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

The bathroom door was suddenly pushed open.

It was the kind of casual, nonchalant, and slightly groggy morning manner that led them to simply push open the door and walk in.

The door slammed against the wall tiles with a dull thud, and the small plastic mirror hanging on the door frame, which I bought from a two-dollar store, wobbled twice.

Shen Na stood at the door.

She had just woken up, her hair was still uncombed, and a few stray strands of hair stuck up on her head like a newly hatched chick.

She was wearing an old nightgown that she couldn't tell if it belonged to Shen Qing or had a tattoo on her arm. It was called a nightgown, but it was actually one of those one-size-fits-all cotton loungewear items bought at a two-dollar store. It had been washed so many times that the neckline was loose and hung below her collarbone. The hem of the skirt reached just to the middle of her thighs, revealing two ridiculously long legs.

The problem was that the nightgown wasn't a one-size-fits-all on her at all—the shoulders were loose, the neckline slipped down to reveal a patch of glowing white skin, but from the chest down it was stretched tightly, the fabric was taut, and the gaps between the buttons were stretched open in a few small places, revealing the outline of the light-colored underwear underneath.

Lin Ye almost dropped the towel in his hand.

It wasn't that he was naive—Shen Qing's figure was already outrageous enough, but Shen Na was half a head taller than Shen Qing, with an even more exaggerated leg length. Plus, the small nightgown was clinging to her body, making him involuntarily think of a phrase he'd read in some book: "It's so obvious it's about to burst out, even without being called out."

Shen Na was clearly not fully awake yet. Rubbing her eyes, she mumbled sleepily, "Qingqing, are you done washing up—"

Then the hand that was rubbing its eyes froze in mid-air.

Her pupils went from unfocused to focused in the morning light in just a fraction of a second, and then she saw the person in front of her clearly—not Shen Qing, but Lin Ye.

Lin Ye was shirtless.

He had just finished washing up and was wiping the water droplets off his neck with a towel.

A few strands of his newly cut short hair were wet and stuck to his forehead. His jawline was sharp and defined. Water droplets slid down his collarbone, along the lines of his pectoral and abdominal muscles, and finally disappeared at the edge of the elastic band of his athletic shorts.

The muscles on his body weren't the exaggerated bulk from deliberately building them in the gym; they were the result of the doubled core muscle groups in his lower back that came with the system's titanium alloy kidneys—he looked slim in clothes, but once he took them off, he had all the right angles, broad shoulders, a narrow waist, and the outline of his abdominal muscles was faintly visible in the morning light.

Shen Na's gaze moved from his face to his collarbone, from his collarbone to his chest, from his chest to his abdominal muscles, and then stopped.

Her mouth was slightly open, and her cheeks turned from fair to pink at a visible speed, then to bright red, and even the fair skin above her collarbone turned pink.

Her eyes seemed to be burned by something, jerking open, but less than half a second later they involuntarily bounced back, then open again, then bounced back again—the frequency was as fast as a malfunctioning pinball machine.

"I, I, I—"

Shen Na took a step back, her back hitting the doorframe. She frantically reached for the doorknob, only to touch a towel rack on the wall. A towel fell to the floor as she pulled it down. She bent down to pick it up, her collar drooping. She abruptly straightened up, covering her collar, her whole demeanor as flustered as a rabbit whose cage door had been suddenly opened.

"Why aren't you wearing clothes?! You're dressed!"

Lin Ye looked down at himself.

He was shirtless, the elastic band of his athletic shorts was askew to one side, and he was wearing plastic slippers with the words "Supermarket with Everything" printed on them.

He was indeed shirtless, but this was his shared apartment, and he was washing up in the bathroom around 7 a.m. Who would have thought that someone would barge in without knocking?

He picked up the towel from the floor and draped it over his shoulder, his tone calm: "Why didn't you knock?"

Shen Na's face turned even redder.

Her fingers gripped the doorknob, her knuckles turning white. She didn't know where to look, so she finally stared at the fluorescent light tube on the ceiling.

She had noticed the dead flying insect in the light tube last night, and now it was translucent in the morning light. How embarrassing! Even the dead flying insect was calmer than her.

She took a deep breath, trying to calm herself down, but the rise and fall of her chest only made the tight nightgown even more precarious, and the gap between the buttons opened up a little more.

"I...I thought—Shen Qing was inside—"

She finally managed to squeeze out a complete sentence, her voice soft and sweet but distorted, the ending note rising like she was on a rollercoaster.

"She said she wanted to take a shower in the morning, so I thought I'd come over and shower with her—no, I didn't mean to shower with you—I meant I didn't know you were in there—I'll go out first—"

She rambled on incoherently, shrinking back as she spoke, her heels almost tripping over the bathroom threshold.

Lin Ye reached out and gently helped her up. The moment his fingers touched her elbow, she jerked like a cat being hit by static electricity, then turned and ran away.

Her bare feet smacked loudly on the living room floor. When she ran to Shen Qing's bedside, she almost bumped into the bedpost. She plopped down on the mattress, waking Shen Qing up. Shen Qing mumbled groggily, "Sister, what are you doing?" She didn't say anything, just buried her face in Shen Qing's back.

Lin Ye stood at the bathroom door, watching Shen Na's back as she clung to Shen Qing, refusing to lift her head, and couldn't help but chuckle.

He took the towel off his shoulder and hung it back on the clothesline, picked up the water glass on the coffee table and took a sip of cold water, then took out his phone to check the time—7:20, less than twenty minutes after being woken up by Wang Xiaoying's roar.

Qi Liuhai rolled over on the yoga mat and rolled the blanket into a ball.

Everything was the same as yesterday morning, except for the addition of Shen Na, who was lying on Shen Qing with her face so red it could boil an egg.

After about ten minutes, Shen Na finally lifted her face off Shen Qing's back.

She had already hastily combed her hair with her fingers, changed out of the nightgown that was about to burst, and put back on the white short-sleeved T-shirt and faded jeans she had worn yesterday.

The T-shirt was stretched taut over her body, the lines of her jeans flowed smoothly from her thighs to her ankles, and her canvas shoes were neatly worn. She was completely different from the image of her frantically banging on the door in her tight nightgown just now, but her ears were still red.

Shen Qing followed behind her, her black hair draped over her shoulders, her face still showing the drowsiness of someone who had just woken up.

She rubbed her eyes, looked at Shen Na standing with her head down rubbing her fingers, and then looked at Lin Ye leaning against the balcony door frame drinking water. After a quick mental scan, she understood what had just happened, and the corners of her mouth couldn't help but curve into a smile.

Lin Ye leaned against the balcony door frame, holding a water glass in his hand, watching Shen Na standing in front of the coffee table, her two hands twisting together and rubbing them until her knuckles turned red.

Her jeans were half-hidden by the hem of her T-shirt above her thighs, and the tips of her canvas shoes unconsciously kicked at the piece of tape wrapped around the coffee table leg.

Her gaze drifted from the empty beer cans on the coffee table to the neatly stacked empty bottles in the corner, then from the seven toothbrushes stuck in the same cup to the colorful underwear hanging on the clothesline on the balcony. Finally, she mustered the courage to look up at Lin Ye, but her gaze snapped away as soon as she met his eyes, landing on his shoulder where a drop of water still clung.

"Um—I—I was originally planning to squeeze in with my sister, but I didn't expect her to be staying here with you—"

She finally spoke, her voice soft and hesitant, each word sounding as if she had bitten it with her teeth before letting it out—a stark contrast to the hearty, hearty woman who had devoured five skewers of grilled lamb chops and commented on the beer's malt strength the night before.

"You—you don't mind having one more person, do you?"

Lin Ye placed the water glass on the coffee table, and the bottom of the glass made a soft sound as it tapped against the glass surface.

He took the towel off his shoulder and wiped the remaining water droplets from his neck, then spoke casually.

His voice wasn't loud, but everyone in the living room could hear him clearly. His tone was as relaxed as if he were saying that the cabbages at the market were cheap again today.

"It's alright, whether you're herding one sheep or a flock, it's all the same."