The sunlight was mottled, and the light it cast filtered through the gaps in the leaves and onto the ground.
There was no one in the small forest near the school; it was completely empty.
Normally, no one came here, let alone now, during lunchtime.
“Gulu, Gulu!” Su Jingyan called out cautiously, peering left and right as he looked for something.
Gulu was a stray cat that Su Jingyan had accidentally found in the small woods near the school. It had orange stripes all over its body, but it was not as chubby as the orange cats people normally imagine. On the contrary, it was very thin and agile. Su Jingyan had done some research and found that it was a yellow civet cat.
“Gulu! Gulu!” Su Jingyan called as he walked, holding a lunch box in his hand and continuing to look for any trace of Gulu.
Basically every day at lunchtime, Su Jingyan would sneak away from his crazy fans and quietly slip over to eat his meal with Gulu.
The small forest was clean and quiet, with no people around and very fresh air, and he could pet the cat, too, which was very comfortable.
The strange thing was that normally, he only needed to call two or three times before Gulu would rush out and jump into his arms with a plop.
But today, after more than ten calls, Gulu was nowhere to be seen.
What’s going on?
Su Jingyan kept calling as he walked.
Hm?
There’s someone.
Su Jingyan quickly noticed a boy in a school uniform squatting on the ground ahead of him with his back turned. The boy’s hands were constantly moving, but from where he stood, Su Jingyan couldn’t tell what he was doing.
Despite coming here so many times, this was the first time Su Jingyan had seen anyone else in the forest.
As soon as Su Jingyan appeared, before he had even taken a few steps, the boy stopped moving and suddenly raised his head, meeting Su Jingyan’s eyes. Then he quickly lowered it again, like a child caught doing something bad by his parents.
As soon as Su Jingyan saw his face clearly, he froze in place, stunned.
The boy was very pale, so pale that he seemed to have no blood to lend color to his cheeks, and his lips didn’t have even a hint of pink. His whole face looked sickly. His eyes drooped slightly, lending him a kind of inborn listlessness, and they looked very dull. But he had thick eyebrows, a straight nose, and a face that looked world-weary and murderous.
Su Jingyan felt something tap at his heart, like being bitten by an ant. It didn’t hurt, but it was a tingling, numb, indescribable feeling, and he subconsciously covered the left side of his chest.
“Um, hello?” Su Jingyan was a little nervous. Unable to tell what he was thinking, he took the initiative to greet the boy in front of him.
In all his years, this was the first time he had ever initiated a conversation with a stranger.
As soon as he finished speaking, he nervously looked at the boy with wide eyes. [1]BulingBuling- doe eyeswide, sparkling, pleading, puppy-dog, innocent eyes. jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_3578262_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_3578262_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });
The boy stood up, a little flattered, opening and closing his mouth.
Only then did Su Jingyan notice a cat standing behind the boy. His eyes lit up, and he rushed over.
It was Gulu.
Lu Yichen lowered his head and gazed gloomily at his beloved senior.
Why do you always look at everything except me!
So aggravating!
Tsk.
As soon as Su Jingyan picked up and hugged Gulu, he quickly noticed that Gulu’s hind legs seemed to be twitching and that its fur was dirty.
Su Jingyan turned Gulu around, checking its body from one side to the other, and found no injuries, so he was slightly relieved.
Then he stood up, still holding Gulu, and looked at the boy with a smile. His eyes were wide and innocent, very bright and dazzling, as if they held a sea of stars. “Did you help Gulu?”
The boy didn’t speak.
Su Jingyan continued, “Gulu usually only gets close to me! It’s a super fierce wild cat. I didn’t expect that besides me, there were other people here taking care of it!”
The boy still didn’t respond.
Seeing his gloomy look, Su Jingyan thought his attempt at conversation had gone badly. He was a little annoyed and pursed his lips, trying to think of something else to say.
“Um, my name is Su Jingyan. What’s your name?”
The boy seemed to finally react. He raised his head, his whole body trembling uncontrollably. Suppressing the excitement that was about to burst out of him, he raised his voice and said, “My name is Lu Yichen.”
“Lu Yichen.” Su Jingyan repeated the name while hugging Gulu. His eyes shone, and the corners of them curved upward with his smile.
The name sounded familiar, as if he had heard it before.
Su Jingyan’s heart beat faster when he heard the name, and his cheeks flushed slightly.
The boy’s fingers clenched into a fist as he firmly suppressed his emotions, which were on the verge of overwhelming his reason.
He felt as if a wild beast in his heart kept roaring, screaming frantically, “Quickly, possess him! Quickly, possess him!”
This devilish emotion coiled around his heart, and he had to use all of his strong willpower to restrain the desire to take the knife out of his pocket and stab it into his senior’s skin, so that his senior would sleep in his arms forever.
Such perverted desires.
The moment Lu Yichen heard his name spoken from his senior’s mouth, his whole body shuddered, as if he had heard his sweetheart calling to him while doing something dirty, and then felt a strange, eerie comfort.
It’s really nice to hear my name from my Senior’s mouth,
Hehe.
Su Jingyan continued, “Your name sounds really nice! Is it the Yi with the water radical and the Chen with the jade radical? Is it Yi with the three-dot water radical and Chen with the Wang radical? [2]Zihui/Kangxi radicals – are commonly used to describe characters in Mandarin. jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_3578262_1_2').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_3578262_1_2', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });
After speaking, he looked expectantly at the boy in front of him.
He didn’t know why, but although the two characters were obviously rare and not commonly used, when he heard the name, he felt inexplicably certain that they must be those particular two characters.
Lu Yichen paused. He raised his head, took a breath, and gritted his teeth, his scalp feeling a little numb. Then he slowly said, “Yes…”
Too good-looking!
Senior is too attractive!
Su Jingyan smiled even more brightly. “Yishui Wuyu, Xiyue Nanchen. [3]沂水舞雩，西赆南琛 – Describing flowing rivers and celestial bodies or the north star. jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_3578262_1_3').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_3578262_1_3', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], }); The person who named you must have hoped that you would know the right time and place for things and live a carefree, happy life, and that person considered you a treasure.”
Lu Yichen parted his lips and showed a smile. It was very distorted and even looked a little scary. But whether there was something off about Su Jingyan’s aesthetic sense or not, he didn’t find it scary at all. He even thought that Lu Yichen looked very cute smiling like this.
“This is the first time someone has praised my name,” Lu Yichen said. His voice was very hoarse and low, and half of his eyes were covered by his bangs, making his expression difficult to read, though his voice sounded calm.
A treasure.
I’m so happy.
For some reason, seeing the boy like this, Su Jingyan held Gulu in one arm, set the lunch box on Gulu’s belly, and used his free hand to brush away the bangs in front of the boy’s eyes.
When Lu Yichen was touched, he was so agitated that he felt he was about to go crazy. And as Su Jingyan brushed his bangs aside, they both paused subconsciously.
Su Jingyan was usually very shy around strangers and didn’t know how to get close to others, so why had he just done something he would normally never even dare to think about?
He even felt it was perfectly natural, as if he had done it countless times before.
Before Su Jingyan could touch him again, the boy seemed to finally react. He suddenly raised his head and backed away, like a mimosa, closing its leaves when touched. Gasping for breath, he said nothing and fled from Su Jingyan’s sight as if running for his life.
Su Jingyan was left alone, his hand stretched out awkwardly in midair.
After the boy fled the scene, Su Jingyan belatedly realized that he seemed to have done something stupid. His face flushed bright red, like a cooked crayfish, and felt as if it were on fire.
Those innocent doe eyes grew even mistier, and he looked very vulnerable and lovable.
Su Jingyan carefully put Gulu down and sat on a small rock nearby. Then he picked Gulu up again, set it on his lap, and said aloud while stroking its fur, “I seem to have done something very stupid.”
As soon as the boy left, Gulu began to tremble all over, shaking like a sieve, as if someone were forcing it to take a bath in winter.
It buried its head in Su Jingyan’s arms, desperately burrowing in, trying to comfort itself.
Su Jingyan immediately smoothed its fur tenderly and scratched Gulu’s chin, his face full of sympathy.
The boy was now hiding behind a tree in a dark, secluded spot. He watched the scene before him with a deeply satisfied look, the corners of his mouth stretched wide as he laughed silently.
His eyes were firmly fixed on his senior.
That slightly flushed face looked so enchanting that one would want to swallow it in one gulp and savor it carefully.
My favorite senior.
He chuckled.
How can he be so cute!
After a while, his gaze moved to the little creature huddled in Su Jingyan’s arms. He narrowed his eyes dangerously, scrutinizing it.
He clenched his fingers tightly, making a cracking sound like breaking bones.
Tsk.
I’ll let you go for today!
The next second, he took out the knife he had hidden in the sleeve of his school uniform and gripped it tightly in his palm.
The blade of this knife was very sharp. With just a little force, it could easily kill the fragile creatures of this world, letting them bleed out until they died.
Even humans were no exception.
Lu Yichen slowly dragged the tip of the knife across the withered bark of the tree and then showed a horrifying smile.
If Senior had come just a little later, that cat would have become a corpse!
He chuckled again.
Senior.
Is mine!
Over there, Su Jingyan, who knew nothing of this, concentrated on feeding the yellow civet cat in his arms, taking a bite himself and then giving the little darling a bite.
After an unknown amount of time, Su Jingyan let go of Gulu and, as always, planted a big kiss on top of its head. “Gulu, I’m leaving,” he said with a smile.
The moment Su Jingyan’s kiss landed on top of Gulu’s head, something in the air seemed to freeze, and the chill made one’s bones shiver and rattle.
Ah.
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