“Thirty-three. Not especially handsome, not especially funny, but dependable,” I said casually. In truth, Wang Duanzhi and I had barely progressed beyond polite interest; we hadn’t even reached the stage of discussing a relationship.

Han Che frowned. “Thirty-three?”

“Oh, and he’s been married before.”

Han Che nodded and didn’t pursue the topic.

The music, now turned up louder, interrupted the conversation. For once, we sat quietly in the car without speaking.

When we reached a busy downtown district, Han Che circled for a while before squeezing the car awkwardly into a tiny gap between bicycles and scooters. The moment he got out, he grabbed my wrist and turned away.

“Run!”

I blinked. “What’s wrong? Is parking not allowed here?”

His neck stayed rigidly forward as if it were in a cast. “The parking job looks ugly as hell.”

I laughed and tried to turn around to look, but he immediately grabbed my head and turned it back.

“Don’t look, don’t look. I can’t let it ruin my glorious image.”

Han Che brought me to a dim sum restaurant inside M City’s old produce market.

Steam billowed from bamboo baskets. The aroma rising from giant iron pots instantly awakened my appetite.

I hadn’t expected him to bring me somewhere so ordinary and full of everyday life.

The restaurant was packed with middle-aged locals enjoying lunch.

Han Che clearly knew the place well. After greeting people politely, he found us a shared table and pointed at the grease-stained menu on the wall.

“What do you want?”

I rested my chin on my hand.

“Spicy wontons?”

“I’m a fan of strong flavors.”

“The bubble wontons here are famous,” he said, pointing toward the customers lining up outside for takeout. “Most people come specifically for those.”

“Sounds good. You know the place better than I do. You order. I’m not picky.”

He ordered three bowls of bubble wontons, a basket of soup dumplings, sweet soy milk, and a bowl of water shield soup.

It was far too much food.

Since we were sharing a table with strangers, half the tabletop disappeared under our dishes.

Han Che combined two bowls of wontons into one to save space. We sat elbow-to-elbow eating in cramped comfort.

This was exactly the sort of ordinary environment I was familiar with.

“How did you think of bringing me here?”

I scooped up a wonton and blew on it before taking a bite.

The flavor itself wasn’t particularly unique, but the wrappers were so thin that each wonton puffed up like a tiny balloon floating in the broth. One bite released a burst of soup and green onion fragrance.

“I grew up on this street.”

“Really?”

I peered through the plastic curtain outside. The narrow street looked decades old, the kind of neighborhood locals had lived in twenty years ago.

“You seem more like a pampered rich kid. I didn’t expect you to come from an alley like this.”

“Pampered?”

He pointed toward an elderly woman at a vegetable stall.

“See her stand? Know what I used to do there after school every day?”

I shook my head.

“I picked up discarded vegetable leaves.”

When I looked skeptical, he shrugged.

“There were years when my family couldn’t afford fresh vegetables. My parents were always busy. I’d collect the leftover leaves, take them home, sort them, wash them, and wait for my mom to cook them after work.”

I stared at him in disbelief and glanced at his clean hands.

“Seriously?”

His eyes narrowed.

“Nope. Totally made up.”

A surge of irritation shot straight to my forehead.

“...”

“Okay, okay, it’s true.”

Seeing my expression darken, he immediately rubbed my head.

“Hahaha. I just can’t resist teasing you.”

He took a sip of the water shield soup and encouraged me to try some.

The texture was strange—slick and slippery.

“When I was in elementary school, I had chronic hives,” he explained. “I’d constantly break out in welts and scratch myself raw. We visited several hospitals but nothing worked. Then one day it mysteriously improved.”

“Why?”

“At first I didn’t know. A few years later the hives came back. By then my family was doing better financially, but even bigger hospitals couldn’t fix it. Eventually I stopped caring.

“Then one day my mom made this soup. After eating it, my welts faded really quickly. The next morning, most of them were gone. Since then, I drink water shield soup every season.”

“Wow. That’s amazing.”

“It won’t work for everyone. I looked into it later. My trigger was probably what traditional Chinese medicine calls ‘internal heat.’ This vegetable supposedly reduces that.”

I laughed.

“You believe in traditional Chinese medicine?”

Back then, debates about it were all over the internet.

He pressed his lips together and adopted the expression of an internet intellectual.

“I reserve judgment, but I don’t reject it entirely.”

After we finished eating, I asked where he had gotten the money to invest in road and bridge companies. That sounded like something only a rich second-generation heir would do.

“My parents,” he said. “I lived off them. Our family situation improved later.”

He told me how his mother had lost her job and sold both her jewelry and several plots of rural land to start a business. It succeeded beyond expectations. Within three years they moved out of the alley and into an apartment building.

Later, his father left his state-owned enterprise job and joined her. Together they built a wholesale and distribution business and gradually became wealthy.

He described it all casually.

Yet listening to him, I felt strangely heavy-hearted.

His life was comfortable now, but his childhood sounded turbulent.

Han Che stopped in front of a small residence.

The narrow red-painted door was half open, its paint peeling away.

“I lived here until third grade.”

I peeked through the crack.

Inside stood old white walls and gray roof tiles surrounding a tiny courtyard.

“Do you miss it?”

“A little.”

He looked at it quietly.

“Sometimes when I come back here to eat, I take a look.”

Then he smiled faintly.

“But I don’t miss being poor. What I miss is how happy I could still be even when life was that hard.”

The bitterness in his expression flashed only briefly before disappearing.

Then he grinned.

“Come on, Lin Wen. Let’s get you home.”

At the airport, he gave me a quick hug before stepping back politely.

I waved goodbye and turned to leave.

After only two steps, his voice sounded behind me.

“Lin Wen, I even showed you where I grew up. Aren’t you going to return the favor?”

I rolled my eyes where he couldn’t see.

So that was his real motive.

I had wondered why he’d suddenly become so sincere.

“How am I supposed to return the favor?”

He stepped closer.

“Allow me to explain adult social etiquette.”

“You casually invite me somewhere.”

“Then I politely say ‘next time.’”

“That way neither of us feels awkward.”

“Oh.”

I nodded.

“Thanks for showing me the alley where you grew up. If you ever have time, I’ll treat you to a barbecue in my hometown.”

“Sure,” he replied immediately, hands in his pockets and smiling with dazzling sincerity. “I have time.”

I’d expected that answer.

“So unfortunate,” I replied. “I don’t. Maybe another day.”

He pulled out a plane ticket and waved it in front of me.

“Which day? I can change it right now.”

I snatched the ticket and stared.

Same flight as mine.

“What’s wrong with you?”

He spread his hands innocently.

“It’s Saturday. Of course I’m free.”

Seeing me speechless, he hooked an arm around my shoulders.

“Come on, little sister. Let’s go on a winter trip.”

The discounted ticket had originally been purchased through Feng Zi’s company system, so it wasn’t surprising that Han Che had somehow learned my flight details.

Privacy was always the price of taking advantage of someone’s connections.

The airport was packed with Lunar New Year travelers.

“Did you already buy a return ticket?” I asked.

“Tomorrow night.”

“That’s a tight schedule.”

“Even if you can’t bear to part with me, I still have to go home and spend New Year’s with my parents.”

He deliberately twisted my words.

I ignored him.

The flight lasted only two hours. I napped with a magazine on my lap.

At one point I asked whether he normally flew business class.

Han Che claimed television dramas had poisoned my expectations.

“People like us ordinary technical workers fly economy.”

“Maybe I’d splurge if I were traveling with a cute younger girl.”

I cupped my face and blinked.

“Am I that kind of younger girl?”

He tapped my nose.

“What do you think?”

We both laughed and left it there.

After landing, I dragged him onto a two-hour bus ride.

Our heads leaned against each other as we slept.

He woke first, gently straightening my head before stretching.

The bus attendant, probably eager to finish her shift, called to him:

“Wake up your wife too.”

“Huh?”

Han Che didn’t understand the local dialect.

Fortunately, I was already awake and quickly pulled him off the bus.

“Did that attendant know you?” he asked.

I doubled over laughing.

His curiosity only grew.

“Was that your nickname?”

I hit him repeatedly.

“Your nickname is Wife!”

Outside the station, scattered streetlights illuminated the road.

The taxi rocked gently through alternating patches of light and darkness.

I was half asleep.

Han Che, however, was wide awake, looking around.

“Your city’s urban planning isn’t very good.”

Without opening my eyes, I slapped a hand over his mouth.

People could criticize their own hometown.

Other people could not.

Warm breath tickled my palm.

Then he warned:

“I’m sticking my tongue out...”

I immediately yanked my hand back.

That shameless pervert.

I checked Han Che into a budget hotel near my house.

When I got home, my parents had prepared an enormous feast.

After spending so long in refined little M City, seeing such excessive hospitality felt like having a bucket of happiness dumped over my head.

I snapped a photo and sent it to Han Che.

He replied asking whether I could pack some food for him.

So after dinner, I filled several containers and took them over.

My parents were confused.

“If your friend came all this way, why not let him stay here? We have spare rooms.”

I waved them off.

“Southerners are particular about these things. They’re different from us.”

As I hurried out, my mother grumbled behind me.

“You just got back and already won’t stay home tonight. I haven’t even had a chance to look at you properly.”

I squeezed my cheeks toward her.

“Look! I gained weight. Lots of weight!”

Then I betrayed my long-separated parents for a handsome man and crossed the street while muttering curses about Han Che.

When I entered his room, he was watching television.

“The TV channels are different in the north,” he said with genuine fascination.

“Probably just more local stations.”

I opened the food containers.

“Eat. My parents cook salty food. Drink plenty of water afterward.”

He complimented the cooking nonstop.

Then he nudged me mysteriously.

“I just looked something up online.”

“What?”

“‘Wife.’”

I glared.

“Eat your food.”

That evening he asked where we were going.

I joked, “Want me to take you for a spa treatment?”

His expression instantly turned suggestive.

“The legal kind or the illegal kind?”

I pulled out my phone.

“Maybe I should ask one of my male classmates where to find the illegal kind. I only know the places with business licenses.”

In the end, we skipped the spa and went ice skating.

A TV drama had inspired the idea, and Han Che said he loved skating on real outdoor ice.

That was easy enough.

Besides, if he went for a massage alone, I’d just be bored.

I took him to the outdoor skating rink I used to visit.

The moment he put on skates, he grabbed my hand and lit up like a child.

“You know what? I skated at Shichahai once! It was amazing!”

“This place isn’t nearly that big.”

He was far too excited to hear me.

“You northern kids are so lucky!”

My period was coming, and I’d been sluggish all day.

But his enthusiasm eventually infected me.

Then a thought occurred to me.

“Wait. Can you actually skate?”

He shot me a look.

“What can’t I do?”

Using my hand for leverage, he pushed off and glided backward.

Then he held out his hand.

I took it.

The north was brutally cold.

Coming from damp southern weather into this dry, biting wind felt like being slapped repeatedly.

After skating for a while, though, my body finally warmed up.

Around us, everyone wore dark winter clothes.

I squeezed his gloved hand.

“Does this remind you of a movie?”

He thought for a moment.

“Black Coal, Thin Ice?”

I nodded vigorously.

I almost wanted to grab his head and kiss him.

I loved this kind of unspoken understanding.

“We’re still missing something,” he said.

He skated to an open area, spread his arms, and started dancing.

In a nightclub, with laser lights and music, Han Che’s narrow waist and swagger would probably look cool.

Here, bundled up in enormous winter clothing, he looked like a malfunctioning robot.

I laughed so hard I nearly collapsed.

If pulling out my phone hadn’t required freezing my hands, I would’ve recorded the entire thing.

Against the backdrop of country disco music playing through the rink speakers, he looked hilariously provincial.

Seeing me laugh only encouraged him.

He danced harder.

Then he rushed over and wrapped his arms around me, trying to pull me into it.

I wasn’t prepared.

We wobbled wildly before both crashing onto the ice.

Han Che landed on top of me.

Breathing heavily, he nudged my cheek with his freezing nose.

“Lin Wen, are you happy now?”

“I wasn’t unhappy to begin with.”

I pushed at him.

“Get up.”

He pretended to rise, then collapsed back onto me.

“I can’t. I’m stuck.”

I punched him.

My thick gloves hit his thick winter coat.

Who knew whether he even felt it?

“Don’t get any ideas,” I warned.

“Don’t underestimate men.”

He grinned.

“My little brother knows how to behave in public.”

After skating, we worked up an appetite.

I dragged him to my favorite barbecue place.

The moment he got the menu, he started ordering recklessly.

I panicked.

“The portions here are huge!”

He ignored me.

Then two trays of skewers arrived and he immediately fell silent.

We ended up wasting a ridiculous amount of food.

The entire walk afterward, I rolled my eyes and lectured him like a disgruntled housewife.

When we reached his hotel, he still looked dissatisfied.

“Lin Wen, this is no fun.”

“You’re just going to leave your guest alone in his room?”

I laughed.

“What? Am I supposed to sleep with you too?”

“That’s not entirely unacceptable.”

He reached toward me.

“No.”

I stepped back.

Anyone watching would probably assume we were a couple having a minor argument.

Truthfully, though, ever since that night, I’d become cautious about spending the night together.

The hurt had mostly faded.

Otherwise we wouldn’t still be friends.

But it was impossible to return to the old dynamic where hugs, cuddles, and flirting felt consequence-free.

Back then, I’d believed there would never be a next step.

Now I knew he was always prepared for one.

Last month, we went out for drinks.

He invited me back to his place to watch a movie.

I refused.

After that, whenever he invited me out again, I claimed to be busy.

Eventually he resorted to sending Feng Zi as a proxy.

“Lin Wen.”

He stopped speaking after that.

I waited.

Finally he sighed.

“There are two beds in the room.”

“But there are no iron bars, iron doors, or iron chains between them.”

He burst out laughing.

Then his expression fell.

Apparently he had accepted defeat.

“Fine. Then I’ll walk you home.”

“After all, northern people are famously fierce.”

I immediately frowned.

“You’re not allowed to insult the north.”

Facing the wind, he shouted dramatically:

“Fine! I love the northern wind! I want to enjoy more of it!”

We walked a few steps.

His head remained lowered.

He seemed oddly downcast.

At a crosswalk, I hesitated.

“Maybe...”

His head snapped up instantly.

As if he’d been waiting for those words all night, he grabbed my hand and started marching back toward the hotel.

“No ‘maybe’!”

“I swear I won’t touch you!”