Be Passionately In Love

The streetlights and car headlights stretched the road into a hazy yellow glow, with neon lights flickering endlessly into the distance. A few more tables gradually filled the open-air food stalls, but business remained sluggish, conversations sparse and scattered.

Xu Zhi gave him a pointed look, silently asking, Well? Chen Luzhou withdrew his arm from the back of the chair, letting it hang by his side, while his other hand picked up the small teapot to pour her a cup, completely ignoring her desperate, pleading gaze. Frustrated, Xu Zhi grabbed his hand, shaking it and squeezing his palm without restraint.

His fingers closed around hers in response, warmth pressing against her skin, sending an inexplicable flutter through her chest. They rarely engaged in public displays of affection—either sneaking off to their secret spot for kisses or studying seriously in the library. Even after dating for so long, they had never properly held hands like this.

Under the table, his fingers slowly entwined with hers, deliberate and hidden. Her heartbeat quickened as he gently parted her fingers, sliding his own between them until their hands locked tightly together. Her palm burned, her head dizzy with warmth.

Chen Luzhou remained outwardly composed, his expression cool as he continued discussing the mathematical modeling competition with Li Ke, asking when the American contest was held. Only the occasional glance he threw her way carried a rare hint of mischief.

Xu Zhi dug her fingers into his arm, staring at him. Well?

He turned to meet her gaze. No.

Pouting, she pinched his palm. He merely watched her with detached amusement, as if daring her to do more. A silent, charged standoff unfolded between them.

Li Ke, having finished his crab, wiped his hands with a napkin and suddenly asked, "Xu Zhi, why did you decide to join the math competition all of a sudden? Isn’t your major already packed?"

Snapping back to attention, her hand still clasped in Chen Luzhou’s, she replied, "Professor Wang suggested I give it a try. I thought he’d be participating too, but I guess you guys aren’t interested?"

Li Ke chuckled. "Not that we’re not interested—it’s just that someone here has limited energy to spare. He says dating takes up a lot of it."

Xu Zhi shot Chen Luzhou a skeptical look. "Am I draining your energy?"

Just then, the waiter arrived with their dishes. Clearing his throat, Chen Luzhou stacked the empty plates and handed them over, arranging the new dishes in the center before saying, "No, don’t listen to his nonsense."

Li Ke didn’t press further. "Just think it over. If you’re aiming for scholarships or grad school, your current state won’t cut it."

Xu Zhi nibbled on the crab meat Chen Luzhou had peeled for her, then abruptly said, "Li Ke, don’t pressure him. He knows his limits." She picked up a piece of crab leg from her bowl, dipped it in vinegar, and held it to Chen Luzhou’s lips. "Want some? I’ll peel it for you."

Their other hands remained tightly intertwined beneath the table.

Peel it? He’d have to let go of her hand to do so. His gaze lingered on her.

Xu Zhi seemed to guess his hesitation, her smile smug. "Use your mouth. It’s a special skill."

The two across from them fell into stunned silence: "…………"

That night, Zhu Yangqi posted on his social media:

[Some people hold hands secretly while eating crab. Some people stab their tongues with crab shells. I won’t name names, but just wait till I get a girlfriend—I’ll outdo you all. Doge.jpg]

Li Ke also made a post:

[Serious question—how many months does the honeymoon phase actually last?] As soon as Zhu Yangqi posted that WeChat Moment, it was practically a semi-official announcement. Most people had already guessed anyway—after all, he was Chen Luzhou’s closest friend. The comments instantly surged, mostly from girls harboring those indescribably complicated teenage emotions. Zhu Yangqi couldn’t help but feel a pang of sympathy for them, especially those cautiously probing yet too afraid to mention his name outright.

[Does he really have a girlfriend now?]

Zhu Yangqi replied: [Yeah.]

After sending the reply, Zhu Yangqi sat in the taxi and thought: Xu Zhi is so lucky.

Then it occurred to him—Chen Luzhou was lucky too. Xu Zhi had the figure, the looks, the brains, none of that pretentiousness, and she always had his back.

Finally, he sighed deeply—They’re both so damn lucky—

The unlucky one is me.

Fuck.

The lucky ones still ended up at a hotel.

Xu Zhi had already booked the room in advance. When she pulled out the keycard from her bag to swipe it, Chen Luzhou’s gaze turned particularly meaningful. "You booked it early just to wait for me? A gift? Or am I the gift here?"

Beep. The door unlocked. Xu Zhi didn’t let him in, saying instead, "Wait here for a sec."

Chen Luzhou froze for a moment. Dressed head-to-toe in black, his tall, lean figure stood casually by the door, hands in his pockets, tone slightly cocky. "What for?"

Xu Zhi’s clear, straightforward eyes peeked through the crack of the door, smiling ambiguously at him. "I’m preparing something."

The door shut in his face.

Naturally, Chen Luzhou’s mind wandered to less-than-wholesome places. Given his extensive "film-watching" experience, couples in the early stages of dating often couldn’t wait to explore each other’s physical pleasures. He and Xu Zhi would inevitably reach that point too. But they weren’t even twenty yet—strictly speaking, they’d just turned nineteen this year. Some adult indulgences, honestly, he wasn’t in a hurry to experience.

So he wasn’t particularly patient. Leaning against the corridor wall, his eyes swept the empty hallway as he absentmindedly tapped the wall twice with his knuckle. "Quit messing around. Open the door."

Another two minutes passed before Xu Zhi finally opened the door. She hadn’t changed her clothes, just taken off her coat—now tossed haphazardly over the sofa—and swapped into slippers.

With nowhere else to sit, Chen Luzhou perched on the edge of the coffee table, tossing his phone aside before pulling her over. "What were you doing in there?"

Xu Zhi looked down at him. "Preparing a surprise for you."

Chen Luzhou glanced around skeptically. "Where is it?"

"It’s inside. You can’t see it yet."

Naturally, his mind went there again. He coughed. "Don’t make this dirty."Yet, in the blink of an eye, she somehow produced a cake and placed it on the coffee table. Now kneeling on the carpet, she focused intently on lighting the candles with a lighter. The overhead light was off, leaving only a small wall lamp on, stretching her shadow long and light as a feather against the carpet. The flickering candlelight danced across her face, casting a warm golden hue over her naturally cool, pale skin, softening her features to an almost unreal beauty. Xu Zhi wore only a snugly fitted sweater that accentuated her delicate frame—slender shoulders, a graceful back, and curves that invited the imagination. Seemingly unaware, she knelt there with gentle determination, steadily lighting the candles while smiling up at him. "Hmm? What did you say?"

Chen Luzhou sat on the coffee table, arms crossed, watching her quietly. A turbulent tide surged within him, restless and uncontainable, like fish leaping uncontrollably from water. The invisible fish multiplied, darting up and down in his heart, stirring emotions he could no longer suppress. But in that moment, only one thought remained: Thank goodness I didn’t leave.

Once the candles were lit, Xu Zhi pushed the cake toward him, resting her arms on the table as she carefully shielded the fragile flames. "Boyfriend, make a wish," she urged.

But he wasn’t listening. Without a word, he leaned down and blew out the candles.

"You didn’t even make a wish—"

Still kneeling, she looked up just as his shadow loomed over her. His lips sealed hers, his hand cradling the back of her head, forcing her to tilt her face up as his familiar presence enveloped her.

The room was silent, save for the increasingly fervent sounds of their kiss—soft at first, then growing louder, more insistent, as if even the summer cicadas couldn’t drown it out, nor the first snow of winter halt its course.

Under the flickering light, their shadows tangled like snowflakes, drifting weightlessly onto the carpet, never parting.

"It’s snowing!" A guest in the hotel—perhaps from the south—shouted excitedly in the hallway, urging companions to come see the year’s first snowfall.

Inside, the two remained undisturbed, lost in their kiss, eyes closed.

At some point, Chen Luzhou had shed his jacket, pressing her against the edge of the sofa. One hand braced against the cushion as he kissed her deeply, wordlessly, while the air between them burned like a small fireball, thick with heat. His other hand traced a teasing path from her ear, down her jaw, neck, collarbone… Everywhere his fingers grazed sent electric currents through Xu Zhi, leaving her scalp tingling and her spine shuddering.

Sparks ignited everywhere. The air was thick with ragged breaths.

Lost in the delirium, Xu Zhi’s consciousness teetered on the edge until a sharp pinch at her waist jolted her. "Where is it?"

"On the desk," she answered instinctively.

Chen Luzhou scooped her up, carried her to the bed, and dropped a quick kiss before rising to retrieve it.

But on the desk sat only a square cake box.

No condom in sight.

He had meant to buy one earlier, but Xu Zhi had said it wasn’t necessary. He assumed she had brought one.

"Nothing here," he muttered after a quick search.

Xu Zhi lazily gestured toward the cake box with her chin. "Open it. It’s inside."Chen Luzhou lifted the lid of the cake box, and Xu Zhi got out of bed barefoot, walking over to say, "I deliberately bought a cake box of a similar size. Otherwise, this thing would stand out no matter where you put it. You’d have noticed it easily."

Only then did Chen Luzhou realize this was a gift for him. It was about the size of an eight-inch cake, square in shape—a miniature model of a Western-style house made entirely of wood, using mortise and tenon joints without a single nail. The precision of the joints was crucial; if even one wooden lock didn’t fit, the entire structure wouldn’t hold together. Chen Jishen once had a friend who started as a carpenter and later founded a large construction company. He’d said that among all the structural techniques in architecture, mortise and tenon joints were the most intricate and time-consuming, yet also the sturdiest. The model had four floors, complete with a small garden of green grass beside it. She must have made it by hand. Just the design alone would have taken considerable effort, and with such a large-scale project, it might have taken her one or two months to complete.

A card was tucked beside it.

Chen Luzhou picked it up, the handwriting elegant and neat.

"To six-year-old Chen Luzhou:

Nineteen-year-old Chen Luzhou has nineteen-year-old Xu Zhi by his side. This gift is for six-year-old Chen Luzhou."

Author's note: Happy birthday, Chen Jiaojiao.