She spent about six thousand yuan booking a stay and a late-night session. When she came in, she put down her bag and casually told me to go take a shower first.

When she stepped out wrapped in a bathrobe, I stopped her and told her to put her clothes on, and we should go out to eat something.
On the way, she kept tilting her head toward me the whole time and said nothing. Streetlights along the roadside cast onto her face; she took out a cigarette and lit it. The flame flickered once, and then her eyes went dark.

While we ate, neither of us talked much. I reached over and picked up a couple of bites of food for her with my chopsticks. After we finished, I suggested there was a home interior showroom nearby—let’s stop by and take a look, then head back.
She didn’t refuse. She followed quietly, and it was obvious her mind was full of questions. The showroom’s air-conditioning was set low; not long after, she couldn’t hold on anymore. She slumped onto the resting sofa and fell asleep. I took off my outerwear and draped it over her. She jerked awake at once, flustered, asking me if we were really supposed to sleep here.
I shook my head and said I was worried she’d catch a chill. After that, she didn’t doze off again. She followed the lights in the showroom and looked at the staged sample houses—living rooms, balcony flower stands—everything had been sketched casually on her notebooks back then. On the drive back to the hotel, she kept staring out the window at the newly built properties, and didn’t say a word the whole way.

When we stopped at the hotel entrance, she was still in a daze. I pulled her wrist and pointed at a newly opened renovation shop by the street. Inside the glass door, the lights were bright; the floor tiles and wardrobes were laid out clearly—everything looked like the way people set up a life.
I asked her, “I still don’t know what your name is.”

She kept her head down, her fingers rubbing the price quotation sheet stuck to the glass. After a long time, she still didn’t lift her face; tears welled up in her eyes.
Only after a while did she finally speak. Her voice was hoarse as she asked me whether she could go upstairs first.

On the way back in the car, she took the initiative to tell me about things from before.
Her former boyfriend—he used to say every day that he wanted to save money to buy a place, that he’d make her a floating desk, that he’d fill the windowsill with hanging orchids. He’d said it for years, and none of it ever came true. Back then she flipped through renovation catalogs until they were worn out, and in the end it was still just her, drifting around everywhere alone. Even she found it laughable when she said it.

After I showered back in my room, she sat quietly at the edge of the bed waiting. I sat down next to her, and didn’t do anything else. She couldn’t stay awake anymore and leaned against the headboard and fell asleep. Her breathing was light and steady. I stayed beside her and slept through the night too.

Just as the sky was getting light, I woke up first. I saw a dried tear mark at the corner of her eye. I didn’t want to wake her. Quietly, I put a business card for the renovation shop into her bag and left on my own.

A long time later, by chance, I passed by that shop again—and I saw her.
She was wearing clean work overalls and no longer looked like that shabby drifter from before. She stood steadily in the model units, talking to customers about the design. Her coworkers said she was considerate, the best at understanding the little home someone wants.
Only she herself knew that staying in that shop every day wasn’t all for work. She was waiting for the man from that night. He didn’t touch her even a bit, but he helped her pick back up the confidence she wanted to have a home.