Jiang Lu said nothing, acting as if he hadn’t noticed, and didn’t continue rolling up Lin Xuan’s trouser leg. To avoid other people’s gazes, he even rolled it down a bit.
“I’ll go buy some medicine,” he said. “Bear with it for a moment and wait for me here, okay?”
“Let’s go together,” Lin Xuan said in a low voice. “It doesn’t hurt much, I can manage.”
How could it not hurt? Jiang Lu thought to himself. With such a severe injury, just looking at it made him start feeling phantom pains, let alone the person actually getting hurt, Lin Xuan, whose face had gone completely pale.
“Don’t you want to eat a hand-grabbed pancake?” he said. “Wait here for the uncle to make it.”
Lin Xuan sighed. “Alright, sorry to trouble you, classmate Xiaolu.”
“It’s nothing,” Jiang Lu said, lowering his head to tap twice on his phone. He had already scanned the QR code earlier and now only needed to input the amount to pay. “I’ve paid, you can just pick it up directly.”
As he spoke, Jiang Lu flashed the payment page in front of the uncle and then left.
There were many pharmacies near the university, and they weren’t far away, just a few steps and he had arrived.
Lin Xuan watched Jiang Lu’s receding figure, his eyes dark and deep. He lowered his gaze to look at the injury; his sock, soaked through by the rain, clung stickily to his heel, but he only gave a slight frown and didn’t pay it any mind.
There weren’t many people in the pharmacy. Jiang Lu bought the necessary items, and before coming back, he messaged Lin Xuan to ask for his shoe size, bought a pair of new socks, and returned just in time to see Lin Xuan laboriously propping himself up to take the hand-grabbed pancake handed over by the uncle.
He walked over quickly, helped Lin Xuan sit down, squatted in front of him, and prepared to treat him temporarily.
Considering that rubbing alcohol was too irritating, Jiang Lu didn’t buy disinfecting alcohol, opting for iodine instead, but before spraying it, he still warned, “It might still hurt a bit, bear with it.”
“Okay,” Lin Xuan lowered his gaze.
Jiang Lu’s technique wasn’t very practiced, but at least his hands didn’t shake. After quickly debriding the wound for Lin Xuan, he wrapped it up with gauze.
Lin Xuan watched his movements, then suddenly asked in a low voice, “Has classmate Xiaolu done this sort of thing before?”
“Rarely.” Jiang Lu packed up his things, glanced at the time, and asked, “Do you live in the dorms?”
“I rented a place near the school.” Lin Xuan handed the hand-grabbed pancake to him, gripped his arm, and used a little leverage to stand up. “But it’s a bit of a distance.”
It was time to head to the classroom now, or he would end up late later.
Jiang Lu’s fingertips brushed against the piping-hot hand-grabbed pancake. Not saying he wanted to leave, he looked at Lin Xuan with a somewhat troubled expression. “Then your foot…”
“You’re about to be late, right?” Lin Xuan smiled faintly, seeing right through his thoughts. “I can take a cab back, I just need to walk a short distance after getting out of the car.”
Jiang Lu seriously considered the feasibility of this method.
“Or, I can go wait for you at a restaurant.” Lin Xuan looked at his face and continued.
Jiang Lu widened his eyes slightly. “Ah?”
“Didn’t I say earlier that I’d treat you to dinner tonight?” Lin Xuan said. “You skipped dinner because of me, and now because of me you might not even have time to eat a hand-grabbed pancake either. I really feel bad about it, let me treat you to dinner tonight.”
Jiang Lu licked the corner of his lips, just about to say it didn’t matter, when he saw Lin Xuan lower his eyebrows and say in a low voice, “Don’t refuse me, classmate Xiaolu.”
“Alright.” Jiang Lu hesitated for a moment, let out a soft sigh, and compromised. “Where should we eat? Our dormitory curfew is eleven o’clock, if it’s too far that might not work.”
“Right around here.”
Lin Xuan named a restaurant, which was a well-known dining spot near Yan University.
Jiang Lu dropped Lin Xuan off at the restaurant to sit down before hurrying away.
After he left, Lin Xuan leisurely took a bite of the hand-grabbed pancake, his expression calm.
Shortly after, a punk-styled young man took a seat at a table not far away. Strangely enough, even after coming indoors, he didn’t take off his helmet.
Lin Xuan’s gaze made brief contact with him.
The young man flipped through the menu, finally let out an impatient click of his tongue, stood up abruptly, attracting the gazes of many people nearby, and swaggered away.
The dorms were far away, so Jiang Lu had asked Xie Yu to bring his books over.
Lin Xuan must have been bored waiting, as he sent messages to him from time to time.
He was very talkative. Fortunately, evening class was a relatively minor elective; whenever Jiang Lu saw the messages, he would reply to him, otherwise Lin Xuan might have had to wait until class ended to get his responses.
“Still chatting with that what’s-his-name Lin Xuan?” Xie Yu glanced sideways at his phone. “Does this guy surnamed Lin harbor malicious intentions and is trying to seduce you?”
Chen Feng, separated from them by Shi Jiayu and Jiang Lu, snapped back at him: “Some people have dirty hearts, so everything they look at looks dirty.”
“Who’s barking?”
“You fucking idiot.”
“Did you figure out how to beat the self-made i_wanna levels yet? I saw you tinkering and studying it all afternoon. If you still haven’t figured it out, hurry up and go back to playing your 4399 makeup minigames instead of embarrassing us students of Yan University.”
Chen Feng flashed an international friendly gesture toward Xie Yu with a snap.
“Here they go again,” Shi Jiayu said miserably, covering his ears and whispering into Jiang Lu’s ear.
Jiang Lu nodded with a serious expression, burying his head alongside him to clear some space for the two of them. Fortunately, the projector was playing movie clips at the moment, so no one paid attention to the commotion in their corner.
Xie Yu pinched the tip of Jiang Lu’s ear. “What are you two whispering about over here?”
Jiang Lu covered his ear to keep him from pinching. “Nothing much.”
“Why are you hiding?” Xie Yu said, his fingers brushing against Jiang Lu’s warm fingertips.
Shi Jiayu sneered: “Little deer baby is about to have his ears pinched into pointy elf ears by you.”
“How great would that be,” Xie Yu said, holding back a smile. “Our dorm will have one more little elf.”
Chen Feng: “You’re genuinely a freak, you know that.”
Jiang Lu covered his ears and muttered softly: “Xie Yu is so annoying!”
It sounded just like acting spoiled.
In the end, Jiang Lu didn’t let Xie Yu get his way; after class, he handed his books to Shi Jiayu and slipped away, leaving Xie Yu to rub his fingers with a hint of regret.
He clicked his tongue, causing the other two to look over side by side. “I just have this feeling that this guy surnamed Lin has impure motives.”
“I beg you to stop projecting your own perversions onto others,” Chen Feng said.
Xie Yu stretched lazily and didn’t speak.
Before class ended, Lin Xuan had consulted his opinion and ordered the dishes in advance. When Jiang Lu arrived, the dishes had just been fully served.
Lin Xuan poured a cup of water and pushed it in front of him. “Have some water.”
Jiang Lu had hurried all the way over; he took the cup and drank more than half of it. Patiently, Lin Xuan scalded a set of bowls and chopsticks, placing them right in front of him.
“Thank you.” Jiang Lu curved his eyes, suddenly remembering something, and asked, “Will your family be okay with you eating out?”
“They don’t care anymore. Sorry, I didn’t make it clear earlier.” Lin Xuan picked up the serving chopsticks and placed a piece of sweet and sour pork into his bowl. “Didn’t you say you were hungry just now? Let’s eat first.”
Jiang Lu was indeed hungry; that hand-grabbed pancake had already been digested completely.
The sweet-and-sour flavor of the sauce and the savory aroma of the meat exploded on his taste buds. Without realizing it, Jiang Lu narrowed his eyes in enjoyment.
Like a little cat.
Taking advantage of the motion of lowering his head, Lin Xuan observed Jiang Lu’s expression, watching him chew with his cheeks puffed out. As his throat moved, the minced meat was swallowed down into his stomach.
Even eating looks this cute.
Lin Xuan picked up his water cup, his Adam’s apple moving leisurely, his gaze remaining fixed on Jiang Lu’s face while his fingertips tapped unconsciously against the rim of the cup.
No one could be cuter than him.
The first time Lin Xuan truly saw Jiang Lu in the real sense was at the back alley of No. 1 High School. Jiang Lu had his back to him, earnestly reasoning with a dairy-cow-patterned cat that reigned supreme and ran amok in the school’s back alley.
Because when he walked through this back alley, he had been ambushed by the dairy cat crouching on the top of the wall, taking two solid thumps to the head.
While Jiang Lu was reasoning with it, the dairy cat crouched high and mighty on the wall licking its paws, disdainfully glancing down at the human chattering away about goodness knows what below.
In the end, Jiang Lu still compromised, pulled a ham sausage out of his schoolbag, and served it to the cat master to eat, while sentimentally muttering to himself, “It’s so good to be a cat. If you find someone displeasing to the eye you just give them two slaps, and you even get ham sausage to eat. Sigh.”
In that back alley with its bleak lighting, Jiang Lu’s face was half-hidden in the gloom. Those slightly youthful, light-colored eyes didn’t show a shred of gloominess even in the dimness, as if no negative emotions could ever leave a trace in his eyes.
That face was breathtakingly pretty, enough to make a man fall in love with him at first sight.
Holding an old diary in his hand, Lin Xuan stood in the dark and watched him for a long time, his eyebrows lowered expressionlessly as terrifying, private desires quietly took root and sprouted.
The second time he saw Jiang Lu was after he had been assaulted.
He leaned silently against the stained wall of the back alley, neither calling for help nor trying to save himself, sinking entirely into the dark colors as if he had already become a corpse.
Jiang Lu was accustomed to coming here every night to feed that dairy cat. Suddenly seeing a human limb extending from the darkness, he was badly startled, almost thinking the man was truly dead.
After learning the truth, he didn’t say anything else, simply sitting down beside him and finally asking him, “I heard the night view of Yan City is very pretty right now. I rented a helicopter, do you want to come with me?”
Sitting in the gloom, Lin Xuan silently watched his silhouette in the darkness for a long time. Those unspeakable, twisted, private desires finally grew wild branches and sprouted frantically, wrapping tightly around his heart without leaving a gap.
Didn’t you notice?
He thought darkly.
Everyone knows I am dark, perverted, and psychologically twisted; bright and glamorous on the surface, but a puddle of mud underneath. That’s why they all loathe me and keep their distance from me.
Only you.
Only you don’t know the unspoken rules of this school.
Why are you so cute?
Why so foolish?
When he was six years old, he had a pretty little bird. He liked it very much, allowing it to perch on his shoulders and the top of his head, even indulging it by letting it use his hair to build a nest.
Later on, it died.
Lin Xuan never liked another little bird again.
But now.
Gently biting the rim of his cup, looking at Jiang Lu’s long, thick, curled eyelashes and his slightly puffed-up, cute cheeks, Lin Xuan thought to himself that he had finally found his beloved little bird again.
He would be even prettier, more obedient, and well-behaved than the little bird he once possessed.
Only this time, the moment he also wanted to leave him, he would snap his wings, break his legs, and imprison him by his side forever, unable to leave for all eternity.