She held Qin Yuhuan's hand. It was May, neither too hot nor too cold, but Qin Yuhuan's hand felt like a warm stove, still very soft. "But your hands are beautiful too. Hey, how did you recite that poem?" Zizi pretended, shaking her head. "Hands like soft hair, skin like cream. The word 'soft hair' is very appropriate, although I don't know what a soft hair looks like."

"You are very interesting too, Ziyi." Qin Yuhuan laughed along with Ziyi's exaggerated movements, but her laughter was as restrained as she was, and even her laughter revealed a quiet taste.

"You haven't answered me yet, why do you always like to call me in a pretentious way?"

"Don't you like it?"

"That's not the case. I just feel like the way you say it seems different from others," Ziyi pondered for a moment, but ultimately couldn't figure it out. "I can't really put my finger on it. Maybe you're an actor, but the way you say it has a certain 'genzhengmiaohong' quality to it. Is that how 'genzhengmiaohong' is used?"

Ziyi slapped her forehead and corrected herself, "It should be pronounced correctly. Your Mandarin is considered very good in Licheng. After all, I haven't met many people in Licheng who can speak standard Mandarin. The teachers all use Lipu in class. When I talk to Shen Zhiming, I often use Lipu."

Qin Yuhuan's eyes gleamed with reminiscence. "I grew up in Changping County. When I was four or five, my parents took me to a village below Licheng to be raised by my grandmother. Do you know Yuncheng County? The language environment I experienced was quite complex. Sometimes I heard the equally fascinating dialect of a neighboring province, and sometimes it was a minority language. I didn't learn how to speak it, I just understood what they said."

"I know Yuncheng County. It's a two-hour drive from Licheng, and you're still in the village down there. That means it's in the mountains, and the houses there are quite far apart. No wonder you're so quiet."

Qin Yuhuan is the most calm person Zizi has ever met. She always seems to have a calmness that makes her feel as if the sky is about to fall in the next second while she will remain calm at this moment.

"No, actually I used to talk a lot," Qin Yuhuan smiled faintly, "but I've calmed down in the past two years, and I feel there's a lot of things I don't need to say anymore."

Since the year she graduated from university, her circle of friends has gradually shrunk, and now there are only two close friends left who she keeps in touch with regularly. Unfortunately, one stays in Licheng, and the other works in Ningcheng, which is a three-hour high-speed rail ride away from Jincheng.

"So you've been alone in Jincheng all these years?"

"Well, as long as there's an announcement or a play, I can be on the road 365 days a year." Qin Yuhuan doesn't crave money, but she needs it. "A few years ago, my mother was seriously ill and our family didn't have enough money. I started a fundraising campaign, and my classmates helped me a lot. I've been paying them back over the years. You also donated, Ziyi."

Ziyi remembered it again, and it seemed that this was indeed the case. It was said to be an alumnus, and it seemed quite real. Many people forwarded it, so she also followed suit and donated 10,000 yuan.

The phone vibrated. On WeChat, there was a transfer message from Qin Yuhuan. "Money is one thing, love is another. You are the last person I owe money to."

"Do you still have money for food and rent? If not, there's no need to rush to pay it back. Anyway, I know where you live, and you can't run away." Ziyi was afraid that Qin Yuhuan would lose face seeing that they had been in more contact recently, and would take out his living expenses to pay it back.

"Yes." As if to prove she wasn't lying, Qin Yuhuan pulled up her bank card information and calmly handed the phone to Ziyi. "There's still 20,000 yuan left, enough to last until the next paycheck."

"Can you just let anyone see this?" Ziyi was almost shocked. She quickly locked the screen of Qin Yuhuan's phone and said, "Isn't it a little lacking, Qin Yuhuan?"

But I still accepted the transfer of 10,000 yuan.

"I should transfer the interest to you according to the bank's interest rate," Qin Yuhuan thought for a moment before speaking. "But I want to be your friend. Ziyi, are you willing to... let me repay the interest by treating you to a meal?"

"I think you're just short of it," Ziyi said unhappily, "Is there ever a time when I wouldn't like it? You're treating me to this meal, and not only that, I'm even going to eat at your house. Qin Yuhuan, I thought I'd only known you for a short time, but today I discovered that you've been a part of my life for a long time. Why didn't you call me earlier? You're such a fun friend, and I'm missing out every day I've known you."

Qin Yuhuan chuckled softly and surrendered to Ziyi: "Okay, it's my fault, but my cooking skills... are really not that good."

"It's okay. I'll use your kitchen and cook it. Or you can come to my house and I'll cook for you. I... I should be able to do it, right?" Ziyi was not sure either, but she saw that cooking was not difficult for the aunt at home.

"You can try." Qin Yuhuan suppressed a smile. "You learn things quickly, maybe even cooking."

"You know it again." Seeing Qin Yuhuan was about to give her more food, Ziyi couldn't help but move her bowl a little further away. "You should eat too. Why do you feel like a clockwork toy? You only move when I turn it."

Qin Yuhuan: "...Are you talking about the clockwork frog?"

Ziyi laughed endlessly, "Right, the childhood of the post-00s, or maybe the post-90s, the childhood of the post-00s in Jincheng was all about computers."

She just happened to catch up with the trend of running away with the baby. Her biological mother did not go abroad, but went to Licheng to play the strategy of surrounding the city from the countryside.

"I have a new one at home, I'm giving it to you." Qin Yuhuan remembered that she brought one back.

"You're like a treasure trove of everything. I put it in your house and put my name on it. Then I come to your house to play. But when I put it in my house, I forget where I put it. It's a pity."

Qin Yuhuan seemed serious. "Maybe, because I've always wanted to be friends with you, Ziyi, I'm a little... weird," she said.

"What's so strange about that? Wanting to be friends with me is called having good taste, so why is that so strange?" Ziyi glared at the person opposite her in annoyance, "Our gold always shines."

"No, the reason I want to be friends is because you ranked first, and I can't beat you." Qin Yuhuan also felt that his thoughts were quite childish. "I have always been ranked first since I was a child. I really wanted to beat you in the exams, but later I found that it was a bit difficult."

"Qin Yuhuan, you..." Ziyi was speechless. "You're already in the experimental class, why are you still competing with me, a person from the Wandering Parallel Class? And I remember I wasn't always first, sometimes I was even tenth."

"The experimental class can't score as well as the parallel class, so they should compete more. When you were ranked tenth, I was first."

It's not that she hasn't beaten Ziyi before, it's just not many times. Qin Yuhuan considers herself a talented player. Some of her classmates even only sleep three or four hours a day, and get up at five or six o'clock to do a set of papers before going to school for morning reading. She works hard, but not too hard. She wants to be the first, but not to a certain extent.

So... Qin Yuhuan couldn't explain why she knew so much about Ziyi. She couldn't even explain why she always called her "Ziyi" with her full name.