Doctor Feng sighed. "I'm getting older, so I don't always understand what you young people are thinking. In short, you should prepare yourself soon. Don't miss your chance and don't miss out on the right person either."
Yin Che gave him a faint smile. "I know."
After leaving Doctor Feng's office, he stopped by to visit Xu Shou.
"I didn't expect you to be an omega too." Xu Shou had probably heard about it from Doctor Feng, because he didn't seem very surprised. "Just looking at you, you do really look like an omega, so fair and so cute......"
Yin Che coughed a few times and Xu Shou immediately caught on. "I know. You're a tall, bold and powerful, tough guy, a fierce man, an A of As!"
"......you don't have to go that far."
Xu Shou had recovered well. He'd survived his heat with his boyfriend's assistance, so he'd be able to recover completely after another operation over summer vacation. He'd been recuperating these past few weeks.
"Let me tell you, Xiao Che," Xu Shou flushed red, "these alphas are bad news. They usually seem so quiet and gentle, but their true selves are revealed when they scent pheromones, so incredibly fierce...... "
Yin Che avoided looking at the red mark on Xu Shou's neck that had yet to fade and tried to keep up as proper a tone as he could manage, "Was it very painful?"
"At the start, a little, but then after......"
Xu Shou didn't have the nerve to continue and Yin Che also didn't have the nerve to ask.
What happened after was written in all the biology books.
After chatting about some superficial subjects, Xu Shou's boyfriend, Du Xiang, arrived, offering a courteous greeting, "Hello, thank you for visiting him."
"It's only what I should do."
"He's still convalescencing right now, I came by to assist him."
Yin Che felt that there seemed to be a hidden meaning in his words, so he shot him an inquiring look and Du Xiang noticed and continued, "Can I trouble you to leave? I apologize."
Xu Shou's face went bright red. He covered his mouth. "Stop talking...... I'm not in a hurry, you can come back later."
Du Xiang pulled his hand down. "But I'm in a big hurry."
"......"
Yin Che tactfully left, afraid he'd witness something very educational first-hand if he stayed any longer.
-
After leaving the hospital room, he walked towards the entrance of the hospital.
Just before reaching the door, he encountered a group of unexpected guests.
"Che Ge! You're already up and about!"
Yin Che looked at Zhao ZhengSheng and Pan Hui beaming ear to ear in front of him as if willing to flatter him and began to suspect the reality of this world a bit.
"We've wanted to pay you a visit for a while, but Yao Ge said you had to recuperate and didn't let us come disturb you."
"Yao Ge?" Yin Che raised an eyebrow, basically understanding everything.
Even this part was all an act.
"Er, Yao Ge has taken over our territory in Dong Cheng and we have nowhere to go now, so we have no other choice but to obey him......"
Zhao ZhengSheng carefully emphasized the nature of their relationship, "Apologies for the last time. We also had no choice about that. Yao Ge told us to perform sincerely and realistically, to not be lenient, so as a result, we couldn't be very considerate......or we would've let our true feelings through. Are you alright?"
This is just getting more and more absurd.
"The stun baton, he gave that to you all too?"
"Yeah, yeah, everything was according to his instructions, it had nothing to do with us at all."
This level of throwing the pan¹ is first-rate.
Yin Che took a deep breath. "No matter who incited it, leave my sight in the next five seconds, or I'll......"
"Let's go, let's go!" Everyone was staring at Zhao ZhengSheng and his group as they vanished into the distance in an instant. Before slipping away, they stuffed a bag of condolence gifts into his hands.
There were snacks, supplements, and also a long box that looked like the case of a stun baton, with a little sticky note: 'We wish you two to last a long time!'
Yin Che tore off the note and suddenly caught sight of the words on the package: 'Vibrating massage'.
He didn't read the rest, because the thing was dropped into the trash can in the next second.
-
On Sunday night, it was finally the last week before summer vacation. Yin Che re-installed all his social media apps.
There were a lot of unread new messages on the apps, mainly from his classmates, with no messages from a certain ex who'd been blocked.
The class group chat was talking about where to go over summer vacation.
Most people would have to make up classes. After all, they'd be in their third year of high school next semester, so there were actually only two or three people able to think about having a beautiful summer vacation.
Zhang Ke pinged Jiang Yao: [Yao Ge, is your Dong Cheng's ocean very blue? I haven't been there yet. Let's go swimming when the summer vacation starts? Bring your girl and your girl's friends.]
Chen YingYing: [You just want to see girls wearing swimsuits, right?]
Zhang Ke: [Am I that kind of person!]
Jiang Yao: [Sorry, there's no girl.]
Zhang Ke: [Ah? Didn't you admit it before?]
Jiang Yao: [I never admitted it. That was just your assumption.]
Zhang Ke: [?? Yao Ge, isn't this about-face of yours too fast?]
Han Meng suddenly interrupted: [If there's no girl, can't there be a guy?]
At this question, other people also started to join in the heckling:
[Yeah! Don't discriminate between the sexes too much, Yao Ge. There are also many cute boys in our school.]
[Don't you know that many girls ship you in male-male cps? They all say you're a total gong.]
[Doesn't matter if it's a girl or a guy, just hurry up and find one, so that all omegas in the school will give up and we won't be asked about it by people from other classes all day long.]
Jiang Yao didn't reply, as if he just disappeared into thin air. The classmates waited for a while before moving on, happily chatting about other topics. Someone lamented that the results would probably be out tomorrow and was scolded by a group of people with "Picking up whichever pot is not boiling²!"
Jiang Yao put down his pen and folded up the note that had just been written into a slip as thin as a slice of tofu.
Then he opened his door and went over to the door of the room next door. He crouched down and struggled hard to stuff the note under the door.
He himself thought stuffing in paper like this was behavior worthy of winning the Most Confusing Behavior Award.
But all his methods of contact had been blocked, so what else could he do?
He moved very slowly, trying not to make any noise, for fear that the person inside would open the door and throw the note back at him.
But even if he stuffed it in, it might not be seen.
Previously, at the hospital, he'd stuffed so many notes into the hospital room, apologizing like that so many times. Yet day after day, there was still a red exclamation mark notification on his sent messages.
Yin Che wouldn't forgive him and didn't want to see him.
But, how could someone not be hated after driving a person to the point of wanting to die?
"Xiao Che won't have much of a sense of security," Doctor Feng had said when he'd finished explaining his plan at that time, warning him of the consequences, "For a person about to die, it's impossible to have a sense of security.
During his psychological therapy, he said that the most unbearable thing to him is deception, even if it's well-intentioned deception. After all, he can confront even death, so what else could there be that he can't confront?"
"That's why, if you lie to him, you have to be prepared for him to bear a grudge against you.
"Even if he forgives you, he probably won't trust you ever again."
Jiang Yao sat at the door of the room for a while, head tilted upwards and back against the door, listening carefully for the movement on the other side.
The night was calm and quiet and the dorm room behind him was also quiet.
After a few minutes, there was the soft sound of footsteps inside the door, approaching step by step, pausing for a second or two, and then gradually moving away again.
Jiang Yao waited for about ten minutes. Optimistically guessing that Yin Che had already read the contents of the note, he tried sending a message.
Unfortunately, he was still blocked, just as before.
He'd written on the note that he had something he wanted to say, so if he wanted to listen, he should just remove the block on him.
From the obvious outcome, either Yin Che didn't want to hear it or he hadn't read the note at all and just threw it in the trash can.
He'd drafted the message all night, his mind full of so many things he wanted to say, so having to hold back now was very painful.
Doesn't matter if he listens or not, I have to say it anyway.
Jiang Yao held down the voice message button:
"CheChe."
After calling out that word, his heart tensed up in anxiety and he had to take a moment to relax. "CheChe, are you planning to transfer to a school abroad next semester? I heard you say so outside the KTV that day.
"I want to beg you not to go, but I also don't feel qualified to do so.
"I know that I did something too excessive. Even though it was fake, it was too excessive. You don't want to forgive me, I get it, but I hope that you can be healthy and at peace. Don't give up on yourself again...... You can live without me in your life, but I can't live without you in my world.
"If you're mad at me, just beat me up, okay? Hit me until you vent all your anger. Don't refuse to acknowledge me, because it feels like I really don't have the tiniest speck of hope like that......"
"But maybe there's just no hope because I chose to lie to you. I definitely knew that you hated deception the most, I definitely knew that I couldn't chase you after breaking up with you, but I always carried a trace of arrogance and optimism in my heart. I thought that you had to like me very much, so that when you discovered the truth, you might still have forgiven me.
"But, in the end, that night we broke up, your eyes didn't even redden with tears.
"You also didn't get very angry at me. You just walked away so confidently and at ease. I almost couldn't keep myself from chasing after you and telling you that it was all fake. But I couldn't waste all that hard work, and I couldn't ruin your only chance to live just to make you forgive me.
"But, at that moment, I suddenly realized that we'd only been dating for a few months, that's all. And that maybe you didn't like me as much as I'd imagined. Yet I still lied to you like that and hurt you. There's a huge possibility I'm done for......
"But if that's the case, I still want to tell you that I liked you wholeheartedly from beginning to end.
"I didn't use the suppressant, but I will only fall in love with you for the rest of my life."
In front of each voice message, there was a red exclamation mark. No one would ever hear the contents.
Jiang Yao grasped his phone tight and looked at the gray-brown strap on his wrist. It obviously wasn't a bright color, but it still stabbed into his eyes painfully.
He had no idea if the one on Yin Che's ankle was still there. It might've already been cut off.
When it came time to make a decision, he made it; Yin Che had always acted in such a decisive and orderly way.
He was almost done with his message, he only had a few more words to say, "Then, that's that. You'll be just fine in the future.
"If you ever think about me someday, I'll always be on call."
He originally wanted to add some phrases to wish him well, but he couldn't speak anymore.
Jiang Yao wiped his face. "Good night, have a good dream......have a dream without me in it."
The small circle in front of the voice message spun, seeming to laugh at his useless effort. Jiang Yao felt upset just looking at it, so he got up and went back to his own room. He threw the phone down on his pillow and covered his head with his quilt to go to sleep.
The small circle on the screen continued to spin for a while, then suddenly disappeared, but this time, no exclamation mark appeared.
—
The author has something to say:
Xiao Che on the other side of the door: Heh, after making decisions for me without permission, make up for thinking I don't like you enough without permission.
—
Footnotes:
1. Throwing the pan (甩锅): to throw the blame on someone else ↩
2. Pick up... (哪壶不开提哪壶): idiom meaning if you pick up the not-boiling pot, you deliberately call attention to the defective pot; to always say the wrong thing, to blurt out someone's weaknesses ↩
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People who asked for JY's perspective, was that heartbreaking enough for you? 😏