Bright, abundant sunlight was divided into several patches by the windows, spilling across the wooden floor and the thin air-conditioned quilt.
The room was a comfortable temperature. Every so often, the soft scratching of a pen across paper and the tapping of a keyboard broke the silence, creating an atmosphere perfect for sleep.
So when Wen Ci woke, she could not resist closing her eyes and dozing for a little longer. She savoured the dream she had experienced the previous night before slowly lifting the blanket and sitting up.
Then her gaze met Dou Yiqing’s as the latter turned at the sound.
Dou Yiqing sat in front of her computer wearing a dowdy floral-print pyjama set. A headband held all her hair away from her face. Dark circles shadowed her eyes, and she looked utterly exhausted. One leg was even bent with her foot resting on the chair.
She bore absolutely no resemblance to the beautiful, curly-haired woman from the night before.
A pen was tucked behind her ear.
“I didn’t want to wake you, but you know I have an observation lesson next week. There are still a few details I haven’t finished revising.”
Wen Ci said nothing.
She remained sitting stiffly for a long while, then silently closed her eyes, lay back down and pulled the blanket over herself.
“What are you doing?”
“I don’t think I’m awake yet.”
Wen Ci politely said goodbye.
“Goodbye, Dream Dou Yiqing.”
“Goodbye,” Dou Yiqing replied. “When you wake up, remember to reply to your mother. Wen Ci, you’ve really become impressive. You actually sneaked out last night.”
“Your mother woke up this morning, couldn’t find you and immediately called me. Do you know how much effort it took to invent a story for you—”
Wen Ci shot upright in bed.
So it had not been a dream!
She really was at Yiqing’s house!
Seeing her sudden movement, Dou Yiqing froze.
“Don’t panic that much. I already covered for you. I told her you didn’t attend Qin Yun’s birthday party and that you called me in the middle of the night. I said I was already home when you sneaked out.”
“When you go back, just act spoiled with them a little—”
“How did I get here last night?” Wen Ci interrupted.
“Zhou Wu drove us back.”
Dou Yiqing looked confused.
“What? Did you completely black out?”
Wen Ci tightly clutched the bedding, her mouth hanging open as she fell silent.
Something even more frightening than blacking out was remembering every single thing she had done while drunk.
So that had not been a dream?
How could that possibly be real?
Still unwilling to accept it, Wen Ci asked, “Last night… after I got drunk… I didn’t say anything strange, did I? I didn’t cause trouble or do anything weird, right?”
“By ‘anything weird,’ do you mean saying you wanted to sleep at Zhou Wu’s house?”
“Or when we got out of the car and I couldn’t pull you along, so I asked what you were waiting for, and you said you were waiting for Zhou Wu to carry you?”
“Or when Zhou Wu carried you upstairs on his back and you kept whispering into his ear, ‘Thank you, Zhou Wu. Thank you, Zhou Wu’?”
“Or when I asked you to return Zhou Wu’s jacket, and you hugged it tightly and refused to let go?”
With every word Dou Yiqing spoke, Wen Ci lowered her head farther.
By the end, she had buried her entire head beneath the blanket. Even her neck had turned bright red.
She wanted to die.
She truly wanted to die.
This was so humiliating.
Her life was over.
Seeing her bury herself like an ostrich, Dou Yiqing laughed.
“You’re embarrassed now? Why didn’t you know to drink less last night? You refused to listen no matter how much I tried to stop you.”
“You were lucky you ran into Zhou Wu. What would you have done if you’d met a bad man who took advantage of you while you were drunk, dragged you into a small room and did this and that to you?”
Wen Ci, who had dragged Zhou Wu into a small room while drunk and done this and that to him:
“………………”
“But you really don’t recognise people once you’re drunk,” Dou Yiqing continued, attempting to comfort her. “Someone who didn’t know better might think you and Zhou Wu were extremely close.”
“Forget it. We probably won’t see Zhou Wu very often in the future anyway. The embarrassment has already happened, so let it go.”
Wen Ci, who wanted to continue seeing Zhou Wu frequently in the future:
“………………”
“And Zhou Wu is a decent person. He didn’t say anything. Relax, all right?”
Wen Ci’s mind had already stopped functioning.
She bent over and buried her face in the blanket.
“Yiqing, please let me be alone for a while…”
“All right.”
Dou Yiqing turned back to her computer.
“Please do as you wish. I’ll continue working myself to death.”
Even after spending half an hour in silence, Wen Ci had not recovered.
She finally decided to get out of bed.
Dou Yiqing had prepared disposable toiletries for her.
Wen Ci stood before the mirror brushing her teeth when a sentence suddenly flashed through her mind.
*The first time you kissed me, it felt as if you wanted to smash my teeth.*
Wen Ci closed her eyes and tilted her face towards the ceiling in despair.
Why on earth had she put her finger inside Zhou Wu’s mouth?!
She could not think about this anymore.
She had to find something to do.
Wen Ci took out her phone and froze slightly when she saw the time.
She had actually slept until two in the afternoon.
Her phone was overflowing with messages.
Still brushing her teeth, Wen Ci began looking through the unread notifications.
Almost all of them were from her mother.
There were many messages, and every one was long. Wen Ci felt as though she had read those words thousands of times before.
The general content was nothing more than criticism.
Mother Wen said she had never imagined Wen Ci would leave without permission. She said everything that happened the previous night had been for Wen Ci’s own good. She described how anxious they had been when they could not find her, said she hoped it would never happen again and ordered her to return home early.
For the first time, Wen Ci did not reply to her mother’s lengthy lecture.
The next message was from Qin Yun, sent the previous night.
**Qin Yun: Wen Ci, I still haven’t signed your school uniform.**
Wen Ci covered her face and hurriedly replied.
**Wen Ci: Sorry. I only just woke up and saw your message. I drank too much last night and didn’t manage to give it to you. Could we do it next time?**
Elsewhere, inside a boxing gym—
Qin Yun raised his phone and held down the voice-message button.
“Fine. How are you feeling now? How did you get so drunk last night? Dou Yiqing was almost frightened to tears.”
“Wen Ci?”
Qin Yun froze and turned towards the person beside him.
Zhou Wu was shirtless and removing his boxing gloves.
He had just finished training, and sweat covered the defined lean muscles of his body.
Hearing the voice message Qin Yun had sent, Zhou Wu suddenly turned his face and asked.
Qin Yun replied, “Yes. It seems she was genuinely very drunk yesterday. She only woke up now.”
The moment he finished speaking, Qin Yun’s phone chimed again.
Zhou Wu lowered his eyes to look.
**Wen Ci: I’m fine. I’m really sorry about yesterday. I caused trouble at your birthday party.**
“It wasn’t a big deal. Don’t take it to heart. Just treat me to dinner next time.”
Then Qin Yun added, “By the way, Wen Ci, are you at Dou Yiqing’s house? Ask her why she isn’t replying to my messages.”
Zhou Wu picked up his own phone and looked at it.
There were no new messages.
The final entry in his conversation with Wen Ci was the two hundred yuan he had returned that morning.
Zhou Wu lowered his brows and, for no particular reason, remained in the chat window for a moment.
He and Wen Ci did not usually communicate, but he felt that they should say something now.
Just as he was thinking this, the words **The other person is typing…** appeared at the top of the screen.
Zhou Wu waited for approximately five minutes.
The notification finally disappeared.
His own phone remained silent.
Instead, Qin Yun’s phone chimed.
Perhaps because Qin Yun had been replying with voice messages, Wen Ci also sent one.
“She’s writing a lesson plan. She might reply later.”
Her voice was slightly hoarse, soft and weak, probably from the alcohol.
“Fine. I just sent her another message. She isn’t ignoring me—she blocked me. Tell her to unblock me after she finishes her lesson plan.”
After chatting with Wen Ci for a few more exchanges, Qin Yun noticed the person beside him had not moved.
He sent his voice message and looked over in confusion.
“Brother, why haven’t you gone to shower? Everyone’s waiting for you so we can go to the stables and look at the horses. Who are you messaging?”
It seemed he would not receive a message after all.
Zhou Wu scoffed, tossed his phone onto the table, pulled down a towel and headed into the shower.
“No one.”
…
Wen Ci changed into another set of clothes at Dou Yiqing’s house before going home.
After returning, she listened to her mother lecture her in the living room for almost an hour.
However, Mother Wen did not know Wen Ci had climbed out through the window. She merely assumed Wen Ci had slipped out in the darkness after her parents went to sleep, so the criticism was not especially severe.
While climbing through the window, Wen Ci had felt as though she were committing an extremely serious offence.
She had been anxious, impulsive and thrilled.
Yet after sleeping through the night and waking, she suddenly felt that it had not been such a serious matter.
Perhaps it was because her family did not criticise her too harshly.
Or perhaps she had done so many outrageous things that night that climbing through the window seemed insignificant by comparison.
After returning to her room, Wen Ci opened her bag.
When she saw Zhou Wu’s jacket, she could not resist burying her face in her palms again.
Because of her upbringing, Wen Ci had always spoken and behaved properly.
She had rarely embarrassed herself throughout her life.
Unexpectedly, when she finally did, she had done so spectacularly.
And it had happened in front of Zhou Wu.
Wen Ci had never imagined there would come a day when she felt grateful that she and Zhou Wu did not meet very frequently.
According to their previous pattern, the next meeting would probably be half a month away or even longer.
Hopefully, Zhou Wu would have forgotten everything that happened the previous night by then.
Wen Ci stood where she was and took some time to recover.
Then she placed Zhou Wu’s jacket back inside her bag, intending to take it to the dry cleaner after school on Monday.
…
The following day, during the lunch break—
Wen Ci had a class during the first period of the afternoon, so she did not go home at lunchtime and instead took a brief nap in the office.
When she woke abruptly, several teachers were preparing to leave for lunch.
“I’m sorry, Ms Wen. Did we wake you?”
When Ms Li saw her condition, she froze.
“Come and look, everyone. This shows how hot our office has become. Even Ms Wen can’t tolerate it anymore.”
A thin layer of sweat covered Wen Ci’s forehead, and her cheeks were flushed. She looked as though she had been overwhelmed by the heat.
“Ms Wen, take back the small fan you lent me and use it. Shall I also bring you some lunch?”
Wen Ci was too embarrassed to explain that she was not flushed from the heat.
She had dreamt about Zhou Wu again.
In the dream, it was the moment they arrived at Dou Yiqing’s house that night.
Zhou Wu placed her on the bed and was about to leave when she grabbed his hand.
Under his questioning gaze, she asked:
*Are you going to do it while still wearing your clothes?*
There was no hope for her.
The harder she tried to forget, the more clearly she remembered.
Wen Ci was collapsing internally, but she still forced herself to remain composed.
She accepted the small fan.
“No, thank you. I don’t have much of an appetite.”
The teachers left together, and the office fell silent.
Wen Ci switched on the fan, closed her eyes and aimed it directly at her face, attempting to cool her mind and blow away all those unspeakable memories she could not bear to confront.
Her phone began ringing.
Wen Ci’s mind was in chaos.
Without checking the caller ID, she closed her eyes and answered.
“Hello.”
The other end remained silent for two seconds.
Then Zhou Wu’s voice travelled through the cool breeze.
“Hello.”
The small fan fell to the floor with a clatter.
Wen Ci returned to her senses and scrambled to retrieve it.
The heat that had only just faded flooded back through her body.
“Zhou Wu? Is… is something wrong?”
“Are you free tonight?”
Only a few minutes earlier, Wen Ci had revisited the scene of her public humiliation in her dream.
She was completely unprepared to face Zhou Wu.
Before her brain could react, her mouth fled in panic on her behalf.
“Tonight? This evening? I… No, I have plans tonight. The teachers in my office invited me to dinner.”
Zhou Wu was silent for two seconds.
“Tomorrow evening?”
“Tomorrow evening… Tomorrow evening, my family has a gathering.”
“The day after tomorrow.”
Before Wen Ci could invent another excuse, Zhou Wu said lazily, “You aren’t free the day after tomorrow either, are you?”
“That’s right.”
Wen Ci touched her nose.
“Sorry. I’ll… I’ll contact you again. Is that all right?”
Zhou Wu seemed to laugh very quietly over the phone.
Wen Ci’s mind was too confused from inventing lies to hear it clearly.
“All right, Ms Wen.”
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