Chapter 3

When it was time to pay, he pulled out his card and settled the bill.

The motion wasn’t showy or deliberate—it seemed as natural to him as breathing.

I was feeling a little self-conscious. Sitting there while someone else paid for me felt awkward. Korean food wasn’t that expensive anyway; it had only cost a few hundred yuan.

Jokingly, I asked,

“Should we split it?”

He smoothly picked up the conversation again, brushing another layer of sweetness over my heart.

“If I wasn’t that interested, then sure— Save some money and make things sustainable. But today…”

He didn’t finish the sentence.

Taking the card back from the server between two fingers, he looked at me deeply.

Until then, I’d never known a gaze could have weight.

Caught off guard, I physically flinched under it.

I quickly turned away and hurried toward the door, trying to escape the pressure. Then, pretending to be casual, I glanced back over my shoulder.

He was smiling.

Taking long strides toward me.

One hand rested lightly on my shoulder blade as he pulled aside the heavy curtain at the entrance.

Even through my thick wool coat, I could clearly feel the presence of his fingers.

He was much taller than he looked in his photos.

Apparently, mirror selfies taken from above really were the worst possible angle.

“You’re really tall.”

“And you said I looked one-sixty-five.”

He helplessly brought up my blunt comment from our chats.

I remembered that conversation.

After I said it, he’d sent several exclamation marks and demanded I say it again.

I deliberately teased him and told him to wait until we met in person.

“You seriously don’t know how to take photos. In those pictures you look maybe one-sixty-five at most.”

His Douban profile contained several albums.

Most were filled with movie stills and scenery.

Only one album, called Daily, actually contained photos of him.

There were only three pictures.

One was of a decorative birdcage under carefully arranged lighting that created an oddly sophisticated atmosphere.

The other two were full-length gym mirror selfies.

The quality was terrible.

Luckily, I had good taste and had been attracted by the few posts on his profile rather than the photos.

“Oh?” he said. “So you’re saying I look pretty good in person?”

His tongue was quick.

He immediately exposed exactly what I was thinking.

“You’re okay, I guess.”

I lowered my head.

We’d reached his car.

At some point he’d unlocked it from his pocket.

Without moving from where he stood, the car flashed its lights beside me.

The effect felt like an upgraded version of those candlelight confession scenes teenage boys stage.

Afraid he’d get too close, I hurried to open the passenger door myself.

It wouldn’t budge.

He gave me an amused look and walked around toward the driver’s side.

I was doomed.

I must have looked incredibly unsophisticated.

Again, he opened the door for me from inside.

I was still trapped in my embarrassment over not behaving perfectly when suddenly his breath brushed against my cold earlobe.

Startled, I jerked away.

“What are you doing?!”

“The seatbelt.”

He gestured toward it.

Realization dawned on me.

Without saying anything else, he reached over, pulled the belt across, and buckled it for me.

The entire process involved zero physical contact.

Yet the intimacy seemed magnified inside the enclosed space of the car.

Under my wary scrutiny, he even found time to flash me a knowing smile when the buckle clicked into place.

As if he’d seen right through all my nervousness and precautions.

At the time, I didn’t realize I’d encountered a professional player.

My mind was filled with only one thought:

Is he trying to kiss me?

Wouldn’t that be way too fast?

We’ve only just met…

Fortunately, he didn’t cross any boundaries.

Soon he drove us away from the shopping district and simply took me for a drive around the city.

I asked why his name was Han Che.

“My parents picked it randomly from a dictionary,” he said casually.

Then he immediately tossed the question back.

“What about you? Why are you called Lin Wen?”

At that moment, my name sounded far too suggestive under the emphasis he placed on it.

I quickly looked away from his eyes and turned toward the window.

Honestly, I’d dated before.

I knew exactly how valuable it was when a man centered every conversation around you.

Most people would take that opportunity to brag about themselves.

“Probably because of love,” I joked casually.

To my surprise, his sense of humor seemed perfectly aligned with mine.

He immediately burst into laughter again, nearly leaning against the steering wheel.

The city lights glittered outside.

Headlights and neon signs blended together into a kind of romance I’d never experienced before.

For the first time, I felt a sense of belonging in this city.

Softly, I asked,

“So which road did you design?”

“You actually believed that?”

“What? Aren’t you a bridge and road designer?”

He joked around so much that I was always afraid I’d accidentally take him seriously and make a fool of myself.

“I am.”

He turned off the navigation system so our conversation wouldn’t compete with its voice prompts.

“Really? What university did you go to?”

I had a weakness for prestigious schools.

Judging from the confidence in his manner, I assumed it must be a good one.

“Xi’an Jiaotong University.”

“Oh.”

My response was lukewarm.

I hadn’t heard much about it and felt slightly disappointed.

“Not impressed?”

He glanced at me.

“It doesn’t sound that impressive.”

Honestly, I thought my university’s name carried more prestige.

“The road and bridge engineering program there is number one in the country, okay?”

Apparently I’d wounded his pride.

His voice rose noticeably, and he sat up straighter.

Putting on an innocent expression, I teased him.

“I thought it trained traffic police officers.”

If I said that online today, I’d probably get attacked by alumni everywhere.

But in private, my jokes often crossed the line.

Fortunately, he played along perfectly.

“Fine. I lied to you.”

He gave me a serious look.

“I’m not a bridge designer at all. I made it up to attract beautiful women. I’m actually a traffic cop.”

I immediately joined in.

“And the car? Does it belong to the department?”

“No way. It’s rented. Eight hundred a day.”

He deliberately mimicked my faint Northern accent.

“Oh, you should’ve said so. We’re practically family already. We could’ve taken a taxi and saved the money.”

Between jokes and laughter, the clock drifted past nine o’clock.

Coming off the elevated highway, he took a shortcut.

The way he turned the steering wheel with one hand looked annoyingly handsome.

A brief silence settled between us.

Afraid things might become awkward, I quickly found a new topic.

“You know these roads really well.”

“I was born and raised here. The old district where you live? I’ve been wandering around there since I was running around naked as a kid. I know where every rat hole and snake nest is.”

I shivered.

“No way.”

“Scared?”

His tone turned mysterious.

“I’ll tell you something. The neighborhood next to yours used to be a mass grave.”

I half believed him.

After hesitating a moment, I asked,

“But it’s okay now, right?”

“If you’ve got enough yang energy, you’re fine.”

He paused dramatically.

“But I’ve heard that if someone goes more than a year without getting a boyfriend, their yang energy gets weak.”

Then he turned and looked at me.

“And that’s when ghosts come knocking.”

It was the kind of ridiculous ghost story used to scare children.

Yet somehow those stories have a strange power.

The listener automatically becomes dumber and starts playing along.

I swallowed and pretended to be frightened.

“So what am I supposed to do?”

He coughed twice.

Then, with exaggerated seriousness, he adjusted the collar of his shirt using one hand.

The look he gave me afterward was so loaded with meaning that my heart nearly stopped.

“Well…”

He let the words hang in the air.

“Since we’ve already come this far…”