Just after Luo Ye finalized this decision, he suddenly heard a shout: “Luo Ye! You won the second prize!”

A girl was waving the list in her hand, beckoning to him.

“Come over and claim your prize!”

Luo Ye froze for a good while before turning to Lan Ju with a blank expression.

Lan Ju was equally baffled, but he reacted immediately, grabbing Luo Ye’s arm and hauling him up.

“Go, quickly!” Lan Ju pushed him toward the crowd.

Luo Ye squeezed through the noisy crowd to the award table. The girl handed him a box containing a compact coffee maker.

Looking at the thing, Luo Ye hesitated slightly: “This… I’ve already resigned. Can I still win a prize?”

“Well, you hadn’t resigned when you worked on the last season! After all these years, even without heroic feats, you still have credit for your hard work,” the girl declared, pulling out all the stops as she shouted directly to the surrounding colleagues. “Everyone, am I right?!”

“Yes!” The youngsters at Luo Ye’s table echoed loudly in unison.

Feeling a bit embarrassed, Luo Ye accepted the prize anyway. Feeling it wasn’t right to come empty-handed, he found an empty glass, poured some red wine, and briefly toasted the directors and others.

A few of the directors were clearly plastered, their faces red like they had been scrubbed clean in a bathhouse a dozen times over. One of them failed to control himself, a pair of fluffy beast ears popping out right at the tips of his head. He eagerly patted Luo Ye’s shoulder and pulled him into a non-stop barrage of chatter.

“Out of everyone here, only you understand what I mean! What am I gonna do after you leave?”

“Work hard! You’ll definitely make a big name for yourself in the future. Let me recommend a few people to you.”

“I’ll recommend first!”

“Hey, you’re trying to snatch them away from me?”

…

Luo Ye couldn’t get a single word in from start to finish. The directors were practically arguing among themselves, until the screenwriters beside them quickly came up to pull them apart.

The girl who handed out the awards hurriedly gave Luo Ye a wink, and Luo Ye seized the opportunity to slip over to another table.

This table happened to be chatting about artists they had worked with in the past. Someone brought up Bai Cheng, and the topic naturally drifted back to the mysterious person who had beaten him up. Everyone was gossiping with great gusto, making up stories one after another, getting progressively more absurd as they went on.

No wonder it had been so lively earlier; Luo Ye finally understood now.

The stories these people were spinning were actually quite entertaining, and he sat on the side laughing along with them. Not long into his laughter, his gaze suddenly collided with Chi Zhiyue’s.

The two weren’t sitting close—just happened to be at opposite ends of facing tables.

Chi Zhiyue maintained that same lazy posture, elbow resting on the edge of the table, fingertips lightly pressed against the corner of his lips. His eyes gazed over faintly, as if casually glancing at him, and he quickly shifted his eyes away.

Luo Ye sat up straight.

Heh, thinks I can’t read him? That look from Chi Zhiyue clearly means he wants me to leave. Well, I won’t.

Luo Ye’s rebellious streak immediately flared up. He deliberately engaged in conversation with others, obstinately refusing to leave.

“Xiao Chi, don’t you think so?”

Chi Zhiyue was nudged on the arm by a colleague. He withdrew his unfocused gaze, turning his head to look at the person: “What?”

The colleague kindly repeated: “We were guessing that guy must be a relative of some boss, or else how could he hide so well?”

A colleague from logistics asked: “Didn’t you run into Baldy Mei when you came over? Did that big-mouthed guy drop any hints to you?”

“Xiao Chi was busy thinking about how to escape; how could he have listened to what he said?” Zhao Li laughed and said, “Right?”

“I indeed didn’t listen,” Chi Zhiyue gave a faint smile and casually picked up his phone. “You guys keep chatting, I’ll check my phone for a bit.”

The rest stopped minding him and continued their heated discussion.

Chi Zhiyue leaned back slightly, his shoulders and back resting gently against the chair’s backrest. He was immersed in the noise, yet remained a peaceful realm unto himself.

The phone screen lit up, a fresh notification popping up directly on the lock screen: The content creator you promoted, @QingqingIsNotQing, uploaded a new video “My Thirty-Three Days,” currently ranked #3 on the leaderboard. A celebratory message with a raffle has been sent…

Chi Zhiyue didn’t click on the raffle link; instead, he clicked open the video.

Where it had been a hundred and twenty thousand views a few days ago, it now sat at 1.2 million views, with 15,000 people watching live simultaneously.

In the video, a young man revealing only a pair of emerald green eyes, wearing a hat and face mask, was sitting inside a quiet coffee shop.

The small mole beneath his right eye swayed gently with the movements of his speech.

“Hello viewers, long time no see. I am Qingqing Is Not Qing.”

The voice was very pleasant—not hard to picture a frank, capable, mature man behind it.

“Why is the title ‘Thirty-Three Days’? Because in Buddhism, the sixth heaven of the Desire Realm is called Trāyastriṃśa, the Heaven of the Thirty-Three. The Yuan Dynasty playwright Zheng Guangzu once wrote a similar sentiment: ‘Of the thirty-three heavens, the Heaven of Sorrowful Separation is the highest; of the four hundred and four ailments, lovesickness is the bitterest.’“

The man let out a small chuckle, folding his hands together.

“Life is but a single journey. Coming with the morning and leaving with the evening, it shouldn’t end in such a frantic rush. So this video records the stories and wishes between me and the strangers I encountered along the way.”

The next second, the camera smoothly transitioned following a droplet of water, sweeping past seashores, streets, alleyways, and various scenes of the human world, settling on one unfamiliar face after another, until all the images converged in the center of the screen.

With editing this experienced and crisp, one could easily tell the creator was a master.

The barrage comments began posting their wishes as well.

—— May mom and dad stay healthy!

—— Passing the exams! Passing!

—— Smooth Gaokao!!

—— Keep fighting, high school seniors!

—— Must pass the job interview!!

Chi Zhiyue had already watched it three times; he knew what would happen the very next second.

Amidst the sky full of flickering wishes, those eyes in the video that had remained half-closed slowly opened.

Chi Zhiyue’s heart tightened violently, his hand holding the phone unconsciously lowering down.

The upturned, emerald-green eyes in the video overlapped with zero deviation with the person currently chatting across the room right now.

Luo Ye had been amused several times by a colleague’s cold joke delivered in a Cantonese-accented Mandarin. Whenever he laughed, he felt like someone was looking at him, but every time he turned around, there was nothing.

Even Chi Zhiyue was looking down at his phone.

“…An illusion?” Luo Ye scratched his head, paying it no mind.

The party atmosphere was lively, with unofficial histories being spun alongside the ongoing raffle, gradually drawing to a close as the major grand prizes were announced.

“Come on! One final toast! Wishing us smooth collaboration in the coming year!” The director stood up and said to them.

Everyone raised their glasses, toasting upward toward the air, bringing this dinner gathering to a warm and harmonious end.

It was 8:30 PM when they stepped out of the restaurant. The roadside neon lights glistened brightly in the chilly night as snowflakes fell gently. Perhaps because it was too cold, there were fewer pedestrians, yet it remained lively enough.

Colleagues bade farewell in groups of twos and threes, turning one after another to merge into the flow of people, their noisy voices gradually fading away.

Luo Ye stood at the restaurant entrance, zipping his jacket up to the top, holding the coffee maker in his arms, preparing to hail a cab.

At that moment, a familiar figure stepped forward, blocking the light in front of him.

Luo Ye’s heart hitched. After cooling down for a few seconds, he put on a superficial, fake smile: “What’s up?”

Chi Zhiyue looked at him, asking very politely: “Do you want to head out together? I called a car too.”

Afraid you won’t be able to hold back vomiting in the car, Luo Ye muttered silently in his mind, but kept his words polite on the surface: “No thanks, I need to go somewhere else. It’s probably not on the way.”

“Alright,” Chi Zhiyue didn’t push. “Then send me a message when you get home.”

“Why?” Afraid I’ll get kidnapped?

Luo Ye didn’t treat anyone poorly, but when he ran into someone who annoyed him, anything that person said or did looked displeasing.

Even if the words sounded reasonable, he couldn’t help but argue back in his head.

“Afraid you didn’t make it home after drinking. Didn’t you drink at the end?” Chi Zhiyue’s tone hadn’t changed at all; Luo Ye could even sense a trace of concern in it.

“No need to worry, I can get back myself. Take care of yourself first.” Luo Ye didn’t want to speak another word to this guy, quickly agreeing offhandedly while keeping his head down to look at his phone.

“Okay, then I’ll be off.”

“Mm.”

That figure left quickly. Luo Ye raised his head, closing the un-sent message thread.

Chi Zhiyue walked off together with a few others, his back gradually blending into the crowd.

Snowflakes drifted down slowly, landing on the tips of Luo Ye’s shoes as he turned and left the restaurant entrance.

Twenty-four minutes later, Luo Ye arrived home.

Luo Peng was not asleep yet. Taking the coffee maker from his hands, he set it casually on the table, his eyes scanning Luo Ye: “It started snowing heavily after you left. Did you really not get wet?”

Luo Ye smiled, pinching Luo Peng’s cheek: “Nope. Did you think I was lying to you?”

“You lie to me all the time,” Luo Peng muttered softly. “You definitely let your ears pop out too. You get excited whenever you see snow.”

Feeling guilty, Luo Ye hurriedly changed the subject: “Look at this coffee maker, gray is such a nice color. You can brew coffee while watching the snow scene later.”

Luo Peng didn’t expose this clumsy subject change, glancing at the coffee maker: “I don’t drink coffee anyway.”

“If you don’t drink it, just use it as a decoration then,” Luo Ye took off his coat. “Though why aren’t you asking if the party was fun?”

“Not interested. I don’t know them,” Luo Peng said.

Luo Ye shrugged. He had originally wanted to elaborate on those few hilarious unofficial company histories and his plan to “disgust” someone, but it seemed his younger brother had zero interest in any of it.

Thinking carefully, Luo Peng didn’t seem interested in anything other than the two of them.

He had wanted to help Luo Peng pick up a few hobbies before leaving, but this guy picked things up absurdly fast—whatever he did, he did well, leaving no sense of challenge. To this day, he still hadn’t found his true “favorite.”

While Luo Ye was lost in thought, he looked up to see Luo Peng already assembling the coffee maker.

Luo Ye: “…” Does doing housework count as a hobby?

Luo Ye didn’t disturb him, going off to handle his own business. By the time he finished washing up and came out, Luo Peng had already assembled the coffee maker and was sitting down drinking water to rest.

Luo Ye pulled over a chair to sit beside him, asking: “Tomorrow I’m going over to Lan Ju’s house. Are you coming?”

Luo Peng answered almost instantly: “Going. What time?”

“After lunch.” Luo Ye ruffled his hair. “Bring those local specialties along, by the way.”

“Give them all to him, or keep some like before?” Luo Peng perked up his tail, looking up to ask.

“Definitely gotta keep some. How much have we accumulated now?” Luo Ye got up and walked toward the storage room, Luo Peng obediently following behind.

Together, the two pulled out the bottom-most box. The fabric box was somewhat worn out, with a label stuck on top featuring two lines of different handwriting.

The first line was written by Luo Ye: Keep for Little Mute.

The second line was written by Luo Peng: Handle with care.

Inside the box were quite a few items—all souvenirs Luo Ye had brought back after traveling afar. Unopened from their packaging, every single one was cleaner than the box itself.

Compact keychains printed with the names of unfamiliar cities; postcards featuring exotic scenery with neat, flat corners without a single crease; several wooden prayer bead bracelets carrying a faint woody scent; a few uniquely shaped stones; and several tightly sealed jars of specialty dried fruits.

Every item remained vivid in memory, each hiding the mood and recollection of that time.

“Sigh…” Luo Ye let out a soft sigh.

He had wanted to give Little Mute a surprise when they reunited, but now it seemed there was no hope for that—he could only leave it to Luo Peng to hand it over.

Luo Ye fetched the souvenirs, passing them to Luo Peng, who was squatting by the box.

Luo Peng arranged them neatly inside like playing Klotski, organizing everything in perfect order.

“Aww, so great.” Luo Ye began coaxing him like a child again, ruffling Luo Peng’s short hair. “Whose Pengpeng is so smart?”

Luo Peng still bought into Luo Ye’s routine as usual, his tail curling up as he stood up calmly: “It’s almost full. We’ll have to switch to a bigger box when the time comes. Also, didn’t you clean up last time without organizing here? I saw quite a few dirty spots…”

“Shh. Listen,” Luo Ye placed a finger on his own lips.

“What?” Luo Peng looked at him.

Luo Ye: “That’s the sound of your brother’s eyelids getting tired from fanning.”

Luo Peng: “…”

Luo Ye pushed Luo Peng out of the storage room, saying amiably: “Pengpeng ah, if you have anything to vent, save it for your Brother Lan Ju tomorrow. Your brother is genuinely sleepy.”

Could he admit he was almost hypnotized just now? Almost fell asleep right there in the storage room.

“But…”

“It’s fine, it’s fine, I know everything, no need to say it.”

“Then…”

“Let’s both go to sleep, okay?”

Luo Peng still wanted to nag a few more words, but was completely coaxed back by Luo Ye’s soft demeanor.

The younger brother was still too inexperienced after all, completely unable to beat the social-hardened Luo Ye, and could only obediently head back to his room.

The bedroom door was left with a tiny crack, a pair of eyes staring at Luo Ye to give a final reminder: “Don’t stay up playing on your phone until 2 AM before sleeping again.”

“I know, I know. How old is your brother? As if I don’t even have this much self-control…”

Luo Ye agreed crisply on the surface, but in reality, he stayed up playing on his phone until the wee hours before finally going to sleep.

Sitting in the taxi the next day, Luo Ye didn’t even dare look Luo Peng in the eye, opting instead to chat with the taxi driver.

When they finally made it to Lan Ju’s doorstep, Lan Ju opened the door and immediately brought up the exact topic Luo Ye was trying to avoid, asking with a beam: “Did you two have a fight?”

Luo Peng looked at Lan Ju and asked: “Brother Lan Ju, what time did you go to sleep yesterday?”

“2:30 AM. Why?” Lan Ju glanced at Luo Ye and immediately added, “Oh, I definitely didn’t play VALORANT with your brother!”

Luo Peng shot a side-glance at Luo Ye.

Luo Ye: “…”

What a great teammate. What a classic ‘there is no silver buried here’ moment.

Lan Ju hurriedly tried to fix it, reaching out to take the bags from Luo Peng’s hand: “Coming is enough, why bring so many things! Aww, it’s all my favorite foods. Hurry in, treat this place like your own home!”

Luo Peng: “…”

Luo Ye: “…I almost got looped in by your last sentence.”

Lan Ju: “Ehehe.”

Although Lan Ju was renting right now, with help from his family, the location and square footage were both much better than where the Luo brothers lived. It had a separate study and computer room, with a full cabinet packed with favorite games and manga volumes.

Scanning the familiar surroundings, Luo Ye felt deeply moved.

When he and Luo Peng were renting, they often came over to hang out, the three of them playing games, watching videos, and dreaming about their future development. Those days were relaxed and carefree, serving as the place that held their dreams back then.

Coming over once before leaving could be considered leaving no regrets.

Luo Ye sent Luo Peng to the living room to play games while he went into the kitchen with Lan Ju to wash fruit.

Lan Ju happily arranged the fruits. He loved it when Luo Peng came over—the moment he arrived, he could carry him to rank up in games.

Touching an odd-shaped fruit, he casually started chatting: “You bring things every time you come, making me feel embarrassed. Last time you guys came over, you brought a mountain of stuff too, took me three days to finish eating it all.”

“Yeah, others take a week to finish, you take three days,” Luo Ye said.

“I was afraid it’d get damp…” Lan Ju mumbled.

Luo Ye chuckled: “When we’re afraid of dampness, we wrap it in plastic wrap. When you’re afraid of dampness, you eat it all.”

Lan Ju: “Tsk.”

Unwilling to be teased, Lan Ju hurriedly switched the topic back to Luo Ye: “Didn’t you say yesterday you were gonna prank that guy? Did you succeed?”

Speaking of this, Luo Ye’s mood visibly dimmed compared to earlier: “No, I plan to say it in a few days.”

“In a few days? Isn’t that New Year’s Eve?” Lan Ju asked.

“Yeah,” Luo Ye said. “I’ll say it while I’m out.”

“Going out?” Lan Ju stopped his movements. “Going out to play again?”

“I came today specifically for this,” Luo Ye took a deep breath. “I have something to tell you.”

“What is it?” Lan Ju blinked, eyes full of curiosity.

“It’s a bit absurd, but it’s real.”

Luo Ye set down the fruit, walked over, and gently shut the kitchen door.

Turning back to lean against the wall, he looked at Lan Ju earnestly, emphasizing every single word:

“I… am going to die.”

__

[Author’s Note]

Chi (staring): Staring at my future partner—looks good no matter how I look.

Luo: Wants to kick me out, huh, heh.

After dating:

Chi (staring) (kisses): Looks good no matter how I look.

Luo: Wait, why are the kisses moving further down?

Chi: Looks good here too. (kisses)

And then had a great time.