When Gu Ze Yan pulled up beside Qing Yun's building, the windshield wipers made a soft metronome, clicking away the mist.
The metal gate buzzed its tired greeting. Upstairs, laundry swayed like sleepy flags.
"We're here," he said, killing the engine. Warm air pooled, lingering as they stepped out into the cold.
"Thank you for the ride." Qing Yun's tone was courteous—the kind you used for a helpful stranger—until Si Yao hooked an arm through hers and ruined the distance entirely.
"Jiejie," Si Yao whispered, already grinning, "let's invite him up for tea. It's freezing. And I still have three questions about neural networks."
Qing Yun hesitated, the polite refusal ready. "It's late. Mr. Gu should rest."
"I can rest after tea," Ze Yan answered simply, picking up a netted bag of mandarin tangerines from the back seat. "And I bought these. Would be a shame to let them catch a cold in the car."
From the second-floor balcony, Auntie Zhu's voice descended like stage narration. "Sunny! Back so late? Aiyo—who's that—oh! It's the handsome one! Bring him up for tea!"
Qing Yun exhaled a small laugh of surrender. "The committee has spoken."
"The committee is wise," Ze Yan agreed solemnly.
They went in. The stairwell breathed a mix of laundry detergent and last night's dinners; the bulb flickered, remembered his pride, then held steady.
Qing Yun's door was on the third floor: a plain metal sheet with a tiny red paper charm still taped from last New Year. Inside, the apartment unfolded in careful squares—small, clean, lived-in. A two-seat sofa with a knitted blanket, a low table edged smooth by dutiful wiping, a single electric heater shouldering the season, a narrow shelf lined with textbooks and battered paperbacks in both Chinese and English. Everything had a place. Everything was used.
"Shoes here," Qing Yun said. "Slippers are mismatched—choose your destiny."
Si Yao darted in first, chucking her backpack onto the chair, already reciting: "Question one—how does a model 'learn' without being told the rules? Question two—if I want to apply next year, should I join math or physics Olympiad? Question three—how do you not fall asleep reading research papers?"
"You eat hotpot while reading," Ze Yan said, slipping into one yellow, one blue slipper. "The danger of splashing increases attention."
"Unscientific," Qing Yun sniffed, but her mouth was smiling. She plugged in the kettle, steam seamed the cold. "Tea or hot water?"
"Tea, please," he said. "And I brought these." He set the bag of tangerines on the table. Their skin glowed faintly under the lamp—winter suns, easy to peel.
"Thank you," she said. The thanks was simple, without ceremony. She rinsed three porcelain cups—hairline cracks like river maps—and set them on the table. The kettle clicked off with a little victory sound. She poured. The room's damp softened.
They sat—Qing Yun on the sofa, Ze Yan on the edge of the single chair, Si Yao tucked at the table with a notebook already open. Outside, the hallway radio someone had left on murmured an old song. The heater hummed like a patient cat.
"Okay," Si Yao declared. "Begin."
He began.
Not as a CEO. As a patient older brother—steady voice, sleeves pushed to the forearms, pen in hand when her notebook migrated to his side. He drew tiny boxes and arrows, wrote "data → pattern → guess → correction," then underlined correction twice.
"So it's like practicing piano," Si Yao said, eyes bright. "Wrong note, fix it. Wrong again, fix it better."
"Exactly." He peeled a tangerine clean in one spiral and divided the sections into three small plates—two he slid toward the sisters without comment. "The trick is knowing what 'better' means."
"Metrics," she said, quick as a match. "Loss function."
He grinned. "You read ahead."
"Of course," she said, glowing under her sister's proud glance.
Qing Yun watched them with the look of someone who had spent years smoothing the world for a younger person and, just this once, was allowed to rest a little. She refilled cups, pushed the softer dumpling of tofu from the clay pot leftovers toward Si Yao, then noticed the window's draft and shifted the heater two inches left. The movement was intimate with the room, not the people; she moved like someone who knew what everything needed.
"About studying abroad," Si Yao ventured, voice smaller, "is it… really possible for me?"
"It's possible," he said, no hesitation, as if naming gravity. "Grades. Essays. Proof that you can make broken computers listen."
"She can," Qing Yun said softly, surprising herself.
"I'll try," Si Yao said, already opening her phone to set a reminder titled "Make broken computers listen by spring." She wrote it without irony.
They ate tangerines between concepts. The segments burst sharp and sweet; their fingers glossed. The heater hummed on. The room felt like a small harbor with light.
"Question three," Si Yao yawned, valiantly pretending she wasn't. "How to not fall asleep reading papers?"
"You don't," he said. "You choose good teammates."
Her pen paused. "Teammates?"
"People who can wake you up." His eyes slid, almost lazily, toward Qing Yun. "With tea."
She caught the glance, rolled her eyes, but the corner of her mouth gave her away. "Flattery doesn't raise GPAs."
"It raises morale," he said.
"Morale raises GPAs," Si Yao mumbled, but the words blurred—the sleepiness finally ambushed. She made it two more lines before folding like a paper crane over the notebook.
Qing Yun's movements turned feather-soft. She lifted the notebook away, eased a small pillow under her sister's head, tugged the knitted blanket from the sofa to cover her up to the chin. She smoothed the stray hair at her temple—twice, automatically.
Ze Yan watched and didn't speak. The space between them filled with the quiet, practical holiness of care.
When she sat back down, their voices lowered without coordination.
"Thank you for humoring her," she said.
"I wasn't humoring her," he answered. "I was having fun."
Qing Yun looked unconvinced and pleased at the same time. "She'll talk your ear off."
"I like being talked to," he said, lightly. "It saves me from talking too much."
She huffed a soft laugh. "Impossible."
They drank the last of the tea. The heater clicked to a smaller hum. Somewhere above, a neighbor dragged a chair; somewhere below, a kettle boiled. The city outside continued, softened to a rumor.
He noticed, by the shelf, a thin folder labeled in careful print: "Si Yao—Scholarship—Deadlines." Another with "Exam Fees," and beside that, an envelope fat with neat receipts. No elaboration. Just a life kept upright with tidy columns.
He didn't speak of it. But he put the image somewhere it wouldn't get lost.
"I'll drive her back to the dorm tomorrow night," he said, like suggesting they pick up soy milk on the way. "If that's okay."
"It's… not necessary."
"That wasn't the question," he said, tone so gentle it slid the refusal's teeth out.
She looked toward her sister—the even breath, the blanket rise and fall. "Okay," she said at last.
He stood, because leaving was the correct thing to do when a small apartment had turned into a blanket. At the door he hesitated, then reached for the loose hinge pin notched wrong on the frame and nudged it in. The squeak softened.
"You keep fixing things," she said.
"Only the ones that ask nicely," he replied. He put on his mismatched slippers again by accident; she noticed, exchanged one with her own, and now they were both mismatched in new ways. They laughed like conspirators.
He stepped into the stairwell's cool. The heater's warmth fell away, but something else lingered.
"Good night, Mr. Gu," she said at the threshold, voice low so as not to wake the sleeping.
He considered the distance in the title, then let it stand and crossed it another way. "Good night, Lin Qing Yun."
Her eyes lifted—just a little—at the full name. For a heartbeat, the practiced brightness she wore at the shop wasn't anywhere near her face. What lived there instead was softer. Unarmored.
"Good night… Ze Yan." The way she said it was careful and warm, as if she were setting a cup where it wouldn't spill.
He went down the stairs with his hands in his pockets, listening to the building breathe. On the second-floor landing, Auntie Zhao's door creaked; her head peeked out like a moon.
"Well?" she hissed, delighted. "Tea?"
"Tea," he confirmed, deadpan.
"Good! Tomorrow I give you peanuts to nourish feelings."
"Thank you, Auntie," he said gravely, and the door shut on a muffled cackle.
Outside, the damp night folded around him again. He paused at the gate, looked up. In her window, a small rectangle of light glowed. A silhouette crossed once—the height of someone tucking a blanket, setting a cup, turning a page. He stood there until the light clicked off, the way one waits for the last lantern to steady.
His phone buzzed. A new message, short:
Qing Yun: Thank you for today. And for the tangerines.
He typed and erased, typed again, didn't send anything grand.
Ze Yan: Get some rest. I'll text before I come by tomorrow.
Three dots appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again.
Qing Yun: Okay.
He slipped the phone away and smiled to himself, something boyish and unreasonable.
Upstairs, in the small apartment, Si Yao turned in her sleep and murmured, half-dreaming: "Jiejie… study abroad… tangerines…"
Qing Yun tucked the blanket higher, sat on the edge of the sofa for a moment, and touched the warm rim of the empty tea cup. Outside, a car door shut softly. The night held steady.
Down on the street, Gu Ze Yan looked at the gate's bulb—the old brave thing—and decided he'd bring a new one tomorrow. Not because the committee would approve. Because he wanted this staircase, this door, this little harbor, to be a little kinder when winter came again.