HS Chapter 20

It was already mid-September, but Xuan City was still wrapped in the grip of intense heat.

Carrying the dubbing script, Ye Wenyu stepped out of the dormitory and was immediately smothered by the steaming hot air in the corridor. He thought it would be better outside, at least there would be some wind, and it wouldn’t be so stuffy.

It turned out he was thinking too much.

The sun near sunset was still scorching and dazzling. There was indeed wind, but it was scorching hot, and it felt like it could carry sparks if it blew any faster across his skin.

Was it this hot around this time last year?

The blinding sunlight made it hard for him to keep his eyes open. He opened the script and used it to shield his forehead, recalling while heading toward the school gate.

The main gate for vehicles was closed, so he had to walk through a small path beside the security office.

At this hour, there were a lot of people coming in from outside, bustling in groups. It looked like a class had just come back from a gathering.

Ye Wenyu moved aside to wait for them to pass.

Two girls walked past him arm in arm, glancing back and chatting intimately:

“Yan Chen is holding an umbrella, who’s he waiting for?”

“That umbrella looks like a girl’s. Could it be his girlfriend?”

“Impossible, I haven’t heard that Yan Chen has a girlfriend.”

“No way. Anyway, he wouldn’t be holding it for himself. He’s from the sports department, after all.”

…

Ye Wenyu glanced through the crowd toward the outside but didn’t see anyone. He stepped out a bit farther and then spotted Yan Chen leaning against the engraved stone, waiting for him.

Sure enough, he was holding an umbrella, a light blue one with no patterns, and it didn’t look out of place even for a guy.

He lifted his feet and walked over.

Yan Chen was looking down, replying to Dong Xi’s message:

Dong Xi: [Yan-ge, make sure to bring the umbrella back. I need to return it to my girlfriend tomorrow.]

Yan Chen: [Got it.]

Dong Xi: [Alright, but is the sun really that bad today? On hotter days, didn’t we still manage to run five laps on the field?]

Hearing footsteps approaching, Yan Chen lifted his head just in time to see Ye Wenyu arriving in front of him.

After just a few minutes of walking, Ye Wenyu’s cheeks were already showing signs of being sunburnt.

Ye Wenyu: “Sorry, have you been waiting for a long time?”

Yan Chen said no, put away his phone, stood straight, and pulled Ye Wenyu under the umbrella: “Let’s go.”

When Yan Chen said nearby, he really meant nearby. It was a villa area next to the school, and it took less than ten minutes to walk there from the west gate.

Ye Wenyu followed Yan Chen into the house.

It was a two-story small villa, spacious and beautiful. From the living room’s floor-to-ceiling windows, the clear and clean swimming pool in the backyard could be seen.

But it felt too empty.

It was not that the decoration was sparse, but there was no sense of life at all. It was so clean and cold that it seemed no one had ever lived there.

Only then did Ye Wenyu realize that the “home” Yan Chen mentioned was merely a place for him to stay while attending school.

“With it so close, why do you still live on campus?” he asked Yan Chen.

Yan Chen put away the umbrella in the shoe cabinet: “Living alone is too boring. I like the lively atmosphere.”

He didn’t seem like someone who liked lively places, so hearing this from him didn’t sound very convincing…it felt more like a casual joke.

But Ye Wenyu believed him.

“Come sit in the living room,” Yan Chen said, taking out a pair of new slippers for him and turning on the air conditioning. “What would you like to drink?”

“Anything is fine.” Ye Wenyu slipped his feet into the slippers, which were a bit big and felt quite empty.

Yan Chen went into the kitchen. Standing still for a moment to recall the layout, he opened the top cupboard, where many ceramic cups with different patterns were neatly arranged.

He randomly picked one for himself, then carefully chose a sky-blue, crack-patterned one for Ye Wenyu, poured some water, and brought it to the living room.

Ye Wenyu was sitting at the small round table near the balcony, waiting for him.

He really had an unusually clean aura about him. Just sitting there quietly, he seemed to light up everything around him.

Yan Chen paused for a moment before walking over.

Ye Wenyu had been looking at the birds falling on the lawn outside. Hearing movement, he turned his gaze back and took the teacup from Yan Chen: “Thank you.”

He used both hands, his fingers wrapped around the cup. The sky-blue glaze made his hands look even more delicate and porcelain-white.

“No need,” Yan Chen lightly turned the cup in his hand, took a sip, and then sat down across from Ye Wenyu.

The bottom of the ceramic cup touched the glass tabletop, making a light clinking sound.

“Where should we start?” Yan Chen asked. “Do you need me to read it once first?”

Ye Wenyu thought for a moment: “Okay, you can read first.”

Yan Chen was like a child who had been assigned homework by his teacher and had to go home and recite it to his parents. He recited all the words he had highlighted in a serious manner.

Ye Wenyu frowned slightly as he listened.

It sounded a bit strange, but it didn’t seem like there was any big problem,…just strange.

Still, even so, he read it very nicely.

After finishing, Yan Chen put down the script and said very politely: “It’s your turn, Teacher Ye.”

Ye Wenyu: “…”

He almost forgot the correct pronunciations.

He took Yan Chen’s script, originally intending to trace over the marked places on his own script, but there were several on each page, and flipping back and forth would be very inconvenient.

So he asked Yan Chen for a pen and copied each word one by one onto the blank part at the back of his script.

The floor-to-ceiling windows were closed. Through the glass, he could only see birds hopping among the greenery, but could not hear their calls.

The two people in the room quieted down, each focusing on their own task.

Ye Wenyu lowered his head and copied carefully, while Yan Chen did not disturb him. He leaned back in his chair in a relaxed manner, quietly watching him.

Until a soft cat meow broke the silence.

Ye Wenyu heard it with his sharp ears. As he turned his head, a pure white kitten suddenly jumped onto the table with a thud.

Ye Wenyu: “?”

One person and one cat stared at each other, as if both were saying: Who are you?

“Tang Bao,” Yan Chen tapped the table with his finger, “don’t be naughty, sit properly.”

Tang Bao swished its big fluffy tail, then obediently sat down, its eyes large, round, and gleaming as it continued to stare at Ye Wenyu.

The black birthmark on its nose was perfectly shaped and placed, looking exactly like a heart.

‘A kitten with a heart-shaped nose…so cute!’

‘And very well-behaved.’

Ye Wenyu’s heart softened as he watched. He paused his writing to gently pat its head and asked Yan Chen, “Is it your cat? Do you have to come back often to take care of it?”

Tang Bao’s tail brushed past Yan Chen’s hand, which he lightly pressed down with one finger, only for it to quickly flick away.

“It’s not mine,” Yan Chen said. “It belongs to a kid next door who’s in middle school.”

Ye Wenyu scratched the kitten’s chin. “A cat from next door? Then how did it get in?”

“It likes to visit other houses. If it can’t get in, it’ll scratch the window outside all night. So even when I’m not home, I leave a cat door for it to come in.”

As he spoke, Yan Chen lifted his chin slightly towards a corner behind Ye Wenyu.

Ye Wenyu turned around and saw that there really was a small opening in the wall, just big enough for a kitten to pass through, fitted with a round wooden arch door, which was inexplicably cute.

Ye Wenyu originally wanted to ask why he went through the trouble of installing a cat door if he didn’t keep a cat himself, but then he thought that since Yan Chen lived at school most of the time, even if he wanted a pet, it would have to wait until after graduation.

So he changed the question: “Do you plan to raise a cat in the future?”

Unexpectedly, Yan Chen immediately denied it without hesitation: “No.”

Ye Wenyu: “Why?”

Yan Chen: “They die.”

Ye Wenyu was stunned.

“Meow!”

Tang Bao stretched lazily, jumped lightly into Ye Wenyu’s arms, stepped on his legs and started to purr in its throat.

It was not shy at all.

Ye Wenyu felt inexplicably flattered.

The kitten’s fluffy fur was irresistible. Ye Wenyu hugged it, and it lifted its head naturally, resting against his arm.

His hands sank deeply into the fluffy fur. He tried gently rubbing it, and the texture felt great.

‘So obedient!’

He couldn’t resist stroking it all over…its tail, belly, back, and head…

Suddenly, his arms felt light.

Ye Wenyu watched as Yan Chen picked up Tang Bao by the scruff of its neck. “What’s wrong?”

Tang Bao was equally puzzled. It meowed twice, curled its hind legs and behaved like a little rabbit in Yan Chen’s hand.

Yan Chen walked toward the cat door: “It’s time for it to go back.”

Ye Wenyu: “Is it hungry?”

“My energy isn’t enough. I can only entertain one guest at a time.”

Yan Chen bent one leg and squatted down, nudging Tang Bao butt to usher it through the cat door: “It’s not welcome today.”

‘What kind of energy did hosting a kitten require?’

Ye Wenyu didn’t quite understand. He thought maybe Yan Chen had a bit of a cleanliness obsession and couldn’t handle too much contact with outside animals.

Like this Tang Bao, and Lao Huangli from last time.

*Lao Huangli was the chubby greedy cat from Chapter 12. By the way, Tang Bao means “Soup Buns/ Soup Dumplings”.

 

 

 

 

 

Yan Chen closed the little arch door, clapped his hands, and stood up: “What do you want to eat?”

Ye Wenyu glanced at the time and realized it was already almost five o’clock.

“Order takeout or go out to eat?” he asked.

Yan Chen said, “No need, there’s food at home.”

The kitchen was fully equipped with appliances and utensils.

Ye Wenyu stood by the counter, watching Yan Chen skillfully and effortlessly chop and cook, with the aroma quickly filling the kitchen.

“What’s wrong?” Yan Chen even had the leisure to check on the bystander’s status.

Ye Wenyu: “Is there anything you can’t do?”

He was simply like an all-around robot. Everything he touched, he not only knew how to do, but was also proficient at it.

Yan Chen: “There is.”

Ye Wenyu: “What is it?”

Yan Chen: “High school politics. I never passed.”

Ye Wenyu: “…”

Ye Wenyu didn’t know how to cook. He thought about helping wash or chop vegetables, but Yan Chen wouldn’t let him.

Instead, he took down a small pot of moneywort from the top of the fridge and placed it in front of Ye Wenyu, handing him a pair of small scissors: “If you’re bored, help me trim the plants.”

‘Trim the plants?’

That was completely out of Ye Wenyu’s area of experience, so he didn’t know where to start: “How do I trim them?”

Yan Chen: “There are too many leaves. Just casually cut some off.”

Ye Wenyu held the scissors and started clumsily trimming the moneywort.

Even though he didn’t know how, he was very serious about it.

Yan Chen glanced at him occasionally. He was always focused on what he was doing, cautious and careful, afraid of damaging the small potted plant he had casually brought back from the flower market.

He seemed to put his heart into whatever he did, treating everything, and everyone, sincerely.

He was introverted and not good at social interactions, but very attentive and patient.

Yan Chen suddenly thought of something Dong Xi had said.

—He’s the treasured flower of the Foreign Languages Department, but unfortunately, a flower on a high mountain with a cold personality and not easy to approach.

To that, other than calling it complete nonsense, he couldn’t give any other comment for the time being.

The coldness and aloofness was just a facade. He should possess the purest and softest soul.

“Is this okay?” Ye Wenyu finished and turned his head to ask him uncertainly.

Yan Chen glanced at the potted plant that looked no different from before, and said without changing expression: “Mm, it looks pretty good.”