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Chapter 19 Rejection
Back at school, it was completely dark.
Jian Chi’s mind was on Bai Xiyu for a while, then it would be on the day he spent with Ji Huaisi for a while. He couldn’t understand how the story went off track again. The original plan even pushed him into a more dangerous situation – he had this inexplicable feeling from intuition.
Ji Huaisi may have sensed the gloomy atmosphere. He was very quiet all the way, and sent Jian Chi to the dormitory building with a faint smile on the corner of his mouth. “Have a good night’s rest, see you tomorrow.”
“See you tomorrow.” Jian Chi’s mind was in a mess and he left a hasty sentence and was about to turn around and leave when his eyes inadvertently caught a glimpse of a dark shadow walking in the distance, swaying under the street lamps on both sides of the campus. He could sense the other from a distance, the air-conditioning that rejected people for thousands of miles.
Ji Huaisi followed Jian Chi’s line of sight and said unsurprisingly, “Wen Chuan came back very early today.”
“… very early?”
“His situation is a bit special,” Ji Huaisi tilted his head towards Jian Chi’s eyes and blinked slightly, “I’ll talk to you in detail when we meet next time.”
Sensing something, Wen Chuan looked straight over. Jian Chi moved his eyes first, so they didn’t meet straight on.
At night, Jian Chi had a rare insomnia.
He was good at analyzing himself. Sometimes when he can’t sleep at night, he will review everything that happened during the day in his mind. It was not difficult to reject Ji Huaisi’s requests. He did not force him to do anything with a tough attitude, much less like Shao Hang who was aggressive, pressing on him step by step.
Why did he agree? Jian Chi asked himself. In the end, he had moved Ji Huaisi out of the category of ‘ordinary classmates’, and at some point had included him in ‘friends’.
Looking back on the past, Jian Chi had never met someone like Ji Huaisi. He liked to make friends with carefree people like Zhang Yang, where he couldn’t help but relax. He was not used to getting along with overly naive people like Bai Xiyu, because he would take into account his every word and deed. But there were always people who didn’t like Zhang Yang’s gossip and prefer Bai Xiyu’s enthusiasm and straightforwardness. Everyone had different preferences. Unlike Ji Huaisi, he seemed to be the type that no one really hated.
Jian Chi understood that he should not excuse Ji Huaisi just like that. This is just a book, and even the world was built on falsehood. What he needed to do now was to prevent the accident from affecting himself, and then slowly find out the secrets of this world. He shouldn’t get involved with the people around him, including Ji Huaisi.
On the way out of class, Jian Chi met Bai Xiyu holding a textbook in the corridor. His first reaction was to avoid him, but it was too late. Bai Xiyu walked quickly to the front and asked with some concern, “Jian Chi, is your health okay?”
Jian Chi remembered the lie he had told, and said without changing his face, “It’s much better.”
“That’s good, the vice president was very worried about you that day and he asked me a lot about you during the meal.” Bai Xiyu lowered his eyes, then quickly raised a smile again, “I am rest assured that you are all right. I’ll leave first, I have a class soon.”
“Okay.”
Jian Chi’s gaze couldn’t help but stay on Bai Xiyu’s back for a few more seconds. Maybe it was an illusion. Bai Xiyu’s expression seemed to be slightly different from usual.
The assessment of chemistry ends today. Jian Chi went to the library at 7:30 in the morning to print out a copy. Taking advantage of the gap between the class’s assignments, Zhang Yang couldn’t hold back and jumped over, “Jian Chi, how was the concert on Saturday?”
“Very good,” Jian Chi handed his homework to the front, “the vice president’s violin skills were very good.”
“I told you already!” Zhang Yang raised his neck proudly, not knowing what he was proud of, “I discovered that since you transferred over, the frequency of seeing the vice president has skyrocketed. I’ll go with you wherever you go.”
Jian Chi couldn’t help teasing: “You always mention the vice president, is it because you like him?”
“How can it be?”
Zhang Yang was shocked. He looked at Jian Chi with the expression of ‘how could you think of me like that’, and touched the goose bumps on his arm, “Chuanlin’s circle is so big, my dad always used to mention in my ears to have me learn from Ji Huaisi. At that time, I was quite disdainful of him, and even hated him a little bit. Later, when I entered Saintston, I saw the real person and I gradually became convinced and sincerely conceded to the vice president. Besides, I am a straight man!”
Jian Chi believed that Ji Huaisi must have been the ‘child of someone else’ in the mouths of all parents. Hearing Zhang Yang’s emphasis on the last sentence, he smiled, “I know.”
“Your expression doesn’t look right!” Zhang Yang shouted, his frantic appearance made Jian Chi’s smile a little wider, “I’m really straight! If I hadn’t come to this monk temple, would I be single until now? You better believe me! When I was in second year of middle school, I had a girlfriend and it was the class belle at that time.”
The topic suddenly jumped to Zhang Yang’s first love girlfriend. Jian Chi listened with great interest. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of Wen Chuan, who was late. Yang Zheng had already waved his hand to let him sit down, resignedly.
Wen Chuan brushed past Jian Chi’s seat, and once again came the smell that made him feel familiar, the smell of blood.
Jian Chi turned his head slightly. Wen Chuan’s back was straighter than usual, and when he looked closely, his steps were unnatural. When he was sitting down, his movements slowed down a few times and he didn’t lie down as usual. Instead, the scenery revealed him supporting his graceful jaw and neck under a section of black hair.
“Why do you always like to stare at Wen Chuan?” Zhang Yang’s voice pulled Jian Chi back.
He was startled.
Has he?
He remembered the content about Wen Chuan described in the book. About this time, Bai Xiyu discovered Wen Chuan’s unusualness in class. After class, he quietly followed him to the rooftop. He mistakenly thought that Wen Chuan was going to commit suicide, so he ran over. He hugged the other party by the waist, but he didn’t expect to accidentally press Wen Chuan’s wound as he was in a hurry.
Although it was an accident, it also narrowed their distance by mistake. Under Bai Xiyu’s concern, Wen Chuan tacitly asked him to give him medicine.
As Ji Huaisi said that night, Wen Chuan’s situation was very special. He was the only student in Saintston who was allowed to leave school at night.
In the book, the backgrounds of all people were described in depth or lightly and Jian Chi was also forced to understand Wen Chuan’s life experience. Unsurprisingly, he was indeed the illegitimate child recognized by the Fu family as Zhang Yang had heard. He had been living alone in Jiangcheng before, he was not sure why. The only thing that was certain was that Wen Chuan’s life was not easy in the past, and he had to drop out of high school to work until he was twenty years old when he was brought back to Chuanlin by his biological father who suddenly appeared.
Even when he returned to his real family, Wen Chuan was not valued by his relatives. He didn’t change his surname. Except for the black brooch brought to him by his family background, he didn’t get any privileges that a child of a rich family should have. Every night, he would leave school and go to an underground boxing gym to do black boxing. He had fought in Jiangcheng for two years. Thus, he would return to school with an injury in the middle of the night.
The story in Jian Chi’s mind was originally very clear, but now in retrospect, it was inexplicably covered with a veil. It was hazy as if not real. He didn’t continue to think about it and Zhang Yang’s words gave him a wake-up call. Just because he knew what happened next, he paid too much attention to the every move of others, which was not a good sign.
He didn’t know if it was a coincidence, but when Jian Chi walked out of the classroom, he inevitably ran into Bai Xiyu. He looked anxious, looked around, found Jian Chi and walked over quickly, “Jian Chi, have you seen Wen Chuan?”
Jian Chi originally wanted to say ‘no’, but the words swished around his mouth and was replaced with: “He seemed to be heading towards the rooftop.”
Bai Xiyu’s eyes lit up a little, left a ‘thank you’ and left in a hurry. Jian Chi should feel at ease, but his heart skipped a few beats uncontrollably. He hesitated whether to follow along. After a while, he chose to go in the opposite direction.
The wind on the roof was a bit strong, brushing across the skin and piercing the eardrum. Wen Chuan liked the feeling of nothing but the sound of the wind in his ears. He leaned against the railing to let go of his tired body and soul.
Today’s tranquility did not last long when an uninvited guest broke it with the sound of footsteps behind him. Wen Chuan opened his sleepy eyes, his body reacted before being touched by the other party, and he turned to avoid it.
“Ah,” Bai Xiyu retracted his hand at a loss and stammered, “I saw you standing so close to the railing just now, I thought you wanted, you wanted…”
Wen Chuan flattened the corners of his lips, concealing the passing boredom, and interrupted coldly: “Is there something wrong?”
“I saw that you didn’t seem to be feeling well in biology class in the morning, so I wanted to ask you…do you need any help?”
“I know how to get to the infirmary.”
Bai Xiyu’s words were blocked. His white face was dyed a little red because of embarrassment, he raised his deer eyes timidly, “Wen Chuan, do you hate me?”
Wen Chuan glanced at him and this small action was extremely perfunctory, and his thin lips spat out: “No.”
His tone had nothing to do with the answer.
Bai Xiyu continuing speaking: “I know that the first day I saw you, I was a little too impulsive and scared you, but I really have no ill intentions. When I was in No. 3 Middle School, I heard a lot about you. I saw you a few times in school. You may not have noticed me and I didn’t see you for a long time before I learned the news of your withdrawal from my classmates.”
The sound of the wind made his voice soft. Bai Xiyu seemed to be caught in that memory and a warm smile appeared on the corner of his mouth, revealing two dimples, “So I was really surprised and happy when I saw you in Saintston.”
“Are you finished?”
After listening to this touching memory, Wen Chuan only said these short words without changing his tone. Bai Xiyu’s face turned pale, and hurriedly explained: “I, I really have no other intentions, I just saw that you seem to be injured…” The sound became smaller and smaller until the murmur disappeared.
Wen Chuan walked towards him, stopping at an excessively close distance, looking straight into Bai Xiyu’s frightened eyes with his eyes that had no temperature, his icy voice was the exact opposite of his approaching gesture, “If you can understand human words, don’t come to me again, I don’t want to say the same thing a third time.”
After a long while, a layer of water appeared in Bai Xiyu’s eyes. He bit his lower lip tightly, unable to say a word.