Yin Guo immediately grabbed his left hand. "Do you have a fever?"
It wasn't hot. *Okay, that’s good.*
Her chest felt tight with a frantic worry. "Is it serious? Have you seen a doctor? Or did you just buy some medicine yourself?"
Yin Guo pulled his phone from his hand. "Type it out. Tell me quickly, I’m worried."
Lin Yiyang did as she said, unlocking the phone and opening the notes app, but then he paused. He had intended to remain serious and composed, but the softness and warmth on the back of his hand made his mind wander. *Forget it.*
With a sudden pull of his right arm, he drew Yin Guo into a hug, a single-arm embrace that held her tightly against his chest.
His left hand pressed against the back of her head, guiding her to lean against his shoulder.
He lowered his head, his mouth near her face, just above her ear, and said in a raspy voice, "I'm fine. Really, I'm fine."
Having almost completely lost his voice, those few words fell straight into the depths of her heart. Six hours had passed since she bought the ticket, transferred subways, waited for the train, and made the journey. No—it had been five days.
She had missed him so much, and finally, she was seeing him.
Yin Guo’s nose bumped against his collarbone. He held her so tightly that all she could smell was his scent. *Yes, the smell of Lin Yiyang.* She remembered Zheng Yi saying that a man’s refinement could be judged by whether he smelled pleasant the moment he took off his clothes... Through his jacket, she couldn't tell for sure, but at least he didn't stink...
Her thoughts were a jumbled mess.
"You didn't even tell me. You didn't say anything today, or the past few days." Her heart ached for him.
He pressed his face against her forehead. *It's okay, it's okay. Don't talk about it.*
It was pure exhaustion—muscle aches, joint pain, loss of voice, and a weakened immune system that made his whole body feel wrong. The past two days had been the worst; he hadn't even been able to get out of bed. Today was much better.
He hadn't gone to New York this week, firstly because he was sick and the backlog of tasks had reached a point where they had to be handled today—he wasn't a kid anymore; serious business had to be done. Secondly, although it was caused by overwork, he was truly ill. He felt terrible and looked haggard, and he was afraid that seeing him like this would affect her mood for the competition.
He never expected the silly girl would just show up without a word.
A girl traveling a long distance for him, or doing things that seemed persistent, or seemed like giving everything, or seemed to move the whole world—it wasn't that such things had never happened to him before, but he had never cared.
But she was different. Yin Guo was different. She had been different from the very beginning.
He was the one whose heart was moved first; he was the one who pursued her first. Yet today, she had crossed hundreds of kilometers to see him right before a major tournament... It was just a hoarse throat; it wasn't that big of a deal.
He patted her back. *Let's go.*
He said they were going, yet he didn't let go, nor did he move.
"Where to?" she asked softly, her lips moving against him. Then she quickly added, "I already ate on the train."
She had already figured out Lin Yiyang’s habit—he loved treating people to meals—so she had to state her case immediately: she wasn't hungry.
Still holding her, he opened his phone and typed a line in the notes app: *Did you book a hotel?*
She shook her head.
He continued typing: *Where do you want to stay? I'll take you.*
She hadn't come all this way just to experience the various hotels of Washington D.C.
"No rush," she said. "It's not peak season, so it should be... easy to book."
Lin Yiyang typed another line before her eyes: *Want to walk around and see the night views?*
She rubbed her lower back and shook her head. "I can't walk anymore. My back hurts from sitting so long. Let's go to your place."
She wanted to see the trajectory of his life.
This place was different from New York; it was where he had truly lived for nearly three years. Before meeting Lin Yiyang, this was just a city with many landmarks and museums to her; she had even planned to visit them one by one whenever she had the time.
But now, she had lost interest in those things. She wanted to see the street and the apartment where he lived; even a tree at his apartment entrance held more attraction for her than the White House.
"Is it inconvenient?" She noticed Lin Yiyang didn't agree immediately.
It wasn't that it was inconvenient; he just felt there was nothing worth seeing.
Yin Guo waited gloomily for a while with no response, then lightly bumped his leg with her knee. "Say something."
He typed in the notes: *I was thinking, the bed is quite messy.*
*Why bring up the bed out of nowhere?*
"Messy is normal. A man's bed... rooms are usually messy."
Although Lin Yiyang was a normal man who would have improper thoughts about a girl he liked, that sentence really hadn't been aimed in that direction. He typed another line and held it under her eyes:
*I'm not trying to do anything with you. You'll understand when you get there.*
...
Great. It had started out pure—simply wanting to understand his life.
Now it had successfully transitioned into whether they were going to "do something" there.
He was frank about it, though. He slung Yin Guo’s cue case over his right shoulder and led her out of Union Station.
On the way, Yin Guo held onto him, meticulously typing on her phone to learn the full details of his illness. To ease her mind, Lin Yiyang showed her the WeChat messages he had sent to a classmate, which included photos of the medicine the other person had helped him buy.
Aside from Vitamin C, it was just throat lozenges. No fever, no cold, nothing serious.
The apartment Lin Yiyang rented was quite far from the school. The university was in a wealthy area where rent was too expensive to afford, and he couldn't afford the dorms either. He and a classmate with similar family circumstances shared an apartment in a remote area. He had bought a second-hand bicycle and usually cycled whenever he needed to go to school.
He brought Yin Guo into the apartment. The lights weren't on. Yin Guo took a step forward and her knee hit a large object; she cried out in pain. When the light turned on, she saw a delivery box half the height of a person sitting by the door.
The dining room light was broken; a beam of white light shone from Lin Yiyang’s phone.
She rubbed her knee and saw the box clearly in the light. "Is this yours?"
Lin Yiyang shook his head. It hadn't been there when he left this morning.
"Your roommate's? It's not fragile, is it?" She worriedly looked for a label, afraid she had kicked and broken someone else's things, which would make things difficult for Lin Yiyang. The label said "wooden assembly furniture." Fortunately, it wasn't fragile.
The living room was tiny—so small it couldn't really be called a living room. It was just an open kitchen with a dining table.
Only one person could stand between the table and the sink.
Between the table and the apartment door was also just one person's distance. So with that delivery box sitting there, it visually filled the hallway. To the left of the dining area was a long, narrow corridor with a bathroom, and further in was a room.
Yin Guo looked to the right, at a sliding door connected to the dining area. She guessed that was also a room.
"Which one is yours?" she asked softly.
Lin Yiyang pointed to the sliding door.
Yin Guo looked at the sliding door again. A door like that basically had no soundproofing, right?
Lin Yiyang pushed the delivery box aside, right against the dining table, so the area near the door was clear. He pushed open the door, revealing the full view of the room. Was it even ten square meters? At most.
On the left side of the room was the bed—a wide double bed pulled out from a sofa, taking up half the space.
In the middle was a coffee-table-style plastic desk. Under the desk were two plastic bins for miscellaneous items.
In the corner on the right side of the room were two windows. Next to the windows was an IKEA-style simple cabinet. The upper part was an open bookshelf, and the lower part consisted of several drawers. Yin Guo guessed his clothes were in there.
The remaining space was full just with her and Lin Yiyang standing side-by-side.
She finally understood what he meant by "the bed is quite messy." It was because there were no chairs or desks in the room, and no place for a sofa—not even a small beanbag chair.
When a guest came, they could only sit on the bed or open the sliding door and have the guest sit at the dining table.
Lin Yiyang entered, turned on the light, leaned Yin Guo’s cue case against the cabinet, and started tidying the bed.
The bed was indeed messy, covered with books and clothes.
He hadn't been in the mood to tidy up while sick the past two days, so things had piled up until today.
He was still considering whether he should change the sheets.
The room across the hallway opened, and a guy who had just woken up came out. He walked forward dazed, greeted Lin Yiyang, went into the bathroom, then realized something was wrong. He backed out and looked at Yin Guo in surprise.
Yin Guo felt uneasy being stared at and gave a friendly wave. "Hi."
He stood there, his expression shifting vividly, before finally breaking into a wide grin. He strode over and excitedly extended his right hand to shake Yin Guo’s. "Lin’s sister?"
...
Yin Guo shook her head, feeling the other person’s excessive enthusiasm, which made her feel a bit awkward.
The roommate sensed something was up and became even more excited. "Girlfriend? Is she your girlfriend?"
He had known Lin Yiyang for nearly three years, and this was the first time he had seen a female—a living one—brought into this home by Lin Yiyang.
Lin Yiyang probably also found the guy too enthusiastic. He signaled that Yin Guo was tired and needed to rest, and then he closed the sliding door.
As expected, it wasn't soundproof.
His roommate kept trying to lower his voice, but she heard everything clearly—all of Lin Yiyang’s past romantic rumors. From a certain classmate, to a certain senior sister, to a certain undergraduate classmate, to... suddenly silence. He had probably been stopped.
Yin Guo felt a bit sour; everything she looked at felt a bit off.
Hearing no more sound outside, she wanted to use the bathroom, so she pulled open the door.
The scene that met her eyes was—
The guy was opening a plastic storage cabinet standing in the corner, pulling out colorful small paper packets of various colors and functions. The overly enthusiastic roommate assumed Lin Yiyang wouldn't have prepared these and was happily sharing his private stash.
Meanwhile, Lin Yiyang was opening an orange overhead cabinet, pulling out a storage box. His back was to the roommate and Yin Guo; he saw nothing.
He heard the door open and turned to look at Yin Guo.
The roommate had already closed the drawer. Actually, according to his values, this was nothing—just safe sex. However, he knew Easterners were shy, so he understood that much.
"I'm going to the bathroom," Yin Guo said to Lin Yiyang, her face flushing red.
Lin Yiyang was completely baffled. He watched Yin Guo go in, and the roommate immediately pulled the drawer open again, grabbed a handful, and put them on the dining table. Then, silently, he pressed one finger on a purple packet, slid it across most of the table, and stopped it right in front of Lin Yiyang.
Lin Yiyang put the plastic storage box on the table and asked, straining his voice, "What exactly are you so excited about?"
...
When Yin Guo came out of the bathroom, the living room lights were off.
She walked forward quietly and suddenly kicked that delivery box again, in the same spot... It was definitely going to bruise. She limped a couple of steps and pulled open the door.
Lin Yiyang had just finished changing the sheets.
She entered and closed the door behind her. This was a small, enclosed space. With the door closed and the window open, that was the only place where air flowed...
Lin Yiyang pointed to the bed, meaning: *You can only sit there, sorry for the lack of space.*
Yin Guo sat down silently.
A long silence followed.
Lin Yiyang had nowhere else to be, so he leaned against the sliding door. His joints ached; he couldn't stand for long and needed to change positions, but seeing how uncomfortable Yin Guo was, he didn't think about sitting next to her.
"You're still sick..." She noticed Lin Yiyang’s discomfort. "It's more comfortable to sit."
She patted the spot beside her, the edge of the bed.
Lin Yiyang really couldn't handle standing any longer, so he went to her side and sat down.
"When I was in the room just now, I could hear you guys talking very clearly. Is it not soundproof?" she asked softly.
He nodded.
Forget standing in the dining room—even across the hallway, he had heard "live-action adult films" in surround sound.
"Since you can't talk anyway, should we use WeChat?"
Lin Yiyang took her phone and connected it to the Wi-Fi.
Sitting side-by-side, legs touching, chatting on WeChat on the edge of a bed—this was truly a unique dating experience.
The curtains were half-closed, fluttering in the night breeze.
She smelled a faint fragrance in the room—a burning candle. This was what Lin Yiyang had gone out to find just now. When Wu Wei came last time, he had brought a scented candle he said he bought from an island—coconut scented. Lin Yiyang felt that since he had been sick for days, the room might smell bad, so he opened the window, found this, and lit it.
Xiao Guo: *You bought the candle?*
Lin: *Wu Wei's.*
Xiao Guo: *I was going to say, how could you like this kind of scent? It's very...*
He went to extinguish the candle, leaning forward to get up, but Yin Guo pulled him back.
"I didn't say it smells bad, just that it doesn't seem like something you'd use."
Her hand tugged at his jacket sleeve.
Lin Yiyang looked down and wanted to grab her hand before she pulled it back. He didn't make it in time.
Through the wooden door, heavy metal music could be heard playing from the other end of the hallway—it was from the room across.
It was as if it were intentional.
Yin Guo held her phone, concentrating on the chat.
Xiao Guo: *When you go to class usually, how do you get there?*
Lin: *Bike.*
Xiao Guo: *Is it far?*
Lin: *It's okay.*
Xiao Guo: *:)*
Xiao Guo: *Think of a topic, I'm running out of things to talk about.*
Lin: *Let's not chat. Typing is tiring.*
...Not chat? Were they just going to sit there?
Beside her, Lin Yiyang tossed his phone onto the coffee table, turned around, found the largest cushion at the foot of the bed, and threw it to the head of the bed. He pointed there and said, "Go over there."
Then he added, "It's more comfortable lying down."
Lin Yiyang’s gaze betrayed him; of course, he didn't just want her to rest.
In his grating, hoarse, muffled voice, Yin Guo’s breathing gradually slowed. "You can't talk even if I lie down. Besides, your throat won't be better for a week, maybe longer."
He smiled.
*Who wants to talk to you?*
| Chinese | English | Notes/Explanation |
| :--- | :--- | :--- |
| 联合车站 | Union Station | The main railway station in Washington, D.C. |
| 备忘录 | Notes app | Referring to the built-in notes application on a smartphone. |
| 桃色花边 | romantic rumors | Literally "peach-colored lace," referring to gossip or scandals of a romantic or sexual nature. |
| 小电影 | adult films | Slang for pornographic or erotic videos. |
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