Though he was holding the cup of milk, Yin Che forgot to drink it.
He thought over the words for a long time before saying, “Your father is very well-spoken.”
“Mhm, I think so too.” Jiang Yao tapped his cup, “Drink up, it’ll go cold soon.”
After the phone was passed all around, the over twenty clever people had put in an order of 780 yuan, which was pretty economical.
“Don’t scrimp on my account.” Jiang Yao added some more drinks and snacks, raising the total to over 1000, then went ahead and placed the order.
Half an hour later, the delivery dishes arrived one after another. The tables in the living room and the dining room, plus the bar counter, were all completely covered. The group gathered to eat and chat, though their topics were nothing but school gossip, with occasionally some gossip from other schools mixed in.
Other schools mainly referred just to First High.
Yin Che was very proud to hear them chatting about the school grass of First High, until Jiang Yao insisted on interrupting with, “It’s just that stinky didi of yours……”
He was kicked under the table.
Jiang Yao shut his mouth immediately.
Halfway through the meal, someone suddenly called out, “Save me!”
Everyone thought that something had happened, all of them asking nervously, “What’s happening, what’s going on?”
The guy who’d just screamed raised his head and said in horror, “The grades! My mom was just sent mine!”
“What!!”
“Fuck!!”
“I’m dead!!”
The villa was suddenly filled with screams, nearly every person’s expression one of equal horror.
Zhao Cheng said, “If I don’t look, I won’t see, I don’t see, I won’t know. If I don’t see, it’s essentially the same as if it wasn’t sent out. You guys……fuck! You all started looking! Put down your phones!”
There was no way. Although they all didn’t want to know their grades, they couldn’t help being curious.
Jiang Yao leisurely commented, “Oh? Your grades? Let me see how you all did on the exams. You know the consequences if you failed, right?”
The atmosphere suddenly became even more filled with fear.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck, Buddha, bless and protect me, amen.” Zhao Cheng incoherently babbled as he made a sign of the cross with his phone over his chest, piously praying to who knew which god. Hands trembling, he looked at his phone.
At Eighth High, the grade results were sent to each student individually. The results of each subject, the class ranking, and the grade ranking were all clear at a glance, an instant death blow straight to the heart.
“72nd place……I’m done for……” Zhao Cheng saw his grade ranking and every bit of hope in his heart turned to dust, “I don’t think I’ll make it through this winter vacation…… Yao Ge, my xiongdi, go ahead. On Qing Ming¹, remember to come and burn some incense for me…… ”
Beaming with a grin, Jiang Yao said, “Who let you go out looking for a mate? Now your grades have slid, huh? If the leader’s grades can drop just like that, what about your reputation? How could you do this to all your xiongdi who have to stand up in front of the entire school?”
Zhao Cheng felt completely ashamed, “I’m sorry, xiongdi. I’ll definitely enter the top 50 in the grade next time. I won’t let down the trust you put in me and I won’t fail to live up to the responsibility for the group you entrusted to me.”
“……” Yin Che couldn’t tell whether he was watching a scene out of a gangster movie or a comedy movie.
Some people were shedding tears over the results, while others started dancing around when they saw their grades.
Huang Jun was dancing ecstatically around the villa holding his phone up high, running from one end of the room to the other, “I finally reached 250th place! Hahahaha! I don’t have to be punished! I’m 250 (I’m an idiot)! I’m 250 (I’m an idiot)!”
“……”
For sure, this has to be a comedy.
Yin Che suspected that Jiang Yao’s punishment had to be especially abnormal, otherwise what could force a child to act like this.
By the time the delivery food was basically all finished, everyone had digested these unexpected final exam results.
The atmosphere became lively again and the group once again began to make a ruckus.
“Hit the lights, hit the lights!” Zhao Cheng yelled.
A guy leaning on the wall near the switch turned off the overhead light and the living room instantly plunged into darkness, only the candles on a cake flickering.
“Happy birthday to you……” they all sang in a chorus. Some of them didn’t know how the song went, but they all sang very passionately.
Jiang Yao was able to distinguish the clear, cold voice of the person beside him from the dozens of voices; the humming was very soft, but very pleasing to the ear.
Corners of his lips curling up, he blew out the candles in a mood of complete contentment.
The lights came on.
“Happy birthday! Cut the cake!” the surrounding people heckled.
Jiang Yao raised his eyebrows at his deskmate.
Yin Che didn’t argue, taking the knife and cutting the first piece for him, “Here.”
“Thanks.” Jiang Yao took a bite, “Having a piece cut by CheChe really is especially delicious.”
“Woo——” The others once again couldn’t see what was between the two of them, just cheering blindly.
After they finished dinner and the cake, they once again celebrated for a little longer. But once it reached 8pm, some of the students from strict households said goodbye and returned home.
By 9pm, there were less than nine people left in the villa.
There were bedrooms upstairs in the villa, but there were only five, which meant that some people would have to sleep together.
Zhao Cheng was about to considerately suggest his Yao Ge get the single, but Jiang Yao spoke up first, “CheChe, I’ll sleep with Zhao Cheng. You take a room on your own. I’ll stay next to you, so just call me if something happens.”
Zhao Cheng’s eyes widened. “Yao Ge? Being so gentlemanly?”
Jiang Yao kicked him, “When am I not a gentleman?”
Yin Che picked up his schoolbag, “No, I’ll go back to school.”
This time, it was Jiang Yao’s turn to stare with wide eyes. “You’re going to go back this late? The dormitory locks right at ten.”
“I’ll take a taxi back. I just checked the map, if we speed, it’ll only take forty minutes, plenty of time.”
“Do you have something you have to get back for?”
“No, there’s nothing.”
“If there’s nothing, why don’t you stay? Didn’t you have a good time today? Stay here and I’ll take you back to school tomorrow morning.”
“I only agreed to come to your birthday party, I didn’t agree to stay the night.” Yin Che picked up his schoolbag and said, “I’m leaving, bye bye.”
Zhao Cheng and the others replied “bye bye” in a daze.
They’d seen plenty of cold people, but never someone this cold, able to flip over to hostility faster than the flip of a page.
-
Jiang Yao barred his way just outside the door.
The evening breeze on this winter night was very cold and Jiang Yao had just taken off his coat in the villa, so at this moment, he was only wearing a moderately thin sweater. The wind squeezed through the weave like a needle, piercingly cold.
With no expression on his face, Yin Che looked at him, “Go back in, I really want to go back.”
Jiang Yao stared at him without saying a word, and then suddenly laughed, with a weak smile on his face, “The birthday wish I made just now was the same as the one I made that other night.”
To catch the guy he liked.
“Actually, there doesn’t seem to be a bottom to my heart. After you rejected me that day, I didn’t know what to do and I also didn’t know how to best apply all my efforts.
“You aren’t interested in my looks and it seems like you aren’t interested at all in me as a person. No matter what I did, you never responded, and even opposed it all.”
Jiang Yao slowly sucked in breath of cold air.
“Can you just tell me what I’ve done wrong? For example, tonight, why do you have to go back? What can I do to make you stay? I will swear that I absolutely won’t touch you or enter your room, I just wanted……you to accompany me for my whole birthday.”
In the dim light of night, Yin Che studied him.
In his previous impressions, Jiang Yao had always been so confident, so much so that he was almost narcissistic. He’d never shown an expression like this.
So cautious and solemn, as if he were begging.
Yin Che also began to feel cold, the freezing wind pouring down his collar. The scar on his neck began to ache faintly again.
“You’re doing everything right.” He forced himself not to look away, “It’s just that you’re chasing after the wrong person, that’s all.”
“……you’re rejecting me again?”
“Mhm.”
Jiang Yao stared hard at him for a long time, trying to find a trace of a lie on his face.
But he found nothing.
Yin Che really doesn’t like me.
Jiang Yao raised his head and looked up at the severe winter night sky. He let out a long sigh, the white mist of his exhalation blown away by the wind.
“I got it.”
Then he passed by him and went into the villa.
-
Yin Che stood right there for a while, breathing in hard through his nose, and then walked towards the intersection to get a taxi.
Before he got very far, rapid footsteps sounded out behind him and then stopped beside him.
Jiang Yao had put on his coat and was carrying his schoolbag, just like when he had arrived.
“It’s too late, it’s not safe to be on the roads, I’ll escort you back.”
Yin Che was a little startled. “There’s no need……”
“Just this one time.” Jiang Yao smiled, “I changed my wish just now, I switch it to a wish that I can escort you back to school tonight. Can you help me make it come true?”
“……” Yin Che didn’t know how to respond.
The young man wore a pure smile on his face, with no trace of impurity.
He couldn’t bear to reject him again.
“…………alright.”
The two of them were very lucky. As soon as they reached the intersection, they came across an empty taxi. When they got in, it was already 9:15 and it was forty minutes to school, so they’d probably be able to make it.
The temperature of the heater in the taxi was very high, the air enough to make a person feel sleepy.
The usually very chatty Jiang Yao was very quiet the whole journey. Yin Che couldn’t help but glance at him out of the side of his eye, only to find that he had closed his eyes and seemed to be taking a nap.
Yin Che turned his gaze towards the car window.
To avoid the congested routes in the urban area, the driver chose to take one of the elevated highways. The entire journey was fast and unimpeded, each street lights quickly passing by in his field of view.
From Dong Cheng’s Eighth High to Xi Cheng’s First High, it was only a thirty kilometer distance.
But those thirty kilometers separated a million people. In a certain sense, for two people to meet was basically a kind of miracle.
Jiang Yao is the miracle of my life, Yin Che thought to himself.
But I need another miracle.
Could the heavens really grant a miracle to a person twice?
The taxi exited the elevated highway and slowed down. After taking five or six turns, the taxi stopped slowly in front of the gate of First High.
The driver turned his head, “We’re here, cash or……”
“Shhh……” The index finger of the student in the back seat stopped his lips.
The other student was leaned back in his seat, expression calm, his breathing gentle as if he were asleep.
Jiang Yao paid the money and, carrying his schoolbag backwards on his chest, got out of the car and walked around to the car door on the other side. He opened the door, bent down, and helped the sleeping person gently out of the car onto his back. Then he turned around and stood up.
The driver watched as the two teenagers, pressed together as if one, walked off into the dim light of night, and couldn’t help but sigh with emotion: Ah, youth……
It wasn’t 10pm yet, so even though the dorm monitor watched them come back, they didn’t say anything. Many students hadn’t gone home this week, staying at school to study, and it wasn’t strange for them to go out for the evening.
Jiang Yao went up to the third floor with Yin Che sleeping on his back. Just then, he ran across Zhang Ke, who was heading to bed.
Zhang Ke’s eyes widened into wide circles, “W-w-what did you do to my Che Ge!”
“Be quiet, your Che Ge is sleeping.”
“Ohhhh……” Zhang Ke immediately lowered his voice and followed after them while saying, “Didn’t you head home? Why did you come back here again?”
“I wouldn’t have if not for him.” Jiang Yao jiggled the person on his back, who was still very deeply asleep and didn’t wake up at all.
At the door of Room 306, he remembered that he didn’t have the key to Yin Che’s bedroom and that it would be difficult to search through Yin Che’s schoolbag right now. So for the time being, Jiang Yao could only carry the person on his back to his own dorm temporarily.
Zhang Ke fished out his key for him and opened the door. He watched Jiang Yao lay Yin Che out on the bed, “So where are you going to sleep tonight? No way you can squeeze into the same bed, right?”
Jiang Yao actually did want to squeeze in, but he was afraid that if he closed his eyes, he’d never open them again.
Because he’d be beaten to death by his deskmate.
“Go ahead and head out. I’ll figure something out. At worst, I’ll sleep laying on my desk for this one night.”
Zhang Ke said, “Well, okay, just call for me if you need anything.”
-
After Zhang Ke left, Jiang Yao first turned on the heat so that the temperature in the room slowly rose. When he started to feel hot, he began to undress.
He began to undress Yin Che.
He stood by the bed, supporting Yin Che’s back with his left hand while taking off his school coat with his right hand.
In this position, Yin Che was half-wrapped up in his arms.
After taking off his clothes, he was still a little reluctant to let go of him.
The brat’s head tilted forward and his brow furrowed slightly, as if there was something upsetting in his dream.
Jiang Yao used his left hand to pat him gently on the back through his sweater, muttering soothingly in his ear.
It took a few minutes for Yin Che’s brow to relax again.
Jiang Yao gently laid him back out on the bed, then he crouched down to take off his shoes.
Yin Che’s feet were a bit cold, his socks also cold to the touch. Since he had nothing better to do, Jiang Yao sat on the edge of the bed, then gripped his feet by the ankles and put them in his lap, planning to wrap them in his own clothes to warm them up.
The joints of the brat’s ankles were very stiff, just like his temperament, but Jiang Yao suddenly felt something soft under his fingers, like a cord.
Jiang Yao had a vague recollection that some sort of accessory was tied around Yin Che’s ankle, probably a red strap serving as a safekeeping charm he’d worn since childhood.
He was a little curious, so he pulled Yin Che’s pants leg up.
It really was a red strap.
But the weaving was particularly ugly, all crooked and twisted, the knots all tied incorrectly, and the rope was even already unraveling in some places, very shoddy and rough. Rather than calling it an accessory, it was more like a trash piece of rope braid that had been thrown away.
At the ends of the red strap, a tight knot had been firmly tied.
Unless it was cut, it would be impossible for it to become untied for the rest of his life.
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The author has something to say:
The big bad wolf found out; little bunny, watch out.
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Footnotes:
1. Qing Ming (清明): Tomb Sweeping Day, in April, an annual holiday where families honor their ancestors and clean their tombs ↩
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It’s happening~~~~~~