Chapter 23

"Not necessarily. What about the photos?"

"Didn't they have that thing abroad... P, P..."

Ye Xinran reminded, "Photoshop."

"Right, right, right! Those photos probably had Chi Ning's face photoshopped on. It's just rumors..."

"Why isn't Chi Ning coming to check his grades?"

"Hah, he's got it all figured out. He doesn't need to look at all."

Chi Ning stood upstairs, watching the densely packed crowd in front of the bulletin board, and thought with lowered eyes: I haven't had bayberry juice for three days. Why hasn't Qin Heng made a single move? Why isn't he more proactive about selling his stuff?

Was he doing it on purpose?

Chapter 23

Pure water was bland and tasteless, making people feel wilted just drinking it.

Chi Ning twisted the cap of the mineral water bottle over and over again.

What should he do...

He wanted bayberry juice, but he didn't want to lower his head and buy it from Qin Heng.

Should he go drop some hints at Boss Xu's place tonight?

Forget it. What if Qin Heng really wanted to draw a clear line between them? He couldn't just go begging to give him money.

If he wasn't going to drink it, he wouldn't drink it.

"Knock, knock."

"Chi Ning?" Ye Xinran knocked on the door and called out, leaning against the doorframe.

"Hmm?" Chi Ning turned to look at him. "What's up?"

"There's a problem I don't quite understand." Ye Xinran walked over to Chi Ning with a red pen and a sheet of white paper, showing him the prompt. "This one."

Chi Ning glanced at it. "L'Hôpital's Rule? College freshman material. You're already studying this far?"

"Yeah." Ye Xinran leaned against the window sill, watching Chi Ning lean sideways against the window frame, picking up his pen to solve the problem.

The teenager's eyelids were drooped, his thin lips pressed straight. He was dead serious when doing problems, utterly single-minded, and even the fingers holding the pen were exceptionally pretty. Sunlight spilled over the tips of his hair, making him look like a gemstone radiating fiery colors.

"All done." Chi Ning flipped the written white paper over to the back. "I'll give you two more similar ones. Go back and finish them, and you won't forget this solution method."

Ye Xinran was puzzled. "Why aren't you asking me what I'm studying college freshman coursework for?"

Chi Ning's pen tip paused. "You've finished high school coursework. When you have nothing to do in class, don't you just look at college knowledge to pass the time? Based on your level, you shouldn't be getting stuck on L'Hôpital's Rule. Is it because you've been playing too many computer games lately?"

Ye Xinran:...

What kind of academic prodigy brain circuit was this? It was freakishly cute.

He held back and defended himself, "I wasn't playing computer games."

"Uh-huh, right, software engineering and development technology." Chi Ning continued writing downward, giving perfunctory responses as he wrote. "Conducting vulnerability scanning and patching for cybersecurity?"

Ye Xinran let out a muffled chuckle.

It really was hard on Chi Ning to make the two words "hacker" sound so fresh and refined.

Chi Ning handed back the finished A4 paper. "There you go."

Ye Xinran uttered a thanks. Just as he was about to take it, he saw Chi Ning staring straight ahead in a daze.

He followed the gaze forward and saw a tricycle selling snacks parked at the school gate, with a red sign with yellow characters pasted on its side: "Fried chicken, egg tarts, bayberry juice."

Chi Ning frantically shoved the A4 paper and red pen into Ye Xinran's arms, just like when he had shoved money at him before. "Hold this quickly. I'm leaving."

He turned around, pulled out his wallet, and clutched it to his chest. He bolted towards the back door of the classroom, clattered down the stairs, bypassed the classmates in front of the bulletin board, and charged toward the little tricycle. "Uncle, give me one portion each of fried chicken legs, egg tarts, and bayberry juice!"

Good thing he had exercised over the summer vacation, otherwise by the time he ran over here, the few items left on the stall would have already been snatched up by the starved classmates who had finished checking their grades.

Holding the paper box, Chi Ning returned to the secluded little bamboo grove. Sitting at the edge while listening to the wind rustling the bamboo leaves, he bit into the crisp crust of the egg tart, tasting so good it made him hazy.

After checking his grades and returning to the classroom, Qin Heng habitually glanced out the window, and what he saw was Chi Ning tilting his head back to eat the flowing center of an egg tart.

His seat was in the very last row of the classroom, which happened to afford a view of the corner of the bamboo grove—neither one position more nor one position less would do.

Chi Ning finished the egg tart, popped open the stopper of the bayberry juice bottle with a pop, and took a gulping swig. The sourness made his eyebrows knit together.

Why wasn't it sweet?

Why was the one Qin Heng made sweet?

And it wasn't even that cheap, saccharine kind of sweet taste.

He tasted it again, his tongue darting out from the sourness, and lowered his head to bite into the chicken cutlet sprinkled with sour plum powder.

The chicken cutlet wasn't bad, though.

Watching this, a trace of a smile couldn't help but tug at the corners of Qin Heng's lips.

Zhang Qiuwen leaned over. "Brother Qin, what are you looking at?"

Qin Heng pulled the curtains closed. "Nothing."

Before Zhang Qiuwen could reply, three sounds came from outside the window--"Biubiubiu!" Aside from Chi Ning, no one else would use such a fresh and refined ringtone.

Zhang Qiuwen chuckled.

Was this what it felt like to watch someone else fall head over heels in love? So novel.

He cast a sidelong glance at Qin Heng's expression, raised a hand to open the window, and pulled back the curtains to reveal a small slit, looking out from inside.

Chi Ning used the complimentary alcohol wipe to clean his hands and answered the call. "Hello?"

Xu Jiahao's voice came through the earpiece. "Why haven't you come to play billiards lately? Mo Yuanzhou even asked me about you."

Chi Ning said, "There are school exams, I don't have much free time."

Xu Jiahao let out a sigh of relief. "Ah, I see."

He had wanted to wait here for his boy to coax the person back, but after three days of waiting, there was total silence. Every night when Qin Heng came to the billiards hall, his face was pulled as long as if he were going to a funeral, and one could tell at a glance that the two of them hadn't even spoken a word in three days.

Xu Jiahao couldn't sit still and wait for death. "Is Qin Heng next to you? I can't get through to his phone. Give him your phone and let him take it."

"You can't get through to Qin Heng's phone?"

Chi Ning glanced toward the direction of Class 18 and saw the slightly swaying curtains and the shadow of a person behind them. "He's not right beside me, but he's not far. I can go find him for you."

Xu Jiahao replied, "Alright."

Inside Class 18, Zhang Qiuwen swiftly popped the battery out of his own little PHS phone and then went to fish for Qin Heng's. "Bro, let's not make things hard for Uncle Xu."

Heh, he really was a clever little sprite.

If Brother Qin could actually chase down Second Young Master Chi, he would have to hand him a fat red envelope no matter what.

Just as Zhang Qiuwen finished hiding the battery, Chi Ning's figure appeared at the back door of Class 18.

He pressed his lips together, knocked twice on the door, and called out, "Qin Heng, come here."

Three words, concise and to the point.

The few people remaining in Class 18 quietly looked toward Qin Heng.

Even though the scandal between these two had been spreading like wildfire, everyone tacitly assumed that half of it was fake.

This person Qin Heng wore an expression that suggested he would never be moved by mortal affections.

No iron was straighter than him, no steel harder than him.

Yue Yaozong looked playfully at Chi Ning. "Brother Qin has a big ego; you have to walk right up to his desk to invite him. Just standing at the door isn't enough to invite our class's big shot away."

Only now did Chi Ning get a genuine sense that Qin Heng was a school tyrant.

His thoughts drifted off: what on earth did a school tyrant mean? Was he the overlord of the school?

Was Qin Heng this childish when he was little?

Qin Heng strode over, glanced at Yue Yaozong as he passed by him, closed the classroom door with his back to the crowd, and shut Chi Ning and himself outside.

He feigned complete ignorance. "What's up?"

"Uncle Xu said he couldn't get through to your phone." Chi Ning handed the phone over. "He might have something to look for you about."

In his heart, Qin Heng knew his godfather didn't have anything at all; he was just giving him a stepping stone so he and Chi Ning could talk.

He took the phone, offered a few perfunctory words, and hung up quickly. Feigning ignorance, he asked, "Have you had dinner?"

"I've eaten." Chi Ning took the phone back, shoved it into his pocket, and turned to leave.

Qin Heng lifted his foot to follow, trailing unhurriedly behind Chi Ning.

The opportunity was right in front of him; if he couldn't seize it this time, he would have lived these eighteen years in vain.

Why hesitate and look before leaping?

Chi Ning clearly liked guys. Handing him over to anyone else wasn't as reassuring as keeping a tight grip on him himself.

If Chi Ning didn't understand what two men had to face after getting together, so be it; he would eventually grow to a point where no one would dare point fingers at him.

Qin Heng stared fixedly at Chi Ning's spine, making Chi Ning's whole body prickle with discomfort.

He wasn't familiar with the campus; before his rebirth, he rarely left the classroom, and after his rebirth, he ran off the moment school finished. Right now, he couldn't even find where the trash cans were.

This damn bayberry juice was sour and puckery, truly hard to swallow.

It was enough to give a ghost the blues. He wanted to throw it away.

The moment this thought popped into his head, he saw a verdant trash can placed under the tree-lined path outside the runway not far away.

There had never been a moment when Chi Ning found a trash can as pretty as he did right now.

He quickened his pace, wanting to toss the bayberry juice—which he hadn't even drunk two sips of—into it.

Qin Heng raised an eyebrow, caught Chi Ning by the wrist, and rescued the glass bottle. "Why throw it away? Not good?"

Chi Ning said, "Yeah."

Not only was it not good, it was downright terrible—sour and astringent. Just thinking about the taste made his mouth start watering with acidity.

Qin Heng gave a chuckle.

Although Chi Ning didn't praise him directly, he was just as happy as if he had been rewarded. Wasn't this implicitly praising him right to his face for his skill in making bayberry juice?

He pulled out the cork, brought it to his nose and sniffed it. "I'll try some."

Chi Ning was already dazed by this action.

No, this was something he had already drunk!

"It's not hygienic."

Just as the words fell, Qin Heng had already taken a large mouthful, his Adam's apple rolling as he swallowed it solidly.

Chi Ning was dumbfounded, watching as Qin Heng took another sip, this time holding it in his mouth to sip and taste carefully before evaluating, "It really doesn't taste good, too sour. The waxberries weren't soaked in salt water when they were processed, they weren't washed clean, and they're a bit astringent. They weren't marinated with honey before being boiled into water, making them even sourder."

Overall, nothing to fear.

Qin Heng plugged the cork back into the bottle's mouth, glanced at Chi Ning's lips, and asked, "Did you eat fried chicken for dinner?"

Chi Ning's ears felt like they were about to burn off. In two lifetimes he had never been in a relationship, nor had he ever seen anyone so brazen. "You..."

"Don't buy from this place in the future, the oil isn't clean." Qin Heng raised a hand and tossed the waxberry juice, which should have been lying in the trash can three minutes ago, right into it.

Chi Ning raised a hand to wipe the corner of his mouth in involuntary emotion. There was no oil at all... it was impossible for it to have gotten onto the glass bottle.