Lu Shangyan silently took back his two hundred yuan, lowering his eyelashes with a hint of defeat. “If you really feel like it’s not enough, can you please wait a bit? Once I get paid from my part-time job, I’ll give it to you right away.”
“Though my part-time salary isn’t much, so I might have to pay you in installments. If you’re worried, I can write you an IOU.”
Paying in installments after sleeping with a man—Lu Shangyan figured he was probably the only person in the world to do such a thing.
Pei Yumin was hugging his leg. Originally, he had been distracted and wanted to secretly nuzzle against him a few times, but hearing those words made his heart ache fiercely. The man instantly entered a completely ascetic mode.
With even greater firmness, he said, “I don’t want your money. I just want you to take responsibility for me.”
As long as Lu Shangyan took responsibility for him and agreed to be with him, he wouldn’t have to live such a hard life anymore.
Lu Shangyan frowned slightly in quiet helplessness. “You’re really strange.”
Pei Yumin hugged his leg tighter and began to push himself upward, almost knocking Lu Shangyan back down onto the bed.
He looked for all the world like a large dog—the kind that couldn’t understand human speech.
Annoyed by the shoving, Lu Shangyan pressed down on Pei Yumin’s head and asked with utmost sincerity, “When you had a fever as a child, did you secretly go see a veterinarian?”
Pei Yumin actually started pondering this question.
Seeing him like that, Lu Shangyan couldn’t help but say, “How much do you actually want? If worst comes to worst, I’ll give you fifty extra so you can buy two bottles of brain-boosting liquid.”
Sensing that Lu Shangyan’s patience was wearing thin, Pei Yumin said, “Let’s add each other on WeChat first. We can discuss this properly later.”
Thinking that Pei Yumin still wanted to talk about money, Lu Shangyan gave a soft assent and turned around to fish out his bomb-surviving phone.
The screen and back cover were shattered in a myriad of intricate ways; just pressing the power button required the display to flicker twice.
Even so, Lu Shangyan lovingly dressed the phone in a pretty case, his fingertips acting with an almost absurd degree of care when pressing down.
Pei Yumin leaned over to take a look, but the QR code was completely illegible.
In the end, he had no choice but to offer, “Forget it. Why don’t you scan me instead?”
In a flat tone, Lu Shangyan replied, “My camera is broken.”
After pausing for a few seconds, Pei Yumin continued with an unchanging expression, “Then just tell me your number.”
Anyway, they managed to add each other in the end.
While Lu Shangyan was getting dressed, Pei Yumin took a screenshot of the chat box showing the successful friend request and sent it to Tang Suichen.
[m: Chenzi, I’ve really fallen head over heels this time.]
[m: You’re usually great at hooking up with guys, but I’m dead serious this time. You have to teach me how to chase my wife!]
The other person replied very quickly.
[c_against_the_world: One of you is an ‘s’ and the other is an ‘m’—the vibes of these couple screen names couldn’t be more obvious.]
Pei Yumin was originally in the middle of changing Lu Shangyan’s display name, but upon seeing this, he immediately deleted the already-typed “Merchant Baby ❤️” and changed it to “S Baby.”
At that moment, Lu Shangyan had just finished changing his clothes and happened to catch a glimpse of the screen.
With a deep, solemn voice, he stated, “I am not a perverted baby.”
Pei Yumin: “Oh.”
Feeling a sudden, inexplicable wave of guilt, Pei Yumin put away his phone. Meanwhile, Lu Shangyan once again caught sight of the flashy phone case and a certain fruit logo.
Thinking of his own phone in his pocket, which was held together by several layers of wrapping and on the verge of falling apart, he couldn’t help asking, “Do people in your line of work make that much money?”
It took Pei Yumin a solid moment to process what he meant. “I really don’t do sex work! Yesterday, I just accidentally got caught up in the same drug as you.”
Fearing that Lu Shangyan still wouldn’t believe him—and worried that seeing him in such financial desperation might drive him down that path someday—Pei Yumin fretted. After all, with a face like Lu Shangyan’s, if he stood somewhere and promised a passionate kiss for cash, people would probably line up around the block.
Gritting his teeth inwardly, Pei Yumin finally said, “I can help you find a part-time job.”
And he quickly added a guarantee: “A completely legitimate one, I swear!”
The deeply suspicious and probing look in Lu Shangyan’s eyes vanished in an instant.
His eyes lighting up, he leaned closer to Pei Yumin. “Then thank you so much! I’ll treat you to a meal! A really, really expensive meal!”
Right up until the moment they parted ways, Lu Shangyan kept a straight face as he praised Pei Yumin as a great philanthropist and a good person with a beautiful heart. Even though his voice was mechanical and utterly devoid of emotion, it still managed to make Pei Yumin’s face burn hot.
Before heading back to campus, Lu Shangyan went to the hospital for a comprehensive check-up. Having walked a fair bit, his lower back and legs felt sore and numb by the time he reached the dorm.
After several attempts, he still couldn’t successfully lower his weight onto his chair.
The dampness inside was gone, but the lingering swelling was fierce.
He vaguely remembered the size of Pei Yumin’s grip in his palm—especially since it had happened when both of them had completely lost their rational minds—and yet, even under those conditions, there hadn’t been any bleeding.
He didn’t know whether he should praise Pei Yumin’s skills or marvel at his own extraordinary physiological endowment.
While he was lost in thought, Chen Shou kicked his chair hard.
Since he hadn’t seated himself stably to begin with, the shove sent him crashing straight to the floor, drawing a sharp frown and a cold intake of breath from him.
This was a six-person dorm, structured as a mixed-major room. Two of his roommates had afternoon classes and weren’t in.
Another roommate usually maintained an extremely low presence; whenever Chen Shou started a conflict, that roommate would immediately scurry into a corner and hide.
That left Chen Shou, his little lackey Liu Tong, and an outsider from another room named Shi Qing.
Lu Shangyan swept a single, cold glance over them and pushed himself up off the floor.
He wasn’t on good terms with these people, but on the surface, things had previously been manageable.
However, last night’s incident made it crystal clear that Chen Shou had orchestrated the whole thing to target him.
He wasn’t stupid; he knew Chen Shou harbored malicious intent, and yesterday’s stunt had crossed his absolute bottom line.
Lu Shangyan no longer had any intention of holding back. With a hostile tone, he snapped, “If you don’t have eyes, go to the ophthalmology clinic and get some dog eyes installed.”
Chen Shou, who had been sneering mockingly, instantly flew into a rage at those words.
He stepped forward, grabbed Lu Shangyan by the collar, and slammed him hard against the wardrobe behind him. “You’ve got some nerve! Say that again!”
Lu Shangyan looked him straight in the eye. “You’re just a loser who only dares to pull dirty tricks behind people’s backs.”
Gritting his teeth, Chen Shou snarled, “And that’s still better than you being a broke-ass beggar! You were thrilled out of your mind just over two hundred yuan—I bet if I told you to eat shit for money, you’d happily wolf down two bowls!”
Without another hesitation, Lu Shangyan struck him hard with a punch, sending Chen Shou stumbling back a few steps until he collided with a desk.
Half of Chen Shou’s face went numb and throbbed with pain. Being beaten in front of his underlings made him flush a furious, humiliating red.
Lu Shangyan rolled his eyes at him, picked up a change of clothes, and headed toward the bathroom to shower—and quietly massage his sore lower back just in case he needed to throw hands again later.
Chen Shou blocked his path first. “You piece of trash gay. What if you bring back some filthy disease? You don’t deserve to live here anymore.”
The lackey standing beside him finally snapped out of his shock, snatched the bath towel from Lu Shangyan’s hand, and threw it on the floor.
“Just forget about using the bathroom. Who knows what kind of disgusting things you’d do in there?”
“We’re all straight, normal guys. You’re just utterly sickening. It’s best if you pack up and get lost right now.”
Lu Shangyan swept his gaze across them. “I paid my dormitory fees. If you guys don’t want to live here, you can move out yourselves.”
Having already landed a punch, the edge of his anger had mostly faded.
More importantly, he was worried that if Chen Shou pressed the issue over that punch and demanded compensation for medical bills, he wouldn’t be able to pay a single cent.
Lowering his head, he tried to walk around them.
Having lost face moments ago, Chen Shou refused to let it go. He grabbed Lu Shangyan’s collar and shoved him straight out of the dorm room into the hallway.
Lu Shangyan’s back struck the wall, aggravating his aching muscles, and his legs turned to jelly, causing him to drop straight to his knees on the floor.
Shi Qing grabbed Chen Shou, who was moving forward to deliver another kick. “Brother Shou, is he trying to frame us for extortion?”
Seeing Lu Shangyan collapse onto the ground, Chen Shou felt a brief twinge of panic.
But he quickly whipped out his phone and started recording video. “Look at him—it’s not that he’s too beaten up to stand. Clearly, he spent last night tangled up with some man and exhausted all his energy!”
“Just look at the marks on his body! You can only imagine how wild and shameless he was last night!”
Lu Shangyan raised his head and realized Chen Shou had already stepped right up to him with a phone in hand.
Filming his face with blatant malice.
While spewing abuse: “Since you’re so desperate for men, do you have to beg them to mount you, too?”
Clutching his collar tighter, Lu Shangyan shoved him away.
The terror of being forced in front of a camera all those years ago rushed over him in a crushing wave. Cold sweat broke out across his skin, his vision blurred, and with red-rimmed eyes and trembling hands, he pushed the man back. “Get lost!”
At this time of day, many students were resting in their dorms.
Hearing the commotion outside, they poured out into the hallway. There was no shortage of onlookers, and seeing Chen Shou holding up his phone to record, they started pulling out their own phones to film as well.
Lu Shangyan’s breathing grew increasingly ragged as he tried to prop himself up and find a place to hide.
Yet Chen Shou pressed a heavy hand onto his shoulder first. “I’ve always wondered why I found you so irritating—turns out you just reek of this sickening vibe everywhere you go!”
Meanwhile, Pei Yumin was still basking in the bliss of his passionate, lingering night with Lu Shangyan and their newly exchanged contact info.
Not long after Lu Shangyan left, he hurriedly called Tang Suichen.
In both subtle and blatant ways, he bragged about how gentle Lu Shangyan was, and how he had insisted on giving him money for medicine even though he was broke himself.
Tang Suichen scoffed at him, “He probably genuinely thought your brain was broken.”
Refusing to listen, Pei Yumin insisted that Tang Suichen just didn’t understand, and for the umpteenth time boasted about how he and Lu Shangyan shared matching couple screen names. “Isn’t this destiny?”
Unable to take it anymore and thoroughly annoyed, Tang Suichen regretted ever spilling the beans to Pei Yumin less than an hour ago.
Yet, a thought suddenly crossed his mind, and he sneered, “You might be happy, but your precious Little Merchant probably isn’t.”
“Do you have any idea? The photos and videos of you and Lu Shangyan hugging yesterday—and you playing the hero saving the beauty, or rather, saving the handsome guy—have gone completely viral all over Z University right now.”
His phone buzzed a few times.
Pei Yumin looked at the forwarded photos and videos.
Instead of panicking, he couldn’t help letting out a chuckle as he looked them over. “Didn’t you notice how cute Shangyan looks wrapped in my arms and held by me?”
“And this back-view photo—don’t you think that just from the silhouette alone, Shangyan and I already look like a match made in heaven?”
Tang Suichen was speechless to the point of a mental explosion.
He let out a cold snort. “Whether Lu Shangyan matches you or not, I don’t know. But I do know that if you don’t go deal with this right now, his reputation is going to be completely ruined, and then he’ll just be waiting to get expelled by the school.”
Pei Yumin froze, his finger hovering over the save button for the photos. “What do you mean by that?”
Tang Suichen explained, “I hooked up with a younger guy a while ago; he and Lu Shangyan are both at Z University. We were about to break things off anyway, but he keeps messaging me and trying to strike up conversations for no reason.”
“That video happened to catch me in the background for a few seconds, so he sent it over and asked me what was going on. He also mentioned that Lu Shangyan crossed paths with someone he shouldn’t have—a guy named Chen Shou whose relative works at Z University. Relying on that backing, Chen Shou acts like he owns the place.”
“These photos and videos were posted by Chen Shou, and the things he’s saying are vicious. If you don’t help, Lu Shangyan won’t survive this. I heard he’s pretty poor, and getting into Z University wasn’t easy for him. If he gets expelled because of you, you can probably kiss goodbye to ever leaving a good impression on him for the rest of your life.”
Before the sentence had even finished echoing, Pei Yumin hung up the phone, grabbed his crumpled jacket, and bolted out the door.
On his way, he called the university president to demand that all posts on the official school website and forums be scrubbed immediately.
President Guo was utterly bewildered, but since it was a request from Pei Yumin, he issued the orders right down the line without even sorting out what was actually happening.
Rushing onto campus and following the dorm number he had wheedled out of Tang Suichen after a date, Pei Yumin sprinted all the way up to the fifth floor.
As he turned the corner from the stairwell into the hallway, he saw a massive crowd of people craning their necks to watch something.
Right at that moment, Lu Shangyan delivered a swift kick that sent Chen Shou sliding backward across the floor for several meters.
Seeing this, Shi Qing and Liu Tong rushed forward to intervene, but after charging forward a couple of steps, they froze in their tracks, suddenly too terrified to take another step closer.
Pei Yumin let out a breath of relief and slowed his pace as he walked forward, thinking to himself: Why would a fiery little chili pepper like him ever need my protection? He’s completely capable of holding his own.
Crouching beside Chen Shou, Lu Shangyan pried the phone straight out of his hand.
He originally intended to delete the videos from last night and just now, but unexpectedly, he flipped through the gallery and found other recordings.
He only needed a single glance for his eyes to burn red with fury. Delivering yet another brutal punch, he gritted his teeth and snarled, “When the hell did you sneak into the bathroom to film this?! Are you out of your damn mind, you pervert?!”