced his back on the rail, sliding to the floor like a slipping shadow. His right hand gripped his shirt over his heart, and he finally let out the breath trapped in his chest like smoke.

He panted hard, lungs like bellows.

“Seriously—”

With his forehead on his knees, after a long time, he laughed, helpless, thin as paper. “Ha. Haha. Hahaha. I… I really— I’m under too much pressure. I actually— saw that.”

“I’m too fragile… just the college entrance exam… and I’m hallucinating? Or was it that news the other day? Care too much and you get lost. Xiaowei’s to blame too.”

He laughed at himself and kept muttering, his fingers still shaking like leaves in wind. He couldn’t deny the fear hadn’t left.

Because he had clearly “seen” it: the girl in his vision, in this blazing summer, wore—

“Xiaobai?”

A voice cut the thread. He looked up.

A pale face like moonlight, deep shadows under her eyes, a slender frame, and a loose school jacket like a hanging cloud.

Zhaomingming.

“Mingming!”

He sprang to his feet, movement sharp as a startled bird.

“Oh, oh.” Mingming flinched, then steadied like a reed. “It’s me. What’s wrong?”

“I—”

He opened his mouth, then the words dried up like a creek. He ended with a bitter smile and a shake of the head. “Nothing.”

Mingming tilted her head, then looked at him long, a gaze like a quiet lake. She didn’t press; instead, she tapped her watch, metal glinting.

“Not going to class?”

“Whew.”

He met her eyes, as if confirming the shape of the world. He exhaled, deep as dusk. “Of course.”

“Then let’s go.”

She turned and took the stairs, steps steady as beats.

Yexiaobai followed, his eyes chasing her back like a tether.

Relief softened his gaze, a warm wind after rain.

What he didn’t say:

In his mind, in the memory that her voice had cut short—

The falling girl, in this sweltering summer, was wearing Qingya High’s autumn jacket.

That girl… the girl who fell and died in his “vision”… was Mingming.