Trending topic alert: The mysterious fan site administrator of a top celebrity has been exposed.

Hearing Zhou Ai's question behind him, Chu Yi did not make any move. She simply calmly supported Qi Yuan's head and made him drink every last drop of the hangover soup before slowly putting down the empty bowl in her hand. She then settled Qi Yuan on the sofa and carefully placed a soft pillow under his neck.

After doing all this, he turned around and smoothly unlocked his phone to turn on the flashlight.

A cold, white beam of light suddenly pierced the dim indoor environment.

Zhou Ai leaned back on the sofa without moving, and the shadow cast by Chu Yi when he stood up completely enveloped him.

From this angle, Zhou Ai only needs to tilt her head slightly to see Chu Yi's drooping eyelashes, which create a small patch of quiet gray under her eyes.

"Dyeing your hair can also infect wounds." Chu Yi's voice remained calm, but her fingertips gently brushed aside the silver-gray hair on his forehead. The hair was softer than he had imagined, with a slightly rough feel from the recent dyeing.

The scabbed wound was exposed to the light, stretching across her brow bone. Chu Yi's fingers were cool, and when they touched her brow bone, Zhou Ai unconsciously held her breath.

For a moment, he seemed to smell a very faint scent of fruit wine mixed with a very faint sandalwood on Chu Yi, which strangely overpowered the sweet fragrance in the private room.

"There's no redness or swelling around the stitches." Chu Yi pressed her thumb very lightly against the edge of the wound. "Does it hurt?"

Zhou Ai's Adam's apple bobbed slightly.

It didn't actually hurt, but for some inexplicable reason, he let out a muffled gasp.

The flashlight beam flickered.

Chu Yi suddenly leaned forward, placing her other hand on the back of the sofa next to Zhou Ai's ear.

The distance was so close that Zhou Ai could count the faintly pulsating carotid artery beneath his shirt collar.

"Mr. Zhou," Chu Yi's voice was even lower, the airflow brushing against his burning earlobe, "alcohol amplifies pain, but it doesn't make people misjudge the pressure applied to a wound."

Zhou Ai's eyelashes trembled suddenly.

"I didn't even touch the stitches." Chu Yi turned off the flashlight, and as darkness returned, Zhou Ai saw a very faint smile appear on the other's lips. "Your acting is far worse than when you were getting stitches last time."

Cheng Yingzhi stood frozen at the bar, holding his wine glass, the ice cubes crackling softly inside.

He saw Zhou Ai suddenly grab Chu Yi's wrist as he was about to pull it back, the silver ring on his knuckles digging into the other's pale skin.

"Then, Dr. Chu, can you teach me?" Zhou Ai's thumb subtly traced the other's prominent wrist bone. "How can I make it look more convincing?"

Qi Yuan uttered a muffled murmur from the sofa, breaking the tense standoff that was about to erupt.

Chu Yi pulled her hand back so quickly it created a gust of wind, and as she turned around, the hem of her white shirt swept across the water droplets condensed on the glass coffee table.

"The wound is healing well." He bent down to tuck Qi Yuan's slipped coat in, his voice regaining its usual calm. "Just come to the hospital next week to have the stitches removed."

Zhou Ai slowly leaned back into the shadows of the sofa, pulling her fingers, which had just touched Chu Yi, back into her palm.

The aftereffects of the vodka were still there, seemingly still boiling and burning in my veins.

"I called a designated driver to take Qi Yuan home first. You guys have fun." Chu Yi said, helping Qi Yuan up, the leather sofa making a slight rustling sound. Qi Yuan leaned half his body on Chu Yi's shoulder, his drunken breath warm against Chu Yi's ear.

As Chu Yi passed Zhou Ai, she deliberately shifted her body to avoid him, but she still inevitably bumped into his leg, which was stretched out in the aisle.

Their kneecaps collided through the fabric; it wasn't a hard collision, but it made both of them pause for a moment.

"Mr. Zhou," Chu Yi said without bowing his head, his gaze fixed on the gilded handle of the door to the private room ahead. His voice remained calm, like a doctor giving a patient a patient's advice, "Drink less, be careful your wound doesn't get infected."

Zhou Ai looked up at him. From this angle, he could see the slight movement of Chu Yi's Adam's apple as he spoke, and the taut curve of his jawline. Below, the cuffs of Chu Yi's white shirt were rolled up to his elbows, revealing a section of his lean forearm, which was stained with tiny specks of red wine.

He suddenly laughed, and with a flick of his wrist, poured the remaining half-glass of vodka into the crystal ashtray beside him. The amber liquid extinguished the cigarette butt, producing a soft sizzling sound.

"Listen to the doctor." Zhou Ai placed the empty glass on the coffee table, the glass bottom clinking crisply. He leaned back on the sofa, his silver-gray hair sinking into the dark red velvet. "On the day the stitches are removed..." he drawled, watching Chu Yi's retreating figure as she helped him turn around, "Will Dr. Chu remove them himself?"

Chu Yi didn't stop walking. She simply raised her hand to adjust Qi Yuan's slid arm, and her voice pierced through the noisy background, "Whoever's name is on the registration slip is the one who will open it."

After saying that, he helped Qi Yuan up and turned sideways to precisely avoid Zhou Ai's long legs that were blocking the aisle, without the slightest hesitation.

The heavy solid wood door closed, completely shutting out Zhou Ai's unspoken words and Cheng Ying's amused laughter.

The cold, white light streaming down the corridor contrasted sharply with the decadent, dim lighting inside the private room, creating two distinct worlds.

Qi Yuan groaned uncomfortably, and Chu Yi lifted his sliding body up. The glaring red wine stain on the back of his white shirt smeared onto Qi Yuan's dark coat, creating a small, blurry shadow.

He supported the person steadily toward the exit, their footsteps falling silently on the soft carpet.

Only when she was completely away from that door did Chu Yi slow her pace almost imperceptibly, raising her free hand and gently pressing it against the side of her neck.

The skin where Zhou Ai's breath had just touched seemed to still have a slightly abnormal temperature, as if it had been burned by the smell of vodka.

He frowned slightly, pressed his fingertips firmly, and extinguished the unfamiliar warmth under his fingertips.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

After the door closed completely, there was an eerie silence in the private room for a moment, with only the faint sound of ice melting in the ice bucket remaining.

Zhou Ai's gaze remained fixed on the door, as if he could pierce through the solid wood to track the vanished figure. He suddenly spoke, his voice hoarse from the alcohol: "Cheng Yingzhi, what...what's your relationship with him?"

Cheng Yingzhi swirled the nearly empty glass of whiskey, the amber liquid clinging to the side before sliding down. He raised an eyebrow at the question, turning his head to look at Zhou Ai, who was shrouded in shadow, a playful smile curving his lips: "Guess what? What do you think our relationship is?"

Zhou Ai frowned. He and Cheng Yingzhi had been hanging out for over a decade, from fighting in school uniforms to now being respectable figures in their respective fields. They knew all about each other's scandalous affairs and bad friends.

Ke Chuyi... This person seemed to have been suddenly carved out of an ice crevice, clean, cold, and out of place with everything around him, yet he shared a certain inexplicable tacit understanding with Cheng Yingzhi.

"I've never seen him, and you've never mentioned him." Zhou Ai's fingers unconsciously twirled the velvet fabric of the sofa, her tone carrying a probing tone she herself didn't realize. "He's the kind of person who would make your young master Cheng offer you hangover soup and even take you home?"

Cheng Yingzhi chuckled softly, tilting his head back to finish the last drop of wine. The glass clattered against the marble table. He turned to face Zhou Ai, his eyes holding a hint of mockery, yet also an unfathomable depth.

"Chu Yi," he said slowly, as if savoring the name, "he should have originally had the same surname as me, Cheng."

Zhou Ai's fingers, which were twirling the sofa fabric, suddenly stopped. She abruptly looked up at Cheng Yingzhi, a glint of surprise flashing in her silver-gray hair in the dim light: "...Cousins?"

Cheng Yingzhi nodded, picked up the bottle, and poured himself another half-glass, the ice cubes crackling. "Otherwise what? Who do you think I'd serve them like this, letting them put on that cold face?"

"Why have I never heard you mention this seriously before?" Zhou Ai frowned even more, trying to search her memory for any clues. The Cheng family had many collateral branches, but none that Cheng Yingzhi mentioned so frequently…

Cheng Yingzhi chuckled, swirling his wine glass as he walked to the sofa, looking down at Zhou Ai: "You mentioned it, of course you did! I always told you about my little cousin when we were kids—he was annoyingly smart, as handsome as a porcelain doll, always number one in his class, miles ahead of me. Didn't you always get impatient listening to him, saying I was bragging and making up some other kid to fool you?"

He leaned down, elbows on his knees, and got closer to Zhou Ai, a mischievous glint in his eyes: "What? Now that you've seen the real person, you believe it?"

Zhou Ai was speechless. Those distant fragments of memory, blurred by alcohol and time, were suddenly pried open.

As a teenager, Cheng Yingzhi did seem to frequently talk incessantly about "someone else's" younger brother, his tone a mixture of impatience and secret pride. However, at the time, he only found it annoying and never took it seriously.

So it wasn't made up after all.

The "porcelain doll" has grown up and become a doctor whose even frowns are cold, whose fingers are as cold as jade, and whose slight, almost imperceptible smile when exposing a lie is more fiery than strong liquor.

Zhou Ai's Adam's apple bobbed, but she didn't speak. She only felt that the brow bone that Chu Yi's fingertip had touched earlier suddenly started to feel faintly hot again.

"Your brother..." Zhou Ai murmured awkwardly, the word swirling in her mouth, her tongue touching the back of her teeth, tasting a slightly unfamiliar bitterness. "Has he always been like this?"

"What?" Cheng Yingzhi asked knowingly, swirling his glass and smiling, the ice clinking softly. He tilted his head back and took a sip, the amber liquid wetting his lips. "No, isn't it fine? Very polite to everyone."

As the words fell, their eyes met briefly in mid-air. Only the low drumbeats of the background music filled the private room, like the unspoken beat of a heart.

No one spoke again; a silent consensus was quietly reached amidst the alcohol and the shadows.

Cheng Yingzhi tilted his head back and drank the rest of the wine in his cup in one gulp, the spicy liquid sliding down his throat.

He knew perfectly well what Zhou Ai was referring to.

The "other people's child" who was praised by the elders of the family and looked up to by his peers was like someone who was seen through a layer of frosted glass from a young age.

Chu Yi's politeness is an impenetrable shield, and his smile is a perfect measuring stick. He is gentle to everyone, but that also means he has never truly opened up to anyone.

You can't get close, and you can't hold on to it.

Cheng Yingzhi only managed to pry open a crack in that icy plain by relying on his status as the "elder brother" who had been pestering him for over a decade, along with his thick skin. He was able to glimpse a trace of the real temperature inside.

Or, to be more precise, to glimpse the true nature of that lack of warmth.

Chu Yi's coldness is ingrained, an almost innate aloofness.