Chen Jinshan was entirely alone in the dorm room.
Outside the balcony, a silent, fine drizzle fell.
He opened his drawer and retrieved a large, white satin scrunchie.
Shortly after, the sound of a zipper being pulled down cut through the quiet room.
Parting his lips slightly, he bit down on the scrunchie, his hand gripping his already fully erect length.
Closing his eyes, Zhou Xiaqing materialized in his mind exactly like that.
Unclad.
The skin across her entire body was fair and delicate, glistening with a light sheen of fine sweat.
Her silky, pitch-black long hair spilled over her shoulders, a few stray strands damply clinging to her neck.
She was kneeling astride him, her upper body leaning back slightly as she propped herself up on the bed with her arms, her slender waist swaying back and forth.
Her tight, warm heat tightly enveloped him.
Her gaze was dazed and alluring, her pink lips parted a fraction, her soft chest rocking in tandem with her movements.
She was truly beautiful.
As if unsatisfied with the current intensity, she knit her brows slightly, bringing her legs up to a squatting position to increase the vertical range of her strokes.
The stroking speed of his large hand grew faster and faster.
The rhythmic sound of skin slapping echoed in his ears.
In his imagination, he saw her staring at him passionately, two fingers slipped inside her mouth, her hair flying wildly and joyously.
Finally unable to endure it any longer, she cried out in a trembling voice: “Jinshan… Chen Jinshan… I’m almost there…”
His hand continued its frenetic pace.
The white scrunchie slipped from his mouth as he let out a low groan, entirely powerless to restrain himself: “Wait for me, Zhouzhou…”
His voice was deep and hoarse, sounding as though it had been suppressed and cooped up for an eternity.
She threw her head back, gasping heavily, the lines of her neck slender and fluid.
The bright white light from above shone down over her; she kept her eyes closed to experience it all to the absolute fullest.
With her radiant hair catching the light, her gasping form carried a hint of divinity.
In that fleeting instant, it was as if he were looking at a goddess.
Zhou Xiaqing.
Zhouzhou.
A thick, scalding white fluid erupted.
After pulling out a few tissues to wipe himself clean, Chen Jinshan sat blankly in the hanging chair, waiting for his breathing to stabilize.
The white scrunchie had fallen onto the cushion of the chair.
He went to the sink to wash his hands, scrubbing them thoroughly clean before picking up the scrunchie and carefully placing it back into the drawer.
He then grabbed his pajamas and headed into the bathroom to shower.
The moment the bathroom door clicked shut, Gao Zhiyang cautiously peeled back a corner of his bed curtain, shaking his head with a profound expression and letting out a quiet click of his tongue.
He had stayed up late the previous night and hadn’t slept well, and then he had gorged himself on a massive amount of rice today leaving him so deeply affected by a carb crash that he had fallen asleep the absolute second his body hit the mattress upon returning to the dorm.
When he woke up, he originally intended to draw back his curtains and climb down, but hearing the commotion coming from Chen Jinshan’s side, he decided it was best to play dead.
Harboring the mindset of “I absolutely cannot scare little Shanshan into erectile dysfunction,” he lay motionless on his bed, refraining from making even the slightest sound.
Silently praising his own monumental contributions as a stellar bro in his heart, Gao Zhiyang practically moved himself to tears.
Just as his mind was drifting off in a wave of self-induction, he suddenly caught a familiar name “Zhouzhou” and pieces of the puzzle instantly clicked together.
Gao Zhiyang looked toward the crumpled tissues in the trash can, a thoughtful smirk spreading across his face.
Look at you, still putting on an act like you aren’t interested in her.
Who knows how many times you’ve rewatched Zhouzhou’s videos on the down-low.
To think you’re actually thinking about Zhouzhou while jerking off.
You’re already pinning after her to this extent.
Tsk, just watch how your bro gives you a helping hand.
Gao Zhiyang was a man of immediate action.
The very next afternoon, the moment their training session wrapped up, he dragged Chen Jinshan straight toward the milk tea shop located right outside the campus gates.
The light rain continued to pitter-patter down.
Holding an umbrella in one hand, Chen Jinshan repeatedly wrenched himself free from the hand slung over his shoulder, halting his steps. “I don’t drink milk tea. I’m not going.”
“Didn’t you drink that… banana milkshake thing when we were abroad last time?” Gao Zhiyang recalled.
“We were supposed to be rushing to the subway to catch our flight, yet you specifically ran into a convenience store just to buy a banana milkshake.”
He immediately escalated the matter to a philosophical level: “What, is the moon sweeter abroad? Chen Jinshan, you are a thoroughly homegrown Chinese athlete!”
Having spent so much time with him, Gao Zhiyang expected Chen Jinshan to aggressively fire back a retort under normal circumstances.
Today, however, the guy was uncannily calm, lowering his eyes as if pondering something deeply before finally speaking: “The banana milkshake was really good.”
“The milk tea at the newly opened shop outside the school is good too! Let’s go try it!”
Refusing to take no for an answer, he hauled Chen Jinshan forward.
Only when they reached the storefront of the milk tea shop did he extend his arm, draping it over Chen Jinshan’s shoulders as he whispered mysteriously, “Little Shanshan, you seriously need to thank your bro.”
“Thank you for what? My dear son,” Chen Jinshan sneered.
“Still in denial, are we? I guarantee you’ll be crying tears of gratitude toward me in a minute.”
Gao Zhiyang wore the look of an unsung hero hiding his merit and fame.
“Is there milk tea so good it makes you cry? That magical?” Chen Jinshan was thoroughly bewildered.
“The magical part isn’t the milk tea.”
“What kind of absolute bullshit are you spewing?”
“Crude! Your bro is bringing you here to march toward your dreams.”
“Speak human language.”
“You’ll know once you step inside.”
Walking over to shake out and fold their umbrellas, they pushed open the shop door and walked in, one after the other.
Perhaps due to the rainy weather, there weren’t many students inside the shop.
Gao Zhiyang swept his eyes around the room, grinning as he waved toward a short-haired girl sitting in the corner.
Seated right next to the girl was a young woman with long, flowing hair.
She possessed delicate, elegant features and wore a pristine white maxi dress paired with a milk-blue cardigan quiet, gentle, and striking enough to command attention just by sitting there.
Just as Gao Zhiyang was about to step forward, he found that Chen Jinshan had already deadpan enquired with the clerk: “Hello, excuse me, do we have any milk tea here that’s so good it makes people cry?”
If they did, he’d bring a cup back for Zhou Xiaqing, claiming his mother had told him to buy it.
Gao Zhiyang was left speechless.
He yanked him over, and the two of them sat down directly across from the two girls.
Chen Jinshan was entirely at a loss, yet he still politely nodded to greet the two girls opposite them.
They exchanged a few pleasantries.
Seizing the opportunity while the two girls looked down at their phones to deliberate on what milk tea to order, Chen Jinshan nudged Gao Zhiyang with his elbow, lowering his voice to demand: “Who are they?”
Gao Zhiyang looked at him with an incisive gaze, as if he had seen right through his facade. “Still faking it? You’re telling me you don’t even recognize Zhouzhou?”
Zhouzhou?
“Oh right, my name is Wang Yiran,” the short-haired girl opposite them introduced herself.
“I’m Zhou Zhou,” the long-haired girl immediately followed up.
So it was this ‘Zhou Zhou’.
Out of his peripheral vision, Gao Zhiyang was winking at him like crazy.
Connecting it to everything the guy had rattled on about earlier, Chen Jinshan finally figured out his friend’s misguided intentions.
He aimlessly chatted along with the three of them, his brain working at breakneck speed as he devised a plausible excuse to slip away without making things awkward.
His mind had completely detached from his body, drifting off into space, until an ordinary-volumed sentence abruptly shattered his reverie: “Xiaqing, look over there isn’t that Gao Zhiyang and your childhood friend?”
Chen Jinshan turned his head mechanically.
He saw Zhou Xiaqing standing right before the ordering counter, remaining completely silent.
Her facial expression was entirely flat, and the gaze she directed over was cold, hard, and distant.
Her eyes lingered on him for a mere couple of seconds before she turned back around decisively, without a single shred of attachment.
His mind instantly went pitch black, two bolded words violently filling his head.
Disgust.
That was a look of pure disgust.
Chen Jinshan was absolutely certain of it.
Did she misunderstand?
Did she find him utterly repulsive?
They had been intimate together just a month ago, and now he was here on a group blind date with other girls.
He lowered his head powerlessly.
Suddenly, a scene from a very, very long time ago flashed vividly into his mind back when he had thrown pebbles at someone’s window, received a joint beating from his parents, and Zhou Xiaqing had run over to his house to visit him.
At that time, he had been lying miserably on his stomach on the bed.
She sat by his bedside, asking him in a soft, gentle voice: “Chen Jinshan, does your butt hurt?”
“Of course it hurts! How could it not! It hurts like hell!!” he had bellowed at the top of his lungs.
“My skin is split open! It’s too gruesome to look at!”
“Then I hurt too… I have phantom pain”
As she spoke, her voice had actually cracked with a sob.
She usually bore her own injuries silently without making a sound, yet she was crying for him.
Tears had drenched her soft, thick eyelashes, tracking down her cheeks and leaving a faint trail.
At that exact moment, he forgot all about the pain in his rear.
He hurriedly reached up to wipe her tears away with his sleeve, forcing a bright smile: “Zhouzhou, actually it doesn’t hurt at all, I was just messing with you.”
He had even propped his body up with his arms to make an exaggerated, silly face.
Zhou Xiaqing had burst into a laugh through her tears.
Back then, her young eyes had been entirely consumed by worry for him.
Yet at this very moment, nothing but disgust remained.
Beyond simply disliking him, Zhou Xiaqing must currently think he was vile to the core.
What was he supposed to do?
An uncontrollable chill spread through his hands and feet, the blood throughout his body freezing solid.
Chen Jinshan froze right on the spot, his consciousness completely drifting away.
A warm fluid trickled out from his nasal passage.
He faintly heard the girl sitting opposite him let out a startled cry: “You’re bleeding from your nose!”