Nie Huaisang flips his fan shut with a fluid pivot of his wrist and taps it to his own mouth, signalling for Jiang Cheng to lower his voice. “So you can see just how serious this is! If it’s found out, we’ll really be in some strife.” “We?” Jiang Cheng gapes at him, and does not lower his voice at all. “We?! There is no we in this! This is a problem of your own making, it can be a problem of your own solving!”

“Do you know how?” Wang Yizhou asks, but it’s all a light tease, and he’s already taking his hand away, as if in expectation. “Nope!” says Ji Li, confident. Then, in a move that he will recognise, in hindsight, to be the start of the complete undoing of his whole night, he adds, “But I’ll learn. Really quick.” He fishes out his phone from the pocket of his shorts, and holds it up, almost conspiratorial. “Bet I’ll have it down in one video. I’m very resourceful like that.”