Li Zhou · Chat

The midsummer heat was sultry and sticky, and the evening breeze rolled through the window with scorching warmth. The whole house was so quiet that nothing remained but the swelling and ebbing chirp of cicadas, so clamorous it unsettled the heart. The girl curled up in the bedding, weak and limp all over, dull heavy pain sinking through her lower abdomen in wave after wave. Her period had come without warning. She bit her lip and swallowed the surging discomfort by sheer will, instinctively not daring to make a sound. She had long since learned to hide every bit of her weakness away, unwilling to trouble anyone — and least of all wanting that person to see her in such a sorry state. But from beyond the silent door, there still came a knock — extremely soft, exquisitely measured. Two knocks, low and restrained. Li Zhou's signature rhythm. The man's voice outside the door was clear and cool, carrying the uniquely ascetic quality of a scholar, proper in every measure and beyond reproach: "Still awake?" The girl stiffened and answered in a hoarse voice: "...No." The door was pushed open gently. Dim, shallow moonlight spilled in and fell upon Li Zhou. He stood tall and clean-limbed, with crisp, lean shoulders, wearing a neat light-colored house shirt, thin-framed glasses resting on the bridge of his nose. His features were handsome and cold, his skin the pale ivory bred of years of quiet study. In the eyes of others, he was always steady, rational, and proper — gentle yet distant, the most dignified and well-mannered young man. Only the girl knew the forbearance and obsession hidden beneath his eyes, illegible to everyone else. Li Zhou's steps were feather-light, as if he feared disturbing her in the slightest. In one palm he carried a cup of brown-sugar ginger tea at exactly the right temperature; in the other, a warm heat pack — both heated in advance. He walked to the bedside, his gaze settling on her pallid face and tightly knit brows. In the cold clarity of his eyes, a sliver of pain flickered past in an instant, then was forcibly pressed down as he returned to his usual calm. "Stomach hurts?" He asked it flatly, like the most proper form of concern — aloof and decorous. The girl's cheeks flushed, and she nodded in embarrassment: "A little." Li Zhou lowered his eyes, placed the ginger tea into her palm, his fingertips scrupulously avoiding all contact, and lowered his voice further: "Drink it while it's hot. It won't burn." He was too attentive, too restrained. He silently committed all her habits to memory — that she feared pain, feared spice, feared troubling others — and kept them sealed away, year after year, without a single leak. The girl held the warm cup, the heat spreading up through her fingertips, and couldn't help looking up at him. The young man stood in the shadowed moonlight, his features gentle and ascetic, wrapped in the distance and restraint he had upheld for so long. But only he himself knew. In this stifling, unbearable bitter summer, the bottom line of reason he had maintained for years was cracking apart, bit by bit. He held back his pounding heart, held back his desire, held back every selfish impulse to cross the line, guarding her side in the most proper role he could — afraid to draw close, unwilling to draw away. "Drink it, lie down, and let it warm you for a while." Li Zhou's voice was low, restrained almost to coldness. "If it hurts badly, call me anytime." Outside the window, the cicadas sang without end; the summer night was scorching and long. He watched the fragile, enduring girl on the bed, and the affection hidden for years — the love that could never see the light — ran wild in the sweltering evening breeze. Li Zhou had kept every rule, every code of decorum, every measure of propriety in his life. The only exception was this summer — and her.