Chapter 8
Wen Rong was too accustomed to “collecting money.”
Every time he ended up at the police station, the result was always compensation and a written apology.
When they left, those people would glare at him viciously, and Wen Rong could feel them saying, “Just you wait.”
The money wasn’t an end; it was hush money, a prelude to more intense retaliation.
Wen Rong simply didn’t know what he should ask from his bullies because they would never give him what he truly wanted.
So, he settled for the next best thing and made a request based on something that terrified him whenever he thought of Shi Ye—no more large crowds of onlookers.
He didn’t want to be surrounded and mocked, and at the same time, he was afraid… of alarming Senior Leon.
What if he caused trouble for the Senior again? The Senior might say, “You’re a jinx to me.”
In truth, Wen Rong had always been afraid of causing trouble for others, whether it was Senior Leon, the teachers at his old school, or the aunties at the orphanage… In the beginning, they would all help him enthusiastically, but after a few times, Wen Rong could sense the impatience and aversion in their eyes.
Discovering that people who used to treat him well now disliked him was more painful than getting beaten up.
Leon: “Are you sure?”
Wen Rong nodded solemnly.
“Ouch, what a strange request. If Shi Ye heard this, he’d probably come to kill someone with a tennis racket.” Leon smiled as he put the card away, curled two fingers, and flicked Wen Rong’s forehead. “Will this foolish head get smarter if knocked by a tennis racket?”
Wen Rong clamped his mouth shut, afraid he might say “sorry.”
“Couldn’t you just demand that ‘Shi Ye isn’t allowed to appear in front of me’?”
Wen Rong didn’t even believe that request was possible himself, so he shook his head firmly.
“Alright, I’ll go tell him. You rest well.”
“S-Senior.” Wen Rong couldn’t help but call out to Leon.
“What is it now?”
“I’m really sorry for troubling you so much.”
Leon waved his hand casually. “Count yourself lucky to have met such a responsible assistant like me.”
Noon, Tennis Court
“He didn’t ask for money. He said from now on, you should challenge him one-on-one directly.”
Thwack.
“That loser dared to say that?”
Thwack.
“Of course he dared—not. That’s impossible. He’s just a cowardly and easily deceived little fool who cries if you scold him even slightly, so stop coveting his butt.”
Thwack.
“Fuck! I didn’t even touch him.”
Thwack.
“If you didn’t touch his butt, why was he running around with a bag of medicine?”
LOUD THWACK.
“Ouch, take it easy. Your Senior gave up his precious lunch break to play with you here; do you know how to be grateful?”
THWACK—
SUPER LOUD.
The force of the ball was so fierce that the racket flew out of Leon’s hand and spun out of the court.
Leon let out a huge breath. “I’m done playing.”
He walked off the court and took a bottle of water from the butler.
Shi Ye: “Continue.”
“Heartless little bastard, go play with the wall. Stop torturing your Senior.”
Shi Ye put down his racket and also took a bottle of water from the butler, unscrewing the cap and tilting his head back to pour it into his mouth.
Gulp, gulp. In less than a few seconds, not a drop was left in the bottle.
He grabbed another one, unscrewed it, and glug, glug, poured it over his head.
Water streamed from his black roots to his grey tips, washing away the sweat.
Shi Ye took a dry towel to wipe off the water. “I didn’t touch him.”
“Yes, yes, yes,” Leon replied perfunctorily.
“I really didn’t.”
Shi Ye irritably pulled off the wet towel and handed it to the butler, signaling for him to leave.
Then, resting both arms on the back of the chair, he looked up at the sky. “At most, I kicked his butt twice.”
“So you did covet his butt.”
“He stuck it out himself!”
“Just because he stuck it out, you couldn’t control yourself?”
Shi Ye: “…”
When selecting the site for Floriman Academy, the principal first chose a region with spring-like weather all year round, and then within that region, selected a city with no factories.
Facts proved the principal was right.
The sky here was bluer than anywhere else.
Clouds so white they glowed covered the sun, casting shadows overhead.
Leon elegantly crossed his legs. “Living alone in a big villa makes you maverick enough. Can’t you just obediently tour the campus with your Senior like the other freshmen… Oh, almost forgot. Course selection starts tomorrow. Have you decided on a direction? Do you need Senior’s personal guidance?”
“My team already finished it.”
“Sigh, if only every little fool could hire a professional team like you to plan out these seven years.”
Shi Ye held his neck and rolled it, his spine cracking. “Are there people stupid enough not to have a team? Even Qi Yuan has three experts in acting.”
“Stop talking, or Senior’s heart will break.” Leon flicked his sleeve, dramatically holding his forehead. “Sigh~ Senior really gets water stuck in his teeth. Just when I finally wanted to do a good deed contributing to society, I had to run into a Special Recruit.”
Shi Ye’s brow twitched. “Can we not mention him?”
“That won’t do. He came to school obediently to register, and you’ve already handled both his pairs of underwear.”
Shi Ye opened his mouth to retort, but Leon continued, “Everyone knows that people who take others’ underwear are perverts.”
Shi Ye: “…”
Leon was satisfied with Shi Ye’s speechless expression. He picked up his phone from the chair and sent a message in the class group chat: [Little fools, remember to select courses at 9 AM tomorrow. Here is the selection process and the guide. Read it yourselves.]
After sending this, he turned back to ask Shi Ye, “You caused such big trouble for the Special Recruit; lend your team to him for course selection.”
Shi Ye fell silent for a moment. “Once his courses are selected, we’re even. No more mentioning the underwear.”
“Why did you smell his underwear that day?”
“…”
“Share your thoughts with Senior?”
“Fuck! It was all because of that idiot Qi Yuan. He kept howling about how fragrant the underwear was, and I got curious…” Shi Ye rubbed his hair in annoyance. “Why not throw away underwear after wearing it? That loser is the real pervert.”
“Admitting you were wrong is just too hard for you, isn’t it?” Leon exited the group chat, found Wen Rong’s contact, and messaged him directly: [Have you eaten lunch? If you have, come out. I’ll teach you how to select courses.]
[Have you eaten lunch? If you have, come out. I’ll teach you how to select courses.]
When Wen Rong saw the message, he had just endured the discomfort of finishing the 200-page course selection guide.
His first reaction was to ask the System, “Gege, can you help me choose?”
[The System currently does not possess this function.]
Wen Rong was already feeling low, and this reply dropped his mood value even lower.
Only after reading the course selection guide did he understand what the System meant yesterday by “no majors” and “autonomous course selection.”
200 pages of guidelines, thousands of courses, and every course name was an obscure term to him.
He was very certain he couldn’t make this decision concerning his future.
After wavering for a few minutes between biting the bullet to trouble the Senior and his future, Wen Rong replied to Leon: [I’m sorry, Senior, I just saw the message. Are you free now?]
The reply came instantly: [Not convenient. Even corporate slaves working 996 get off at 9 PM. Look at what time it is.]
Wen Rong turned his head to look out the window and was startled.
It was still light when he sat down in front of the computer, but now it was pitch black outside.
[Host, it is 10 PM.]
“How did I read for so long?”
[…] The System also wanted to know why Wen Rong could read a guide so intently. If not for the pages turning, the System would have thought the Host’s soul had left his body.
Wen Rong hurriedly replied to Leon: [I’m sorry, Senior. Please rest well. Goodnight.]
Leon: [/Fist emoji. The building opposite yours, 408. Come over.]
The distance between doors in the corridor of Senior Leon’s dormitory building was wider, clearly indicating that each dorm room was larger.
Wen Rong walked for quite a while before seeing 408 at the very end.
Knock, knock, knock.
Click.
Wen Rong stood stiffly upright. “Senior, good ev—”
Before the word “evening” could leave his mouth, a dark figure blocked all the light coming from the room, shrouding Wen Rong’s nervousness and guilt in darkness.
The person looked down at him. “Come in.”
—It was Shi Ye.
H-He didn’t really dare to enter.
“Come in!”
Wen Rong dared to move even less.
He looked up at the number on the door again, confirming it was 408 and he hadn’t gone to the wrong place.
“Why aren’t you coming in yet?” Senior Leon’s voice came from inside.
Afraid his hesitation would annoy the Senior, Wen Rong hurriedly entered.
Shi Ye was walking ahead. Wen Rong looked down and saw Shi Ye was wearing slippers, so he stopped again.
Pausing for two seconds, Wen Rong bent down, took off his shoes, placed them against the door, and chased after Shi Ye in his socks.
Senior Leon’s dorm was much larger than his, but it seemed more crowded.
There was no sofa. Along both walls were long tables, and on the tables stood cabinets reaching the ceiling. The cabinets were tightly packed with transparent boxes, and the boxes were full of things.
It felt like he had walked into a hardware store.
Leon came out of another room wearing an apron, a small electric drill buzzing in his hand. “Wait a moment, I’ll be done soon.”
He paused in his motion to return to his tinkering, his gaze shifting from Wen Rong’s face to his feet.
Noticing this, Wen Rong wiggled his toes awkwardly inside his white socks and hastily explained, “My shoes are dirty. I was afraid of dirtying your dorm.”
“Sit. Shi Ye, find him a chair.”
Wen Rong quickly said, “I-I-I’m fine standing.”
Shi Ye turned back and gave Wen Rong a cold glare. Wen Rong bit his lip and lowered his head.
Shi Ye pulled a chair out from under the table and threw it to him, then grabbed his laptop and went to work elsewhere. The keyboard clattered loudly, and Leon’s drill buzzed in the inner room.
Wen Rong kept his legs together, hands on his knees, waiting rigidly.
Time like this was hard to endure; every second felt stretched out.
When the drill stopped, he would excitedly think, “Is Senior finished?”, but the drill would soon start again.
When the typing stopped, he would be scared, thinking Shi Ye was looking over. Fortunately, the typing would resume.
After an unknown amount of time, the drill finally stopped for good. Leon took off his apron and came out of the room holding a laptop.
With a kick of his long legs, he slid a chair over to sit next to Wen Rong, opened the laptop, and logged into Black Pigeon.
“Alright, let’s make this quick. Little fool, what do you want to do in the future?”
Wen Rong let out a heavy sigh of relief and stated the answer in his heart, “Senior, I want to study mathematics.”
“Mathematics?” Leon’s fingertip paused for a split second.
Wen Rong keenly sensed it. “Is… is that not okay?”
“Not that it’s not okay, just a bit surprised. You look dull, didn’t expect your brain to be quite good.” Leon turned back and clicked on the mathematics category in the course guide. “How was your IMO score? What direction are you good at?”
“I…” Wen Rong blankly repeated what Senior Leon said.
“Hm?”
The fists resting on his knees tightened again and again. “What… is IMO?”
The sound of typing stopped abruptly. The surroundings fell silent.
Wen Rong felt Shi Ye looking at him. Goosebumps instantly rose on his back, and his cheeks burned like fire.
“Or have you participated in any summer camps before?”
“No. It’s just…” Wen Rong’s voice grew lower and lower. “It’s just that I scored relatively high in mathematics.”
“Little fool, how can a higher score count as a basis? There’s a big gap between high school math and university math. This subject requires talent.”
“Does a score… not count…”
“…”
“…”
“…”
The atmosphere fell into an awkward silence. Everyone’s breathing was audible.
Wen Rong felt this moment was even harder to endure than the waiting just now. His fingernails dug deep into his knees.
He couldn’t help but say, “Senior, please help me choose a course that makes it easy to find a job. Anything is fine.”
“Is it hard to find a job?”
A voice completely different from Senior Leon’s, belonging uniquely to the terrifying Shi Ye.
Wen Rong’s mind flashed with the image of Shi Ye looking down at him from a height, eyelids lowered indifferently, looking down on him a little.
His heart twisted painfully.
His chin was almost touching his chest, his slightly long bangs completely blocking the gaze directed at his face. Between the soft strands of hair, a distressed expression could faintly be seen.
“I just want to find a job that can support myself after graduating from university.”
“Tsk, he’s going to cry again! I just asked a question, why is he crying again? Look, I really didn’t touch him.”
Two voices spoke almost simultaneously, Shi Ye’s drowning out the other.
“Shut up! I wasn’t talking about you, little fo—” Leon’s voice paused. “No, Wen Rong, what did you just say?”
“S-Senior, I’ll go back and think about it.”
Wen Rong quickly jumped off the stool, grabbed his shoes, and ran out of the room like a coward.
It wasn’t sleeping time yet, and a small patch of bright light spilled from under every door crack.
His socks made no sound on the floor. He ran all the way downstairs, not waking a single sound-activated light.
At the dormitory entrance, Wen Rong suddenly froze, like a puppet that had lost its winding mechanism, standing quietly in the cold wind.
Just when the System thought he had fallen asleep, it heard a weak voice:
“Gege, what is the IMO?”
[The International Mathematical Olympiad.]
“What about summer camps?”
[Places where prestigious schools select outstanding students before the college entrance exam.]
Wen Rong fell silent for a few more seconds, then spoke haltingly like a puppet: “Did… I… make a mistake saying I’m good at math?”
“I’m not good at math at all.”
“I haven’t done any of the things the Senior asked about.”
[…] The System looked at Wen Rong’s perfect score in the college entrance math exam and didn’t know how to answer.
In the silence, Wen Rong’s gaze looked towards not far away.
The streetlights weren’t very bright, casting faint colors on the road like water used by art students to wash brushes.
He lowered his eyes. “Gege, what courses should I choose now?”
[This question depends on what the Host wants to do.]
“I…”
[What is your dream?]
“I…”
Wen Rong had never considered this question.
His life had always been simple: study, take exams, get high scores.
When the college entrance exam results came out, he felt a little pride in his heart, thinking that even without parents, he wasn’t worse than others.
But now he sensitively realized he was just being arrogant in his ignorance. Those high scores he was proud of weren’t worth mentioning.
The heartache became more and more frequent.
Wen Rong held his breath, pretending to be calm as he walked down the stairs.
His thin body gradually hunched over, hands bracing his knees, moving forward in a strange posture.
Stepping from the faint colors into the darkness, his arms suddenly slipped, and his forehead knocked against his knees.
His nose twitched violently, and tears surged out, plip-plop.
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