Done for.
He got caught.
Even though he had been extremely careful, Lin Zong still noticed.
Well, honestly, there probably are not many people in the entire world who would not notice if someone grabbed their hand.
Huo You started to regret it. If he had just tried a bit harder to keep himself under control earlier, maybe he would not have gotten busted.
His heartbeat pounded like a muffled drum, beating rapidly inside his chest.
A thin layer of sweat seeped from Huo You’s clenched palms while his brain raced at lightning speed.
“Is that so?” He feigned complete ignorance. “I do not remember.”
Hey!
Lin Zong never expected Huo You to blatantly tell a bald-faced lie.
He was absolutely positive: “I saw it with my own eyes.”
Huo You looked right at him and said with a straight face, “My apologies.”
The moment Lin Zong’s spark of a desire to demand an explanation flared up, it was instantly doused by Huo You’s breezy two words.
After all, having your hand grabbed did not really seem like a big deal anyway.
Lin Zong pondered for a few seconds, feeling a lingering sense that something was off, but having no idea how to pursue the matter further.
Much like when he asked Huo You about his eyes, every time he finished asking, it felt like he had not gotten any useful information at all.
Whatever, this was not worth agonizing over; maybe the crowd was just too chaotic and caused Huo You to panic and grab blindly.
Lin Zong quickly came up with an excuse for Huo You. Seeing the red envelope on the table reminded him that he still needed to transfer the money to Huo You.
He opened the red envelope he was originally supposed to give to Huo You and took a look: it was also five hundred and twenty yuan. His parents truly treated everyone equally.
Lin Zong pulled out his phone, opened his messaging app, scrolled through his contacts twice, and looked up in a daze: “I do not have you on my friends list yet?”
Huo You looked at him.
Right, they had not added each other.
When they first started talking, he was still wearing a smartwatch, so not having each other added made complete sense.
“Scan me,” Lin Zong shoved the QR code right into Huo You’s face, looking somewhat unsatisfied. “I have been taking care of you and taking you out to play day in and day out, and you did not even think to add me.”
Huo You was lost for words, pulling out his phone to scan the code.
He could not help wondering: Does Lin Zong ever think he is in the wrong?
However, Lin Zong liked to drag out the ends of his sentences when he spoke, and this kind of accusation actually felt quite intimate to Huo You.
It felt more like acting spoiled.
Accompanied by a beep, the chat interface transitioned to show that they were now friends.
Huo You hurriedly brushed aside his own absurd thoughts and concentrated on setting Lin Zong’s contact remark.
“You like jellyfish?”
Lin Zong tapped on his profile picture, where a tiny, glowing white jellyfish sat right in the middle of a blue background.
Huo You’s fingers paused for half a second before he gave a muffled assent.
“Pretty unexpected,” Lin Zong tapped into his Moments page, which was completely blank, and shot a suspicious sidelong glance at Huo You. “You did not block me, did you?”
Huo You looked up: “?”
“Moments.”
Lin Zong backed out and went back in, only to find it still completely blank.
“No,” Huo You desperately wanted to sigh, making up an excuse. “Smartwatches are not very convenient for posting on Moments.”
“Oh, right.” Lin Zong expressed his understanding.
As soon as he finished speaking, Huo You received a message from the person standing right in front of him: Do not set a remark for me.
Honestly, his head was starting to spin.
The kind of spinning where you never know what Lin Zong is going to do next.
Lin Zong continued sending messages face-to-face as the evil Beagle profile picture with crossed arms popped up again.
This time, it was a transfer.
Five hundred and twenty.
Huo You’s head gave a low buzz, like a pot of boiling water.
520?
Dizzy.
Even dizzier.
Lin Zong’s presence swirled around him, light and breezy, endless.
Right in the middle of Huo You’s absent-minded daze, Lin Zong’s phone rang with a call from Zhou Yangyang.
Miraculous.
Zhou Yangyang usually never reached out to him.
Lin Zong glanced at Huo You.
Although he knew that envelope of Huo You’s that looked like a love letter actually just contained cash, he was not blind; Zhou Yangyang definitely had a thing for Huo You.
Could it be that Zhou Yangyang wanted to fish for information about Huo You through him?
Not good.
Inwardly, Lin Zong silently poured one out for Li Jianbing.
It is not that your bro does not want you to succeed, it is just that your rival is way too formidable.
He grabbed his phone and walked out of the gaming room before answering.
“Lin Zong, how did you do on the exams?” Zhou Yangyang asked.
The opening line was not “I am looking for Huo You,” which made Lin Zong let out a sigh of relief.
“Normal performance,” Lin Zong asked, puzzled. “We have already graduated and she is still making you tally scores?”
“No, no,” Zhou Yangyang explained with a chuckle. “Old Liu asked in the group chat if we wanted to do a class gathering, and since I saw you had not replied, I am calling to check.”
Old Liu was their head teacher, around forty, somewhat balding, who loved walking back and forth in the hallways like a ghost with his hands clasped behind his back.
He was very strict, but at the same time quite big on humanistic care. Lin Zong had already guessed that once the scores came out, Old Liu would pay out of his pocket to treat everyone to a gathering, he just had not expected it to be so urgent.
“Did not notice just now,” Lin Zong said. “I will go type a 1.”
“Right, could you help ask if Jianbing is going? I called him just now and he did not pick up. Is his score okay?” Zhou Yangyang sounded a bit nervous. “He did not do badly, did he, so that is why.”
Lin Zong hurriedly cut her off: “He did pretty well, probably just busy.”
Probably jumping up and down celebrating.
He left out that second half to save some face for Li Jianbing.
After hanging up the phone, Lin Zong could not help marveling at Li Jianbing’s bumpy romantic road.
It was bad enough that his rival was strong, but the guy could not even pull his own weight.
Three hundred and sixty-five days a year, outside of class, he practically glued his phone to his face, so how could he still miss a call from his crush?
Lin Zong tried calling Li Jianbing.
Barely five seconds passed before the other end picked up.
“Zong, what is up?”
The background noise over the phone was extremely chaotic, and calling it deafening would be no exaggeration.
“Where are you?” Lin Zong held the phone a bit further away. “Singing at KTV?”
“Singing what KTV? My god, I am telling you, I just heard the most explosive piece of gossip!” Li Jianbing shouted, lowering his voice.
“What?”
“The building right next to mine,” the sound cleared up a bit, meaning he must have moved to a different spot, “some guy was messing around with his girlfriend’s boyfriend, and got caught by his girlfriend’s boyfriend’s girlfriend.”
For a moment, Lin Zong fell silent, channeling his inner Huo You.
He suspected his brain was broken, unable to process anything right after finishing the gaokao.
Otherwise, why could not he understand a single word Li Jianbing was saying?
“Did you catch that?” Li Jianbing asked eagerly. “Is it not super explosive?”
“Can you repeat that?”
Extremely excited, Li Jianbing repeated every single word without missing a beat.
Lin Zong raised a hand to touch his forehead, it was not burning up, so why was not his brain turning?
“I know you do not get it,” Li Jianbing said smugly. “Simply put, Guy A has a Girlfriend B, but B also has a Boyfriend C, and A hooked up with C, and then they got caught by C’s other girlfriend D! How about that, is it mind-blowing?”
Lin Zong wrestled with A, B, C, and D for ages. The mental impact was a bit too heavy, so he quietly ran through the genders of each letter in his head several times.
None of it flowed right.
Until, at some random second, it suddenly dawned on him that heterosexuality was not the only thing existing in this world.