Chapter 18: Absolute Territory

 

Zhao Xiaorou sent the document at some point in the morning. Hu Xiu didn't see it until after twelve-thirty.

She'd been in a general meeting until ten-thirty, then organizing the leader's report. Lunch break was whenever the work allowed it. Since joining the hospital, not touching her phone during working hours had become something she observed without being asked — no matter how inconspicuously she scrolled, it still registered as entertainment, and in a place where doctors moved from patient to patient without pause, appearing idle was a cost she wasn't willing to pay.

She arrived every morning by eight-thirty in formal dress. Today: white blouse, black skirt, three-centimeter heels in stiff fabric. It had felt appropriate when she put it on.

The document's first line:

"Don't wear white blouse with black skirt, especially without design highlights — you'll look like a college counselor. Qin Xiaoyi might have various preferences, but he'd never fancy boring female teachers — except in pornographic movies."

Hu Xiu adjusted her glasses and kept reading.

"Wear clothes that highlight your figure. Search 'pure desire' on Taobao and buy the top five bestsellers. Don't mix and match — copy the model photos. But not too much: body-hugging is excessive, no cleavage as it's off-putting. Best to show some leg. Absolute territory is outdated — just reveal the knees. Thin legs and shoulders from behind evoke protective instincts in men."

She actually searched "pure desire" before catching herself and flipping her phone face-down. She sat with her screen against the desk for a moment.

She had nothing to do with those two words.

"Be strategically clever: express interest but know when to stop. Tease him until he's itching to approach you first. Never give unconditionally — that would make you a 'great mother' figure."

"When playing LARP, regardless of faction, don't show competitive drive. Orbit around him when possible. Feign vulnerability during missions — skip gameplay if needed. Remember why you paid five hundred yuan to participate."

"Take initiative. Someone as popular as Qin Xiaoyi requires preemptive action. Even icebergs melt with global warming."

"If you get close enough to feel body heat, withdraw within ten seconds. Paired with a distinctive perfume, he'll remember you constantly — because you're intriguing and carry an elegant scent."

Hu Xiu read through the whole thing. She recognized every character. She was not sure she understood their collective meaning when assembled like this.

Zhao Xiaorou, confined at home with nothing better to do, immediately began messaging for a response so they could discuss further strategy. Hu Xiu looked at her own schedule: three major hospital conferences next week requiring venue arrangements, plus substantial translation work. The hospital was establishing a sisterhood relationship with a Singaporean hospital, and the documents were full of Chinese diplomatic formulations — friendship between nations, deepening cooperation, mutual development — that she'd compiled thick glossaries for during her graduate years. She could handle these without effort.

Certainly more efficiently than she could handle pure desire.

---

At home, Zhao Xiaorou's face was still slightly swollen, yellowish at the edges of the bruising, but improving. The packages in her elevator lobby had piled to the ceiling. She'd had rib cartilage taken from her scalp to augment her nose, slimming injections, and two weeks of hiding at home and shopping online, and she intended to emerge from all of this as a different kind of person — nose elevated, baby fat reduced, image: cool, independent, moving on.

Li Ai didn't know about any of it.

Hu Xiu had stopped by REGARD on her way over specifically to reassure him. He'd been asking about Zhao Xiaorou with an unusual degree of concern.

"She's at home writing a love manual," Hu Xiu told him, which was partially accurate. "Once she fills a whole notebook, she can probably publish it."

"Deep down, she's fragile. Even if she initiated the divorce — it's still a family separation."

"Her mood is genuinely fine," Hu Xiu said. She thought of Zhao Xiaorou at home, face swollen and cheerful, tearing open packages. "Don't worry."

Li Ai made coffee — two of his recent acquisitions, one with a slightly sour fruity note, one with deep chocolate — and they sat with small cups of tiramisu until nine. Before she left, he wrapped up the pot and a slice of cake in a tote bag. He never let takeaway coffee leave the shop for regular customers; the temperature loss affected the flavor too much for his liking. He made the exception here because Zhao Xiaorou was lazy and would drink his coffee even if she woke up panicked at two in the morning.

Hu Xiu had always sensed that Li Ai's attitude toward Zhao Xiaorou was different from his attitude toward her. He called both of them little sisters, but the dynamic wasn't the same. With Hu Xiu it was something like affectionate mentorship. With Zhao Xiaorou it was harder to name.

Watching Zhao Xiaorou gulp the still-scalding coffee and demolish the cake without pausing, Hu Xiu felt her instinct was probably correct — but also that this was not a situation in which any of the involved parties would do anything reckless. Li Ai was still organizing legal materials on behalf of his late wife. That expression of grief seeking justice bore the specific texture of love that had mattered. And Zhao Xiaorou, whatever else she was, wouldn't cross a line that would damage something she respected.

These weren't people who moved on impulse. Urban life demanded a different kind of management.

Before she'd finished the thought, Zhao Xiaorou had put down her cup and started hauling packages in. Dresses emerged from tissue paper one by one.

"I've already bought your clothes for next time you see Qin Xiaoyi. You've worn enough of the costume department's stuff — those outfits are barely holding together at the buttons."

When Hu Xiu unfolded what was handed to her, she nearly sat back down. Collarbone above. Calves below. The hem was very short.

"You mentioned last time that Qin Xiaoyi likes girls with—" Zhao Xiaorou was already digging through another package. "I have a secret weapon."

She produced a medium-sized box and opened it. Hu Xiu, who had been preparing herself for some kind of supplement, looked at what was inside.

"Si— silicone bra pads?"

"Do you think Victoria's Secret models are all real? Even A-cups need this. What we're creating is visual impact. Cleavage. You don't show it constantly — pick one occasion, sway past him so he registers it. Then he has another memory point: big chest, cleavage. Understand?"

"Zhao Xiaorou." Hu Xiu shook her head with real feeling. "You're like a sister to me, but I think you're setting me up. He'll just think I'm fake. Props. An illusion."

"Your mouth says no but your mind has already reached the undressing-and-truth-revealing scene."

Hu Xiu's ears went completely red. Being seen through this accurately was its own specific humiliation.

Zhao Xiaorou, unhurried: "Fine, I won't force it. There are always other methods — he already has a memory of you now. The next step is getting him out of his performance context. When he's playing a character, you're seeing a character. He also doesn't know who you actually are. Based on my read, he probably thinks you're a brainless, unremarkable fangirl."

That hurts, Hu Xiu thought, and then she was thinking about the Qin Xiaoyi she'd seen late at night on an empty street — that hesitant walk, lingering near Lin Qiumei, not approaching. So similar to the version of herself who had once stood on a street in Rong City and not been able to cross it either.

The financial minister he played in Snowpiercer was aloof, precise, controlled. The real version apparently disliked certain endings, kept someone in his feelings he couldn't have, didn't like talking after work, and still maintained actual gentleness toward people who cared for him. These weren't the same.

"Come on, try the dress. I'm bored and I need someone to dress up. Don't transfer me money — did you see I hit a million followers?"

---

The green dress, when Hu Xiu finally put it on, was not what she'd braced for.

She'd seen it online — vintage in cut, with gold-trimmed fringe that moved when she moved, a slit hem. The fringe at the sleeveless cuffs swayed whenever she turned. On a platform, it would catch every small current of air.

What she'd underestimated was the chest: a diagonal opening of approximately twenty centimeters. It had the line of a cheongsam collar and then just — opened, in a way that would reveal considerably more than she intended if she bent at the wrong angle.

"This is more like it," Zhao Xiaorou said, very satisfied. "Did you read the battle plan? Get his real name in a week, confess in a month, move in within three."

"Might as well send me straight to the crematorium."

"Have some efficiency. Love strikes suddenly — if you don't move, someone else will. Did you read the tips?"

"The pure desire and calculated moves?" Hu Xiu checked her reflection and immediately straightened back up. "Spare me. Even if I could pull it off, it wouldn't be me."

"I'm about to be single. If you don't confess within a month, Qin Xiaoyi is mine."

Hu Xiu let this sit for a moment, then gave in to something she'd been wondering. "Why did Wang Guangming agree to the divorce so quickly? He could have countered—"

"I have a secret weapon." Zhao Xiaorou considered. "I'll only say this here, not outside." She told Hu Xiu about the night in the suburbs, the villa, the group boredom, someone producing weed, Wang Guangming's practiced movements. She'd left and checked into a hotel, but not before she'd taken photographs. "He's not stupid enough to let me use them. Playing the repentant divorced man still pays."

It took Hu Xiu a moment to fully process this.

"Wear the dress on the weekend," Zhao Xiaorou said, cutting off whatever Hu Xiu was about to say. "Get me his real name."

---

Her shoes had cracked soles, worn down from running to subways. She stopped at a mall on the way home and bought boots — shiny brown, which she'd looked at and passed by a dozen times before. In her father's understanding of the world, choosing bright colors meant following in her mother's frivolous footsteps.

She stood on the platform waiting and looked down at the boots. She felt, quietly, that she was changing in small increments. Letting something show a little more clearly. That wasn't necessarily wrong — after all, not every place had platforms to hide behind.

She was still thinking this when Qin Xiaoyi walked out the door.

He'd changed his costume. The new suit was sharper than the one she'd been used to — jet-black hair, pale skin, gold-rimmed glasses catching the light. The features composed into something that almost wasn't fair.

She turned to look and stepped on a loose brick. The platform sign rang when her foot hit it.

Qin Xiaoyi laughed. "What's wrong? Are you that nervous to see me?"

---

After the first act he went back to Room 301 to wait for the players. Hu Xiu, who had rarely been assigned to his team and figured she had time to observe, followed closely.

Before the door could open, Qin Xiaoyi turned around. His face was less than ten centimeters from hers.

"Following so closely," he said. "Do you want to see me that badly?"

The familiar mint breath. He seemed to genuinely enjoy this.

As they became more familiar, his consideration became quietly particular — sending other team members away first and then slipping her an extra three thousand, asking her to help deliver a gift to Lin Qiumei.

After she left, Hu Xiu went to a department store. She stood in front of a necklace for a while. Then bought it.

Went back to Room 301. Gathered everything available to her.

Turned to face him and said: "Put it on me."

He blinked. Just once. "Turn around."

His fingers found the clasp. It was very small, and he seemed to be nearsighted — he leaned in close, adjusting for a long time. His fingers never touched her neck. Not once. And yet she felt the goosebumps start and keep going, past the point where they had any business being, into places that had no logical reason to respond.

The necklace had a gap in the neckline she hadn't thought about until just now. From where he was standing. The angle. She absolutely should have worn the chest pads.

The clasp caught. He let out a quiet breath behind her — the specific kind that meant something had been more finicky than expected — and said:

"You've learned to be naughty now."

She had not prepared a response to this. She opened the door and walked out quickly.

Through the closing gap, she caught a last glimpse: Qin Xiaoyi stepping out of Room 301, watching her go. Smiling — not the polished performance-smile, but the other one, the one with something genuinely mischievous in it.

The fringe on the necklace moved against her arm as she walked. The goosebumps didn't quite settle.

She had seen him on a late-night street, unsure of himself, wanting something he didn't have. She had thought then that she understood the shape of him.

She was revising that understanding now.

He wasn't simply handsome in the way that announced itself and left nothing behind. He was more like amber — something visible inside, with depth behind the surface, and the surface itself interesting. The mischief in those gold-rimmed glasses was something she hadn't accounted for.

The kind of charm that boys could have too.

She walked faster. The fringe kept swaying.