Office politics and Dean's stupid office crush combine into a perfect storm — literally.

"It's not a competition, guys," Zizhen says. "Surely we can think of better things to do while we wait for peak meteor visibility hours."

Sui Zhou knows he has lost the latest ambush of attrition when he finds Tang Fan watching a playlist of rotating sandwiches he's screen shared to their television.

"Sui Zhou?" he calls out from the hall. "Are you home?" Even if he can see his dependable black workboots set in the rack by the door, well-worn soles beginning to peel back from the toes, well, who could be sure? These are extenuatingly unordinary circumstances, after all.

And, well. If Cui-mama wanted her number to stay decorative, she wouldn't have plugged it into Jin San's phone the moment she decided they had earned the dubious honour of being one of Huanyi's chosen regulars. Nor would she have constructed a reputation as ostentatious nightlife host-cum-den mother for every cracking egg hitting Changping's pavement.

Hickey and Tozer share an extremely unauthorized celebration in the showers.

Well, it's not quite a hairshirt.

Sui Zhou's WeChat starts firing off around midday, which does at least immediately pare down the pool of potential suspects.

Meng Yao goes to a party at Jin Zixun's apartment hoping to get close to Lan Xichen and gets more than he bargined for when he ends up stuck in a room with Nie Mingjue.

Luo Binghe looks at Shen Qingqiu’s face carefully for any sign of recognition but finds none. Instead, Shen Qingqiu looks impressed, like he can’t imagine it. Luo Binghe preens at impressing Shen Qingqiu and he chooses to take this as a win in the series of battles in the war to make Shen Qingqiu remember. Luo Binghe just hopes that the battles will eventually come to an end.