Bai Mingzhen didn't scold Bai Huan as he would have in the past. He merely gazed at him quietly, as though looking through him and thinking of something else.
Beneath the pink clouds, Bai Huan's eyes were as beautiful as a rainbow.
Looking at his face, Bai Mingzhen was remembering his little brother from those days.
Back then, whenever Bai Mingzhen did his homework in the study, Bai Huan would drag over his own little sofa and sit beside him reading picture books.
He would turn his head, and the child would be looking at his pictures.
He would turn again, and the child would be asleep, looking like a tangyuan that had been squashed out of shape.
He would turn once more, and his usually cold expression would melt away as he bent down to plant a kiss on the child's soft cheeks, which dimpled wherever he pressed them.
Those days had been extraordinarily beautiful, and he missed them terribly.
Unfortunately, they were gone forever.
Now, whenever Bai Mingzhen turned to look at Bai Huan, his heart was no longer filled solely with the tender affection of an older brother.
Perhaps that affection was still there, but what he wanted now was Bai Huan kneeling on his lap without any clothes on.
"Go buy yourself something cold to drink."
Bai Mingzhen unlocked the car doors.
"Do you want anything?" Bai Huan asked.
Bai Mingzhen said no.
Bai Huan gave another "Oh," took out his phone, then put it away again.
He stretched out his hand toward Bai Mingzhen, asking for his phone instead.
"I don't have any money."
Bai Mingzhen tossed him his phone to use.
Watching from a distance, he saw that Bai Huan had bought not only a cold drink but also various snacks from the roadside stalls.
His brows drew together slightly. He didn't particularly like Bai Huan eating so much street food.
Bai Huan returned carrying an assortment of bags filled with food and handed the phone back to Bai Mingzhen.
"Why is your phone wallpaper still a picture of me when I was little? It's so ugly."
Bai Mingzhen said nothing.
His gaze lingered meaningfully on Bai Huan's lips, which had turned bright red from the hot starch sausage.
After watching him for a while, he suddenly reached over, took Bai Huan's cold drink, and swallowed several large mouthfuls.
"Fasten your seat belt."
"I'm busy."
Bai Huan hurriedly lowered both legs. Holding a starch sausage in one hand and a fried chicken cutlet in the other, he puffed out his chest.
"Brother, help me buckle it, okay?"
Although autumn had arrived, the weather was still hot, and everyone was still wearing thin clothes.
Even with a pure cotton T-shirt underneath his school uniform, Bai Huan felt his older brother accidentally pinch his chest hard enough to hurt.
He instinctively arched his back.
"Show me your hand!"
Bai Huan assumed Bai Mingzhen had been unhygienic and neglected to trim his nails.
He lowered his head and examined them suspiciously, only to discover that Bai Mingzhen's nails were cut even shorter than his own.
Bai Huan leaned back.
"Forget it."
Bai Mingzhen calmly withdrew his hand and started the engine again.
By now, the last light of day had completely faded.
The lingering warmth of Bai Huan's body remained on his fingers, burning through his flesh and blood like tiny sparks.
He knew perfectly well that this particular feeling wasn't born of love but of sexual desire.
Yet there was no doubt that he loved Bai Huan.
Perhaps, he thought, he simply loved Bai Huan too much. So much that he wanted to have him entirely, to possess him completely.
Of course, for an older brother to want to sleep with his younger brother for such reasons was rather ridiculous when you thought about it. Heh.
But then again, he was a homosexual who was attracted to men, and his younger brother just happened to be male.
Seen that way, the situation wasn't particularly difficult to accept.
On the contrary, it seemed perfectly natural, as though everything had simply fallen into place exactly as it should.
Heh.
School officially started three days later.
Bai Huan rode a hundred-thousand-yuan bicycle Qin Xian had delivered to him, while Wang Caiyi rode an electric scooter alongside him.
Originally, mother and son had planned to go together, but after Bai Huan learned that he hadn't been selected as the outstanding student representative to deliver a speech, he resolutely drew a line between himself and Wang Caiyi.
"You've only just transferred here. Of course they wouldn't choose you as the speaker. Next time, all right? At the opening ceremony next semester, with your grades, there definitely won't be a problem," Wang Caiyi said.
"I don't listen to people whose grades are worse than mine."
"Then wear your earphones, but don't let your homeroom teacher see."
"The handbook says my homeroom teacher's surname is Mao. Mao Pijin. Is he a nice person?"
"How can you call him Mao Pijin? His name is Mao Pijing! You must call him Teacher Mao."
Wang Caiyi honked her horn and moved around to Bai Huan's other side.
She also smiled at an acquaintance they passed on the road before continuing.
"Teacher Mao is an extremely simple and unpretentious man. He doesn't like students showing off their material possessions too much, so you need to be a little careful."
Bai Huan snorted.
"Why should I be careful?"
The teenager understood what his mother was hesitating to say, so he continued, "I've always been like this. It's not as though you don't know that. I'm not deliberately showing off. Is he the sort of person who gets jealous of others easily?"
"Teacher Mao isn't like that. He's a genuinely compassionate person. His family wasn't originally from Lanshuitang. They made their fortune in Nancheng long ago. He'd eaten at every kind of fancy restaurant and drunk every kind of imported liquor. Later, his family was sent down here, and he began teaching locally."
"After his father passed away, his brothers and sisters all returned to Nancheng. Only he and his wife stayed behind. A lot of the teachers at the school were once his students."
Bai Huan snorted again.
"Mom, you were his student too, weren't you?"
"Mommy wasn't his student," Wang Caiyi replied. "Mommy was a student of Teacher Mao's father."
Bai Huan fell silent.
Wang Caiyi rode ahead of him, keeping his speed in check whenever he couldn't resist the urge to take off like the wind.
When they arrived at school, Bai Huan obediently walked behind Wang Caiyi with his schoolbag on his back.
Students were gathered everywhere.
From time to time, someone would call out, "Good morning, Teacher Wang!"
Whenever Wang Caiyi encountered a colleague, she had to stop and exchange a few words.
Bai Huan didn't want to face questions from other teachers about his identity, so he quietly slipped away.
No. 1 High School didn't divide its classes according to academic performance.
Each class had a certain proportion of high-achieving students, average students, and students with poor grades.
Bai Huan had been assigned to Class 7.
He found the place where Class 7 was supposed to line up, then positioned himself some distance away from his classmates.
Most of them had advanced directly from their second year of high school.
Having been apart for an entire summer vacation, they seemed even closer than before.
Bai Huan didn't know any of them, nor did he have any desire to establish a relationship with them beyond that of strangers.
Naturally, he wasn't going to take the initiative to make friends.
The opening ceremony showed no sign of starting.
Bai Huan found a cool patch of shade beneath a tree, squatted down, and began playing with his phone.
He had previously deleted Lu Hu'an and the rest of that group's contacts on WeChat.
However, he'd kept the contact information of the two who hadn't participated in the incident.
Now, he saw their WeChat Moments posts.
His former school was also holding its opening ceremony today.
The student representative delivering the speech was Bai Chen.
Bai Huan didn't have any particularly positive or negative feelings toward Bai Chen.
When he learned that Bai Chen had been selected as the speaker, his only thought was that Bai Chen's grades weren't nearly good enough to qualify him for the position.
Someone backing the school financially must have pulled some strings.
Bai Mushan, perhaps, or Cheng Yueqing.
It probably wasn't Bai Xianrong. That old man never concerned himself with such trivial matters.
Bai Huan wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand.
His legs had gone numb from squatting, so he shifted into a different position and brushed a fallen leaf from his shoulder.
Autumn was here, he thought.
The next second, he saw that the invited guest for this year's opening ceremony at his former school was Bai Mingzhen.
"Invited guest" was the polite way of putting it.
More directly, he was the financial backer.
Bai Huan scrolled further down.
He couldn't find Bai Mushan's or Cheng Yueqing's names anywhere.
Something exploded inside his head with a deafening buzz.
And the explosions wouldn't stop.
Smoke and flames billowed through his mind, swallowing every last thought.
He opened the chat windows of those two former friends, then backed out again.
Suppressing his anger, he first called Bell and Qin Xian.
Qin Xian didn't answer. Instead, he sent a message saying he was shaking milk tea and asked the young master to wait a moment.
Bell, however, picked up.
"Lawyer Bai had a very long meeting with the American branch office last night. He should be sleeping right now."
"Liar," Bai Huan said softly.
He hung up.
Without telling anyone, he ran away from school.
Bai Mingzhen lived alone in a three-story Western-style house with red roof tiles and white walls.
Across from the entrance stood a grove of camphor trees, while expansive lawns stretched out around the property.
Everything was lush, green, quiet, and pleasant.
But no matter how beautiful the surroundings were, Bai Mingzhen never welcomed anyone into his home.
His explanation was that the word "home" carried enormous significance for him.
This residence was meant to be the home he would share with his future lover.
Until he had obtained that person's permission, he didn't want anyone else setting foot inside without their knowledge.
He had once said, "The second person to enter this house cannot be my father, my mother, my younger brother, or any classmate or colleague. It can only be my lover."
Bai Mingzhen always held sufficient authority in his relationships with others to enforce his wishes.
And so, just as he'd said, nobody had ever come to visit him at home.
Whenever there was something to discuss, they met elsewhere.
Bai Huan had always respected this rule more than anyone.
But at this moment, he couldn't care less.
He took a taxi straight to the residential community where Bai Mingzhen lived.
The security guards at the entrance recognized him. After registering his information, they let him in.
There were shuttle carts available inside, but Bai Huan refused to take one.
With his schoolbag on his back, he walked beneath the willow trees swaying in the breeze.
Irises grew in abundance along both sides of the road, with chamomile flowers scattered among them.
Most of the time, Bai Mingzhen smelled of chamomile.
The fragrance reminded Bai Huan of his brother.
He bit a piece of skin off his lower lip and chewed it over and over, but the anger lodged in his chest still refused to go away.
He stopped, pushed his way into a flower bed, and dug out a rock.
He stuffed it into his schoolbag and continued walking.
He had already made up his mind.
He would let his brother choose.
If he didn't choose Taimi, Taimi would smash his brother to death with the rock.
By the time Bai Huan reached Bai Mingzhen's front door, he was in an absolutely miserable state.
Sweat and tears streamed down his face.
The rock was heavy.
And his heart hurt terribly.
Standing on the road in front of the house, he raised his head and looked at the small balconies along the walls.
Several pots of flowers stood on them.
He narrowed his eyes and thought for a long time.
Finally, he decided that simply smashing Bai Mingzhen to death with a rock would be letting him off far too easily.
He was going to destroy the home Bai Mingzhen had treasured for so many years.
Anyone who tried to destroy Taimi's dignity would be dealt with, one by one.
Bai Huan hid his schoolbag in the flower bed near the entrance, then turned and went to a familiar corner to fetch a ladder.
Even the ladder had a distinctive style.
It wasn't made of steel but bamboo, the old-fashioned kind elderly people liked to use.
Unfortunately, it wasn't tall enough to reach the second-floor balcony.
Frowning, Bai Huan looked around.
In the end, he had no choice but to lean the ladder against a nearby camphor tree.
He climbed up unsteadily.
The ground grew farther and farther away.
Now he was stuck halfway up, unable to go forward or retreat.
He swallowed.
Apparently, even punishing a criminal required a certain amount of courage.
Gripping both sides of the ladder tightly, he stared at a little moth that kept fluttering toward him.
Once the moth finally flew away, he resumed climbing.
A thick branch extending toward the second-floor balcony was now almost within reach.
Before this, Bai Huan had imagined what would happen if he fell and became disabled.
When that happened, he would piss in everyone's faces.
Surely they wouldn't argue with a disabled person?
But he didn't actually want to become disabled.
His circumstances weren't particularly good even while he was perfectly healthy.
If he became disabled, Bai Mingzhen fell out of love with him, and Chen Yuanyuan and Wang Caiyi threw him out of the house, what would he do?
Go find Little Chu?
Little Chu was already looking after one fool. Taking in a disabled person too would make a perfect pair.
Yet no matter how much Bai Huan thought about it, he simply couldn't swallow his anger.
That anger sustained him.
Puffing out his cheeks, he gathered his courage and leaped.
And there he was, hanging from the branch.
Unfortunately, there was still some distance between him and the balcony.
Bai Huan began inching along the branch as though he were traversing a set of parallel bars.
The bark was rough, and his palms hurt as if knives were slicing into them.
Worse still, his hand pressed down on something that was hard at first but then gave way into a soft, mushy substance.
Realizing it might be bird droppings, Bai Huan began kicking his legs wildly and shouting.
After a while, his arms started aching too.
Sweat clung to his upper and lower eyelashes, sticking his eyelids together.
Gradually, his vision began to blur.
His body was also sinking lower and lower beyond his control.
Bai Mingzhen was awakened by the commotion.
It wasn't the sound of a human voice.
Rather, the leaves outside were rustling with extraordinary violence.
After waking, he lay in bed for another ten or so seconds.
Then, realizing that the noise seemed to have been caused by a person, he sat up and got out of bed.
Standing on the balcony, Bai Mingzhen found himself staring directly at Bai Huan, who was hanging from a tree.
For a moment, he thought he must still be dreaming.
Bai Mingzhen called the property management staff over.
They brought a taller ladder and rescued Bai Huan from the tree.
Bai Mingzhen checked him over.
Apart from leaves and bird droppings, there were no injuries.
With that established, he stopped paying attention to him.
He picked up the schoolbag that hadn't been particularly well hidden in the flower bed.
It was unusually heavy.
Opening it, he discovered a rock.
He took it out, tossed it onto the roadside, and paid it no further attention.
Then he saw the property management staff off.
The staff kept remarking that the little darling was terribly mischievous, joking about it as they left.
Soon, only the two brothers remained.
Bai Mingzhen brushed the dust off the schoolbag and glanced at the teenager crouching beside the flower bed.
Then he walked straight past him.
Bai Huan thought his brother must be furious and was going to sever their relationship.
He hurriedly stood up.
At the very least, he wanted to smear some bird droppings onto his brother's back.
Bai Mingzhen walked up the steps and pushed open the front door.
Then he stepped aside and looked at Bai Huan.
He was clearly inviting him inside.
"Come in. We'll talk inside," he said calmly.