[Qinghua University, Culinary Arts Building, Kitchen Lab 3 — September 15, 11:04 AM]
The kitchen was warm with sugar and butter, with the smell of something burning wafting in the air.
There were twelve stations in two rows. Each one had stainless counters, marble pastry slabs, and a wall of ovens along the back.
The professor stood at the corner with a clipboard, watching without writing.
He hadn't written anything for three minutes, but he was keeping a close eye on all of them.
The girl at the second station was on her third crème brûlée. Her first and second attempts had split. The third was in the ramekin and she was holding the torch with both hands.
Across the room, someone's béchamel had broken into curds and the smell was wrong.
On one of the stations, a girl with a name plate that read Zhang Tingting was making soufflé. While everyone was still trying to have their soufflé properly baked in the oven, hers was already about to be finished.
The oven indicator was green, however, she didn't open the door to check on it yet.
Opening it now would be the end of her soufflé.
"Two more minutes."
She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. Her hair was braided and coiled into a tight bun under her cap, but one strand always escaped at her temple.
"After this, I'll bring some to Lin Feng. He always forgets to eat when he's stressed about Qingxue."
The thought sat for a beat. Then:
"Maybe he's not stressed today. They should be in the library together right now, not in the morning classes. Surely, he'll be in a good mood."
"But anyway, after they spend time in the library, maybe I can invite him for lunch, oh right… we actually also agreed to have dinner too… and then I will teach him how to feed Qingxue in a way that she likes,"
"By feeding me…"
She giggled to herself.
Then her phone vibrated in her apron pocket.
She didn't look. After all, phones are not allowed during practicals and if caught, would risk her having her points deducted.
Not to mention, she was running this kitchen tighter than she'd ever run their noodle restaurant.
The phone vibrated again. Then again. Then a fourth time.
"Who's blowing up my phone right now."
She glanced at the professor. He was leaning over the crème brûlée disaster, one hand on his hip, the universal posture of a teacher about to deliver bad news as gently as he could.
She angled the phone below the counter.
The screen was a column of campus group notifications. Twenty-three of them, stacked.
[Campus Confessions: Lin Feng — !!!]
[Bus Admin Year 1: holding hands ???]
[Anonymous Tea: who is THAT]
[Campus Confessions: Su Qingxue got dumped!]
[Bus Admin Year 1: video please]
[...]
She tapped the first one.
A photo loaded. The angle was from a few meters back down the corridor — fluorescent hum overhead, the bright rectangle of the open lobby doors behind the two of them, two students blurred mid-step around someone who had stopped to take the shot.
In the foreground, Lin Feng stood in profile, his head tilted slightly down toward the person beside him. He was wearing the dark shirt Zhang Tingting had bought with him a few months ago.
His hand was at his side, and on it, a smaller pale hand was gripping hard enough that the knuckles showed.
The other person was a girl in a black hoodie that was two sizes too large for her. Her face wasn't visible. Only the line of her jaw was, and the wet streak down it that the corridor light had caught.
Zhang Tingting stared. Disbelief held her there for a second.
"That's not Qingxue."
Her thumb opened the next photo. Then the next. She was looking for Su Qingxue in them — the back of her head, a sleeve at the edge of the frame, anything. Su Qingxue wasn't in any of them. It was only ever the two of them.
Her thumb went back to the first photo. To the hand.
The grip. The girl was holding on like the hand might be taken from her. Zhang Tingting had grown up in a kitchen and she knew the difference between holding something and not letting it go.
She should be thinking about Su Qingxue. Su Qingxue was the one getting dumped in front of the whole campus.
Her thumb was on the hooded girl's hand again.
She made herself name it. Anger — anger for Su Qingxue, that was it, that was the obvious one. She turned it over. It didn't sit right.
She tried again, the professional way, the matchmaker way: this is a problem, this complicates everything I've built. Closer. She took that one.
"I'm just worried this will turn into a mess."
It was a good enough word. She stopped looking for a better name.
Three years of watching Su Qingxue rehearse her smile in the bathroom mirror before Lin Feng arrived. The practiced laugh, the practiced angle of the head. All of it choreographed.
Zhang Tingting knew what performance looked like.
She looked at the way the hooded girl was looking at him.
This wasn't that.
"This Xiao Yue really loves him."
She knew the other arrangement by heart, the way she knew her own recipes. Su Qingxue practiced her smiles; Zhang Tingting told Lin Feng which one was real and which one wasn't. He paid for the telling. Three years of it — her allowance, the shop building, the new stoves, next year's tuition.
And when Su Qingxue finally said yes — because Su Qingxue would say yes eventually, to the money if not to him — nothing much would change for Zhang Tingting. She'd still be the one in the kitchen when the two of them came home. Still the one who knew when he forgot to eat. A couple, and her beside them, in the place that fit her.
That was the shape the future had always had. She had counted on it without once looking straight at it. She had been doing it for years already — the one who feeds him, the one who knows when he's stopped eating, the one who's there. Su Qingxue had been the girlfriend in name. Zhang Tingting had everything else.
She looked at Xiao Yue's hand on his.
There was no room in this one. Two people leaning toward each other across a table, and no third chair. This girl already knew when he forgot to eat.
"If he's done with Qingxue, then... he's also done with me."
"Wait — Qingxue."
"Does Qingxue know?"
Zhang Tingting looked at the timestamp on the first photo. 11:03 AM. Posted a minute ago.
She checked her private chat with Qingxue. Last message from Qingxue was at 7:50 AM — getting ready to head to library, good luck with your practical exam, talk later ♡ — and nothing since. Her last reply to it was a thumbs-up.
"She's still at the library. She doesn't know yet."
"Wait… so Lin Feng did not go to the library?"
The professor's voice carried from the corner.
"Miss Zhang. Your oven! And phone!"
Zhang Tingting looked up. The timer was at zero but the oven was still on, the soufflé still cooking past its mark.
"Sorry, Professor. Family emergency."
"You have eight minutes left in this practical."
She was already untying her apron. "I know. I accept the deduction."
"Miss Zhang, this exam is thirty percent of your grade. Your soufflé—"
"I know what my soufflé is doing." She'd folded the apron over the chair before she'd finished saying it.
She glanced once at the oven. The indicator was red. The dome was overcooking now, the top starting to brown past golden into something darker.
Whoever opened it for her would let the cold air in and the dome would die in the eight seconds it took for someone to register what they were looking at.
If no one opened it, it would just sit there until it burned.
It didn't matter.
She finally turned her back on it and ran out of the kitchen.
-------------------------
The quad was full of people standing still.
Zhang Tingting was running fast.
She'd cleared the steps of the Culinary Arts Building without noticing them. She kept her phone in her hand. The notifications hadn't stopped. She thumbed through them as she ran because she couldn't not.
[Campus Confessions: okay but he looks GOOD]
[Anonymous Tea: not desperate at all???]
[Bus Admin Year 1: he looked like a completely different person]
[...]
"A different person?"
She caught the phrase mid-stride and kept running. Then she stopped and leaned against a tree to look at the photo more closely.
Then she noticed something.
"Is it just me… or Lin Feng looks a little different today."
She said, panting, trying to name the difference between him and the Lin Feng that she knew.
Then, after a minute, she continued to run and crossed the quad's central path.
The female dorm tower appeared ahead. She took the stairs two at a time, her lungs burning, her legs aching. Third floor. Fourth. Finally, she was at Su Qingxue's door, breathing hard.
She knocked.
Through the door, she could hear humming.
The humming was at the pitch of someone who had been having a good morning. Zhang Tingting almost lost her nerve.
The humming stopped, followed by the sound of footsteps approaching. There was a pause. Then the door opened.
-------------------------
Su Qingxue was holding a mug while standing by the door.
The mug was the one she used in the morning, the one with the chip on the rim that she always turned to face the wall so she didn't have to see it. Her hair was loose. There was a smudge of something — coffee, maybe — on her sleeve. She was barefoot.
She looked up at Zhang Tingting and her eyebrows lifted in mild surprise.
"Tingting! You're sweating."
Zhang Tingting was bent over with her hands on her knees. "Phone."
"What?"
"Your phone."
Su Qingxue glanced behind her. "It's on the bed somewhere. Why?"
Zhang Tingting straightened up and held out her own phone, screen-up.
The photo was loaded.
Su Qingxue took the phone with one hand. The mug stayed in the other.
She looked at the screen.
For a second, her face did nothing.
Then she set the mug on the desk. Her hand came up to take Zhang Tingting's phone with both hands, and her thumb began to scroll.
-------------------------
Su Qingxue scrolled through the photos. She scrolled through the videos. She scrolled through the comments.
[@melon_stand_3: bootlicker finally gave up]
[@whoknew_QH: Su Qingxue must be wrecked]
[@xqx_simp_no_more: her ATM grew a spine]
The third one stopped her thumb.
"ATM..."
She read it again.
"ATM!"
She closed her eyes for one beat. Opened them.
"Tingting." Her voice was even. "Can you give me a minute?"
She handed Zhang Tingting's phone back. She walked across the room. She picked her own phone off the bed and opened her chat with Lin Feng.
She scrolled to the morning.
-------------------------
[Su Qingxue: Lin Feng, I need your help~ Can you come to the library? There's something important I need to discuss. ♡] Sent 6:58 AMRead
[Su Qingxue: Lin Feng, I need your help at the library! Really important!] Sent 7:05 AMRead
[Su Qingxue: This is urgent! Hey Lin Feng, are you there?] Sent 7:15 AMRead
[Su Qingxue: Hey, answer my chats… are you coming or not?] Sent 7:25 AMRead
[Su Qingxue: Are you angry? Did I do something wrong? Talk to me!] Sent 7:32 AMRead
[Su Qingxue: Fine. If you won't help, I'll find someone else. Don't say I didn't give you a chance.] Sent 7:40 AMRead
[Lin Feng: Sorry, I'm busy today. Good luck with whatever you need.] Received 7:42 AM
[Su Qingxue: Are you really going to leave me waiting like this?] Sent 8:05 AMRead
[Su Qingxue: I'm sorry if I made you upset. Just talk to me.] Sent 8:25 AMRead
[Su Qingxue: Fine. Whatever. I hope you're happy.] Sent 8:45 AMRead
-------------------------
She stared at the column.
There were six messages from her, all marked read. The receipts ticked down the column in a perfect line. Then one reply from him. Then three more from her, also marked read. Then nothing.
"He has read them." Her thumb hovered at the bottom of the thread. "So, why is he not chatting back at me?"
She scrolled up, then down. And read them a few more times.
"Are you angry? Did I do something wrong? Talk to me!" — read.
"I'm sorry if I made you upset. Just talk to me." — read.
Her thumb pressed harder than it needed to.
She set the phone down on the bed, face-up, the way she'd set down something hot. Her arms hung at her sides. She looked at her own hands.
Her nails had gone into her palms. She hadn't felt it happen.
Am I finally…
Free?
Then an unwanted memory flashed before her.
The screech of a horn. A man jumping out of the driver's seat, running across two lanes, shoving her hard onto the sidewalk like she weighed nothing. Then standing over her, panting, calling her a dumbass for crossing the street with her face in her phone.
It was Lin Feng. Fourteen years old. And he was furious with her in a way he had never been again.
And she had called him pathetic after that. Sometimes to his face. And yet, he'd always find a way to apologize to her and walk away as if nothing happened.
He did that for four years. Chasing her, giving her gifts, looking at her with such a tender gaze…
When all that she needed from him was —
She caught the thought before it finished.
No. He's not the point.
She turned and looked at her reflection in the wardrobe mirror by the bed. Her hair was loose, her sleeve smudged.
The point is what they're saying out there.
She stared at her reflection. ATM.If they think I was using him — if they think the bootlicker grew a spine —
Her reflection stared back.
Four years of being the one being chased. Four years of being the campus belle who couldn't help that a rich young master wouldn't leave her alone. Four years of that exact story, polished, repeated, ready.
Did he really grow a spine now? Would it be different this time?
Suddenly she appeared hopeful, as if dawn had broken through.
"Tingting."
Zhang Tingting was still by the door, watching her, hands at her sides.
"Where is he?"
"Central Plaza. The restaurant. Someone posted from inside a few minutes ago."
Su Qingxue nodded once. She opened the wardrobe and pulled out the camel coat she wore when she wanted people to look. She put it on over what she was wearing and picked up the Prada bag from the chair.
"Let's go."
"Qingxue—" Zhang Tingting hesitated. "Then hurry up before—"
"Yes."
Su Qingxue turned, tied her hair back, and looked at the mirror for a moment. The flush on her cheek was gone. The smudge on her sleeve was hidden under the coat.
"Qingxue, hurry!"
"Okay! I'm coming now!"
She turned away from the mirror and finally walked toward the door.
"He's not allowed to do this in public," she said. "Not him."
Zhang Tingting grabbed Su Qingxue's arm the moment the lock clicked and pulled her toward the staircase.
-------------------------
The two of them left the dormitory.
Su Qingxue walked slowly, her spirits high as the thought of breaking free from Lin Feng's pursuits was starting to become a prospect for her.
Meanwhile, Zhang Tingting walked fast, her arm stretched, dragging Su Qingxue as if she was in a hurry.
The September sun was high. The path from the dormitory to the Central Plaza was long. Zhang Tingting had taken the turn without thinking about it, and Su Qingxue hadn't redirected her. Students stood in clusters along the railing of the second-floor walkway above. Phones at chest height.
"Tingting, slow down."
"Sorry."
"You're going to wear yourself out before we get there."
Zhang Tingting forced her hands into her pockets. The unsettling feeling in her chest, as if she was about to lose something, pricked at her, pushing her legs to urgency.
Su Qingxue looked at her strangely. As she did, Zhang Tingting felt something inside her — not quite resentment, but adjacent to it — that was gone before she had a name for it.
Around them, students watched. A few held textbooks half-raised, hiding the smirks underneath.
"Aren't you—" Zhang Tingting started, and stopped, and tried again. "Aren't you concerned?"
Su Qingxue didn't look over. "He's the one who should be worried."
Zhang Tingting did not respond and just stood there for a moment. Then she nodded to no one. Her pace adjusted again.
Qingxue's right. There's nothing to worry about. She'll handle it. She always does.
And then it will all be back to normal. Everything will be alright. Lin Feng chases Qingxue while I tell him how to be with her...
Yes, it will be back to how it used to.
Zhang Tingting's heart didn't slow down.
They continued moving forward and turned onto the main path. The Central Plaza came into view at the end of the colonnade — the white awning, the glass front, the flags above the entrance moving lazily in the warm air.
A small group of students had already collected on the stone bench across the street from the restaurant. Phones up. Two of them spotted Su Qingxue at the same time and one of them said something the other one started typing.
Dread climbed up Zhang Tingting's throat. The spectators were already there. The phones were already up. Whatever was about to happen would be on every campus group in fifteen minutes.
"Qingxue—" Her voice broke. "—hurry, please—"
"Tingting." Su Qingxue's voice didn't rise. "Slow down. Breathe. Why do you look like you're in more of a crisis than I am?"
Zhang Tingting tried to breathe. The air came in but it didn't go anywhere. "Because—"
"Because what?"
"Because—" Another shallow breath. "—my matchmaker job—"
She pressed a hand against her chest. The next sentence came out in pieces.
"What happens to it. If he stops chasing you?"
They were ten meters from the door.
Su Qingxue stopped at the curb. She glanced at the building's glass front. Her reflection passed over it as she turned her head.
She tied her coat tighter.
"Well… Let's go then," she said.
She crossed the street.
-------------------------
[Central Plaza Restaurant — 11:55 AM]
The door pulled open and the cool air came out.
The restaurant was full — half the tables were already taken, conversations were at a low hum, the espresso machine at the back going off in two-second bursts. White tablecloths. A long mirror on the east wall.
Su Qingxue walked in first.
The hum changed.
It didn't stop. It shifted — three conversations breaking off, one fork clicking against a plate, the espresso machine continuing as if nothing had happened. A girl two tables in raised her phone without looking at it.
"—is that—"
"—no way—"
"—she's actually—"
The fragments trailed off. Nobody finished a sentence. The room had decided to watch and it had decided to do it quietly.
Zhang Tingting stepped in behind her.
The hostess at the stand looked up. Saw Su Qingxue. She did not move.
Su Qingxue's eyes went past her, scanning along the row of tables on the east wall, and stopped at the corner.
Zhang Tingting's eyes followed.
Corner booth. Window-side. The light from outside was on the table, on the half-empty bowls, on the two pairs of hands.
Lin Feng was leaning in slightly. The hooded girl across from him was leaning in too, mirroring without seeming to know she was. Her hood was up. Her hair was tucked behind her ear on one side. The other side still curtained her face.
He was saying something. She was listening.
Their hands were on the table. Together.
Zhang Tingting found them.
Su Qingxue had already found them.
"Lin Feng!"
-------------------------
[End of Chapter]