“……Can I end the first lesson now, Senior Sister?”
Lan Yan hugged the bouquet to her chest. “You prepared this in advance?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you remember that you ‘weren’t qualified’ when you bought it?”
“Then I’ll just force it on you. It’s not the first time anyway.”
“……You’re such a bandit.”
It seemed that even standing at the doorway, even with utterly pointless small talk, they could chat forever.
Lan Yan walked inside, then suddenly stopped. “……Take a photo?”
Liang Jingchuan nodded, pulled out his phone from his pocket, and opened the camera app, aiming it at her.
“……I meant a selfie together.”
“……Oh.”
“Stop looking so smug.”
“I’m not. See, I’m not even smiling.”
But Lan Yan couldn’t help the way her cheeks lifted. Today, she really seemed infected with a virus whose symptom was “giggling every three seconds.”
Liang Jingchuan stepped beside her, switched to the front camera, and raised the phone.
Seeing the two of them in the same frame made Lan Yan want to lift the flowers to block her face.
“The lens is this way, not on the wall,” Liang Jingchuan said with a laugh.
“……Mind your own business where I look. Just take the photo.”
Liang Jingchuan counted down “three, two, one.” At “one,” he suddenly reached out and pulled her shoulder toward him, and she turned her gaze to the lens.
The moment the photo was taken, Lan Yan twisted away. “……Send me the photo.”
“It didn’t come out right. It’s out of focus.”
Lan Yan was about to return to her spot. She glanced at him and paused, saying in a deadpan tone, “What a shame. Let’s take it again next time.”
Liang Jingchuan laughed. “You’re getting harder to fool.”
“……”
Not long after, the delivery guy brought the toiletries Lan Yan had ordered.
Lan Yan first took out the slippers from the bag, removed the tag, walked back to the sofa, and tossed them at Liang Jingchuan’s feet. “Do you want to take a hot shower? I’m a bit worried you might catch a cold.”
Liang Jingchuan glanced down at them, slipped on the shoes, and nodded. “Sure.”
Lan Yan grabbed the remaining towel, toothbrush, and such. Liang Jingchuan followed behind her toward the bathroom.
The small space was tidied neatly. The shower area was separated by a plain shower curtain. With ventilation during the day, it had a dry, fresh scent.
Amid the lingering fragrance, Liang Jingchuan caught a whiff of jasmine. He looked toward the shelf in the corner of the shower and spotted a familiar logo.
“You brought it back?”
Lan Yan followed his gaze. “It’s so heavy. Who would carry it all the way back?”
“Then what’s this……” He clearly already knew the answer but asked anyway on purpose.
Lan Yan didn’t want to let him get too smug. She hung the towel on the rack without acknowledging him.
“You bought it yourself?” Of course, Liang Jingchuan’s style was to keep asking until he got a satisfying response.
“What else, did it drop from the sky……It was so expensive.”
“When it runs out, I’ll buy more. I’ll buy it from now on.”
“……If you’re so rich, why bother winning that pitiful salary of mine.”
Liang Jingchuan paused, then burst out laughing. “I forgot.”
“Forgot what?”
“On New Year’s Eve, when I dragged you into my room, I actually wanted to give you a red envelope as compensation.”
“……Why didn’t you say so earlier? I’m the one who lost out big time.”
“Really that much of a loss?” Liang Jingchuan leaned down, his laughing voice dropping lower. “……You didn’t seem dissatisfied with my performance.”
Lan Yan schooled her expression, threw the bath towel over his head, and turned to walk out.
After his shower, Liang Jingchuan changed into the new T-shirt and threw on his jacket over it. The T-shirt was a size too big, making his frame look slender. If she hadn’t experienced it herself, she wouldn’t have imagined that this build held such immense strength, able to lift her effortlessly without strain.
Like her, he didn’t like fully blow-drying his hair. The tips were slightly damp, his hair color darker than usual. Under the lights, his freshly washed face had skin as fair as cold jade.
It really made one unable to resist looking at him a few more times.
Lan Yan went to the bedroom to grab her pajamas, pointed at the TV remote on the coffee table, and told him to watch TV if he got bored. Then she went to the bathroom to shower.
While she stood in front of the mirror blow-drying her hair, someone knocked on the bathroom door.
Lan Yan reached over and opened it. Liang Jingchuan walked in.
She adjusted the blow dryer to low speed and glanced at him in the mirror. “Need to wash your hands?”
Liang Jingchuan shook his head and said solemnly, “It’s been half an hour since I last saw you.”
“……”
“Want me to blow-dry it for you?”
Lan Yan handed him the blow dryer. He took it and stepped forward.
His slender fingers delved into her roots, lifting her hair, then aimed the nozzle. If it got too hot, he would notice before she did.
The subtle sensation of his fingertips against her scalp made Lan Yan want to shrink her neck, but she held still.
She glanced in the mirror. He kept his eyes downcast, utterly focused, as if helping her blow-dry her hair was the most serious and important task at hand.
“That day, were you trying to kiss me?”
Her voice was drowned out by the hum of the hot air. Liang Jingchuan looked up. “Hm?”
Lan Yan reached out and yanked the plug from the blow dryer. “I said, that day, were you trying to kiss me?”
Liang Jingchuan smiled. “Which day am I not trying to kiss you?”
“……”
“Which day are you talking about?”
“When you put the medicated plaster on me.”
“……Yeah.”
Lan Yan said nothing more. She simply lifted her hand, swept all her hair to her left shoulder, exposing the skin on the right side of her nape, then picked up the oxhorn comb from beside her and idly combed her still-damp long hair.
She raised her eyes, wanting to check the mirror, then quickly lowered them again.
After a moment, from the corner of her eye, she saw the blow dryer set on the counter. The jasmine scent identical to hers suddenly grew closer.
His breath brushed her nape, light and more ethereal than mist.
The instant the comb reached her hair ends, a warm, soft touch pressed against her skin too, triggering an uncontrollable shiver.
Her lashes trembled as she lifted her lids. She saw Liang Jingchuan with eyes downcast. Afraid he’d catch her peeking, she hastily looked away.
The kisses on her nape varied in pressure without pattern, like chaotic footprints in snow, moving behind her earlobe but stopping abruptly.
His warm breath lingered. Her thin-skinned earlobe gradually heated up.
Liang Jingchuan reached around to hold her waist, lowered his head, rested his chin on her shoulder, and let out a long, heavy breath. It was as if this alone had pushed him to his limit, unable to go any further.
From the mirror, Lan Yan saw his ears flushed red.
In the past, she definitely would have seized the chance to tease him, this paper tiger who bluffed loudly.
But in this moment, she truly realized this was his first relationship.
A long time passed in silence.
Lan Yan felt Liang Jingchuan bury his face deeper. His muffled voice came from her neck. “Yanyan, there’s something I want to apologize to you for.”
“What?”
“Do you remember? When you were in your first year of high school, it rained one day, and I went to the art studio to bring you an umbrella.”
Lan Yan nodded.
Liang Jingchuan released one hand, pulled out his phone from his pocket, and handed it to her.
She knew the passcode and entered “147789.”
Unlocked, it showed an open photo, probably from long ago, with quality far inferior to what modern devices produced these days. She glanced at it and immediately froze.
It was a girl in Sixth Middle School uniform, sitting before an easel, side profile as she held a pencil outlining a plaster bust.
It was her.
But she had no memory of this photo existing.
Lan Yan looked up at him. “……You took this?”
“……Yeah. Sorry, I took a sneaky photo of you. And it was only this one time, without you knowing.”
“That phone wallpaper of yours……it was this photo?”
“Yeah. It wasn’t that I was afraid you’d see it. I was afraid you’d think I was creepy……Back then, it was like I was possessed. Your serious painting face was just so beautiful. Sorry……” He looked down at her, sincere. “Can you forgive me?”
Lan Yan didn’t respond right away. After a while, she asked, “Did you ever do anything with this photo?”
“Do anything……” He caught on. “No. Never once. I’ve always felt guilty about it.”
“……It wasn’t my dad who told you to bring me the umbrella, was it.”
“No. That day’s pop quiz went terribly for me. I was in a bad mood and inexplicably wanted to see you. When I got there, you were painting. Even without talking to you, just seeing you made things feel not so bad. I should have deleted it—it was really intrusive—but whenever I felt down, I’d instinctively pull it up to look.”
Liang Jingchuan took back the phone, tapped the screen, and brought up the menu with the three dots in the corner. “You delete it. No backups anywhere else but this album.”
Lan Yan decisively pressed the power button to lock the screen. “You fixed my A-Beibei. Why should I delete your A-Beibei?”
Liang Jingchuan froze.
She reached her arm back, stuffed his phone into his jacket pocket, then turned, stood on tiptoe, and brushed her lips against his.
As her heels settled and she started to pull back, Liang Jingchuan bent down. Just as he was about to kiss her, he seemed to think somewhere else might be better and directly scooped her up princess-style.
“……I have legs!”
Liang Jingchuan chuckled lowly but didn’t set her down.
They returned to the sofa again. Unlike last time, this time she wasn’t sideways but straddling his lap with both knees apart.
Her freshly washed long hair draped down, blocking the light. He tilted his head up, kissing her hotly and intently. The lemon scent filled their mouths until it was impossible to tell whose it was.
Her waist went soft, like a flower soaked by rain, wilting into his arms.
A long while later, the urgent need for air forced their heads apart.
Lan Yan’s head drooped, her breathing ragged, unable to catch her breath for a long time.
……How did he improve so fast?
Liang Jingchuan’s low chuckle slipped into her ear. “……Can I end the first lesson now, Senior Sister?”