Be Passionately In Love

After that, Chen Luzhou didn’t reply again, nor did he accept the money. Xu Zhi placed her phone on the table and stared at it for a while, but there was still no movement.

The streets were bustling with crowds, and every stall had a steady stream of customers. The air was thick with mingling scents—stinky tofu, snail rice noodles… The entire street felt greasy and chaotic, as if drenched in oil, with even conversations seeming to sputter with oily droplets. It was enough to make one wish for a giant exhaust hood to suck it all away in one go.

Xu Zhi had no appetite.

Feng Jin and Cai Yingying had ordered two bowls of sour and spicy noodles but only took a couple of slurps before pushing them aside. Unwilling to give up, Feng Jin excitedly went to pack a bowl of butter tea. After one sip, he immediately spat it out. “Damn, if I hadn’t tasted real butter tea in Tibet, I’d have thought this was just how bad it’s supposed to taste. No wonder when I went to Tibet last time, the tour guide complained that many tourists had tried fake butter tea elsewhere and assumed the real thing was just as awful. They refused to drink it at first, only to realize later that the stuff sold in food streets is a scam. Real butter tea has a sweet aftertaste. What the hell is this? Tastes like my dad’s Da Hong Pao tea.”

“Really?” Cai Yingying couldn’t tell the difference. To her, it just tasted saltier than regular tea, with a harsh, astringent flavor that made her thirstier the more she drank. She took another small sip from Feng Jin’s bowl. “Hey, is Tibet fun?”

Feng Jin found Cai Yingying a bit carefree and straightforward. Seeing that she didn’t mind sharing his bowl, he stopped feeling awkward. He’d seen it all—once, during a trip, he’d even shared a tent with a female backpacker out of necessity. It was purely survival; otherwise, he might’ve frozen to death on the mountain.

“Of course! What about you? Do you like traveling?” Feng Jin shot back.

Cai Yingying grinned. “Yeah, who doesn’t? But my dad won’t let me go too far. So, growing up, Xu Zhi and I barely left the province. The only times I’ve been abroad were tagging along on my dad’s business trips.”

Dean Cai was always busy with work. In earlier years, he traveled all over the world, but these days, he couldn’t step away from his responsibilities. He also didn’t trust Cai Yingying to travel alone, so during holidays, he’d either send her to cram school or dump her at Fu Yuqing’s mountain retreat to escape the heat.

Xu Zhi was the same—she’d hardly ever left S Province. But while Cai Yingying’s restrictions were imposed, Xu Zhi’s were self-imposed. Traveling was just too expensive.

Feng Jin perked up at the topic. Putting down his bowl, an idea struck him, and he couldn’t hold back. “I’ve got this friend—and I swear this isn’t a ‘friend of a friend’ story—he’s actually a buddy of my good pal. He’s into photography too. I’ll introduce him to you guys next time. He’s legit—his photos were published in magazines as early as high school, and one set even made it into National Geographic. Plus, after his last trip to Tibet, the city TV station aired his footage of Hoh Xil completely unedited.”

Cai Yingying was impressed, but only one thought crossed her mind: “Is he hot?”

Feng Jin wanted to say, if you’re asking that, you’ve come to the right person. If this guy wasn’t considered handsome, then hardly anyone was. He’d been the school heartthrob since childhood, with admirers hanging off him like clusters of grapes under a vine.

“Hot? Oh, absolutely,” Feng Jin teased, still keeping some mystery.Cai Yingying was half-convinced and took another sip of butter tea. She warmed up to people quickly and was already completely open with Feng Jin. "Ah, forget it. The kind of handsome you guys think is probably different from what we girls consider handsome."

Feng Jin misunderstood. "Got it, you like those little idols."

"We like little idols too, but recently my taste has been... corrected by a handsome guy. Not exactly corrected, more like my standards have been raised," Cai Yingying said, gazing at the endless street. It was now completely dark, and the streets were getting crowded with people and buzzing mosquitoes. She waved them away and sighed dramatically. "Now everyone seems a bit... lacking. Scary, really. If this keeps up, I might never find a boyfriend."

As soon as she finished speaking, Xu Zhi's phone on the table buzzed—a message from the very culprit responsible for her raised standards.

Chen Luzhou: In Linshi?

Xu Zhi: Yeah.

Chen Luzhou: At the food street?

Seeing this, Xu Zhi instinctively looked around. Though the place was packed, she knew at a glance he wasn’t here. He was easy to spot—the tallest and fairest in any crowd.

Xu Zhi: How’d you know?

Chen Luzhou: Cai Yingying’s WeChat Moments.

Xu Zhi: Oh.

Chen Luzhou: Should I come find you?

Chen Luzhou: Let’s talk in person.

This surprised Xu Zhi. She’d expected Chen Luzhou to reply with just a couple of texts at most.

Xu Zhi: It’s crowded here, and the environment isn’t great. Kinda noisy.

Chen Luzhou: Then you pick a place.

Xu Zhi immediately searched for nearby cafés on a review app, only to stumble upon a complaint in the comments: "Everything’s great, but the lighting’s so dim I couldn’t even see his face." If she couldn’t see his face and only had to listen to him talk, she might just feel like hitting him. She had to be cautious—he could be insufferable sometimes.

Assuming Chen Luzhou hadn’t eaten dinner yet, Xu Zhi browsed through the app for a while before settling on a restaurant—a famous stir-fry joint in Linshi, mainly because the lighting was blindingly bright. Unlike in Qingyi, even popular spots in Linshi didn’t have long queues. By the time Xu Zhi arrived, the place had just filled up, and she only had to wait for one table—far more convenient than back home.

This was the city center, the most bustling part of Linshi. The area was expansive, with towering skyscrapers piercing through the clouds. Cars packed the streets, their headlights flickering in the night like an endless dragon stretching into the unknown. A canal ran north to south, its murmuring waters flowing beneath a long bridge beside the flood embankment.

The city’s layout felt unfamiliar. Even the most recognizable convenience stores were scarce. Wedged in the bustling crowd, Xu Zhi heard nothing but the local dialect—a language entirely foreign to her.

Xu Zhi had never traveled far alone before. Either Old Xu or Old Cai had always accompanied her, and she and Cai Yingying were rarely apart. This was her first time venturing solo into an unfamiliar city, an unfamiliar environment, to meet someone who was practically a stranger—and a man, no less.

At heart, she was still an 18- or 19-year-old girl. No matter how bold Xu Zhi was, or how much she’d learned to suppress certain emotions over the past two years, this was a first. Her heart pounded like a restless rabbit, and a nervous tension—the kind that made her blood rush—slowly spread from deep within.So, when Chen Luzhou's tall and striking figure appeared across the street, Xu Zhi—who hadn’t even found a bus stop in this unfamiliar, nondescript city—suddenly felt an unprecedented sense of belonging.

The stir-fry restaurant was by the roadside, next to the busiest intersection in the entire city. Chen Luzhou was dressed simply in all black, as usual. With his good build, he stood out no matter what he wore, so attracting glances was nothing new. A black baseball cap still sat atop his head as he waited at the crosswalk for the traffic light.

"......"

"......"

The moment they sat down, an awkward silence settled between them. Xu Zhi pretended to study the menu, while Chen Luzhou exchanged a few words with the waiter—asking where the restroom was, then whether they had a charging station, since his phone always seemed to be dead whenever he went out. It had been too long since they’d last met, and they weren’t particularly close to begin with. But Xu Zhi had started things off by sending him a 250-yuan red envelope to "pay for his company," which probably made the whole situation even more awkward now. Either way, he didn’t initiate conversation with her.

When he returned from the restroom, it was Xu Zhi who finally broke the strange stalemate. "Want a drink?"

Chen Luzhou dropped the act too, slouching lazily in his chair with one arm draped loosely over the back of the seat beside him. He reached out for the drinks menu in her hand. "Wondered how long you’d hold out. If I don’t speak, you won’t either?"

Xu Zhi handed him the menu. "Then why didn’t you say anything?"

He took it and skimmed leisurely, his tone dripping with sarcasm. "Isn’t this a paid chat? If the boss doesn’t talk, what’s there for me to say?"

"You didn’t even accept the 250."

"Calling me an idiot?" Chen Luzhou shot her a sidelong glance.

Xu Zhi smirked triumphantly. "Weren’t you the one who called me that first?"

Chen Luzhou’s lips quirked in response as he nodded absently at the menu. "Fine. You really hold a grudge, huh? Gotta get payback for everything? Still don’t believe that night was really just 250?"

Even when they first added each other on WeChat, she always found a way to throw his words back at him at the perfect moment.

"Whatever. Tonight’s the 250, anyway," Xu Zhi said, eager to drop the subject. "How long are you staying here?"

"Want some draft beer?" he asked.

Xu Zhi nodded.

Chen Luzhou handed the menu back to her, letting her order the rest. He took a sip of the water the waiter had poured earlier before answering her earlier question. "Two or three days. What about you? How long are you planning to stay?"

"I’m not here for fun," Xu Zhi said, looking straight at him.

Chen Luzhou remembered. "Oh, right. The food review?"

"I don’t think I can make money off this."

Chen Luzhou guessed why she’d reached out to him—it was probably about this. Still lounging with his arm over the neighboring chair, he didn’t even need her to explain. "There’s no ‘can’ or ‘can’t.’ It’s just whether you want to or not. It’s not that hard. If you don’t want to, go home. If you do, go home and write the damn article."

"What about you? Zhu Yangqi said you took on a job here."

Chen Luzhou hummed in confirmation. The waiter brought out an appetizer, which he pushed toward Xu Zhi, motioning for her to eat first. He tilted his chin slightly. "Interested?"

Bored out of her mind, Xu Zhi pulled two pairs of chopsticks from the holder, handing one to him. After a moment’s thought, she asked, "Can I come take a look with you?"No, Chen Luzhou thought to himself. If you come to watch, I’ll get distracted.

His expression indifferent, he lowered his eyelids and took the chopsticks from her hand, mechanically picking up a piece of jellyfish and putting it in his mouth. The sour, tingling sensation lingered all the way down to his stomach before he finally spoke, "You have time?"

"Of course, plenty of it."

Xu Zhi nodded earnestly.

The restaurant was on the first floor, and their table by the window offered a view of the bustling traffic outside. The flood barrier was lit up, and the bridge sparkled with lights. Xu Zhi didn’t know that this street was Xianyu Road, the most romantic street in the city, bordered by a cherry blossom grove. The grove had become the economic lifeline of the entire city, prompting the government to focus on developing this street in recent years—even the trash bins were shaped like hearts. It had trended online, drawing tourists from all over. Now, couples holding hands and strolling down the street were everywhere.

Chen Luzhou knew this, so when he casually glanced outside and saw a couple taking selfies with a heart-shaped trash bin while kissing, he didn’t bat an eye.

The photos must not have turned out well, because the girl wasn’t satisfied. She pulled her boyfriend in for another kiss. After repeating this four or five times, she finally left contentedly, hand in hand with him.

Chen Luzhou had only one thought: They really don’t mind being watched.

"Chen Luzhou?"

"Hmm?"

He responded instinctively, slowly turning his head back.

Xu Zhi was direct, her tone inexplicably impatient, like a patron who’d paid for his time. "Was watching them kiss that interesting? I was talking to you—did you not hear me?"

Chen Luzhou: "…"

Listen to that tone. Doesn’t it sound like, I paid you to keep me company, and here you are zoning out?

After the meal—Chen Luzhou had barely eaten, having already had dinner before coming—he had to head back for another shoot. He’d been working until two or three in the morning every day lately, so this dinner was just a brief chance to see her. His phone had been buzzing with messages, but he hadn’t checked them.

"Are you really coming tomorrow?" he asked.

Xu Zhi asked the waiter for two takeout boxes to pack the leftover chicken legs and pork knuckles for Cai Yingying—poor thing, she probably hadn’t eaten anything good all day. "If it’s inconvenient, forget it. I just wanted to see what kind of job you took."

Chen Luzhou smiled at her, downing the last of his drink. "Fine. I’ll pick you up tomorrow morning. Remember to wear pants."

Xu Zhi was stunned. "…Why would you even remind me? When have you ever seen me not wearing pants?"

Chen Luzhou stood up to pay, flicking her forehead with his finger in exasperation. "…I meant, don’t wear a skirt."

Xu Zhi suddenly remembered something and put down the chopsticks she was using to pack the food. "Ah, Chen Luzhou!"

"Speak," he said, walking back.

She looked up at him towering over her, his eyes clearly saying, What now? but resigned nonetheless. "Yingying doesn’t eat green onions. I just sprinkled them all in. Can you ask the waiter if they have cilantro to mask the taste? She can’t eat green onions alone, but she can eat them with cilantro."

"Mm."When they were about to leave, Chen Luzhou asked the owner to prepare another portion of braised pork knuckles to take away. "If you get hungry later, just heat this up. I had the staff pack a separate portion for Cai Yingying."

Xu Zhi seemed a bit unsatisfied, probably because she hadn't eaten all day. She asked belatedly, "Did I eat too much just now?"

Chen Luzhou looked down at her with an amused expression, pointing at a little yellow dog devouring food nearby. "About the same as him."

Xu Zhi: "..."

The two stood by the entrance waiting for their takeout. From how Xu Zhi had been eating earlier, Chen Luzhou could tell she probably hadn't had much all day. The food at the snack street likely wasn't great—his photography team had gone there yesterday and complained about it all evening, ordering piles of skewers at 2 or 3 a.m.

But Xu Zhi was more concerned about something else. "Maybe I should ask the owner to fry some rice noodles too?"

Chen Luzhou leaned against the glass door of the shop, typing a WeChat message to his team. Hearing this, he glanced up at her playfully. "Been mining coal? Haven't seen you in days, and your appetite's grown."

Xu Zhi: "No, there were three of us. There's another photographer—a guy—who probably didn't eat much either."

"..."

Chen Luzhou gave a cold "oh," pocketing his phone without finishing the message.