“Don’t, don’t come any closer.”
Ming Rao looked like his tail was on fire, stumbling backward in a rush, looking as if he was ready to fight to the death. “Come any closer and I’ll throw something at you.”
“Are you sure?” Yan Yuchuan advanced slowly, then glanced meaningfully at what Ming Rao was clutching to his chest. “That’s your camera.”
Ming Rao bit his lip. “Then move out of the way. I’m leaving.”
“Fine.” Yan Yuchuan answered crisply, tossing a thin, flat object into the air before catching it in his palm.
Ming Rao squinted to get a better look.
It was,
His camera’s memory card!
Yan Yuchuan had stolen his memory card! That bastard!
His feet suddenly felt rooted to the ground, unable to move an inch. Who knew what kind of things this pervert had filmed last night, and what he planned to do with them?!
“So are you leaving or not? If not, come inside. I’m carrying stuff, and I’m tired.”
Ming Rao was still processing the fact that he’d apparently become the star of a scandalous photo shoot overnight. He couldn’t leave, but he couldn’t stay either. His expression shifted through a storm of emotions until he finally resigned himself. “Fine. What do you want?”
Yan Yuchuan walked past him and stepped into the kitchen in a few strides. Ming Rao followed closely, but the kitchen was too small for two people, so he could only block the doorway. “Name your price. I guarantee I can pay you more than you’d make selling it.”
Yan Yuchuan shot him a glance, silently filled a pot with water, set it on the stove to boil, and turned to leave again.
Ming Rao wisely stepped aside to let him pass, muttering, “What you’re doing is illegal, you know that? That video is evidence of your crime. If you show it to anyone without my consent, I’ll sue you for sexual assault. You’d get at least three to five years. By the time you get out, your girlfriend will have run off with someone else, and you’ll die alone!”
“Mhm, you know the law well.” Yan Yuchuan let out an unreadable laugh and took two eggs from the fridge.
Ming Rao still hadn’t fully recovered his stomach ached dully and his head was foggy. After all that fussing, he was running low on energy, so he obediently sat down on the sofa.
He listlessly scanned the bare-bones room, failing to find an air conditioner anywhere. No wonder it was so hot.
Only then did Ming Rao notice he was wearing Yan Yuchuan’s clothes, which reeked of cheap laundry detergent.
Where the hell did this guy come from? How could he be poor in every single way imaginable?
When Yan Yuchuan came out of the kitchen, he set a bowl of noodles on the coffee table, then sat down beside Ming Rao.
There was no dining table in the place, and the coffee table was too low, so the only way to eat was to pick the bowl up. Ming Rao glanced at it watery broth, an ugly fried egg on top. He had zero appetite.
As a broke loser, Yan Yuchuan really couldn’t cook worth a damn. But Ming Rao’s stomach was growling too loudly to resist, so he humiliatingly picked up the chopsticks. One bite, and he put them down.
Yan Yuchuan shot him a sidelong glance. Ming Rao pouted. “It’s bland.”
“With a stomach like yours, what flavor are you expecting?” Yan Yuchuan said coldly. “Eat up. Then take your medicine.”
Ming Rao defended himself earnestly: “I have gastroenteritis, not a lost sense of taste.”
Yan Yuchuan couldn’t be bothered to argue. “Suit yourself. Don’t eat, then.”
And true to his word, Ming Rao didn’t eat. He immediately pulled out his phone and buried himself in it, sulking in silence.
Yan Yuchuan figured his kindness had been wasted on a dog.
Starve to death, then. It wasn’t his stomach that had the problem.
Just then, the dog looked up, blinking. “Where is this place?”
“The East District.”
The East District was Port City’s slum. No wonder Ming Rao wasn’t familiar with it at all. He scrolled through his phone for a moment, then held the screen up for Yan Yuchuan to see. “Let’s go eat this.”
Yan Yuchuan looked. Ming Rao had opened a food review app, showing a place only three hundred meters from where Yan Yuchuan lived, tucked in an alley right behind his building. Based on the reviews, plenty of people made the trip specifically to buy a specialty dried plum vegetable pancake from this shop.
Yan Yuchuan vaguely remembered that street being full of greasy hole-in-the-wall joints. Who knew this little rich boy had such trash taste.
“This place is super famous Little Sweet Potato has recommended it to me like five times,” Ming Rao said, tugging at Yan Yuchuan’s sleeve. “Come on. I’m buying.”
Yan Yuchuan thought to himself that the place was filthy and there was no way he’d eat there. But now he was starting to realize that Ming Rao’s bad stomach was probably self-inflicted the guy ate nothing but garbage… Yet Ming Rao would rather eat garbage than his noodles. Yan Yuchuan remembered the two boxes of medicine he’d bought, which had cost him more than he’d wanted to spend. He needed to make sure Ming Rao actually took them. With that thought, he let Ming Rao drag him along.
The alley twisted and turned, and the shop was tucked away in some obscure corner, making it a hassle to find. It was seven in the morning, and the tiny storefront was packed, with nearly every table ordering that dried plum pancake.
Yan Yuchuan had already eaten his fill of noodles, so he ordered one pancake and a bowl of porridge for Ming Rao. When the food arrived, Ming Rao took a photo of it like he was performing some kind of ritual.
He couldn’t stop singing the praises of that junk food crispy, fragrant, slightly sweet but not greasy and insisted that Yan Yuchuan take a bite.
Yan Yuchuan said indifferently, “I don’t eat food that others have already bitten into.”
Were poor people this picky these days?
Ming Rao took a deep breath, so irritated his teeth itched. “Can’t you just not eat the part I bit?”
Yan Yuchuan ignored him, burying his head in his phone.
“…”
Finally, Ming Rao said in defeat, “Fine, I’ll break off a piece for you, okay?”
Yan Yuchuan took it gladly. “Don’t misunderstand I’m just worried about contagious diseases.”
Ming Rao rolled his eyes. “I have gastroenteritis. It’s not contagious to you.”
“I’m worried you might have other diseases.”
Ming Rao slammed his chopsticks onto the bowl, his voice thunderous: “Then why weren’t you afraid I had a disease last night?!”
“…”
The already small eatery fell into utter silence at that earth-shattering outburst. Diners at nearby tables glanced over at them, deliberately or not. Ming Rao lowered his head, face flushed crimson, and quietly continued eating.
His stomach hadn’t fully recovered, so he needed to chew slowly, and he didn’t want to waste food, so he took a long time. Yan Yuchuan glanced at his watch. Seven-thirty.
Back at the cheap rental apartment, Yan Yuchuan poured a glass of water and had Ming Rao take his medicine. When he changed clothes, he saw Ming Rao still standing at his door. “You’re still not leaving?”
“You delete the video first.”
“What video?”
“You know exactly what I’m talking about.”
Yan Yuchuan let out a sigh and stepped closer to Ming Rao, forcing him to tilt his head back slightly just to meet his eyes. This annoyed Ming Rao, what the hell did this guy eat to grow so tall?
“Did I do anything to you,” Yan Yuchuan said in a low voice, “or not? Don’t you know yourself?”
Ming Rao said with righteous indignation, “I was unconscious. How would I know?”
Yan Yuchuan looked thoughtful, narrowing his eyes. “You’re a virgin, aren’t you.”
One foot was already out the door, but Ming Rao still refused to leave.
“Suit yourself,” Yan Yuchuan glanced at his watch again. “I start work at eight. Make yourself at home.”
“You’re not locking the door?”
Yan Yuchuan let out a chuckle. “Feel free to rummage around. Anything valuable you find, it’s yours.”
With that, he actually left. Ming Rao searched high and low there really was nothing in this place. He didn’t even have room to cause any damage, so in the end, all he could do was feebly mess up his bed.
Outside the window hung the clothes from last night, now dry, carrying the scent of Yan Yuchuan’s cheap laundry detergent.
After a bout of impotent rage, Ming Rao found it pointless and finally hailed a cab to leave.
After what happened that night, Lu Feiyang successfully got Yan Yuchuan blacklisted by every bar on the street. Yan Yuchuan had no choice but to find a spot farther away, bought a beat-up motorcycle, and commuted twenty minutes each way all things considered, it was worth it.
He now worked three jobs a day: one morning shift and two evening shifts. Since the Innovation Camp hadn’t started yet, he could pick up odd jobs during the day. Combined with the money from Lin Zhihao and the others, he could barely scrape by in Platinum Harbor.
He also borrowed a student ID card from a Platinum University student who wasn’t staying on campus over the summer through a secondhand marketplace site. That let him sneak into the school, enter the teaching buildings and library, and attend the Innovation Camp’s public lectures.
However, without official Innovation Camp credentials, he still couldn’t enter the Cognitive Neuroscience Research Institute building. This building was jointly donated by Platinum Harbor’s five major tech innovation groups and housed the most cutting-edge laboratories.
Yan Yuchuan had racked his brains to come to Platinum Harbor for two reasons: first, the funding platform, and second, the unparalleled research environment here.
He had an extremely bold concept about memory, and only the cognitive neuroscience laboratory here could provide the conditions needed for proof-of-concept.
For now, Yan Yuchuan could only hope that at some public lecture, he’d be lucky enough to meet a mentor who appreciated him, someone willing to hear his concept and lend a hand outside the Innovation Camp’s scope maybe then a new opportunity would arise.
The odds were slim, but he was willing to try. Since he’d made up his mind to come to Platinum Harbor, he didn’t want to go back empty-handed and disgraced.
Two days before the Innovation Camp began, Yan Yuchuan set aside an entire day with no shifts scheduled. Using his borrowed student ID, he reserved a study room in the library to put the final polish on his proposal.
The study rooms were on the second floor of the library, partitioned by glass, requiring a card swipe at the entrance to get in. Just as Yan Yuchuan swiped open the door, a figure sprang up from the sofa behind him and slipped in before he could react.
Yan Yuchuan watched helplessly as Ming Rao pulled up a chair and sat down beside him. He asked stiffly, “What are you doing here?”
“I should be asking you that. What are you doing in Platinum University’s student library?” Ming Rao deliberately emphasized the word “student.”
Borrowing a student ID wasn’t exactly honorable, and having been caught red-handed, Yan Yuchuan’s tone softened slightly. “What do you want?”
In truth, Ming Rao had been staking out Yan Yuchuan for days, but his schedule was unpredictable he’d gone to the shabby apartment building several times without finding him. This time, lying in wait at the library, he’d finally caught him.
“It’s still the same thing. Are you going to delete the video or not?”
“I didn’t do anything to you that day. Can you leave now?” Yan Yuchuan replied impatiently while plugging in his laptop.
“You’re trying to fool who? You already took my clothes off, you even sat on top of me. Oh right, and you were drugged too and you still dare say you did nothing?”
Yan Yuchuan’s mind was entirely on his proposal, and he had no patience to argue with him. “The moment I saw your face, I lost all interest. Couldn’t do a thing. Satisfied now?”
Ming Rao blinked twice. Yan Yuchuan suddenly noticed how dark his pupils were, like glass beads, which made him look even more like a porcelain doll.
Throwing harsh words at a porcelain doll made him feel like an idiot. Yan Yuchuan dropped it. “Forget it. Do whatever you want. I’m busy.”
Ming Rao sat down beside him, and before long leaned over, propping his chin on his hand. “What are you doing?”
“M-e-m-o-r-y E-d-i-t-i-n-g S-u-r-g-e-r-y,” Ming Rao read off his computer screen. “This is your project? That’s impressive.”
Yan Yuchuan let out a quiet, unimpressed snort.
Ming Rao added, “It’s fake, right? I don’t believe it.”
Yan Yuchuan shot him a sharp glare, tempted to argue but deciding it wasn’t worth it. In the end, he just said, “Believe what you want.”
Then, lowering his voice, he muttered a barely audible “airhead.”
But Ming Rao still heard it. He reacted as if his tail had been burned, every hair on end. “What did you say? Who are you calling an airhead?”
“Whoever’s the airhead, that’s who I’m calling.”
“You have the nerve to call me that,” Ming Rao said, face flushing red. “You rapist!”
At those three words, Yan Yuchuan’s brow furrowed involuntarily. Though what he’d done that night wasn’t exactly aboveboard, he’d been humiliated first he was simply giving tit for tat. In the end, he hadn’t done anything at all, and had even wasted two boxes of medicine on the ordeal, which he still hadn’t gotten Ming Rao to pay back.
He loathed the way Ming Rao twisted the facts and perched on a moral high ground. He just wanted this person gone from his sight. Taking a deep breath, he said, “Use your brain, will you? If I’d done something to you, and filmed it without telling you, what would I gain? Keep it for myself, jerk off to your face at night? Do you think you’re that attractive? Work backwards from that since I’m not blackmailing you now, it means I don’t have a video, which further means I did nothing. Got it?”
Ming Rao was stunned speechless for a moment. Part of him admitted the logic made sense, yet an indescribable bitterness welled up in his chest. He ultimately chalked it up to: Yan Yuchuan really couldn’t say anything decent if his life depended on it!
“Then taking off my clothes was real, wasn’t it? How do I know you didn’t film something you shouldn’t have? Maybe you’re saving it to blackmail me years later when you need something!”
Yan Yuchuan was thoroughly fed up. He had to finish the proposal today, so he opened a folder and turned the laptop screen toward Ming Rao.
The lighting in the video was dim, but Ming Rao recognized it instantly the abandoned warehouse from that night.
The moment he saw the video, Ming Rao felt relieved.
Though Yan Yuchuan had used a fill light, he wasn’t a professional and hadn’t aimed it correctly. All you could vaguely make out was a person on the ground, their face completely indistinguishable.
If this video ever got out, it would only expose Yan Yuchuan himself. Ming Rao was completely safe.
Finally, Ming Rao breathed a sigh of relief. But just then, in the video, Yan Yuchuan stood up and walked to a corner.
That corner sat at the lower-left edge of the frame, but it happened to be exactly where the fill light was pointed, illuminating everything that happened in full clarity.
Yan Yuchuan tilted his head back, his Adam’s apple bobbing, chest heaving, long fingers interlaced.
Ming Rao’s camera had excellent audio pickup you could clearly hear every ragged breath, and the low, guttural sound at the moment of release.
The moment the video ended, Yan Yuchuan snatched the laptop back, quickly hit delete, emptied the recycle bin, and turned the screen back to Ming Rao. “That’s the entire recording from that day. It’s deleted now. If you think I filmed something else, then I don’t know what to”
“I get it,” Ming Rao cut him off stiffly. “I won’t bother you anymore. You go ahead and work—I’m leaving.”
With that, he fled quickly.
Yan Yuchuan couldn’t quite believe he’d gotten rid of him that easily. He checked the glass door of the study room several times to confirm Ming Rao was really gone before settling down to work on his proposal.
After leaving the study room, Ming Rao walked at a rapid pace. For the first time, he felt the school library was so vast from the study room to the restroom at the other end felt like thousands of miles.
Once inside the restroom, he dashed into a stall, turned to shut the door, pressed the back of his head against it, and closed his eyes. Finally, just like Yan Yuchuan in the video, he let out a trembling cry.
But his voice sounded nothing like Yan Yuchuan’s not that low, sultry tone that invited all sorts of thoughts…
He was still wearing the clothes Yan Yuchuan had washed for him that day, which carried a lingering scent of cheap laundry detergent, reminding him of Yan Yuchuan.
The air grew gradually humid, stifling… until, within the smell of detergent, Ming Rao caught a trace of his own indescribable scent.
He actually.
actually.
Leaning against the wall of the bathroom stall, Ming Rao took a deep breath, trying to regain his composure and process everything that had just happened.