Li Xi sat on a hallway bench waiting. Before long, the door to the examination room opened, and the child appeared before him holding a medical record.
He held the record earnestly, staring at the lines of text over and over, trying very hard to understand them.
I don’t recognize these.
He sighed inwardly.
“My chest hurts,” Yun said, carrying the topical ointment. “The doctor said I need to rest for a while.”
He didn’t specify exactly how long “a while” was.
Li Xi shifted his gaze to the boy’s chest, remained silent for a moment, and then gave a faint “Oh.”
Yun hadn’t expected him to maintain this icy attitude and felt a bit disappointed. But on second thought, Li Xi had been this dull and slow since they met; the slight discomfort in his heart vanished instantly.
“Let’s go, let’s go,” he urged, pulling the cub up. “We’re going to miss the last bus.”
The hospital was quite far. Between one patient and one slow-moving cub, by the time they reached home, the sky had been dark for a while. They drank some nutrient solution and went straight to bed. Before sleeping, Yun noticed the cub folding the medical record neatly and putting it into his backpack.
“Why are you keeping that?” he asked casually.
Li Xi said nothing, pulling the covers over himself to sleep.
Yun wasn’t satisfied with this. He rolled his body directly into the other’s blanket, his fingertips silently twining around a strand of dark blue hair. “I saved you, after all. Is this how you treat me?”
Feeling this statement carried enough weight, he added pointedly: “My body still hurts.”
Hearing this, Li Xi gave up the idea of kicking the bug out. Perhaps driven by a hidden trace of guilt, he allowed the child to stay close. “Mm… Sleep.”
“Fine, I don’t know what kind of weird habit this is.” Seeing that the other didn’t stop his excessive behavior, Yun played with his hair tentatively for a while. It wasn’t until the cub’s eyelashes flickered as if he were about to wake that Yun quickly retracted his hand.
He was very skilled at the art of stopping while he was ahead. Before the cub could show dissatisfaction, he spoke first: “Alright, alright, it’s late. Go to sleep.”
Giving Li Xi no chance to speak, he turned off the light, tucked in the blanket, and covered his head to sleep—all in the blink of an eye, moving as smooth as flowing water.
“Goodnight.”
The child’s soft “goodnight” echoed in the quiet darkness.
“…”
Li Xi turned over. With a slight movement of his hand, he could touch the child’s body. Warmth traveled from the child through Li Xi’s cool fingertips to his palm.
His body temperature was naturally on the cooler side; he was used to it, but actually feeling this warmth made him daze for a moment.
Looking up at the pitch-black ceiling, Li Xi felt troubled; he often found himself unable to handle this child.
At this moment, he forgot that he too was a young cub—or perhaps he had never truly accepted himself in that role.
Half a month later.
Li Xi sat up straight, his eyes fixed on the teaching curriculum on the optical computer.
Beside his hand was a grey notebook. From time to time, he lowered his head to write and draw; soon, neat handwriting filled half the book.
Meanwhile, Yun was lying shamelessly on the sofa with his legs crossed, playing games, occasionally looking up to check on the cub’s learning progress.
Twenty minutes later, the game ended.
The cub was focused on writing. Curious about the content, Yun closed his game, propped himself up, and quietly peeked his head over. When he saw the notes clearly, he was so startled he nearly fell over.
He hurriedly shut off the curriculum while grabbing the writing wrist. “Don’t learn this! And don’t write it!”
Caught off guard by the pressure, Li Xi’s hand slipped, leaving a deep ink mark across the paper. He struggled to poke his head out from under the child and asked, “Why?”
Yun stammered, unable to find the words: “Just… just don’t learn it. This isn’t for you.”
Li Xi reopened the optical computer, skillfully found the curriculum page, and scrolled down. His finger stopped on the lesson he had just been studying: Understanding the Two Hundred Little Schemes of Male Cubs.
Li Xi: “???”
The curriculum played automatically in sequence. After the previous video ended, it had automatically jumped to this one.
Li Xi looked at the scrolling title on the screen; mental question marks slowly began to pop up.
He had wondered why the content didn’t seem to connect with what came before, and why it felt so strange to learn.
Seeing the red word “Required” next to it, Li Xi became even more confused. “Required.”
“Huh?” Yun was dazed.
He suddenly remembered this was his learning account.
“…”
Accounts for males and females were different; the learning content varied slightly.
“This is my required course. You don’t need to learn it,” he said, taking the optical computer to readjust the curriculum. “There.”
“Your account should be with the teacher. They’ll give it to you when school starts,” Yun explained.
Li Xi didn’t care about the account; he gave a casual “Oh” and continued studying.
“Why do we learn different things?” he looked up and asked suddenly.
Yun pinched the optical computer, thinking seriously for a moment. Unable to find an answer, he shook his head: “I don’t know! Probably because we are different.”
“Oh.” Li Xi went back to his studies, his curiosity vanishing as quickly as it had appeared.
Yun: “…”
Half an hour later, Li Xi’s writing grew slower and slower until he finally stopped his pen. He paused the page and looked at the character for “Yun” on the screen, falling into a long silence.
Something flashed through his mind.
Looking at the now-familiar character, he suddenly realized everything. He put down his pen and went upstairs to find their two backpacks.
Yun: “…?”
The figure disappeared around the corner. Yun called out twice with no response. After a thought, he put down his game and trotted after him.
In the bedroom, Li Xi found his blank exam paper and laid it on the bed, then searched for Yun’s backpack. The two exam papers were laid out side by side. On the blank paper, the name column clearly read: “Ri” “Yun” (The components of the name Yun).
The medical record that had slipped out read: No physical abnormalities.
Needless to say, he had been tricked by this bug again.
“What are you looking at? What’s so interesting about an exam… looking…”
The voice at the door grew quieter and quieter.
On the bed lay not just the exams, but also the medical record. Yun, who had one foot in the room, silently pulled it back. A sense of impending doom spread through his body. It seemed the name-swapping on the exam had been discovered, along with his scheme to use a fake injury to take advantage of the situation.
While the cub hadn’t noticed him yet, he prepared to make a run for it.
“Yun.” With just one word, he didn’t dare move. The cub had never called his name with such a cold, flat tone before.
His legs went weak; he had to grab the doorframe to keep from falling. Turning his head, he saw Li Xi actually had a smile on his face: “!!!”
A smile?!
The smile was perfectly placed, yet it gave him a terrifyingly eerie feeling.
“Hahaha.” He immediately forced a smile, awkward but polite. He swallowed, trying to escape the stagnant atmosphere. “Time to eat.”
“Aah—!”
A black shadow streaked toward him.
Yun instinctively raised his arms to block; it was the Kachi Beast plushie the cub usually hugged. While scurrying away like a cornered rat, he pleaded for mercy: “I was wrong! I—I—I at that time, I’d been doing exams for too long! My brain wasn’t clear! I gave the wrong name!”
Another black shadow.
“Ah! Fine, fine! I did it on purpose! Next time… next time I’ll change it back!”
Thud—!
Another shadow.
Yun quickly changed his tune: “Wait, no! There won’t be a next time!”
“Stop catching me!”
For a moment, the scene was chaotic. Black shadows flew everywhere as a golden-haired figure dodged to and fro.
The rare commotion startled the green snake perched on a tree branch. It slid its long body forward, but the moment it poked its head out, it was hit squarely by something. With a “splat,” it fell to the ground. After a dazed moment, it silently curled itself up.
Stay away from the battlefield.
Li Xi leaned over, hands on his knees to catch his breath. Yun hugged the plushie and hid on the balcony. His voice sounded muffled through the glass door, a piteous plea: “Stop chasing me.”
“You really are…” Li Xi took a deep breath and kicked the tightly sealed glass door. “Come out.”
“I’m not coming out!” Yun said.
The male cub was silent for a moment, then suddenly met his gaze. The stillness in his eyes startled Yun, who shrank his neck and instinctively backed away. He decided to strike first with a false accusation, though he couldn’t hide the guilt in his voice: “You—you—you pulled my hair!”
Li Xi, who was shorter than him: “…”
“You—you—you even tore my clothes!”
Li Xi, who was weaker than him: “…”
“And you hit me!”
Li Xi, who was slower than him: “…”
Listening to the nonsensical accusations, Li Xi sneered inwardly.
A few bumps were inevitable while trying to catch the bug, but it wasn’t nearly as ridiculous as the kid claimed. In terms of raw strength, he truly wasn’t the child’s match.
At this moment, Yun’s hair was a mess, and his loose T-shirt was wrinkled and half-slipping off, vaguely revealing a pale gold bug mark on his left shoulder that shined in the sunlight.
The slippers on his feet had vanished. His cheek was pressed tightly against the glass as he pathetically accused Li Xi of bullying, looking as if he had suffered a great grievance.
Such a pro at playing the victim!
Li Xi kicked the slippers on the floor toward the door: “Put your shoes on.”
He took a step back: “I won’t catch you anymore.”
Yun’s eyes lit up: “Really?”
Li Xi glanced at the bug mark.
On a late autumn evening, the temperature could drop in an instant. Yun felt a chill on his shoulder. He looked down and his eyes widened: “!”
There was a course that explained the physiological differences between males and females. One sentence was heavily emphasized:
—The bug marks on a female’s body must never, ever be seen by a strange male.
So, once again, he had accidentally exposed himself while knowing better!!!
He didn’t even want his “lifesaver” plushie anymore. He hurriedly straightened his clothes while peeking at the cub who had retreated to the door at some point. The cub was tilting his head, staring at him without blinking, his eyes reflecting an innocent light.
“!”
Without time to think, he “swish” pulled open the glass door, held his clothes tightly with both hands, and bolted into the bathroom. He slammed the door with a “bang,” completely cutting off the other’s line of sight.
Li Xi looked bewildered.
What happened?
“Didn’t you say you’d get scolded if you did poorly?” Li Xi sat on a single-seat sofa. The child, who usually hated the heat, was wrapped in a coat with a hat on, shrinking into the corner of the sofa. He looked at the floor, the sky, his fingers… anywhere but at Li Xi.
After a moment, Yun spoke weakly: “I wouldn’t…”
Li Xi interrupted: “Hmm?”
Yun squeezed his eyes shut, rubbed his burning ears, and took a “prepared-to-die” stance: “Fine! I got scolded by Teacher Mo.”
“And then?”
“…”
Seeing he couldn’t escape, Yun had to confess honestly. “My female father gave me a few extra glares.”
Thinking back to when he placed the “0” point exam on the desk, his female father’s eyes had turned into ice-cold daggers. He still felt a chill thinking about it now.
Ultimately, nothing much was said; his father just left him with a “don’t let it happen again” and let him come back.
Li Xi silently observed the curled-up bug. Thinking back on recent days, no injuries on the body, no abnormal behavior, he finally felt at ease.
The memory of those deep whip scars he’d seen at the hospital was still fresh. The one who held the whip had clearly intended to be cruel. Li Xi had no doubt that if the child hadn’t been so resilient, he might have lost his life during that beating.
Li Xi thought that the child’s upbringing must be very harsh.
“It’s not like anything happened just because I didn’t test well,” Yun muttered in a low voice, unable to stand the silence and the serious questioning.
Li Xi immediately countered: “If it’s ‘nothing,’ why did you write my name?”
Yun: “…”
Ever since the other party started speaking fluently, Yun couldn’t win a single verbal battle. He slightly regretted the requirement he had made back then.
“I heard them say it’s been many years since a male tested at the bottom. If your score is too low, they’ll look down on you,” Yun explained muffledly. “Your male father’s impression of you would worsen, and your female father might feel disappointed.”
What about you?
Wouldn’t your parents be disappointed?
Li Xi held back the follow-up questions and looked over the exam again. He had only just begun formal studies, so his understanding of the content was only partial. Finally, his gaze fixed on the total score:
—297 points.
The child’s learning ability was very strong.
“Very strong,” he praised instinctively, putting down the paper.
Yun’s drooping head snapped up instantly, the gloom in his eyes swept away: “Right? Right?”
He squeezed himself onto the sofa next to the cub, his finger pressing on the questions marked with an ‘X,’ his pride impossible to hide: “Right here, I got these wrong on purpose. Otherwise, I could have gotten a perfect score!”
The floodgates of his conversation were opened. For the rest of the time, the child switched into chatterbox mode. From the exam to handing it in, to getting the results and being scolded—he recounted every detail.
He even said his parents would surely be very happy to see the score.
By the time Li Xi grew hungry from listening, the child was still clutching his arm, immersed in excitement.
As dusk fell and his stomach “growled” again, Li Xi hesitated but finally interrupted the rambling bug: “Have you thought about how many days I’ve actually attended school?”
“Huh?” Yun was mid-sentence. He stopped abruptly, wondering why Li Xi brought that up. He thought for a moment and said, “It seems only a few days.”
Li Xi pointed at the exam and said, “A total score of 297?”
“And that’s when I couldn’t even recognize the words.”
“Wha-wha-what?”
Yun’s head went blank. Suddenly realizing something, his eyes began to shift.
Li Xi looked at him with a gaze that was as calm as it could possibly be.
In this setting, that smile and that gaze seemed exceptionally eerie. Yun couldn’t help but get goosebumps and shiver.
“Cheater,” Li Xi said. “Bad kid.”
“…”