Chapter 8: Then You’re Quite Special to Me
Zhang Chulan stared at the message from Chi Wu and suddenly bolted upright from his bed, ready to rush out in his slippers.
“Lan-ge, you scared the hell out of me with all that rushing around,” Wang Yuechu complained, then teased, “What’s up? Did you finally remember you need to go catch a cheater?”
“You talk too much.” Zhang Chulan spat back with fake annoyance, but the excitement in his eyes and his relaxed demeanor were unmistakable. He even casually swiped a bottle of mosquito repellent from Chi Wu’s desk on his way out.
“I’m going to pick up Wubao.”
“Aiyou, seeing you like this, I’m really starting to doubt you. You should seriously take a look in the mirror right now.”
Clang. Zhang Chulan shut the door and headed down the hallway. Once outside, he calmed down a bit and took out his phone to message Chi Wu.
When another notification popped up on the “fishing” app, he accepted the request. Seeing the distance between the two users, he let out a laugh with an ambiguous meaning.
However, his happiness was short-lived as Chi Wu’s call came in. He quickly exited the app, sneakily closing the popup before answering the call.
“What do you want to eat?”
“Can I order anything? I want to eat you…”
“If you’re not eating, forget it.”
“Hey, hey, I’m done joking, done joking! Don’t hang up.” Zhang Chulan admitted his mistake at light speed, his stomach cooperating with a loud grumble.
He rubbed his belly, only now remembering he hadn’t eaten dinner at all. How had he not felt hungry until now?
“I want Niangzi BBQ.” Zhang Chulan started ordering like a lord. “I want small yellow croaker, mini steamed buns, garlic, bullfrog, grilled beef skewers, grilled corn…”
“Got it.”
Zhang Chulan stared at the hung-up phone and clicked his tongue twice, sounding somewhere between impressed and complaining.
“Hung up so fast. I wasn’t even done talking.”
But thinking about how Chi Wu always brought him things he liked, he couldn’t help but smile.
He skipped toward the gate, even plucking a leaf on the way and rubbing it just like Chi Wu did.
Before long, the fresh scent of the leaf lingered on his fingertips, accompanied by the dirty dust from its surface.
Although Zhang Chulan was generally a patient person, he actually disliked waiting for people. Currently, only Chi Wu could elicit genuine compromise from certain contradictory aspects of his personality.
He paced back and forth at the gate, circling the osmanthus trees until he was dizzy, before Chi Wu finally arrived.
Chi Wu held out the bag in his hand. “Why did you come out?”
“Starving to death.” Zhang Chulan said, but he didn’t reach for the bag. Instead, he squatted down, fished out the mosquito repellent, and grabbed Chi Wu’s calf as the other tried to move away.
“Don’t move. Let me put this on you.”
“Put it on when we get back. There aren’t many mosquitoes while we’re walking…”
“No way. We’re eating in the park before heading back.” Zhang Chulan squeezed out the repellent and applied it to Chi Wu’s exposed skin, rambling protectively over his food.
“If I take this back, those animals in the dorm will finish it off in two seconds.”
“I bought a lot. It’s fine to share some with them.”
“No way!” Zhang Chulan blurted out. The moment the words left his mouth, he suddenly remembered the persona he usually maintained—someone who could chat and get along with anyone.
“I’m hungry enough to eat a cow right now. I absolutely won’t waste any of it!”
“Fine.” Chi Wu shut up. He bent down, grabbed Zhang Chulan’s hair, and forced him to look up.
“Stop applying it. I’ll do it myself.”
“Eh?” Zhang Chulan spoke as if discovering a new continent. “Wubao, you’re getting goosebumps.”
“Shut up.” Chi Wu slapped Zhang Chulan’s forearm, pulled him up, and snatched the mosquito repellent away.
“Wubao, you’re so fierce,” Zhang Chulan said, his tone carrying a hint of grievance. “You grabbed my scalp so hard it hurts.”
“Sorry.” Chi Wu apologized immediately and handed over the bag in his hand again.
This time, Zhang Chulan took the bag and opened it. Finding water and tissues inside, he thought it fit Chi Wu’s considerate personality perfectly.
Thinking about this, Zhang Chulan felt a twinge of envy for Chi Wu’s future partner.
This was a question he had never considered before, but Wang Yuechu’s words earlier that day had been like a summer thunderclap, waking him up.
“Wubao, do you have someone you like?”
“Someone I like?” Chi Wu put away the mosquito repellent and carefully considered these words. “What kind of ‘like’?”
“Of course, the kind where…” Zhang Chulan suddenly choked. He had never been in a relationship, so how would he know what ‘like’ was?
It was true that he had always wanted to “pop his cherry,” though.
But thinking about the couple cuddling under the stinking ginkgo tree during the day, the wedding vows he had seen, and the scenes of his parents getting along in his memories…
“Probably… where that person is special to you.” He wasn’t entirely satisfied with this answer as soon as he said it.
Sure enough, Chi Wu looked even more confused. “Special? What kind of special?”
Zhang Chulan let out an “Ah,” suddenly regretting asking this question. Before he could change the subject, he heard Chi Wu speak.
“If ‘special’ means ‘like,’ then you are quite special to me.”
Zhang Chulan’s heart gave a heavy thump, like a stone dropping into water and sending ripples outward. A tingling, numb sensation, like a small ant landing on the tip of his heart, crawled and scratched inside him.
It was extremely uncomfortable.
Zhang Chulan turned to look at Chi Wu, searching those beautiful, pure eyes carefully. Nothing.
Complete emptiness.
He clicked his tongue. Chi Wu obviously didn’t understand the “like” he was asking about and seemed to treat the previous sentence as a simple logic problem.
But actually, he knew about “his specialness to Chi Wu” without needing it to be said.
Chi Wu was like this in front of him, but in others’ mouths, he was a difficult character to approach. He could be choking with his words, and often carried a deliberate distance.
It seemed like joining a conversation was just a task for him. Wang Yuechu and the others had discussed the sense of distance Chi Wu projected more than once.
“What’s wrong?” Chi Wu looked at Zhang Chulan levelly.
“Nothing.” Zhang Chulan lowered his head and opened the takeout bag. For some reason, he felt the wind wasn’t pleasant anymore, the frogs were too noisy, and the lake surface was too quiet.
Chi Wu didn’t probe further. He just said “Oh” and sat down next to Zhang Chulan, taking out his phone to reply to messages.
Zhang Chulan gnawed on the small yellow croaker, which wasn’t as tasty after being packed up, getting grease all over his mouth.
He turned his head and caught a glimpse of Chi Wu chatting. He leaned over to peek—the other person had sent a location, a famous scenic spot, and above that was something like “Wubao, pay attention to me,” followed by a series of cute, coquettish stickers.
Just as Chi Wu reached out to block his view, Zhang Chulan quickly withdrew, acting nonchalant.
“Wubao, let’s find a chance to go traveling, yeah? Isn’t National Day coming up?”
Chi Wu put away his phone and asked, his tone sounding a bit torn.
“You want to go traveling?”
“Yeah, I’ve always wanted to go out and see the world, but you’re too hard to drag out. You can’t go on like this. ‘Reading ten thousand books is not as good as traveling ten thousand miles.’ We need to be travelers like the Great Sage.”
Chi Wu didn’t respond to Zhang Chulan’s pile of high-sounding excuses.
His mom had recently bought a new home in a tourist area in City C. Knowing he had muted the group chat, she would message him privately every time she posted in the group.
Chi Wu still hadn’t figured out how to tell Zhang Chulan about this mother who claimed to have “searched for him for twelve years with great difficulty.”
“Okay, let’s go traveling then. Where do you want to go?”
Zhang Chulan blurted out, “The Fog Capital.”
“Hm?” Chi Wu questioned, then added, “Alright. But I have a competition recently, so wait for me a bit.”
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