Outside your dorm room

The partying went on well past midnight.

By the time Xue Chen walked out of the hotel laughing with his new friends, Chen Yannan's car was already parked at the main entrance.

The gesture undoubtedly delighted Xue Chen.

Everyone knew Xue Chen and Chen Yannan were still in that ambiguous stage, but this way of getting along was the most delicate of all. It could be understood as a trial period, a relationship in which discovering even one flaw might send them straight back to square one.

"And you tried to tell us you weren't together. This young master Chen didn't touch a drop tonight. Looks like he'd already decided whose chauffeur he wanted to be!"

"If you ask me, what's the use of being childhood friends? If Chen Yannan wanted to be with Li Shu, they'd have gotten together ages ago. Our Chen's the one with real charm. It's only been a few days, and he's already got Chen Yannan completely spellbound!"

The others teased Xue Chen, knowing exactly what to say to make him happy.

Xue Chen suppressed his delight and exchanged a few smiling remarks with them before walking toward Chen Yannan's car. He got into the passenger seat in full view of the others, a hint of excitement in his voice:

"Why did you come down so early? I was just looking for you."

Chen Yannan slowly rolled up the window, shutting out the prying gazes outside. Rather than driving off right away, he asked:

"Didn't I tell you on the very first day to stay away from Li Shu?"

At those words, the corners of Xue Chen's mouth fell, the delight in his eyes instantly cooling. "Did Li Shu complain to you?"

"I'm asking you." Chen Yannan became less accommodating. "Xue Chen, answer the question."

Xue Chen felt a little wronged. He looked at him for a long moment before speaking. "Li Shu is your bottom line, so what am I? When our family provided technical assistance, you promised in front of your father that you'd take good care of me. So you meant treating me like a pet, someone you can snap at whenever you feel like it?"

Chen Yannan frowned. "That's not what I meant."

"That's exactly what you meant."

Xue Chen's upbringing wouldn't allow him to scream himself hoarse arguing with Chen Yannan. He steadied his breathing, his gaze resolute.

"I didn't do anything to hurt Li Shu. When that scumbag Song Yang hit on him, I even helped him out. I just want him to stay out of our lives. Put yourself in my shoes. Aren't my concerns reasonable?"

Chen Yannan remained unmoved. "I'm not debating this with you. I'm telling you that if you want things to stay as they are, don't make the same mistake twice."

He was a man who drew a very clear distinction between playing along for appearances and what he truly wanted.

Xue Chen knew that perfectly well, but it was precisely because he knew that he acted this way.

"I don't understand why Li Shu is so different to you. Is a younger boy from next door you grew up with more important than your future partner?"

"Future partner?" The corners of Chen Yannan's lips lifted slightly, his expression unreadable. "Have you forgotten the prerequisite for this relationship?"

Of course Xue Chen knew. The prerequisite was that he couldn't touch Li Shu.

No matter how the conversation went, it always came back to that name.

Chen Yannan's stance was absolute. "If you go after him, we won't have a future."

Xue Chen's heart sank.

Meanwhile.

Back at the dorm, Li Shu still felt a little cold. He had planned to take a hot shower before bed, but he had returned too late and missed the hot-water supply hours.

He wasn't particularly fussy about it, though. He changed into thicker pajamas, planning to rely on his body's own heating system to get through the night.

The moonlight on the window glass was terribly bright.

Li Shu buried his head under the covers and slept for who knew how long. All he could feel was a faint, persistent ache in the flesh clinging to his bones, especially the parts pressed against the bed, where the pain was almost tormenting.

He pulled the covers down beneath his nose and only realized his throat was tight when he spoke to himself:

"No way. Someone's actually trying to murder this emperor? I was born to rule!"

Unfortunately, it took less than two minutes for Li Shu to realize that in the face of a fever, being born an emperor or a phoenix was no use at all.

Enduring his aching body and muzzy head, he rummaged all over the dorm room. Apart from two digestive tablets, he found nothing.

Sigh. Ha-ha.

Well, since things had come to this.

Resigned to his fate, Li Shu climbed back into bed. After two seconds of thought, he picked up his phone. Though he kept whimpering in discomfort, he still struggled on, scrolling through Douyin.

Relying on himself probably wasn't going to work. He could only count on heaven's protection now.

He was playing "Sneak a sip of milk tea [extended version]" on Douyin and was one sip away from success when his phone suddenly rang. The contact name "Daddy Pei" stabbed painfully at his eyes.

At the same time, distracted by the call, Li Shu got the little character on-screen caught sneaking a drink, and it awkwardly spat out all the milk tea.

Li Shu's first reaction to the call was to check the time.

Great. Two thirteen in the morning.

Honestly, at this hour, Li Shu really couldn't rule out a ghost calling. To stay safe, he cautiously left the call unanswered and kept doggedly scrolling through Douyin despite the pain.

Less than a minute later, a second call from Pei Song'an came in.

It followed the same pattern as nuisance calls.

Li Shu never answered the first call from an unknown number, because anyone who genuinely needed something would call a second time.

"Hello?" Once the call connected, Li Shu cleared his throat and ventured cautiously.

Hearing Li Shu's voice, Pei Song'an had already guessed most of it. "Fever making you too uncomfortable to sleep?"

At that, Li Shu instinctively glanced around the pitch-black dorm room, feeling uneasy. "You even know that? You're getting a little scary, man."

There was some rustling on Pei Song'an's end. "I was worried you'd develop a fever in the middle of the night, so when we exchanged contact details, I also followed you on Weibo, the video app, Xiaohongshu, and Douyin. When you're online on Douyin, there's a little green dot at the bottom right of your profile picture. It says you were online a minute ago."

"There are plenty of reasons someone might be awake in the middle of the night, but you fell into a pool, and there wouldn't have been any hot water by the time you got back. It's easy to put together that you didn't have any medicine, and poor little you was putting on a brave face, ignoring what I said and going on Douyin to distract yourself."

Li Shu said, "...Do you know what cartoon is on my underwear today too?"

The man on the other end paused, and then his voice took on a hollow echo. "Do you mean the left cheek or the right..."

Li Shu cracked. "Okay, stop talking."

Burying his head under the covers again, Li Shu remembered being in middle school, when he'd claimed he was going to sleep and secretly played on his phone under the covers, only to be discovered by his mother when she came in looking for something.

That feeling of peeking out from under the covers and meeting his mother's gaze in the moonlight.

Even now, Li Shu's scalp tingled whenever he remembered it.

But under the present circumstances, that memory had become a trigger for homesickness. The unfamiliar feeling of not knowing when he could go home made his nose sting.

On the other end, Pei Song'an went quiet for a few seconds. Then his steady, firm voice came through the phone again:

"Li Shu, can you get out of bed and open the door?"

"If you can't, I'll ask the dorm caretaker for the key."

His words diluted Li Shu's homesickness. An utterly unbelievable thought crashed through Li Shu's mind, and even his voice held a faint note of anticipation:

"Where are you?"

Pei Song'an said, "I bought a thermometer and fever medicine. I'm outside your dorm room now."