After that conversation five months ago, Mu Xinghai and Ruan Chen smoothly became friends.
Lin Mu urged Mu Xinghai several times, pressing him to help make the introduction.
Mu Xinghai forwarded Ruan Chen’s WeChat contact to Lin Mu yet inwardly he thought that Ruan Chen might not respond at all.
In truth, things between him and Ruan Chen were progressing rather well.
Ruan Chen began initiating conversations with him. He was especially clumsy at it, their wavelengths never quite aligned but it was obvious that he was trying very hard to find topics.
If Lin Mu had not told him beforehand that Ruan Chen was someone difficult to approach, someone who never took the initiative, Mu Xinghai would certainly have found him boring. He would have left him quietly lying in his contact list, until he faded away without a sound.
Now, however, there was a subtle sense of superiority. Every sentence Ruan Chen sent, every single word, seemed worth pondering over. It made Mu Xinghai increasingly unable to suppress the suspicion,
…that Ruan Chen might actually like him.
It was not only during class.
He also ran into Ruan Chen at the library.
Mu Xinghai had arrived late. After circling around, he found no empty seats.
Ruan Chen was sitting alone in a corner. He peeked at him cautiously but did not dare greet him. It was Mu Xinghai who looked over first and smiled.
Just being illuminated by that bright smile, Ruan Chen reacted like a mimosa touched by a fingertip, shrinking inward. He lowered his head instinctively, perhaps immediately realizing that this was impolite and lifted it again, glancing at him before giving a small nod of acknowledgment.
Mu Xinghai walked over to him and lowered his voice. “Senior Brother, studying on your own?”
Ruan Chen murmured, “Mm.”
Mu Xinghai caught the faint scent of shampoo and soap on him, the cheapest kind sold at the supermarket. It was winter and Ruan Chen was wearing a shirt with a knitted vest over it, the style clearly outdated by at least twenty years. The edges of the shirt collar were worn thin. There was an unmistakable air of poverty about him.
Yet Mu Xinghai thought: like an old fashioned intellectual. It’s oddly distinctive.
Ruan Chen lowered his lashes again, his gaze flickering, not daring to meet Mu Xinghai’s eyes. The tips of his ears reddened. “You can’t find a seat?” he asked.
After saying that, he stood up and began gathering the books on the desk. “I’m about done studying anyway. You can have my seat.”
Mu Xinghai saw the half finished sentence in Ruan Chen’s notebook and immediately knew he was lying. His heart skipped a beat. He pressed his lips together, unable to expose this man who looked so easily startled.
“It’s okay,” Mu Xinghai said. “I’ll just go to one of the study rooms outside.”
“The paid study rooms are so expensive,” Ruan Chen replied. “Take my seat.”
Mu Xinghai found Ruan Chen far more interesting than any book.
The moment Ruan Chen finished packing up, he lowered his head and walked away at once. Mu Xinghai did not sit in the seat he had vacated. Instead, without a word, he followed behind him.
The tips of Ruan Chen’s ears turned a vivid, congested red, almost standing upright.
In the quiet study hall, where even a pin drop could be heard, he could hear Mu Xinghai’s footsteps close behind him.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
It was as though each step landed directly on his heartstrings, tightening them with nervous tension.
After walking a short distance, he realized he could not shake Mu Xinghai off. When he turned around, someone else had already taken the seat he had given up.
What a waste. He had deliberately yielded that seat! A flare of irritation rose in his chest. He shot Mu Xinghai a look, almost as if blaming him.
But Mu Xinghai’s eyes lit up suddenly, as though he had seen something immensely amusing. The corners of his eyes and brows were brimming with laughter and he even smiled at him.
Ruan Chen realized he had lost his composure. He remembered that Mu Xinghai had once complimented his eyes, saying they were beautiful. He immediately did not dare meet his gaze again, afraid of being praised.
Flustered and indignant, he lowered his head and strode out.
When he walked, he also hunched his back ever so slightly.
As though he were forever trying to diminish his own presence, shrinking himself into invisibility. Even while standing amid a crowd, he seemed to exist in another small, separate world, unrelated to anyone around him.
Mu Xinghai thought this as he watched him.
After they stepped out of the library, Mu Xinghai spoke first.
“I’m sorry, Senior Ruan. I wasted the seat you gave up for me and made you angry.”
Ruan Chen replied in a muffled voice, “I’m not angry.”
“Where are you going now?” Mu Xinghai asked again.
Ruan Chen let out a quiet breath. He was soft by nature; even if he felt sullen for a short while, he would calm down quickly on his own. “Back to the dorm,” he said.
“Oh…” Mu Xinghai continued casually, “I heard that PhD students get single rooms. Senior, do you?”
Ruan Chen paused for a moment before answering, “Yes.”
Mu Xinghai followed up as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “I’ve never been to one before. Could you show me around?”
Ruan Chen lowered his head out of habit, hesitating. Mu Xinghai waited for nearly half a minute before he finally heard a reply, so soft it was almost indistinguishable from the buzzing of a mosquito.
“…Mm.”
The first thought that came to Mu Xinghai’s mind after seeing Ruan Chen’s dorm room was this: Ruan Chen was indeed an artistic youth.
The room was simple yet kept impeccably tidy. Slightly old solid wood furniture. Lush green potted plants, carefully tended. A cheap checkered cloth spread neatly across the desk. The curtains were plain, made of coarse linen.
Most of the items looked as though they had been scavenged from a secondhand market yet if someone were to photograph the room and post it online, many would surely fall in love with its literary, vintage aesthetic.
The most eye catching feature was a “bookshelf” assembled from cardboard boxes, stacked together and filled to the brim with books whose titles left Mu Xinghai vaguely bewildered. Beside them was an entire box of DVDs. A quick glance told him they were all old films.
So Senior Ruan was also a film enthusiast. Mu Xinghai thought he could tell Lin Mu about that.
“Senior, your room is really beautiful,” Mu Xinghai praised sincerely.
Ruan Chen thanked him softly. “I’ll pour you some tea.”
The dorm room was not large.
Mu Xinghai sat down on a wooden sofa. Near the bed, he noticed a telescope, covered with a translucent dust cloth. “Senior, you like stargazing too?” he asked.
Ruan Chen was boiling water; it bubbled noisily, gurgling as it reached a rolling boil. Embarrassed, he replied, “Mm. I just look casually. I’m not professional.”
At that moment, Mu Xinghai felt immensely grateful for his sudden whim to ask to visit Ruan Chen’s dorm.
If he hadn’t come, how would he have known that beneath Ruan Chen’s silent exterior lay such richness? To him, Ruan Chen was like a mysterious isolated island, still shrouded in mist, stirring endless curiosity.
The water finished boiling.
Ruan Chen brewed a cup of white chrysanthemum tea. A faint fragrance drifted into the air.
Mu Xinghai was no longer on the sofa. He had sat down on the floor, studying Ruan Chen’s makeshift bookshelf.
A strange sensation crept over Ruan Chen, as if someone were peering directly at his body. He felt uncomfortable all over, his face heating up. A young master from a wealthy family like Mu Xinghai would surely think using cardboard boxes as temporary bookshelves was shabby and poor.
Ruan Chen set the tea on the table and asked, “Aren’t you going to study?”
Mu Xinghai turned around and praised him instead. “Senior, you’re really clever. Using cardboard boxes as bookshelves is so convenient. It’ll be easy to pack up when you move.”
Ruan Chen didn’t know how to respond. Clumsy with words, he simply said thank you.
Mu Xinghai only looked; he didn’t touch anything carelessly. After that, the two of them sat at opposite ends of the small square table and studied quietly.
Ruan Chen, however, couldn’t calm down at all. He couldn’t absorb a single word. He was acutely aware of every movement Mu Xinghai made.
The entire afternoon passed in a state of restless unease, as if he were sitting on a bed of needles.
Finally, at half past four, Ruan Chen said, “The cafeteria should be open now.”
“Let’s go together,” Mu Xinghai said. “I’ll treat you to dinner. Thank you, Senior, for taking me in this afternoon.”
Ruan Chen shook his head and refused again. “No. There’s no need to treat.”
Mu Xinghai looked at him, genuinely confused.
He always had the feeling that Ruan Chen liked him. After all, Ruan Chen would blush in front of him, again and again, shy to the point of embarrassment yet at times, he also emitted an air of distant rejection, as though keeping him thousands of miles away.
Mu Xinghai could only push forward shamelessly; otherwise, Ruan Chen would quietly close himself off again, retreating behind that soft and silent self protection.
Ruan Chen looked so gentle, so easily bullied.
Yet it was as if he were silently gaining control.
If he didn’t wish to approach, Mu Xinghai could not take even a single step forward.
Ruan Chen seemed almost to be driving him away.
Mu Xinghai thought perhaps, for someone as introverted as Ruan Chen, he had misjudged the proper sense of distance today. Maybe he had frightened him.
A trace of regret surfaced in Mu Xinghai’s heart.
But just as he was about to leave, Ruan Chen, standing by the door, suddenly said to him, “Do you want me to save you a seat tomorrow?”
Mu Xinghai did not react at once. “You mean in the library?”
Ruan Chen nodded. “I always go very early. If you need, I can save you a seat.”
“All right,” Mu Xinghai replied with a smile. “Then thank you, Senior.”
Ruan Chen shook his head. “No need to thank me.”
On the way back, Mu Xinghai walked slowly.
His mind was filled entirely with that poor, ordinary, elusive Senior Ruan. He thought about him again and again and then again, unable to stop himself.
Ruan Chen likes him, doesn’t he?
Other than liking him, was there any other way to explain Ruan Chen’s behavior?
There wasn’t, right?
Just then, Mu Xinghai received a message from Lin Mu: “Ruan Chen still won’t talk to me… Do you know what he likes?”
Mu Xinghai thought of the cabinet full of literary books, the old movie DVDs and the stargazing telescope in Ruan Chen’s room.
Night had already fallen.
He stood beneath a broken streetlamp that gave off no light. The air was cold, his fingers stiff with chill as he typed a reply. “I don’t know. I haven’t run into him much lately except during class.”
Lin Mu replied: “Isn’t your girlfriend his junior? Could you trouble her to ask for me?”
Three minutes passed.
Mu Xinghai responded: “I broke up with Jiang Tingting.”
It was Jiang Tingting who cheated.
Mu Xinghai did not type the latter half of that sentence.
He had a certain streak of male pride. He believed that if two people parted, it should be done cleanly and decently. He did not want things to turn ugly. If others found out he had been cheated on, that he had been made a cuckold, it would only invite ridicule.
Besides, Jiang Tingting had pleaded with him. He felt that at the very least, he should have that much magnanimity.
So he kept it to himself.
He planned that after some time had passed, he would tell others that their feelings had faded and that they had parted amicably.
But being dumped by a woman, any man in the world would feel defeated by that.
And so, right now, he cared especially about Ruan Chen’s supposed affection.
It wasn’t as though there weren’t other senior or junior girls who wanted to pursue him yet Ruan Chen was different, Ruan Chen was a man and a rather special, artistic, deeply sentimental one at that.
It gave him a strange satisfaction. See? There was still someone who liked him so intensely. His charm was so great that even a man was secretly in love with him.
He wasn’t gay. He had no intention of accepting a man’s confession, nor would he expose Ruan Chen’s feelings.
But he still wanted Ruan Chen to remain captivated by him.
He would play along for a while longer.
Until he grew bored.
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Fleurveil
[Translator]
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ChaptersChapter 1 · Rear WindowChapter 2 · Kahlil Gibran, “I Have Spit My Soul Seven Times”Chapter 3 · His ToyChapter 4 · Star GazingChapter 5 · Just a dreamChapter 6 · ColdChapter 7 · Yearning for LoveChapter 8 · A Good PersonChapter 9 · Such a good boyChapter 10 · Delivered to your doorChapter 11 · Not familiar with itChapter 12 · First loveChapter 13 · Giving giftsChapter 14 · HeartstringsChapter 15 · Chinese New YearChapter 16 · TruthChapter 17 · SeparateChapter 18 · Planting minesChapter 19 · ChoiceChapter 20 · More hereChapter 21 · Could things have gotten any worse?Chapter 22 · Not because you like me?Chapter 23 · Not because you like me?Chapter 24 · It’s a tangled mess, impossible to unravelChapter 25 · The truth has been revealedChapter 26 · Extra: 1Chapter 27 · Extra: 2Chapter 28 · Extra: 3Chapter 29 · Extra: 4Chapter 30 · Extra: 5Chapter 31 · Extra: 6Chapter 32 · Extra: 7