After Su Yang knocked on Shen Xizhu’s door, it was Lu Yanke who opened it.
The look on Lu’s face spelled it out in plain characters: strangers keep out. Su Yang felt a flush of embarrassment—she’d barged in on what must have been an awkward moment between the two of them.
“I…I’ll come back later.” She backed away, about to turn, when Shen Xizhu’s lazy voice called from inside.
“Yangyang, come on in.” She sounded half-asleep. “A-Yan, could you run to the supermarket and pick up some ice cream? I want matcha.”
Lu Yanke grunted and stepped aside to let Su Yang through.
She forced herself into the room, brushing past him and murmuring, “Sorry to interrupt.”
The door shut with a soft thud, and Su Yang heard a cold snort from the other side.
“I—didn’t mean to disturb you.” She really did feel apologetic, worrying that her impulsive knocking had left an ugly first impression.
“No big deal.” Shen Xizhu waved her in and poured a glass of iced tea. “He was just sulking about something. You happened to walk into the line of fire.”
“You and Mr. Lu argue?” Su Yang asked, curious. Shen Xizhu had the kind of composed, rational beauty that suggested she wouldn’t pick fights.
“Of course we quarrel.” Shen smiled and sat opposite Su Yang. “Therapists are people too. Personality and temper don’t always obey reason.”
“Some people just have a knack for getting under your skin,” Su Yang said honestly.
“Like Xu Lize?” Shen’s tone had a double edge.
“Yes.” Su Yang nodded. Now that she was sitting with Shen Xizhu, she decided not to hide what she felt. Call it softness or curiosity—she believed Shen’s words at lunch hadn’t been idle chit-chat.
“So you’ve made up your mind?” Shen’s eyes brightened, her expression easing into something almost warm.
“Not exactly.” Su Yang shook her head and opened up. “I just feel useless. The past three years abroad were so calm—I thought I had braced myself to face Xu Lize. So when a friend needed help, I said yes without thinking. But everything changed so fast after I came back. My pace, my headspace…he upset it all.”
She didn’t mean to put herself down. She was just tired of that helpless, foolish resistance—knowing you can’t escape someone, yet trying anyway until you’re worn out.
“Have you noticed how, when people try to be rational, they sometimes make pointless struggles?” Shen nodded and then, in a voice that carried the authority of a clinician, continued, “We fixate on past versions of relationships and cling to the error of them, thinking opposition or resistance will prove some sort of moral correctness…”
Su Yang paused. Shen’s words were abstract, but she understood them immediately.
“True, your start with A-Z might not have been pretty. That chapter may be hard to put into words. I know the past can’t simply be wiped clean. But people and situations evolve—nothing stays frozen. If you asked Xu Lize, he’d probably dissect his motives and state of mind back then for you. He could lay them bare. But that kind of analysis won’t change anything, because the way you two interacted then is over.”
“Did you teach Xu to talk like that?” Su Yang asked, looking up. “Did you coach him to say all that? Are you saying this as a doctor to a patient?”
Shen shook her head, smiling. “A doctor wouldn’t say so much. If Xu found out, he could cause a scene big enough to get my license revoked. Believe it or not—”
“So you two are…?”
“Friends.” Shen answered simply. “Someone who saw him when he was still young and blazing.”
She took a sip of her tea and looked out the window.
“The Shen family didn’t mix much with the Xus back then. Our closeness came through Chen Qichuan. The nickname ‘the Five Young Masters of Haicheng’ sounds cheesy now, but back in those old compound days, whenever those five showed up, every girl nearby couldn’t tear their eyes away.”
“You were one of them?” Su Yang asked, intrigued.
Shen’s gaze dimmed for a moment, and she smiled without quite meeting Su Yang’s eyes. “I wasn’t.”
There was a quiet shadow in her face that hid the marks of time. But before Su Yang could pry, Shen slipped back into lighter conversation.
“They weren’t far apart in age, really. Chen Qichuan was always solemn—an old soul even as a teenager. Song Huaizhou was raised impeccable; he never touched mischief. His family was one of those old late-Qing households—if you ever dine with them you’ll see what ‘speak not while eating’ really means. The others—Yan Hui was the one who lived loudly, no filter. A-Yan—Lu—was a clumsy kid, always trailing behind his four older brothers; you couldn’t shake him off. Only Xu Lize stood out: effortless, sunny, confident. He could pick up a basketball and, with a casual bounce or two, command the room.”
Su Yang stared, disbelief written across her face.
Shen reached for her tablet, logged into her email, and pulled up a video. “This is Xu Lize during his senior year—Haicheng High’s basketball tournament. He was the MVP. He played so well he almost got recruited into the city team, but Xu’s grandfather put a stop to it.”
Su Yang took the tablet and tapped to enlarge the clip. Old footage, grainy in places, but it didn’t diminish Xu Lize’s lithe grace.
Su Yang wasn’t a sports person, yet watching him on the court made everything click. In the packed gym, whenever Xu had the ball the crowd swelled with cheers so loud the whole building seemed to breathe with it.
The clip froze on the instant he sank a three-pointer. For that fraction of a second he was the center of gravity on that court: dazzling, unrestrained, his smile bright right through to his eyes. It was the kind of presence that didn’t just draw attention—it shone.