“I want you to break up with Chen Boyu.”
It was the first time she heard Liang Jingchuan call her that, familiar yet strange.
Lan Yan lightly bit her lip and ignored the odd feeling the address brought. “Fine, then tell me, in the same situation, what would you choose?”
“I’d probably make the same choice as Chen Boyu.”
“Then what gives you the right to say…”
Liang Jingchuan cut her off. “But I would’ve noticed your situation early on. I wouldn’t have gone out and left you resting in the hotel alone, and I wouldn’t have let you go for a walk by the sea alone at noon—admittedly, I didn’t handle this perfectly either. If I hadn’t insisted on finding an excuse before going to look for you at the beach, you wouldn’t have had to go into the water.”
He paused briefly, then continued in one breath. “It takes less than half an hour to drive from the company to your place—I wouldn’t just make one call a day and call it even when busy. On holidays, I wouldn’t crash right after entertaining clients. When bringing you home, I wouldn’t stand by idly while my parents slighted you. I wouldn’t push you into social obligations you dislike. I wouldn’t let your air conditioner be broken all summer long…”
“…Stop talking!”
“I have to say it.” Liang Jingchuan’s voice was hoarse and bitter. “…I wouldn’t get someone only to not cherish them properly. Because for some people, they don’t even have the right to fight for it from the start.”
When the last word fell, the room fell quiet, with only the sound of breathing.
Her heart felt like it had been gripped tightly by someone. That unfamiliar sour feeling made Lan Yan swallow her harsh words.
“…Chen Boyu trusts you so much, and this is how you betray his trust?”
“You trust Chen Boyu so much—has he ever betrayed your trust?”
“…” Lan Yan was furious but at a loss for words.
Because Liang Jingchuan was right. He had always been right.
A camel wasn’t killed by just one straw.
Liang Jingchuan looked at her and said no more, his gaze holding only a calm melancholy.
After a moment, he turned his head away, his voice cooling as well. “Do you feel better now?”
Lan Yan ignored him.
“You slept all afternoon. Want to get up and eat something?”
“…How did you get into my room?”
“Chen Boyu gave me the room card.”
“…Aren’t you afraid he’ll kill you?”
“I just said a few truths. What have I done to deserve being killed by him?”
“…”
She must have been too hungry without eating, her blood oxygen low, her brain not turning fast enough—she couldn’t even argue back with a single sentence.
When she stepped outside, the sun was already setting over the sea.
As she sat at the wooden table, with the warm sea breeze blowing through her hair and the hem of her sundress, and the vibrant sunset layers surging in her view, Lan Yan’s bad mood vanished in an instant. Liang Jingchuan sitting across from her had no effect on her at all.
After dinner, the sunset grew even more grand and magnificent, and more people gathered on the beach—tourists there to watch it.
Lan Yan walked along the sand, occasionally pulling out her phone to take photos.
Dozens of photos, with a visible gradient of colors, lined up in her album.
At that moment, WeChat popped up with a new message.
Lan Yan stopped and opened it.
【Chen Boyu: I’ve landed, Yanyan. Feeling better? Have you eaten?】
【blueblue: I’m fine now. I’ve eaten.】
【Chen Boyu: That’s good.】
【Chen Boyu: I’m heading to dinner with President Ye right away. I’ll call you later.】
In the past, Lan Yan would always reply with “Okay.”
But at that moment, she felt an indifference, as if it didn’t matter if she replied or not, so she ignored it and kept taking photos with her phone.
“Lan Yan.”
Lan Yan instinctively turned at the sound.
She met Liang Jingchuan’s camera lens.
She froze for a second. “…Who said you could take my picture!”
“I’ll compensate you for your likeness rights. How much do you want?”
“Is this about money?” She saw Liang Jingchuan lower his gaze slightly, staring at the screen as if checking the photo he’d just taken, and hurried over. “Let me see it.”
Liang Jingchuan stepped back.
“Let me see!” Lan Yan took two steps after him, grabbed his arm, and tried to snatch his phone. “No ugly photos of me!”
The instant Liang Jingchuan let go, his thumb happened to press the side button, and the screen went dark.
Lan Yan turned it back on and, on the phone’s default lock screen wallpaper, deftly tapped in “147789.”
She heard Liang Jingchuan chuckle lowly.
Lan Yan froze.
Without him saying anything, she knew what he was laughing at—laughing at how, last time, she had called him “so narcissistic.”
She realized now that “L” wasn’t the initial for “Liang.”
Suddenly, the phone felt like a hot potato. She kept her head down, pretending not to react.
There was one question she had been deliberately avoiding: When did Liang Jingchuan start liking her?
His attitude hadn’t transitioned gradually; it had abruptly jumped from clashing with her to the opposite end.
Starting from when he sent his grandfather’s relic for repair… No, from Chen Boyu’s birthday.
So, it must have been some time before that day.
She had no clue, because over those many years, their interactions had always been filled with tension after just a few words.
She had treated him so poorly—how could he still like her?
Did he have some niche fetish?
The phone unlocked.
On the screen was the moment just before, with warmer tones: sunset from sea to sky, orange-yellow fading to purple hibiscus. The image captured the instant she turned her head, perfectly.
Her black spaghetti-strap dress fluttered, long hair brushing her cheek, eyes slightly dazed. She blended into the twilight yet paradoxically stood apart from it.
If the lens was an extension of the eyes, was this how she looked in Liang Jingchuan’s eyes?
Liang Jingchuan stood there, smiling at her. “If you think it’s ugly, delete it yourself.”
…She not only didn’t want to delete it; she even wanted to AirDrop it.
After a moment’s hesitation, Lan Yan turned on her phone’s AirDrop. As it transferred, she fought the voice in her head: Yeah yeah, I’m so spineless.
“You haven’t snuck photos of me more than once, have you?” Lan Yan eyed him sideways.
“Want to check?”
Once the photo transferred, Lan Yan locked the phone and handed it back to Liang Jingchuan. She knew he wouldn’t do that; otherwise, he wouldn’t have called out to her.
The light shifted to cooler tones.
Lan Yan continued walking slowly ahead, with Liang Jingchuan following at a neither close nor distant distance.
He always knew his limits—even his offenses toward her seemed to hit right at the edge where she was just short of snapping.
“Sun Yat-sen Nanyang Memorial Hall, in collaboration with the UC Berkeley East Asian Library…”
Suddenly, she heard Liang Jingchuan’s leisurely voice from behind.
Lan Yan turned, only to see an extra promotional poster in his hand.
She stopped and waited for him to come over. “What?”
“The Nanyang Chinese Mutual Aid Society’s special exhibition.” The light was no longer bright, so Liang Jingchuan leaned closer to the poster.
Lan Yan quickly said, “Let me see.”
Liang Jingchuan didn’t hand it over and kept reading the exhibition description. “Hongmen Mutual Aid Society religious patterns, gang fight weapons…”
Lan Yan tiptoed to reach for it. “Let me see!”
“Break up with Chen Boyu, and I’ll let you see.”
“…” After two seconds of silence, Lan Yan couldn’t hold back. “Are you sick in the head?”
Liang Jingchuan shifted his body aside, dodging her hand. “‘Cuiying Academy’ beam sculpture… Emperor Guangxu’s ink treasure ‘Pacifying the Southern Seas’ plaque…”
He stopped there, looking at Lan Yan with a half-smile, as if he knew better than anyone that this was her ultimate weakness she couldn’t refuse. “This plaque—isn’t it the one restored by that Teacher Zhang Xiaozhai you mentioned?”
Lan Yan stared at him speechless.
“Fine, fine, here, take it.”
The poster was shoved into her hands.
A bilingual poster in traditional Chinese and English, with the plaque prominently featured in the exhibits section.
“…Where did you get this?”
“Picked it up on the beach.”
“You think I’ll believe that?”
“Hey, how come you’re not so easy to fool anymore.” His tone sounded genuinely troubled.
“…”
Lan Yan ignored him, unlocked her phone, and opened a ticketing app.
Liang Jingchuan said, “Two-hour ferry ride, nine trips from morning to evening—can leave anytime.”
He seemed to have completely predicted her reaction and prepared thoroughly in advance.
Lan Yan was thoroughly stunned.
Liang Jingchuan looked down at her and said softly, “Yanyan, if Chen Boyu hadn’t rushed back overnight today, tomorrow you’d go see the exhibition with me.”
“…Don’t call me that.”
“Three days until it closes.”
Only the sound of the sea breeze rustling the poster in her hand.
“Since you hate me, what’s there to fear about going to the exhibition with me?”
“Who’s afraid?” Lan Yan raised her voice. “Would any normal person go out with someone they hate?”
She shoved the poster back into Liang Jingchuan’s hands and turned to walk away.
She didn’t look back, her steps quickening.
Suddenly, she heard a low “ah” from behind.
She paused for an instant, then kept walking; after a few steps, she still stopped and turned to look.
Liang Jingchuan was crouching on the beach, head down, motionless.
After a long while with no reaction, Lan Yan finally walked over, face taut, and asked, “What happened to you?”
“Stepped on glass.”
After a moment’s hesitation, Lan Yan crouched down. Just as her fingers neared his knee, her wrist was grabbed.
He raised his eyes, staring intensely at close range. His usually indifferent eyes now showed a strange danger.
His dark hair whipped by the sea wind, the last trace of daylight gone, night like the surging deep sea behind him in his eyes. “For other people you hate, would you care about them like this too?”
“…Have you never heard the boy who cried wolf?” Lan Yan’s heart tightened.
“Next time I pretend to be hurt, you’ll come back the same way. That’s just who you are.”
Lan Yan was speechless.
Her wrist wasn’t gripped too tightly; she easily pulled free and sighed inwardly. “Liang Jingchuan, what exactly do you want?”
“I want you to break up with Chen Boyu.”
“Then first run naked around the beach, and maybe I’ll consider it.”
“Okay.”
He let go of the poster, crossed his hands, grabbed the hem of his black T-shirt, and unhesitatingly lifted it up.
The poster was caught by the wind, nearly flying toward the sea.
“…Are you crazy!” Lan Yan quickly reached out and firmly pressed down on Liang Jingchuan’s arm.
He smiled, extended his arm to snatch back the nearly blown-away poster, and asked innocently, “Going to the exhibition?”
/
Back in her room, Lan Yan took a shower, washing away the slight stickiness of the heat on her skin.
That night, she didn’t go out. She lay in bed watching shows and chatting with Lu Ying.
Having slept enough during the day, she wasn’t sleepy and stayed up past midnight. Lu Ying said she had to get up early tomorrow and went to bed first.
Lan Yan got up, changed into flip-flops, and went downstairs.
The hotel bar was open twenty-four hours, and at this hour, it was lively inside.
She ordered a room-temperature soda and sat by the window.
Someone came to chat her up, but she politely declined.
Sitting amid strangers in a foreign land, listening to music she couldn’t understand, sipping soda—it wasn’t without its pleasures.
After finishing the soda and until she felt satisfied, she got up and left the bar.
The instant she stepped out, a WeChat message came in. Chen Boyu asked if she had gone to sleep.
She replied no, and Chen Boyu immediately called with a voice message.
Chen Boyu got straight to the point. “Sorry, Yanyan, I just got to the hotel. President Ye is very interested in our project and wants to discuss details with me tomorrow afternoon. I need to revise the proposal; it’ll probably take all night. After talking with President Ye tomorrow…”
“It’s fine. The holiday isn’t long anyway—no need to fly back and forth. I’ll pack your luggage and bring it back when I return.”
Lan Yan found her heart calm, feeling not the slightest disappointment—perhaps because she had expected it.
Chen Boyu hadn’t done anything wrong. It was a rational adult choice; she would’ve done the same, maybe even more decisively.
After all, he was running a company. If it went under, he could go back to inherit the family business, but the others would face tough times in this economy if they lost their jobs.
Chen Boyu was silent for a beat before saying, “I’ll definitely be back tomorrow night…”
Lan Yan calmly interrupted him. “Chen Boyu, don’t make promises about things you’re not a hundred percent sure you can do.”
“…I really will come back. I booked Starry Sky Restaurant for the evening after tomorrow—they require half a year in advance here.”
Lan Yan smiled. By now, she had already walked into the lobby, where lights shone brightly all around. “Lu Ying told me that many people propose at Feilang’s Starry Sky Restaurant. You’re not thinking of proposing to me, are you?”
Chen Boyu didn’t say anything.
“I’m joking. I know you wouldn’t.”
“I…”
“Alright, go ahead and get busy. We’ll talk face-to-face about anything when I get back.”
Back in her room, Lan Yan washed her face, lay down on the bed, and opened a battle game she hadn’t played in a long time.
The game had updated, adding many new heroes she’d never heard of.
Back when she had just gotten together with Chen Boyu, the two of them would spend one to two hours duo queuing before bed almost every night. He liked jungling, darting all over the map and vanishing unpredictably; she preferred top lane, picking a burly, aggressive muscle man and focusing on laning and holding the pressure.
Later, as Chen Boyu got busier, their duo time shrank from two hours to half an hour, from countless games to just one like a assigned task.
Eventually, their win records froze, and the heroes gathered dust.
Chen Boyu had once begged her to change to couple names, but she refused. She could never accept that kind of public declaration of ownership over each other.
She clicked into Chen Boyu’s profile. His last game was from a year ago—a duo queue with her.
They lost that game because he got a work call and stayed AFK the whole time. Their teammates raged at him, and afterward, she told him that since he was so busy, they could duo on weekends instead.
He never duoed with anyone else after that. But he also stopped duoing with her.
Perhaps the river that had once belonged to both of them had long since diverged, flowing toward different seas.
Zhou Wenshu was online and sent her a duo invite. She rejected it, and WeChat told him she had just logged in to check around.
Then she deleted the game app.
The several-GB game deleted in not even a second.
She turned off the light and was about to sleep when her phone screen lit up.
Liang Jingchuan sent a WeChat message.
Two pictures.
One was Chen Boyu’s message saying he wouldn’t be back today and asking him to help revise the plan that night.
The other was a screenshot of two flight tickets to Singapore, booked successfully at 10 a.m.