The next day, after finishing his internship, Dou Changxiao had two days off. Friday evening, the start of the weekend, was always the most relaxing time of the entire holiday. He changed out of his hospital scrubs, took out his phone, and received a message from Ning Zhu.

【Ning Huochong:】 I’ve got something to do tonight. Don’t come over.

Dou Changxiao sensed that this wasn’t just an excuse Ning Zhu was using to turn him down, but that there was genuinely something urgent at work. He didn’t know much about Ning Zhu’s business, and it wasn’t his place to pry.

But Dou Changxiao asked anyway.

【Ddd:】 Overtime?

There was no reply; he was probably still busy.

Dou Changxiao logged out and saw a few unread messages from Cheng Yang. There was still a month left in the semester. Cheng Yang was a senior this year and had been busy with his thesis proposal; he’d just finished his proposal defense today and had invited Dou Changxiao to play basketball that evening.

Dou Changxiao replied, “Sure.”

He finished his shift at the hospital early today, and by the time he got back to campus, the last class of the afternoon hadn’t even started yet. Dou Changxiao rested in his dorm for a bit, sent Cheng Yang a quick message on WeChat, then headed to the court.

There was snow on the outdoor court, so the two agreed to meet at the indoor gym.

S University’s heating was strong. As soon as he stepped into the indoor gym, Dou Changxiao gave Cheng Yang a casual wave from across the court, then took off his jacket and walked over to the vending machine by the sidelines to buy a bottle of energy drink.

Cheng Yang dribbled the ball over. As he approached, his expression visibly froze for a moment, and the ball bounced off the ground and rolled to the side.

“…What’s with that chain around your neck?”

Dou Changxiao touched the pendant around his neck, his tone flat: “It’s a necklace. What’s the matter?” 

“Damn,” Cheng Yang remarked in surprise, “You’re such a show-off.”

Dou Changxiao: “……”

Wearing a necklace was perfectly normal; Cheng Yang had friends with pierced ears and tongue studs, and he’d never thought there was anything wrong with that. But Dou Changxiao’s image at school had always been that of someone as proper as they come, so him wearing this kind of short, collarbone-length chain was extremely out of character.

Combined with Dou Changxiao’s aloof demeanor, this slightly wild accessory looked utterly outrageous to Cheng Yang. A thought struck him, and his expression turned suggestive: “That was a gift from the person you were showing off to, wasn’t it?”

Dou Changxiao didn’t say anything, but he didn’t deny it either.

Cheng Yang laughed even harder and asked with a hint of gossip, “Since they gave you a gift, how far have things gone?”

Dou Changxiao hadn’t planned on bringing it up, but he was slightly infected by Cheng Yang’s cheerful tone and actually found himself experiencing a fleeting, sweet illusion.

“You must have won them over, right?”

Dou Changxiao: “…No.” 

Cheng Yang looked somewhat incredulous.

It had been over a month since the other person had last “displayed their feathers.” That wasn’t a particularly long time, but coming from Dou Changxiao, it was hard to fathom.

He let out a couple of sighs of exasperation.

Dou Changxiao fidgeted with a bottle of sports drink in his hand, turning it over and over. After a moment, he said, “But it snowed the day before yesterday. He was worried it wasn’t safe for me to drive, so he let me stay in his guest room for the night.”

“Oh…”

“When I… kissed him, he didn’t push me away.”

“He just pushed me away hard while we were kissing, and after we finished, he gave me a piece of his mind.”

Cheng Yang was taken aback and said with certainty, “That just means he’s into you—no doubt about it. He clearly likes you a lot! If I’d treated Huaixin like that while I was trying to win him over, he would’ve been so mad he’d have slapped me right across the face.”

Dou Changxiao didn’t say anything.

He didn’t think it had reached the level of “really liking” him.

Maybe a little, though. During that heat cycle, Ning Zhu’s reaction—which seemed like jealousy—had made him happy. But it was only that one time, and just a little bit. Rather than saying Ning liked him, it was more accurate to say the other person needed him.

If there weren’t this underlying dynamic of need between them, she might have reacted differently to his repeated overstepping. Dou Changxiao was well aware of this, but he had no intention of changing.

Halfway through the game, he received a reply from Ning Zhu.

【Ning Huochong:】 Yeah, something came up at the office.

【Ning Huochong:】 There’s a celebratory banquet tonight—I have to have dinner with our partners, so I’ll be back very late.

【Ning Huochong:】 You didn’t come, did you?

【Ddd:】 No. What time does it end?

【Ning Huochong:】 Hard to say, but I’ll probably be home around nine.

Dou Changxiao did the math: nine o’clock. He could go, but Ning Zhu probably needed some rest. It really wasn’t going to work out.

He let his eyes drop listlessly and typed out a reply.

【Ddd:】Okay.

At a high-end hotel restaurant near Anjiang Plaza, Ning Zhu stared at the “Okay” on the screen for a few seconds, imagining the tone in Dou Changxiao’s voice as he typed it—laced with a hint of reluctance.

Several executives from the Lu Group were present. Ning Zhu took a quick moment to reply to the message, then promptly put his phone away.

Today was the day Qisheng and the Lu Group were signing the contract. After both parties formally signed the project agreement that afternoon, it was basic business etiquette for Qisheng, as the host, to organize a celebratory banquet.

Since they were no longer in a work setting, the atmosphere among the staff from both sides was quite relaxed. Ning Zhu had a few drinks, and Lu Chao, sitting next to him, sipped a few glasses as well. Ning Zhu asked him, “Mr. Lu, when are you returning to Haicheng?”

Lu Chao gave a date—just two days from now.

Both men could hold their liquor well, but as the alcohol took effect, their spirits became somewhat heightened. Some people, in this state, say things they wouldn’t utter when sober. Lu Chao was a decent drinker; he simply chatted with Ning Zhu about casual topics unrelated to their business partnership.

After a while, Ning Zhu got up to take a call. When he returned, Lu Chao was looking at his phone, his brow slightly furrowed. Ning Zhu asked, “Do you have work-related matters to attend to, Mr. Lu?”

Lu Chao snapped back to reality, quickly regaining his smile. “No. Just a little family matter.” Ning Zhu nodded in response and said nothing more.

It was Lu Chao who brought it up: “Nothing major. It’s my younger brother—he never replies to my messages. Ugh, that kid never wants to talk to me.”

Ning Zhu asked casually, “How old is he?”

“Just turned twenty-one.”

Ning Zhu let out an “Oh.”

He’d originally wanted to say, “He might just be going through a rebellious phase,” but since he was a bit past that age, he swallowed the words.

Lu Chao seemed to guess what Ning Zhu had been about to say and explained, “Actually, you can’t really blame him. We’re half-brothers. My stepmother was afraid I wouldn’t accept him, so she sent my brother to live with his maternal grandparents for a few years before bringing him back. I was pretty wild when I was in school. When he first came home, I used to pick on him all the time, so it’s only natural that he hates me.”

Ning Zhu didn’t know what to say, so he simply fell silent.

“Does Mr. Ning have any siblings?”

Siblings?

Ning Zhu thought for a moment and replied, “…I don’t think so.”

When he left Haicheng, his parents were already in the process of getting a divorce, and both sides were constantly arguing over his custody. However, Ning Zhu wasn’t sure if their relationship had changed after he left, so he couldn’t say for certain whether he had any younger siblings.

Lu Chao was a bit confused by Ning Zhu’s use of “probably.” 

“Hm?”

This time, Ning Zhu smiled and said with a tone of certainty, “No.”

He had no intention of meddling in Lu Chao’s family affairs, but since the other had brought it up, Ning Zhu pretended to be concerned and offered a few words of comfort: “Between brothers, there are bound to be some disagreements when they’re young.”

Lu Chao shook his head with a smile. “If it were just that kind of petty squabble, I wouldn’t be so worried.”

He sighed. “That kid once ran away from home because of me, sneaking out alone to find his grandfather. As luck would have it, that day brought a once-in-a-decade weather event—a typhoon and a blizzard hit at the same time. Around here, we call that kind of weather a ‘snow typhoon’…”

Ning Zhu paused upon hearing this.

“By the time I realized my brother was missing, the typhoon had already hit. The snow on the ground was being whipped up, visibility was terrible, and you couldn’t see a soul on the streets. Several trees as thick as a bowl were snapped right in half, right below my apartment building.” Lu Chao sighed. “I was really afraid something might happen to him back then.”

Ning Zhu asked, “What happened next?”

“Later…” Lu Chao seemed to have sobered up a bit; he didn’t go into further details, saying, “Later, someone called us. That kid was pretty smart—he’d hidden himself in a school. After the snow stopped and we got a call from the school security, my parents went to pick him up.”

What a coincidence, Ning Zhu thought, raising an eyebrow.

During his final year in Haicheng, he encountered that snowstorm. One weekend, while staying behind in the classroom to study, he happened to come across a kid. The kid had run away from home, looking a bit dazed, with a huge dog in tow…

Ning Zhu couldn’t quite remember the kid’s name, but he recalled it sounding a lot like a dog’s name. What was it again…

Dahuang?

Ning Zhu thought of that name and pressed his lips together, stopping himself from laughing.

It was over a decade ago, so the specific details are hard to recall. That kind of extreme weather wasn’t common, and the school matches up, so it must be the same person Lu Chao was talking about.

Ning Zhu didn’t say anything else.

Even if that kid really was Lu Chao’s younger brother, there wasn’t much point in his stepping forward to claim him now. If this had been before signing the contract, Ning Zhu might have thick-skinnedly claimed him to butter up the partner and increase the chances of a successful deal.

But now, there was no need for that.

Whenever Ning Zhu recalled anything about Haicheng—whether pleasant or painful memories—it felt as though a thick layer of dark clouds hung over him, leaving him with a constant sense of heaviness in his heart.

But lately, he’s been forced to have anything to do with Haicheng.

After the partnership with the Lu Group was finalized, he was required to personally lead the project team on a business trip to Haicheng, where he would have to stay until just before the New Year.

Whenever Ning Zhu thought about what lay ahead, he felt a sense of restlessness, even to the point of wanting to pass the entire business trip off to Ji Chi. The only thing that could be considered a silver lining was that during this month-long trip, he wouldn’t have to take his medication for a while.

Thinking of Dou Changxiao’s temper, Ning Zhu wondered: I wonder how that kid will react when he finds out.