As a member of the Quantum Computing Laboratory, Lin Zhixia volunteered to handle the reception duties. When she spotted Wei Ruoxing, she immediately ran over and introduced herself: "Hello, senior! I'm Lin Zhixia, a graduate of Provincial First High School, currently in my second year of university."
Wei Ruoxing smiled at her: "Hello there, junior."
Lin Zhixia responded cheerfully: "Senior."
Wei Ruoxing specialized in the field of Quantum Algorithms. During her undergraduate studies, she completed dual degrees in Mathematics and Computer Science. After graduation, Wei Ruoxing worked at IBM for a year before returning to academia as a student of the renowned Professor Jeffy.
Lin Zhixia had read all of Professor Jeffy's papers and published books. She was familiar with Wei Ruoxing's research topics. After just a few exchanges with Lin Zhixia, Wei Ruoxing regarded her with newfound respect: "Are you really just a second-year student?"
Lin Zhixia nodded: "I'm fifteen this year. I skipped grades."
Wei Ruoxing exclaimed in surprise: "What a clever junior!"
The university arranged a welcome banquet for Professor Jeffy and his team. Many teachers and students from the Physics Department attended the event. Professor Jeffy was seated next to Gu Likai, and the two engaged in pleasant conversation.
The spacious dining hall was brightly lit, filled with a harmonious atmosphere.
In such a formal setting, all male teachers and students wore full suits and ties - Tan Qianche being no exception.
Tonight, Tan Qianche wore a black suit with a white dress shirt underneath. He had fastened the top button and tied his tie meticulously, presenting an image of refined restraint.
Tan Qianche seemed like a different person. He frowned slightly, spoke infrequently, and occasionally glanced toward Wei Ruoxing, though she never returned his gaze.
After observing for some time, Yang Shuwen remarked with feeling: "Stop staring at her so miserably. Don't you just want to talk to her? Take my advice - go ask Lin Zhixia for help. She gets along well with Wei Ruoxing. Look how happily Wei Ruoxing is smiling."
Tan Qianche heaved a heavy sigh: "Why is Lin Zhixia always clinging to female PhD students."
Yang Shuwen attempted to analyze: "Well, Lin Zhixia knows how to address people properly - 'senior' this, 'senior' that. Don't be depressed. If she builds a good relationship with Wei Ruoxing, she might put in a good word for you..."
Tan Qianche remained silent. He picked up his wine glass and took a sip of red wine.
Some wine spilled from the rim of the glass, splashing onto his suit pants.
This suit was newly purchased, costing over ten thousand yuan, making Tan Qianche feel slightly distressed.
Clutching a napkin, he slowly wiped the stain on his leg, suddenly remembering when he was sixteen and both he and Wei Ruoxing were studying in the Olympiad class at Provincial First High. That evening, as dusk gradually fell, he was tutoring her in the classroom when she placed her hand on his leg. Her smile was beautiful - the setting sun knew it, the evening glow knew it, and he knew it too.
But he was powerless to change reality.
During their final year of high school, Wei Ruoxing decided to study abroad.
She called him to the school to break up with him. He was young then too, just eighteen, proud and arrogant. Not only did he show no reluctance, he even spoke harsh words to her.
He said that Wei Ruoxing's competition gold medal was achieved through his tutoring. He sincerely wished that Wei Ruoxing would be able to keep up with the curriculum at foreign schools, adding that no other boy would ever be willing to help her with the same dedication he had shown.Looking back on those words now, Tan Qianche cringes with embarrassment.
Who's to blame?
Only himself.
Back then, he was still a virgin—short-tempered, inexperienced, and lacking in communication skills.
Tan Qianche reflected on this while sipping his red wine. His peripheral gaze lingered on Lin Zhixia.
Lin Zhixia was discussing quantum algorithms with Wei Ruoxing.
Wei Ruoxing's latest paper involved "Shor's algorithm for integer factorization." Lin Zhixia gripped a chopstick and scribbled a function on the tablecloth. Following the steps of Shor's algorithm, she calculated the period of the modular exponentiation function. "I implemented the QFT circuit in Python and made it into an open-source package," she said. "Senior, take a look at my open-source package—it's not just limited to this one algorithm."
An "open-source package" referred to publicly available functional code.
Wei Ruoxing agreed, "Sure, where can I see it?"
"Right now?" Lin Zhixia pondered seriously. "You could come back to my dorm with me, or we could go to the computer lab—anywhere with a computer."
Wei Ruoxing glanced at Tan Qianche.
Tan Qianche's wineglass was empty. He held the stem between two fingers, the edges of his silver-framed glasses glinting faintly. His wandering gaze happened to meet hers.
Eager to escape tonight's banquet, she said bluntly, "Alright, let's go, Lin Zhixia."
Lin Zhixia thought her senior was deeply interested in her code.
Perfect!
Her ideas had earned her senior's approval!
She wanted to simulate a quantum programming language, open-source it online, and make it available for everyone to use. As the saying goes, many hands make light work—the more scholars researching quantum algorithms, the faster the field would progress.
Lin Zhixia excused herself from her advisor. Taking Wei Ruoxing's hand, she strode confidently out of the banquet hall.
And just like that, Lin Zhixia whisked away the senior she had just met.
Senior Wei wore a camel-colored dress with a long trench coat over it and a Burberry plaid scarf around her neck. Her skin was snow-white, her makeup understated, her features delicate and striking, exuding an innate air of quiet elegance.
Wei Ruoxing's demeanor bore some resemblance to Luo Ying's, though their personalities differed. Luo Ying was soft on the outside but tough inside—a needle hidden in silk. Wei Ruoxing, however, was gentle both inside and out, consistent through and through.
Lin Zhixia marveled inwardly—the seniors at Provincial No. 1 High School were each remarkable in their own way.
The night was pitch black, shadows flickering under the streetlights as a crisp northern wind blew toward them. Wei Ruoxing shivered. Clinging tightly to Lin Zhixia's arm, Lin Zhixia declared gallantly, "Senior, are you cold? I'll give you my coat."
Wei Ruoxing smiled and shook her head. Just as she was about to speak, warmth suddenly enveloped her back—someone had draped a black suit jacket over her shoulders. The jacket was pure black, made of fine worsted wool. She didn’t need to turn around to know who it belonged to.
She froze in place like a statue.
Then she heard Tan Qianche's voice: "You’ve been abroad these past few years—have you been well?"
Wei Ruoxing turned to face him. "I’ve been living life to the fullest," she replied. "And you?"Tan Qianche wore a white shirt and black suit pants. His cuffs were already undone, revealing half of his strong, well-built arms. Those same arms had once wrapped around her waist, but that was all—they had never kissed, let alone slept together; theirs was only an innocent, naive puppy love.
Like yesterday's dream flowing away with the stream, Tan Qianche replied lightly, "I'm doing alright too."
His hands were tucked into his pants pockets, showing no intention to leave, yet he barely looked at her.
Lin Zhixia immediately grew wary. She knew all too well about Tan Qianche's chaotic lifestyle. He couldn't even remember the names of those girls; to avoid confusion, he addressed them all as "baby," and the true number of these "babies" remained a mystery.
But he made no mention of his personal life, instead asking with a smile, "Is your current boyfriend a student of your advisor?"
"No, you've got it wrong. I don't have a boyfriend," Wei Ruoxing answered.
Strangely, Tan Qianche's smile faded from his face. His tone became plain and serious, as if he were handling official business: "Gu Likai leads a large research group in Quantum Computing. The group is divided into several teams. I'm in the Quantum Bit Circuit team and have worked on Quantum Algorithms. Perhaps we could collaborate on a paper sometime."
Wei Ruoxing glanced sideways at Lin Zhixia. "Are you in the Quantum Bit team?"
Lin Zhixia replied somewhat shyly, "I move around the entire Quantum Computing research group. I'm learning a bit of everything."
Wei Ruoxing smiled at her. "If there's a chance, let's collaborate on a paper."
"Sure, Senior!" Lin Zhixia agreed readily.
Tan Qianche's mouth twitched. He looked down at the cracks between the pavement tiles. Wei Ruoxing handed his suit jacket back to him: "I don't need this anymore. I'm not cold…"
Suddenly, he said, "I'm sorry."
Wei Ruoxing's wrist froze mid-air. "You're apologizing to me?"
"When I was young, I was too arrogant," Tan Qianche took the jacket and draped it over his left arm. "I thought I was a genius, looking down on everyone, thinking they were all fools. I liked you yet looked down on you. Did I break your heart?"
Wei Ruoxing bit her lip. She tightened her trench coat, her expression resolute, reducing a thousand words to just two: "Forget it."
She turned to leave.
Tan Qianche grabbed her sleeve. "Let me look at you one more time. Tell me how you've been…" These words were sincere. It had been too long since he last spoke from the heart, and the sudden outburst made his fingertips tremble violently, as if in the advanced stages of Parkinson's disease.
Wei Ruoxing shook off his hand. With her back to him, she said, "I'll be graduating with my PhD this September. After graduation, I'm returning to China to work in Shanghai. I've already secured a teaching position… Coming to your university this time, I thought…"
She hesitated for a long time but couldn't articulate what she truly wanted.
Tan Qianche stood very close to her; if she took a step back, she would bump into his chest. Yet she walked forward without looking back: "This morning, I heard people say you've never been without girls around you. Forget it. Take care of yourself."
Lin Zhixia quickly caught up to her. "Senior!"
But Senior said, "Sorry, Lin Zhixia. I'm not feeling well. I'm heading back to the hotel now. Another day, I'll come take a look at the code you've written."
"Senior, let me walk you back to the hotel. Would you like something to eat? I can buy it for you," Lin Zhixia offered proactively.
Senior waved her off. "I know the way. I just want to be alone for a while."Lin Zhixia stood in place, watching her leave. Her figure grew smaller under the streetlights, gradually merging into the vast, boundless night.
The night was cool as water, the cold wind biting. Tan Qianche sat on a dusty brick by the roadside, clad in an expensive pair of suit pants. Hunched over with his knees drawn up, his entire face was buried in shadow—disheveled, dejected, and utterly defeated, like a stray dog with no home to return to.
Lin Zhixia rushed over in quick strides and called out, "Senior."
He didn’t look up.
In the year or so she had known him, Lin Zhixia had never seen him like this. He was always carefree and brimming with confidence, flirting with girls left and right—or being flirted with. As a teaching assistant in the physics department, he avoided any entanglement with students by refusing to engage with female physics majors. But when it came to beauties from other departments or schools, he was rarely one to turn them away.
This behavior was so peculiar, almost like Love in the Time of Cholera .
In that novel, the male protagonist, unable to win the love of the female lead, drowned his loneliness and solitude in self-indulgence. His list of conquests was long, each woman sharing a fleeting night with him.
Recalling passages from the book, Lin Zhixia sighed and said calmly, "Senior, I’ve already called Yang Shuwen to come pick you up. Put your coat on properly—don’t catch a cold. Tomorrow’s the academic conference, and you’re the keynote speaker for the Quantum Bit Circuit session. You can’t afford to collapse now."
Tan Qianche ignored her.
She darted away even faster. "I’m leaving now. Bye!"
Lin Zhixia hurried back to her dorm and turned on her computer. Eager to vent her confusion, she checked Jiang Yubai’s QQ status—only to find him offline.
She opened Notepad and hastily typed out a long passage:
"We’ve talked about love before, but today I made a new observation. One of my seniors has many girlfriends… and his girlfriends have their own boyfriends. They maintain an open relationship. Russian scholar Yuri Scherbatskikh analyzed ‘open relationships’ in his work. He argued that men and women in primitive tribes enjoyed greater freedom because those tribes supported true group-based open relationships… That senior chose this lifestyle, so why did he still seem so despondent tonight when he saw his first love?"
As she wrote, Lin Zhixia’s heart jolted.
She had recorded Tan Qianche’s reaction and recalled books she’d read—all from an academic perspective. She thought she could easily see through a person, but the truth was, she understood too little. She didn’t truly grasp the human heart.
Lost in thought, she copied the passage and pasted it into a QQ chat window, hitting send in one swift motion…
Only then did she realize with horror—she hadn’t opened Jiang Yubai’s chat. It was Lin Zeqiu’s!
Both Lin Zeqiu and Jiang Yubai used QQ’s default system avatar.
The most terrifying part? The moment she sent the message, Lin Zeqiu suddenly came online. The words "The other party is typing…" appeared on the screen.
Lin Zhixia panicked, shutting off the power, slamming her laptop shut, and burrowing under her soft blanket, curling up on her tiny dorm bed.
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