CH 71

Chapter 71: Already Taken

Even Yue Zhishi would feel a bit annoyed if he had been misunderstood under normal circumstances.

But when it was Song Yu who’d misunderstood him, he was more likely to feel something else — like his heart speeding up. Trying to explain, he sent Song Yu messages as he continued walking, and Nan Jia had to steer him around with his elbow in her hand, worried he’d bump into someone.

[Le Le: That’s the wonderful thing you’ve done. Both my lips and tongue are injured. My lips have scabbed over, but the wound on my tongue has turned into an ulcer.]

After two seconds, he sent over another message.

[Le Le: It really hurts.]

He felt like he may have explained overly seriously, to the point where Song Yu didn’t reply and only gave him a call straightaway. Yue Zhishi was in the doctor’s consultation room with Nan Jia, and so he needed to leave, picking up Song Yu’s phone call in the busy corridor.

Hearing Song Yu’s voice, Yue Zhishi completely forgot about how Song Yu had misunderstood him. Song Yu asked him if his tongue really hurt; he said it didn’t, as though he hadn’t actually sent through that message just then at all.

“Is it really cold where you are?” Yue Zhishi was talking on the phone while facing the wall, looking like he had been forced to stand there in punishment.

“Mn.”

“Then make sure you don’t get sick. Senior Nan Jia’s already gotten sick.” Yue Zhishi lay his forehead against the wall. “There’s heaps of people at the hospital.”

“You’re with her at the hospital?” The tone of Song Yu’s voice shifted very distinctively.

Yue Zhishi nodded, his head still facing the wall. “Yes. We just finished a meeting together, and I needed to get some medicine for my mouth ulcer anyway. I don’t like going to the hospital by myself. It’s like eating hotpot alone — it feels too pitiful.”

“Does it?” Song Yu seemed to release an extremely obvious and extremely abrupt sigh at the phone, but Yue Zhishi was like a little dog, keenly catching notice of it. Before he could ask, Song Yu spoke again, his words now not quite matching up with what they were talking about before. “The people who welcomed us just said it’ll be very cold here at night.”

Yue Zhishi frowned. “Doesn’t the northwest region have central heating? Why won’t they turn it on for you?”

“Not everyone has central heating yet.” Song Yu then said, on purpose, “Hopefully the blankets are thicker.” That kind of wishful words sounded extraordinarily out of place coming out of his mouth.

With just a few simple sentences, Yue Zhishi’s heart was stirred up — he very nervously asked a whole bunch of questions, worrying about this and worrying about that. If someone didn’t know what was happening, they might think Song Yu’d gotten some kind of incurable disease.

“You can pour some hot water into a glass bottle and then leave it under your blankets. You’ll be a lot warmer like that but make sure you don’t burn yourself. Ah, wait, you can’t casually pour hot water into glass bottles, they can shatter really easily and hurt you. Plastic water bottles will warp, but maybe you should buy one…”

Song Yu softly chuckled, and Yue Zhishi suddenly froze. He found himself really ridiculous — Song Yu was clearly someone so independent, and yet he was giving him advice like an elder on how to keep warm.

“Are you laughing at me?” Yue Zhishi stared at his feet.

“I’m missing you,” Song Yu honestly said. It came out cleanly and straightforwardly, compared to  how he’d gone in circular and winding paths earlier just to beg for Yue Zhishi’s care.

“Your body temperature seems to be a bit higher than mine,” Song Yu continued to say, as though the previous hypothetical scenario were real. “If I slept with you in my bed at night, then you might be even more useful than a hot water bottle or a heating pad.”

“I think the word ‘useful’ is too pragmatic, senior Song Yu.” Yue Zhishi’s voice sounded slightly dissatisfied — he even changed the way he called Song Yu.

“Then let me change it.” Song Yu’s low and deep voice wasn’t cool and indifferent; it carried a faint, seemingly nonexistent amusement. “Junior brother, I want to sleep with you in my arms.”

Yue Zhishi’s ears suddenly felt a bit warm. He didn’t know why, but even the innocent greetings of ‘senior’ and ‘junior brother’ could make him blush — even though it was him who said it first.

He was quiet for a few seconds, and Song Yu was also very peaceful on his side of the phone. Nan Jia came out from the consultation room, lightly closing the door. Yue Zhishi rapidly said he needed to hang up now, remember to eat and sleep early.

But Song Yu seemed to drag things out on purpose, continuing to speak; he was just like a cat who kept batting at him with its paws because it wasn’t willing to let its owner play games.

“What should I do if I can’t fall asleep?”

“If you can’t sleep…” Yue Zhishi met Nan Jia’s eyes as soon as he raised his head. She seemed to be smiling at him, teasing, and it made him clutch the ends of his hair in some embarrassment.

“You can call me if you can’t sleep.” He lowered the volume of his voice and whispered three words: I’ll coax you.

Only then did Song Yu stop his little prank. “Mn. Go, then.”

After releasing its paws, the cat haughtily turned away, waving its tail slowly and leisurely.

Delicately tutting, Nan Jia came over once Yue Zhishi hung up his phone. Her face was covered by a mask, and with her hands behind her back, she leaned in closely and intentionally asked, “Who are you coaxing?”

Yue Zhishi guiltily shoved his phone into his pocket and pulled up the hood on his sweatshirt. “…my cat.”

Nan Jia nodded in deep, meaningful understanding. “So you’re owned by a cat.” She patted Yue Zhishi’s back and emotionally sighed, “Life is truly difficult. You’re so young, yet you’re already taken.”

Yue Zhishi also pulled up the zipper for his outer jacket in one motion and took Nan Jia’s arm, tugging her downstairs. “Let’s go get our medicine, senior.”

–

The competition was truly not as simple as they’d thought.

Other than the time he spent in class and finishing his homework, Yue Zhishi spent his days cramming all the knowledge he could find about clothing design. This might be a one-time activity a lot of people thought was important to participate in, but Yue Zhishi still very much wanted to complete it well — even though some other people thought it was a large waste of time.

They all gathered together again for a meeting at midday Wednesday. This time, Nan Jia told them all the news she’d managed to collect. One piece of news was that the number of models needed for this year’s competition was around thirty to fifty, and the models must come from their university and could not be hired professional models. Another news was that their designed clothing could be made through the help of factories.

Both those news were not beneficial to them. If models were required to be their fellow students, then that meant they needed to fight over students with good looks. If they were allowed to use external methods, then that meant Xu Lin from the journalism and communications school would have a special advantage.

And then the worst piece of news: one of the judges invited to the finals was a classmate of Xu Lin’s mother, and they had a particularly close relationship.

“I feel like we’re the cannon fodder for all the cannon fodders.” After finishing their meeting, the team decided to eat lunch together. Zhou Yi was moving slowly through the packed crowds with his tray of food. “I don’t even know if we’ll be able to scrape up a model from somewhere.”

Chen Pi took a sip of the hot soy milk he’d just bought and sighed. “We’ll just lower our standards a bit. If other people are looking for someone 180cm tall, then we’ll look for someone 175cm. Right, senior sister.”

Nan Jia had only ordered a bowl of porridge, her appetite not too well. She brought them around until they found an empty long table and said, “It’ll be fine. You guys don’t need to worry about the models, I’m the manager for the basketball team. There are plenty of long arms and long legs in there.”

“Wow.” Chen Pi said in quite an exaggerated manner, “Being the basketball team’s manager is too cool. I watched Slam Dunk when I was a kid, and I loved Akagi Haruko. Senior, there definitely must be a bunch of people in the team chasing after you, right?”

Yue Zhishi had just put a piece of watermelon into his mouth, and with his cheek bulging out, he cut in and said, “Not just the basketball team…”

Qu Zhi suddenly opened her mouth, having kept silent the entire time. She said, “So senior is currently single and can be pursued.”

Her short dusty blue hair was tied up into a simple little ponytail behind her head, and she wore a black baseball cap, the shadow from the brim making the look in her eyes appear even deeper.

“Yeah.” Nodding, Yue Zhishi didn’t really notice much other meaning to her words and very innocently said something rather cold-hearted. “She’s so single she needed me to go with her to the doctor.”

Nan Jia twisted her head over and glared at Yue Zhishi. “So you didn’t actually want to go with me?” And then after a while, she intentionally put on a look of dawning understanding. “Ah, that’s right, since I’m not as cute as a cat.”

Yue Zhishi almost choked on his watermelon and coughed for a long time.

Xiao Qi, who’d been very quiet, stared at Yue Zhishi and Nan Jia with wide eyes. She bit the ends of her chopsticks and abruptly said in a soft voice, “So you guys don’t have that kind of relationship.”

Nan Jia broke into laughter. “No, we’re like brother and sister.”

Everyone ate while they continued to chat, but Nan Jia didn’t really eat much of her porridge. Yue Zhishi asked if she wanted to have some of his food; Nan Jia said she wanted to have some hot soup and got up, preparing to go buy some. Qu Zhi, who was sitting across from them, stood up faster. “I’ll go. Is soup with rice noodles okay?” She grabbed the meal card on the table. Yue Zhishi saw that her fingers were very long, skin very pale; her nails were cut very short and looked very clean.

“Ah, that’s fine.” Nan Jia didn’t really want to bother her. “Maybe I should go myself.”

“You need to rest more if you’re sick.” Qu Zhi stepped over the bench behind her in one smooth move. Her eyes were very beautiful, and her features were bold and fearless. She didn’t have much expressions on her face as she talked, but from beginning to end, she gazed at Nan Jia’s face. “Anything you don’t eat?”

“No.” Nan Jia was also looking at her.

Yue Zhishi felt like he sensed something — something very profound.

Qu Zhi had just strode away when the sound of very exaggerated laughter drifted to them from not too far away. It was getting closer, and as soon as Yue Zhishi looked up, he actually saw Xu Lin from the journalism school.

He was still the same as the first time Yue Zhishi saw him, surrounded and escorted by a crowd of people like he was the bright moon circled by a bunch of lesser stars. He wasn’t wearing that ridiculous pair of orange glasses this time, but he wore an extremely conspicuous, red duijin jacket. His hair was also styled with particular care. Xu Lin saw Yue Zhishi immediately, and then he walked over in his direction with his admirers.

“Isn’t that the guy from the journalism school?” Chen Pi glanced at him with his eyes squinted together. “Anyone know him?”

“We’ve met.” Yue Zhishi had just finished speaking when Xu Lin sat down at their long table.

“Hi, Mixed Sweetheart,” Xu Lin flamboyantly greeted Yue Zhishi, his two hands in his pockets. “I especially went to look at your school’s list of contestants. Not bad, you actually managed to get in.”

The tone of his voice didn’t sound all that sincere, but to someone like Yue Zhishi who had a high threshold for people, it wasn’t really that annoying. Which is why he very casually nodded and said, “Yup. What about you?”

It was like his counter question instantaneously stabbed right into Xu Lin’s lungs. “Wait, is there something wrong with you? You’re actually asking me?”

The people behind him also released laughter filled with disbelief.

“That was nothing more than a question asked out of courtesy.” Yue Zhishi gave him a very good-looking smile and stretched out a very friendly hand to Xu Lin.

Xu Lin was slightly confused by his movement, and he even shifted backwards. “What are you doing?”

Thinking he was a bit stupid, Yue Zhishi took his hand and shook it with his own. “This is also courtesy. I’m very happy to have become your opponent.”

Xu Lin started to ponder whether Yue Zhishi was truly happy or whether he’d said it out of courtesy once again. He felt like this person was super strange — what a waste of that beautiful face and great figure. He cleared his throat. “You better be happy.”

He wasn’t planning on eating there, so he stood back up, looking back down at Yue Zhishi with some pride. “Since you’re going to lose quite terribly.”

The rest of the people sitting at that table wasn’t happy at his words, but Yue Zhishi didn’t really care — he felt like being stomped on was how the main character was usually treated.

“But if you change your mind and want to be a model, I wouldn’t mind if you came and begged me.” Xu Lin looked in all four directions a bit stiffly, everywhere except in Yue Zhishi’s direction. “You should be able to get my WeChat really easily if you ask around.”

Yue Zhishi couldn’t hold back his laughter.

“What are you laughing at!”

“You’re remarkably interesting.” It took a lot of effort for Yue Zhishi to stop laughing. “Seriously.”

Xu Lin rushed away, almost knocking into Qu Zhi with her tray of food as soon as he turned around. Qu Zhi was wearing a pair of Doc Martens boots, and she was almost taller than him; she had a very strong aura around her.

“Why is the law school using models as designers, how stupid,” he cursed under his breath, leaving unhappily.

Even though Xu Lin appeared very weird, every single person sitting there knew he was a strong opponent with both talent and resources. He could be called the major focus of attention for this year’s competition. Zhou Yi continued to say sad and gloomy things, and he dragged Chen Pi down with him.

“I have a good feeling about this — everything will definitely go smoothly,” Yue Zhishi said.

But this time, his ‘good feeling’ failed again and again.

The lottery drawing for the competition was announced for 6pm, and the announcement came about very spontaneously. The time clashed with an elective course for first year law students, and so they could only rush over during the class break. They arrived last, and only one draw remained. It was still technically a random draw, but it didn’t feel very encouraging.

Qu Zhi opened the envelope. Her face was calm, but she didn’t look too happy.

“Rain.” She showed them the slip of paper.

“Rain?” Yue Zhishi didn’t know if this could be considered as a good theme or not. He actively went around, asking the other people in the classroom about what they’d been given; intelligence gathering wasn’t something pleasant to do to begin with, but they let Yue Zhishi see their themes fairly easily because it was him who asked.

He learned that a school managed to draw ‘ocean’ while another had ‘the future’. And the journalism and communications school they were all afraid of — in a large stroke of luck, they drew ‘millennium’. It was an eye-catching theme that innately allowed for innovative designs.

After learning of this particular piece of intelligence, their team sunk into an even lower creative state of mind. They even needed to return back to their grand auditorium for class now that they’ve drawn their theme, with the class running until 9:30pm.

It was already 11pm by the time he finished showering and cleaning up. Yue Zhishi sat at his desk and opened his laptop, attempting to record some inspiration. At least now that they had their theme, he had a general direction of where to turn his brain.

As soon as the word ‘rain’ appeared in his mind, all the images he envisioned were particularly real: the rainy days he’d gone through as a child while being piggybacked; the small store they’d stayed in to hide from the rain; a transparent umbrella; the borrowed back he’d depended on during thunderous rain. Almost all of them were related to Song Yu.

Many, many emotions were born during the rain.

And as luck would have it, his phone lit up with a special ringtone. Yue Zhishi opened his phone swiftly and saw a message sent from Song Yu.

[Gege: I’ve been outside the whole day today. Frozen stiff.]

He sent over a photo of his hands, red from the cold.

Yue Zhishi’s heart squeezed. The people in his dorm were still playing games, so he immediately gave him a call.

Song Yu’s voice was still very steady, and he told Yue Zhishi he was already under his blankets — except he couldn’t really fall asleep.

“Then…” Yue Zhishi hesitated for around five seconds. “I’ll read a book to you.”

Song Yu hummed in agreement and then said, “If it’s criminal legislation, then forget about it.”

“I won’t recite that stuff.” Yue Zhishi searched through the books on his table with his eyes and felt like there wasn’t anything suitable. He then abruptly remembered — he crouched down and pulled out a box of stuff he’d packed and brought over that day he’d returned home for his birthday. He searched through the things inside and slid out an old-looking book, yellowed anime stickers plastered all over its cover.

He hugged the small book to his chest somewhat self-consciously as he left his dorm, and he crouched down again once he reached the end of his floor. Turning on his phone torch, he aimed it at the diary. Very few people walked through here, and there was no dorm room across from him — he wouldn’t disturb anyone.

Wind came from a hole somewhere, chilling Yue Zhishi’s ankles, but he felt like this kind of temperature was nothing compared to the hardship Song Yu was currently going through.

“What are you going to read?” Song Yu asked again.

“My diary.” Yue Zhishi flipped open a page and wasn’t too happy when he realised there wasn’t much of a reaction from the other end of the phone. “Aren’t you excited? I brought this from home specifically in order to fulfil your request. It’s from third year of elementary school. The diary’s finally useful.”

Song Yu laughed. “No, I’m just a bit surprised.”

How could he have thought Yue Zhishi would’ve taken his request so seriously.

Clearing his throat, Yue Zhishi randomly chose a short passage and read it out. “September 12th, rainy. Today I ate a chocolate ice cream. A classmate bought it for me, but gege said I can’t casually eat things other people give me. So I was very scared when I ate it.”

He himself wanted to laugh as he read it, but he held himself back and continued, “After I finished sneakily eating it, I waited outside gege’s classroom for him to finish school. But he was unhappy as soon as he saw me and asked me what I ate. How did he know? I only found out after I got home and looked at myself in the mirror. There was chocolate all over my face.”

Song Yu chuckled and said, his voice very tender, “Too dumb.”

“Don’t use your current brain to laugh at a little third year student,” Yue Zhishi solemnly refuted for himself. “Third years don’t understand anything, okay?”

He turned to the next page. The entry was very short, only two lines. Without thinking about it, he recited the opening, “September 13th, sunny…”

Song Yu patiently waited for a few seconds after Yue Zhishi abruptly stopped talking. When there was still nothing coming, he couldn’t help but ask, “And then?”

“And then—” Yue Zhishi stared at the row of characters written in a crooked, childish scrawl. He straightened himself and honestly said, “I don’t want to say.”

“Do you want me to stay awake the whole night?” Song Yu asked.

“All right.” Yue Zhishi yielded rather unwillingly, and there was a touch of sulkiness in his voice, utterly matching the words he read out.

“Why does everyone in television dramas have a girlfriend? Gege can’t have a girlfriend. Can’t gege like only me?”

After those words left his mouth, he let out an ‘ah’ and buried his face into his lap in despair. All of the lights in the corridor were now on.

Song Yu lightly laughed; his voice was low and deep, and yet it sounded like it was floating. “Third year prophet, I can.”