[Qinghua University, Business School Building 3, Room 307 — September 15, 9:25 AM]
The lecture had been going for twenty-five minutes.
The professor had filled two whiteboards — derivatives on the left, optimization curves on the right — and was halfway through a third.
Behind him, forty-odd students were bent over their laptops and spiral notebooks in the raked seating, busy taking notes and copying what the professor wrote on the whiteboard.
Somewhere in the back row, a phone vibrated against a desk and was muffled quickly under a palm.
Morning sun came through the east wall in long rectangles.
The back door opened.
A student came in late. Silver-haired, freshman-tall, textbook tucked under one arm. He did not apologize and did not look at the professor. He took the aisle seat four rows up, set his unopened textbook on the desk, and his eyes traveled the room in a way a freshman's did not.
The seat beside him was empty.
Lin Feng looked at it for two seconds.
"This must be Su Qingxue's chair."
"If I remember it correctly, in the novel, she should be with Long Tian now."
Lin Feng waited for the original body's response. The jealousy. The anxious compulsion to pick up the phone and send three messages in a row asking where she was.
None of it arrived.
"Good."
The pen uncapped in his hand. He set it down without writing.
"A two-star heroine falling under a month. Not my problem."
Lin Feng leaned back, one shoulder against the seat, and let his eyes continue the sweep. Room assessment. Entries. Exits. Angles. Who was looking at him and who was not.
The seat directly behind him was also empty.
His eyes moved past it, past the next row, past the one after, all the way to the back corner.
And the seat there was also empty.
"I wonder what Xiao Yue was thinking right now."
-------------------
A hooded student came in ten minutes after Lin Feng.
Black hoodie two sizes too large. Long black hair fallen in a curtain on the side that faced the room.
Upon entering the classroom, she looked around first. Seeing the professor was busy writing something on the whiteboard, she then walked silently toward her seat.
Then she stopped upon seeing Lin Feng, then glanced at the empty seats near him. However, a few seconds later, she went back into her seat at the corner. She then placed her phone flat on the desk, screen dark, thumb resting on the case.
Lin Feng looked in her direction.
She lowered her head in response.
He reached under the desk for his phone. Angled it out of sight below the pen well and opened the messaging app.
[Lin Feng: Good morning, Xiao Yue.] Sent: 9:37 AM.
He watched the back corner from the corner of his eye.
Her phone lit up on the desk.
Her shoulders went rigid — a full-body lock, the kind that happened when the brain could not decide whether to fight or flee. She stared at the screen for a beat. Then picked the phone up with both hands.
His phone buzzed against his thigh under the desk.
[Xiao Yue: Good morning Lin Feng.] Received: 9:38 AM.
A minute...
Lin Feng looked at the timestamp.
Just one minute.
Looking at the timestamp, Lin Feng could not help but let his eyes drift towards Su Qingxue's chat head, pinned on the messaging app.
He opened the thread. A stack of new messages sat above his single reply from the breakfast table. He didn't read any of them. His thumb scrolled past, past his own reply, until the screen settled on something older.
[Lin Feng: Are you free for dinner this weekend? There's a new French restaurant I'd love to take you to.] Sent: Sep 4, 6:34 PM
[Su Qingxue: sorry I've been so busy! 😥 I just saw this! maybe another time?] Received: Sep 7, 10:15 AM
"Sixty-three hours. Two and a half days. Versus a reply made a minute later." Lin Feng sighed. "The original me really has a bad taste for women."
His phone buzzed again.
[Xiao Yue: I'm well.] Received: 9:38 AM.
[Xiao Yue: Thank you for asking.] Received: 9:38 AM.
Three messages inside sixty seconds. No exclamation marks. No emoji.
He typed.
[Lin Feng: The breakfast this morning — was it to your taste?] Sent: 9:38 AM.
The reply came inside ten seconds.
[Xiao Yue: It was perfect.] Received: 9:38 AM.
[Xiao Yue: Especially that xiaolongbao.] Received: 9:38 AM.
[Xiao Yue: Though next time, you don't need to make breakfasts anymore. You should spend your time on a proper sleep instead.] Received: 9:38 AM.
[Xiao Yue: But still, thank you Lin Feng, for the meal, I'll return the lunch box later after class.] Received: 9:39 AM.
Lin Feng's thumb paused above the screen.
He glanced toward the back corner. Xiao Yue was sitting very still. The phone was cupped in both hands against her chest now, not on the desk.
[Lin Feng: So, you've noticed.] Sent: 9:39 AM.
Seconds passed. Then:
[Xiao Yue: I notice everything about you.] Received: 9:39 AM.
[Xiao Yue: I'm sorry.] Received: 9:39 AM.
[Xiao Yue: That sounded bad.] Received: 9:40 AM.
[Xiao Yue: I mean — I've been watching for a long time. I know that's strange. I don't want to be strange.] Received: 9:40 AM.
The messages were still rationed. Still short. But the seal was going.
[Lin Feng: It's not strange. I'm glad you did.] Sent: 9:40 AM.
The reply did not come.
Ten seconds. Twenty. Thirty.
He glanced toward the back corner.
Her hands were pressed against her face. Her shoulders were shaking — small movements under the oversized hoodie, so slight that a student two rows away would not have registered them. The phone lay on the desk in front of her, face-up, his last message still on the screen.
He looked back at his own phone.
Let her have the minute.
The professor's voice went on about marginal utility. Someone in the third row coughed. Someone's pen rolled off a desk and landed on the carpet with a soft click.
Yet Lin Feng heard none of that.
His phone buzzed.
[Xiao Yue: Sorry. I needed a minute.] Received: 9:42 AM.
[Xiao Yue: I don't know what to do with this.] Received: 9:43 AM.
[Xiao Yue: No one has ever said that to me.] Received: 9:43 AM.
Lin Feng set the pen down on the desk.
She'll ask how I knew. Eventually. She's smart enough to ask.
Keep it vague.
She doesn't need to know about the novel. She doesn't need to know the original is gone.
That I am not the Lin Feng that she loved.
That I am not the Lin Feng Weiwei also loved.
Not today. Not for a long time.
Not ever.
His thumb stilled above the keyboard keys.
...But none of this is for me.
Is it really the right thing to do?
All of that was for him.
Not me.
And he's gone. And she doesn't know he's gone. They don't know that he's gone…
And maybe they never need to.
If I do this right, she gets the life she would have wanted with him. She gets the man she thought he was, finally becoming that man. Is that theft? Or is that finally someone keeping his word to her?
Lin Feng shook his head.
No, it doesn't matter.
I owe that original Lin Feng a second chance for life, regardless if he was willing to or not.
As payment, I will do my best to become that Lin Feng.
But in my own terms.
Lin Feng picked up the phone. His thumb moved.
[Lin Feng: I've been paying more attention than I showed. Someone like you deserves to be seen.] Sent: 9:46 AM.
The reply took longer this time. Nearly a minute.
[Xiao Yue: Thank you.] Received: 9:47 AM.
[Xiao Yue: Really.] Received: 9:47 AM.
-------------------
His voice.
Xiao Yue pressed the phone against her sternum and closed her eyes.
He said he noticed me.
He said he's glad that I was watching him.
He said I deserve to be seen.
What do I do? What now? What should I do?
She opened her eyes. The phone was still warm against her chest. Four rows down, the back of the silver head she had been watching for years — since middle school — was looking at his phone, pen set down, shoulders squared in a way the original Lin Feng's shoulders had never been squared when he was waiting for Su Qingxue to reply.
September 14th, two years ago. Hallway outside classroom 4B. 2:17 PM.
The words were: "You're mentally ill. Stop stalking me, and don't talk to me ever again."
I can still hear him say those exact words.
Something moved in her chest that was not a word. The phone casing shifted under her thumb because her thumb was trembling.
Who are you?
Is he even Lin Feng?
Or did something finally happen?
Did something crack him open?
Or has he always been like this and I have been wrong for five years?
She did not know. The not-knowing was less frightening than it should have been.
This is too strange…
How come he has changed all of a sudden…
Her thumb moved.
Not that I'm complaining.
[Xiao Yue: The seat behind you is empty.] Sent: 9:52 AM.
She watched the tiny dots appear and disappear under his name. Three times. He was revising.
[Lin Feng: You could sit in it.] Received: 9:53 AM.
[Xiao Yue: People will look.] Sent: 9:53 AM.
[Xiao Yue: They will ask.] Sent: 9:53 AM.
[Xiao Yue: I haven't moved from this seat.] Sent: 9:54 AM.
[Lin Feng: Then let them look.] Received: 9:55 AM.
Xiao Yue put the phone down on the desk, face-up this time, screen still lit.
She did not move.
The corner had been hers. The wall was at her back. The curtain of her hair was on her right. The phone was her field of view. The world she had built inside three square meters was a world that had never once asked anything of her.
And four rows down, silver hair, a message that said let them.
After class.
I'll do it after class.
Before I lose my nerve.
[Xiao Yue: After class. Before I lose my nerve.] Sent: 9:57 AM.
She pressed the phone against her chest again and did not let go.
-------------------
[10:58 AM]
The professor closed his notes. Someone in the front row shut a laptop. The scrape of chair legs against the carpet began at the back of the room and moved forward as students stood.
Lin Feng did not stand.
He pretended to organize a textbook he had not opened. Pen back into the case. Notebook into the bag. The bag unzipped and zipped and unzipped again.
Most likely, she would come in less than forty seconds.
Forty… Thirty-five...
At thirty-two, he heard the footsteps.
They were almost soundless. Five years of not wanting to be heard had given her a gait the fluorescent hum nearly covered. But she was coming, and she was coming directly, and the students still in the room were turning to watch because Xiao Yue did not move from the back corner until every other seat had emptied.
She walked past the third row and stopped two paces from his desk.
"Hi," she said.
Her voice was low. Not shaking. Not whispered. She had been practicing the word between her seat and his desk. He could hear the rehearsal in it.
Her eyes met his and stayed there.
She's not looking down.
Lin Feng set the bag on the floor.
"Hi."
"Thank you... for the breakfast."
"You're welcome."
Xiao Yue did not look away. Instead she lifted the lunch box from her bag and handed it to him with both hands, the cloth folded the way he had folded it that morning — bottom corner first, then the two sides, then the top tucked under.
Lin Feng took it.
The cloth had already gone cold. Lin Feng then placed the lunch box into his bag and offered Xiao Yue his hand.
"By the way, do you want to have lunch with me?"
A pause.
Xiao Yue's eyes widened, held for a beat, then steadied. She had been carrying the lunch box across the room toward him; she had been ready for something. But not for him to set the next beat himself, before she had finished delivering hers.
"Umm… Okay," she said.
"Okay?"
"Yes! Yes I'll come."
She looked like she might bolt. The grip on the bag strap was hard enough that her fingertips had gone pale. But she said yes, and she did not take it back.
Lin Feng stood.
The students who had been drifting toward the door were now standing still. Phones had appeared. Not raised yet — but out of pockets. Waiting.
"Come on."
She did not take his hand yet. In the end, Lin Feng retracted his offered hand and walked around the desk, shouldered his bag, and waited for her to fall into step beside him.
She did.
Not behind him. Beside him.
-------------------
[Corridor — 11:02 AM]
The corridor was the noise of any morning between classes — a hundred conversations overlapping, footsteps on tile, a locker slamming somewhere down the wing. The smell of cafeteria steam came through the far doors at the end of the hall.
Lin Feng walked. Xiao Yue walked beside him.
"—isn't that the one who never—"
Behind them. To the right. A girl's voice. Not directed at them but directed at her companion.
"—and the lab is due at four, I haven't even started—"
"—and she's walking with—"
Different voice. Different angle. Already past.
"Get a picture. Quick."
"No, don't, she'll—"
The hallway swallowed the rest. The voices turned into fragments that trailed into the noise of between-class traffic.
A girl in a school blazer with a class representative pin on her collar stepped half into their path and stopped. She did not speak. Just looked at him, then at Xiao Yue, then at his face again. Her mouth did not move.
Xiao Yue's elbow brushed his.
Not deliberate. Just the tightness of two people walking together in a corridor crowd.
Lin Feng passed the girl in the blazer without slowing.
"Lin-ge—"
A male voice. Behind them, ten meters back, raised over the corridor noise. Someone the original Lin Feng knew. Someone who expected to be acknowledged.
"Bro, wait — is that—"
Lin Feng did not turn.
Ahead, the corridor ended at the lobby. The lobby's glass doors stood open onto the quad, and the midday sun lay flat across the tile in a long bright rectangle.
Lin Feng stopped before the doors.
Xiao Yue stopped with him.
"Lin Feng?"
He turned toward her.
She looked up.
He offered her his hand — open, palm up, at the height of her own. Not grabbing. Not pulling.
Her eyes widened.
Her gaze dropped to his palm, then climbed back to his face.
"So... where are we going now?"
"Just somewhere we can eat," he said. "So you don't have to decide twice."
Three seconds.
Her hand came into his. Cold. Her fingers trembling. They closed around his not tentatively but hard.
The phones behind them rose. He heard the shutter sounds — a small scattered volley of plastic-on-plastic.
He ignored them.
Xiao Yue's eyes were still on their hands.
"Lin Feng," she said. Flat. Low.
"Yeah."
"I'm not letting go."
"I won't even let you go anyway."
Xiao Yue looked up immediately towards him, yet Lin Feng already pushed the door open with his free hand. The September air was warm on the back of his neck.
-------------------
Lin Feng proceeded to step forward when he felt his arm yanked back.
He turned.
Xiao Yue had stopped behind him. Their joined hands were the only thing connecting them — his arm reaching back, hers reaching forward, both pulled taut.
She was still looking at him, at his face.
"Lin Feng."
"Yeah."
"Whatever this is—" She stopped. Tried again. "I won't ask what changed. I won't ask what this is. I won't ask any of the things I want to ask."
"Okay."
"I won't ask any scary questions. I don't mind if this is just a dream or if you're toying around with me..."
"But if you take this away, I will not survive it."
Lin Feng looked at her.
The original would have made a promise. The original would have meant it in the moment and forgotten it by dinner.
He was not the original.
"Noted."
Her eyes came up to his.
"That's it?"
"That's it. Or would you like me to say something more?"
"Then tell me that something more."
Lin Feng looked at the sky for a moment. A few moments later, he looked back at her.
"Don't worry. I will die first before I let you go."
She looked at him for a long second.
"Now let's go. I'm hungry."
Before she could respond, Lin Feng tugged her hand.
Xiao Yue's legs, as if they had a mind of their own, stepped forward and followed him.
The two of them finally came down the steps together.
-------------------
[End of Chapter]