The next morning, An Sese, who had just returned from chasing stars, burst into the studio in a flurry.

She held a bag in one hand and a large box of LEGO in the other. As she walked in, she set it down on Tao Zhi’s desk with a heavy thud.

Tao Zhi was holding a cup of coffee in her hand, smiling as she looked at her. “You’re here?”

Xu Suinian stood beside her, also holding a cup of coffee, taking a slow sip. “You’re here.”

“A thank-you gift.” An Sese pointed to the LEGO box, then pulled out a photo from her bag and carefully placed it on top with both hands. “A signed photo of my brother’s peerless beauty comes with it. This is a rare treasure—I gave it to you only after much heartache.”

“I don’t chase stars. Your sacrifice of this meaningless love is for what exactly?” Tao Zhi added another spoonful of sugar into her coffee. “I’ve already finished editing the photos and sent the full batch to the email you gave me. When the payment’s made, remember to transfer it to me.”

“Tomorrow Finance said they’ll send the payment once the lifestyle photos are done,” An Sese said.

Tao Zhi turned her head, puzzled. “What photos?”

“Lifestyle photos,” An Sese said. “Didn’t you convince that big boss to agree to shoot them? The magazine even praised me for it and said they’d pay extra.”

Tao Zhi nodded, pretending to be calm. “Then you can go take them.”

An Sese blinked. “Me?”

“Otherwise, who else—me?” Tao Zhi said naturally. “Don’t you have your jet-setting brother No. 2 to pick up at the airport again?”

“No, not this time,” An Sese said awkwardly. “But… did you tell the people at the magazine that your name is An Sese?”

Tao Zhi froze for two seconds.

She corrected her: “I didn’t say my name is An Sese. They just thought I was An Sese.”

An Sese nodded. “And you didn’t deny it.”

Tao Zhi pouted. “I was too lazy to explain. Who knew there’d be follow-up?”

“Then if I show up today, what do I say?” An Sese looked lost. “ ‘Surprise! I’m the real An Sese’? Won’t they think we’re committing fraud and refuse to pay us?”

Tao Zhi looked lost as well. “Surely not? A big magazine like that wouldn’t fuss over such a tiny flaw, right?”

Xu Suinian looked at the two naïve underclassmen staring at each other wide-eyed and couldn’t help but burst out laughing. He turned to Tao Zhi. “Then you might as well go and finish the shoot yourself. It’s only an hour anyway.”

An Sese chimed in, “Exactly!”

For a moment, Tao Zhi didn’t know how to explain. She puffed her cheeks and frowned, muttering reluctantly after a long pause, “I don’t want to go.”

“The big boss lied—actually ugly?” An Sese leaned closer to ask.

“No.”

“Improper behavior?” Xu Suinian asked.

Tao Zhi quickly denied it. “No!”

“You two had a fight? Old enemies?” An Sese guessed.

“Didn’t fight!”

“Judging by that expression—ex-boyfriend, right?” Xu Suinian said casually, making it up as he went.

“……”

“……”

“……”

Silence.

Tao Zhi lowered her head, silently picking at her fingers.

An Sese: “Damn!”

Her eyes widened. “It really is an ex-boyfriend? You two dated in college? No, wait—high school? You had an early romance?”

Tao Zhi lifted her head, displeased. “What about early romance! Everyone was doing it back then. I was fashionable!”

An Sese clicked her tongue. “No wonder the campus heartthrob chased you across eight blocks in college and you still didn’t bat an eye.”

Xu Suinian stroked his chin. “No wonder you haven’t dated anyone all these years. Still hung up, huh.”

Tao Zhi walked to her desk, sat down, and slumped over it gloomily. The cold, career-driven image she’d worked so hard to maintain crumbled completely under her college friends’ relentless teasing. “It’s just that I haven’t met—”

“Met what?” An Sese said. “Our school’s art department had tons of handsome guys.”

Tao Zhi didn’t answer. She stared blankly at the small sticky note on her monitor for a while, then finally said in a quiet voice, “I haven’t met anyone I thought was better than him.”

An Sese waved her hand carelessly. “That just means you still like him! Then you should go. Isn’t this a great opportunity?”

As she spoke, a sudden realization dawned on her, as if enlightenment had struck. “So that’s why he agreed to do the lifestyle shoot! He’s clearly still interested in you!”

Tao Zhi slowly lifted her head. “When we met for the first time after he came back, he already expressed that.”

An Sese: “Straightforward, huh? ‘I like you.’ And then?”

Tao Zhi: “Then I turned him down.”

An Sese: “……”

Expressionless, she said, “Why? You still like him, he still likes you, and he wants to chase you again—why’d you reject him?”

“I was scared,” Tao Zhi said dryly.

Xu Suinian sucked in a breath through his teeth.

An Sese looked at her in disbelief. “You—scared?”

Tao Zhi lay on her desk, her fingertips playing with the corner of the sticky note that had been there so long it was peeling up. She didn’t speak.

Truthfully, among all the people she’d met over the years, there were certainly men who matched Jiang Qihuai in every aspect. But some feelings simply couldn’t be explained.

Matters of the heart always left the one involved blind, impossible to put into words.

Just like how she could never explain why, the first time she saw that boy’s clear and detached eyes, she wanted to strike up a conversation; why, when he helped her correct her test paper, she just wanted to keep watching him; or why, when she heard him calmly recite the words “With your carriage comes my offering”, her heart beat so wildly it felt like it would leap out of her chest.

She knew very well that she wasn’t looking for someone more outstanding.

It was just that she had never again met a “Your Highness” who made her heart race like that.

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

At noon, An Sese stayed for lunch. In the afternoon, she received a call from Tomorrow Finance, confirming the next shoot. Wen Mingyue sent over the address and, along with it, Jiang Qihuai’s contact information.

She didn’t know what Jiang Qihuai had said to the magazine, but Wen Mingyue’s attitude was much more easygoing and cheerful than when they first negotiated. She didn’t bring up so many demands either—only said to let her shoot freely, and just send the photos according to the time stated in the supplementary contract.

After receiving the message, An Sese raised her phone toward Tao Zhi.

Tao Zhi’s mouth was full of Spanish paella. She mumbled, “What.”

“The address. And the phone number,” An Sese said. “I’ll just go myself on Saturday. And you should think about it properly—what’s there to be afraid of? Back in college, you dared to braid little plaits into the dean’s beard while he was asleep, and now you’re scared of bravely chasing love?”

Tao Zhi swallowed the paella and said calmly, “Back then, I was the one who chased him.”

“Then, he dumped me and left me.” Tao Zhi was brief and to the point.

“And now, he’s back.”

An Sese: “……”

Tao Zhi lifted her spoon toward her, as if conducting an interview. “What do you think?”

An Sese’s eyes blazed with fury. “Let him go to hell! Who does he think he is, dumping you like that?!”

Tao Zhi nodded approvingly. “That’s what I thought too.”

“But you still like him.” An Sese sighed, looking deeply troubled. “What should we do? On one hand, I want you to be with the person you like, but on the other hand, I feel like it’s too easy on him.”

Tao Zhi looked at her speechlessly. “I can feel the conflict in your heart.”

“Because being able to like someone for so many years is almost impossible. The fact that you still have feelings for him means you really like him. But most people—honestly—don’t even have love in their lives. As time passes and we get older, what we value more is compatibility.” An Sese said, “Even if love exists, it doesn’t mean everyone’s lucky enough to meet that one person.”

Tao Zhi blinked, dazed.

“Since you’re lucky enough to have met someone who could make you love him for years, and now you’re about to give that up—it doesn’t matter whether he’s suffering, but aren’t you just torturing yourself?” An Sese continued, “So don’t act on impulse, and don’t reject him just because you got emotional in the moment. Calm down and think carefully—do you resent him for leaving you more, or do you want to be with him more? That’s all you need to figure out.”

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

On Saturday morning, An Sese followed the address Wen Mingyue gave her to the residential complex where Jiang Qihuai now lived.

Wen Mingyue didn’t come this time. Thinking that nothing had gone wrong during the last visit—and since this was only to reshoot a few lifestyle photos, and An Sese already knew Jiang Qihuai—she just confirmed by a few WeChat messages that An Sese had arrived before getting busy writing the feature article at the magazine.

The community was a recently built development, with good landscaping and complete facilities. Following the address on WeChat, An Sese walked through the gardens, found the right building, and took the elevator upstairs.

She located the correct apartment number and rang the doorbell.

Within ten seconds, before she could even be asked who it was, the door opened.

As Jiang Qihuai pushed open the door, he saw a strange woman standing at the entrance. He looked at her calmly, obviously pausing for a moment.

The woman smiled brightly. “Hello, Mr. Jiang. I’m An Sese, photographer from Tomorrow Finance magazine. We scheduled to take a few additional photos for the feature.”

As soon as she finished speaking, she saw Jiang Qihuai’s gaze sweep subtly past her shoulder.

In the empty stairwell behind her, there was no one else.

The light in the man’s eyes visibly dimmed.

An Sese didn’t even know why, but a sudden sense of triumphant revenge welled up inside her.

“Hello,” Jiang Qihuai said, pressing his lips together and nodding. Then he casually pulled a gray coat from the rack by the entryway, changed his shoes, and walked straight out the door. “Let’s go.”

An Sese blinked. “We’re not shooting inside?”

Walking ahead, Jiang Qihuai pressed the elevator button. “There’s a café nearby. The environment’s good.”

An Sese: “……”

So he gave his home address thinking Tao Zhi would be the one coming?!

Now that it’s not her, he won’t even step back inside—just changes the venue immediately. Too real!

While silently ranting in her head, An Sese rolled her eyes and followed after him.

The café was indeed close by—just a storefront below the same residential complex, five minutes’ walk from the gate.

The atmosphere was quiet. The area wasn’t very busy, and it was still morning, so there were few people around. Most were there to read or sip coffee in peace, passing the lazy weekend hours.

But the moment An Sese saw the place, her heart started to pound. She took two steps forward and forced a smile. “It’s kind of crowded here. How about another one?”

Jiang Qihuai had already pushed open the door. “There aren’t many people upstairs.”

An Sese: “……”

She scanned the first floor quickly, then hurried after him to the second floor. After ordering, she got to work.

She only needed to take a few more casual, off-duty shots of him. An Sese worked efficiently, her movements quick. Jiang Qihuai was cooperative enough, though somewhat absent-minded. Whenever she didn’t give him instructions, he just rested his chin on his hand and stared blankly downstairs.

People came and went on the first floor. With the new year approaching, an old-fashioned brass bell hung over the glass door, tied with a long red ribbon that swayed gently in the air conditioning.

Then, in one moment, Jiang Qihuai’s wandering gaze froze.

By the window downstairs sat a woman. Her long black hair was loose, covering most of her face. From the side, only the bridge of her nose showed—delicate and straight. A baseball cap sat low on her head, the brim shadowing her face.

Jiang Qihuai suddenly stood up. By the time An Sese realized it, he was already out of frame, heading downstairs toward that table.

He stood beside her table, his tall shadow stretching diagonally across the dark wooden surface.

Tao Zhi didn’t even look up, as if this kind of situation was nothing new. She said casually, “Waiting for someone.”

“Waiting for who,” Jiang Qihuai said evenly.

Tao Zhi stiffened, startled like someone caught in the act. She instinctively lifted her head.

The man looked down at her, his lips curved slightly downward. Under the daylight, his eyes appeared lighter than usual, calm yet unreadable.

His fingers rested on the edge of the table as he walked around to sit across from her. His tone was quiet and flat. “Waiting for someone at the café downstairs from my place?”

Tao Zhi opened her mouth, wanting to say something, but the words wouldn’t come. After a long while, she finally muttered dryly, “That is quite the coincidence.”

Jiang Qihuai looked at her and sighed.

His voice lowered, every syllable soft and deliberate. “Zhizhi.”

When that familiar name—one that had crossed years of silence and distance—rang clearly in her ears once again, Tao Zhi’s fingers under the table curled tightly into her palm, beyond her control.

His tone was slow and patient, carrying a kind of cautious gentleness—as if one wrong word might scare her away. He spoke as though asking for permission: “Can we talk?”

Tao Zhi lowered her eyes, her long lashes sweeping down. “About what?”

“I’m sorry,” Jiang Qihuai said.

Tao Zhi’s lashes trembled. Her fingertips dug hard into her palm.

The moment those three words left his lips, her eyes reddened.

Jiang Qihuai looked at her deeply, his voice calm yet earnest. “I didn’t mean to frighten you. I just… didn’t know what to say. I just—”

He seemed to be searching his mind in vain, unable to find the right words—his thoughts too barren to piece together anything beautiful for her. After a pause, he spoke again, his voice a sigh. “I missed you very much.”

Tao Zhi’s tears fell onto the table.

Jiang Qihuai’s hand moved of its own accord; his fingertips brushed lightly against her damp lashes. His voice was hoarse, strained, and low.

“Zhizhi,” he said, “I miss you every single day.”