The next day it was sheer willpower that got Ruan Yan out of bed.
He and Jiang Tingnan had carried on until nearly midnight before going to sleep. Ruan Yan felt like a scholar drained dry by a fox spirit, not a single drop left in him.
Jiang Tingnan was still in the kitchen. Ruan Yan staggered up and went to wash up with his eyes practically closed.
Only when the water hit his face did he feel a little more awake.
Ruan Yan washed up at top speed, and the moment he turned around, he very nearly walked into Jiang Tingnan’s chest.
Jiang Tingnan steadied him by the waist, that low voice sounding above his head. “Up so early, baby. Do you want to sleep a while longer?”
With the library shift on his mind, Ruan Yan shook his head and said offhandedly, “I’ve got a class this morning.”
Jiang Tingnan frowned. “Your timetable has no classes today.”
Ruan Yan choked.
Aargh, he’d nearly forgotten. Jiang Tingnan could recite his timetable backwards by now.
The panic woke him completely. Ruan Yan was about to speak when Jiang Tingnan pinched his cheek, pushing his mouth into a pout.
He blinked.
Jiang Tingnan looked down at him and said flatly, “You have five minutes to invent a better lie for me to hear.”
Ruan Yan, “……”
Five minutes later Jiang Tingnan was blowing on a bowl of congee while Ruan Yan sat obediently at his side. “So here’s the thing. I’ve been extremely diligent lately, sitting in on other people’s classes.”
Jiang Tingnan cooled a spoonful and fed it straight into Ruan Yan’s mouth. “Credibility: ten points.”
Ruan Yan gulped the congee down. “Actually, the orange cat downstairs in our dorm building is about to give birth, and I’m going to help deliver the kittens.”
Jiang Tingnan gave an “mm.” “Credibility: thirty points. Keep at it.”
Ruan Yan fell silent.
Ruan Yan flew into a small rage.
“Jiang Tingnan, what is that supposed to mean? You’d sooner believe a tomcat is having kittens than believe I’d go and study? This is an outrage!”
There was laughter in Jiang Tingnan’s eyes.
This time the spoon came to Ruan Yan’s lips and he pouted and refused it.
Jiang Tingnan coaxed him. “I believe you. I do.”
“Baby, I don’t want to keep too tight a rein on you either. You’re at university now, you should have your own space, your own friends.”
Ruan Yan was frankly astounded.
He’d never expected to hear anything so magnanimous come out of Jiang Tingnan’s mouth.
He took the bowl and downed the whole thing in gulps.
Then showed Jiang Tingnan the empty bottom as a token of his sincerity.
Jiang Tingnan’s mouth curved.
After the meal, seeing that Ruan Yan really was in a hurry, Jiang Tingnan didn’t keep him, taking him back to school and reminding him to see his teacher today about the paperwork for living off campus.
At the school gate, watching Ruan Yan’s back recede, the smile faded from Jiang Tingnan’s face. He took out his phone and opened an app, on which a small black dot was moving along bit by bit.
For a man of Jiang Tingnan’s abilities, installing a tracker on Ruan Yan’s phone was about as taxing as kindergarten arithmetic.
Not long ago his mouth had been producing high-sounding phrases about not keeping too tight a rein and having his own space, and here he was staring at his wife’s location like a pervert.
Jiang Tingnan felt no shame about it whatsoever. He considered it a point of pride.
Keeping a close watch on one’s wife, wasn’t that a thing every man ought to do?
My love is still young, and who knows what disreputable sorts might be out there trying to get at him.
Only once he’d confirmed that Ruan Yan had gone into the school and not come out again did Jiang Tingnan put the phone away and leave.
What he’d said wasn’t wrong, as it happened.
Ruan Yan could have his own small privacies.
But strictly within a range he could control.
Jiang Tingnan had a pile of things to get through today.
He needed to secure premises for the studio.
The moment Li Han heard he was renting a place, he came hurrying along too, ostensibly to assist the boss, in reality to see what this little boss of his was actually made of.
Jiang Tingnan didn’t refuse.
Li Han’s connections were broader than his own, and with his help things would indeed move more smoothly.
After touring two office buildings with the agent, Jiang Tingnan settled on one a little more out of the way, for the simple reason that it was cheaper.
He told Li Han plainly, “What’s left still has to cover your salary.”
Li Han was speechless. “Didn’t you just make fifty thousand two days ago.”
Jiang Tingnan said it as a matter of course. “I want to buy my wife another bag.”
“You…… aren’t you a first year?” Li Han was shocked. “You’re married?”
Talk about bringing up the one thing he shouldn’t.
Jiang Tingnan’s expression soured. “Not married yet. But we will be, sooner or later.”
Li Han laughed. “So you’re still just dating. I’d never have guessed. You seem so much more mature than others your age, and here you are, the sort who knows how to keep a partner happy.”
At the mention of his wife, Jiang Tingnan’s face softened. “He’s wonderful. Very well behaved, very gentle.”
“Bullshit!!”
Ruan Yan slapped the desk. “What right does he have to say that?!!”
Han Qiu tried to calm him from the side. “Don’t talk like that, he is a teacher.”
“So what if he’s a teacher? Does being a teacher mean he gets to falsely accuse people as he pleases!!”
Ruan Yan paced around the room in his fury.
He’d just had word from the general affairs office that he needn’t come to the library job anymore.
Their counselor had specifically spoken with him about it: someone like Ruan Yan, who casually carried several hundred yuan around in his bag, clearly wasn’t short of money and had no business taking up a work-study place.
One day into the job and it had simply vanished just like that.
Ruan Yan explained himself at length and with great effort, but the teacher said there was nothing he could do, the counselor being the teacher directly responsible for overseeing them.
The general affairs teacher was a decent person and Ruan Yan didn’t want to put him in a difficult position, so he only said quietly that it was fine, thank you, teacher, and hung up.
He’d meant to storm straight to the counselor’s office, but Han Qiu stopped him.
“Leave it. If he wants to trip you up he can manage it in a minute. If you don’t have this job, then you don’t have it.”
Seeing Ruan Yan still furious with his fists clenched, Han Qiu expertly produced his little notebook and held it out to him. “Write it down and tell on him to your husband later.”
“……”
Ruan Yan took the notebook resentfully, wrote two lines, then lifted his head. “Am I being too spineless about this?”
“Spineless how? It’s only a job. I’ll help you find another.”
Han Qiu thumped his own chest. “I joined a part-time work group the other day, and the pay in there is quite good.”
Ruan Yan brightened again. “Thank you, Qiu Qiu. Don’t worry, when my husband has money, I’ll give you a house.”
Han Qiu, “…… You really don’t have to make such a huge promise.”
Setting the job aside, Ruan Yan started fretting over the off-campus paperwork, which needed the counselor’s signature, and as matters stood there was a ninety percent chance he wouldn’t sign it.
Han Qiu suggested he might buy some fruit and give it to him.
“Forget it.” Ruan Yan looked thoroughly unwilling. “I’d far rather spend that money on my husband.”
Hopeless. Love-brain.
In the end Ruan Yan had no choice and steeled himself to knock on the counselor’s office door.
On hearing that Ruan Yan wanted to apply to live off campus, the counselor unexpectedly didn’t make things too difficult, presumably reckoning it meant one less troublemaker in the dormitory, since otherwise there was no telling how many fights Ruan Yan and Jia Cheng would end up having.
But the procedure still had to be followed.
He told Ruan Yan to call home.
Ruan Yan froze.
What was he supposed to say?
If he told Ms. Liu Zhen he was moving out to live with his husband, she’d come down and rip him apart.
After dawdling for ages, Ruan Yan called Jiang Tingnan.
The call connected quickly.
Before Jiang Tingnan could speak, Ruan Yan got in first. “Brother, I’m moving out, remember? Our university counselor needs to speak with someone from my family.”
The counselor looked at him suspiciously. “You have a brother?”
Ruan Yan smiled sweetly. “I do, I do.”
Afraid of being exposed, he handed the phone straight over.
Apart from occasionally being awkward with his words in front of Ruan Yan, Jiang Tingnan’s communication skills were first rate. Ruan Yan had no idea what he said, but the counselor soon nodded and handed the phone back.
“That’s settled. You can move out today.”
Ruan Yan breathed a sigh of relief.
Once he was out of the office, the call was still connected, so Ruan Yan lifted the phone to his ear again. “Husband, are you still busy?”
There was a moment’s silence on the other end, and then Jiang Tingnan’s voice came low. “Yan Yan, is somebody at school bullying you?”
Ruan Yan’s heart skipped a beat.
“No, no?” Ruan Yan tightened his grip on the phone a little. “Just kidding, as if I’d let anyone bully me. Wasn’t applying to live off campus something we decided on together? I’m moving into our new home.”
Jiang Tingnan was silent.
Something was off.
The call hadn’t been disconnected, and Jiang Tingnan had heard only a few lines of Ruan Yan’s exchange with the counselor. Everything they had said was perfectly ordinary, and yet Jiang Tingnan heard something wrong in Ruan Yan’s tone.
There was no other reason.
He simply knew Ruan Yan far too well.
But Jiang Tingnan didn’t call him out on it. He only glanced at the time. “Wait for me a moment, baby. I’ll come and get you.”
“Okay! I’ll go and start packing then.”
There wasn’t much to pack, in truth. Ruan Yan had only been living there for half a month, and one suitcase was more or less full.
Han Qiu helped him pack, reluctant to part with him. “Now I’ve got nobody to eat with.”
Ruan Yan hurried over to hug him. “Oh, come on, we can still eat together after class. I’m only moving out of the dorm, I haven’t dropped out.”
Han Qiu thought about it. “True.”
Ruan Yan dawdled, and was only halfway through packing when a knock came at the door.
He was busy, so Han Qiu went to open it.
Seeing who stood there, Han Qiu froze for a moment and quickly turned back. “Ruan Yan, your husband’s here.”
He had grown so used to hearing Ruan Yan call him that that the words slipped out without him thinking.
Han Qiu felt awkward, but the man in question looked perfectly natural about it. Jiang Tingnan asked politely, “May I come in?”
Han Qiu stepped aside at once. “Come in, please, come in.”
Ruan Yan was digging clothes out of the wardrobe and turned at the sound, surprised. “How did you get straight up here? Did you call me?”
Jiang Tingnan didn’t answer that. Carrying a bagful of snacks, he set it down on the table and nodded to Han Qiu. “Thank you for looking after Yan Yan these past weeks.”
He remembered Han Qiu. A very good friend of Ruan Yan’s.
Han Qiu shook his head. “Not at all, not at all. Yan Yan has helped me a great deal too.”
Besides the snacks, Jiang Tingnan had bought some fruit. He stopped Ruan Yan from cramming any more clothes into the suitcase. “I’ll fold these for you, baby. Do you want to go wash some fruit?”
It was a rare thing indeed for Jiang Tingnan to ask Ruan Yan to do a little work.
Ruan Yan thought nothing of it, assuming Jiang Tingnan wanted him to wash the fruit for Han Qiu. He nodded and carried the bag out.
The moment Ruan Yan was gone, Jiang Tingnan turned his gaze on Han Qiu and said evenly, “This may be presumptuous, but I’d like to ask all the same. Has Yan Yan had any conflicts with anyone these past weeks?”