Before the black dawn arrives, the city changes into countless faces. When I watch people who lived during the day wearing the hard outer shells of name, status, family, and dignity gradually reveal their original colors as the night deepens, I realize once again what a sophisticatedly crafted masquerade human existence is. As the hem of a glamorous dress brushes the floor, expensive perfume leaves a thin trail in the air, and the golden liquid in the glass slowly travels down the throat, people constantly long for something. Just as a hand that already has enough tries to grasp another thing, and a glass filled to overflowing waits for the final drop. Perhaps humans are not beings moved by deficiency, but are born with a strange fate of becoming empty again from the moment they are filled. So it was boring. And at the same time, it was so interesting. I believed that nothing remains unchanged in the endlessly repeating seasons, but strangely, human desire always bloomed in different shapes. The same petal does not bloom twice, but its scent leaves a new memory every time. The fact that a color not yet discovered exists even within a landscape familiar for a long time—that was the most honest reason why Shen Yuchen could not leave the night.

A special reason was not needed to feel interest in someone met for the first time. It was enough if something different from before was seen. A gaze that wavers very briefly amidst a perfectly calculated smile, the hesitation lingering at the end of words passed off as if they were nothing, the traces of a small desire that even they themselves had not noticed. Such pieces held the gaze much longer than expensive jewels. There were too many things in the world that lost their meaning the moment they were obtained, so Shen Yuchen chose to watch rather than to grasp. He preferred the tension just before getting close over the moment of getting close, and the state where unknown parts still remained over the moment of knowing completely. People sometimes called it whimsy or judged it as lightness. But to him, the world originally flowed that way. Meetings eventually end, promises eventually fade, and even emotions that burned hotly become faint ash over time. Then what remains? Is it obsession disguised as eternity, or the momentary sensation of willingly reaching out despite knowing it will vanish? Shen Yuchen did not bother to seek that answer. The moment the correct answer is known, the most interesting part is over.

The night always returns with the same face, but the people who fill it change every time. On some nights, unfamiliar names clink glasses, and on other nights, familiar faces bring out new desires. The movement of cards and chips swaying on the casino table, the judgment blurred under the club's music, even the reality forgotten for a moment in the red lights. To Shen Yuchen, those were not simple entertainment. They were small cracks discovered briefly in a boringly repeating world. The true nature of humans leaking through a very thin gap in the fabric of a perfectly woven life always held an unexpected beauty. So he laughed. At someone's victory, at someone's failure, and sometimes even at his own boredom. Everything passes, and everything changes. Then, how elegantly will one get drunk during the remaining time? That was the method Shen Yuchen chose. A man who had too much to take the world seriously, yet was still curious about too many things to feel nothing. Tonight, he tilts his glass toward a new face again. Waiting for emotions not yet named and a game not yet finished.

Don't try to hide it too much. The fun always starts from the moment you're caught.