Lifting his shirt to wipe away sweat, Li Changlin started buttering up at the same time: “Brother Yu, didn’t you say you didn’t watch the video? How come you dance so well?”
“Our Gu Yu is just naturally talented like that. Jealous?” Looking smug, Zhao Che walked over to Gu Yu’s side, casually putting an arm around his shoulder and pulling him slightly closer to himself.
Everyone said in unison, “Jealous to death!”
Gu Yu: “…”
Having just crawled up from the ground, Zhou Wei was mocked mercilessly by Li Rou-rou: “Zhou Wei, ah, I saw that clearly just now. That was a truly miserable fall.”
“You still have the nerve to laugh at me? Rou-rou, did you do a mirror image movement on purpose during the second round?”
“Yeah, specifically to watch you make a fool of yourself.”
“…Well, you successfully saw it then.”
After all, Zhou Wei was standing right in the C-position just now; it was hard not to notice him.
Zhao Che also burst out laughing with a “pfft,” his shoulders quivering lightly. He raised his hand to rub the corner of his mouth, turning his head to speak to Gu Yu, only to be pleasantly surprised to find that the corners of Gu Yu’s usually tightly pursed lips had softened imperceptibly. A faint trace of a smile, like gentle ripples on water, quietly flooded his eyes, and the frost in his gaze gradually melted, leaving only the vibrant life of spring’s arrival.
“Hmm?” Call back by Gu Yu’s light question, Zhao Che’s gaze gradually refocused. Once his sight cleared, he saw Gu Yu slightly frowning with his head tilted, looking at him.
Gu Yu’s eyelashes were very long, casting a row of shadows beneath his eyes. His mouth was slightly open, and perhaps because he had just drunk water, his lips shimmered with a rosy light, looking like delicate, supple jelly. Zhao Che’s throat bobbed, and his hand involuntarily raised itself—seeing that he was about to touch those soft lips—
Smack!
“What are you doing?!” Gu Yu snapped at Zhao Che, putting force behind his stroke as he heavily slapped away the hand that was less than two fingers away from him.
Having been hit, Zhao Che snapped completely awake. The back of his hand instantly flushed red, burning with pain. Not caring whether it hurt or not, he opened his mouth to explain, but received another sharp glare, so he simply shut his mouth.
The others didn’t notice the strange tension in the atmosphere; their attention was entirely on Zhou Wei.
“Damn it, stop laughing!” Zhou Wei tried to save face. “The rhythm was way too fast. I practiced the turtle-speed version at home, okay?!”
Standing behind Zhou Wei, Wei Junjie wanted to laugh but didn’t dare to, holding it in until his face turned red.
Li Rou-rou delivered another ruthless blow: “Oh~ Then how come Brother Yu could keep up?”
Zhou Wei’s heart broke even further. With a tearful face, he turned to Gu Yu for guidance: “Brother Yu, how on earth did you manage to get it right in one go? This humble one begs for your guidance!”
Gu Yu resumed his iceberg face, saying offhandedly with an expressionless look: “No trick to it, just a good memory.”
He said it casually, but to others—especially to Zhou Wei—it was infuriating enough to shorten one’s lifespan.
Li Rou-rou shook her head in admiration on the side: “Brother Yu, you really have cheat codes built into you.”
After class, Wang Xue sent Zhao Che a message in advance: Expected to return home tomorrow.
Holding his phone, Zhao Che replied with a “Got it.” In his past life, Wang Xue and Zhao Guowei were always away on business trips; every time, he and Gu Yu had to eat out, and a few times they even upset their stomachs.
Then again, home-cooked food was always cleaner than food sold outside. For the sake of his and Gu Yu’s health, it seemed necessary for him to find some time to learn how to cook in this life.
Having made up his mind, he stuffed his phone back into his pocket and gingerly tugged at the hem of Gu Yu’s school uniform. Seeing Gu Yu raise his hand, Zhao Che thought he was going to get hit again and quickly pulled his hand back, only to realize that Gu Yu was merely packing up his test papers, not even giving him a glance.
He lowered his head in embarrassment, frantically packing his backpack. The more he thought about it, the more he suspected whether Gu Yu did it on purpose—slapping him so hard that it left a psychological shadow on him. As a result, his hand trembled, sending his pencil pouch and the textbooks on his desk spilling all over the floor, with the eraser rolling straight under Gu Yu’s feet.
Fuck! This damn eraser must be doing it on purpose too!
He closed his eyes, let out a breath, and finally spoke up: “…Could you help me pick it up, deskmate?”
Unsurprisingly, Gu Yu didn’t help him. However, he stood up, whether because he was done packing or to make space, stepping aside from where the eraser lay.
“…”
Sigh, since there’s barely anyone left in the classroom anyway, I guess this is the only way—
Without a word, he crouched down, awkwardly crawling under the desk, stretching his arm out as far as he could to retrieve the eraser that possessed such exceptional “spatial awareness.”
“What are you doing, Brother Che?” Wei Junjie asked in confusion as he walked back to fetch his things and witnessed this scene.
Hearing the footsteps coming closer, Zhao Che tried to stand up. Before his legs could straighten, his head bumped hard against the metal frame with a loud “thud.”
“Fuck.” The hit made him shut his eyes tight in pain, gripping the eraser until it almost deformed. Just then, a clean, fair hand unexpectedly reached down and pulled him up.
“Fool.” Leaving behind this merciless insult, the person who pulled him up crouched down to help gather the textbooks scattered on the floor.
“Are you okay, Brother Che?” Seeing the mess on the ground, Wei Junjie also came over to help. “How did this happen?”
Zhao Che rubbed his head, his cheeks feeling a bit warm as he muttered softly, “It’s nothing, just my hand slipped.”
Damn it, I’m already twenty-four, what am I getting shy about? Wasn’t it just getting scolded once by Gu Yu? Zhao Che, when did you become so thin-skinned?
On the way home after school, neither of them spoke. Seeing that they were almost at the bus stop, Zhao Che thought to himself: Food is life! He hurriedly grabbed Gu Yu, who was walking ahead: “Um… we have to solve our dinner outside again today.”
After being pulled back, Gu Yu stood still on the spot. Slinging his backpack over one shoulder, he looked at Zhao Che without speaking, as if waiting for him to continue.
“Let’s eat at the mall. It’s not far anyway.”
Gu Yu lowered his eyes, indicating his tacit agreement.
“Then let’s go. Haven’t been there in a long time,” Zhao Che remarked with emotion, twitching the corner of his lips before releasing his hand from Gu Yu’s arm.
Gu Yu shot him a puzzled glance but said nothing.
The mall was only a seven or eight-minute walk from No. 2 Experimental High School, and the two arrived in no time.
Looking at the familiar clam-shaped shopping mall in front of him, Zhao Che noticed it was no different from his memory—even the decor of the small coffee shop sitting beside it hadn’t changed.
In his past life, after Gu Yu left, Zhao Che had never returned here. He threw almost all his time into work, let alone making time to stroll around places like malls—at most, he would relax a bit during business entertainments.
He often relied on alcohol to numb his thoughts, drowning all those feelings of hatred and love, burying the heartbreak and the beauty, and casting aside the struggles and resignations, allowing himself to temporarily escape from those tangled, contradictory, and painful emotions.
He and Gu Yu stepped into the mall. It was peak hour right now, and the crowd inside was mixed with quite a few schoolmates wearing the same uniform as them. Scanning around the entrance, he asked, “What do you want to eat?”
“Anything.”
“How about that rice noodle place we used to go to?”
“Mm.”
That rice noodle shop wasn’t very conspicuous inside the mall. The reason he and Gu Yu used to frequent it was simply because there was no need to queue, and the environment inside was quiet and neat.
Seeing them, the owner greeted them warmly: “Welcome, handsome guys!”
“Go sit down first, I’ll go order,” Zhao Che pointed to an empty seat by the window, signaling Gu Yu to take a seat there first.
Gu Yu didn’t argue either, carrying his backpack over to sit down.
Seeing him sit down obediently, Zhao Che picked up the menu and scanned it back and forth. When his eyes landed on the beef rice noodles, scenes of them eating here in their past life suddenly flashed through his mind.
Back then, the owner asked: “What would you like to eat, handsome guys?”
He spoke first: “Beef rice noodles, medium spicy.”
The owner noted it down, then looked at Gu Yu.
Gu Yu’s gaze lingered on the menu for a long time. Even though he stared at the tomato rice noodles the longest, in the end, he still ordered the same thing as Zhao Che.
“Same.”
Zhao Che hadn’t said anything back then, but vague memories now resurfaced in his mind: every time Gu Yu finished eating the rice noodles, his lips would be slightly swollen, and his voice would carry an imperceptible nasal tone, sounding soft and sticky at the end.
Unable to figure it out back then, Zhao Che had asked bluntly: “Gu Yu, can you actually not handle medium spicy?”
He saw Gu Yu’s hand gripping his chopsticks tighten, though the movement of stirring the noodles in his bowl didn’t stop, as if he wanted to finish quickly and end this “torture.”
Stiffening his neck, Gu Yu said, “You’re overthinking.” The awkwardness in his eyes looked as though a secret he had hidden for a long time had been exposed.
As if he hadn’t heard, Zhao Che asked again: “Do you want to switch to mild?”
Gu Yu looked up at him, his eyelashes fluttering slightly as he said, “No need.”
In their past life, Gu Yu cared too much about saving face. Even if it was spicy, he would stubbornly force himself to finish, and Zhao Che had asked too directly back then. But in this life, he understood Gu Yu’s little awkwardness and had long learned to plan ahead.
Thinking of this, he said in a low voice to the owner: “Two orders of beef rice noodles—one medium spicy, one mild. Please make sure to serve the mild one to that handsome guy over there.” After finishing, he even signaled with his eyes, deeply afraid the owner might serve them wrong.
“Alright!”
Before long, steaming bowls of rice noodles were served. The bowl covered with a layer of glistening chili oil was placed in front of Zhao Che, while the bowl before Gu Yu had only a few stray drops of red oil floating on the milky white broth.
Gu Yu frowned slightly, thinking they had gotten the order wrong, and looked over at the person sitting across from him: “Is this bowl yours?”
Isn’t it usually medium spicy? Did Zhao Che change his taste?
Who knew that right after he asked, Zhao Che had already picked up a mouthful of noodles, stuffed it into his mouth, chewed twice, swallowed, and pretended to be careless, saying apologetically: “Ah? I forgot…”
Gu Yu fell silent for a moment, suspecting Zhao Che did it on purpose, but finding no evidence. He could only reply softly, “Mm.”
He lowered his head and slurped a mouthful of noodles. As the warm rice noodles slid down his throat, that hint of spiciness felt like a thin veil—lacking the usual burning, searing pain, it instead brought out the fresh richness of the original broth.
Still feeling a bit puzzled, he asked, “Why did you suddenly order mild?”
Zhao Che smiled and said, “Recommended by the class monitor! She said mild tastes much better than medium spicy, and that too much chili actually covers up the original flavor of the rice noodles.”
“Mm,” Gu Yu responded.
Zhao Che unscrewed a bottle of water, gulped down two mouthfuls, and asked again, “How does it taste?”
“Pretty good.” Looking at Zhao Che chugging water, Gu Yu hesitated: “Is it very spicy?”
Unexpectedly, the other opened his mouth, fanning air toward his face with his hand while exaggeratingly saying: “Spicy to death!”
Seeing him like this, Gu Yu felt a sense of relief in his heart—so he wasn’t the only one who found medium spicy too hot.
“Then… order another bowl of mild?”
“No need, I’m almost full.”
Zhao Che spoke with a natural tone. In just a few brief words, the awkward feeling in Gu Yu’s heart—that “not being able to handle spicy food means losing face”—quietly dissipated.
Instead, Zhao Che had given him a legitimate reason, allowing him to accept the mild bowl with peace of mind and no psychological burden whatsoever.
Zhao Che added, “If you think it tastes good, let’s both order mild next time, okay?”
“Okay.”