Everyone at school knows that Lu Zhiheng, from the architecture department, has no interest in women.
He returns love letters unopened, turns down confessions to their faces, and replies to the campus belle’s WeChat message with two words: “Not adding you.”
Until one day, someone sees him beneath the osmanthus tree, pinning Wen Ruanuan from the Chinese department against a wall, his voice so low it sounds like he’s begging. “Ruanuan, look at me.”
Only later does Wen Ruanuan realize that some people are simply quiet, not incapable of loving someone.
When she gets lightheaded from low blood sugar during military training, he silently hands her a cup of brown sugar water. At lunch, he picks out the chicken skin she doesn’t like and says, “Hers tastes better.” When she doesn’t want cilantro, he picks it all out of his own bowl and trades her the meat. In his advanced math notebook, he gives cold formulas a poetic touch, adding a note in the margin: Leave room to breathe at this step.
The whole school is saying Lu Zhiheng is done for.
He knows it himself, too.
After lights-out that night, his roommate asks if he likes Wen Ruanuan. After a long silence in the dark, he answers softly: “I was done for a long time ago.”
