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His brain short-circuited for a moment, and Qin Heng's scent filled his nose.

It was aggressive, like a summer sea breeze, with a faintly bitter hint of mugwort. It was utterly distinctive.

He unconsciously wrinkled his nose. When he tried to catch the scent again, it was gone.

Qin Heng wouldn't wear perfume. It was probably laundry detergent, but what kind of detergent smelled this uniquely good?

Qin Heng quit while he was ahead, dangling the bait before the little fish. "Are you still ordering bayberry juice? I have enough frozen bayberries to make it for you for another two months."

Chi Ning said, "Order it."

He reached for his wallet, just about to take out money, when Qin Heng said, "I'm not charging you this time. I have something I'd like to ask you to help me with."

Chi Ning asked, "What is it?"

Qin Heng paused, choosing his words carefully. "If I start studying now, how likely am I to get into Gangnan University?"

The evening air wasn't particularly dry. The lingering summer heat had yet to pass, but the cicadas had already fallen silent.

There were few students left at school, and the quiet felt a little abrupt.

Chi Ning couldn't understand why Qin Heng had suddenly said that.

Over the past few months, he had more or less figured out Qin Heng's path through life.

He had struggled his way through childhood, supported himself alongside his best friend, stumbling into adulthood while seizing every opportunity that came his way, until he found someone willing to back him.

There had been no rebirth or meteoric rise. Every scrap of capital Qin Heng possessed had been earned bit by bit through struggle.

He wasn't bad to the bone, but he was no saint either. That was why he was skilled at packaging himself, capable of putting on a dignified front after becoming an adult. He had seen enough of the world to speak eloquently about anything.

He had nearly fooled Chi Ning into falling for it.

People like him put profit above all else.

Qin Heng's best choice now was to get his high school diploma, then use his godfather Xu Jiahao's overseas connections to attend some university where he barely needed to study. After gilding his resume, he could return home and launch his career looking every inch the respectable man, rather than follow the usual path of studying in China.

Seeing him remain silent, Qin Heng's heart sank halfway. "Is it too late?"

Chi Ning said, "It's not too late."

"No. 1 High School has strong teachers. Even the teachers in charge of the Blue Sky Class are top graduates from prestigious education programs. If you want to study, getting into university won't be a problem."

But whether he could get into Gangnan was another matter.

Qin Heng caught the implication. He stepped forward and asked in a low voice, "I heard you often teach Class 1 students how to solve problems, and you even provide your notes for them to copy free of charge. This time, Class 1 students improved by more than twenty points across the board."

"They all say it was because of you. If I study with the teachers, I can only get into an ordinary university. But what if I study with you?"

Of course I could.

As long as Qin Heng wasn't stupid, never mind HKU—Chi Ning could even get him into S University. Standardized exams were easy enough.

But why should he?

Because Qin Heng had been full of lies in his previous life? Or because in this life, Qin Heng had said, "We're not brothers," and "That's not what I meant"?

Qin Heng studied Chi Ning's expression and said carefully, "If you're willing to help me, I'll make bayberry juice for you for free. Every year, until you graduate from university."

Money didn't move Chi Ning. But bayberry juice—five whole years of it—was something he had to consider.

He had drunk beverages through two lifetimes, and only Qin Heng's had ever tasted this good. What if he refused, and Qin Heng got angry from embarrassment and never made it for him again?

What if he couldn't buy it even with money?

The instant Chi Ning's expression softened, Qin Heng pressed his advantage.

He tightly clasped Chi Ning's wrist, his thumb brushing the small mole beneath the protruding wrist bone as he lowered his eyes in a show of weakness.

Chi Ning remembered how Qin Heng had looked when he first saw him lying in that alley. There had been a wildness about him, but even more unwillingness hidden beneath his deliberate show of vulnerability.

Fine. For the bayberry juice.

Chi Ning brushed Qin Heng's hand away.

Qin Heng pressed his lips together, thinking his pitiful act hadn't worked.

To his surprise, ever-proper Chi Ning gave a soft laugh. "I'm very strict. If you dare waste my time, I'll beat you up."

His heart thudded against his chest. Qin Heng remembered the light slap Chi Ning had given his cheek a few months ago. Suddenly, getting hit once or twice didn't seem so bad.

He lowered his voice. "Teacher Chi."

Chi Ning sucked in a sharp breath. "Don't call me that randomly."

Qin Heng gave an "oh" and called him by his nickname instead. "Ningzai?"

Chi Ning stopped walking.

That was even worse than Teacher Chi!

Anger rose in his heart, and wickedness followed. "Bring your placement test papers tomorrow night. We'll find somewhere to tutor you."

Tutoring him directly at school would have been fine too, but Chi Ning was afraid that if Qin Heng brazenly made himself at home in Class 1, Wang Quan wouldn't be able to take it.

Care for your lonely homeroom teacher—starting with you, me, and everyone else.

Still, this was his first time skipping evening self-study to tutor someone.

Although he had already applied to be exempt from evening self-study, he hadn't missed a single day since school started. Everyone had tacitly assumed that Chi Ning would stay until dismissal at ten-thirty.

So when Li Qiuhe came over with the difficult question types his classmates had summarized for the day, intending to ask Chi Ning to explain them, what he saw was the top student's utterly empty seat.

Deputy class monitor Li Qiuhe looked lost. "Where's God Chi?"

The study representative looked equally lost. "I don't know."

"Then let's wait. There are still three hours left before evening self-study ends anyway."

After waiting an hour, Class 1's top students finally realized something was wrong.

The study representative said, "Something's off. Hurry and check whether Chi Ning's bag is still there."

"It wouldn't be right to rummage through someone else's bag, would it? Fine, I won't rummage. I'll just take a look." Li Qiuhe stepped back and craned his neck to peek.

Inside Chi Ning's desk, two rows of textbooks were arranged neatly. Never mind his bag—even his pens were gone.

God Chi had run off!

Li Qiuhe looked at the questions in his hands, then at Chi Ning's empty seat, and let out a pained groan. "Comrades, I have a bad feeling about this. Could students from another class be trying to steal God Chi from us?"

Had the secret behind Class 1's soaring average scores been discovered just like that?

Class 1's class monitor had already been recommended for admission to A University. Li Qiuhe felt that the responsibility of guarding God Chi had fallen onto his shoulders.

Tomorrow after school, he would stick to God Chi like glue and use every trick he had to keep him here!

-

"Achoo—"

Inside a private room at Gangnan's Tea River Lounge, Chi Ning suddenly sneezed and reflexively said, "Who's plotting against me?"

Feeling guilty, Qin Heng rubbed the back of his neck and raised a hand to slide the vanilla ice cream Chi Ning had ordered over to him.

Chi Ning pushed it away. "I'm not eating."

He pulled out a middle school all-subject exercise book from his bag and spread it before Qin Heng. "Do the first chapter of math."

Qin Heng said, "Okay, Ning—"

"What should you call me now?" Chi Ning glared, and before his expression could even turn cold, Qin Heng immediately corrected himself. "Okay, Teacher Chi."

That's more like it.

For a moment, Qin Heng's mind was filled with four words: He's so cute.

Chi Ning's looks had nothing to do with cute, really. When he had a cold expression, he even seemed quite imposing; one look told you he was a good student. But the boy was indeed handsome and pretty, with naturally fine features. If he changed into a jersey and stood on a basketball court, he would still draw the attention of the opposite sex.

But Chi Ning never left room for misunderstanding. Thinking about it carefully, everyone at No. 1 High School had tacitly assumed that Chi Ning definitely liked boys.

His personality wasn't particularly soft either. He was gentle but prickly, had a bit of a temper, and held grudges terribly well.

But Qin Heng simply found him cute.

Cute when calm, cute when holding grudges, and cute even when he threw a silent little tantrum.

After Qin Heng finished the questions Chi Ning had assigned, he turned around and discovered that Chi Ning's reading material for passing the time was The Secrets of the DNA Double Helix—Human Genetic Programming.

Qin Heng: ...

Great. He didn't want to rest at all now.

He conscientiously checked his answers, corrected his mistakes with a red pen, circled the questions he couldn't understand, and placed them before Chi Ning. Leaning over beside him, their thighs nearly touching, he asked, "Teacher, can you teach me?"

Chi Ning placed his book face-down on the table. Just as he pulled the exercise book over, a woman's hysterical shout came from next door: "Wasn't Mom doing it for your sake?!"

Chi Ning raised a hand to close the window.

Tea River Lounge was one of Xu Jiahao's businesses, a self-service membership tea restaurant that charged by private room. Every room had an outward-opening ventilation window, and closing it blocked out most of the noise.

His hand had already gripped the window latch when a familiar voice came from next door.

"Mom, I know what I'm doing. You shouldn't have had someone publish that report."

Shen Minyi?

Then the person who had spoken just now was Madam Shen?

Chi Ning immediately let go of the latch, abandoned the idea of closing the window, and moved to the other side of the private room. He made a shushing gesture at Qin Heng, then quietly pressed his ear against the wall.

Madam Shen sounded fierce but was weak at heart. Her voice was so loud that they could hear every word without pressing against the wall. "Knowing what you're doing means giving your national competition medal to Chi Ning? Running off to compete with a thug over a lover?"

Shen Minyi remained relatively calm. "You need to understand that I haven't liked Chi Ning for just a day or two. Sexual orientation is innate. In the future, I'll marry and have children with a young lady from a prominent family as you wish, but after all these years of working hard for you, is it really too much for me to keep a young master from a fallen family by my side just to look at?"

"Father has five wives. You're only one of them."

Madam Shen let out a shriek. A glass hit the floor, followed by the sudden sound of shattering.

Chi Ning jumped.

Then it felt as though he had swallowed an entire toad alive, and nausea surged through him.

"You monster!" Madam Shen said in a trembling voice. "How could I have given birth to something like you?"

Shen Minyi gave a loud, mocking snort.

"Then you should ask yourself why you married Dad in the first place! Inferior genes are more easily inherited than superior ones. If you want to blame someone, blame yourself for marrying a—"

He couldn't finish the sentence and only said, "You can't possibly not know how much President Shen likes playing with little boys, can you?"