The night was an abyssal mass, heavy and suffocating, chasing Yu Ning into a dreamless sleep the moment she crossed the threshold of her apartment.
Her life, once a predictable loop of survival and routine, felt tilted off its axis.
The culprit was a man who moved through the world with the effortless ease of someone who had never been told no. She had maintained a calm front before Song Yan and Shu Hua, but behind her closed eyelids, her mind was a riot of calculations.
Initially, she had accepted his casual invitations as harmless, fated encounters. But the moment the "discount" became a total handout, a cold pit of dread began to grow in her stomach.
Maybe it was simply too soon after Zi Xuan. Or maybe the wounds were still too fresh to allow her to see a gesture of kindness as anything other than a hook.
She knew too much about Qing Jue now, yet she realized she knew nothing at all. He was a collection of high-definition fragments that overshadowed her entire existence.
It was the casualness of his wealth that felt like a personal insult; an 800 Yuan bill was pocket change to him, while she spent her afternoons agonizing over the price of a scent.
She rolled onto her side, the cool sheets anchoring her, but her thoughts spiraled anyway.
"It feels too staged", she thought, her eyes snapping open in the dark.
The coincidences didn't feel like fate; they felt like the slow, rhythmic beatings of an unknown predator, waiting to ambush its unsuspecting target.
In the shadows of her room, the memory of her father's voice returned, a low hum of rot: A man is only kind when he wants something you haven't given him yet.
Her heart began to hammer against her ribs. The darkness of the bedroom felt too heavy.
Dragging herself out of bed, Yu Ning moved toward the bathroom, her feet silent on the cold floor. She didn't turn on the main light, opting for the dim, clinical glow of the vanity mirror.
The silence of the apartment was heavy, broken only by the distant hum of the city.
She reached for the hem of her shirt, pulling it over her head. There, on her left ribs, a small, delicate butterfly was inked into her skin.
In the dim light, the lines looked jagged, less like art and more like a bruise that refused to fade.
Her past few weeks of avoiding the weight of the breakup and the unspoken deeds Zi Xuan had forced upon her finally began to surface, breaking through the cracks of her fragile composure.
She leaned her forehead against the cool tiles of the shower, the steam rising around her like a shroud.
Under the scalding water, Yu Ning finally let her walls crumble, beads trickling down her skin to mask her fragile silhouette. She scrubbed at the butterfly until the skin around it was raw, but the ink remained as if mocking her.
A few minutes later, the water stopped.
The steam began to clear, clinging to the mirror in damp streaks. Yu Ning stepped out, towel-dried her hair with mechanical movements, and dressed in her usual baggy, faded sweats.
She walked over to the window and pushed it open, letting the biting November air rush in to clear the lingering heat of the shower. Perching on the ledge, she pulled a crumpled pack from her bag and lit a cigarette.
She sat there in the silence, staring out at the distant, flickering lights of the city. Her expression was flat, her eyes vacant.
As the gray smoke curled around her face and vanished into the night, the raw redness of her ribs was hidden beneath her clothes.
The next noon, Yu Ning strolled through the university campus, her laptop bag slung over her shoulder. A serene, distant gaze washed over her features, as if the suffocating shadows of the night before had been nothing more than an illusion.
In the bright, autumnal light of the campus, she looked like any other focused student. She walked toward the Administration Office, her footsteps steady as she moved to finalize her future.
Having discussed her options with Manager He at the hotel, she had been surprised when he handed her a formal referral.
"Yu Ning-ah, you're a very hard working girl. I think it would be better for you to do your internship at the main headquarters, you'll learn more there," the chubby man spoke to her, as if coaxing a child.
"Yuan Yuan is about to return to the main office soon as well, it's good that you'll have someone there with you."
Deciding to follow Song Yan and Shu Hua's lead by pushing her internship semester forward, Yu Ning stood near the cluttered admin desk.
She waited patiently as the staff recorded her information, her expression unreadable while they processed the paperwork.
The middle-aged woman tapped meticulously on her keyboard, squinting at the tiny font on her screen. The rhythmic click-clack of the keys was the only sound in the stuffy Administration Office.
Yu Ning leaned against the counter, her laptop clutched to her chest. Looking around the room, she spotted another student on the opposite side. He stood waiting just like her, peering over the high counter to see if the clerk had finished with his paperwork.
Sensing her gaze, the boy looked up.
He had messy, dyed-blonde hair that hung over his eyes and a distinctly roguish air about him. His eyes were sharp, catching hers almost immediately. Feeling a tinge of embarrassment for staring, Yu Ning broke the contact, focusing back on the lady processing her internship request.
"Bai An Xin?" the man behind the desk called out.
"Yes, that's me," the boy replied, his attention snapping away from Yu Ning.
"Your application has been processed. You'll receive the rest of your exchange program details on the student portal."
"Thank you, sir," he said curtly. He gave a small wave and turned to leave just as the clerk in front of Yu Ning handed back her stamped documents.
Yu Ning turned on her heel to exit the building, but as she stepped out, she nearly collided with a broad shoulder.
"Ah—!" she gasped, sidestepping just in time.
The boy, Bai An Xin, stood inches away from her. He reached out instinctively, his hand steadying her by the shoulder to prevent her from toppling over. They stood there for a moment at an awkward angle.
"Sorry, I didn't see you there," Yu Ning muttered, readjusting her grip on the laptop she had almost dropped.
"Oh, no, it was my fault for stopping so suddenly," he said. His voice carried a slight accent, hinting that Mandarin wasn't his first language. He removed his hand from her shoulder and extended it toward her, his lips curling into a boyish smile. "Nice to meet you. I'm Bai An Xin."
Yu Ning hesitated for a fraction of a second before shaking his hand lightly. He was definitely a foreign exchange student, his mannerisms were similar to the foreign guests she would interact with that the hotel.
"Ru Yu Ning," she replied with a polite smile. "You must be an exchange student."
"Ah, was it that obvious?" He rubbed the back of his neck, appearing a little shy despite his roguish look.
"A little bit," she admitted honestly.
Glancing toward the exit, he nudged his head in the direction of the campus gates. "Are you heading out of school?"
Yu Ning nodded, and the two began walking side-by-side. When they reached the gate, she gave a short nod of goodbye, expecting him to head toward the dorms. However, they both turned in the same direction.
"Oh, you're heading this way too!" He smiled, then quickly added as if worried she'd find it strange, "My apartment is right around the corner. Blossom Flower Gardens."
Yu Ning turned to him, surprised. "I stay there too. Are you the one moving into the unit on the seventh floor?" She recalled the mover boxes she had stepped over in the hallway earlier that morning.
"Oh, yes, that's me! Looks like we're neighbors."
Yu Ning offered a small, genuine smile. It wasn't entirely surprising; her complex was popular with students because it was one of the few places with decent-sized rooms for under 2800 Yuan a month. In a city like Shanghai, those units were a rarer than winning the lottery.
"Are you also a medical student?" he asked.
"No, I'm actually from the Handan campus. I only came to the Fenglin campus to process an internship application."
"Oh, I see." A flash of disappointment crossed his face, gone as quickly as it appeared. "Are you studying business there?"
"Economics. And you? Biomedical sciences?"
"Yes," he beamed as they approached the apartment gates. "Bio-med."
"Oh," she hummed softly, feeling a strange sense of ease as they walked toward the elevators.
"Are you perhaps from the States?" she asked curiously, her ears picking up the specific lilt of his vowels.
"Haha—yes, I am."
Within a few minutes, she learned that he was an exchange student from Stanford—another top-tier institution from across the ocean. When he discovered that Yu Ning spoke English, he became visibly ecstatic, the tension in his shoulders dropping as he switched languages.
"My friends call me Eli," he said, his voice becoming smoother and more relaxed as he fell back into his native tongue. "Short for Elliot."
"If it's easier for you to remember," she replied, finding it strangely easy to match his energy, "you can call me Ning Ning."
They seemed to get along remarkably well. Talking to Eli felt easy.
He reminded her of her coworkers at the hotel; many of them were exchange students from abroad who carried a much more laid-back air.
They didn't have the sharp, competitive edges or the suffocating "social ladder" mentalities she usually encountered.
For a moment, as the elevator doors groaned shut and began their ascent, she had even thought Eli would get along very well with Song Yan and Shu Hua.