Chapter 91: Aching Fullness, “I’m sorry, I went crazy with jealousy.”…
It wasn’t until he heard the phone call from Jiang Yan’s subordinate, confirming that Xuezhang had arrived home safely, that Jiang Yunian finally set his mind at ease.
However, inside the smoothly driving car, there was dead silence. The scorching heartbeat was also obscured by a thick, black fog. Jiang Yunian turned his head to look at the streetlights and trees rapidly receding outside the window; the mottled and dazzling light and shadows flickered in his clear pupils. His body still seemed to retain the scent of a certain man, gradually spreading throughout the entire cabin. His lips, chest, and the skin on the inside of his wrist that had been rubbed by thumb pads, also burned along with it. He quietly covered it with his other hand, rubbing it slowly, trying to suppress that bit of uncomfortable awkwardness.
Jiang Yan drove with concentration. The lines of his profile appeared somewhat cold and hard in the dim light, maintaining this expression from the very beginning until now. He didn’t speak. His slender fingers occasionally tapped lightly on the steering wheel, as if pondering something. The air between the two seemed to have solidified; a narrow chasm lay between them, making even simple communication difficult.
The car stopped outside the courtyard gate, a distance away from the dormitory building. Outside, it had started raining at some point. The drizzle was fine and dense, reflecting a hazy light under the streetlamps.
“We’re here.”
Jiang Yunian reached out to open the car door, but the other party was faster. He got out of the car first, walked around to the passenger side, and opened the door for him, completely ignoring the rainwater wetting his hair and clothes. At the moment the person stepped out, he neatly took off that custom-tailored suit jacket and, brooking no argument, draped it over Jiang Yunian’s head, holding up a small space of shelter for him.
The rain wasn’t that heavy, there was no need for this. Jiang Yunian wanted to refuse, feeling it made him seem too delicate.
“Don’t move,” Jiang Yan interrupted him. His arm carried an irresistible force as he pulled his entire body into his embrace. Half-hugging, half-holding, he escorted him toward the dormitory building.
The jacket still carried Jiang Yan’s body heat and crisp, cold fragrance, firmly covering more than half of Jiang Yunian’s body. Forced to lean against Jiang Yan’s side, he felt the warmth of the other’s chest and the steady heartbeat. The rainwater beat against the jacket with a pitter-patter sound, tinged with a chill, while the cheeks beneath the jacket grew uncontrollably hot. Even the roots of his ears quietly flushed with a thin layer of red. It made him want to break free, yet he was greedy for this brief warmth of being carefully protected, walking along stiffly while being led.
The short journey of a few minutes felt infinitely stretched.
Only when they reached the bottom of the dormitory building did Jiang Yan let him go. In just this short while, Jiang Yan, completely exposed on the outside, was almost entirely soaked. Dripping water droplets slid down his neat black hair, skimming past his handsome brow bone and tall nose bridge. The soaked shirt clung tightly to his body, outlining the lines of his lean, muscular physique.
Not caring in the slightest, he wrung out the water from the sleeves of the suit jacket. He grabbed one of Jiang Yunian’s slender, pale wrists and used the still-dry inner lining fabric to wipe away the water droplets that had accidentally splashed onto the back of his hand.
His movements were very meticulous. His fingertips, carrying a searing temperature, gently rubbed that patch of skin, lingering endlessly. His other hand raised up to help Jiang Yunian tidy up his bangs that had been messed up by the jacket, asking him: “Are you cold?”
Jiang Yunian remained silent. As his gaze fell on Jiang Yan’s soaked clothes, his heart seemed to be lightly tugged, aching and swelling.
The irritation that had built up all the way here suddenly deflated upon seeing him like this.
Jiang Yan’s brows carried a look of weariness. Tonight’s banquet and the subsequent accident had consumed a lot of his mental energy. “You’re tired, rest early.”
Jiang Yunian pursed his lips. He turned around, but before his foot could step out, the gripped hand was slow to release.
His footsteps paused slightly, not looking back.
After a brief silence, a tired voice came from behind, wrapped in a trace of caution, “Ge, are you angry?”
Jiang Yunian’s fingers curled up slightly, and he blinked. Angry? It didn’t seem like it, it was more a sense of powerlessness.
“I’m sorry.” Jiang Yan lowered his head, his apology melting into the sound of the rain, “I went crazy with jealousy.”
He exerted a little force with his hand, seemingly wanting to pull Jiang Yunian back into his embrace. His other hand also raised, as if wanting to touch his cheek, or… more.
But the other party turned his head and dodged, rejecting his kiss. At that moment, the nervous heartbeat fell into disarray along with his breathing. Slowly and firmly, bit by bit, Jiang Yunian broke his wrist free from Jiang Yan’s palm.
From beginning to end, he never turned his head back, silently entering the dormitory building.
It wasn’t until he stepped onto the corner of the stairs and confirmed that the gaze behind him could no longer see him that Jiang Yunian stopped in his tracks, leaned against the cold wall, and let out a breath.
There were no windows in the second-floor corridor; with a slight dip of the head, one could see everything below. Driven by some inexplicable impulse, Jiang Yunian turned his head and glanced down.
Amidst the sky-filling curtain of rain, the certain someone he thought had left long ago only just moved his figure out from under the eaves of the dormitory building entrance. No umbrella, no shelter of any kind, he just walked back into the rain like that, carrying that already wrinkled, soaked suit jacket. His back figure, in the dense drizzle, looked exceptionally desolate and lonely, completely uncaring about being drenched to the bone.
Jiang Yunian’s heart suddenly clamped with an astringent pain, his lips pressing tighter. He forced himself to withdraw his gaze, warning himself not to go soft, and stopped looking at that figure that messed with his heart, quickening his pace upstairs.
Returning to the dorm room, Qian Cheng was still nowhere to be seen, He Qing hadn’t returned either—Zhou Shu probably wouldn’t let him go. The sound of shower water came from the bathroom, occasionally mixed with a few out-of-tune hums. It seemed only Xu Zhiyuan was back.
Suddenly remembering something, Jiang Yunian fished out his phone and made a call to Lu Yuanbai. The ringtone continued to sound until it automatically hung up without anyone answering. His heart tightened, and he sent another message of concern.
After a good while, Lu Yuanbai finally replied. The injuries on his hands had already been simply treated. Reading between the lines, there wasn’t much difference from normal—he was still gentle and polite—but at this moment, it inexplicably exuded a faint sense of alienation.
The guilt in Jiang Yunian’s heart didn’t diminish in the slightest. His fingers constantly tapped the keyboard, sending several messages in a row, and after tossing and turning, the phrase typed the most was still “I’m sorry”.
Xuezhang was such a good person; he didn’t blame him, nor did he ask about tonight’s events. Everything was touched upon lightly. He finally replied: [I just joined a new research project recently and will be quite busy, so let’s not contact each other for a while.]
He understood the meaning behind this sentence. Xuezhang was disappointed in him, and probably didn’t want to see him again in the future. This was fine too. His chaotic life shouldn’t have dragged others into it in the first place; it was his fault.
Jiang Yunian convinced himself this way, yet the disappointed, aching fullness in his heart lingered for a long time.
At this moment, Xu Zhiyuan came out of the bathroom with wet hair. Seeing him, he grinned: “You’re back? Why didn’t you make a sound?”
“…”
He couldn’t help but take an extra glance at him. The other party didn’t move at all, his two empty eyes staring blankly at the black screen of his phone. Anyone who didn’t know better would think he’d just been brokenhearted. Xu Zhiyuan leaned closer, “Yunian, what’s wrong? Did your part-time job tonight not go smoothly?”
Jiang Yunian looked up blankly, his eyes still a bit unfocused. It took a moment to focus before he shook his head: “N-no… nothing.”
He had no intention of mentioning all the events of tonight, so he changed the subject: “Didn’t you say your relatives came over? Aren’t you staying at home?”
Xu Zhiyuan wiped his hair with a towel while saying: “I gave my room to my grandmother, and the sofa is too crowded to fit, so I came back first. What about you guys, why so late? Where’s He Qing, didn’t he come back with you?”
Jiang Yunian’s eyes flickered, and he mumbled in a low voice: “He… probably won’t be able to come back anytime soon tonight.”
“Ah? So is he coming back or not?” Xu Zhiyuan looked baffled, not understanding. Pondering that it was almost curfew, He Qing usually would let them know in advance not to leave the door unlocked if he wasn’t coming back. The lack of news was truly a bit weird… No, he had to make a call to ask.
Thinking this, he picked up his phone and dialed He Qing’s number.
“Beep beep…”
The phone rang for a long time with no one answering.
Xu Zhiyuan frowned, muttering that he couldn’t possibly be sleeping that dead at this hour, right? Refusing to believe it, he called again.
This time, the call was hung up almost immediately after it started ringing.
Xu Zhiyuan’s brows furrowed even tighter. Associating it with the various legal news and suspense dramas he liked to watch normally, his heart skipped a beat. He Qing would never just hang up their calls directly. This situation… was a bit amiss, wasn’t it? Could his phone have been hijacked by someone?
A trace of tension rose in his heart, and he persistently redialed.
Hung up again.
Called again, hung up again.
Just when Xu Zhiyuan was about to give up, the call was finally picked up. However, the voice coming from the other end left the two people present completely stunned.
“Fuck!”
“Not sleeping at night, are you trying to rush my death?”
“Mm… don’t… give me… mmph…”
“Beep—”
He Qing’s faint, gossamer-like voice seemed to be blocked by something, and then the call was decisively hung up, emitting a busy tone.
The dorm room fell into an eerie silence.
A few minutes later, He Qing’s WeChat message popped up: [Not coming back, don’t leave the door unlocked. Was just working out, don’t overthink it.]
Working out?
Xu Zhiyuan looked bewilderedly at Jiang Yunian, who had no idea why this scene had unfolded. A look of awkwardness surfaced simultaneously on both their faces. That annoyed male voice at the beginning… seemed like Zhou Shu?
So the gossip Qian Cheng mentioned before was true. He Qing really was with that Zhou family young master…
Xu Zhiyuan gave two dry laughs, trying to ease the awkwardness: “Hehe, doing exercises this late, no wonder… no wonder He Qing keeps his figure so well… hehe…”
Wait, why did this sound so ambiguous? When Xu Zhiyuan realized what he said, he wanted to slap his own mouth.
Turning his head back, he met Jiang Yunian, who had also thought crookedly. Their two pale-skinned faces instantly exploded with red, and they tacitly turned their heads away.
Before going to sleep, Jiang Yunian scrolled through Weibo for a bit. Before turning off his phone, he received a message from Jiang Yan.
[Ge, I’m home. Are you asleep?]
After a few minutes, another one.
[Are you free tomorrow? I’ll make the cake Ge wants to eat.]
[It’s fine if you’re not free, I’ll bring it to you after class.]
Jiang Yunian looked at those two messages, his fingers motionless for a long time. The sound of rain outside the window hadn’t stopped. Before his eyes, that figure who braved the rain to shelter him, and the lonely retreating back figure, seemed to float up again. His heart felt like an overturned five-flavor bottle; the unspeakable surging desires spread through his limbs and bones.
Ultimately, he turned off the screen, stuffed his phone under his pillow, rolled over, and closed his eyes.
The night was deep, the pattering sound of the rain masking the chaotic heartbeat, drip-drop.
Translator’s Note: Let’s take a moment to process the sheer audacity of Jiang Yan slapping himself using Jiang Yunian’s hand. That’s a new level of yandere! And He Qing “working out” with Zhou Shu… sure.
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