Chapter 34

The second morning of the sports meet was the boys' thousand-meter. Wen Fu lived up to everyone's expectations. From the starting gun to the finish, he left second place a full three hundred meters behind and broke the school record again with a time of two minutes fifty seconds.

Half of Class 6 ran alongside him on the soccer field inside the track to cheer him on. Xie Yining knew she couldn't keep up, so every half lap she cut across ahead of time and shouted Wen Fu's name from the other side.

Everyone else in the heat, and their classes, felt like they were getting bullied by Class 6—and looking at the result, they kind of were.

When Wen Fu sprinted through the finish line, there were still more than a dozen classmates waiting up ahead. They'd figured he'd be gasping for air, needing someone to hold him up and hand him water. Instead, the second he crossed the line, he immediately slowed down, unwilling to waste one bit of extra energy, walked over, took the energy drink Xie Yining had prepared for him, quietly and quickly said 'Thanks,' then left in front of all of them without changing expression, like what he'd just done was nothing more than an after-dinner stroll.

As he passed this whole group, Wen Fu even snuck a glance at them out of the corner of his eye.

Wen Fu, who'd never taken part in any group activity before this, honestly didn't understand what all these classmates were doing standing at the finish line.

The cat was curious. The cat didn't ask. The cat respected it and left.

Which left the rest of his classmates standing there in place, a total mess in the wind.

Xie Yining was quick on the uptake. After being thrown for a loop for a moment, she turned back and laughed it off with them. 'Ah, that's just how Duolaimi is. He's shy. Go get some rest, everybody.'

Everyone fell into an awkward silence for two seconds. Then someone in the crowd muttered, 'Duolaimi, really? Looking at him, does he even want us calling him that?'

'Exactly—'

'He's so full of himself.'

'Break one school record and suddenly he's amazing.'

'His nose is practically in the air.'

'...'

The second Xie Yining heard that, she got annoyed. She rolled up her sleeves and grabbed a prime example out of the crowd. 'Zhang Chengfeng, don't think pinching your nose means I can't tell you're the one being all sarcastic.'

Then she swept a look over the few boys who'd just chimed in after him. All of them were from that lazy, good-for-nothing bunch in class.

She raised her voice on the spot and dropped the smile, not indulging anyone. 'Alright, break it up. He just wanted to get back to the classroom early, that's all. When it was time to sign up, none of you said a word. When it came to carrying water and clothes, none of you came over to help either. But the whining never stops. The girls did all the work and still complained less than you did. You guys are the ones with the nonstop mouths. Didn't you hear Wen Fu say thanks just now? What, did he need to get on his knees and kowtow to you too? And even if he is proud, so what? If you broke a school record, you'd be proud too. Telling you to go rest was me being nice, so don't start putting on airs in front of me.'

Su Haoran had just come back from high jump, and from far off he could already hear Xie Yining chewing people out. Across from her was a group of boys, every one of them looking like they wanted to leave but didn't dare. None of their expressions looked great.

He walked over in the Marine sneakers he'd changed into just for high jump, a black Prada padded jacket hanging casually from one hand. Since he'd just finished his event and couldn't be bothered to put it on, he hooked the jacket over his shoulder with one arm and sauntered up. Then he slung his other arm around Xie Yining's neck and asked with a grin, 'Who made our class monitor mad this time, huh? Step forward.'

At the same time, he kept shooting meaningful looks at that group.

The boys who'd been getting scolded seized the chance and scattered in twos and threes.

Xie Yining had already said what she needed to say and couldn't be bothered keeping anyone there. She slapped Su Haoran's hand off her School Uniform and turned to leave. 'Keep your hands to yourself. You reek like sweat.'

Su Haoran didn't get mad. He just gave a goofy grin, put on his jacket, went back to the field to swap into a pair of AMIRIs, then came hurrying after her again.

He basically never wore the School Uniform. His dorm closet was packed with brand-name luxury stuff he couldn't possibly finish wearing, and he wished he could spend all three hundred sixty-five days of the year changing outfits to strut like a peacock in front of Xie Yining. He was never willing to wear the School Uniform.

'Now that's just unfair,' Su Haoran said, crowding up beside Xie Yining and talking her ear off. 'I only did high jump. I didn't even sweat. I even changed shoes just for it, and the second I saw you I changed back. How do I stink? I smell amazing. Here, smell.'

As he spoke, he shoved his arm right in front of her and insisted she sniff it.

Xie Yining swatted him away, and the anger on her face faded without her noticing. 'Get lost.'

Su Haoran kept pestering her and messing around for a while. Only after her expression looked a little better did he ask, 'Just now—how'd they piss you off?'

That brought Xie Yining's anger right back, though not in the same way as when she'd been cursing out those boys. She'd already done that, so there was no point repeating it. Instead, when she brought up Wen Fu, she sounded helpless. 'That Duolaimi too, honestly. Zero social sense. There were more than ten people there. They ran a whole thousand meters with him from the start and waited at the finish line, thinking once he was done he'd be tired and they could help hold him up. But him? Fine, maybe he wasn't tired after running. But did he really have to turn around and leave right away? He just dumped a whole crowd there. We're all in the same class. He didn't give anyone even a little face.'

Su Haoran kept nodding along with his lips pursed. The second Xie Yining finished, he said, 'Out of line! I'll go teach him a lesson.'

'Teach him a lesson for what?' Xie Yining shot him a look. 'Who do you think you are, going around teaching people lessons? You'll just make things worse.'

'I won't teach—' Su Haoran paused, then gave a sly smile. 'I'll go make a friend. With him.'

Xie Yining rolled her eyes at him.

Su Haoran draped his arm over her again. 'Ningning, which cafeteria are you eating at for lunch?'

Xie Yining shook him off as she walked. 'We'll see.'

'Don't say we'll see. It's almost lunch in an hour.'

'What cafeteria I eat at is none of your business.'

'How is it none of my business? We've eaten together our whole lives.'

'You asking to get hit again?'

'I just want to eat with you.'

'Quit sticking to me.'

'Just tell me...'

'Scram.'

'Aiya, Ningning...'

The two of them bickered all the way back to class. In the classroom, only Wen Fu and Fei Bolin were working on test papers. Everyone else was huddled in corners playing on their phones, reading novels, or sleeping face-down on their desks. Lu Yuqiu was standing on the balcony, holding the issue of Red Show Xie Yining had bought last week and reading it.

The Class 6 Classroom had four doors, one at each corner. The front and back doors on the outer side opened onto the main hallway, while the front and back doors on the other side led to each class's balcony.

There were two or three extra desks out on the balcony. Every desk drawer was stuffed with practice books or textbooks some people didn't use, plus all kinds of novels, comics, and weekly fashion magazines. Most of it came from stalls outside bookstores off campus, or from the bookstore on the basement level of the Teaching Building, right by the supermarket and fruit shop. As long as nobody was obvious about reading them during class, the homeroom teacher mostly turned a blind eye.

Xie Yining first called out to Lu Yuqiu to get ready for lunch, then dropped into the seat in front of Fei Bolin's desk, leaned back against the wall, and asked, 'Group leader, you good for the three thousand this afternoon?'

Fei Bolin was looking at a problem. At that, he didn't look up. He just said, 'I'm good.'

'Good is good.' Xie Yining tipped her chair back. 'It's three thousand, though. If you start feeling bad halfway through, pull out, okay? Last year's school record was yours anyway. We don't have to fight over this one breath of pride.'

Then she sighed. 'If I'd known, I would've signed Duolaimi up for the three thousand this year. Then you could've gotten some rest. Maybe he could've broken your record.'

The actual Duolaimi, sitting across one aisle, had no idea he'd picked up this new nickname and showed no reaction at all to what Xie Yining said.

That afternoon's three thousand went exactly like Fei Bolin had said. He ran the same time as last year and, without any surprise, kept his top school record.

Xie Yining herself also took first in the girls' eight hundred.

At their second and final sports meet of high school, Grade 12 Class 6 swept the field.

That night during evening self-study after the sports meet ended, Wen Fu was assigned to Fei Bolin's group.

Each study group had six people. Fei Bolin's group had only had five to begin with, and for more than a year he'd had no deskmate, always sitting alone.

After Wen Fu transferred in, he happened to fill that empty spot exactly.

It was only because adding him before midterms would've affected the first-half group ranking average that they'd put it off until after the sports meet, when the group scoring for the second half of the term began.

The moment Wen Fu's desk was pushed up against the edge of Fei Bolin's, the tip of Fei Bolin's pen paused on the page. In the answer box on the test paper were four characters he hadn't finished writing yet.

Always at his side.

Holding a school sports meet was basically like getting a big vacation. On the first evening self-study after it ended, the whole class was restless. Hardly anyone was honestly sitting still and doing problems.

As soon as the bell rang, Fei Bolin took a set of physics mock-test final questions he hadn't finished the last two days and went to the office to ask about them.

The discipline monitor and class monitor usually took turns keeping watch from the podium. Tonight was the discipline monitor's turn, so Xie Yining naturally went back to her group.

Wen Fu had only transferred in for two weeks, and his desk drawer was already a complete disaster. He used Chinese and English composition paper for scratch work, then stuffed it back in after writing on it and only dug it out again when the teacher came to check. His chemistry tests were wedged inside his math practice books. His physics analysis questions and in-class biology lab exercises were piled together too. Basically his drawer was jammed full of curled-up mock papers of every kind, and whenever he needed to find one in a hurry, he had to bow his head and dig through it forever.

From the moment he moved next to Fei Bolin, Wen Fu spent a full ten-plus minutes hunting for his materials.

Even after Fei Bolin left, he was still looking.

While he was searching, Su Haoran, sitting across the aisle up to his right, twisted around, stretched one leg out to the side, leaned half his body over, and gave two whistles at Wen Fu. Then in a hushed voice he called, 'Duolaimi, Duolaimi!'

Shuffle shuffle shuffle—Wen Fu kept flipping through papers, still not finding the sheet he wanted.

Su Haoran said, 'Duolaimi!'

Wen Fu kept going, shuffle shuffle shuffle through the papers.

'Duolaimi!'

Still just shuffle shuffle shuffle through the papers.

Su Haoran got so anxious he was scratching at himself, trying hard to remember Wen Fu's name.

No wonder Xie Yining always called him Duolaimi. Those three syllables really were way easier to remember than Wen Fu.

'...Wen Fu!'

Shuffle shuff—

Wen Fu stopped moving, lifted his head, and looked over in Su Haoran's direction.

Su Haoran grinned wide, cocked his brows at him, threw him a flirtatious wink, reached out over Wen Fu's desk, and tossed a phone his way.

Wen Fu picked it up and saw it was on the Q/Q add-friend screen.

He looked at Su Haoran without understanding. Su Haoran pointed at the phone and mouthed at him exaggeratedly, 'Q—Q—ac—count—'

Wen Fu didn't get it.

Because he didn't have a Q/Q account at all.

Fei Bolin wasn't there, and nobody was around to explain it for him either.

Su Haoran thought Wen Fu hadn't seen clearly, so he exaggerated the mouth shapes even more and said with effort, 'Q—Q—ac—count—'

Zhang Chengfeng, sitting by the back door, coughed a few times like he was having an asthma attack.

Su Haoran persisted. 'Q—Q—ac—count—'

Wen Fu stared at him with a blank face.

Zhang Chengfeng coughed hard. 'Cough! Cough! Cough!'

Su Haoran mouthed even harder, 'Q—Q—ac—count—'

From the back door came the homeroom teacher's voice, eerie and faint: 'Su—Haoran.'

Su Haoran snapped back around in an instant and held up his textbook like nothing had happened.

The next second, the phone in Wen Fu's hand was snatched away.

He tipped his head back and saw it was the homeroom teacher, Gu Mingchun.

Two minutes later, while Fei Bolin was still in the office discussing the last big physics question with the physics teacher, he watched helplessly as Wen Fu was led to the desk by the homeroom teacher and subjected to a full twenty-minute discussion and negotiation over his Chinese score on this midterm.

For basically the whole thing, Wen Fu barely said a word. Every now and then when Gu Mingchun asked, 'What do you think?' you could hear him give a tiny response, soft as a cat's meow.

In the end, the conversation wrapped up with Wen Fu promising Gu Mingchun that on the next monthly exam, his Chinese score would at least pass.

As for Su Haoran's phone, obviously he wasn't getting it back.

This was the twelfth backup phone Su Haoran had gotten confiscated since first year.

That night, on the stairs on the way home after Lin's Convenience Store had closed, Fei Bolin asked, 'I heard Su Haoran was asking you for your Q/Q tonight?'

Wen Fu thought about it, then gave an 'oh.' 'I don't have one.'

'No Q/Q account?'

'Mm.'

Fei Bolin opened the door and went inside. As usual, the first thing he did was take several power banks and charging cables out of his bag to help charge phones for Xie Yining and the others. Then he pulled out his own phone, sat down on the sofa, and beckoned to Wen Fu. 'Come here.'

Wen Fu sat down right beside him.

The sofa at home was an old-fashioned redwood one, hard and cold. In winter, Fei Bolin would spread an old unused blanket over it as a cushion. The last couple days Wen Fu had discovered this spot was really comfortable, and whenever he had nothing to do he'd curl up cross-legged in the sofa memorizing English and biology—Chinese was out of the question unless Fei Bolin threatened him with fried eggs.

Fei Bolin opened the Q/Q app on his phone, tapped 'log out' in settings, then 'register new account,' went through a few more steps, entered the verification code, and without much trouble got a new Q/Q account with a penguin avatar.

Back then, signing up for all those random social media accounts still didn't require linking a phone number, so making a new one was easy.

He handed the phone to Wen Fu. 'Set the password and security questions yourself. Make the password a little harder, preferably. Don't just use your birthday or it'll be easy to hack.'

After saying what he needed to say, he went to his room to grab clothes and get ready for a shower.

Once Fei Bolin went into the bathroom, Wen Fu sat outside alone, fiddling with the phone in both hands.

Following what Fei Bolin had said, he didn't set the password as something as simple as his own birthday—he put Fei Bolin's birthday in front of his own, so that should make it pretty hard.

But Wen Fu got stuck on the security questions.

—Your father's name?

—Your mother's name?

—Your best friend's name?

—Your elementary homeroom teacher's name?

—The name of the person most important to you?

—Your roommate's name?

Wen Fu skipped the father and mother fields, randomly chose 'best friend,' 'most important person,' and 'roommate,' and filled in the same name for all three: Fei Bolin.

That way, even if he forgot the security questions later, he could just try Fei Bolin one by one and eventually get it right.

Just as he hit 'next,' the phone flickered, and the Q/Q screen suddenly closed.

Fei Bolin's phone was a secondhand one he'd bought a few years ago at the East Street night market. The old phone he'd used for years had finally died for good, and he had no way to spend over a thousand yuan at a phone shop for a new one, so he'd gone to the biggest night market in Rongzhou and dug up one for five hundred.

By now, crashes and lag were a regular thing.

Everything Wen Fu had painstakingly filled out for half the night was gone in an instant. Clutching the phone, he jumped off the sofa and charged straight for the bathroom with his head down.

Because the etiquette lessons Fei Bolin had taught him hadn't yet reached the part about knocking before entering, Wen Fu was in a panic. He twisted open the frosted bathroom door and stepped right in.

The person inside had just finished showering and turned off the water.

Fei Bolin had a towel in his hand. Feeling a sudden draft of cold air blow over his back along with the sound of the door opening, he turned around without warning and met Wen Fu's eyes completely naked.

—Sometimes people do certain things as an instinctive reaction they can't control.

Like right now. Wen Fu had barged into the bathroom, and faced with Fei Bolin standing there naked from head to toe, his gaze slid all on its own to the other man's lower half.

Then his eyes went wide.

Shocked cat.jpg.

Fei Bolin stood there stunned for a full five seconds. By the time he came back to himself, he realized Wen Fu was staring straight at a part of him he absolutely should not be staring at, without even blinking.

The fingers gripping the towel slowly turned white. Looking at Wen Fu, who seemed to have no intention of backing out at all, Fei Bolin forced himself to stay calm. 'Seen enough?'

Wen Fu was still staring there without a word, his eyes practically popping out.

Fei Bolin was about to lose his mind.

What was there to look at?!

He wrapped the bath towel around his waist, strode over in a few steps, and covered Wen Fu's eyes with one hand. Wen Fu's lashes fluttered against his palm immediately.

Then he forcibly turned Wen Fu around and pushed him out.

Just as Fei Bolin was about to shut the door, Wen Fu finally remembered why he'd come. He suddenly stuck one arm back between the door and Fei Bolin. 'Phone.'

'What about the phone?' Fei Bolin didn't move again, worried he'd catch his arm in the door.

Wen Fu squeezed his head into the gap in the door. 'Gone.'

'Q/Q?'

'Mm.'

'Probably crashed.' Fei Bolin took the phone from his hand. 'I'll look at it in a minute.'

Wen Fu said, 'Oh.'

That settled that.

He was just about to leave when his eyes swept over the pendant at Fei Bolin's neck.

It was a cinnabar Buddha Talisman with one corner chipped off, hanging from a long black cord. The pendant hung low on Fei Bolin's chest, usually hidden whenever he had clothes on.

One hand still on the doorknob, Fei Bolin tried restarting the phone with the other. While he was fiddling with it, he glanced outside the door and realized Wen Fu was still staring at him.

This time he was staring higher up.

Fei Bolin: '...'

He snapped, 'Aren't you leaving yet?'

Wen Fu bolted at once.

Back on the sofa, Wen Fu kicked off his slippers and sat cross-legged in the blanket. While waiting for Fei Bolin to come out, he stared at the floor, lost in thought.

At first he was thinking about that cinnabar Buddha Talisman. Then somehow that turned into thinking about Fei Bolin's chest after his shower, his broad shoulders, his waist with that light layer of muscle, and those really long legs.

Then he remembered something and suddenly lowered his head to look between his own legs.

A moment later he sank back into the memory and slowly widened his eyes again.

Wen Fu spread his thumb and middle finger and measured out Fei Bolin's size in front of his eyes. Then, with total seriousness, he placed that measured distance over his own lap and sat there in that pose, thoughtful.

When Fei Bolin came back into the living room, this was the bizarre scene he walked in on.

Putting together Wen Fu's expression in the bathroom just now, Fei Bolin could practically hear his own back teeth grinding. 'What are you doing?'

Wen Fu still hadn't snapped out of it. Hearing Fei Bolin speak, he looked up and at the same time lifted his hand, holding that measured gesture in the air between Fei Bolin's legs.

Fei Bolin: '...'

Fei Bolin: '...'

Fei Bolin: '...'

He lowered his eyes and stayed silent for a long time.

Then he walked over to Wen Fu.

And suddenly started taking off his pants.

Wen Fu: ?

Fei Bolin calmly stripped off everything on his lower half, tossed the pants onto the sofa, then started taking off his shirt too.

Wen Fu: ??

Confused cat.

Fei Bolin stripped off every last thing on him and looked down at Wen Fu from above. 'Keep looking.'

Wen Fu: ???

Fei Bolin said, 'Look all you want.'

Fei Bolin also said, 'When you've seen enough, that's when I'll get dressed.'

Wen Fu froze.

Wen Fu's eyes went huge.

Wen Fu made a run for it in a flash.

Fei Bolin grabbed the back of Wen Fu's collar in one hand. 'Still looking?'

Wen Fu shook his head.

'Still measuring?'

Wen Fu shook his head hard.

And just like that, he lost his late-night snack for the evening.