Chapter 1

Shuangyun Liang had been observing the Chinese man at the neighboring table for a while now. Her friends were making a noisy fuss celebrating Linwen Lu's birthday, but her attention had long since drifted away.
Linwen Lu caught her eye and asked if she'd had too much to drink.
"Seems like it," she said, her eyes slightly squinting—whether from laughter or slight intoxication, it was hard to tell.
The pub was quite noisy. Linwen still wore the birthday hat his friends had made for him. He took it off and smoothed his hair, only to notice Shuangyun's gaze had wandered elsewhere again.
They weren't sitting close. Linwen was a typical rich second-generation international student, so naturally he had many enthusiastic friends. For his birthday, he'd invited a whole crowd, which gave him the courage to also invite Shuangyun, whom he wasn't particularly close with. But she wasn't exactly eager either—she'd waited until everyone else had taken their seats before sitting down in a spot further away.
He'd just said one thing to her, and she'd already turned her face away to look somewhere else.
Linwen stopped staring at her, but he was indeed distracted when talking to others.
Beautiful. She was so beautiful.
Just as Shuangyun was thinking at that moment: handsome. He was so handsome.
The neighboring table originally had two men and one woman drinking. Shuangyun had glanced over while drinking and spotted that man. It was obvious he was the third wheel at that table, because the other man and woman had just left together to go somewhere else.
Shuangyun was definitely a bit drunk, but even when she wasn't drunk, she would look at him just as unabashedly as she was now.
She knew why Linwen had invited her to his birthday party. She wasn't the type of woman to pretend she didn't know she was beautiful. On the contrary, Shuangyun was very aware of her advantages. She maintained a fitness routine, ate healthily, applied makeup appropriately, and wore nice clothes.
She dressed herself beautifully, she liked others to think she was beautiful, and she knew she was beautiful.
And she also liked beautiful things—like the man at the neighboring table.
From the moment he'd entered, he'd been out of place with the pub's atmosphere. When drinking, he wasn't relaxed. His body didn't sway to the music like everyone else's, but instead sat somewhat stiffly against the backrest. Yet his legs were slightly parted, like some kind of extremely stable structure. Thinking about this, Shuangyun raised her glass and moistened her lips.
"Shuangyun, want to play?" Linwen called her name again. "Truth or Dare."
Shuangyun cheerfully set down her glass. "Let's do it."
She didn't like Truth or Dare—it was such a cliché game, just meant to stir up an ambiguous atmosphere.
At the table, a few people knew Linwen liked her and deliberately spun the bottle toward her.
Shuangyun accepted with a smile.
"Truth or Dare?" her friends laughed and egged her on.
Shuangyun: "Dare."
"Then—"
Before her friends could finish, Shuangyun stood up and leaned toward them, whispering, "I'm going to ask a stranger for their WeChat."
Her friends' gazes turned to the neighboring table as Shuangyun confidently walked over.
She always needed a reason, after all.
Shuangyun walked to the neighboring table, placed one hand on the edge of the table in front of the man, and tilted her head slightly to look at him. "Hello, I'm Shuangyun Liang."
She'd just heard these three people conversing in Chinese, so she spoke to him directly in Chinese.
The man looked up at her, as calm as Shuangyun had expected.
Just looking at her, with no expression at all.
Like. She really liked it.
She liked men who were this calm.
"Sorry, I lost a game with my friends. I need to get your WeChat to avoid punishment." Shuangyun's eyes were full of apology, and she blinked at him as if pleading.
He should be able to smell her perfume by now, right?
Shuangyun felt she was close enough.
"I don't add strangers on WeChat," he said.
Shuangyun smiled.
Like. She really liked it.
She liked men who rejected her like this.
"Then can I sit here for a minute? Just to pretend I completed the task. My English isn't good, so I don't dare ask locals."
The man looked at her again, as if trying to determine whether she was telling the truth.
Shuangyun was about to say something more when he nodded.
"You can sit, but not for too long. My friends will be back soon."
"Okay, thank you!" Shuangyun glanced at her friends who were watching her, then smiled and sat down.
He wasn't looking at her, still maintaining his previous posture as he took a sip of his drink. On the stage not far away, someone was performing, and the scattered neon lights shifted across his face.
Up close, Shuangyun could see his face and build more clearly.
Broad, straight shoulders, an expansive frame. High brow bones that made his eye sockets deep. He wore brown-black glasses on the bridge of his nose, but the lenses were very thin. His outfit was clean and simple—just a plain black T-shirt with no other colors.
He looked very intelligent.
The phrase "hot nerd" popped into Shuangyun's mind.
"Are you a teacher?" she suddenly asked.
The man's gaze turned to her. "Why do you ask?"
Shuangyun smiled. "You're a teacher."
His gaze finally truly landed on Shuangyun's face. "Yes and no."
"I knew it."
Her smile carried a hint of cunning, but she had indeed guessed correctly.
He asked her, "Are you here to hit on me?"
Shuangyun moved closer to the table, closer to him.
The lighting was dim, but the small lamp on the table happened to illuminate Shuangyun's face. She'd had quite a bit to drink, so her gaze wasn't very focused, like mist scattered over a river, making people want to look deeper.