Li Wenya was halfway through her morning mathematics practice when her phone buzzed.
Brother Shenzhen:Come to the school rooftop during lunch. Don't be late.
She stared at the message.
The rooftop.
In every novel she had ever read, being summoned to the rooftop by someone with a cold personality and a complicated family history meant exactly one thing. A Serious Conversation was about to happen. The kind with long pauses and meaningful stares and statements that sounded simple on the surface but carried seventeen layers of subtext underneath.
She typed back a simple okay and put her phone face down on the desk.
Beside her, Xi Yanli was writing notes with his usual calm precision. The morning light caught the edge of his profile, and Li Wenya looked away immediately on principle.
Focus, she told herself. Mathematics. Rooftop. Brother. In that order.
She looked back at her practice paper.
The equation stared back at her.
She wrote probably in the margin and immediately erased it.
The Rooftop
The school rooftop was quieter than she expected.
It was the kind of space that existed in every school drama she had ever watched... wide open sky, a low railing around the edges, the distant sound of the city below. A few potted plants that someone had optimistically placed near the door and then apparently forgotten about. The wind was mild, and the sun was warm, and under any other circumstances, it would have been a pleasant place to eat lunch.
Li Shenzhen was already there when she arrived.
He was leaning against the railing with his arms crossed, looking out at the skyline with the expression of someone composing a very serious speech in his head. He had loosened his collar slightly, and his dark hair moved in the breeze.
Li Wenya had to admit, objectively, that her brother was very handsome. In a cold, unapproachable, slightly intimidating way that probably made half the school nervous. She understood now why the original owner had been so devoted to him. He had the kind of face that belonged on the cover of a novel.
Which, she supposed, it literally did.
She stopped a few feet away. "You wanted to see me?"
Li Shenzhen turned to look at her. His gaze moved over her face in that slow, assessing way he had, like he was checking a list of things and marking them off one by one.
"You've been different lately," he said.
"Good morning to you, too," she replied.
His expression didn't change. "Sit down."
There was nowhere to sit except the low concrete ledge near the potted plants. She sat. He remained standing, which she suspected was a deliberate power move.
"I'm going to ask you something," he said, "and I want a straight answer."
She looked up at him. "Okay."
"Xi Yanli." He said the name like it had a specific weight to it. "How much contact have you had with him?"
Li Wenya kept her expression perfectly neutral. "He's my deskmate."
"I know he's your deskmate." Li Shenzhen's jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. "That's not what I asked."
She considered her answer carefully. "We've spoken a few times. About class things. Notes, textbooks. Normal deskmate interactions."
Li Shenzhen was quiet for a moment. The wind moved between them, and somewhere below, a bell rang for a different building.
"Stay away from him," he said finally.
Li Wenya blinked. "I told you, he's my deskmate. I can't exactly..."
"I don't mean physically." His voice was flat and measured. "I mean, don't get involved with him. Don't do him favors. Don't let him do you favors. Keep it academic and keep it minimal."
She studied her brother's face. There was something underneath the coldness, not quite worry, but something adjacent to it. Something tight and carefully controlled.
He knows something, she realized. About Xi Yanli. About the history between them.
In the novel, Li Shenzhen and Xi Yanli's conflict ran deep. It wasn't just school rivalry or personality clashes. There was a history between their families, a wound that had never properly healed, and Li Shenzhen carried it like a stone he refused to put down.
"Why?" she asked quietly.
"Because I said so."
"That's not a reason."
His eyes sharpened. "Wenya."
"I'm not arguing," she said carefully. "I'm asking. You've never told me anything about why you and Xi Yanli..."
"It's not your business."
"It became my business when you made me sit through this conversation," she said.
For a moment, Li Shenzhen simply looked at her. Something moved behind his eyes, surprise, maybe. Or the faint recognition that the sister sitting in front of him was responding differently than she used to.
The original Wenya would have nodded immediately. Would have agreed without question and then gone home and sent him seven affectionate WeChat messages about how much she trusted him.
Li Wenya just looked back at him and waited.
"Xi Yanli is not someone you can handle," he said finally. His voice had dropped slightly, the hard edge smoothed into something that was almost, almost, careful. "He doesn't form connections with people casually. And when he does, he doesn't let go easily. Do you understand what I'm telling you?"
She understood the words. She wasn't entirely sure she understood everything beneath them.
"I'll be careful," she said.
"That's not..."
"I'll be careful," she repeated. "I'm not naive, Shenzhen. And I'm not looking for trouble."
He looked at her for a long moment.
Then he uncrossed his arms and pushed off the railing. He walked past her toward the rooftop door and stopped with his hand on the handle.
"Don't make me regret telling you," he said, without turning around.
The door opened and closed behind him.
Li Wenya sat on the concrete ledge beside the forgotten potted plants and looked out at the sky, which she had been watching when she arrived.
He doesn't let go easily.
She turned the words over in her mind slowly.
In the novel, Xi Yanli's possessiveness had been directed entirely at Chen Yue. That was the story. That was the plot. That was what was supposed to happen.
So why did her brother's warning feel like it was already too late?
She sat with that thought for longer than was comfortable.
Then she stood up, straightened her uniform, and told herself she was being dramatic.
She went back downstairs.
She did not check if Xi Yanli was at his desk when she returned to the classroom.
She absolutely did check.
He was.
He didn't look up.
She sat down, opened her textbook, and said nothing.
That Evening
Li Shenzhen came home for dinner, which he seldom did.
He sat across from her at the large dining table and ate in silence, which was apparently just how meals went in this household. The aunt who cooked had left two covered dishes and a pot of soup and disappeared with the efficiency of someone who understood that the Li siblings communicated better without witnesses.
Halfway through the meal, Li Wenya looked up.
"Shenzhen."
He glanced at her.
"Thank you," she said. "For the warning."
He looked back at his bowl. "Don't thank me. Just listen."
"I will," she said.
They finished dinner in silence.
But it was a slightly different kind of silence than before. Less empty. Less hollow.
Like something small and fragile had been carefully set on a shelf between them, not named, not examined, but placed there with a kind of tentative intention.
Li Wenya washed her bowl and went upstairs.
She took out her notebook and wrote at the top of a fresh page:
He doesn't let go easily.
She stared at it for a moment.
Then she closed the notebook and put it in her drawer.
On top of the blue pen.
She turned off the light and went to sleep.