Gu Xuanlang had a neat, short haircut, his deep-set, prominent brows and eyes still making it impossible for people to look away. Unlike his previous outfits of narrow-sleeved, martial-style garments, he was currently wearing an ill-fitting Special Operations Division uniform—probably kindly lent to him by some colleague.
In short, he looked much thinner and more worn down than in memory.
Gu Xuanlang’s voice was very flat.
So flat it was as if he were talking to a complete stranger.
Song Rong suddenly felt a bit aggrieved.
Ever since the silent treatment started, the two hadn’t seen each other for a long time. He had imagined many different scenarios for reuniting with Gu Xuanlang, but he never expected it would be like this: by day, he was an S-class dangerous individual whose life hung in the balance; by night, he was already acting as if nothing happened, running down to the cafeteria to grab a meal.
Then what did that make himself, who had secretly worried, fretted, and sat on pins and needles agonizing over him the entire day?
Was he supposed to be a performative fungal personality?
Staring at the boyfriend standing safe and sound right in front of him, the grievances, a sense of loss, and worry that had originally accumulated in Song Rong’s chest all churned together. He puffed out his cheeks, his hand moving with the ladle as he scooped minced pork with tofu and stir-fried greens onto Gu Xuanlang’s tray, then handed it back across the counter.
The portion was even larger than what he gave to other colleagues.
The canteen worker, abusing his position out of a guilty conscience, looked away and made small talk: “Do you want any other dishes?”
Gu Xuanlang was sparing with his words: “No need.”
Actually, Song Rong could sense that Gu Xuanlang had been looking at him the whole time, with a look that seemed to say something was on the tip of his tongue. But in the end, he didn’t say anything at all, took a step back, and felt around in his pocket for his meal card to pay.
However, as soon as the meal card touched the machine, an electronic prompt sounded: “Sorry, this card has not been activated yet.”
The clear female voice repeated several times, and inquiring gazes gradually drifted over from the surroundings. After seeing Gu Xuanlang’s unfamiliar yet excessively handsome face, they lowered their heads and whispered among themselves, wondering which department this newcomer could possibly be from.
With the payment glitching out, Song Rong was far more anxious than Gu Xuanlang. He quickly rummaged through his pants pocket to pull out his staff card and handed it over: “Swipe mine first.”
Gu Xuanlang hesitated slightly, but still took it, though he only loosely hovered Song Rong’s meal card over the card reader, which immediately displayed the balance: 24.6.
Gu Xuanlang hesitated even more.
The excessively embarrassing balance on the card made Song Rong feel awkward. He really wanted to say something, but before he even opened his mouth, three male colleagues lined up behind him swarmed over to Gu Xuanlang’s side, asking with concern what was wrong.
Gu Xuanlang was concise and to the point: “The meal card isn’t activated, so I borrowed someone else’s.”
Hearing this, those three all chimed in.
Someone placated: “Sigh, logistics is really careless. I’ll go give them a piece of my mind tomorrow!”
Someone pulled out a card: “Oh my, there’s plenty of money on my card. Mr. Gu, just order whatever you want, don’t be polite!”
Someone motioned for Song Rong to give Gu Xuanlang extra food: “Little brother, add two braised lion’s head meatballs, a serving of black pepper squid tentacles, and a piece of salt-baked mackerel, too? Mr. Gu, I’m not bragging, but the food in our division’s cafeteria tastes…”
As he spoke, one hand gave a thumbs-up, while the other hand naturally rested on Gu Xuanlang’s shoulder, seemingly trying to show friendliness in this way.
Song Rong was serving food with a distracted mind while stealing glances out of the corner of his eye at that hand.
Fortunately, Gu Xuanlang quietly shifted forward a small step, letting that hand slide off naturally.
Finally, someone noticed the “other person” on the opposite side holding the serving spoon with a strange expression: “Little brother, you’re a really nice guy. We’ll pay for Mr. Gu, so you can take your meal card back.”
That person also smiled with an unfathomable meaning, perhaps having seen the balance of 24.6.
Song Rong blushed deeply with embarrassment and held out his hand to Gu Xuanlang—after adding a few dishes, his card definitely wouldn’t have enough to cover it anyway, and giving it to him would just be a waste. The cafeteria provided employee meals, so he had only topped up fifty yuan on his meal card, occasionally using it to buy a few steamed buns or a bottle of beverage.
The latter didn’t dwell on it much either, and simply handed it back.
The thin card passed between their two hands, their fingertips accidentally brushing as if carrying a tiny current. Song Rong felt his heart skip a beat and secretly lifted his eyes, but only managed to catch Gu Xuanlang’s turning profile. The words calling him back stuck in his throat, unable to be squeezed out.
Instead, Xiang Xun, who had been watching the show for a while, snapped back to reality, came to Song Rong’s side in two or three steps, and anxiously asked: “Was that the guy surnamed Gu?”
Before getting an answer, he took it upon himself to shout: “Hey, stop right there!”
Gu Xuanlang’s footsteps paused.
Xiang Xun sternly accused: “It’s been so long since you’ve seen each other, don’t you have anything to say to Song Rong?”
Gu Xuanlang narrowed his eyes and repeated in the other person’s tone: “Song Rong.”
An aura of majesty that brooks no opposition pressed down on Xiang Xun, making him dare not continue.
Realizing there were still a few probing gazes around, Gu Xuanlang adjusted his mood and gave a slight nod to Song Rong: “Thank you.”
After a pause, he squeezed out two more words: “Song Rong.”
Not expecting that between lovers reuniting after a long separation there would only be such distant, formal words, Xiang Xun’s brain short-circuited for a moment, and he subconsciously looked over to check the reaction of the person beside him. But Song Rong was shrinking his shoulders, his scalp tingling: whenever he did something wrong or said the wrong thing in the past, Gu Xuanlang would use this exact tone to address his full name.
But now…
What did he do wrong? What did he say wrong?
Gu Xuanlang’s abnormal performance aroused the curiosity of his companions.
They looked at him, then looked at Song Rong: “You guys know each other?”
Song Rong lowered his head quickly, not hearing clearly how Gu Xuanlang had actually replied to them—in fact, he was also a little afraid of hearing Gu Xuanlang’s answer.
When he raised his eyes again, those few people had already sat down in the dining area, eating the food on their trays with chatter and laughter, with no one caring about the small episode that had just occurred.
Xiang Xun, who had witnessed the whole process, poked him with his elbow: “Are you okay?”
Song Rong hurriedly withdrew his gaze: “Ah, I’m fine.”
“That guy surnamed Gu could still call out your name, so at least we can confirm he didn’t lose his memory, nor was he possessed.”
“Yeah.”
“It’s just a bit weird. Those guys are all colleagues from the Action Squad. How did they get along so well with the guy surnamed Gu?”
“Could it be because they caught the wrong person, so…”
Feeling indebted? Making amends afterward?
Song Rong didn’t quite understand that kind of social tact and didn’t continue. Fortunately, Xiang Xun was able to understand, nodding along and turning to remind him that he needed to go to the back kitchen to do cleaning work, otherwise it would delay other colleagues from getting off work.
Leaving the food-serving window, Gu Xuanlang’s figure finally stopped appearing in his field of vision.
Yet, he would pop up in Song Rong’s mind from time to time.
Noticing his roommate’s absent-mindedness, Xiang Xun leaned close to him and tentatively asked: “So, after work later, are you going to go find him?”
Knowing very well who “him” referred to, Song Rong didn’t hesitate for even a half-second: “Not going.”
This answer exceeded Xiang Xun’s expectations, and he raised his tone to let out an “Ah.”
Song Rong puffed out his cheeks: “Why should it always be me taking the initiative to go find him?”
With a slight trace of petulance, the force in his hands increased, and several stacked stainless steel vegetable-washing basins clattered loudly.
Xiang Xun chimed in repeatedly: “Exactly! Why indeed! In my opinion, that Gu fellow clearly is just used to waiting for you to beg to make up. If you ask me, this time it should be his turn to take the initiative to find you! Do you think he might have given you the cold shoulder just because there were too many people around, and will wait for you to get off work tonight?”
As he spoke, he realized he shouldn’t be making excuses for Gu Xuanlang, so he changed his tune: “However, Gu Xuanlang looks proud and aloof, so maybe he won’t…”
Before he could finish speaking, he was interrupted by the head chef’s urging.
Xiang Xun had no choice but to acknowledge both sides: “Yep, yep, heard it! Old Ou wants us to speed up, Xiao Jiao isn’t feeling well and wants to leave early tonight. I’ll go collect the last few meal trays outside, you stay right here…”
Song Rong, lost in his thoughts, abruptly spoke up: “Let me go!”
Xiang Xun was startled: “Huh?”
Song Rong hurriedly took off his gloves: “Or, I’ll go collect the trays outside.”
Terrified of exposing that tiny bit of the selfish desire to “want to catch a few more glimpses of Gu Xuanlang,” before his voice had even faded, he ran ahead of Xiang Xun all the way to the dining area in a light jog.
However.
Gu Xuanlang and his group had already left.
Only the empty meal trays remained there.
The two of them returned to their dorm room with heavy hearts; the others had been waiting for a long time.
Before Xiang Xun even had time to take off his shoes, he was dragged away by Ah Jin and Da Hua on either side.
Knowing they couldn’t squeeze any explosive gossip out of Song Rong’s mouth, they could only lock onto the other target: “Do you have any more photos of Xiao Rong’s boyfriend? The side-profile photo you posted didn’t show his facial features clearly at all, but just looking at the side profile, he’s still quite handsome…”
Xiang Xun struggled while replying: “No more, that’s the only one I managed to snap.”
Only then did Song Rong find out that Xiang Xun had quietly taken a photo of Gu Xuanlang while they were in the cafeteria and even given a live report of tonight’s situation in the dorm chat group.
Yes, Dorm 101 had a three-person chat group called “Whampoa Fungal Academy.”
And they had once enthusiastically invited Song Rong to join.
It was just a pity that Song Rong’s “elderly-style basic phone” couldn’t download chat apps, so he had always lingered outside the school gates, and for now could only borrow someone else’s phone to take a look at his boyfriend’s handsome side-profile photo.
Ah Jin commented as he looked: “Good-looking, and a great figure too. No wonder he keeps Xiao Rong lingering in his thoughts.”
Huazi followed closely: “Our Xiao Rong isn’t bad either. Back when he first joined, several guys and girls came over to ask me about him, but back then I didn’t quite know Xiao Rong’s situation. From now on, though, I’ll just tell them Xiao Rong already has a handsome boyfriend…”
Hearing this, Song Rong blinked: “Brother Huazi, regarding me and Gu Xuanlang, can you help me keep it a secret for now?”
Huazi was stunned, then put on an “I understand” expression.
Xiang Xun gave him a shove: “Xiao Rong isn’t that kind of person! It’s just that the guy surnamed Gu had a rather subtle attitude toward Xiao Rong in the cafeteria today, so it requires further observation.”
Ah Jin stroked his chin and analyzed seriously: “Ah, it certainly requires further observation. He went into a detention room—who knows if he’ll have a criminal record left on file? What if it affects taking the civil service exams later…”
Xiang Xun sneered that he was missing the main point: “Are you originally from Shandong?”
Ah Jin made a face, pressing a hand to his forehead.
Song Rong was still scrutinizing that side-profile photo, and just as he was about to ask if his phone could save pictures, a pop-up of a new message that arrived unpreventably caught his attention: “The forum just updated the traffic accident notice from downtown last night…”
The Extraordinary Species Management Division had an anonymous forum called “Under the Eaves.” When posting, it didn’t show real names, only human or monster species icons, and the functional sections were simple: gossip, meal dates, idle exchange, online justice court. As the management, the Special Operations Division would push news in a timely manner, covering policy adjustments, species dynamics, and cross-district cooperative investigation alerts, occasionally also posting some missing person notices.
According to Zhou Ji’an’s account, a commotion had occurred in downtown Huai’an last night, and the press release described it in even more detail: large-scale lightning strikes had lasted for half an hour; fortunately, there were no human casualties, only causing two distribution transformers to break and a few street trees to catch fire. The technical department intervened in the investigation and preliminarily ruled out the possibility of natural lightning.
Gu Xuanlang had been in the vicinity at the time, so naturally he was brought back as a suspect.
After reading the news, Huazi asked what Gu Xuanlang’s true form was.
Song Rong answered truthfully: “A stone.”
Huazi breathed a sigh of relief: “Then that’s not strange—a stone, just hearing it sounds harmless to humans. No wonder Director Zhou let him go so readily; he might even have to apologize to the guy.”
Xiang Xun was eager to refute, letting a sentence slip without thinking: “Not necessarily. Take gallstones, kidney stones, urinary stones… those can be extremely harmful to humans!”
Seeing the topic gradually veer off in a strange direction, Song Rong was eager to clear his boyfriend’s name: “Gu Xuanlang isn’t that kind of stone; he’s just a very ordinary stone.”
He himself was just a very ordinary matsutake mushroom.
Living in a very ordinary big mountain.
Leading a very ordinary life.
He should only ever encounter a very ordinary stone, right?
Huazi’s words interrupted his wild train of thought: “Anyway, it’s good that he was let out. As for relationship issues, you guys can slowly work them out in the future.”
Song Rong nodded, though inwardly he didn’t agree with that statement.
How much slower could they go?
Do they really even have a future?