Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

The stadium lights glared incandescently down upon the stage, throwing everyone’s faces into sharp relief, and lit up Su Muqiu’s grin at Han Wenqing as they reached each other for the typical performance of post-match etiquette. His was a casually impish smile, as if Excellent Era hadn’t just lost to Tyranny in the last semi-finals match of Season 9.

They’d started out on opposite ends when the two teams lined up, so they met last. Exhaustion was burning through Su Muqiu’s body, and he let his hand go slack, but the captain of Tyranny kept it firm in his hold.

“Lao Han,” Su Muqiu said, “you can’t break my wrist now! Winners should be gracious, yes?”

“Nonsense. You’ve never been gracious.” Han Wenqing turned their hands palms up, tapped the veins in his wrist, and brusquely added, “What’s the matter?”

Su Muqiu sobered. “I just need rest, same as you. Haha!” He let out a tired laugh. “Every once in a while I see One Autumn Leaf next to me and pretend I’m a young dumb teen all over again, so I get a bit too excited! Don’t look so grim, I’ve got another season in me—we’ll see each other on stage next year. I can’t pass up the chance to break our championship tie! Then it’ll be three for me and only two for you…”

Han Wenqing released his grip, and with it his voice lightened as well. “You talk like Tyranny won’t break the tie first. Just who here is the one going to the finals?” 

“Excessive boasting in front of your juniors, how can you conduct yourself in such unbecoming fashion?” As the teams started scattering to head back to their prep rooms, Su Muqiu seized the chance to corral Qiu Fei with a fling of his arm over the young rookie’s shoulders. “Qiu Fei, don’t look shy, Lao Han’s all bark and no bite—”

Qiu Fei, whose Battle Mage had been the last to fall to Desert Dust in the team round, maintained a resignedly neutral expression in the face of Su Muqiu’s antics. “Senior,” he said, nodding to Han Wenqing. “I look forward to watching you in the finals.”

Han Wenqing nodded back. “You played well,” he responded; and then commented, as he had in various iterations every time he’d met Qiu Fei throughout the year, “I can see why Su Muqiu picked you for One Autumn Leaf.”

“Again!? What a broken record, you fail at seduction!” Su Muqiu immediately critiqued both means and ends, passing harsh judgment. “And you definitely can’t steal him.”

“Hypocrite,” Han Wenqing replied. He folded his arms across his chest. “You’ve stolen plenty.”

“You can’t blame Xiao Jia on me!”

In a stroke of perfect timing, Jia Shiming was walking past. He stopped in his tracks and sent Su Muqiu a quizzical look. “Captain?”

Su Muqiu waved at him and boldly lied, “I’m praising you to Lao Han. Look at this guy, trashing fresh veggies without a second thought!”

Jia Shiming had transferred from Tyranny to Excellent Era at the start of Season 7, determined to play Striker out from under Han Wenqing’s doggedly unretiring shadow. This supposedly trashed fresh veggie gave Han Wenqing an apologetic glance: please forgive him, his face seemed to cry out, you know how he is. Jiang Botao came up beside Jia Shiming and replied, “Lao Su, I’ll order veggie dishes for you at dinner. Don’t be late to the press conference.”

“... then make it eggplant please!” Su Muqiu said brightly.

God forbid Jiang Botao carry out the implicit threat to order all of his most hated dishes. Among the rank and file of Excellent Era, it was known their vice-captain was talented at disarming any and all, including their madcap captain.

Su Muqiu seemed to realize only then that Qiu Fei was still waiting amiably as a spectating prisoner, so he let go of Qiu Fei and gently pushed him at the others. “Shoo, give me a few minutes with Lao Han—don’t worry, he won’t gloat. We old men want to talk shop.”

Han Wenqing stood there with Su Muqiu, saying nothing as the rest of his teammates passed by: just a nod to Bai Yanfei here, a grunt to Zhang Xinjie there. Perhaps he already had an inkling of what was on Su Muqiu’s mind—for these two not-so-old men were the last ones standing of the first generation, who had once dazzled so brilliantly in the wilderness of Glory’s first server.

As the passageway emptied out, they were left standing side by side: Han Wenqing with his arms still folded, Su Muqiu with his face turned down.

Su Muqiu said, without any fanfare, “I know you think I could’ve brought One Autumn Leaf back sooner.” Pent-up irritation bled out into his voice. “I’m not blind. But I wouldn’t just give it to anyone.”

“I’m not trying to hide what I think,” Han Wenqing replied. “You’d know better than me. I just thought…”

Well, it’s a pity.

Almost a decade ago, he’d asked Su Muqiu: Where’s One Autumn Leaf?

He died, was the curt answer. Car accident. He tried to save my sister.

You have a sister?

… She died too.

He’d never asked again. But once in a while, when he caught sight of Dancing Rain on the big screen—brilliant and vibrant, vicious and deadly—Han Wenqing would remember, with an unpleasant jolt, how Su Muqiu played Glory every day through a living shadow on his soul.

“Do I know better than you?” Su Muqiu said now, with a self-deprecating snort. “You could say I was being very picky about Battle Mages. Or you could say I was being a bit selfish.”

“So why him? After all this time, a rookie debut in Season 9?”

“Didn’t you just say you could see why?”

“My guess. But you never let us talk about it during the regular season.”

“Yeah, you did keep trying to bring it up,” said Su Muqiu, baring his teeth for a split second. “I really was being selfish. I didn’t indulge your curiosity, so thanks for indulging me.”

Han Wenqing stayed silent, looking at Su Muqiu’s face though it was turned away from him. He’d learned how to wait out these flashes of ill humor, which went as swiftly as they came. The man was so often bright and breezy on the outside that one might forget his cheerless, cutthroat edge.

“... His devotion,” Su Muqiu finally said. “You can see it, right? It’s very pure, like One Autumn Leaf’s. Purer than mine. Otherwise they aren’t actually much alike. Qiu Fei’s a good boy, but One Autumn Leaf could be such a shameless asshole. Can you imagine?”

“As if I need to imagine,” Han Wenqing retorted. “I ran into him often enough in the game. And you—you’ve already set the example.”

“Haha, thank you for the compliment.” Su Muqiu batted his eyelashes at him; Han Wenqing felt sorely tempted to roll his eyes. “Anyway, of course he’s skilled too. And it’s the right time… because who knows how much longer we can play?”

“Mm.” Han Wenqing raised his eyebrows. “Aren’t we going to see each other on stage next year?”

“So one more year,” said Su Muqiu. “You’ve already cut off my path this season.”

“Losers should be gracious too.”

“Tch.” But there was no true ire in Su Muqiu’s voice.

He sighed, and when he spoke again his words were soft and wistful. “Honestly… you can say I’m being sentimental. I just want them to win a championship together, Dancing Rain and One Autumn Leaf.”

Han Wenqing told him, very sincerely, “That’s a nice dream.”

*

December 22, 2025, 02:18, his phone tells him.

And inside a small internet cafe called Lao Yang’s Net, the guy at the reception desk mumbles: “Number 47, over there.”

Still in a daze, Su Muqiu goes to an open computer tucked away in the corner. He’s been walking outside for more than two hours, but just a fraction of that time has actually been spent going somewhere with a destination in mind. Instead, he’s been circling in confusion around the block where Excellent Era should be—but isn’t. At the site, where the club was clearly standing when he left earlier in the night, he found only the remnants of rubble and the start of new construction, a worker’s helmet tossed aside and some takeout trash.

Now his brain is whirring on autopilot, cataloguing everything that’s gone terribly off-kilter. After all these years, he’s never unlearned the habits of his early youth: observe, prioritize, turn the situation to your favor, as he once told Mucheng.

A new building’s getting built in Excellent Era’s place, from the looks of it a commercial space with office floors up above; the internet cafe across the street from Excellent Era that closed a few years ago has miraculously sprung back into business, bigger and busier than ever before with an eye-bleedingly bright LED “HAPPY” sign; the reception desk guy here is an unfamiliar face, even though Su Muqiu knows he recognizes everyone on staff at Lao Yang’s, as a regular patron who can come in with the assurance of discretion several streets over from Excellent Era (oh, the perks of knowing the boss from way back); no one’s reacted to the name on his ID card, or reacted even to his face.

Not to mention the Season 8 Samsara poster plastered on the wall, which features Jiang Botao front and left. What the fuck, has he landed in Fang Minghua’s ultimate dream world? Of course, Zhou Zekai’s still front and center on the poster—all right, that’s not so strange with a face like his. Su Muqiu laughs to himself.

But his amusement fades fast. His phone’s turned into dead weight. He already opened every app on it while he walked in circles, and learned that he can’t make any calls, can’t pay for anything digitally, can’t send any messages… in each and every case, the interface is a grayed out, unresponsive slate. Did Shaotian crash QQ with his trash talk? The thought bubbles up in Su Muqiu’s head, tinged by hysteria, but he pops it right away. Huang Shaotian’s miles away in Guangzhou, and if Su Muqiu can’t get in contact with him then just forget it.

At least he’s got cash. Cash counts for something, even in a dream.

If this even is one. No Excellent Era… it feels more like a nightmare.

Su Muqiu sighs and logs onto the computer, searching for “Excellent Era” to get his bearings. The results cascade onto the screen like an overwhelming flood.

So Excellent Era is here! Just not the here that he expected. And Happy, like the cafe…

But he’s barely digested the implications of these headlines before his attention zeroes in on the images. One: a lively young woman is shaking hands with Qiu Fei, her hair braided in a familiar style and her lips curved in a familiar smile (—familiar only from his dreams… and that face! You’re seeing things, he tells himself, don’t make up ghosts). Two: Qiu Fei is caught mid-sentence as he looks solemnly into the camera, surrounded by new faces Su Muqiu doesn’t recognize at all (Combat Form? he wonders in bewilderment). Three: A small, crude-looking building has Excellent Era’s emblem mounted at its entrance (Questionable, but it gets a passing grade if it’s Excellent Era). Four: the young woman is standing next to a man, who looks like Ye Qiu sans the suit. (Wait, who looks like—)

Su Muqiu stares at the caption. Su Mucheng and Ye Xiu. The names seem to float off the computer screen, blurry before his eyes.

No—they aren’t blurry. Their names are crisp and clear, but his eyes just can’t see them right. He wipes at his face, his glasses knocked askew, and his palm comes away stained wet with tears.

His heart’s beating so loudly that he can hear blood drumming in his ears.

In the picture, the woman named Su Mucheng has raised her head to gaze at her newest shocked viewer with a hard expression forged from steel—much like the Mucheng he remembers, who would shed her soft manners for a flash of sickly sweet sharpness whenever they got into squabbles. She looks healthy and well-fed, radiant and self-assured, like she’s grown up with all the care that is rightly her due. She looks…

Well, she doesn’t look like the young girl he last saw in the morgue.

Su Muqiu wipes his face again. Takes in a deep breath, trembling all over as if a heartbeat amplified tenfold is throbbing through his whole body. “Hah…” he breathes out, and turns his attention to the man beside Mucheng.

Ye Xiu’s appearance is not so strong a blow to his mentality, if only because Su Muqiu has met Ye Qiu often enough that he feels like he’s staring at an uncanny clone of his friend’s brother, rather than the older version of his friend. Ten years as acquaintances, not even proper friends, he thinks ruefully, but now I’m using Ye Qiu instead as the standard of comparison? They’d been identical twins; even so, they hadn’t been alike.

(Of course, the key difference over the past decade is that one’s dead, and one’s alive.)

So the world’s gone mad around him, Su Muqiu decides, or maybe he’s the one who’s gone mad. He looks back at Su Mucheng; and then, with great will of effort, he closes the web browser showing all his search results. He stares at the bare desktop screen for a long, long while, sorting through his thoughts. What does he need to know, anyway?

What about your sister, young man? You’ll miss her too, if you don’t hurry…

He apologizes to the old woman in his mind. How did she know?—fuck it, does that even matter? Rather, how much time does he have left in this gloriously mad, upside-down world? He’s learned better than to take things for granted.

If you don’t hurry…

Su Muqiu suddenly bursts into motion, rifling through his pockets till he finds the account card for Autumn Tree. Then he opens up Glory and logs in—or tries to. Everything is grayed out after he gets past the initial loading screen, just as everything was frozen on his phone: disbarred from all interaction, essentially dead to this world.

He can see the names right there, resting in Autumn Tree’s friends list. Yet they cannot hear him, for he cannot speak to them. Not over this otherworldly distance.

He needs to find someone who can.

At ten in the morning, outside a small, crude-looking building on Stone Road, Su Muqiu crams the last bite of a youtiao into his mouth and wipes his hands on a napkin. Then he shoves the napkin into his pocket, letting his thoughts float loose before he pulls himself together again.

“You don’t have to worry about overzealous security guards,” the reception desk guy at Lao Yang’s Net had said when Su Muqiu casually pumped him for street gossip. “The fans don’t swarm like they used to. You should’ve seen them a few years back, they were so pissed.”

“Heh, that’s good news for me. You see, my cousin really wants Qiu Fei’s autograph, so I can’t let him down now that I’m passing through town.”

“It’s not hard to walk in. Excellent Era’s doing better since they returned to the pro league, but it’s no powerhouse—it’s practically running on a shoestring compared to the rest. People might not be around though, it’s winter break…”

“I’ll try my luck,” Su Muqiu had replied, falsely flippant.

He looks up at Excellent Era’s new building. He’s done his research and knows what path it’s followed in this world, but he feels his stomach twisting all the same. Excellent Era was first his greatest gamble for a good life, and then a lifeline grasped desperately in the wake of loss—it seems so wrong to him that it should have fallen so low.

… But it’s also imaginable. Because, after all, he’s good friends with Tao Xuan, and knows him well too.

Think of this as another scam, Su Muqiu tells himself. Sure, I’m out of practice, but there’s no way I’ve lost my knack for it. So Su Muqiu sets his shoulders back and strolls through the front door, signaling his presence to the lone security guard with all the nonchalance that he can muster. “Hello, sir,” he says blithely. “I’m here to meet my cousin—Qiu Fei? He promised to give me a tour of the place.”

The guard goes from polite boredom to suspicious scrutiny. He looks very young, very conscientious, like he’s determined to do his best but doesn’t realize how. “A tour? The captain didn’t say anything about it this morning. What’s your name?”

Su Muqiu props his elbow on the desk. “Qiu Ming. I work in Chongqing but I’m back for the holidays—just call him up and he’ll know it’s me. We were at a family dinner last night and he said I could stop by—it’s no big deal if it slipped his mind, but I just thought it’d be nice to see where he works. Plus, between you and me,” Su Muqiu leans in, attempting to overwhelm with a barrage of half-truths and half-lies, “Qiu Fei works so hard—he could really use a break, yeah? Auntie was telling me he needs to eat more. I was gonna take him out for lunch.”

Qiu Fei does have a cousin named Qiu Ming, who works in Chongqing and came back for the holidays; Su Muqiu knows this because Qiu Fei had told him so before leaving for his family dinner the day before. He’s willing to bet that some things have stayed the same.

As he merrily goes on, his expressions of familial concern seems to tip the balance in his favor, with uncertainty spreading over the guard’s face. Su Muqiu is happy to stoke doubts like there’s no tomorrow. His glasses don’t hurt either—they make him look more like a harried white collar worker.

Finally, the guard decides to play it safe and dials a number. “Hey, Captain? I have someone here who claims he’s your cousin… Qiu Ming? Uh, who works in Chongqing? Uhuh, and…”

So young! … so gullible, how lucky for him. Su Muqiu keeps his elbow propped on the desk and his chin propped in his hand, surveying the building interior and trying to map out the layout through guesswork. It reminds him of his Excellent Era’s first headquarters: walls that are impressively drab, carpet that smells like it’s been perfumed with eau de cigarette, and overhead lighting that flickers like they’re living in a horror movie.

Wonderful. Su Muqiu can’t help but smile; to his surprise, the place makes him feel more at home, though he’s a world away from his own. He’s living not in a horror movie but in a movie of miracles, like a dream—floating on the giddiness of delight, and also lack of sleep.

“Yes, he’s still here at the front desk. If you’re occupied, Captain, I’ll ask him to come back later… wait, now?”

Su Muqiu’s already looking at the door at the end of the hallway when it opens.

Qiu Fei must have been walking down even as he was talking with the guard on the phone. He’s cut his hair a little shorter, and he’s wearing the Excellent Era uniform instead of casual clothes. But he’s still reserved, still placid, still keen in the eyes, and stops just over the threshold. “So it’s you, Qiu… Ming?”

Su Muqiu is also willing to bet he looks nothing like the real Qiu Ming.

“Qiu Fei!” he exclaims, striding forward in big steps before the guard or Qiu Fei can really react. “Thought I’d take you up on the offer for a tour. Looking at this place, though”—he makes a show of glancing around— “I just hope the boss is putting all their money into the training room computers. Oh, and I guess your salary too.”

My cousin, his Qiu Fei had said with a sigh, still thinks I’m throwing my future away by becoming a Glory pro player. The good thing is that his opinion doesn’t matter to me. Su Muqiu figures he might as well live up to the reputation. Act the way he thinks Qiu Fei thinks his cousin will react, though he bears no resemblance to the real person—a gamble to throw people off-balance with the first impression, so he has the chance to turn the situation to his favor.

Su Muqiu prefers to confuse his opponents by emoting to misdirect; the Qiu Fei he knows is more likely to fall back on a well-held poker face. This Qiu Fei is no different, and Su Muqiu watches as a very deliberate blankness takes root in his eyes.

“... Right. Thanks for coming,” Qiu Fei replies on autopilot, confusion still overriding his reason, and by then Su Muqiu has already tossed off a wave to the guard, slung an arm over Qiu Fei’s shoulder, and hustled him back through the doorway into the staircase area.

Then he drops his arm from Qiu Fei’s shoulder, quick and easy. He knows what Qiu Fei doesn’t like, and that includes overfamiliar attitudes from strangers. “Sorry,” he says. “I used his name, but I don’t think you’re the biggest fan of your cousin. Of course, he’s not your biggest fan either.”

Qiu Fei draws away and turns to face him. “... I can say his glasses are uglier than yours.”

“Why thank you.”

“How do you know my cousin?” Qiu Fei asks warily. “What’s your name? What do you want?”

“Actually, I’ve never met your cousin,” Su Muqiu says with a shrug. “Call me Qiu Musu. What I want… I want you to help me contact Team Happy. I apologize for coming in like this, but it’s a very urgent personal matter that Captain Su will want to be informed about. Unfortunately, I have no way to communicate with her.”

Qiu Fei raises his cell phone in front of him like a shield. “There’s an email address on Happy’s website.”

“As if that’s direct! It’d go straight to public relations.” In any case, Su Muqiu can’t even send emails. None of his accounts work.

“... There’s the internet cafe.”

“I hear they all went on vacation after the away game for Round 17, some kind of team-building event,” Su Muqiu bullshits. He’d failed to learn much on that front—except that the boss was definitely not around, and if the boss was not around then the rest of the team was unlikely to be onsite at the cafe.

Qiu Fei lowers his phone, but his expression shifts to freely show his disbelief. Damn, Su Muqiu thinks, wrong answer.

An awkward silence falls between them, while Qiu Fei fiddles in consternation with his phone and Su Muqiu tries to guess what tack to take. He’s never had to explain before that he’s from another universe; it’s hardly an everyday occurrence.

“Regardless,” Qiu Fei says at last, “this is Excellent Era. Happy’s business isn’t Excellent Era’s business. Shouldn’t you leave a message at the cafe instead?”

“I’m here, because it’s Excellent Era.” Su Muqiu smiles; he can’t rid his voice of fondness entirely. “And you’re the captain who’s going to lead it to glory. Of course there’s no way Ye Xiu and Mucheng could ignore you.”

They can’t ignore you, so don’t ignore me—please. I don’t know how much time I have...

Perhaps it’s the way he says their names with such unthinking familiarity, or perhaps it’s the way he says Excellent Era like a benediction—or, perhaps, it’s the way his desperation is bleeding through, despite his best attempt to sound like a sane man—but Qiu Fei has fully given up on his poker face, and frowns straightforwardly at him. “Then tell the truth. You say you haven’t met my cousin, but you know details that no random stranger would know. And you’re still using my surname for your fake name.”

“It’s… not a fake name,” Su Muqiu says slowly. “It’s not your ‘qiu,’ but ‘qiu’ as in autumn.”

“And the rest?”

“‘Mu’ as in wood, ‘su’ as in Suzhou.”

Qiu Fei is typing on his phone, as if he’s putting the characters into a search bar, and halts at this. “Wait,” he says. “Autumn… Tree… from the first server records with One Autumn Leaf?”

His phone goes off with the sound of rising chimes: an incoming voice call. Ting-a-ling ting-a-ling! Ting-a-ling ting-a-ling!

“Yeah,” Su Muqiu says. “That’s me.” My name, changed and written backwards. “Wow, you know One Autumn Leaf’s history that far back?”

Qiu Fei doesn’t answer him, but answers the phone instead. “Hello?”

When he looks back at Su Muqiu, hesitation is clear in his bearing. “... Are you sure?… All right then, Senior,” he says into his phone. “I’ll give it to him.” And hands it over.

The caller ID reads Su Mucheng.

The very sight of it sears him like a lightning bolt.

It’s been ten years.

(Ten long years… Ten years too many.)

Su Muqiu feels tears spring to his eyes.

He sits down hard on the lowest stair of the staircase. He presses the phone against his ear, presses his other hand over his face, and slowly exhales. Listens.

“Hey, you,” comes Su Mucheng’s voice: low, sweet, trembling—echoing through his ears. His body, heart and soul. He hadn’t thought he’d have this chance so soon. “You—who are you? Qiu Fei secretly sent me your picture because he thought you were a stalker.”

“Clever,” Su Muqiu croaks. “You definitely want to avoid stalkers.”

“Your face… How can you look like that?”

“I—I’ve always looked the way I look,” he says inanely.

“And then he sent me your name. How’d you pick that name?”

“I didn’t pick that name,” he answers. “My little sister chose it for me.”

“... I don’t understand,” his little sister mutters to herself, as if in a daze. “I don’t understand… he’s already dead…”

Face hidden behind his hand, Su Muqiu closes his eyes. He’d guessed as much. His name never appeared in the results when he searched for himself and Glory, himself and Ye Xiu, himself and Su Mucheng. Lord Grim had been a pleasant surprise.

He probably looks less pleasant right now. Su Muqiu knows he’s not a pretty crier.

“Hey,” he manages to choke out, struggling to keep his tone even. “Can I tell you a story?”

Su Mucheng doesn’t respond. He can hear someone in the background crying out, Mumu! What’s wrong?

“I had a little sister,” he says. “When she was young, I used to call her by a nickname, but she thought it sounded too babyish as she got older. She decided to retaliate by giving me a silly nickname—she said to me, ‘If I’m food, then you’re food too!’ and called me zongzi for three months straight. But she kept pronouncing it the wrong way, so it just sounded like she was calling me the clan elder, the great zong-zi. I thought it was a pretty grand title, honestly. Made me puff up all right.”

Su Mucheng laughs wetly.

“In the end, I promised her I’d never use that nickname again,” Su Muqiu continues. “And she stopped calling me zong-zi. After that… we left the orphanage, and I started to call her by her name.”

On the other end of the line lies silence.

“... Mucheng,” Su Muqiu softly says.

Qiu Fei must be listening in utter bewilderment, but he can’t bring himself to look or care. It’s not his priority.

“Last night, I met an old woman, and she said to me that it was Dongzhi, that I should hurry up and go meet my sister. And I got so angry in my head—it felt like such a terrible joke. Because my little sister died ten years ago in an accident, along with my best friend.

“I thought it was just a dumb comment, you see. So I ignored her, and walked away, back to Excellent Era. But… Excellent Era wasn’t there. I thought I was losing my mind—you can’t just vanish a building overnight! And then I went looking, and I learned that you’re still alive. And Ye Xiu’s still alive. And the me that’s here—so am I.”

All three of them, alive.

“Where are you?” When she speaks again, Su Mucheng’s voice is all choked up. “Of all the ways to start, you went and found Qiu Fei… you’re in Hangzhou? You’re at Stone Road?”

“Where are you?” Su Muqiu asks in turn. 

“I went to Harbin for a few days, with Yunxiu… I’ll come back! I’ll find a flight, I’ll be there! Ye Xiu’s in Beijing, I’ll tell him to come back too! Go to Happy’s place in Forest Park, Qiu Fei knows the address—stay there till I see you! Don’t leave.”

“I’ll try not to,” he says. “I don’t know how long this can last… but I never wanted to leave you behind. Haaa, so I’ve proven I’m not an imposter, yeah?”

“You’re so mean.” Su Mucheng sniffles. “Who else would call me Xiao Cheng-zi? Not even Ye Xiu would know. That all stopped after we got away from the orphanage.”

“My sister, the cute little orange,” he says. “But sorry, I promised I wouldn’t call you that again. Besides, you’re not a roly poly baby anymore.”

“Of course not, it’s been a long time since I was a child…”

He listens to the sound of her hitched breathing on the other end. “Okay,” she finally says, “I’m… I’m going to hang up.”

“Okay.”

“I need to pack, I need to book a ticket…”

“Okay.”

“I’ll see you soon.”

“Okay.”

“Does Qiu Fei think we’re crazy?”

“He’s…” Su Muqiu wipes the snot and tears off his face with his sleeve, and realizes that at some point during their call Qiu Fei had simply walked back into the entrance hallway, closing the door behind him to provide some semblance of privacy. He can see Qiu Fei’s profile through the small door window, politely looking away from the complete weirdo stranger who’s having a life-changing breakdown on the stairs.

“It’s all right,” he tells her. “We can be crazy together.”