Back at the apartment, Liu Qianxiu took the ingredients into the kitchen. Mu Wan changed into her slippers and asked if he needed help. He said no, so she shook the chocolate bottle lightly and headed into the kitten room.
It was already dark outside. Darkness pressed against the kitchen windows, but it didn’t feel lonely the way it used to. The crisp rattle of chocolate beans tapping the bottle traveled through the glass from next door, adding a bright, living sound to the huge, quiet space.
Liu Qianxiu switched on the kitchen light. Listening to the movement outside, he went to the sink.
He set the shopping bags down and pulled out a bunch of spinach from the top. At the supermarket, Mu Wan thought the spinach looked especially fresh and added it to the menu for spinach egg soup.
Tiny droplets from the store’s misting system clung to the leaves. The greens looked crisp, the roots still carried a bit of soil—fresh and lively. When Liu Qianxiu lifted it, it was cool in his hand, and damp earth smeared lightly onto his fingers.
“Da Tou opened his eyes!”
Mu Wan’s excited voice burst in from the doorway.
Liu Qianxiu turned his head.
She stood there with her red lips lifted, eyes bright with delight. When she saw Liu Qianxiu look over, she raised a finger—long, pretty, elegant—and pointed toward the kitten room.
“Do you want to come see?”
Since the kittens were born, it had been about ten days. It made sense.
With soil still damp on his fingers, Liu Qianxiu thought of the vegetables waiting in the sink. In the end, he turned on the faucet, rinsed his fingertips clean, and said, “Okay.”
Mu Wan turned and hurried off, her skirt hem fluttering as she went. The red disappeared from view. Liu Qianxiu followed.
In the kitten room, Mu Wan was crouched beside the nest, watching the three kittens piled together.
They were from the same litter, but only Da Tou had opened his eyes. His lids were half-raised, and you could see the pale gold of his irises.
Maybe because he was still so small, or because his fur was a warmer shade, his eye color wasn’t as striking as Zhou Yi’s. It looked soft and translucent—like pumpkin jelly steamed until it turned clear.
As Mu Wan watched, Liu Qianxiu stepped in. She looked up, her face full of laughter. Then she reached into the nest and carefully lifted Da Tou into her palms.
In just a few days, he’d already grown. Mu Wan held him gently—Da Tou’s half-open eyes blinked, his tiny claws, pink and almost transparent, opened and closed, and he let out thin, milky mews.
Mu Wan brought him toward Liu Qianxiu’s hands.
“Look.”
She wanted Liu Qianxiu to hold him. She wanted to hand him everything she found beautiful.
Liu Qianxiu lifted his eyes and glanced at her. Then his lashes lowered, and he reached out to take Da Tou.
The moment he did, Mu Wan smiled.
“Our eyes are really similar,” she said.
Da Tou lifted his head and stared up at him, mewing softly, sweet and clingy. Liu Qianxiu looked at Da Tou’s pale-gold eyes, then at Mu Wan’s.
Just as clean. Just as clear. Both holding tiny flecks of light.
That light flickered. Mu Wan’s lashes trembled. Heat rose under her skin.
She lifted a hand to fan her face, then pointed at Da Tou, then at herself.
“Our eyes only have you in them.”
The kitten room was temperature-controlled; it wasn’t actually hot.
Liu Qianxiu looked at Mu Wan for a long moment. Then he set Da Tou back down and said, “I’ll go cook.”
Mu Wan watched his back as he left.
His reaction was exactly what she’d expected.
She wasn’t trying to pounce. She wanted to seep into Liu Qianxiu slowly, bit by bit, until one day he’d realize he liked her too.
Alone in the kitten room, Mu Wan still felt warm. She touched her heated cheek and spoke to the nest:
“Er Tong, Zhong Fen… when are you two going to open your eyes?”
As if responding to her, later that night—after she and Liu Qianxiu finished dinner—Zhong Fen opened his eyes too.
Zhong Fen was black-and-white, and his eye color looked even prettier than Da Tou’s—still a pale gold.
Zhong Fen was the smallest of the three, the frail one who’d even been hospitalized. Yet his eyes were already open, while Er Tong still showed no sign.
With two kittens now bright-eyed and mewing, their little fluffy bodies felt even cuter, like their faces had been “lit” from the inside.
Mu Wan looked away from Er Tong and lifted her head to ask Liu Qianxiu, “Will Er Tong open his eyes tomorrow?”
Mu Wan was feeding the kittens. Liu Qianxiu didn’t go in; he stood outside the kitten room, looking down at the three little ones.
After dinner, he’d changed into a new set of clothes—linen, light brown top and pants, wide sleeves and loose legs, comfortable and flowing. On his tall, lean frame, it really did give him that serene, otherworldly “Daoist” aura.
“Tonight,” Liu Qianxiu said.
Tonight, but not sure when.
Mu Wan checked the time. She shook the empty bottle once, then stood. It was 8:30.
She stepped out of the kitten room and stood beside Liu Qianxiu, like a red rose suddenly placed in front of him.
“What time do you usually rest?” she asked.
He didn’t seem to understand her intention. He only answered, “Ten.”
“Ah.” Mu Wan’s lips parted slightly in understanding. Her eyes lifted, then hesitated. After a beat, she asked carefully:
“Then… can I wait until 9:30? I won’t disturb your rest, and I won’t be loud. I want to see Er Tong open his eyes.”
The moment she said it, she realized it might be wrong.
Between now and ten, Liu Qianxiu probably had his own quiet routine—sitting, meditating, being alone. That was his private time. He likely wouldn’t like someone disrupting it.
She wanted to slip into his life gradually, but she couldn’t make him dislike her. That would ruin everything.
Mu Wan frowned, about to retract her request—
But Liu Qianxiu cut her off first.
“You can.”
Mu Wan’s brows lifted in surprise. She looked up at him.
His expression didn’t change. He took the bottle from Mu Wan, rinsed it clean, and left the kitten’s room.
With permission for an extra hour, Mu Wan didn’t stay in the kitten room the whole time.
She waited there for a while. Er Tong fell asleep in the nest. Mu Wan got up and left, too.
In the living room, the overhead lights were off. Only the lamp on the low table was on.
Soft light spilled from the shade, carving a circle into the dark.
Within that circle, Liu Qianxiu sat cross-legged by the low table, a book beside him, reading with a calm, centered stillness.
Liu Qianxiu’s face looked “light” in a strange way—not because his features were faint (they weren’t), but because the lamp’s shadows split his face into bright and dark halves. From his forehead down, the brow ridge and the bridge of his nose shaped a deep, sharp contour.
And yet his aura was gentle.
Even the sharpest features bowed under that clear, waterlike calm, turning into something pure and quiet, distant and serene.
Mu Wan’s heartbeat—which had only just slowed—sped up again.
She stood there silently, watching him.
When he turned a page, he lifted his eyes and found her.
Caught, Mu Wan parted her lips and pointed toward the kitten room.
“Er Tong fell asleep.”
She was bored.
Liu Qianxiu didn’t change his posture. “Do you want to read?”
“Sure.” Mu Wan slipped off her slippers, walked over barefoot, and sat cross-legged beside him.
The low table wasn’t small—perfect for one person, still not crowded with two. She sat close to his side and glanced at the book in his hand. The text was printed vertically, the paper yellowed, old enough to feel like time.
“What are you reading?” Mu Wan leaned in, neck extending slightly, lashes lowering.
Liu Qianxiu handed her the book.
The moment Mu Wan’s fingers touched the page—her fingertip brushing the paper—she felt something hard to describe.
It felt like an ancient book.
Only after she held it did she realize: Liu Qianxiu’s living room didn’t have many things, but everything carried an antique, restrained flavor. Not the “fake vintage” kind from renovation catalogs—more like real old objects.
From a distance, this low table didn’t look special. Up close, the carved patterns were delicate, and it held a faint sandalwood scent.
And the mural on the load-bearing wall—it didn’t look painted on after the fact. It looked like something cut from somewhere else and set into the wall. Lin Wei studied art; Mu Wan had absorbed a little by proximity. The brushwork felt classical. The entire mural held the beauty of something aged and contained.
With Liu Qianxiu among these old things, he looked like a deity in an ancient portrait—elegant, sacred, and far beyond reach.
Mu Wan stared at him, slowly drifting into a daze.
The book he’d handed her hadn’t been turned at all.
After a long moment, Liu Qianxiu lifted his eyes and met Mu Wan’s gaze.
This time, she didn’t look away.
Their eyes met.
Mu Wan smiled openly.
Liu Qianxiu glanced at the title in her hands—Dao De Jing—then looked up again.
“Why aren’t you reading?”
Mu Wan had only glanced at it. Classical Chinese, traditional characters, dense and hard—she couldn’t even recognize all the words.
So she stopped pretending.
“I can’t understand it.”
Liu Qianxiu lowered his gaze and turned a page in his own book. The lamplight made his fingers look almost transparent through the thin, yellowed paper.
His voice stayed calm. “But you can understand me?”
He’d pierced her cleanly.
Mu Wan didn’t feel embarrassed at all. She shook her head.
“I can’t understand you either.”
It was true.
Liu Qianxiu seemed like a doctor, and a Daoist, and also like neither. Like someone who had hidden himself in the world—an expert so deep you only realized his depth the closer you got.
And yet he treated people plainly, honestly, like a clear pool where you could see the stones at the bottom—without knowing how far down the bottom truly was.
Not knowing didn’t matter.
She could measure it slowly, bit by bit.
So she added, smiling, “But you’re better-looking than the book.”
Liu Qianxiu lifted his eyes once.
Mu Wan was smiling.
His gaze returned to the page. Whatever he’d been reading before was already lost.
When he kept reading, Mu Wan got bored. The pages rustled softly in her hands.
She rested an arm on the low table, laid her head on it, and turned her face toward him.
“Liu Qianxiu.”
In the wide, quiet living room, her voice sounded sweet and crisp.
Liu Qianxiu didn’t lift his head. He only answered, low and unhurried.
“Mm.”
Mu Wan listened to his voice echo in her ear. She lifted her head and studied the line of his profile.
“You like living alone, right?”
Under the lamp, they sat at opposite corners of the same low table—he upright, cross-legged, steady as a mountain; she stretched and curled like a lazy snake, soft and calm.
“Why do you ask?” he said.
Mu Wan thought for a moment. “Because you’re always alone.”
Liu Qianxiu’s throat moved slightly. His eyes stayed on the words in his book. His tone was even, quiet.
“Right now,” he said, “in this moment—there are two people.”
It was already dark outside. Darkness pressed against the kitchen windows, but it didn’t feel lonely the way it used to. The crisp rattle of chocolate beans tapping the bottle traveled through the glass from next door, adding a bright, living sound to the huge, quiet space.
Liu Qianxiu switched on the kitchen light. Listening to the movement outside, he went to the sink.
He set the shopping bags down and pulled out a bunch of spinach from the top. At the supermarket, Mu Wan thought the spinach looked especially fresh and added it to the menu for spinach egg soup.
Tiny droplets from the store’s misting system clung to the leaves. The greens looked crisp, the roots still carried a bit of soil—fresh and lively. When Liu Qianxiu lifted it, it was cool in his hand, and damp earth smeared lightly onto his fingers.
“Da Tou opened his eyes!”
Mu Wan’s excited voice burst in from the doorway.
Liu Qianxiu turned his head.
She stood there with her red lips lifted, eyes bright with delight. When she saw Liu Qianxiu look over, she raised a finger—long, pretty, elegant—and pointed toward the kitten room.
“Do you want to come see?”
Since the kittens were born, it had been about ten days. It made sense.
With soil still damp on his fingers, Liu Qianxiu thought of the vegetables waiting in the sink. In the end, he turned on the faucet, rinsed his fingertips clean, and said, “Okay.”
Mu Wan turned and hurried off, her skirt hem fluttering as she went. The red disappeared from view. Liu Qianxiu followed.
In the kitten room, Mu Wan was crouched beside the nest, watching the three kittens piled together.
They were from the same litter, but only Da Tou had opened his eyes. His lids were half-raised, and you could see the pale gold of his irises.
Maybe because he was still so small, or because his fur was a warmer shade, his eye color wasn’t as striking as Zhou Yi’s. It looked soft and translucent—like pumpkin jelly steamed until it turned clear.
As Mu Wan watched, Liu Qianxiu stepped in. She looked up, her face full of laughter. Then she reached into the nest and carefully lifted Da Tou into her palms.
In just a few days, he’d already grown. Mu Wan held him gently—Da Tou’s half-open eyes blinked, his tiny claws, pink and almost transparent, opened and closed, and he let out thin, milky mews.
Mu Wan brought him toward Liu Qianxiu’s hands.
“Look.”
She wanted Liu Qianxiu to hold him. She wanted to hand him everything she found beautiful.
Liu Qianxiu lifted his eyes and glanced at her. Then his lashes lowered, and he reached out to take Da Tou.
The moment he did, Mu Wan smiled.
“Our eyes are really similar,” she said.
Da Tou lifted his head and stared up at him, mewing softly, sweet and clingy. Liu Qianxiu looked at Da Tou’s pale-gold eyes, then at Mu Wan’s.
Just as clean. Just as clear. Both holding tiny flecks of light.
That light flickered. Mu Wan’s lashes trembled. Heat rose under her skin.
She lifted a hand to fan her face, then pointed at Da Tou, then at herself.
“Our eyes only have you in them.”
The kitten room was temperature-controlled; it wasn’t actually hot.
Liu Qianxiu looked at Mu Wan for a long moment. Then he set Da Tou back down and said, “I’ll go cook.”
Mu Wan watched his back as he left.
His reaction was exactly what she’d expected.
She wasn’t trying to pounce. She wanted to seep into Liu Qianxiu slowly, bit by bit, until one day he’d realize he liked her too.
Alone in the kitten room, Mu Wan still felt warm. She touched her heated cheek and spoke to the nest:
“Er Tong, Zhong Fen… when are you two going to open your eyes?”
As if responding to her, later that night—after she and Liu Qianxiu finished dinner—Zhong Fen opened his eyes too.
Zhong Fen was black-and-white, and his eye color looked even prettier than Da Tou’s—still a pale gold.
Zhong Fen was the smallest of the three, the frail one who’d even been hospitalized. Yet his eyes were already open, while Er Tong still showed no sign.
With two kittens now bright-eyed and mewing, their little fluffy bodies felt even cuter, like their faces had been “lit” from the inside.
Mu Wan looked away from Er Tong and lifted her head to ask Liu Qianxiu, “Will Er Tong open his eyes tomorrow?”
Mu Wan was feeding the kittens. Liu Qianxiu didn’t go in; he stood outside the kitten room, looking down at the three little ones.
After dinner, he’d changed into a new set of clothes—linen, light brown top and pants, wide sleeves and loose legs, comfortable and flowing. On his tall, lean frame, it really did give him that serene, otherworldly “Daoist” aura.
“Tonight,” Liu Qianxiu said.
Tonight, but not sure when.
Mu Wan checked the time. She shook the empty bottle once, then stood. It was 8:30.
She stepped out of the kitten room and stood beside Liu Qianxiu, like a red rose suddenly placed in front of him.
“What time do you usually rest?” she asked.
He didn’t seem to understand her intention. He only answered, “Ten.”
“Ah.” Mu Wan’s lips parted slightly in understanding. Her eyes lifted, then hesitated. After a beat, she asked carefully:
“Then… can I wait until 9:30? I won’t disturb your rest, and I won’t be loud. I want to see Er Tong open his eyes.”
The moment she said it, she realized it might be wrong.
Between now and ten, Liu Qianxiu probably had his own quiet routine—sitting, meditating, being alone. That was his private time. He likely wouldn’t like someone disrupting it.
She wanted to slip into his life gradually, but she couldn’t make him dislike her. That would ruin everything.
Mu Wan frowned, about to retract her request—
But Liu Qianxiu cut her off first.
“You can.”
Mu Wan’s brows lifted in surprise. She looked up at him.
His expression didn’t change. He took the bottle from Mu Wan, rinsed it clean, and left the kitten’s room.
With permission for an extra hour, Mu Wan didn’t stay in the kitten room the whole time.
She waited there for a while. Er Tong fell asleep in the nest. Mu Wan got up and left, too.
In the living room, the overhead lights were off. Only the lamp on the low table was on.
Soft light spilled from the shade, carving a circle into the dark.
Within that circle, Liu Qianxiu sat cross-legged by the low table, a book beside him, reading with a calm, centered stillness.
Liu Qianxiu’s face looked “light” in a strange way—not because his features were faint (they weren’t), but because the lamp’s shadows split his face into bright and dark halves. From his forehead down, the brow ridge and the bridge of his nose shaped a deep, sharp contour.
And yet his aura was gentle.
Even the sharpest features bowed under that clear, waterlike calm, turning into something pure and quiet, distant and serene.
Mu Wan’s heartbeat—which had only just slowed—sped up again.
She stood there silently, watching him.
When he turned a page, he lifted his eyes and found her.
Caught, Mu Wan parted her lips and pointed toward the kitten room.
“Er Tong fell asleep.”
She was bored.
Liu Qianxiu didn’t change his posture. “Do you want to read?”
“Sure.” Mu Wan slipped off her slippers, walked over barefoot, and sat cross-legged beside him.
The low table wasn’t small—perfect for one person, still not crowded with two. She sat close to his side and glanced at the book in his hand. The text was printed vertically, the paper yellowed, old enough to feel like time.
“What are you reading?” Mu Wan leaned in, neck extending slightly, lashes lowering.
Liu Qianxiu handed her the book.
The moment Mu Wan’s fingers touched the page—her fingertip brushing the paper—she felt something hard to describe.
It felt like an ancient book.
Only after she held it did she realize: Liu Qianxiu’s living room didn’t have many things, but everything carried an antique, restrained flavor. Not the “fake vintage” kind from renovation catalogs—more like real old objects.
From a distance, this low table didn’t look special. Up close, the carved patterns were delicate, and it held a faint sandalwood scent.
And the mural on the load-bearing wall—it didn’t look painted on after the fact. It looked like something cut from somewhere else and set into the wall. Lin Wei studied art; Mu Wan had absorbed a little by proximity. The brushwork felt classical. The entire mural held the beauty of something aged and contained.
With Liu Qianxiu among these old things, he looked like a deity in an ancient portrait—elegant, sacred, and far beyond reach.
Mu Wan stared at him, slowly drifting into a daze.
The book he’d handed her hadn’t been turned at all.
After a long moment, Liu Qianxiu lifted his eyes and met Mu Wan’s gaze.
This time, she didn’t look away.
Their eyes met.
Mu Wan smiled openly.
Liu Qianxiu glanced at the title in her hands—Dao De Jing—then looked up again.
“Why aren’t you reading?”
Mu Wan had only glanced at it. Classical Chinese, traditional characters, dense and hard—she couldn’t even recognize all the words.
So she stopped pretending.
“I can’t understand it.”
Liu Qianxiu lowered his gaze and turned a page in his own book. The lamplight made his fingers look almost transparent through the thin, yellowed paper.
His voice stayed calm. “But you can understand me?”
He’d pierced her cleanly.
Mu Wan didn’t feel embarrassed at all. She shook her head.
“I can’t understand you either.”
It was true.
Liu Qianxiu seemed like a doctor, and a Daoist, and also like neither. Like someone who had hidden himself in the world—an expert so deep you only realized his depth the closer you got.
And yet he treated people plainly, honestly, like a clear pool where you could see the stones at the bottom—without knowing how far down the bottom truly was.
Not knowing didn’t matter.
She could measure it slowly, bit by bit.
So she added, smiling, “But you’re better-looking than the book.”
Liu Qianxiu lifted his eyes once.
Mu Wan was smiling.
His gaze returned to the page. Whatever he’d been reading before was already lost.
When he kept reading, Mu Wan got bored. The pages rustled softly in her hands.
She rested an arm on the low table, laid her head on it, and turned her face toward him.
“Liu Qianxiu.”
In the wide, quiet living room, her voice sounded sweet and crisp.
Liu Qianxiu didn’t lift his head. He only answered, low and unhurried.
“Mm.”
Mu Wan listened to his voice echo in her ear. She lifted her head and studied the line of his profile.
“You like living alone, right?”
Under the lamp, they sat at opposite corners of the same low table—he upright, cross-legged, steady as a mountain; she stretched and curled like a lazy snake, soft and calm.
“Why do you ask?” he said.
Mu Wan thought for a moment. “Because you’re always alone.”
Liu Qianxiu’s throat moved slightly. His eyes stayed on the words in his book. His tone was even, quiet.
“Right now,” he said, “in this moment—there are two people.”
WDYM?? AAAAAAAAAA KILEG
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