Cannon Fodder Chapter 11: Phoenix Awakened 11: Imagination
"There's nothing to see." Yu Ze, worried that Long Yuan was curious enough to go through the forum, quickly answered.
"Then what are you looking at?" Long Yuan raised his eyebrows.
Yu Ze laughed dryly, "I'm bored and just looking."
"Strange," Long Yuan commented, "Come on, let's go eat."
Bai Yan put his hand on Xuan Miao's shoulder, smiled meaningfully, but did not say anything else.
In the cafeteria, Yu Ze looked at the meat Long Yuan put into his bowl and reflexively frowned, "I don't want to eat this."
This was the morning! He was used to eating light food in the morning.
Long Yuan's hand stopped halfway, "Want me to feed you?"
Yu Ze's heart skipped a beat and he blushed, "No, I just don't want to eat."
"You have to eat. I will feed you myself if you don't want to eat." Long Yuan said and went to pick up the meat.
Yu Ze hurriedly picked up the bowl and moved back, "I'll eat it myself."
Long Yuan smiled smugly, "You should have done that earlier."
Yu Ze tried his best to ignore the unpleasant taste and quickly ate the meat. He did not look up when he heard the sound of pictures being taken, knowing that Bai Yan was collecting evidence to establish his Awakened persona.
After eating, the four separated and Yu Ze alone headed to the Freshman Department.
After he left, Bai Yan elbowed Long Yuan, "You guys are progressing pretty fast!"
Long Yuan asked, "What progress? Don't think about it."
Bai Yan exclaimed, "It's so obvious but you're still hiding it, it's not enough to be a brother! Before, when I asked you to look at him, you denied it. Now you're even offering to feed him yourself. Also, don't think we're blind. On the track, you grabbed his hand. Are you trying to take advantage of him?"
Xuan Miao testified, "I saw it too."
Long Yuan hummed lightly, "You do not understand! I was helping him to resist the instinct of not wanting to exercise. Didn't you notice that he doesn't like meat? But after I said I would feed him myself, he ate it?" He sounded smug, "He's not used to people getting too close, and he blushes when anyone gets close. If he doesn't want to do something, he'll do it himself if I get close enough to help."
Bai Yan didn't believe they were so innocent, "Don't you hate to get too close to others? Why is he different?"
Long Yuan's heart moved, but on the surface, he did not show it. With righteousness, he said, "In order to repay the kindness."
He put his hands in his pockets, stretched his long legs, and coolly walked away.
Bai Yan whispered to Xuan Miao, "They must have a situation!"
Xuan Miao hummed, "Mn."
In Yu Ze's morning class, all eyes fell on him. He read the forum posts, and knew why they were looking at him. He did not panic, and was inexplicably a little shy.
Would Long Yuan be angry if he saw it?
"Wow, it's Young Master Yuan!"
He was walking away when he suddenly heard the sound of a suppressed voice exclaiming.
Most of the students in the class turned their heads to look at the back door in unison. When Yu Ze looked over, he saw Long Yuan leaning against the door, his legs looking particularly long. When Long Yuan saw him looking over, he tilted his head outward at him, then his feet stepped to the side and he disappeared behind the wall.
The classroom was quiet for a moment and then exploded.
"Young Master Yuan actually came to pick up Feng Ze from class!"
"It's not true!"
"There must be something else!"
"It's just a good-looking face, Young Master Yuan can't be that superficial!"
Yu Ze's heart was pounding. Ignoring the many stares directed at him, his fingers were tangled under the table.
What did Long Yuan want from him?
The class bell rang a short while later, and the students who usually ran wildly after class seemed to be pinned to their seats, sitting still and turning their heads to look at Yu Ze.
Yu Ze was inexplicably nervous and got up to walk out of the classroom in the face of all the intense and complicated emotions.
"You're slow." Long Yuan had his arms folded against his chest as he leaned on the wall. When he saw Yu Ze out of the corner of his eyes, he straightened up.
"Is there something wrong?" Yu Ze asked in a small voice.
"Let's have lunch together." Long Yuan said.
"Huh?" Yu Ze was surprised, "You purposely looked for me, just for this?"
Long Yuan lowered his head and also his voice, his breath tickling Yu Ze's ear, "If I don't come, you will squat in the classroom and not go out."
Yu Ze rubbed his ear, "No, I won't."
"Then I have to keep an eye on you so that you eat meat, let's go, A'Yan and A'Miao have gone ahead to occupy the seats."
Yu Ze hurried to follow. The classroom behind him was filled with the sound of talking, and he thought before speaking out, "From now on, do not come to me. I will go to the canteen by myself."
Long Yuan's behavior was too easy to be misunderstood.
Long Yuan looked at him sideways. Yu Ze's phoenix eyes were long and cold, but the redness on his face had not yet dissipated, as if he was pretending to be calm.
Long Yuan laughed lightly, "It's okay. If you don't go, I'll come to you."
Yu Ze hurriedly assured, "I will go."
In his plan, there was no such thing as dieting.
Yu Ze ate meat for lunch as usual, and this time he was very conscious and didn't let Long Yuan rush him. When Long Yuan saw him eating meat, he felt that something was missing. Well, he thought about it for a moment and came to the conclusion that the red face was funny.
During his lunch break, and after the meal, Yu Ze sat on the floor next to his bed, enveloped by the bright light reflected from the rhinestones, and was in a beautiful mood. He hesitated for a moment and opened the forum. The first post remained the same, but there were more comments.
He clicked on it, and his eyes opened slightly in surprise. The left side, which originally only had a thousand star coins, now had thirty thousand star coins. In other words, many people thought that he and Long Yuan were in a relationship!
He slid down, the comment with the most replies was at the top, and he was somewhat impressed.
[Long Yuan helped Feng Ze but it was to help his roommate. I want to replace him!]
Yu Ze expanded his reply, expecting it to be full of copy and paste, but not a tearing battle.
He quickly scanned through it, and his finger stopped on the reply of the username 'water' — [No, you can't, you all can't.]
The reply came five minutes ago, but just these five minutes was enough to spark a keyboard war.
[Feng Ze himself?]
[His face is as big as a basin. If we can't, why can you?]
[This is absolutely Feng Ze himself. Relying on an anonymous forum... Why don't you use your real name? Do you not dare?]
Yu Ze pinched his earlobe, why did that person say that?
It made him feel as if he was special.
No, he slapped his face to keep himself from thinking nonsense. This was just the crowd talking nonsense. But even if he thought so, he still couldn't help but blush and feel his heart beat faster.
Across the room, Long Yuan's forehead veins jumped as he stared at the screen, "If their physical combat power and keyboard combat power was the same, zombie beasts would have long gone to hell!"
He did not see the heart, directly closed the bracelet, fell back and lay down on the bed. He reached out to grab the bright light in the air and tsked, why did he reply with such a message? Why can't others be his roommate, and why was Feng Ze the exception?
Bai Yan's snickering words came to mind and he sat up violently. Did Bai Yan really see it?
A week later, there were only three students left in the Freshman Department. Out of the remaining three, two of them went to the Logistics Department, and one was promoted to the Junior Department.
During the week, Yu Ze imitated the behavior pattern of a group of students every day, except during morning practice and having three meals a day. With Long Yuan watching him during morning practice and meals, he had no way to refuse.
And he didn't know if it was an illusion, but he felt that Long Yuan seemed to expect him to refuse and then find ways to make him do it. As for those methods, they always made his heart beat out of rhythm before he would eventually compromise.
Everything was going well, and he was happy with the situation so far — he was neither sent to the Logistics Department nor to the Primary Department. It was just the growing trend of his Awakened senses that made him anxious, and he was afraid he wouldn't be able to control it enough and then reveal himself.
On the morning of the fifteenth, in the track.
"Be careful," Yu Ze only ran two steps and almost fell flat on the ground, but Long Yuan grabbed his shoulders, "What are you thinking about that has you so absorbed? Hey, why are your muscles so tense?"
Yu Ze hurriedly took a step back to free himself from Long Yuan's grasp, and his movement was very large.
Long Yuan frowned, "What are you doing?"
The power inside Yu Ze's body seemed to be impatient to come out. He tried his best to hold it back as a layer of sweat broke out on his forehead.
"I'm sorry," Yu Ze knew his reaction was too big, like he was avoiding him and seemed rude, "I, I don't want to run."
Long Yuan asked, "Is it hard?"
Yu Ze nodded, Long Yuan wanted to poke his forehead but didn't do it, "You go sit down and rest, no more running."
Yu Ze sat down in the bleachers, holding his forehead in his hands, and gradually calmed down.
What to do, it's not even been ten days! Not only did he have a strong reaction to running, but every aspect of his life was affected by his Awakened senses.
The meat and vegetables in the cafeteria were getting harder and harder to eat. He wanted to climb up on the windowsill every day to sing. He demanded more from his environment, and he could hardly stand not changing his bed sheets for a day.
At this rate, he could not pretend for long.
After his evening shower, he sat on the carpet next to his bed and looked through the information about Phoenix Awakened. He had no other choice but to try to understand the habits and then think of ideas to calm them down.
Climbing on the windowsill was too much of an attention grabber, so how about closing the window and standing on a stool against it? If he sang, he'd have to order a soundproofing system to do it.
He frowned. The matter was not easy. The school dormitories were all two-roomed, meant just for roommates to take care of each other. With a soundproofing system, he wouldn't know what was going on outside the room. The school wouldn't approve of that.
He wondered if the Awakened Department had an out-of-the-way location, the kind where singing wouldn't be noticed.
As he was thinking about it, a 'bang' reached his ears, sounding a bit muffled because it was outside the door of the room, but not too loud. He hurriedly got up and pushed the door open, "Long Yuan?"
He immediately walked towards the bathroom, but only after two steps, he heard Long Yuan say, "Don't come over." He spoke quickly, urgently and with a gasp.
Immediately afterwards, there was another clang, the sound of something being hit.
"What's wrong with you?" Yu Ze asked, worried.
"Nothing." Long Yuan was lying on the edge of the bathtub, his forehead was red from the impact. His legs were transformed into a curled up dragon's tail.
He braced himself against the bathtub and tried to stand up, raising his upper body slightly, but his dragon tail swung to the right and hit the washing machine with a thud. He hissed and his body slid back down, but he managed to grab the tub just in time to stabilize himself.
He stared at his tail and couldn't believe it, could he really use this dragon tail to sweep zombie beasts into scum later?
Dad had said that the dragon tail from the first beast transformation was weak and should be protected. He thought his dad was just comparing it to the fully developed, all-conquering Green Dragon Awakened One's tail, but he didn't expect that the comparison was that it wasn't as good as his feet!
"Are you really okay?" Yu Ze heard his voice clearly, and just from that sound he could make out that that hit had caused pain.
Long Yuan was silent for a moment. "Something is wrong," he aggravated his tone, "you come in... First swear, no matter what you see, you won't say anything!"
Yu Ze was all too familiar with this phrase and immediately promised, "I definitely won't say anything."
He suspected that Long Yuan had slipped and felt embarrassed. When he walked into the bathroom and saw Long Yuan, his eyes immediately widened.
His imagination was still too lacking!