“Shen Ying, can you… sleep with me?”
It was only after Uncle Zhang safely escorted Shen Ying upstairs and into the apartment that he finally drove away.
Jiang Shi’s residence was indeed not far from the school. On the way over, Shen Ying had even caught a glimpse of the internet café where he first met Jiang Shi.
Thinking back to that day, his luck had actually been quite good in a way. He just happened to run into Jiang Shi, who had chosen to walk home after evening self-study.
If Jiang Shi had been picked up by Uncle Zhang’s car right after evening self-study, he probably would never have crossed paths with him. Nor would there have been anyone who, wanting to tell him his name, followed him all the way to the hospital and extended a helping hand without a moment’s hesitation.
After saying goodbye to Uncle Zhang, Shen Ying didn’t wander around or tour the apartment. He simply found a spot on the living room sofa, sat down, and pulled out his textbooks to silently recite his lessons while waiting for Jiang Shi to return.
Jiang Shi’s place was located in a high-end residential complex called Yijing. It had been newly completed a few years prior, and the frenzy to buy apartments there had been so explosive that it made the news, almost no one in Yining City was unaware of it.
Tonight, as Uncle Zhang drove the car into the complex, Shen Ying looked at everything around him and felt as if he had truly stepped out of one world and into another. Everything was so different.
It felt both novel and surreal.
Ding,
Just as he finished silently reciting two important passages, a WeChat notification chime broke the silence of the living room.
Shen Ying unlocked his phone, only to find that it was just a news push notification.
His usual messaging apps were limited to QQ and WeChat. The contacts on his QQ were either classmates or clients from his past gaming gigs. Yesterday, because someone had been spreading rumors about his grandfather, he had quit every single group chat related to Linbei No. 3 High School and ultimately logged out of his QQ account entirely.
He had registered his WeChat relatively late, so his contact list only had his grandfather, Peng Sheng’s family, and, added over the last two days, Jiang Shi.
Looking at the sparse chat window on his screen, the top contact was his grandfather, who had told him half an hour ago that he was going to rest, and right below it was Peng Sheng, whom he had messaged last night.
At that moment, Shen Ying finally realized why something felt off.
A whole day had passed, yet Peng Sheng, that absolute internet addict, hadn’t sent him a single message all day. Was this really the same childhood friend who, even when living right next door, would spam him with messages like crazy?
[Ying]: ?
[Peng Sheng]: ?
[Ying]: ?
[Peng Sheng]: ?
Peng Sheng replied to both within seconds.
Yep, still the same gaming addict.
[Peng Sheng]: Alive?
[Ying]: Didn’t go home. Came to stay at Jiang Shi’s place after evening self-study.
[Peng Sheng]: Look, what did I tell you!
[Peng Sheng]: Wait, is he not right next to you right now?
[Ying]: How’d you know? He said he had some things to take care of and hasn’t come home yet.
[Peng Sheng]: Oh.
[Peng Sheng]: Well, was I right yesterday or what? He definitely wants you to live with him!
[Ying]: Fine, you’re a genius.
[Ying]: But what I said makes a lot of sense too. Jiang Shi said his dad is busy with work and he lives alone near the school. Hearing that I was living alone too, he just casually asked if I wanted to stay at his place.
[Peng Sheng]: You bought that?
[Ying]: Why wouldn’t I? What he said completely matches the motives behind all his actions.
[Peng Sheng]: What motive? Bro, let me be straight with you. Jiang Shi’s motive is you. You as a person, not anything else! If you had even a tiny bit of self-awareness, I wouldn’t be worried about you.
[Ying]: I know.
[Peng Sheng]: ? You know?
[Ying]: Of course he’s willing to help me because of who I am. Thinking about it now, it really proves that doing good deeds pays off. Back at the internet café, because I helped him adjust his headphone volume right away, he remembered me. And now, my grandfather is fine, and I somehow ended up transferring to Yinan No. 3 High School.
[Peng Sheng]: …………6.
[Peng Sheng]: Whatever, forget it. You’re making me lose confidence in my own brain cells.
[Peng Sheng]: Anyway, how’s your first day at the new school?
[Ying]: Extremely productive. Do you know how good Jiang Shi’s grades are? He’s basically a walking study cheat code. With him around, catching up on my studies is several times faster.
[Peng Sheng]: That’s pretty cool then. What about the other classmates?
[Ying]: Don’t know.
[Peng Sheng]: What do you mean? Are you and Jiang Shi the only two people in your class?
Shen Ying couldn’t help but laugh out loud at Peng Sheng’s comment.
Today at school, he and Jiang Shi really had felt a bit like that, the whole class treated them like transparent ghosts, and they didn’t have the bandwidth to care.
After laughing, Shen Ying recalled what Jiang Shi had said, combined it with today’s events, and began to think seriously and deeply.
Jiang Shi had told him that getting too close to him at Yinan No. 3 High School would mean no other students would dare interact with him. That statement had definitely been proven true today.
Everything Jiang Shi said was the truth.
However, after realizing that this was indeed the reality of the situation, Shen Ying not only didn’t regret taking the initiative to ask to share a desk with Jiang Shi on day one, but he actually felt quite reassured by his own prompt decision.
[Ying]: I told you before that Jiang Shi doesn’t have many friends, but the reality is actually worse than that. At school, it looks like he’s being ostracized.
[Peng Sheng]: Ostracized? You mean Jiang Shi? He told you that? And you believed him?
[Ying]: No, that’s just what I observed with my own eyes. He even gave me a heads-up beforehand, saying I didn’t have to talk to him at school.
[Peng Sheng]: [Shocked.jpg]
[Peng Sheng]: With his background, surely it wouldn’t come to that?
[Ying]: Sometimes, people don’t need any reason at all to ostracize someone. Plus, since ancient times, the kind-hearted are always bullied.
[Peng Sheng]: Uh, what you’re saying makes sense, but why do I still feel like something is a bit fishy?
Shen Ying was just about to type back that the whole situation did indeed seem a bit strange, but before he could even start typing, Jiang Shi sent him a message. Abandoning Peng Sheng, Shen Ying immediately switched to Jiang Shi’s chat window.
[Jiang Shi]: Passing by Linbei No. 3 High School, the octopus ball stall at the school gate hasn’t closed yet. Do you like eating those?
Along with the text, Jiang Shi sent a photo.
It was the familiar street vendor cart that Shen Ying used to see all the time.
[Shen Ying]: I love them! I haven’t eaten those in ages.
[Jiang Shi]: Great, I’ll buy some and head home.
Shen Ying stared at the screen and smiled, completely forgetting about whether Jiang Shi being ostracized was fishy or not.
Jiang Shi was just that kind-hearted!
Other people were probably just bullying him because he was too nice!
Shen Ying spent another half hour alone in the living room before the electronic unlocking sound of the front door echoed through the apartment.
Hearing the movement, Shen Ying immediately stood up and headed toward the foyer. Jiang Shi’s apartment was truly spacious, by the time Shen Ying walked out of the living room and reached the entryway, Jiang Shi had already almost finished changing his shoes.
Hearing footsteps, Jiang Shi, who was sitting on the foyer bench changing his shoes, instantly raised his head.
“You’re back.” Shen Ying smiled and walked closer. Then, his gaze caught Jiang Shi’s shoe, and a look of surprise crept into his voice, “Why is there such a huge dirty patch on your shoe? Did you step in muddy water?”
While getting shoes dirty from walking outside was normal enough for Shen Ying, seeing it on Jiang Shi made the stain look completely out of place.
It wasn’t just because Jiang Shi didn’t seem like the type to walk on unpaved muddy roads, it was mainly because Jiang Shi was always impeccably clean and clearly had mysophobia (germaphobia).
Both times Shen Ying had met Jiang Shi, he had been neat and immaculate from head to toe. Tonight, having such a massive stain on his shoe made it impossible to ignore, and Shen Ying couldn’t be blamed for making a fuss.
“Yeah, accidentally stepped in something,” Jiang Shi replied.
“Was it near Linbei No. 3 High School?” Shen Ying guessed logically. After all, the roads around Linbei No. 3 were full of potholes and seemed to be under construction year round.
“It’s fine.”
“If I’d known, I wouldn’t have said I wanted octopus balls. I forgot that the road conditions over there are complicated and hard to walk on.” Intuition told Shen Ying that Jiang Shi had only gotten his shoe dirty because of him.
Jiang Shi stood up, holding the bag of octopus balls, and shook his head. “It was on the way.”
“How about I help you clean your shoes? Thanks for bringing me octopus balls.” Shen Ying immediately bent down as if to grab the shoes.
However, Jiang Shi caught his arm with lightning speed, preventing Shen Ying from bending over any further.
“A dirty shoe is just a dirty shoe. You don’t need to do this kind of chore.” Jiang Shi held onto Shen Ying’s arm, his tone turning dead serious and his brow furrowing slightly.
“It’s fine, plus I’m really good at cleaning sh, ”
“Shen Ying.” Jiang Shi’s voice dropped into a chill.
“If I say I don’t want you to do it, just listen to me.”
Shen Ying quietly looked at him, feeling no sense of awkwardness or reprimand, knowing full well that Jiang Shi was simply forbidding him from doing chores.
In his heart, he couldn’t help marveling again at how ridiculously good his luck was. He had actually managed to bump into a wealthy, kind-hearted person like Jiang Shi.
“Alright.” What else could Shen Ying do? He could only accept it gracefully.
Now that Jiang Shi was home, Shen Ying didn’t get a chance to tour the specific layout of the apartment. Given that it was getting late, he swiftly finished eating the octopus balls. Jiang Shi then led him to a guest bedroom and handed him a clean set of pajamas from the wardrobe so he could take a shower first.
While the apartment wasn’t so massive that one would get lost like in a television castle, stepping into the room with Jiang Shi still made Shen Ying inwardly marvel at its sheer scale, openness, and brightness.
Almost everything in the apartment was automated. If Jiang Shi hadn’t patiently walked him through the precautions beforehand, Shen Ying wouldn’t even have known how to operate the bathroom fixtures.
Shen Ying showered while inwardly marveling at all these high-tech gadgets he had never seen before.
After they both finished showering, they headed to the study to wrap up the homework they hadn’t finished at school.
On the surface, Shen Ying was calmly writing his answers, but internally he was once again amazed, and deeply envious, of Jiang Shi’s study setup. It featured a high-configuration computer, a printer right next to it, and two towering, cool-looking bookshelves built into the wall.
Any single one of those items would have been enough to make him green with envy.
“Do you like this computer?” After finishing their homework and packing up their school bags, Jiang Shi suddenly spoke up.
Shen Ying froze midway through standing up. Not expecting his thoughts to be so transparent, he awkwardly raised a hand to touch his nose. “I’ve only ever seen computers like this online before. Seeing it in person today, it really is in a league of its own.”
“I don’t really use the computer much. If you need it, you can come in and use it whenever you want,” Jiang Shi said.
“Great, thanks. Though I don’t really need a computer much anymore either. Back when I was doing game boosting and companion gigs, I used one all the time, but I always went to internet cafés or borrowed from friends.”
“Are you still doing game boosting?”
“I stopped taking orders and don’t plan on continuing. Now that I have the chance, of course I want to focus on studying hard and see if I can get into a good university.” Shen Ying smiled as he shared his aspirations with Jiang Shi.
Hearing this, Jiang Shi asked, “Which university do you want to get into?”
“I haven’t decided yet, but as long as it’s an undergraduate university, I suppose.”
Jiang Shi: “Then take the exams with me and go to the same university.”
“Sure.” Hearing that, Shen Ying instinctively and excitedly agreed before asking, “Which university do you want to go to? I’ll work hard for it.”
“A University.”
A heavy hitter right out of the gate. Shen Ying had been too caught up in his excitement to remember that Jiang Shi was a certified genius.
Though, come to think of it, if a student had the capability and no plans to study abroad, which one wouldn’t want to choose the absolute best university in the country?
“You don’t want to go to that school?” Seeing Shen Ying fall silent, Jiang Shi pressed.
“It’s not that I don’t want to, it’s just that right now, ” Shen Ying stopped mid-sentence. After a two second silence, he looked at Jiang Shi and asked, “With the way you helped me catch up today and taught me how to solve those problems, do you think someone in my situation can actually make it into A University?”
“Yes.”
It was a single, immensely firm word.
Shen Ying instantly burst into laughter, his tone matching that firmness: “Alright, let’s both get into A University.”
Wasn’t going to A University his dream to begin with?
He would just have to pick it back up.
Having inexplicably made a pact about their future university, Shen Ying followed closely behind Jiang Shi out of the study with a hyper-excited mood. They had barely taken two steps when he heard Jiang Shi’s voice.
“Shen Ying, can you… sleep with me?”