Tang Yu was a little young master who had been pampered and raised in a literal sugar bowl, but life had suddenly played a cruel joke on him.
It felt as though the happiness of his first sixteen years had been stolen, something he was never meant to enjoy, and now it was all being ripped away at once.
When the Qin family found out about the baby-switching incident, the grandmother was the first to insist he change his last name to Qin. But Tang Yu refused.
He already had the best parents in the world. He was perfectly content being their child forever.
Xie Tianyi had called him an idiot for it. “That’s the Qin family we’re talking about! If you let them take you back, you’d straight-up inherit 30 billion yuan.”
Tang Yu hadn’t bothered explaining much. He just curled his lip in disgust and said, “The name Qin sounds terrible. Pass!” Besides, he wasn’t strapped for cash.
“If you took the name Qin, you’d be called Qin…” Xie Tianyi thought about it for a second and had to agree. “Uh… yeah, you’re right. That really doesn’t sound great.”
Inside the dimly lit room, Tang Yu was buried under his covers, sobbing quietly. Bai Yuenian had come to knock on the door once, but Tang Yu had brushed him off and sent him away.
Beneath the blanket, Tang Yu’s vision blurred. He blinked hard, forcing the tears from his eyes just to read his phone screen.
At the very top of his WeChat screen was a trending news feed, not the familiar family group chat he used to see.
How could he keep forgetting? This was a world inside a book. The “Tang Yu” of this fictional world didn’t have the pinned family group chat or the saved voice notes he treasured so deeply.
Realizing this only made him weep harder.
In the real world, his pinned WeChat chat was his three-member family group. Saved inside it was a two-minute voice note sent by his parents right before their fatal plane crash.
The background noise in the recording had been deafening, a roaring din that made your ears throb.
Yet, a gentle female voice and a steady male voice could still be faintly heard through the chaos.
That was the last thing his parents had left him. They had told him to live a good life, to be happy, to be joyful…
Tang Yu holed up in his room for two hours before finally stepping out. He never expected Bai Yuenian to still be waiting right outside his door.
Panicking, Tang Yu instantly slammed the door shut and bolted into the bathroom to check his reflection.
Holy crap! Who is that rabbit-eyed mess in the mirror?
Fortunately, his eyes weren’t too swollen just a little red around the rims.
Good. He couldn’t let anyone find out that the school’s notorious badass was hiding in his room crying like a baby. That would be way too embarrassing!
Tang Yu washed his face and stepped out again, acting completely casual. “Just had to use the bathroom.”
“Mm.” Bai Yuenian didn’t pry. He simply said, “Dinner was just reheated. Want to eat?”
Tang Yu: “Yes!”
As they headed downstairs, Tang Yu started overthinking again.
How come the second he opened his door, he ran right into this guy? Had he been guarding the door the entire time?
And wait, he actually reheated the food? Was it specifically for him?
Wow… so Bai Yuenian really was deeply in love with the story’s main protagonist, huh? Man, he was starting to regret letting this guy into his house.
Tang Yu was never one to keep his thoughts to himself, so he blurted out, “Were you waiting for me outside the door the whole time?”
Bai Yuenian paused slightly. “No. I just happened to reheat the food and came up to check if you slept well.”
Thank god. Tang Yu breathed a sigh of relief.
Down in the living room, Tang Yu ate his food, occasionally stealing glances at Bai Yuenian.
Bai Yuenian had tossed his backpack onto the sofa and was meticulously smoothing out the test papers that had gotten crumpled during their earlier fight.
God, just looking at him is exhausting!
Tang Yu turned away and grumbled silently to himself. It’s just two stupid test papers. They’re crumpled, so what? Can’t you just read them as they are? Do nerds really have to be this fastidious about homework? Aren’t you tired?
Two minutes later, Tang Yu had finished half his rice. He turned around again, and Bai Yuenian was still flattening the papers.
Tang Yu: “…”
Does this guy have OCD? Is the neatness of a test paper really that vital? Can you not do your homework unless it’s perfectly flat?
His chopsticks hit the bowl with a sharp clink, and Tang Yu marched back upstairs.
Half a minute later, he came back down, holding today’s fresh test paper which only had a single neat fold down the middle and slammed it onto the coffee table. Then, he snatched away Bai Yuenian’s crumpled papers.
The gesture spoke for itself.
“Thanks,” Bai Yuenian said from behind him, his tone sounding genuinely pleased.
Pfft. Nerds are way too easy to please.
Tang Yu shoved his hands into his pockets and gave a cool, detached “Mm” in response.
After eating, Tang Yu took a shower and played two rounds of video games. He sent an in-game message to the girl he had added that afternoon, explaining that he had made a typo earlier, and then deleted her from his friends list.
Feeling like a simple apology wasn’t quite enough, he bought and gifted her a newly released skin for her favorite hero to make up for it.
By the time he finished playing, another half hour had flown by. Tang Yu stretched his arms, grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge, and downed a few gulps. When he turned around, he saw Bai Yuenian fast asleep, curled up on the living room sofa.
The freshly washed and dried blue-and-white school uniform jacket was draped over him. The sofa was too short, leaving his long legs dangling onto the floor, making him look incredibly cramped and pathetic.
Bai Yuenian was only wearing a T-shirt underneath. Sleeping like that, wouldn’t he freeze?
Tang Yu began debating with himself.
He’s definitely going to freeze. The nerd has a weak constitution, caught a chill yesterday, and sleeping like this all night will definitely make him sicker.
Besides, Bai Yuenian looked pale right now, his lips a bit dry, looking every bit like someone coming down with something.
Just as he thought this, a gust of cold wind blew in through the window. Tang Yu walked over to close it, but the window let out a loud, scraping screech.
He immediately whipped his head around to look at Bai Yuenian. The guy didn’t wake up, but he curled himself even tighter into the sofa, seemingly feeling the chill.
With that slight shift, the uniform jacket covering him started to slip off.
Tang Yu walked over to pull the jacket back up.
But in the next split second, Bai Yuenian’s eyelids fluttered open, locking eyes directly with him.
Tang Yu: “…”
Dammit, he just had to meddle.
To make matters worse, Bai Yuenian was staring straight at him, looking like he was processing what was happening.
Whether it was from being stared down or the sheer embarrassment of getting caught fixing the blanket, Tang Yu’s face flushed red. He yanked the jacket all the way up over Bai Yuenian’s head, burying his face completely.
He didn’t forget to bark out a defensive excuse: “It was falling on the floor. I was just picking it up for you.”
Bai Yuenian let out a muffled “Mm,” pulling the uniform jacket back down to drape over his shoulders, still looking cold as he tightened the collar.
This nerd was honestly too obedient. He had been at Tang Yu’s house for three hours now!
Aside from the time he spent reheating dinner, he hadn’t left the living room sofa. His entire world had been confined to the coffee table, studying and doing homework.
If he was cold, couldn’t he find somewhere else to sit? Couldn’t he close the window himself?
How could anyone be this uptight and reserved in someone else’s house?
Aren’t you guys supposed to be childhood friends who grew up together and have an unbreakable bond? Tang Yu momentarily doubted the book’s premise.
Suddenly, Tang Yu realized that if he didn’t say anything, Bai Yuenian would probably just stay curled up on that sofa the entire night.
Tang Yu chugged the rest of his water, grabbed his phone, and walked over to the base of the stairs. “I’m tired. Going up to bed. Come upstairs with me so you don’t wake me up later.”
Hearing this, Bai Yuenian packed up his schoolbag and followed Tang Yu upstairs, staying two or three steps behind.
From this height, the view gave him a perfect look at Tang Yu’s waist-to-hip ratio. The loose T-shirt hung off him, but beneath it, his waist looked incredibly narrow like you could wrap a single hand around it.
Though the boy was lean all over, his hip line curved out into a remarkably pert shape.
Looking further down, Tang Yu was wearing a pair of knee-length shorts after his shower. Bai Yuenian’s gaze abruptly snapped away from the slender, pale, yet subtly toned calves in front of him, letting out an awkward, muffled cough.
Tang Yu stopped in his tracks and turned around. “Did you catch a cold from sleeping in the living room? Do you need a hot shower?”
I’d be lucky if I didn’t need a freezing cold shower right now!
The thought flashed through Bai Yuenian’s mind, startling even himself. He vigorously shook his head, though it wasn’t clear if he was rejecting Tang Yu’s offer or his own rogue thoughts.
He didn’t speak, only pointing to his right arm.
Tang Yu realized. Oh, right! He had forgotten Bai Yuenian’s hand was injured. A shower would be a complete disaster.
But man, even the way this nerd shook his head looked so dorky.
Tang Yu kept walking. When they reached the second floor, Tang Yu turned around and caught a glimpse of Bai Yuenian pressing a hand against his forehead. “What’s wrong? You got a fever?”
He reached out, intending to check Bai Yuenian’s temperature, only to realize that the person who had been following close behind had suddenly dropped back quite a distance.
Bai Yuenian, who had only put his hand over his eyes to stop himself from staring at Tang Yu: “………..”
He shook his head again, denying it. “No fever.”
Then why is your face so red if you’re not sick?
Fine!
Since the guy said so himself, and everyone knows their own body best, Tang Yu didn’t care to press the matter.
“The other rooms here probably haven’t been cleaned in ages. Only my room is clean, so we’ll just have to squeeze in for tonight.”
He pushed the bedroom door open, and then, he watched Bai Yuenian’s eye twitch slightly.
Tang Yu: “What?”
Bai Yuenian looked a little troubled. “Where… should I go?”
There literally didn’t seem to be a single spot in the room where he could actually step!
Scientific studies have proven that a room’s owner is completely blind to the level of chaos in their own territory.
Now that someone had explicitly pointed it out, Tang Yu finally saw it.
He asked Bai Yuenian, “Are you done with your homework?”
Bai Yuenian: “One test paper left.”
Tang Yu quickly cleared a space for Bai Yuenian at the desk. “Then write it here.”
The clearing process was incredibly simple just moving things from one pile to another.
As Bai Yuenian sat down, he couldn’t help but wonder: How can someone store unopened snacks right next to worn socks?
Even if the socks looked perfectly clean.
Just as he was thinking it, a hand darted out and swiftly snatched the socks away from his face.
But someone like this is actually really cute! Bai Yuenian silently added.
Behind him, the beep of the air conditioner echoed as the temperature was turned up.
And someone like this is also very thoughtful.