◎”So scared.”◎
At the dining table.
Curiosity alone wasn’t enough for Chen Boyu’s friend to complete this restoration experience with the calligraphy piece. It was too demanding on patience, and the somewhat lively birthday party wasn’t the right setting for it.
Lan Yan saw his difficulty and smiled. “We can try the rest next time if there’s a chance. The later steps are more complicated; it can’t be finished in a short time.”
The friend immediately set down his tools and smiled at Lan Yan, a bit apologetic but visibly relieved.
Lan Yan buried herself in cleaning up the mess.
Liang Jingchuan stood across the dining table, observed for a moment, and was about to step forward.
Chen Boyu hurried over from the sofa in a couple of quick steps, arriving beside Lan Yan. He grabbed her wrist and smiled down at her. “Want to chat over there?”
After their recent argument and makeup, Chen Boyu had become clingier than before, as if they had returned to the early days of their relationship. Outside of work, aside from necessary socializing, he spent almost all his time with her.
Everyone made way as they stood up. Chen Boyu pulled Lan Yan to sit down, propping his arm on the sofa back in a subtle way that enclosed her within his embrace.
Someone teased, “Most of us here are single dogs, Chen Boyu. What do you mean by this? Showing off your relationship so blatantly?”
Lan Yan didn’t often join Chen Boyu’s social circle.
She had participated when they first got together, but their personalities and interests differed too much; she found no enjoyment in it.
Chen Boyu’s friends were similar to him in class and traits—all a group of young people with no survival worries. Even their troubles were like champagne foam or cream flowers… full of dreamy illusions and hedonistic innocence.
But she worried about practical, everyday trivialities: the filler didn’t match, winter days were too short for full-color work, halfway through restoration the client demanded something completely different…
In this era dominated by short videos, Lan Yan was probably one of the few who didn’t scroll them. She preferred long-form digital snacks for entertainment and would rather play lengthy videos during leisure time, painting small pieces while listening.
His friends’ rapid, dazzling switches between insider topics were like five-second short videos flashing by her—channels she had no interest in anyway.
Her brain overloaded with information. Lan Yan sat for a bit, decided she’d fulfilled her duty, and didn’t force herself. She turned to Chen Boyu and said, “I’m going to grab some drinks.”
Chen Boyu looked down at her, as if checking if she was upset, then nodded and released the hand on her shoulder.
Lan Yan rose from the sofa and walked to the beverage station.
She poured a cup of black tea, took a sip, and let her gaze sweep around before settling on the dining table.
The cleanup was half-done, the unfinished calligraphy piece still spread out on the table.
Liang Jingchuan stood by the table, head lowered as he studied the instructions nearby while trying to paste repair paper over the tear.
The hot black tea’s steam rose with her breath, swirling at her nose. Lan Yan watched for two minutes, confirming he was genuinely interested and truly stuck on the technique.
After a moment’s hesitation, she set down her tea cup and walked over.
Familiar footsteps stopped beside him. Liang Jingchuan pretended not to notice, his lips curving slightly before he instantly composed himself into the proper “prey” role.
Many people called Lan Yan “cold-hearted,” but that wasn’t true at all. “Cold-hearted” and “indifferent” were a single character apart, with vastly different meanings.
She wasn’t “cold-hearted.” On the contrary, she had a strong sense of simple justice and wouldn’t stand by when others were in trouble.
Even he, her enemy, had benefited from her small acts of care.
During his senior year, their relationship was far worse than now—oil and water wouldn’t even begin to describe it.
It was early winter then, flu season sweeping through. Half the class fell ill, and with people sick all around him, he couldn’t escape it either.
That day, the moment he got home and dropped his bag, exhaustion hit him. He planned to lie on the bed for a bit before getting up to wash, but as soon as he lay down, the room spun.
His parents weren’t home, and he’d forgotten to close the door. Perhaps his awkward sprawl at the bed’s foot looked too strange. In his haze, he heard that slightly cool voice call “Hey” several times. He seemed to respond—or maybe not.
For Lan Yan actually entered the room for the first time, her voice like thin frost approaching. With added caution, she asked: Hey, what’s wrong with you?
—Back then, at the earliest, her name for him was “Hey.”
Then, he felt fingers checking his breath, as if seeing if he was still breathing. If he’d been conscious enough to witness it, it would have been even funnier than he imagined.
Soon, a cool touch pressed to his forehead, followed shortly by something at his temple—he realized it was a forehead thermometer.
Then his shoulder was gripped and shaken hard, dizziness nearly making him vomit.
A very impatient voice urged repeatedly: Hey, take your medicine.
He couldn’t remember how he got up—probably his body’s survival instinct decided that more shaking would turn his brains to egg drop soup, so it mercifully released some adrenaline, letting him complete the sequence from taking medicine to crawling into bed.
As he lay flat and closed his eyes, his last visual memory was Lan Yan pulling back his blanket and disgustedly covering him up.
It was sloppy; the blanket wasn’t even fully unfolded, two layers thick and heavy like a stone slab on him.
But it worked by accident. The thick cover made him sweat it out, and he successfully broke the fever after two hours.
He staggered up to get water, and just as he stepped out of his room, the door across opened. Lan Yan stood in the doorway, glanced at him for less than two seconds, then retreated, slamming the door to end that act of chivalry.
“You left too much overlap on the edge.”
A finger reached over, lightly tapping the edge of the repair paper he was holding down, snapping him back from the memory.
Slender finger, pink nail bed with a subtle sheen and a pretty white half-moon.
Liang Jingchuan let that half-moon imprint in his eyes, hummed lowly. “Hard to control. Press too hard and it bunches up.”
“You need time to train the muscle memory for finger pressure…” Lan Yan rummaged in the tool kit, which contained a scalpel with a No. 23 blade.
She picked it up, reversed it with the blade facing herself, and handed it to him. “Try scraping with this.”
Liang Jingchuan took the scalpel.
Long fingers, distinct knuckles—a very handsome pair of hands. Lan Yan’s gaze lingered a second before shifting to the repair paper under his light press.
He tilted the blade to scrape, but Lan Yan said, “Wait.”
No spray bottle in the tools, so she took a small liner brush, dipped water, tapped it lightly on the glass bowl’s edge to control the moisture, then held it over the painting heart, letting water flow evenly to wet the back more.
Liang Jingchuan turned his head, asking with an expression: Ready?
Lan Yan nodded.
The blade scraped the paper—a different sensation, still requiring full focus for the delicate work.
Lan Yan propped her palm on the table edge, standing close beside him, head lowered to watch closely.
His white shirt sleeve was rolled up, folds bunched at the elbow, lightly brushing her arm.
Normal body temperature, yet it felt scorching hot, transmitting through the fabric from his skin.
So close that alarms blared in Liang Jingchuan’s mind.
They’d known each other over a decade, lived under the same roof for a year, but Lan Yan’s stance had drawn strict battle lines between them. He was used to the hail of bullets, not this close shoulder-to-shoulder.
His movements stopped.
After a few seconds, Lan Yan asked, “What’s wrong?”
Liang Jingchuan smiled. “I don’t know how. Demonstrate?”
Lan Yan gestured for him to shift half a step aside, took his previous position, bent over with head lowered, lightly rubbed the overlap with her fingertip for a moment, paused in her motion, turned her head up. “Can you see clearly from so far?”
Liang Jingchuan paused, then lowered his head too.
Their heads were mere inches from touching, his breath nearly brushing the strands falling over her forehead.
She must have washed her hair recently; no medicated patches on her. He could clearly smell the clean, faint fragrance from it.
Liang Jingchuan slowed his breathing, asking in a calmer tone than usual: “Do you rub with fingers or scrape with the scalpel?”
“Both, depending on the situation.”
“Will it rub off fingerprints?”
“My master’s fingerprints are pretty worn anyway, and mine…” She flipped her palm up, extending her index finger. “Seem a bit faint.”
“Let me see.”
The moment the words left his mouth, Liang Jingchuan suddenly reached out, cupping her wrist from below and lifting it gently.
Her index finger was closer to his eyes.
Lan Yan froze, and after a moment, felt a strong discomfort.
She shifted her gaze to Liang Jingchuan’s face.
He was intently studying her fingertip, expression focused—it should just be simple curiosity; motive and stance ruled out anything deliberate.
Unable to bear the discomfort, Lan Yan started to pull her hand back. He released it and said evenly, “It’s a bit faint.”
Lan Yan hummed, lowered her head, and continued the demonstration.
The clamor from the sofa area seemed blocked by a barrier, not reaching them.
Beside her head, Liang Jingchuan’s calm breathing sounded clearer than before.
Lan Yan rubbed the overlap into a sloped ramp with her finger, then stepped half aside, arms crossed, subtly rubbing her wrist with her palm to erase the lingering sensation. Calmly, she asked: “Got it?”
“I’ll try.”
Liang Jingchuan picked up the scalpel again, starting next to her sloped section, scraping bit by bit to match the angle.
Head down, fully focused, tending the painting like a patient—meticulous and patient.
Lan Yan had always known Liang Jingchuan was diligent and focused. He was smart, but not a genius. Fourth Middle School was South City’s best public high school; toss a chalk head out, and nine times out of ten it hit a genius. In that environment, non-geniuses had only hard work as their path.
Twice, she’d run into him at the bus stop at six-thirty in the morning on her way to the studio for homework.
He held a metal-ringed vocab book, silently memorizing words while waiting. Cars passed; he’d glance up until the one to Fourth Middle School arrived, then pocket the book in his black down jacket.
Now, she had a more direct sense of his focus.
Few studied cultural relic restoration, and even fewer stuck with it.
She had to admit, unwillingly, that the person she disliked most actually had the qualities for this field.
Lan Yan stayed silent for a long time.
Liang Jingchuan’s low voice came over. “Why isn’t Teacher Lan Yan guiding me anymore?” With a lazy trailing tone.
The address irritated her instantly. “Didn’t that tea last time poison your voice?”
Liang Jingchuan switched to a more serious tone at once, humbly asking: “Then what should I call you? Senior Sister? Master Sister?”
“See that horseshoe knife over there?”
Liang Jingchuan nodded.
“I use it very handily. So sharp it could sever a hair blown across it.” Threatening tone.
He looked up, gaze fixed on her, eyes deep with amusement. “So scared.”