With the teacher watching closely, Xu Yanghe didn’t whisper to Xie Chun. He simply kept a firm grip on him to prevent him from turning around and spouting more bold words at Lin He.
Instead, Xu Yanghe sent Xie Chun a message.
[Xu Yanghe: Why is this guy bullying you?]
[Xie Chun: Does this level count as bullying?]
Looking at Xie Chun’s blank expression as he sent that reply, Xu Yanghe felt a surge of nameless anger.
[Xu Yanghe: Yes.]
Xie Chun’s head tilted as he processed this for a moment.
[Xie Chun: Oh.]
He’s going to be the death of me, Xu Yanghe thought.
During the five-minute break, regardless of Xie Chun’s wishes, Xu Yanghe held him in place.
Lin He seemed to be heading to the restroom. Xu Yanghe tracked him with his eyes, waiting until the guy reached the door of the computer lab before calling out loudly: “Student Lin He!”
His voice was powerful, deliberately projected so that everyone in the classroom could hear. Those who loved gossip were already looking over.
Lin He had no choice but to turn around. “Who is it? What do you want?”
“Student Lin He,” Xu Yanghe continued in a loud, clear, and articulate voice, “Is this your student ID?”
Xu Yanghe wasn’t in the same major, but everyone knew he was close with Zhou Lan. Their backgrounds were similar—both were wealthy “young masters”—so Lin He didn’t dare to confront them directly.
Lin He had to walk back.
Xu Yanghe didn’t lower his volume one bit. “It’s the student ID left in the consultation room of Dr. Zhang, the one treating fungal athlete’s foot at the school clinic, Student Lin He!”
“What are you talking about? I’ve never even been to the clinic,” Lin He frowned, confused, his tone becoming rude.
They had been arguing since the start of class, and Lin He’s roommates had noticed long ago. They all walked over to speak up for him. “Hey, what nonsense are you talking about? we’re all in the same dorm as Lin He. How would we not know if he had a fungal athlete’s foot or whatever?”
“Is that so?” Xu Yanghe smiled. “That condition is highly contagious. If you don’t pay attention to personal hygiene, it’s very easy to catch. If you have it yourself, naturally you wouldn’t be able to smell the same scent on others.”
“What the hell are you saying?” Lin He’s roommates shouted.
Surrounding students were already whispering.
“So they can’t smell it themselves?” “I told you, it stinks every time I sit in front of their dorm mates.” “Haven’t you smelled it? Let me describe it to you…” “And they love to rest their feet on the front row chairs and shake them.” “I heard from a senior in the Student Union that when they did a hygiene inspection of their dorm, the smell was indescribable. There were mushrooms growing on the socks.” …
Lin He and his group turned red with anger and frustration.
Xu Yanghe handed back the student ID, still adding: “Remember to wash your socks, classmate, or mushrooms will grow.”
By the time the delay was over, the five-minute break had ended. Lin He hadn’t made it to the restroom and spent the second half of the class shaking his legs even more irritably.
After class, the teacher asked Xie Chun and another student to stay behind for a moment. Xu Yanghe stood by the door waiting for him.
“I heard from Teacher Lin that your ACM team is still short one person this year? This is Li Qian from the Information Security major…”
Leaning against the wall, Xu Yanghe listened to them go back and forth until the conversation became too technical for him to follow.
Xie Chun exchanged contact info with the Li kid and came out.
Xu Yanghe tilted his head, looking at Xie Chun’s phone as they walked. “Keeping busy?”
“It’s okay,” Xie Chun said. “Teacher Lin said I should still focus on Mathematical Modeling; ACM is just a side thing.”
“Lin Weihua?” The old man who had failed him in Advanced Math.
Xie Chun nodded. “Yes.”
There was a long queue for the elevator, so the two entered the empty stairwell.
“Why be such a ‘grinder’?” Xu Yanghe pouted.
Xie Chun said, “It makes it easier to find a job.”
As if. Xu Yanghe scoffed. “That old fox is definitely hoping you’ll stay for a Master’s degree under him.”
“No, I’ve discussed this with Teacher Lin,” Xie Chun said seriously. “Given my circumstances, I won’t be going to grad school.”
Xu Yanghe stared at Xie Chun, saying in his mind: He’s lying to you just to get you to win awards for his own professional title. When you’re close to graduating, he’ll use ‘sunk cost’ to coax you into staying at this school for grad school.
He remained quiet for a while until Xie Chun asked, “When did you go to the school clinic?”
“I didn’t,” Xu Yanghe said.
Then how did he pick up Lin He’s student ID? Xie Chun’s brain failed to compute.
His eyes went blank, and his knee buckled, nearly missing a step.
Xu Yanghe immediately hooked an arm around Xie Chun’s waist, hoisting him up.
After Xie Chun regained his footing, he finally replied to the previous question: “Oh.”
Xu Yanghe was speechless. The fool had evidently found some way to rationalize it in his own mind.
At noon, Xie Chun went to cook clay-pot rice noodles, and Xu Yanghe waited in the shop. Around 2:00 PM, the customer flow finally dwindled. Xie Chun brought out two staff meals and sat down to eat with Xu Yanghe.
Xu Yanghe didn’t think the shop’s food was particularly great; it likely succeeded because it was cheap and provided large portions.
“You still haven’t answered one of my questions,” Xu Yanghe said.
Xie Chun: “Ah?”
“Why does that Lin He provoke you so much?” Xu Yanghe asked.
This went back to when they first started university.
Aside from Xie Chun, the other three in his dorm were “young masters” who usually hung out with Xu Yanghe. Naturally, Xie Chun spent more time with Lin He’s dorm next door, as their lifestyles were more modest.
For a period, Xie Chun and Lin He were particularly close. After all, Xie Chun was good-tempered, unsophisticated, and loved to study—making him an easy target to hang around. As for Xie Chun, his precise “gaydar” had alerted him that he had found a fellow traveler.
“Stop!” Xu Yanghe looked at him suspiciously. “How exactly does your ‘gaydar’ work?”
Xie Chun downed the rest of his soup in one go.
Xu Yanghe couldn’t stop him. “Drink less of that. You cook it yourself; don’t you know it’s just made from seasoning packets?”
Xie Chun wiped his mouth with a tissue and put his glasses back on. “If it’s a straight man…” He half-stood, his upper body leaning in rapidly, staring directly into Xu Yanghe’s eyes. “Being looked at by me like this…”
Xu Yanghe felt his heart skip a beat before it began to race. Xie Chun’s eyes were clear and pure, reflecting Xu Yanghe’s own shadow. How did that ancient prose go?
“Like swimming in the void with nothing to rely on.”
The black frames partially hid the red mole, making it look like a smudge of something caught there, yet it wasn’t repulsive. Instead, it birthed an impulse to reach out and wipe it away. It made his face look translucent, every eyebrow hair visible. Xu Yanghe looked down and swallowed.
“He would do this!” Xie Chun suddenly recoiled, crossing his arms over his chest affectatiously and mimicking a voice: “Xie Chun, you sissy, what the hell are you looking at?!”
Then, in his normal flat voice: “And I’d say: I’m looking at you.”
“And if it’s a gay man?” Xu Yanghe took a sip of water.
Xie Chun sat back down. “Same as you.”
Xu Yanghe: “…”
“So, you’ve looked at many people like this?” Xu Yanghe asked.
Xie Chun said, “Not this close.”
Xu Yanghe’s mind quickly replayed their first meeting.
That was true…
But one question remained: “In what situation were you looking at that straight man like that?”
“We had two swimming classes in high school,” Xie Chun said.
Xu Yanghe went silent. “You deserved to be yelled at.”
Xie Chun went back to talking about Lin He.
He never intended to hide his sexuality, but Xu Yanghe figured Xie Chun’s traits weren’t really “hideable” anyway.
One day, Lin He went to Xie Chun’s dorm to ask for the answers to the weekly homework. Lin He sat at Xie Chun’s desk, scrolling through photos on Xie Chun’s phone. With one swipe, amidst the math problems, there appeared a blonde, blue-eyed, posing naked man.
Xu Yanghe covered his face. “And how did he react?”
“He turned pale with fright, flung my arm away, threw my phone, and bolted from the room,” Xie Chun described vividly. “He looked at the sky, the ground, and my roommates, stammering ‘You, I, uh, holy shit,’ and ran away… then he turned back to call me a disgusting sissy.”
Later, no one knew what Lin He told his roommates, but the group began to ostracize and play tricks on Xie Chun.
Xie Chun went to the boss to collect his daily wages, and the two walked home together.
Xu Yanghe asked, “Does that Lin He also discriminate against Zhou Lan?”
“No,” Xie Chun shook his head.
“Then he’s just a bully who picks on the weak—a bad person,” Xu Yanghe said. For someone so intensely homophobic, shouldn’t Zhou Lan, who didn’t care about gender, be even more worth discriminating against than Xie Chun?
“Not necessarily a bad person,” Xie Chun said. “Everyone’s moral baseline is different. Some people are homophobic and just stay away from gay people. Others feel that by ‘exposing’ someone lower than them, they can alleviate their own stress or unhappiness. They walk up to someone and deliberately stomp their feet just to vent. It’s a natural difference.”
Realizing they were still outside, Xu Yanghe just ruffled Xie Chun’s hair. “You’re quite open-minded.”
He wondered how much contempt and targeting Xie Chun had faced to summarize it like that.
“Of course, when necessary, I’ll punch him,” Xie Chun added.
…
Xie Chun became busier and busier. Between preparing for competitions at school and keeping up with four or five part-time jobs, he was stretched thin.
At 3:00 AM, the wonton soup Xu Yanghe had cooked for him had already turned into a soggy paste.
At 5:00 AM, Xie Chun finally returned, saying it would be fine just to reheat it.
Xu Yanghe shot him a look but went to heat the wontons anyway. “So late today. I was starving waiting for you.”
Xie Chun lowered his head and yawned. “I had two extra meetings at school, so my shift at Blue Sea got pushed back.”
Xu Yanghe said, “I want to eat half.”
“Okay.” Xie Chun followed him around lazily.
Xu Yanghe heated the soup and seared a steak in a pan. While Xie Chun slurped half the wontons, Xu Yanghe dumped half of the sliced steak into his bowl. He looked down and saw Xie Chun calculating his accounts.
Xu Yanghe grabbed his own bowl and chopsticks, asking while eating, “How much did you make, working day and night?”
Xie Chun said, “Twenty thousand. I won’t get beaten up by debt collectors in the middle of this month.”
Why is he still worrying about those scammers?
Xie Chun’s bowl was empty. Xu Yanghe ordered him, “Go check if I forgot to turn off the stove.”
“Okay.” Xie Chun was very obedient. He put down his phone and went.
Xu Yanghe immediately snatched Xie Chun’s phone, which was still on, intending to block those scammers directly.
But before he could even open the contacts, notification banners started popping up one after another.
Xu Yanghe: “?”
A girl?