“No! It’s too big!”

The girl’s ragged breathing mixed with cries that sounded almost like begging. She twisted desperately, pulling backward with all her strength.

“No! Just stretch it a little! It’s way too tight!”

Chen Dao refused to back down either. His face twisted up, and his head tilted back on its own—

“This is bad, bad, bad! It’s gonna break!”

Xia Jiuli let out another wail. Weren’t rubber gloves supposed to be stretchy? So how did it end up like this?

Flushed red, Chen Dao complained,

“It’s all your fault. You just had to make me wear it! Now look, I can’t get it off!”

“It’s all swollen!”

The girl stared fixedly at the rubber glove in their hands, watching Chen Dao’s palm trapped inside it, unable to be tugged free no matter what they tried.

After dinner came dishwashing. Xia Jiuli’s hand was injured again, so the job naturally fell to Chen Dao.

He’d originally planned to just rinse things casually, so he hadn’t used the new gloves Xia Jiuli bought. But she kept insisting he put them on, saying otherwise he’d hurt his hands. Left with no choice, he finally wore them.

The problem was that the gloves had a narrow opening at the wrist. Easy to get into, hard to get out of. For someone with thick forearms like Chen Dao, escape was basically impossible.

So Xia Jiuli grabbed the fingers of the glove, and the two of them began a tug-of-war.

In the end, though, Chen Dao still couldn’t get it off. Worse, all the pulling had left the wrist area red and swollen.

“Sorry... I bought them based on my size... If it really won’t work, should we just cut it off?”

As she spoke, Xia Jiuli jogged to the living room, picked up the scissors from under the coffee table, then quickly ran back.

She’d taken a shower while Chen Dao was washing dishes. Her long hair hung loose, and her slightly overlong bangs covered half an eye, making her brush them aside every couple of steps.

Her freshly dried hair was fluffy, carrying the same shampoo scent she used herself. It was kind of cute.

Her fair skin still held a rosy glow from the bath. Even bare-faced, her pretty features had a delicate, gentle charm. Especially the small feet half-hidden under her pants, always making soft tap-tap sounds on the floor.

“No way. That costs money too. Get me some dish soap and let’s try again.”

“Oh...”

“Not too much. That costs money too!”

“I’ll just buy you more!”

“If you’ve got that much money, just give it to me in cash. It hurts me to waste it.”

Chen Dao only meant it as a joke, but to his surprise, she froze with the yellow transparent dish soap bottle in hand, standing there with her back to him.

As if something in that sentence had genuinely confused her.

After a long moment, Xia Jiuli finally turned her head.

“Do you mean it hurts because of me, or because of the money?”

She turned around and leaned lightly against the sink. She didn’t care whether the water droplets on the counter would soak her pants. Pressing both hands down, shoulders sinking slightly, she set the dish soap beside her.

The cold light from the hanging lamp above cast a faint chill across her icy face. Her skin, already white as snow, looked almost pale now.

Her long lashes and sharp yet lifeless almond eyes stared straight at Chen Dao.

With one finger, she gently nudged the top of the plastic bottle. Again and again, it made a sound like a countdown.

“Sigh...”

Chen Dao let out a helpless breath. Then he spread his hands, shrugged, and said slowly,

“I feel bad for your—money.”

After saying that, he held both hands out, signaling for Xia Jiuli to squeeze the dish soap inside.

She frowned, puffed up her lips, and her expression shifted rapidly from cold to pleased to helpless to annoyed. Then she squeezed a whole lot of soap straight into the glove.

After that, she stormed off in a huff, with absolutely no intention of helping.

With no other choice, Chen Dao grabbed his right hand with his left and yanked hard. The glove came off, but his elbow slammed viciously into the kitchen wall.

Hearing the miserable cry from behind her, Xia Jiuli pressed her lips together and snickered, then slipped into her room.

After the dishes were done came idle chatter. They talked about this and that, and before long, the topic drifted to their college days.

Chen Dao said Xia Jiuli was weird and antisocial. Xia Jiuli said Chen Dao was an aimless slacker.

And when the sounds of traffic outside gradually faded, and the night slowly spread across the little canvas of the window, only then did sleepiness finally come for the two of them.

Her idea of splitting things half and half had still failed. She stared into the deep night and thought of all those mornings when she never wanted to wake up, and all those nights when she curled under the blanket and cried in secret.

She used to hate seeing the next day’s sun the most, because it felt like mockery. Like it was laughing at the version of her doomed to spend her whole life trapped in the mire of losing her loved ones.

She didn’t want to fall asleep because she didn’t want to wake up. And now, she was still afraid, still unable to sleep. Chen Dao’s bed was a little hard, a little uncomfortable, a little strange, a little awkward.

Even after changing the blanket and sheets, she could still smell traces of him. From the room, from the furniture, from the shell bracelet on her wrist.

Today, she’d used navigation to find a craftsman in the shopping street. She had both her shell and Chen Dao’s polished, then threaded each one with a red cord.

But no matter what she said, Chen Dao refused to wear his. He said it would damage his Dao heart, so he left it in the desk drawer.

It wasn’t that she insisted on having matching things with him.

It was just... this counted as a keepsake. A restraint meant only for herself.

As long as that cord was still on her wrist, she would never take her own life, no matter what. Her dependence on her loved ones had shifted onto Chen Dao back at the beach—no, maybe even in her previous life.

Back then, she just lacked the right trigger. And besides, she had no room to think about feelings like that.

But now, she pulled the blanket over her face, trying to keep more of his scent.

Chen Dao wouldn’t wash it tomorrow, right?

That’d be way too much.

“Chen~ Dao~ I’m~ so~ saaad~”

“You sound super happy!”

Actually, before she’d even finished speaking, Chen Dao was already at the bedroom door. He looked like he wanted to say something, but he didn’t dare come in.

Chen Dao was worried he might see her changing again, like the day before yesterday. What if Xia Jiuli was the type who liked sleeping naked?

In that case, he could only make creative use of inequalities to excuse both himself and his little bro.

So you say it hurts to waste my money, but you care this much about me?

A warm current rose in Xia Jiuli’s heart, and she felt secretly delighted.

“I’m leaving tomorrow.”

She was still curled up under the blanket, her voice a little muffled, but clear enough for Chen Dao to hear.

“So soon?”

He knew they’d have to part ways someday, sooner or later. He just hadn’t expected it to be this fast.

“I’ve got a lot to do when I get back. And I need to focus on studying.”

“Want to make money with me? You bring the cash, I bring the brains!”

“I’m going to the same university as my very best friend.”

“Huh~ Which lucky bastard gets that kind of treatment?”

Chen Dao really wasn’t that good at playing dumb, but when it came to making Xia Jiuli laugh, he was top-tier.

“Hm, I really don’t know whether my good friend can actually pull it off.”

Huh?

You’re saying I can’t?

What gives you the right to say I can’t?

A man can’t be called incapable! At most, he just needs a little time!