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It had been a week since Xu Ze last saw Lu Heyang — from last Saturday, when Lu Heyang left his house, all the way to this Friday. Though the two of them rarely crossed paths at school anyway, being in different teaching buildings. Tuesday's swimming class was the only chance Xu Ze had to see Lu Heyang and speak to him, but Lu Heyang hadn't come.

Xu Ze could never bring himself to call or text Lu Heyang to ask — he wouldn't do such a thing, and he had no standing to. Just as he wouldn't think too deeply about why Lu Heyang had kissed him on his way out that day.

Whether it was on a whim, or simply because he found it amusing, Xu Ze didn't mind either way. He had always carried the mentality of a man already bankrupt — knowing that every second spent with Lu Heyang was something he'd earned for himself, so he asked for nothing more and thought no further.

After school, Xu Ze went to the Underground Club. He arrived early, set down his bag, and went to carry goods. The truck was parked at the side door, and Xu Ze shuttled back and forth with more than sixty boxes of beer. He pushed the last four into the warehouse, carried them down one by one and stacked them neatly, then went to report the count and sign off with the warehouse manager. Tips from odd jobs like this were settled at the end of the month — not much money, just enough to cover Xu Ze's food for the month.

Back in the locker room, Xu Ze took off his cap and gloves. He was sweating, so he went to the washroom to wash his face, then found a towel to wipe his neck. As he was pulling the oil-paint box out of the table drawer, he heard a knock at the door. Xu Ze thought he'd misheard — no one knocked here; they pushed or kicked.

The door wasn't locked from inside, but Xu Ze still walked over and pulled it open.

"Were you moving things again?" Before Xu Ze could react to Lu Heyang's appearance, Lu Heyang had already noticed the sweat on his neck.

"…Mm." Xu Ze stared without blinking. It was only a week since he'd last seen him — before, at school, he often went a whole month without running into Lu Heyang, and yet he would never have been so reluctant to lift his gaze from the other's face as he was now.

Xu Ze realized he was growing greedier, which wasn't right at all.

"Restocking the vending machine?"

"No. Beer."

"How many?"

"Sixty-seven boxes."

Lu Heyang didn't press further. He looked at Xu Ze for a moment, then raised a hand and brushed away a drop of water lingering at the corner of Xu Ze's eye. "Go on in."

In fact, Xu Ze thought Lu Heyang looked a little tired — the kind of tiredness that carried an edge of irritation, a listlessness that had lost its interest in things.

Once inside, Lu Heyang saw the oil-paint box on the table and asked, "You're about to go on?"

"Soon."

"I'll paint you." Lu Heyang stepped over and picked up the oil-paint box. "Sit up here."

He said sit up, and Xu Ze obediently sat on the table. Lu Heyang slowly unscrewed the lid, glanced up at Xu Ze, and said, "Take your shirt off."

Xu Ze was still staring at his hand. At the words, he made a small confused sound: "Hm?" Lu Heyang set the lid aside. "If you take your shirt off after painting your face, it'll smudge on the collar."

Though Xu Ze himself usually took his shirt off before painting his face, doing it in front of Lu Heyang was plainly a different matter.

"What is it?" Lu Heyang's expression hovered somewhere between a smile and not. "Haven't you already sent me nudes?"

Never expecting him to bring that up, Xu Ze immediately shifted his gaze away and defended himself, pale: "It really wasn't a nude."

"Mm. If you didn't take everything off, it doesn't count as a nude." Lu Heyang dabbed a little paint on his fingertip, watching Xu Ze.

Xu Ze scratched behind his ear, then gripped the hem of his T-shirt with both hands and pulled it up over his head. The sweat on his body hadn't dried yet, and when the air-conditioning hit him, the chill drew a soft hiss from his lips.

"Spread your legs a little." Lu Heyang nudged the inside of Xu Ze's knee with the back of his hand.

Xu Ze parted his legs a little wider. Lu Heyang stepped between them, raised his hand, and began brushing paint onto Xu Ze's face. His movements were very light, very slow, and Xu Ze felt as though he were being traced and stroked, bit by bit. Perhaps in Lu Heyang's eyes this was the most ordinary thing in the world — just painting — but Xu Ze's heart was pounding so hard it was about to be heard, and the strip from his ears to the back of his neck had gone tingling and numb.

He sat quietly there, only his eyes and the line of his throat moving now and then, his gaze fixed intently on Lu Heyang's face.

Lu Heyang's fingertips stroked from Xu Ze's forehead down to the tip of his nose, smoothing the paint on, and asked, "Why aren't you wearing the Wristband I gave you?"

"…" Xu Ze didn't know how to explain. He could only say, "My old one hasn't broken yet."

He was here to work and fight — how could he bear to wear the Wristband Lu Heyang had given him? If anyone else noticed, it would bring trouble too; that Wristband was expensive, not something he could afford to be seen wearing.

"But wearing that one would be uncomfortable." Lu Heyang looked into his eyes. "The gloves I gave you don't get used. The clothes I gave you don't get worn. The Wristband I gave you doesn't get worn either."

"Xu Ze. If you don't like them, you can give them back to me."

"No." Xu Ze felt Lu Heyang was angry. He said, "It's not that I don't like them."

"They're… very precious," Xu Ze said.

The things themselves were very precious, and their meaning to Xu Ze was very precious too.

He was the sort of person who would secretly keep, in a tin box, even the tissues Lu Heyang had handed him in passing — like some stubborn collector, hoarding every scrap of what existed between them, for the sake of remembering later. Even though those memories were trivial, nothing more than unremarkable fragments and passing episodes in Lu Heyang's life.

But it didn't matter. Xu Ze was used to making do; he had never asked for much, and what he already had was enough to treasure for a long while. He had received far more than he'd ever imagined.

"I'm not unhappy. Don't be nervous." Lu Heyang set the oil-paint box aside. "If you feel it's inconvenient to wear it here, then can you wear it when you're at school, like normal?"

Even an expensive Wristband, worn all day at school, would be uncomfortable — Xu Ze didn't know how he'd endured the old one all this time.

"Okay." Xu Ze nodded.

Leaving such an expensive Wristband at home gathering dust — Xu Ze felt that even if Lu Heyang was angry about it, he would have every right to be. This was wasting goodwill and resources.

His Mobile Phone rang once. Xu Ze sat up a little straighter and said, "I have to go on now."

"All right. If you have nothing else after, go to the parking lot — I'll drive you back."

"Mm."

Xu Ze took two tissues and handed them to Lu Heyang, then went to the cabinet to find his gloves. Lu Heyang was wiping his hands when he suddenly asked, "Want a reward?"

After a quiet pause, Xu Ze turned around with the gloves in hand: "What if I lose?"

"You can have a reward even if you lose. No conflict." Lu Heyang smiled.

He could always make Xu Ze happy so easily. Xu Ze didn't know what to say; he pressed his lips together and nodded. Lu Heyang tossed the tissue into the bin, and Xu Ze's eyes followed it — and then he heard Lu Heyang say, "Don't fish it out."

Xu Ze started, realizing that Lu Heyang had indeed seen the contents of the tin box last Saturday — the things that looked like rubbish.

But there was no time to feel embarrassed or ashamed now, because he was about to go on. Xu Ze lowered his head and said, "I won't fish it out," then hurried out of the locker room.

The instant he stepped out of the fighter's tunnel, Xu Ze was nearly deafened by the screaming. He instinctively turned to look at the big screen above, and when he saw the number following the 17, his eyes flew wide in shock, his whole body frozen.

Eight hundred sixty-four thousand, nine hundred yuan. The customer with the highest wager was "G," who had bet five hundred thousand.

Over eight hundred thousand meant Xu Ze would get a cut — meaning he could earn at least seventy thousand from this match.

The spotlight fell on Xu Ze. The crowd's roar came like a tide, wave after wave pressing in, threatening to drown him. Xu Ze turned around in a daze, his gaze sweeping over hundreds of unfamiliar faces before he finally caught hold of a thread of thought and looked toward the spot where Lu Heyang and the others usually sat.

But he saw only He Wei and Gu Yunchi. Lu Heyang hadn't come to the stands.

The referee blew his whistle. Xu Ze came back to himself, put in his mouthguard and pulled on his gloves, and walked toward the Octagon Cage.

When the match ended, Xu Ze didn't linger on the stage for even half a second — he ran straight back to the backstage, but the locker room held only a few fighters. No Lu Heyang.

The fighters wore varied expressions, their eyes measuring Xu Ze — a five-hundred-thousand bet made it hard not to suspect that Xu Ze had been in cahoots with outsiders, cheating to skim both a cut and prize money.

Xu Ze went straight to the washroom to wash his face, came out, quickly gathered his bag, and headed for the door.

"The Boss is definitely going to want a word with you — figure out how you want to explain." One of the fighters warned him.

Xu Ze's steps faltered. He said nothing and kept walking forward.

Once outside the building, Xu Ze saw at once that Lu Heyang was sitting in a car not far away, looking at his Mobile Phone. The light from the screen fell on his expressionless face, oddly cold.

Hearing footsteps, Lu Heyang looked up and smiled at Xu Ze: "That fast?"

"The money…" Xu Ze walked to the car, looked down at Lu Heyang, and asked, "Did you place the bet?"

"No." Lu Heyang was still smiling. He didn't ask whether Xu Ze had won or lost, only said, "Yun Chi placed it."

Xu Ze wanted to say more when He Wei's voice came from behind: "Whoa, Xu Ze, you're already out?" He bounded over and clapped Xu Ze on the shoulder. "You finished way too fast — I didn't even get my fill of watching."

Under He Wei's shoving, Xu Ze climbed into the car in a daze. Lu Heyang drove, Gu Yunchi sat in the passenger seat, Xu Ze and He Wei in the back.

"Still spacing out over that five hundred thousand?" Seeing Xu Ze's distracted look, He Wei snapped his fingers in front of him. "Didn't you win? Why do you still look so stressed?"

"No," Xu Ze said, shaking his head.

"It's fine — five hundred thousand is just one meal's worth for Young Master Gu." He Wei comforted him. "And you won today."

Gu Yunchi glanced at Lu Heyang and offered no opinion.

"But the odds were really low, only 0.4 — though you fought so well, that kind of odds is normal." He Wei changed the subject in a flash, leaning forward to pester Lu Heyang again. "Why didn't you reply when I messaged you? I heard that on this trip abroad you even went to meet your future wife — that Omega family?"

The car rolled over a stone and jolted sharply. The jolt seemed to fling Xu Ze's heart out of him too. His hand pressed stiffly against the seat to keep his balance, but a tremendous weightlessness rose inside him — even his breath stopped.