The next evening, the bell above the bookstore door chimed, a small, polite sound that fit the shop's size and mood.
The store on Haiyun Road wasn't large—three aisles, a register counter, a short display table, and a reading corner by the window with two armchairs that looked as if they liked to nap. Warm light fell from lantern-shaped lamps, soft enough to make everyone speak a little quieter without being told to. Paper and dust mixed into a faint, comforting scent.
Gu Ze Yan stepped in as if he belonged there, a book tucked under his arm that he hadn't opened and didn't plan to. Outside, Liangcheng hummed with traffic and the smell of cumin skewers; inside, time seemed to fold neatly and put itself away.
At the register, Lin Qing Yun sat with a bilingual edition of Crime and Punishment open in front of her, elbows on the counter, chin lightly propped on one hand. The faint crease between her brows smoothed and returned as her eyes moved line by line. A slip of paper—her bookmark—peeked out like a secret.
When she noticed him, she closed it with a soft thump and offered the same professional smile.
"Oh," she said, tilting her head. "Chili-guy's friend. Back again?"
Ze Yan raised an eyebrow. "You remember me only by condiments?"
"That's an important detail," she replied solemnly. "You'd be surprised how many people I know through spice levels."
He almost laughed. "Should I upgrade to Extra Chili's Friend next time?"
Her eyes curved, amused, but she only gestured at the shelves. "Feel free to browse. That's what bookstores are for."
"Sunny, can you help me shelve these?" a coworker asked, arriving with a stack of new arrivals.
"Sure," she said. She slid the paper into her book and stood, lifting half the stack. The name tag on her apron—Lin Qing Yun—flashed, though the voice that answered to her was still Sunny.
Ze Yan drifted toward the nonfiction aisle with the air of a man who knew exactly what he was doing and absolutely did not. He pulled out a book on "Applied Machine Learning in Business," flipped the index, turned a page, and absorbed none of it. He turned another page for dignity.
The bell chimed; a mother and her small son entered. The boy bee-lined for the fish poster in the children's corner and tried to poke a printed trout in the eye. His mother sighed with the familiarity of a thousand sighs.
"Sunny!" called the owner from the back. "Those boxes can go to the middle display!"
"Got it!"
Qing Yun carried a stack past the counter and knelt by the display table, laying books out spine-up with the precision of someone setting a dining table for guests. As she leaned forward, a loose strand of hair slid from behind her ear and curved toward her cheek. She blew at it lightly; it returned. She surrendered with quiet dignity.
A nosy auntie in floral blouse hovered near the register, clutching a health cookbook to her chest. She looked from Qing Yun to Ze Yan, back to Qing Yun, and made a small, satisfied sound a matchmaker might make when the heavens aligned.
"Girl," the auntie said to Qing Yun in a half-whisper that reached the entire store, "that young man is handsome and looks successful. Does he need help finding his—"
"Receipt," Qing Yun said cheerfully, cutting neatly across the trajectory of fate. "I can print yours."
The auntie reconsidered her cookbook, then cocked her head at Gu Ze Yan anyway. "Young man, are you married?"
"Not yet," he replied, polite smile in place.
"Have a niece," the auntie offered, lowering her voice absolutely not at all. "Very cultured. Knows three poems."
"Only three?" Ze Yan asked, blinking gravely. "I fear I might require four."
Qing Yun coughed, which sounded suspiciously like a laugh. The auntie huffed, muttered about modern standards, and accepted her receipt with wounded dignity.
At that exact moment, one of the new boxes at the counter tipped; the top flaps yawed open and softcover books slid in a bright cascade across the floor.
Qing Yun moved first, already kneeling. "It's fine," she said, more to the startled coworker than to anyone else. "No damage."
Before she could gather the nearest pile, a hand reached into view—long fingers, careful grip—stacking the books with brisk economy.
"Customers don't usually help," she murmured.
"I'm not a usual customer," Gu Ze Yan said. He squared the corners of the pile with precise taps, then passed it to her. Their fingers brushed—steady, light. He didn't apologize. Neither did she.
"Thank you," she said, as if the words were wrapped in the same neatness as the stacks.
"Compensation," he replied. "For turning down your auntie's niece."
"That wasn't my auntie."
"Tragic," he said, straight-faced. "We could've been family by dinner."
Her eyes curved. "We don't even have each other's preferred spice levels."
"Yours?"
"Moderate."
"Mine is brave in theory," he said. "Cowardly in practice."
"Honesty counts," she decided, standing with the last stack. "That's half a bowl of chili oil credit."
A child wandered past, stopped in front of Gu Ze Yan, and stared with open curiosity. "Are you on TV?" he asked. "My grandma says only famous people have eyebrows like that."
"Your grandma has good taste," Ze Yan said solemnly.
The child considered this, nodded like a man who'd struck a deal, and returned to the fish poster to negotiate with the trout again.
Outside, the uncles at the sidewalk chessboard craned to peer past the door. "Aiyo, look at that boy—movie star!" one whispered loudly.
"Hush," the other uncle said, even louder. "He's here to pick up the cashier. Don't disturb destiny."
Qing Yun's mouth tilted. Ze Yan adjusted his sleeve with a careful restraint that didn't fool either of them.
A small lull arrived. The mother paid. The child saluted the trout and was led out. The auntie circled once like a hopeful hawk and finally retreated with her cookbook. The shop exhaled.
Qing Yun returned to the counter and—without looking—reached for her book. Her fingers found Crime and Punishment like they'd been here a thousand times. She reopened to her slip of paper and read a few lines, lips moving silently.
"You read that… casually?" Ze Yan asked, somewhere between impressed and alarmed.
"It's relaxing," she said.
"Dostoevsky?"
She looked up, amused. "It keeps the rest of life feeling light."
He couldn't argue with that.
He wandered the shelves long enough to earn the right to be there, then brought two volumes to the counter—something on data ethics and a dry survey of algorithmic bias that even the cover knew wasn't fun.
"Company research?" she asked, scanning the codes.
"Something like that."
"Do you need a bag?"
"No."
"Receipt?"
"Yes."
She slid it across. Their fingers didn't touch this time. He felt the absence of the touch anyway, which annoyed him faintly and amused him more.
"Sunny," called the coworker from the back, "five minutes!"
"Okay!" she answered, then looked at Gu Ze Yan. "We close soon."
"Do you walk?" he asked, too casually to be casual.
"I take the bus," she said, almost apologetic, as if buses might personally offend him.
"Buses are democratic," he said. "I'm for democracy."
She tried not to smile and did an average job. "It's a long route."
"I have time."
She seemed about to say something, then shifted her bag strap over one shoulder. "Give me two minutes," she said. "I'll get my things."
While she disappeared into the little staff room, the chess uncles outside conferred urgently. "He's waiting," Uncle One announced. "It's fate."
"Or he missed his car," Uncle Two countered, practical.
"Don't ruin it with logic."
The bell chimed again as Lin Qing Yun returned in a light jacket, her book tucked into her bag. She hovered briefly behind the counter to straighten a pen that no one else had noticed was crooked, then nodded to him. "Let's go."
They stepped out into the night. The air tasted faintly of sugar syrup and damp stone. Neon from across the street painted half their faces a soft pink.
"Bus stop is around the corner," she said.
They walked side by side. Not close enough to touch, not far enough to be strangers. Their steps found the same rhythm without meaning to.
A delivery bike rattled past. A cat slunk under a parked car and regarded them like they'd interrupted important cat business. The chess uncles pretended not to stare and failed with heroic consistency.
"Do you read every night?" he asked.
"Enough nights."
"Dickens, Dostoevsky… anything cheerful in rotation?"
"Manuals," she said, deadpan. "How to operate espresso machines. Assembly instructions for flat-pack shelves. Inspirational receipts."
"Those are famous classics."
"They have happy endings if you follow directions."
He laughed—quiet, easy, the kind saved for late. "You read in English because…?"
"Because I planned to." She didn't elaborate. The words sat there, small and whole, like a pebble you didn't pick up.
"Planned to?"
"Go," she said, lightly. Then, before it could turn into something heavy, added, "But look, the bus is always on time when I'm late, and always late when I'm on time. Very consistent character."
"Buses are artists," he agreed. "They like to make an entrance."
The stop stood beneath a plane tree. Two high schoolers in matching jackets argued about homework and celebrity scandals with equal seriousness. A vendor pushed a cart of steamed sweet potatoes past, the lid clinking softly as he went.
They stood there, not talking for a little while, which felt less like silence than permission.
"You don't have to wait," she said finally, not looking at him.
"I know."
"Buses are crowded."
"I'm tall."
"Buses smell like fried dumplings sometimes."
"I like fried dumplings."
She glanced at him then, reluctant humor slipping free. "You'll regret it."
He tilted his head, the streetlight catching the smooth line of his cheekbone. "I'll regret not knowing where your bus goes."
"That's very dramatic for public transportation."
"I'm flexible."
A memory passed through him then—Xu Hao's voice from yesterday, smug and amused: Careful, brother. If you chase too hard, she'll run. The words drifted through and out again, like a song heard from a passing shop. He didn't reach for his phone. He didn't need a witness.
The bus turned the corner with a long sigh, headlights washing the street in white. It pulled up with a hiss. The doors folded open like a yawn.
Qing Yun nodded toward it. "Final warning. It gets loud."
"Then it matches my taste," he said.
She stepped on. He followed.
The doors closed behind them with a soft hydraulic certainty.