After the breakup, I was taken in by a group of trendy young women.

Lin Ye tilted his head five degrees toward Wang Xiaoying, moving his ear from below her lips to directly opposite them. Her breath hit his eardrum directly; it was hot, carrying the sourness of champagne and the warmth of her body. The hot breath and sourness mixed together, like the smell of an unripe apricot that had been sun-dried all day.

"No way!"

Wang Xiaoying tilted her head five degrees further, her lips almost touching Lin Ye's earlobe. When she spoke, her lips brushed against his earlobe twice. It wasn't intentional; it was because her lips needed to open and close when she spoke, and naturally, they would touch the surrounding objects. The only objects around her were the air and Lin Ye's earlobe.

"Someone with such strict upbringing would definitely like a spirited young man like you. Otherwise, why would she sponsor our racing team when we haven't won a single medal? She just envies Huang Mao and his teammates but can't achieve what they have, so she has to settle for second best!"

Lin Ye pulled his head away from Wang Xiaoying and leaned against the back of the sofa. There was a two-centimeter gap between the backrest and his back. The two centimeters of air were compressed into a thin air cushion the moment he leaned against it. The thickness of the air cushion was just enough for him to feel that there was something between his back and the backrest, but that thing was not the backrest, it was air.

He took out a cigarette case from his pocket, flicked one out, and put it in his mouth. This time he lit it, and the flame of the lighter illuminated half of his face. The crystal chandelier in the party hall illuminated the other half of his face in seven colors. The boundary between the two lights on his face passed right through the middle of his nose, dividing his nose in two. One half was the orange of the lighter, and the other half was the rainbow color of the crystal chandelier.

He took a drag of his cigarette, the smoke billowing from his nostrils and spreading out in front of him. Through the light of the crystal chandelier, it tinted the seven colors refracted by the three hundred crystals into gray. As the smoke rose to the ceiling, it was sucked into the central air conditioning vent. The vent was blowing to the right, and before the smoke was dispersed by the wind, it drew an irregular circle on the ceiling. The edge of the circle had a gray outline, the shape of which was exactly the same as the small circle that Shao Yang had drawn on his palm with his ring finger.

Bai Xiaojing ran over from the other end of the hall, still holding the glass of orange juice in her right hand. The water droplets on the glass were gone because she had finished drinking the orange juice. Only a thin layer of orange juice residue remained at the bottom of the glass. The residue was a shade darker than the fresh orange juice because the orange juice had been oxidized by oxygen. The oxidation rate was at least three times faster than the bubbling of champagne.

"Brother! Miss Shao is gone? I haven't even spoken to her yet!"

Lin Ye took the cigarette out of his mouth, flicked off the ash, and it fell onto the armrest of the dark brown sofa, breaking into several pieces. He swept the ash off the armrest with his hand, and the ash fell onto the carpet. The carpet was dark gray, and the ash was also dark gray. After the ash fell onto the carpet, it disappeared, not because it was sucked up by the vacuum cleaner, but because the color was the same.

"Let's go, there will be other opportunities next time."

Bai Xiaojing placed the empty cup on the side table next to the sofa. The side table was round, with a black marble tabletop. On the marble was a potted green ivy with drooping leaves. One of the leaves rested on the rim of Bai Xiaojing's cup, and the fuzz on the back of the leaf was covered with orange juice residue from the bottom of the cup. The acidity of the orange juice residue would cause the leaf to turn yellow before tomorrow morning.

Shen Qing and Shen Na also walked over from the other end of the hall. Shen Qing was still holding a glass of water. She had been standing for almost an hour since the party started. There were still two-thirds of the water in the glass because she had only drunk one-third of it in the past hour. The remaining two-thirds had been held in her hand, and the water had gone from hot to cold, and then from cold to room temperature.

Shen Na's wine glass was empty, with a thin layer of red wine stains clinging to the glass. The color of the stains gradually changed from dark red to light red from the bottom to the rim of the glass, with at least seven shades of color. These seven shades corresponded to the distance between each sip of her wine in the forty minutes it took to go from a full glass to an empty one.

"Brother, when are we going back? I want to change into slippers."

Shen Na placed the empty glass on the side table next to Bai Xiaojing's orange juice glass. The two glasses were close together, one tall and one short, one with a small opening and one with a large opening, one with red wine stains on the wall and the other with orange juice residue.

Lin Ye stood up, put a cigarette in his mouth, and the ash fell onto the carpet and disappeared. He put his hands into the pockets of his suit pants. His right hand reached for the pack of Hongtashan cigarettes, and his left hand reached for the pearl earring. The earring's needle pricked his thigh through the pocket fabric, exactly two centimeters below the left pocket of his jeans.

"Let's go back."

Bai Xiaojing was the first to turn around. The fluorescent green silk scarf bow completely came undone as she turned. The scarf slipped down from her collar, and she caught it with her hand, crumpled it into a ball, and stuffed it into the pocket of her pink suit. The pocket bulged out, and the shape of the bulge was exactly the shape of a bow, a flattened bow.

Shen Qing placed the glass of plain water on the side table, with the cup to the left of the two empty cups. The three cups were placed side by side, varying in height and size.

Shen Na followed behind Shen Qing, took two steps and then turned back. When she turned back, her star pendant slid out from her shirt collar. The pendant flashed under the lights of the party hall, and that flash was captured by the infrared fill light of the surveillance camera at the entrance of the hall. In the surveillance video, this frame of the image showed a very small spot of light, and the position of the spot of light was exactly in the middle of Shen Na's chest.

Wang Xiaoying walked on the left side of the woods, then switched to the right side after a couple of steps. Her reason for changing positions was that her car keys were in her left pocket, and the metal casing of the keys would dig into her thigh. Her right pocket was empty, so she moved to the right side of the woods. But she didn't believe this reason herself, because she had always kept her car keys in her left pocket since the first day she drove this BMW X5. Three years had passed, and there was now a dent in her left pocket shaped like a car key, just deep enough for the keys to fit comfortably without digging into her thigh.

The five people walked from the reception hall to the elevator. The elevator door was open. The elevator that Shao Yang had just been in had already gone down. This elevator was a different one.

The elevator arrived, and the five people went in. Lin Ye pressed the button for the first floor. The button lit up and made a beeping sound, so soft that only the person standing next to the button could hear it. The person standing next to the button was Lin Ye, because he was the one who pressed the button.

The registration desk in the lobby on the first floor hadn't been removed yet. There was a coffee cup imprint on the white tablecloth. The imprint was circular, with the same diameter as the bottom of the cup, and a shade darker than the tablecloth. It was located right next to the registration book. A drop of coffee had splashed on the cover of the registration book. The coffee color blended with the black cover of the registration book, making it almost invisible unless you looked closely. However, if you looked closely, you would notice a reflective spot on the cover. The position of the reflective spot was exactly on a vertical line with the position of the spotlight directly above the registration desk.

The five people walked out of the hall, and sunlight shone in from outside the glass door, shining on Bai Xiaojing's fluorescent green scarf. She had already crumpled the scarf into a ball and stuffed it into her pocket, but the pocket fabric was pink. The fluorescent green scarf stretched a gap in the pink pocket from the inside, and a sliver of fluorescent green light shone through the gap. The wavelength of the light was exactly the same as the wavelength emitted by the fluorescent dye after absorbing sunlight.

Lin Ye stood on the steps in front of the beverage company, took a final drag of his cigarette, the butt burning down to the filter. A burnt smell wafted from the filter, mingling with the sunlight and the hot wind. He flicked the cigarette butt away, and it landed in the flowerbed below the steps. A rose bush pricked the cigarette filter, creating a small hole in the cotton inside. The hole revealed the unburnt tobacco shreds, their dark brown color matching the soil around the rose bush roots.