“Beep, beep… beep, beep!”
A phone began ringing.
Li Xingchuan glanced at the caller’s name on his screen and answered, a little surprised. “Hello?”
“Where are you?” Shan Bai asked. “Are you coming back yet?”
Li Xingchuan replied, “I’m on my way back. I’ll be there in about ten minutes. Do you want me to bring you anything? Although, there aren’t many shops open around here anymore.”
“Oh, oh, no, nothing.” Shan Bai racked his brains, desperately trying to come up with a convincing reason for making the call. Suddenly, inspiration struck. “Uh, so, the instructor just came to check the dormitories. He noticed you weren’t there and got really angry. You’d better hurry back!”
Li Xingchuan didn’t suspect a thing. “Okay, I’ll be right there.”
He then turned to Luo Song and Lin Jinrong and said, “They actually checked the dormitories. My roommate just told me.”
The three of them immediately went on high alert. Their leisurely walking pace instantly turned into a light jog, and they hurried back toward the military training base, panting as they ran through the slightly oppressive summer air.
They still had several hundred meters to go.
“Slow down, you two! We just finished eating. Running like this right afterward can give you appendicitis…” Luo Song’s field of vision bounced up and down with every step. He raised his head and glanced toward the base before remarking, “It feels like the sky is a whole lot darker around here.”
Lin Jinrong agreed. “I think so, too. Maybe it’s because there’s a mountain right beside the base.”
They followed the same route they had taken earlier, climbed back over the little iron gate, and then tiptoed toward the dormitory building, trying to sneak back inside without making a sound.
Unfortunately, they were caught red-handed by the head instructor, who was waiting at the entrance to the corridor.
The three of them froze on the spot.
Li Xingchuan tried to hide the takeaway bag behind his back.
Lin Jinrong, however, greeted the instructor with an exuberant cheer. “Good evening, Instructor!”
He wasn’t embarrassed in the slightest. He acted as though they hadn’t done anything wrong at all and had merely happened to run into their instructor at eleven o’clock at night.
Li Xingchuan and Luo Song hurriedly followed suit. “Good evening, Instructor!”
“What’s so good about this evening?” The head instructor’s tone was stern, and he showed no intention of letting these troublemaking boys off the hook. “What on earth were you doing sneaking out in the middle of the night? Do you have any respect for discipline at all?!”
His gaze shifted toward Li Xingchuan, who was desperately trying to make himself as inconspicuous as possible. The instructor raised his voice even higher.
“Going out to eat was bad enough, but you even brought food back with you?! Why didn’t you just move the entire restaurant into the training base while you were at it?”
Li Xingchuan: “.”
Their precious late-night snacks were confiscated. The head instructor’s lecture continued without end, and the more he spoke, the more energized and impassioned he became.
To some extent, his reaction was influenced by his own personal feelings.
Just ten minutes earlier, Li Xuanzhi had kicked open the door to the head instructor’s bedroom.
The head instructor was a retired serviceman who had maintained the habits he had developed during his years in the military. He was a light sleeper, so the instant someone woke him up, his first thought was that something had happened.
Instead, he discovered that the person standing in front of him appeared to be… a student.
The word appeared was necessary because Li Xuanzhi had the face and bearing of a doctoral supervisor, yet he was wearing the camouflage T-shirt issued to everyone for military training. The contrast between his mature, dignified air and his youthful uniform was rather striking.
The head instructor was in a bad mood after being dragged out of bed. When he saw that the intruder seemed to be a student, he immediately began to lose his temper.
“You—”
Li Xuanzhi calmly opened his identification booklet with one hand and held it up for him to see.
The head instructor’s anger was instantly extinguished, as though someone had poured an entire bucket of water over a raging fire.
And that was how he ended up standing at the entrance to the dormitory corridor, where he happened to catch the three students who had sneaked out.
“You little troublemakers! You think you can do whatever you want, don’t you?!”
After delivering a long, impassioned lecture, the head instructor finally felt that most of the pent-up frustration in his chest had dissipated.
Normally, students caught sneaking out would be punished by running ten laps around the track and having points deducted from their conduct evaluations. But remembering Li Xuanzhi’s instructions, the head instructor decided to show a remarkable degree of mercy. He cut the punishment in half and ordered, “Go to the sports field and run five laps! You’re not allowed back in the dormitory until you’ve finished!”
The three boys meekly acknowledged the order and obediently headed to the sports field to run their laps.
As they ran, they quietly chatted among themselves.
Li Xingchuan said, “I actually feel like this isn’t too bad.”
Luo Song agreed. “Yeah, the head instructor’s a good guy.”
Lin Jinrong added, “I’m guessing plenty of people have tried sneaking out. We’re probably not the only ones.”
The sports field at the military training base was enormous. For someone who disliked physical activity, running five laps would have been a fate worse than death.
Fortunately, these three had some athletic experience to fall back on. Luo Song was an agile, chubby guy who played football. Lin Jinrong was a towering 190-centimeter-tall center. As for Li Xingchuan, he exercised regularly and loved playing basketball. All three were accustomed to physical activity, so they managed to complete their punishment without too much difficulty.
By the time they finished running, they were drenched in sweat. Unfortunately, the hot water in the communal showers had only been available until ten o’clock.
Li Xingchuan hurriedly took a quick shower under the cold water, shivering as he rushed back to the dormitory.
The lights were already out at this hour, but none of the others had gone to sleep.
“Where have you been?”
“Was there still hot water when you took your shower?”
“Did you go on a date with that pretty senior?”
“Get lost. Stop spreading rumors. The senior only talked to me for a couple of minutes before leaving.”
Li Xingchuan laughed and cursed at them good-naturedly before explaining the twists and turns of his late-night food adventure. Everyone expressed their regret that he hadn’t managed to bring back any barbecue skewers for them to eat.
He climbed into bed. Just as in their university dormitory, his bed was right beside Ji Wangcheng’s.
Both of them slept on the side nearest the ladder, their heads lying close together with only a tiny gap between them.
Li Xingchuan asked, “Are you asleep?”
Ji Wangcheng answered, “No.”
Li Xingchuan asked, “Are you feeling unwell anywhere?”
Ji Wangcheng replied, “No.”
“You don’t seem to have much energy lately,” Li Xingchuan said. “You barely talk at all.”
There was still the sound of keyboard typing in the dormitory. The aging electric fan rattled as it spun, making a noise like rain falling outside. Down below, Li Xuanzhi was wearing headphones and watching a female streamer, completely absorbed in the broadcast.
The two of them spoke so quietly, almost as though they were whispering secrets into each other’s ears, that no one else could hear their conversation.
Ji Wangcheng remained silent for several seconds before answering, “I’ve always been like this.”
His tone was faint and indifferent, carrying the innate aloofness of someone who kept everyone at a distance. There was also a hint of resignation in his words, as though he had already given up trying to be any different.
Li Xingchuan rolled over, but for a moment, he couldn’t think of a good response.
His hair, freshly washed and not yet completely dry, carried a faint scent of mint. As he moved past the bed rail, the delicate fragrance drifted quietly toward the tip of Ji Wangcheng’s nose.
He closed his eyes.
The breathing beside him was steady and even. He knew he had put Shanshan in a difficult position.
About half a minute later, Li Xingchuan sat up and reached for the clothes hanging over the bed rail.
Ji Wangcheng heard a soft rustling sound. It was faintly crisp, like someone handling a plastic bag.
After retrieving whatever he had been looking for, the person beside him lay back down. The wooden bed frame and metal railing gave a series of faint creaks in response.
The next second, something cool, wrapped in plastic, pressed against the side of his face.
“I bought this for you,” Li Xingchuan said. “The head instructor didn’t search us, so I kept it in my pocket. It was the only thing lucky enough to escape confiscation.”
It was a packet of assorted eight-treasure candies.
Colorful little balls of candy were packed tightly inside the transparent bag, while the cartoon character printed on the packaging grinned cheerfully at Ji Wangcheng, completely oblivious to the world around it.
When they were little, Li Xingchuan had loved eating these candies. Whenever he saw Ji Wangcheng, he would always stuff a handful into his pockets.
Ji Wangcheng had been raised with great care when it came to his food, clothing, and daily necessities. Before then, he had never encountered the brightly colored candy balls sold in supermarkets for ten yuan a large bag. He had treasured them, putting them away carefully. Later, when the nanny told him that cheap candy was bad for his health, he still refused to throw them away. Instead, he ate them slowly, one piece a day, until they were all gone.
When Li Xingchuan happened to witness this behavior, he naturally assumed that Ji Wangcheng loved the candy. In truth, Ji Wangcheng had no particular preference for sweet foods. He simply thought that since Shanshan liked them, they must be something wonderful.
Ji Wangcheng tore open the packet of assorted candies.
The gloom that had been weighing on him seemed to dissipate completely along with the sharp rrrip of the plastic packaging being torn open.
Li Xuanzhi took off his headphones and turned his head.
Ever since Li Xingchuan had returned to the military training base, the black shadows circling outside the window had retreated considerably.
And now, the wind had stopped, and the night sky had returned to its proper inky blue.
The change was so obvious that even someone as slow-witted as Shan Bai ought to have understood what it meant.
“What? That sound! It was the packaging! Could it be potato chips? Who has food?!” Shan Bai suddenly blurted out. With a loud, ravenous howl, he shouted, “I’m starving! Please, somebody feed me—!”
Li Xuanzhi: “…………”
Author’s Note:
Li: Even Buddha can’t carry a useless teammate like this. Please, just shut up.