For half-an-hour, Zhan Yu strolled around the compound while enjoying the magnificent view. A serious question suddenly came to mind-his had asked Zhan Qiancheng what the address for his apartment was, but he forgot to inquire as well about his specific apartment unit and room number.
Just as he took out his cell phone to trouble his brother once more, a slender and handsome figure caught his attention. The sleeves of the young man's long-sleeve shirt was pulled up and his suit coat was folded up and slung on his arms.
Haha, it's Lu Bai once again.
Zhan Yu was about to turn around and hide, but just when he turned, another question came to mind: if he secretly followed after the male protagonist, wouldn't he be able to find his apartment?
He clearly recalled that Zhan Yu's apartment was next door to Chen Lu Bai's.
Following him would save his time trying to look around, because he had discovered that this apartment complex was quite large!
After some consideration, he stealthily followed after Lu Bai. Although he tried to make his footsteps very light and did his best not to get close to him(Lu Bai), he was suddenly caught while only being less than 200 meters away from him.
Lu Bai's gaze was cold and fierce, the warning message in his eyes obvious.
Zhan Yu was frightened by the terrible look in his eyes. He unconsciously shook off the feeling and comforted himself, thinking, 'What are you afraid of? It's not like I wronged him!'
With that in mind, he dared to reply: "What are you looking at?"
"Oh." Lu Bai sounded as if he heard a ridiculous joke. "Don't you think you should ask yourself that question?"
'It's that tone again!' It was that exact same tone he used in the auditorium, one filled with undisguised sarcasm.
Zhan Yu looked straight at him and said in a small voice: "I wasn't looking at you."
(Zhan Yu) He laughed at his words.
Zhan Yu muttered under his breath: "Crazy!"
He went forward two steps, but then recalling that he had no idea where his apartment was, he stopped in his tracks once again.
Noticing his hesitation, Lu Bai folded his arms across his chest and glanced at him lazily, his eyes filled with pride and ridicule.
Zhan Yu glared at him, then decisively walked past him. He took out his cell phone and called Zhan Qiancheng. "Brother, what apartment number do I live in?"
When Lu Bai heard his voice gradually fading into the distance, he unconsciously raised a brow. 'He doesn't even know where he lives, so does that mean he really lost his memory?'
(Lu Bai) He considered this even more when he saw how Zhan Yu kept trying to unlock his apartment door with several different keys. Unexpectedly, he felt like laughing: 'Rather than amnesia, hasn't this boy gone stupid?'
Lu Bai picked up an important phone call halfway through, so he stopped in place and wasted a lot of time answering the call. Afterwards, he took the elevator and made his way back to his apartment.
When he got there, he saw that tiny figure half bent over while foolishly trying to open the door with one key after the other. The boy cursed under his breath: "How can there be so many keys! Ugh, this isn't the one either!"
Lu Bai stood not too far behind, listening to the crisp sound of keys colliding. After a while, the door still showed no sign of opening.
Suddenly, he couldn't stand witnessing his (Zhan Yu) lack of IQ.
After Zhan Yu tried several keys without success, he muttered in frustration, "No way, I obviously collected all of Zhan Yu's keys. How come none of these are right? Was there something I missed?"
He was unable to find any solutions. As soon as he turned around, he saw Lu Bai quietly standing behind him for who knows how long. He thought that he would've reached his own apartment earlier than he did, since it took him a long time of circling before finding this spot after all.
Lu Bai Without glancing at him (Zhan Yu), he went straight to the front door of his own apartment, took out his key, then unlocked it.
When he opened his lock, Zhan Yu stared straight at the man's hand, waiting for him to pull out his key so that he could see what it looked like. He needed a reference so he can have an idea of the apartment's key design.
What's annoying is that Lu Bai seemed aware of his thoughts. He opened his door and pushed it straight in, then pulled his key out quickly before closing the door.
Zhan Yu glared at that spot with bitter resentment, but half a second later, he recalled that a high-end looking key with a red string tied to it was hidden under his pillow in his dorm.
Now that he remembered, he hurriedly traveled back to his dormitory to grab the keys. Sure enough, when he tried this on his so-called apartment door, just a slight turn caused the knob to 'click.'
Zhan Yu excitedly pulled out the key. "That annoying guy dares to confuse me! Hmph!" After muttering to himself, he glanced down at the red string and shook his head. In fact, the villain was too infatuated with that man. Wrapping the key with a red string and hiding it under his pillow was evidence that he considered the handsome male protagonist as his only sustenance and source of hope.
(T/N: red string-symbol of fated lovers)
However, the villain never would've expected that a miserable ending awaited him.
Under the dim corridor light, Zhan Yu finally managed to open the door with his key.
He retracted his key and smiled with pride. Just when he was about to enter, he heard his neighbor's door 'click' open and the sound of a woman's voice echoed: "Think again, if you dare play tricks with me, I'll have your old man deal with you!"
For a moment, Zhan Yu wondered who the woman was until he heard a familiar man's reply: "Every time, you keep trying to threaten me with my old man. Why would I trick you?"
Now that he knows this was related to Lu Bai, he wanted to quickly enter into his apartment, but then the woman's voice behind him spoke: "Huh? How can your neighbor be such a young boy?"
Lu Bai's mother, Weng Yinlin, wore a light gray dress with her skirt reaching to her knees. Even in her middle-age, her waist was still slender, and her face accentuated with makeup was full of charm.
Zhan Yu observed this new face face and soon realized where Lu Bai got his good genes; his mother was quite attractive.
Zhan Yu's impression of Weng Yinlin was the same as any mother of a rich male protagonist in whichever novel-he hated this type of lady very much. Even in the original novel for this world, this mother threatened the female protagonist to leave her son while promising 'any amount of money, even if it's thousands of dollars.' However, during that time, the female protagonist's career was flourishing, so she naturally humiliated Weng Yinlin's reputation in a merciless fashion. Weng Yinlin had to retreat in the end.
Weng Yinlin was treated like a princess since childhood. Later on, she started her own entertainment company and even won the title of Film Empress numerous times. Who wouldn't treat her like a queen? Aside from the female protagonist who clashed with her, no one else had a chance of going against Weng Yinlin except for her son. That was why she got into trouble when trying to subdue the female protagonist.
Anyways, in Zhan Yu's opinion, there would always be disagreements between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law. Since ancient times, there didn't have to be a good reason for someone to hate another.
Zhan Yu's thoughts began to wander. 'When did Weng Yinlin gradually begin to accept the female protagonist?' It seems to be that year after her son's marriage, when Chu Hua gave birth to a son. Since then, their friendship gradually began to develop.
While in a daze, Zhan Yu had no idea that Lu Bai glanced at him after hearing his mother's question. Naturally, he noticed that his door was still half-open.
When he entered his apartment earlier, he heard him (Zhan Yu) leave the apartment. How could he be back now? Perhaps he left to retrieve his keys before returning.
Lu Bai was surprised that this boy would still trouble himself and run back and forth diligently in the middle of the night.
But thinking about it, the fact that he chases him diligently was one thing he was good at doing.
Fearing that his mom might get the wrong idea, he unexpectedly spoke up and explained: "Mom, I don't know him." The implication behind his words was to avoid gossip and prying any further.
Weng Yinlin stared at him in disbelief.
Just now, Lu Bai was clearly sneaking a glance at that boy [Zhan Yu], don't think that she [Wen Yinlin] didn't miss it! Getting this boy's attention was no easy feat!
When Wen Yinlin looked at Zhan Yu once again, the boy nodded timidly in affirmation of LubBai's claim. Afterwards, Zhan Yu said that he had to go, then smiled at the mom before quickly retreating into his room.
Weng Yinlin noticed that the young boy had a clean face without any thick makeup, but was still quite a beauty. She wanted to ask a question or two, but never expected the boy to run away as if she was being chased by frightening beasts.
Weng Yinlin was familiar with her son's way of speaking and mannerism since he was a child. She turned to her son and asked, "Do you know him?"
Lu Bai impatiently replied, "I just told you earlier."
Weng Yinlin laughed and commented jokingly, "It's rare for a boy to not be swayed by your appearance when he sees you. He didn't seem to put you in his sights at all, does he?" How can two people claim to not know each other when the truth is already so obvious?
After saying so, she was amused to see that her son's face seemed somewhat gloomy.
'Hmph, instead of faking, why don't you just admit it!'
After seeing Weng Yinlin off, Lu Bai stood by his door while thoughtfully looking at his neighbor's closed door. He was considering when to carry out his plan to move out of this apartment.
To his surprise, however, before he could make his move, his neighbor already made plans to move out quickly.
That weekend, while Lu Bai had a break, he suddenly heard loud 'ping ping pang pang' noises next door along with loud voices. Although he couldn't hear the specifics of what was said, it was obvious that there were several people next door.
Feeling very angry, Lu Bai changed into his casual clothes and opened the door, his expression dark and cloudy.
Zhan Yu, who wore black jeans, shirt and a Blue jacket, was shaking his head while directing a group of large men in work clothes to move his furniture. Upon seeing this, Lu Bai couldn't help but furrow his brow.
Zhan Yu heard a door behind him open, but just as he was about to turn around in curiosity, something caught his attention and he continued to direct his men, "Be careful, careful. Go left, go left again, okay...."
Lu Bai, who was completely ignored, deepened his gaze.
"Zhan Yu, what's the meaning of this?"
Zhan Yu didn't even think about it before he retorted, "I'm moving!"
Nevertheless, Lu Bai's expression remained calm and collected; he didn't respond to him.
However, Zhan Yu was smart enough to sense his terrible mood. The man's entire body seemed to be emitting an aura, as if to say 'I'm not in a good mood, so it's best if you don't provoke me.'
As a result, Zhan Yu's clear dark eyes swept at him (Lu Bai) surroundings before he said apologetically, "I'm sorry for waking you up. We will be done moving everything out in twenty minutes, so once we're finished, we will leave immediately."
Lu Bai only felt an unhappy mood well up in his heart. Did he look stupid to him ( Zhan Yu)? How can he not see that he was moving? He only wanted to ask why it seemed as if he couldn't wait to move far away from him. Back when he (Zhan Yu) liked him, he chased after him and stuck to his side like a sticky piece of gum that he couldn't wait to throw away. Now that he didn't want him anymore, he was trying to avoid him much more vehemently than he did to him (Zhan Yu).
At this thought, Lu Bai grunted at him (Zhan Yu)with disdain and turned around.
Zhan Yu was confused by his (Lu Bai) reaction. He stood on the spot, trying to figure what he meant by that grunt, but even after thinking about it for a few minutes, he still couldn't tell what it was that made him unhappy.
He was obviously fulfilling his wish by moving far away! Since he's being so considerate towards him (Lu Bai), why does he still have to act so enigmatic? Why is this guy so hard to understand?
Zhan Yu already knew that even if he didn't move away, Lu Bai would eventually move away on his own. In the end, it didn't make a difference whether it was Lu Bai or him who moved out.
Moreover, this wasn't a place that he had bought for himself. It would be better if he sold the place and used that money to buy a place he liked.
When Zhan Yu had returned home the other day, he had told Zhan Qiancheng that he wanted to sell his place. Zhan Qiancheng naturally knew that he had originally stirred up trouble in order to buy that place and get closer to Lu Bai. He had tried convincing him (zhan Yu) before, but Zhan Yu was persistent on buying that place. Back then, he wasn't in the mood to handle his affairs. Now that he wanted to sell it, Zhan Qiancheng couldn't agree more with the idea.
In less than a week, he was able to find him (Zhan Yu) a buyer. Even the people from the moving company were prepared by him. Zhan Yu was idle since everything had already been taken care of by his brother. He had only come over to grab some things and help with the moving, but he never expected that Lu Bai was such a difficult person to please.
In the end, he didn't care about whether he was angry or happy. In high spirits, he happily finished all of his work, lifted his small backpack, and rolled his suitcase towards the train to head back home.
Lu Bai followed his normal routine of exercising in the gym for half an hour. He then took a shower and sat down in preparation to eat breakfast. As he sat down, he strained his ears to listen to the sounds outside, but it was completely quiet.
He coolly took a sip of milk. In the end, he couldn't restrain himself and stood up, opening his door. As he glanced at the tightly shut entrance next door, his expression turned dark.
After moving out, Zhan Yu was filled with excitement for a long time. His spirits were incomparably high.
Since it was now early May, he recalled that according to the plot following the competition scene, Lu Bai would head back directly to his company and work. If they were to cross paths again, it would be during their graduation ceremony this early June.
Haha, he would no longer encounter Lu Bai at school, neither would he ever go where he lived. Zhan Yu was very certain that their paths would not cross in the future, so he relaxed mentally and single-mindedly focused on studying.
However, the saying of "The brother has left the Jiang Hu, but the Jiang Hu still has stories of that brother!" was on point.
(T/N: Jiang Hu(江湖) literally means rivers and lakes, but usually represents the wandering community of martial artists and people of special skills. It's mentioned often in Chinese martial arts movies and other c-novels as well)
Although Lu Bai was no longer physically on campus, the impact of the "aftermath" was still quite serious.
To be continued....
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