Shi Meng didn't actually plan to go far.

He just wanted to find Fu Xuanliao's painting. On his way to the lake that afternoon, after tearing the paper from his notebook, he casually threw it into a roadside trash can.

He hadn't yet seen what was drawn on it.

While having dinner, Shi Meng was thinking about how to find it. On the way back to the hotel by the shuttle bus, he carefully examined the surrounding terrain under the streetlights and felt that it was not too complicated. After getting off the bus, he told Jiang Xue and then walked back in the direction he had come from.

After walking for a while, Shi Meng remembered that Fu Xuanliao and the others would also take this route on their way back. Not wanting to run into him, Shi Meng chose a small path next to the main road and slipped in, continuing to walk in the general direction.

Visibility was low at night, and frost had fallen in the mountains. There were many winding paths and forks in the road. Without knowing which fork in the road he had chosen, he had strayed from the main path. It was only when he stepped onto the soft grass that Shi Meng realized he had gone far away.

His reactions have always been slower than others. When he was a child, Yang Youlan took him to the hospital for a checkup because he was dull and taciturn. She didn't believe the doctor when he said there was nothing wrong. She cursed the doctor for being incompetent and shouted for a refund of the examination fee, saying, "How could this child be alright? There must be something wrong with his head!"

Looking at the dark, inky mountains ahead, Shi Meng stopped, exhaled, and thought that there might indeed be a problem.

He tried to walk back along the way, but there were too many forks in the road and it was too dark. Every choice was a severe test of his sense of direction and memory. After walking two or three hundred meters, Shi Meng stopped again. He thought that rather than wandering around like a headless fly and going further away, it would be better to wait where he was and find his way back when it got light.

So Shi Meng looked around and sat down next to a tree that was facing the direction the wind was blowing, hiding in a sheltered corner.

This is wilderness survival knowledge he learned from books when he was in elementary school, which includes using the sun or North Star to determine direction.

Unfortunately, it's nighttime now, and there are no stars in the sky.

After sitting for a while, Shi Meng felt a bit cold, so she tried to cover her legs with her large down jacket.

She was very careful because Fu Xuanliao had said that the dress looked good and that she would wear it again tomorrow, and Shi Meng didn't want to get it dirty.

A gust of wind blew past her side, and her exposed neck was the first to suffer. Shi Meng raised her hand to touch the ends of her hair, which only reached her ears, and thought to herself that she should have known better than to cut it, as it would have provided some shelter from the wind and warmth.

He listened to Gao Lecheng and cut his hair short. He even got a trim the day before he came to the resort, but Fu Xuanliao didn't react in any special way and was still very fierce to him.

They even tried to run away this afternoon.

Thinking of this, Shi Meng's eyes darkened with melancholy, mixed with not only anger at being disobeyed, but also a rare sense of grievance.

The bittersweet feeling in her heart was similar to the night eight years ago when she was mistaken for someone else. Shi Meng raised her hand and pressed it to her chest, still feeling unfamiliar with this long-lost sensation.

From childhood to adulthood, everyone told him that it was his duty, his position was his duty, it was his duty to give way to Shi Mu, and it was his duty to be treated coldly... Perhaps because he was instilled with these ideas from the time he could remember, he rarely felt that he had been treated unfairly, and he almost never felt wronged.

It seems Fu Xuanliao really went too far—Shi Meng thought. If he hadn't gone even a little bit too far, he wouldn't be sitting in this desolate wilderness in the middle of the night, exposed to the cold wind.

He only blamed him for three seconds before Shi Meng regained his senses and started thinking about other things.

What exactly did Fu Xuanliao draw on that piece of paper? Sister Xue even laughed. Could it really look like me?

Meng didn't quite believe it at the time. When Fu Xuanliao was in elementary school, he had studied painting with them, but he gave up after only a week. In middle school, he had only attended a few classes at the art studio. How could he be good at painting?

Although he is not good at drawing, he is very good at other things, such as math, English, sports... It seems that there is nothing he cannot do.

Oh, except for boating.

Shi Meng fell into another thought—did Fu Xuanliao really not know how to row, or did he just not want to row with me?

When alone, Shi Meng always thinks about many things, as if using them to fill the emptiness in her heart and squeeze out useless distractions.

He even started to miss the phone he left in his hotel room. Although he was usually too lazy to carry it with him, he had to admit that a phone could play a huge role in a critical moment, at least he could use it to call the police.

It's as if he completely ignored the possibility that someone would come looking for him. Even when he was wise after the event, Shi Meng was only thinking about ways to save himself.

He had been alone for far too long, and the habit had become second nature, so when he heard someone calling his name, he subconsciously thought it was a hallucination.

"Shi Meng—"

You must have misheard.

"Shi—Meng—"

Why would someone come looking for me?

"Shi Meng, are you there?"

Where am I?

As a beam of light swept across his face, the approaching footsteps shifted from the stone path to the grass, becoming chaotic and hurried.

The person tripped over the uneven ground and almost fell. He stumbled forward, and when the light shone directly on him, Shi Meng squinted reflexively.

So he missed Fu Xuanliao's almost joyful smile after he breathed a sigh of relief.

"I've been calling you for ages." His words were still curt. Fu Xuanliao half-squatted down, his gaze level with Shi Meng's. "Didn't you even bother to say a word?"

After a while, Shi Meng, whose eyes had adjusted to the light, looked at the person in front of her who was still panting heavily, opened her mouth and uttered a single syllable: "Ah."

Fu Xuanliao was stunned for a moment, then waved his hand in front of his face: "Are you scared out of your wits?"

Before he could finish speaking, Shi Meng, who had been sitting under the tree like a wooden sculpture, suddenly jumped up, pounced on Fu Xuanliao, and pushed him to the ground.

Fu Xuanliao only had time to brace himself with his hands behind his back to stabilize his body before his still-painful right wrist was subjected to heavy pressure again, causing him to grit his teeth in pain.

He couldn't even tell whether being held so tightly that he couldn't breathe was worse or worse, so he could only force a smile and take a deep breath: "Hiss... He looks pretty thin, but he's quite strong."

Shi Meng took this as a compliment, but felt ashamed of his overreaction.

Fortunately, it was dark and no one saw it.

He got up from Fu Xuanliao, intending to hurry back, but as he walked, he realized that he had twisted his right ankle at some point, and it hurt terribly with every movement.

Seeing him limping and struggling to walk, Fu Xuanliao, who was following behind and shining a light on the way, said, "Slow down, there's no rush."

Slowing down doesn't hurt either; a short pain is worse than a long one. Shi Meng insisted on walking very fast, and cold sweat broke out on his forehead.

Fu Xuanliao couldn't bear to watch any longer, so he stepped forward and helped Shi Meng walk a short distance. The path was too narrow for the two of them to walk side by side, so he simply took two steps forward, bent his knees and lowered his body, leaving Shi Meng with his back turned: "Get on."

Shi Meng was initially unwilling, reasoning, "The road is very long, and you can't carry it."

Fu Xuanliao turned his head and said fiercely, "You knew it was far, so why did you run off like that?"

Shi Meng pursed her lips and remained silent.

"Alright, get on." Fu Xuanliao turned around again. "I can carry you without any problem, let alone carry you on my back."

After hesitating for a moment, Shi Meng stepped forward and slowly climbed onto his back.

The phone, which was in flashlight mode, was transferred to Shi Meng's hand. Fu Xuanliao grabbed the back of the person behind him and stood up abruptly. The sudden jump made Shi Meng gasp, and she reflexively wrapped her arms around Fu Xuanliao's neck.

"Don't you dare repay kindness with enmity," Fu Xuanliao warned as he walked forward. "Even if you strangle me, you won't be able to go back."

These words seemed to have a deterrent effect, and Shi Meng loosened his arms, allowing Fu Xuanliao to carry him in a relaxed posture.

A quiet path, a beam of light with a limited range, and two hearts that are physically very close.

As he approached, Meng worried that his overly intense heartbeat would be transmitted through his thin chest to the other person's ears. He awkwardly stepped back and heard the person behind him click their tongue in displeasure: "Don't move."

Shi Meng was used to doing whatever he wanted, but this time he was obedient. When Fu Xuanliao told him not to move, he obediently lay still.

This made Fu Xuanliao feel somewhat uncomfortable.

"Is she still awake?" he asked. "She's not asleep, is she?"

Shi Meng kicked his left leg.

Fu Xuanliao lifted the person up slightly: "You only have one good leg left, don't show off."

When asked what he was doing here, Shi Meng finally answered with a single word: "Playing."

Fu Xuanliao said knowingly, "Regretting not getting on the boat this afternoon?"

"without."

"But this isn't the direction to take the boat."

"Um."

"Could you please stop being so stingy with words?"

"Yes, you can."

For Shi Meng, turning one word into two words was a change made after accepting advice, a qualitative leap, but others might not see it that way.

Feeling brushed off, Shi Meng heard Fu Xuanliao laugh. The resonance from his chest made his body vibrate, his heart clenching and pounding. Shi Meng was bewildered by this strange yet familiar feeling.

Perhaps it's because after performing a one-man show for so many years, another person is suddenly involved, so the set needs to be adjusted, the props need to be prepared again, and the spotlight needs to be turned on more often.

He hasn't received the new script yet, so he has to improvise.

Shi Meng thought for a moment and asked, "Does your hand still hurt?"

"It hurts," Fu Xuanliao said. "Don't you know how much force I used?"

Shi Meng felt a little guilty, but also felt that he had done nothing wrong, and said in a muffled voice, "Who told you to try to run away?"

"..." Fu Xuanliao was speechless. "You still have the nerve to talk back?"

In terms of physical injuries alone, all the past incidents combined mean that the two are actually evenly matched, and neither gained an advantage over the other.

But it wasn't like this a long time ago; they used to get along peacefully, on a quiet night like this.

"Do you remember..." Driven by a long-standing impulse, Shi Meng asked, "Eleven years ago, you also saved someone?"

"Huh?" Fu Xuanliao was stunned by the question. "Eleven years ago, who still remembers?"

"Think about it again."

"There's no use thinking about it anymore. I've almost forgotten everything that happened eight years ago. How could you expect me to remember something from eleven years ago?"

Shi Meng suspected that he was deliberately pretending to be stupid about something he had said he had forgotten, and his intention to take revenge was obvious.

When he heard the low laughter again, his doubts turned into certainty. In anger, Shi Meng turned to jump down, but Fu Xuanliao grabbed his knees and wouldn't let go.

"Don't jump, don't jump and cripple your other leg too... Sigh, I remember, of course I remember that." Fu Xuanliao gave in, steadied the person on his back, and continued, "It was even darker than this back then, in the middle of nowhere. So many teachers and classmates went out, and I was the only one who found you, it was simply..."

Before Fu Xuanliao could finish speaking, Shi Meng guessed that the last word of his sentence should be something like "ill-fated relationship".

But he felt that there was only "fate" and no "karma". When the fifteen-year-old Fu Xuanliao appeared in front of him, covered in dust and panting, saying "I found you", Shi Meng's closed world opened a crack for the first time, letting someone in.

Another spotlight shone on Fu Xuanliao. They stood at opposite ends of the stage, gazing at each other from afar. The entanglement that would last for many years was about to begin.

“You were much cuter back then than you are now,” Fu Xuanliao said, reminiscing. “You even knew to say thank you when I saved you, but now…”

While one side was complaining, Shi Meng on the other side had already received the instructions and started to take action.

Taking advantage of the darkness, the fact that no one knew, and the burning warmth emanating from her chest, Shi Meng freed one hand to hold Fu Xuanliao's chin and pull it back, silencing his incessant chatter and pressing a kiss to the corner of his lips.

Because of the awkward position, the kiss was a little off-center, but that didn't stop Fu Xuanliao from stopping and standing there in a daze.

This gave Shi Meng a chance to look into Fu Xuanliao's eyes and confirm that it was him reflected there.

Then add a "thank you," hoping that Shi Meng will remain a little more adorable in Fu Xuanliao's heart—even just a little bit, enough to make him hesitate for a second when he wants to leave.

After all, many seconds add up to a lifetime.