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

When Lin Ye walked from the living room into the bedroom, the door behind him was not closed properly.

He had his hand on the doorknob, intending to close it, but the sound of flowery legs drifted from behind him, light and airy, like a breath escaping from a drunkard's throat.

"Brother...don't close the door...it's stuffy..."

Lin Ye's hand stopped on the doorknob, paused for a moment, and then let go.

The door was ajar, leaving a gap about two fingers wide.

The living room light peeked in through the gaps, casting a thin, warm yellow line of light on the floor that stretched all the way to the bedside.

The bedroom lights were off.

The curtains on the window were only half drawn, with the other half hanging loosely.

The streetlights outside the window were already on, their dim yellow light filtering through the thin layer of dust on the glass, casting an ambiguous color, somewhere between orange and brown, over the entire bedroom.

The outline of the snakeskin bag in the corner blurred into a dark shadow in the light, and the shadow of the half-pack of potato chips on the cardboard box by the bed stretched long, like a cat stretching.

The woman with the tattooed legs lay on the bed.

She wasn't lying on her usual yoga mat. Today, the green-haired and pink-haired people had taken over the mat. The two of them were lying on it, examining the nail polish colors in front of a flashlight, head to head, with their four legs crossed. The pink-haired person was saying, "The mauve on this hand is darker than the one on that hand," while the green-haired person was saying, "That's because I did a better job with my left hand than my right."

The bed is Bai Xiaojing's bed.

But Bai Xiaojing is now lying on the sofa in the living room. After she slipped out of Lin Ye's arms, she was pulled back by the tattooed man, and the two of them squeezed onto the old sofa. Bai Xiaojing rested her head on the tattooed man's arm, and the tattooed man's hand was on Bai Xiaojing's waist. The two drunkards fell asleep leaning against each other.

A glistening drop of saliva still clung to Bai Xiaojing's lips, smearing onto the koi fish on her tattooed arm. The tattooed man was oblivious, snoring loudly.

So this single bed now belongs to Flower Legs.

When Lin Ye walked in, Hua Tui had already settled himself in.

She lay on her side, her face turned toward the window, the light from the streetlamp falling on her face and casting a soft halo around her features.

Her hair was loose, and the black hair that was usually tied in a ponytail or casually tied with a rubber band was now spread like a splash of ink on Bai Xiaojing's washed-out pillow. A few strands fell on the side of her face, rising and falling slightly with the rhythm of her breathing.

She had taken off her T-shirt at some point.

The temperature in this bedroom is higher than in the living room.

The living room windows were wide open, letting in the night breeze from the balcony; but the bedroom window was only slightly ajar, the air filled with the scent of Bai Xiaojing's strawberry-scented shampoo, floral water, and the lingering warmth of their bodies after they had slept together.

The woman with the floral dress probably felt hot, so she took off her outer garment, leaving her in only a black tank top.

She hadn't worn that black tank top during the day.

Lin Ye had seen this black dress in Bai Xiaojing's snakeskin bag. The shoulder straps were very thin, and the neckline was quite low, but the fabric was so thin that it was almost invisible against the skin.

The neckline is edged with a very fine lace trim. It's not new lace; it's been washed many times, and the outline of the lace is somewhat blurred. But in the light of the streetlamp, those blurred lines have a kind of beauty softened by time.

Her legs were exposed.

One leg was stretched out, the ankle resting on the railing at the foot of the bed, and the mottled red nail polish on the toes gleamed dullly under the streetlights.

The other leg was bent, the knee forming a soft arc, the entire leg dangling off the edge of the bed, the toes almost touching the floor.

The bent leg's knee reached just to Lin Ye's waist.

Lin Ye stood by the bed for a moment.

The woman with the flower-like legs didn't sleep.

Her eyelashes fluttered when he stepped in.

It's not the kind of unconscious tremor you feel when you're asleep; it's the kind of tremor you feel when you know someone has come in, you're waiting for them to speak, but you don't intend to speak first.

Her eyes were closed, her breathing steady, but her fingers unconsciously curled on the pillow, wrinkling the cotton fabric of the pillowcase.

Lin Ye sat down on the edge of the bed.

The mattress had sunk in a section; the springs of this single bed were completely broken. He had slept on Bai Xiaojing's bed for two nights and knew all too well how this bed behaved. Whenever he sat down, the entire bed would tilt in that direction, like a boat capsizing to one side.

The body with the flowery legs was pulled half an inch towards the woods by the tilt.

Her knee touched the outside of Lin Ye's thigh.

Through the thin fabric of her athletic shorts, he could feel the shape of her kneecaps—rounded, smooth, and warm from the alcohol she had just drunk.

Her eyelashes trembled again.

"elder brother."

She spoke.

The voice was squeezed out from the deepest part of his throat, with a hoarseness like someone who had just woken up or hadn't slept at all, completely different from the clear and bright voice of the usually shrewish woman.

Why aren't you asleep?

"I can't sleep."

Why?

Lin Ye thought for a moment and then told the truth.

My mind is a mess.

The flower-legged woman finally opened her eyes.

The streetlight was shining directly into her face, and she squinted for a moment to adjust.

His deep brown pupils shimmered with an amber luster in the light, and the shadows of his eyelashes fell on his cheekbones, as if someone had drawn two faint ink lines on his skin with the finest brush.

She looked at Lin Ye for a few seconds, then smiled.

Are you thinking about that?

"Which one?"

"That's the one."

Lin Ye looked at her.

"Which one?"

The woman with the flowery legs turned her face away, facing the wall.

The streetlights illuminated the contours of her profile: her full forehead, her slightly upturned nose, and her lips, still slightly red from the alcohol she had just drunk.

Her earlobes appeared almost transparent pink in the light, as if someone had shone a very light under her skin.

"It's... the joke Bai Xiaojing told you at the barbecue stand just now."

Her voice trailed off as she spoke, the last word almost squeezed out of her nose. Her fingers tightened around the pillowcase, her knuckles turning slightly white from the force.

Lin Ye certainly remembered.

"That joke,"

Lin Ye spoke up, "Have you told anyone else?"

Hua Tui turned her face away from the wall, looked at him, paused for a moment, and then shook her head.

"no."

"Have you thought about that?"

The woman with the flower-shaped legs did not answer.

But her gaze did not leave.

The light from the streetlamp fell into her eyes, making the amber luster even brighter.

Her lips parted slightly, and the tip of her tongue moved behind her teeth as if she wanted to say something, but then she swallowed it back.

Then Lin Ye remembered a sentence.

That sentence wasn't something he thought of; it surfaced on its own from the depths of his memory.

Like a fish that has sunk to the bottom of a pool, at a certain moment, it suddenly flips over and reveals its silvery-white belly.

He saw it on the rotten persimmon bookshelf.

It's not from any particular book, but a sentence that appears repeatedly in countless books. The covers of those books are all different, but the sentence appears on the inside pages, like a long-standing incantation, recited, forwarded, and collected by generations of readers.

Make big money, touch big breasts.

Six characters.

Simple, crude, and straightforward, devoid of any literary beauty.

But during those years at Rotten Persimmons, every time Lin Ye saw this sentence, he would chuckle to himself. It wasn't the kind of chuckle that comes from being amused, but the kind of chuckle that says, "That's so damn true."