Translator: Xena
Editor: Sammy
Proofreader: Bubbles
⚠️Content Warning: This chapter may contain depictions of violence, sex, offensive language and has been marked NSFW
Chu Yu stared at the bird Lu Shi raised.
Lu Shi's bird had been kept for a long time. It was well-raised, with luxuriant thick feathers and a round beak. Chu Yu also raised one himself, but although the breed was the same, it was smaller and felt different to the touch.
Looking at Lu Shi's bird, Chu Yu held his breath, stretched out his hand, and touched it carefully.
Just as Chu Yu wanted to withdraw his hand, Lu Shi suddenly clamped his wrist to stop him from pulling back, and asked in a hoarse voice, "Don't want to touch it twice?"
Chu Yu's heart beat rapidly.
To the point that it was as if he were thirsty for blood, and his throat was dry and itchy.
He shrank his fingers, held his breath, and lightly touched the bird's beak. Its reaction was unexpectedly very big, moving under Chu Yu's finger.
However, before Chu Yu could withdraw his hand, Lu Shi already put the bird back into the cage, not showing it to Chu Yu anymore.
The dorm room's windows were open, and the winter night's cold wind blew in, carrying a faint fragrance of plum blossoms.
Chu Yu twirled his fingers, feeling that his fingertips were terribly hot.
He didn't dare look down, thinking of Lu Shi's black jacket that was worn wide open, exposing his firm chest muscles and abs. It was really too illegal, the attractiveness made him capricious.
He hastily stuttered, "I-I'll go get a towel!"
Without waiting for Lu Shi's response, Chu Yu raised his feet and left.
He got a bath towel and placed it directly on top of Lu Shi's head, covering Lu Shi's face along the way.
Chu Yu breathed a sigh of relief.
Under the white bath towel, Lu Shi's low, hoarse laughter sounded, scratching the hearts of those who heard it and causing an itch.
He grabbed the bath towel from the back with one hand, revealing a cold and strict appearance. Lu Shi looked at Chu Yu with interest. "Shy?"
"How can that be!"
Chu Yu opened his eyes wide and stated resolutely and decisively, "It's impossible to be shy!"
Lu Shi questioned, "Is that dissatisfaction?"
He didn't understand it the first second, but a few seconds after, Chu Yu suddenly realized what Lu Shi was referring to.
! ! !
Clearing his throat, Chu Yu tried to keep his expression serious as he answered with clear diction, "I'm very satisfied."
After saying so, his brain uncontrollably ran through a whole little yellow book.
Feeling that the atmosphere would become very dangerous if this went on, Chu Yu glanced at the desk. "By the way, I can't understand one question. I looked at the reference answer, but I also didn't understand it."
Lu Shi grabbed the towel, wiped his hair twice, then put the towel aside. "Which question?"
Chu Yu promptly sat down and pointed to a topic printed on the opened page. "It's this."
Lu Shi put his hands on the back of the chair, as if he was enclosing Chu Yu in his arms. He leaned in to look at the topic, his side profile's expression focused.
Chu Yu couldn't help but steal a peek.
There was a faint scent of orange blossom from Lu Shi's body, which Chu Yu was very familiar with because the shower gel and shampoo they were both using were all bought according to his own preferences.
They both clearly smelled the same.
But inexplicably, Chu Yu felt that Lu Shi's body smelled better.
So much so that after smelling it, it made his heartbeat speed up while his whole body heated up.
Chu Yu couldn't sit still and shifted quietly.
Lu Shi, who noticed his small movements, inclined his face slightly and with a hint of command, said, "Concentrate."
Hearing his still somewhat hoarse voice, Chu Yu couldn't concentrate and his line of sight moved down quickly to take a look.
It was obviously just a glance, but Lu Shi suddenly stood up straight and lowered his voice. "Don't rouse me, if you rouse up the fire again will you be responsible?"
He stretched out his hand, pinched Chu Yu's chin, and heavily rubbed the plump of his thumb against Chu Yu's lower lip. "Wait, I'll explain it to you after I finish showering."
Seeing Lu Shi walk to the bathroom, Chu Yu wanted to say, didn't you just come out after taking a shower and now you're taking another one again?
But then he thought of something and quickly shut up.
While everyone's winter vacation syndrome still hadn't been cured, the monthly exam was fast approaching.
Old Ye composed a long poem for this purpose and recited it in the morning self-study, hoping to boost everyone's morale.
However, the difficulty of this matter was obvious to the naked eye. A quarter of the class was dozing off with drowsy eyes, and the rest were either rushing homework or in a trance.
Old Ye was heartbroken. "Students, you are the morning sun, cheer up! Be energetic! Be vigorous in making progress!"
Dream-Ge pointed out the window while struggling to resist drowsiness. "Teacher, but it's winter now, there's no sun."
Old Ye mulled for two seconds, but still couldn't hold back and hurled a chalk tip at Dream-Ge. The tip was very precise, landing right in the middle of his forehead, leaving bits of red chalk ashes.
After class, Dream-Ge came over to find Chu Yu and the others for comfort.
"A little red mark between your eyebrows, Dream-Ge, you'll have great fortunes in the future. This is Guanyin's enlightenment!"
"That's right, maybe this chalk will open up your ren-du meridians and cleanse your five senses. One mistake and you can cross over into the ranks of martial arts masters!"
Chu Yu listened and laughed. "What novels have you been reading recently? Is it possible for Dream-Ge to enter the Dao with martial arts and ascend to the sky in the blink of an eye?"
"I know, they get together to read wuxia and xuanhuan novels every night!"
Dream-Ge rubbed his forehead and sighed. "So what if I can ascend? I'll ascend tomorrow, I have to do my physics homework today! Brothers, who can lend me their physics homework to copy? I was thinking about math problems last night and forgot about the physics one!"
Chu Yu stepped forward. "Would you like to copy mine? I did the physics homework!"
Dream-Ge looked sad. "School Flower, you've inflated."
Chu Yu lifted his chin. "When copying my homework, you won't suffer losses and you won't be fooled, so will you copy or not?"
When a big break between classes arrived, Dream-Ge crossed half of the classroom with excitement and ran to Chu Yu's desk. "Damn, School Flower, did you buy plug-ins for most of the month of winter vacation? Fucking awesome! The frequency of correct answers in your physics homework is too high!"
He sized up Chu Yu's face, his tone very exaggerated. "This face actually shone with the radiance of wisdom! This little one has eyes, but failed to recognize Mount Tai!"
Chu Yu omitted his painful experience of make-up classes and doing questions which made him lose hair. He smiled quite proudly. "Of course, it's the bling bling radiance of wisdom!"
Dream-Ge guessed, "You'll definitely get into the top 200 in the monthly test, and it will 80% surprise Old Ye and the others to death! Hahaha!"
In the first monthly exam of his second semester in second year high school, Chu Yu was determined to not go to Lu Shi for help in emphasizing the key questions. He wanted to try answering the test papers completely by his own strength, and see how many points he'd get.
But he was still diffident.
The day before the exams, Chu Yu was reading a book when he saw that it was past twelve o'clock. He replied to an email Yang Yuchan sent about their investment project.
When he finally lay in bed, Chu Yu felt that his head was heavy as if he were wearing a helmet.
He muttered to comfort himself, "My brain is heavy because it contains knowledge!"
Lu Shi was leaning against the headboard reading a book. When he heard his muttering, he pulled him over to hug him. "Tired?"
Chu Yu cuddled into Lu Shi's arms and lay on his stomach. "Mm, tired, but very happy."
Since the last time, Lu Shi would no longer wear a watch or wristband on his wrist when there were only the two of them.
There were several scars of different shades on his thin and cold white wrist, like a tragic imprint made by the past.
Chu Yu held Lu Shi's wrist, gently caressed the traces on it, then raised his head and smilingly said to Lu Shi, "Although I'm very tired, I'm especially happy! Probably because it's my own effort, I can find the distance to my goal getting shorter and shorter when I look ahead. This feeling is so good!"
He looked exhausted, but there was a bright light in his eyes.
As usual, the monthly test results came out very quickly. Early in the morning, news came into the classroom one after another.
"The checking of the test papers is finished, and the results have come out!"
"The year level rankings are out!"
"The teachers were talking about class average in the office!"
The successive news made everyone very anxious and eager to know all things related to the results within three seconds.
Dream-Ge clenched his hand into a fist and slammed his table. "I can't fucking stand this! How many points did I get in the test?! Is there a drop in my ranking?!"
Dream-Ge was under great pressure because his girlfriend wasn't very amenable to reason. She said that if Dream-Ge's studies regressed, the two of them would break up. Dream-Ge wanted to keep his precious love, so he'd scratch his hair anxiously every time before the release of exam results. Each time Chu Yu saw it, he felt that Dream-Ge's hair would be scratched bald.
At that moment, Old Ye suddenly appeared at the door of the classroom and hooked his finger towards Chu Yu.
Chu Yu was at a loss. He pointed his finger towards his nose and mouthed, "Me?"
Old Ye beamingly nodded, then pointed in the direction of the office, turned, and walked away with his hands behind his back.
Chu Yu didn't quite understand what was going on. He solemnly said to Lu Shi, "If I don't come back after the preparation bell rings later, Lu-Ge, you must come and save me!"
Lu Shi was amused by his serious and nervous expression. "Mn, go ba."