Chapter 31.1

Chapter 31.1

Xiao Chi was still looking in from outside the driver’s window. Unlike Hu Shaofeng, who was laughing nervously and looked awkward, he was as calm as though everyone was just meeting to chat over tea.

Lin Jingzhe thought the man must be a jinx—if not, then how was it that every time they met, he would suffer a calamity?

As the flashing light approached, the traffic policeman also turned on the siren, the noise startling everyone. Fang Wenhao slumped forward, hugging the front seat’s backrest, and burped loudly, while Hu Shaofeng let out a profanity.

Lin Jingzhe sighed and rubbed his face helplessly, trying to remember what the penalty was for driving without a license. Xiao Chi, who probably made out his ugly expression, leaned down slightly to ask, “Are you hurt?”

“No.” Lin Jingzhe gave him a sideways glance. He didn’t really want to, but he still forced himself to explain, “I don’t have a driver’s license.”

Xiao Chi froze, surprised.

Hu Shaofeng, who was still cursing the policeman for being so sharp-eyed and for patrolling the damn streets here in the middle of nowhere where even birds didn’t shit, instead of choosing a more populated area, suddenly felt a strong grip on his shoulder. Stunned, he let himself get dragged, his voice cutting off mid-speech. Xiao Chi quickly opened the driver’s door, pulled Lin Jingzhe out, and pushed him in, ignoring his dumbfounded expression.

Hu Shaofeng tumbled in with a thump, accompanied by Fang Wenhao’s unintelligible mumbles coming from the back seat.

Hu Shaofeng: “……”

Hu Shaofeng: “???”

At night, in the dim light, this scene looked a bit like a physical conflict. The traffic policeman, who was still some distance away, suddenly sped up, stopped the motorcycle, jumped off and ran over, yelling, “Hey! What are you doing?! Stop that right now!”

Xiao Chi pushed Lin Jingzhe behind him and pointed at Hu Shaofeng, in full view since the driver’s door was still wide open. “He bumped into my car,” he said with perfect seriousness.

Hu Shaofeng: “!!!”

Lin Jingzhe: “……”

Fang Wenhao: “Hiccup.”

Xiao Chi glanced inside the car, expressionless. A second later, Hu Shaofeng looked away and said, rubbing his face, “Oh, yes, I bumped into his car.” He was feeling quite complicated.

Fang Wenhao hiccuped again and drunkenly slapped him on the shoulder. “Shtupid.”

The policeman separated the two groups, then checked the damage to the cars, relieved to find it wasn’t serious.

However, both of the cars were clearly expensive, so he didn’t dare to be negligent. Taking out a small notebook to transcribe the scene and its circumstances, he asked, “Who drove the car in front?”

Xiao Chi calmly took the blame. “Me.”

“Take out your driver’s license, both of you!”

Xiao Chi obediently went back to the SUV. After a moment, Hu Shaofeng also shook off his stupefaction and climbed out of the car, startling the policeman. “What are you doing?!”

“I’m going to get my driver’s license!” the young man replied snappily, jogging to the SUV, then opening the driver’s door and taking out his documents.

The traffic cop: “???”

By now, Hu Shaofeng realized what was going on. After he and Xiao Chi handed their licenses to the policeman, he said, reassuming his usual smirk, “Please don’t make things serious, Officer—this is just me and my buddies having some fun. We won’t take it to the courts but settle this privately.”

The policeman confirmed that all the documents were in order and that no one was injured. He thought that these young people were sick, hitting each other with such expensive cars just for fun, but he also would be happy if this affair didn’t blow up, so after hearing Hu Shaofeng’s words, he looked over at Xiao Chi.

Xiao Chi gave a slight nod. “I have no objection.”

“Okay, then settle it between yourselves. Don’t block the road, drive away!”

Xiao Chi gave Hu Shaofeng a look, then glanced behind and grabbed Lin Jingzhe’s arm, dragging him to the SUV before throwing him into the front passenger’s seat and closing the door.

The policeman briefly gave all of them a stern look, then exhorted Hu Shaofeng, who was already starting up Fang Wenhao’s car, “Keep a safe distance next time, your behaviour was too dangerous! You’re not only putting yourself at risk, but also others!”

“Ah!” As Hu Shaofeng watched, his beloved SUV took off just like that, the rear bumper shaking and rattling. Holding the steering wheel, he nodded bitterly. “I’ll remember, I won’t forget this for the rest of my life.”

Then, he stepped on the accelerator and drove away, followed by the uneasy gaze of the traffic policeman.

Xiao Chi looked in the rear mirror—Hu Shaofeng kept flashing the headlights furiously. Calmly ignoring his friend’s indignation, he said to Lin Jingzhe, who was resting his head against the window, “I’m sorry.”

The long silence in the car was finally broken. Lin Jingzhe gave him an oblique glance—this was an apology for… which incident?

Xiao Chi stared straight ahead, the darkness obscuring his handsome features and making his face even more unreadable than usual.

“Hu Shaofeng is an idiot. He thought it was Fang Wenhao driving,” he said. “He’ll take care of the repairs. You’ll get used to this.”

Who the hell wants to get used to you loons? Dear God. Lin Jingzhe sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose wearily. “Okay, pull over and tell him to stop flashing the lights, it makes my eyes hurt.”

Xiao Chi looked in the rearview mirror with a frown. He lowered the window, grabbed the pager sitting on the dashboard, and threw it out towards the car in the back.

The flashing headlights stopped, and the night wind brought back an enraged, “Fuck you, Xiao Chi!”

Perfectly calm, Xiao Chi rolled the window back up and asked, “Where are you going? I’ll give you a lift.”

Lin Jingzhe: “……”

Feeling a headache coming, he said, “…Just drop me off near the Finance Department at Yan University.”

After the SUV stopped, he couldn’t wait to get out. The other car, which had been following them, parked just behind; Lin Jingzhe saw the windshield had a spiderweb of cracks running through it, but they were far less noticeable than Hu Shaofeng’s heart-wrenching, grievous howls.

“Ah ah ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!” The young man jumped out of the car and shook himself wildly, frantically unbuttoning his flower-print shirt. “You fucking puked all over me!!!”

Fang Wenhao opened the door and stumbled out, then leaned on him. “Blergh—”

Lin Jingzhe’s eyebrows jumped and he rushed around the car to open the front passenger door. Fortunately, the envelope was safe—it had been thrown to the innermost side by the inertia of the collision. As he picked it up and closed the door, he heard an angry exclamation.

Hu Shaofeng, who was desperately trying to push away Fang Wenhao who clung to him like a limpet, protested, “What did you do that for? I wasn’t the one who drove Fang Wenhao’s car!”

Xiao Chi leaned against the SUV, tossing up the keys. “But wasn’t it your fault?”

“……” Hu Shaofeng, covered in vomit, fell into a deep self-reflection. “Say, do you think I really am sick in the head?”

Xiao Chi ignored him. Glancing at the flat envelope in Lin Jingzhe’s hand, he took off the prayer beads on his wrists to turn them in his fingers.

At this hour, the area around the university gate was very quiet, with only a few students passing by. However, after seeing the damaged red car, they gave the group a wide berth lest they got involved in some unsolicited trouble.

Lin Jingzhe approached Fang Wenhao. “Give him to me,” he said to Hu Shaofeng.

Hu Shaofeng didn’t comply and even took a step back, the now dead to the world Fang Wenhao lying quietly on his shoulder. “Why?”

“Go in. Fang Wenhao can’t go back to the dorm like that, so just let Hu Shaofeng take him home. The car can stay here, we’ll pull it away for repairs tomorrow,” Xiao Chi said behind him.

Knowing the relationship between Fang Wenhao and Hu Shaofeng, Lin Jingzhe had been somewhat uneasy, but it seemed that in actuality, the pair’s relationship wasn’t hostile to the point of “not standing the other to live under the same sky” as Fang Wenhao had previously described. In addition, it would be a pain to get him to his dorm room since the dorm rules in Yan University were quite strict, so after a moment of consideration, Lin Jingzhe agreed. “All right, then I’ll see him tomorrow.”

As Hu Shaofeng supported Fang Wenhao, who had already fallen asleep, Xiao Chi stood up straight and glanced at his watch. “I’ll walk you back.”

“No need,” Lin Jingzhe refused, decisively striding towards the gate, but the other man followed from behind anyway.

Within the campus walls, there was a wide stretch of greenery filled with trees and bushes which was very quiet after nightfall. Several couples strolled along the pathway on dates, but further inside, it was more deserted.

Xiao Chi’s legs were long, and he quickly caught up with Lin Jingzhe, coming up behind him and throwing the string of prayer beads around his neck like a lasso.

Lin Jingzhe caught it, only to find that the wooden beads underneath his fingers were not completely smooth, but their surfaces were covered in bumps and divots. He threw them off and turned around to glare at the man—right now, this damn lunatic was not showing even an ounce of the maturity he had displayed at their last encounter in the hotel restaurant.

Xiao Chi folded the string of beads so it fell into two coils, then childishly pinched Lin Jingzhe’s cheek and poked his face. “I’m not angry anymore, so why are you still angry?”

Lin Jingzhe was struck dumb by his aggrieved tone. “‘You aren’t angry anymore’?! Why the hell would you be angry?!”

“Ah!” A few curls fell onto Xiao Chi’s forehead as the hair gel that had held on for a whole day maintaining the shape of his hairstyle finally surrendered. Right now, his appearance was similar to how he looked when they first met. “Do you know how many times you kicked me?”

He had counted, again and again, as he traveled abroad several times to see a doctor!

“And!” He raised his right hand and pointed at its back. “I still have a bruise after last time, see?”

That handshake was just too brutal! It really hurt!

Lin Jingzhe’s gaze subconsciously followed his finger. In the dim light, he naturally couldn’t see any mark on this big, slender hand, but he did remember squeezing it as hard as he could. “What are you trying to say?”

“That we’re even. You kicked me and almost crushed my hand—I think I came out worse, didn’t I? You don’t have to act so antagonistic.” Xiao Chi glanced down at him. “Besides, I don’t like men.”

Nearly bursting a blood vessel, Lin Jingzhe glared into his eyes, glittering in the darkness. “You think I do? Are you fucking sick in the head?!”

Xiao Chi’s expression clearly showed that he was confused as to why Lin Jingzhe was angry. When he was silent, he looked like a serious and reliable man, but Lin Jingzhe finally realized why he and Hu Shaofeng were friends. Giving up further attempts to communicate with him, he turned to leave.

There was a quiet clatter behind him and something flashed in front of his eyes—Xiao Chi once again threw the string of beads on his neck to prevent him from leaving. After a second of stunned silence, Lin Jingzhe almost died of anger—how the hell did he get involved with two nut jobs today?!

Not only had he gone through a fender-bender, but the person he had old grievances with came to bother him too. Reaching the end of his forbearance, he gave the prayer beads a strong tug and, at the same time, grabbed Xiao Chi’s wrist. The opponent was caught off guard, and Lin Jingzhe took a step back and threw his elbow behind him!

The elbow slammed into Xiao Chi’s stomach, making him grunt. As the force of the blow drove him back, he instinctively grabbed Lin Jingzhe and retreated several steps, stopping when his back finally collided with a tree trunk.

As Lin Jingzhe was brought into his arms during their struggle, the familiar scent of agarwood gave him a strange feeling of déjà vu. He raised his hand to throw a punch, but this time Xiao Chi reacted fast enough to stop him.

One of Xiao Chi’s hands held Lin Jingzhe’s wrist, the other embraced his waist; for a moment, they were plastered together, deadlocked. As both of their blood rose up and a fight seemed inevitable—

“Ah!!!”

A sudden scream rang, was quickly cut off, and a flustered couple emerged from the bushes, their clothes still a little messy. The girl was visibly frightened; her boyfriend, who was the person who’d cried out in surprise, was now angry. He wanted to condemn Xiao Chi for not acting in accordance with the unspoken conventions of campus dating, but as he took a closer look, he froze, dumbfounded.

Four pairs of eyes met.

In a split second, Xiao Chi switched to his “lofty and unattainable” persona, his sharp gaze cutting like a sword.

Lin Jingzhe was wrapped in his arms, one wrist clasped with their bodies tightly attached together.

Although the two men had a small gap between their heights, even the shorter Lin Jingzhe was over 1.75-meters tall and looked down on the couple who was averaging 1.6-meters.

“So-sorry to bother you QAQ.” The 1.6-meter man scolded them inwardly for interrupting him and his girlfriend just as things were getting good. However, he didn’t dare to say anything out loud for fear of ruining the other party’s “good thing” and getting beaten as a result, so he just hurriedly apologized, grabbed his girlfriend, and made himself scarce.

Watching the escaping couple’s backs, Lin Jingzhe and Xiao Chi fell silent for a while. The original smell of gunpowder that had just filled the air quietly dissipated; after a moment, Lin Jingzhe broke free and stepped away.

Xiao Chi let him go, the cold expression he used to face the couple disappearing. He clutched his stomach, a victim of Lin Jingzhe’s elbow, and hissed.

As Lin Jingzhe thought back on the “Sorry to bother you” just now, a sudden feeling of powerlessness overwhelmed him. He threw the string of prayer beads back to Xiao Chi and gave a weary wave of his hand towards the campus gate. “Just… hurry up and go.”

The place where Xiao Chi got hit hurt. He recalled the thin wrist he had just been holding, which felt as if it would break if he tightened his grip only a little—he honestly couldn’t understand how it could contain so much strength.

It wasn’t that he was no match for Lin Jingzhe in a fight, but if he really tried to hit him back, the nature of their conflict would change somehow. Xiao Chi didn’t know why, but he didn’t want to ruin their current relationship.

However, he was still a little angry over being beaten again. Not to mention, Lin Jingzhe hit him so violently, as if he really wanted to fight with him, and gave him no face at all! And that little ridiculous couple just now—it was almost lights out in the dorms, and yet they dared to come out here for a tryst! Inwardly taking out his anger on the pair of wild mandarin ducks that hadn’t seemed to understand the meaning of his admonishing glance, he caught the beads, spread them out, and hung them on Lin Jingzhe’s neck again.

He pointed his finger at Lin Jingzhe, whose face was blank, and walked toward the gates, holding his stomach. In order to express his unhappiness, he said fiercely, “You just wait,” before leaving.

Watching him disappear in the distance, Lin Jingzhe didn’t know whether he should laugh or cry.

He looked up at the night sky—was Mercury in retrograde today?

He removed the string of prayer beads from his neck. Each of the small wooden beads was engraved with tiny, ant-like characters. Lin Jingzhe was not very knowledgeable in this area but he could sense their value, from the gentle aroma emitting from the wood, similar to Xiao Chi’s smell, and their shiny and seemingly oiled surface that could only be produced after being held and passing through fingers over the course of many years.

“You forgot something!” he shouted.

Xiao Chi pretended he hadn’t heard anything. He was angry, humph!

When he came out, he saw Hu Shaofeng supporting Fang Wenhao and leaning against the car while smoking, and sent him a hostile glance.

Hu Shaofeng promptly put the cigarette out. He cautiously lifted the dead weight of Fang Wenhao and deposited him into the back seat of the high-chassis SUV, letting him lie on his side, and then ran around to get in the front passenger seat.

Xiao Chi leaned over and closed the door he had just opened. “Sit in the back.”

Hu Shaofeng was a little afraid that Fang Wenhao would vomit on him again, but he also knew his friend had all kinds of quirks and eccentricities, so he had no choice but to comply. After getting in the car, he put Fang Wenhao’s head, that was uncomfortably lolling around, on his leg and examined Xiao Chi’s increasingly chilly expression in the rear mirror.

Not daring to speak, he wondered if Xiao Chi was really angry. Earlier, he didn’t seem to be, and even thoughtfully insisted on walking Lin Jingzhe back to the dormitory. Could it be that they quarreled?

This night’s troubles were all caused by him, so Hu Shaofeng was too scared to ask. As his gaze guiltily shifted around while he tried to think of a way to break the tension, he noticed his friend’s bare wrist and gaped. “Where are your prayer beads?” he asked, shocked into speaking.

Has he lost them? That would explain why he’s so angry. Xiao Chi’s grandmother was a devout Buddhist and Xiao Chi had followed in her footsteps; since he was small, a string of prayer beads had never left his body for long. The rosary he’d been carrying around recently was by far his favorite one. Although it was made of top-grade Hainan scented rosewood, it could hardly be called precious, but Xiao Chi valued it because it had been left behind by his late grandfather. Because he disliked his habit of smoking, he didn’t allow Hu Shaofeng to even touch it.

As soon as his treasure was mentioned, Xiao Chi’s dark aura seemed to break free from its repression and emanated throughout his whole body. Hu Shaofeng, assuming he’d indeed hit the nail on the head, said anxiously, “Did you really lose them? I remember you still had them when we were eating. You got out of the car several times, let’s quickly go back and check all those places. There aren’t many people outside this late, the beads are probably still where they fell…”

“Shut up,” Xiao Chi cut off his blabbering. Staring straight ahead, he made a big swerve with the steering wheel, driving the SUV with its rattling bumper in an aggressive way that was completely incongruous with his usual calm demeanor. Several more curls on his forehead escaped the hair gel’s confinement and hit the tall bridge of his nose. “Tomorrow, go and check out a company called ‘New Beginnings Real Estate’. Now, watch Fang Wenhao—if he vomits again, I’ll throw both of you out of the car.”