Wang Caiyi thought those words were rather childish. No matter how close siblings were when they were young, things were different once they grew up.
However, she didn't point this out. Instead, she changed the subject and praised Bai Mingzhen's cooking.
"The Bai family has maids, so how did he become such a good cook?" Wang Caiyi asked in surprise.
"He moved out and started living on his own a long time ago," Bai Huan explained. "Besides, he doesn't like other people coming and going in his home. Usually, he either eats out or cooks for himself."
Wang Caiyi didn't know the circumstances, but she thought it was wonderful.
"It's good for young people to be self-sufficient. Your future sister-in-law will be a lucky woman."
"What sister-in-law? There won't be any sister-in-law." Thinking of Bai Mingzhen's sexual orientation, Bai Huan blurted out the words without thinking.
Wang Caiyi looked at him in confusion.
"Forget it. It's nothing. Enjoy your food. I'm going back to the sports field."
Bai Huan suddenly remembered that homosexuality wasn't something one could go around announcing to everyone. Besides, it was someone else's sexual orientation. What business did he have talking about it?
He promptly shut his mouth, stood up, and left the cafeteria.
Picking up where things had left off, the male student repeating his final year of high school for the fifth time saw Bai Huan standing behind him again.
He introduced himself. "My name's Ge Qing. Qing as in celebration. What's yours?"
"Bai Huan."
"Huan as in exchange?"
Bai Huan disliked that character. He frowned.
"Huan as in 'a completely fresh start.'"
Ge Qing didn't seem to notice whether Bai Huan was happy or annoyed. He simply nodded a couple of times.
"That man who came with you on registration day. What's his relationship to you?"
Bai Huan gave him a puzzled look.
"What are you trying to ask?"
"He's gay, isn't he?"
Ge Qing sounded almost certain. All he lacked was official confirmation.
Bai Huan neither confirmed nor denied it. Instead, he put some distance between himself and Ge Qing, his brows remaining tightly knitted.
Even though the question concerned Bai Mingzhen, Bai Huan himself felt offended.
"What's it got to do with you?" Bai Huan tilted his head, his distaste perfectly obvious.
Ge Qing finally realized that the boy in front of him wasn't the same naturally sociable type as himself, nor was he someone who would tolerate an overly familiar stranger the way the people around him usually did.
"Sorry about that. I'm used to being straightforward. It's just that I'm gay too, so, you know."
"I don't know." Bai Huan genuinely didn't understand. "What does you being gay have to do with him?"
Sweat broke out on Ge Qing's forehead.
He said awkwardly, "I was just asking. I didn't mean anything by it."
"Were you trying to hit on him?"
Ge Qing could only surrender.
"Have mercy on me, will you? I've already got a boyfriend."
Bai Huan scrutinized him suspiciously for a while before reluctantly saying, "All right, then."
Once he had dispelled the suspicion that "this idiot who's repeating his final year of high school for the fifth time might be interested in my brother," another realization finally began churning violently through the boy's mind.
So gay people really are everywhere?
His expression grew complicated and conflicted, with even a trace of anguish.
The boy thought bitterly, Why can complete strangers tell that Eldest Brother is gay, while I've grown up with him and never noticed? Is it because I don't love him enough?
And so, he once again fixed Ge Qing with a scrutinizing, speculative gaze. He couldn't help asking, "How could you tell?"
Ge Qing rubbed his chin.
"Well, you know how it is. Gaydar. The instinct of recognizing your own kind, you know?"
Bai Huan rolled his eyes at him.
Ge Qing grinned.
"Don't be mad. You're not gay, so of course you wouldn't be able to tell."
The other boy's casual attitude inevitably left Bai Huan feeling defeated.
Ever since he was little, in what way had he ever been inferior to anyone else?
He decided that all he lacked was a pair of eyes capable of spotting gay men.
Mao Pijing came over and pointed his palm-leaf fan at the two of them, signaling for them to stop whispering down below.
Even the smallest movements a teacher made tended to attract students' attention. With that single gesture, he caused many students who had previously been distracted to turn around and look toward the back.
There was nothing particularly entertaining to see.
But they did see a boy who stood out from the crowd, serene and beautiful.
For the next hour or so, someone was constantly turning around to look. Each time it was a different person, and every single one of them looked back more than once.
Bai Huan wasn't bothered by the attention.
Ge Qing's appearance had left him restless and irritated.
This stranger had forced him to confront a question he could no longer avoid.
A complete stranger who had appeared out of nowhere belonged to the same kind of people as Bai Mingzhen, while Bai Huan, who shared such a deep brotherly bond with him, didn't belong to the same world at all.
It's ridiculous.
Bai Huan felt terribly wronged as he ground the toe of his shoe against a pebble beneath his feet.
Why did Bai Mingzhen have to be gay, of all things?
Didn't he know how differently society looked at homosexuals?
Bai Huan even tried putting himself in his brother's position.
If it were him, he wouldn't tell anyone. He would get married and have children just like an ordinary person.
He would never allow his reputation to be ruined because of his sexual orientation.
As for whether other people might suffer because of his sexual orientation, that hadn't occurred to him.
Therefore, Bai Huan decided to find an opportunity to tell Bai Mingzhen what he thought and advise him against doing anything so foolish.
For love.
He would say that doing something like finding a boyfriend and separating from one's family was incredibly stupid.
In short, what Bai Huan wanted to tell Bai Mingzhen was not to separate from him.
After the opening ceremony, Bai Huan's identity remained a topic of discussion for several days.
Through Ge Qing, Bai Huan also learned that he apparently had so many "relatives" and "childhood friends" he had never known about.
Some people guessed parts of the truth, but nobody came forward to confirm anything. Consequently, all those claims could only be dismissed as rumors.
And the frenzy of discussion surrounding the real and false young masters finally came to an end when the examination room assignments for the beginning-of-term tests were announced.
Examination rooms were assigned differently from regular classes.
Regular classes weren't divided according to academic performance, but examination rooms were arranged strictly according to grades.
Bai Huan had no previous examination records at this school.
Thus, he was placed in the very last examination room, together with several dozen of the school's lowest-performing students, some students who had transferred from other schools to repeat their final year, and other transfer students like himself.
Bai Huan's student number was also the very last one.
His seat was the very last seat in the room.
Directly behind him stood a trash can.
In summer, it took only a few hours for the contents of a trash can to ferment into a foul stench.
Bai Huan felt nauseated.
He took matters into his own hands and shifted his desk a little closer to the aisle.
Just then, the invigilating teacher entered with the examination papers tucked under her arm.
Enemies had met again.
Liu Manli, dressed in a rose-pink qipao that swayed gracefully as she walked, pointed at him.
"You're disrupting examination discipline and violating examination regulations. Go sit in the corridor."
Thank heavens.
Bai Huan happily pushed his desk into the corridor and sat down.
However, he continued to harbor a grudge against Liu Manli for daring to order him around so arrogantly.
She was nothing more than an ordinary graduate of a Project 211 university, a teacher of undemanding courses with no scientific research achievements or experience studying abroad at a prestigious institution.
Yet she dared to throw her weight around in front of him.
He never forgot the insult and was constantly thinking about revenge.
Students were a group particularly prone to following whichever way the wind blew.
And the wind was their teachers.
When Liu Manli started picking on the transfer student, some students followed her example and began making trouble for him too.
Nothing happened on the first day of the beginning-of-term examinations.
But on the second day, when Bai Huan carried his schoolbag up to the third floor for the first examination, he discovered that his desk and chair had both disappeared from the corridor.
He searched everywhere but couldn't find them.
When Liu Manli turned a blind eye to his predicament, he simply took his examination paper and sat directly on the teacher's podium.
Every student in the examination room was instantly stunned.
Just who in this school would have the audacity to openly challenge a teacher like that?
It seemed the rumors that Bai Huan's grandfather was a founding general of the nation had to be true!
By the afternoon examination, Bai Huan's desk and chair had mysteriously returned on their own.
What a joke.
Who would dare provoke the grandson of a founding general?