CH 62

Ye Zhou sat on the bed with his legs crossed and looked at the computer while absentmindedly recording in the small notebook.

He saw that it was already lunch time, but Shang Jin hadn’t called yet. The words he’d said before leaving were unclear. Although Ye Zhou had a vague suspicion in his heart, he didn’t dare to think further in that respect. He took out his cell phone and his finger hesitated over Shang Jin’s number several times, both afraid that he’d disturb the other if he called him now and also unable to stay calm because he didn’t heard any news from him.

Ye Zhou sighed and decided that if he hadn’t heard from Shang Jin in half an hour, he’d call.

Fortunately, a quarter of an hour later, Ye Zhou heard a knock on the door.

“Ye Zhou?”

Ye Zhou jumped out of bed and didn’t even took the time to wear his shoes. He couldn’t wait to open the door and seeing Shang Jin intact in front of him, he said in relief, “You’re back.”

Shang Jin placed the bag in his hand on the table and said, “I just bought food on my way back.”

Ye Zhou didn’t care if there was food or not. If he was unable to understand the situation, where would he have the appetite to eat? “Why did you go home?”

Shang Jin took out the lunch box from the bag, broke apart the disposable chopsticks and lightly said, “Our matter was known by my dad, so I might as well share it with him. Eat quickly, it’d be cold soon.”

After hearing this, Ye Zhou had even less appetite. He said in disbelief, “You…you…you just said it?”

“Anyways, whether I say it early or late, I still need to say it.”

“You…you…” Ye Zhou “you” for half a day but couldn’t complete the sentence. He sat on the bed dejectedly, but no matter what was said, his heart couldn’t calm down. Stifled for a long while, he spat out, “You’re really too impulsive.”

Shang Jin didn’t seem to take it seriously at all. He pulled Ye Zhou over, put the lunch box into his hand and said, “Seeing you like this, you probably didn’t eat this morning, right? Eat a little something first, then talk.”

Ye Zhou simply wanted to admit defeat to Shang Jin. Coming out was such a big event, but only Shang Jin could be so calm, even reminding him to eat. He managed a mouthful of rice and asked, “And then?”

“What ‘and then’?” Shang Jin held the vegetable with his chopsticks and said, “Am I not here now?”

Ye Zhou asked tentatively,  “Were you driven out?”

Shang Jin shrugged his shoulders and declined to comment.

Since matters had already come to this, it was useless for Ye Zhou to say more. Thinking about it, which normal family could possibly accept this? It was good that it didn’t come to knives and guns. His thoughts came to his parents and Ye Zhou said, “I should come out with you.”

Shang Jin choked on his food and after easing it, he said, “Don’t be impulsive.”

Ye Zhou sneered and enigmatically said, “Oh, you also know that casually coming out is impulsive?”

“You and me are different.” Ye Zhou’s family was very strict. Even when Ye Zhou got second in the exams, they’d already given him so much pressure, not to mention that Ye Zhou wanted to be together with a man. At that time, being driven out would be light. It was possible that they’d shut him in or force him to see a doctor; that would be difficult to deal with. “My family…even if they know, there’s nothing they could do to me. You should wait two more years. It was an accident for me this time.”

“I know. I’m not stupid.” Ye Zhou turned the computer screen to Shang Jin and said, “I’ve seen a few places that I felt are good. Let’s go and have a look in the afternoon.” Just the day before yesterday, Ye Zhou had boasted that he’d live in a hotel over summer vacation, but now, he only wanted to quickly find a place to move in. After all, Shang Jin was driven out and certainly had no source of income. Although he himself had savings, but for students who hadn’t yet earned money, any bit of money spent was money gone. They had to be economical in everything.

Shang Jin scrolled with the mouse and looked at it briefly. “I’ll listen to you. Eat quickly.”

Both them were people who took action. After a few places had been identified, they began to call the landlords to make appointments. Because it was so sudden, only two of the landlords had time in the afternoon.

In the white light of the July sun, the cicadas along the road noisily called, driving people’s mind to distraction.

Seeing that it was such a hot day, Shang Jin proposed to call a taxi, but the result was Ye Zhou insisted on taking the bus. Standing in front of the bus stop under the scorching sun with no people walking on the road, Ye Zhou used his hand to fan himself and suggested, “After we rent a place, we should go to the school and bring the Shang Ye number over.”

“Of course. Renting a place would inevitably require buying things. It’d be convenient to have the car.”

Due to the special relationship between the two people, it was certainly not possible to choose the cheapest place to rent. However, if they rent something too large, it’d be a bit too expensive. In the end, they could only choose the one-bedroom single apartments.

When Shang Jin and Ye Zhou arrived at the door of the house, the landlady only knew that the tenants were two people.  The landlady quickly said, “Although we’re apartments for single, if you want to rent it, we can provide you with a single bed. Tidy it up a bit and two people could definitely live there.”

Shang Jin circled around the place and actually made two rounds. He felt that it wasn’t bad. After all, he was accustomed to staying in the dorm, and this kind of one-bedroom place was still better than the conditions in the dorm.

Catching Shang Jin before he accepted, Ye Zhou said, “Let us think about it. In two days, we’ll give you a response whether we’ll rent or not.”

“That’s good.” The landlady was a very amiable-looking aunt. She looked at Ye Zhou and began chatting with him. “We have a good environment in this community and the station is right outside. Don’t look that the rent is higher than that of other families, but this decoration took a lot of effort. My daughter is an interior designer, and she’d originally designed this house for herself to live. As soon as the decoration was finished, she found her partner and this house was left empty. I plan to rent it out now that she’s married.”

Ye Zhou could also see this point. The house wasn’t simply decorated like a normal rental. The wallpaper and furniture were carefully matched, and the lighting and flooring all revealed the decorator’s intentions. Although it was designed by a female designer, but the place was overall very grand. The only drawback was that the rent was really a bit high.

“OK, auntie, we’ll think about it. Thank you.” Ye Zhou smiled and said goodbye to the landlady, pulling Shang Jin toward the station.

Shang Jin looked at Ye Zhou holding the calculator and figuring out the numbers, and said, “I think the house just now was quite good. Why don’t we settle on it? It’s already furnished and we could bring our bags and start living there. And it’s practically a new house.”

Ye Zhou replied half-heartedly, “It’s good. The price is also good.”

“Money isn’t a problem.”

Ye Zhou gave him a supercilious look. “The man who was driven out of his house isn’t qualified to say this.”

Shang Jin smiled and said, “I mean it. You certainly haven’t gone to look at the balance on my card, right?”

Ye Zhou glanced suspiciously at him. After getting off the bus, he rushed to the ATM and cautiously checked it. Then, he was stunned.

No wonder Shang Jin had nothing to fear. He really wouldn’t lack money for a long time.

“You…you…your family’s allowance money is too ridiculous, right?”

“Who told you this was from an allowance?” Shang Jin snorted. “This is what I earned myself.”

“How did you earn it? Take me with you!”

Shang Jin mysteriously said, “Knowledge is money.”

Ye Zhou: “???”

Shang Jin opened the door to the hotel room and Ye Zhou continued to follow and pester him.

“I’m afraid if I say it, your mind would become imbalanced.”

“Why??”

Shang Jin directly kissed him, blocking Ye Zhou’s mouth. After he was satisfied, he finally helped Ye Zhou mercifully decipher it. “In middle school, I was always first. When I entered high school, not only was the tuition free, but I was also awarded money. The college entrance exams, I was still first in the city. Because I applied for a local university, A Uni gave some award money, our city also sent some award money, and my high school also gave some. On top of that, as a finance major, when I was a freshman, I thought that this money wasn’t used for anything, so I took it to the stock market to test the waters. But I didn’t expect that my luck would be good and all the stocks I bought all rose. Moreover, I’d usually participate in any competition that weren’t too strenuous and paid cash prizes. Of course, if the prize was a phone and such, I’d also participate.”

After Ye Zhou finished listening, it didn’t stop at being imbalanced: he was simply jealous to death.

“No wonder my family has always complained that I couldn’t get first place. If I knew that the gap between the first and the second was so big, I would also not be resigned!”

Shang Jin laughed aloud. He pulled Ye Zhou under him and placatingly kissed him. “It doesn’t matter. Anyways, what’s mine is yours too.”

Ye Zhou said lividly, “Could what you get yourself be the same as what others give you?”

Even if Ye Zhou couldn’t reconcile with it, in the end, he could only sigh a sentence: this was life!

The next day, the two men looked at several apartments again, and still thought that the new apartment that they saw yesterday was better. Finally, Shang Jin hit the auctioneer’s hammer and the two of them made an appointment with the landlady.

After signing the contract, the landlady said, “Little Ye, when are you planning to move in? I can bring you a bed tomorrow. What do you think?”

This time, Ye Zhou refused directly. “We don’t need a bed. We two boys are very casual and it’s fine to just make our bed on the floor. An extra bed would also take up space.”

“OK, if you have any questions later, you can call me directly.” The landlady explained a couple of words and then left.

Closing the door, Shang Jin had already gotten a rough approximation of the apartment. “Everything is good, just no internet.”

In the modern society, there’s no joy without internet!

With no time to lose, Ye Zhou immediately pulled Shang Jin to get the internet installed and then went to the supermarket to buy the daily necessities. Using the Shang Ye number, they dragged a huge pile of purchases back to their small family home and put it into place.

After taking a bath in the evening, the two people lay in bed. Shang Jin leaned over and kept stroking Ye Zhou’s back. In just one short week, the two people actually started living together. Shang Jin originally didn’t think of it, but when he really came to this step, he thought it was quite good. “I think when we start school, we’ll still live here.”

“Yeah, it’s not too far from school.” Ye Zhou and Shang Jin had the same kind of too realistic kind of feeling. He exclaimed, “At this speed, we’re really fast enough. From confession to living together, it’s not even half a month.”

Shang Jin said, “We’d still come to this day in the end, so it’s better to adapt earlier.”

“Heheh…” Obviously the two had just been together for half a month, but reading between Shang Jin’s words, he could always see the shadow of the future. Ye Zhou couldn’t help but lean over and kiss Shang Jin.

The two people ‘you kiss me, I kiss you’, having a good time. However, after half an hour, no matter how fun it was, they still got tired.

Ye Zhou leaned against Shang Jin and said, “Don’t you think the house is too quiet…”

Without internet, the computers couldn’t be used at all. After a tiring day, the two people were too tired to read.

“Why does it need three days to install broadband…”

Shang Jin thought of something and sat up. “We can watch a movie.”

Ye Zhou perked up. “You have it on your computer?”

Shang Jin took out a familiar USB drive from his backpack and plugged it into the computer under Ye Zhou’s dumbfounded gaze.

“Dang, you’ve been carrying it all along!”

“Of course. Other people’s things must be kept safe.” Shang Jin held the mouse over the folder and opened it. If he hadn’t looked, he wouldn’t have known, but once he’d seen it, he was shocked. How many little films were there in this folder? Shang Jin nudged Ye Zhou with his shoulder and said, “The choice is yours. Which one do you want to see?”

Ye Zhou dithered, “Really watching.”

Shang Jin pushed the computer directly to him. Ye Zhou looked at Shang Jin and thought that what two people should and shouldn’t do were all done. Wasn’t it just watching a little film? What was unreasonable about it? “Then this one.”

Shang Jin clicked with the mouse and soon, the film began on the screen.

When they hadn’t reached the highlight of the show, Ye Zhou felt his body was a little hot. He glanced at Shang Jin uneasily. The other was completely calm, like watching an academic lecture.

However, when one of the male protagonists came out, the tense atmosphere immediately dispersed, and Ye Zhou couldn’t help but ridicule, “Are you sure that gay men can still get hard from seeing this kind of movie?”

The man in the video was a completely wretched middle-aged uncle, but the zero [bottom] under him looked pretty good. It was really a flower inserted in cow dung.

Shang Jin closed the video and said, “Luckily we didn’t see it before we did it.”

Ye Zhou hurriedly stared at Shang Jin to wash his eyes. After looking, he didn’t forget to praise, “I find that you’re more handsome.”

Shang Jin’s face filled with black lines. “Don’t compare me with others.”

Ye Zhou immediately fell down laughing on Shang Jin.