HS Chapter 24.2

The next morning, when they met in the living room, Ye Wenyu immediately reached out to check Yan Chen’s forehead.

Yan Chen was holding two freshly made breakfasts in his hands. He paused and lowered his head slightly, his whole demeanor lazy and obedient.

Normal temperature. No fever.

Ye Wenyu withdrew his hand and asked again, “Are you still dizzy? Does your throat hurt?”

Yan Chen straightened up again. “I’m not dizzy, and it doesn’t hurt.”

Ye Wenyu was relieved. Looking at his cooperative and easy going demeanor, he couldn’t help but think of last night…and those messy dreams that followed.

He couldn’t remember much of them. In the scattered fragments, Yan Chen was kissing his palm. More outrageously, he was even kissing his fingertips.

To be secretly yearning for a sick person like this made Ye Wenyu feel guilty and ashamed. He truly felt bad about it.

And the other party even got up early to make him breakfast.

After eating, they returned to school. Before they parted ways at a fork in the road, Ye Wenyu asked Yan Chen, “Can you go to the music room this week?”

Yan Chen: “I can.”

“It’s only for a few days,” Ye Wenyu said, “but if something comes up, make sure to let me know in advance. The competition’s been moved up a lot, and we don’t have much time to practice.”

When he returned to the dorm, Chi Dongting had just gotten up, his hair a total bird’s nest and his eyes were still blurry with sleep. At first, he didn’t even react to seeing him.

After a while, he rubbed his eyes. “Wenyu, you’re back? Where did you go last night? I was going to call you, but I got too sleepy and fell asleep as soon as I lay down.”

Ye Wenyu: “I went to Yan Chen’s place.”

“Oh…huh?” Chi Dongting froze, his eyes slowly widening. “You mean you stayed over at Yan Chen’s place last night?”

Ye Wenyu nodded.

Chi Dongting walked back and forth, completely puzzled. “Why?”

Ye Wenyu: “He was sick. He caught a bad cold, and had no one at home to take care of him.”

Chi Dongting: “So you went to take care of him?”

Ye Wenyu: “Kind of.”

“Huh?” Chi Dongting wasn’t satisfied with just one “huh”, so he said it again. “Huh?”

He thought of Yan Chen’s unapproachable, cold and indifferent aura…no, he couldn’t understand it. “He let you take care of him? He didn’t just leave you in the living room and ignore you?”

“Of course not.” Ye Wenyu was confused too. “Why would you think that?”

“It’s not that I want to think that… sigh.” Chi Dongting scratched his head. “Forget it. So you two are that close now?”

Ye Wenyu heard this and blinked lightly. “Are we?”

“How are you not?” Chi Dongting exaggerated. “Think about how little time it’s been, and you’re already at the stage of staying over to care for him when he’s sick. If that’s not close, what is?”

‘Is that how it is…’

Ye Wenyu thought over it while brushing his teeth. He was in a good mood, and even the corners of his lips curled up slightly.

It looks like his efforts weren’t in vain. At least in the eyes of others, their relationship was already very good.

They had class at ten, so the two of them left the dorm at nine-thirty.

The elective film appreciation class was purely to kill time. Chi Dongting dragged Ye Wenyu to a corner, set out his book, and pulled out his phone to enter social butterfly mode.

Ye Wenyu, on the other hand, was debating whether to send Yan Chen a message, reminding him that since his cold had just gotten better, it’d be best not to do strenuous exercise.

But since he was a sports student, saying something like that did sound kind of ridiculous.

So he should probably change it to: try not to exert too much for now, just swim a little, train lightly, and return to regular practice in a couple of days.

He took out his phone and was about to type, when unexpectedly, the other party sent a picture first.

Ye Wenyu tapped it open. It was an illustrated recipe for snow pear with rock sugar. The details were meticulous, listing the exact size of pear to use, how many goji berries, red dates, and pieces of rock sugar to add.

What did that mean?

Ye Wenyu didn’t understand and was about to reply and ask, when Chi Dongting suddenly gritted his teeth and cursed, “What the hell is this?”

Ye Wenyu asked in a low voice, “What’s wrong?”

Chi Dongting: “That post from last time about you winning the award…someone just commented saying you’re throwing yourself at Yan Chen! Are they sick? Throwing yourself at what?!”

Ye Wenyu wasn’t angry when he heard it, just found it a bit odd. He opened the forum and quickly saw the comment Chi Dongting was talking about.

There was more than one now.

[Deep Forest]: It must have been on purpose. He even wore someone else’s training uniform to the award ceremony. Didn’t he know photos would be taken and posted on the official site?

[Deep Forest]: I’ve seen many people throwing themselves at Yan Chen, but I’ve never seen one this shameless before.

[Deep Forest]: Just to clarify, “shameless” isn’t meant as an insult, just stating the facts~

Chi Dongting was so angry he started using his main account to argue back:

[Can’t Bear The Cold]: Your mother gave you a mouth just so you could spit filth everywhere? That was Wenyu’s own shirt, not some training uniform!

[Can’t Bear The Cold]: And there are so many people in the sports department, why are you only naming Yan Chen? Are you delusional?

[Deep Forest]: On the day of the award, didn’t Ye Wenyu go to the gym first, then to Lecture Hall 3?

[Deep Forest]: That’s because we had to borrow the venue from Class 1! So Wenyu just went to negotiate with Yan Chen!

[Can’t Bear The Cold]: You know so much about stuff between our two classes now? Are you pretending to be a know-it-all?

[Deep Forest]: Oh, didn’t you just say they don’t know each other? Now suddenly they’re “negotiating”? Is there no one else in your class besides Ye Wenyu?

[Deep Forest]: [image]

[Deep Forest]: This was taken a while back. Class was already over by then…why were the two of them still together? Unless Ye Wenyu was deliberately waiting to bump into Yan Chen. I don’t want to assume anything else [shrug]

[Can’t Bear The Cold]: ?

[Can’t Bear The Cold]: Do you even hear yourself? Deliberately my ass! Wenyu didn’t go back to the dorm because the counselor called him right after class!

[Deep Forest]: Oh yeah? Then what about this one /image

[Deep Forest]: Yan Chen didn’t stay in the dorm last night, he went home. Him being outside late is understandable. But what about Ye Wenyu? Isn’t it that he went out to find Yan Chen on purpose?

[Can’t Bear The Cold]: I’ll find your sister!

[Can’t Bear The Cold]: And by your logic, couldn’t I also say it was Yan Chen who found out Wenyu had class at night and deliberately waited for him at the door?

[Can’t Bear The Cold]: I can also say that the clothes were deliberately lent to Wenyu by Yan Chen as a way to get close to him, and I can also say that last night was just Yan Chen using an excuse to call Wenyu out.

[Can’t Bear The Cold]: If there has to be someone who’s desperate and clinging, why can’t it be Yan Chen?

[Deep Forest]: Do you even know who Yan Chen is? He’d take the initiative to approach someone? Classmate, are you joking?

[Can’t Bear The Cold]: Do you even know how awesome our Wen Yu is? Saying he clings to others…I think you’re the joke here!

…

This part of the post was already several pages in. After the two argued for a long while, a passerby finally scrolled to that section:

[Mountain Root]: So weird. Someone said Ye Wenyu is clinging to someone? I feel like an old man on the subway watching his phone…Ye Wenyu clingy?

[Will It Snow This Year]: Just looking at the first photo, Ye Wenyu is looking down at the cat, while Yan Chen is looking at Ye Wenyu, and you’re telling me Ye Wenyu is clinging to Yan Chen?

[Sugar doesn’t eat sugar]: This Deep Forest must’ve just transferred from the branch campus, they’re definitely a joke.

[Orchid Pavilion Fragrant Snow]: You from the branch campus might know more about Yan Chen and think he’s impressive, and that’s fine. But likewise, Ye Wenyu isn’t some nobody here at the main campus. Think before you speak.

[Mountain Mist Sky]: Your logic is dogshit, you’re just spewing whatever, deliberately being disgusting [disdain]

The building got higher and higher, and the focus veered off again and again, starting from Ye Wenyu winning an award, to his clothes, and eventually to everyone collectively ganging up on [Deep Forest].

It was very clearly one-sided.

But if you paid attention, you’d notice that from the first passerby reply, [Deep Forest] never said another word.

No one knew whether it was because he realized he couldn’t win against so many people, or if he was just trying to get attention from speaking nonsense and running after stirring things up.

Chi Dongting leaned toward the latter.

“I’m speechless. There really are all kinds of birds in a big forest.”

He was so angry he was practically fuming, but still told Ye Wenyu not to take it to heart: “Don’t pay him any mind, Wen Yu. That guy’s just an idiot. If he dares pop up again, I’ll spray him so hard that even his own mom won’t recognize him.”

Ye Wenyu wasn’t actually angry. A nobody online, someone he didn’t even know the full name of, wasn’t enough to stir up his emotions.

Besides, from another angle, what that person said wasn’t entirely wrong.

But compared to that, he was more interested in the message Yan Chen had sent him about the snow pear soup: [Do you still want to eat this?]

When Yan Chen received his reply, he raised his eyebrows.

How did he interpret that as “he still wants to eat it”?

“Huh!” Dong Xi suddenly sat up straight in his chair. “Everyone, look at the link I sent in the group.”

Yang Liang: “Another school forum post?”

Dong Xi: “Yeah, a junior just sent it to me. It was originally a post congratulating Ye Wenyu on winning an award, but someone mentioned Yan-ge in it.”

Yan Chen instinctively caught the keyword and turned his head: “What post?”

Dong Xi: “Someone in the thread said Ye Wenyu was clinging to you, and even posted pictures as so-called evidence, but then got completely dogpiled by people from the main campus.”

After fermenting for half a day, the post had over a thousand replies. If you read in reverse order, nine out of ten comments were cursing [Deep Forest].

Yang Liang looked for a bit: “Deep Forest got scolded so hard, why did he suddenly stop replying? So weird.”

“Right?” Dong Xi rubbed his chin, and quickly realized why it felt so familiar.

Wasn’t Zhen Lin the same? He looked sunny and well-behaved, but in reality, he was reckless and unfiltered, like a lunatic. He’d just walk away after his outbursts, and didn’t care how others scolded him.

But before he could say it out loud, the junior sent another message.

Dong Xi raised his phone: “Mystery solved. Do you know why Deep Forest hasn’t replied? He got permanently banned from the forum by the admin.”

Yang Liang gave an “ohh” of realization, then suddenly exclaimed: “Yan-ge, now a lot of people are saying you’re the one clinging to Ye Wenyu.”

Yan Chen: “Really.”

“Yeah.” Thinking Yan Chen hadn’t seen the post, Yang Liang brought his phone over, but as soon as he got close, he saw that Yan Chen had already liked two comments.

One praised Ye Wenyu for looking great in black, and the other said Yan Chen was the one clinging to Ye Wenyu.

Yang Liang: “…?”

Dong Xi: “It’s probably not serious. They’re just trying to shut Deep Forest up, not actually saying Yan-ge is…”

“Ah?!” Yang Liang suddenly cried out and cut him off. “Yan-ge! That guy said you’re clinging to Ye Wenyu, and you liked it?!”

Yan Chen’s expression didn’t change: “My hand slipped.”

–

As the semester progressed, the workload increased, and on top of that, group papers were starting to be assigned, so Ye Wenyu suddenly got very busy.

From Monday to Thursday, he had almost no free time, and afternoon practice became his only moment of relaxation.

But that afternoon, Yan Chen was five minutes late.

His outfit was also different from usual. He’d swapped the T-shirt and shorts for a white dress shirt and suit pants, his hair styled up to reveal most of his forehead.

Even though it was a simple fix-up, he still looked even more absurdly handsome.

As if he couldn’t feel the dozens of eyes all focused on him, Yan Chen walked over to Ye Wenyu and sat beside him as always.

“Do you have something today?” Ye Wenyu asked.

Yan Chen put down his script and gave a quiet “mm”: “Orientation event. I got picked to be the host.”

The way he said “got picked” was really something.

Ye Wenyu paused, then asked, “Is it okay for you to leave now?”

Yan Chen: “It’s over already.”

Ye Wenyu: “The afternoon orientation?”

Yan Chen: “I’m not in charge of the evening one.”

Chang Sicheng had just received the latest rules for the dubbing competition and was going over them one by one with everyone.

Ye Wenyu listened for a bit, then turned to glance at Yan Chen, listened a little more, then glanced again.

These kinds of blatantly obvious sneak glances didn’t take long to get caught.

Yan Chen: “What are you looking at?”

Ye Wenyu: “Looking at you.”

Yan Chen: “Why are you looking at me?”

Ye Wenyu answered honestly, “You look really good today.”

Yan Chen’s brows moved slightly.

Ye Wenyu didn’t think there was anything wrong with objectively complimenting him. “How was the orientation event? Did it go smoothly?”

Yan Chen’s body unconsciously leaned a little toward him. “It went okay.”

Ye Wenyu: “But I’ve seen many times before where the hosts of the orientation events got teased by the freshmen.”

Usually, the host for such occasions had to be good-looking, which inevitably led to some socially fearless freshmen asking them on the spot if they had a partner, or whether they had a chance.

With Yan Chen’s looks, Ye Wenyu found it hard to believe he hadn’t been asked these questions.

But Yan Chen calmly gave a negative answer: “I wasn’t.”

Ye Wenyu found it odd. “How come?”

Yan Chen: “I don’t know. Maybe they thought I looked too fierce and didn’t want to bother with me.”

He spoke in a matter-of-fact tone, but for some reason, Ye Wenyu thought he sounded a bit pitiful.

“No way.” He frowned. “You’re not fierce. And no one would not want to talk to you. Maybe this year’s freshmen are just more quiet and reserved. It’s not your fault.”

Yan Chen tilted his head slightly. “Mm, hopefully.”

While they were whispering up front, there were people whispering in the back too.

“There’s my little sister in this batch of freshmen.”

Song Xiaomian lay on An Xue’s shoulder, holding her phone. “Look what she just sent me.”

An Xue scrolled through the chat:

[/Image]

[Jie-jie! Wow, this senior hosting is so handsome! I can’t take it!]

**Jie-jie means “big sister”

[Why is he so good-looking, damn it, the camera zoomed in and I felt like my heart was going to jump out of my throat!]

[His voice is also so nice, wuuu, that gaze that looks down on all beings, I’m really into it!]

[Something feels off, why does he seem kind of fierce…]

[So fierce… someone asked if he had a girlfriend and he actually asked back “what does it have to do with you?”]

[So bold, someone else asked again!]

[He completely ignored them, awesome, I’m embarrassed for that student…]

…

An Xue: “Mm, that makes sense.”

Song Xiaomian: “It looks like the big boss is usually still being polite with us. No, wait, why do I suddenly feel flattered?”

An Xue: “Flattered? Forget it. I think it’s more appropriate to say, ‘love the house and its crows’.”

Song Xiaomian: “? What do you mean?”

An Xue looked up at the two people in front and gave Song Xiaomian a look to get her to look too.

Not far from them in the front row, Ye Wenyu was carefully undoing the buttons on Yan Chen’s shirt collar.

The latter slightly tilted his chin up, as if enjoying the closeness, and his fingertips resting on the desk kept tapping absentmindedly.

“All done.” Ye Wenyu undid two buttons and smoothed the collar. “Now it shouldn’t feel stuffy, right?”

Yan Chen: “Much better.”

When Ye Wenyu withdrew his hand, he noticed Yan Chen’s left sleeve had slipped down a bit, so he helped roll it back up.

Ye Wenyu: “You guys are used to wearing training uniforms, suddenly switching to this kind of outfit must feel uncomfortable.”

Yan Chen stared at his slender fingers rolling up the white fabric inch by inch, and the base of his palm would occasionally rub against his arm, like a feather brushing past: “What about you?”

Ye Wenyu: “It’s okay. I don’t get hot easily…”

As they talked intermittently, Yan Chen’s slightly lowered gaze was always focused solely on him.

When he saw the sleeve of Ye Wenyu’s shirt brush past his hand, he curled his fingers and casually hooked the other party’s elbow.

“Fuck, why? Why? Where am I, Li-jie?”

Song Xiaomian covered her mouth, gasping, “Why are they so calm yet I’m blushing and my heart is racing?”

An Xue clenched her teeth, puzzled by the same question. “No idea, why don’t you go over and ask?”

Song Xiaomian: “?”

Before leaving after practice, An Xue gave everyone a little candy in advance: “Next week we’ll officially go record the competition clips. Everyone, do your best! After recording, let’s go have a good meal to celebrate!”

“What are we eating?”

“Hotpot, barbecue, anything is fine, it’s up to you all.”

“I know a lawn restaurant, we can sit on the grass and eat like a picnic. We can even book a night session!”

“You brat, you had it all planned out, huh?”

“Alright! No matter where we eat, I just have one thing to say… I’m getting all of you drunk!”

Maybe Yan Chen didn’t know, but Ye Wenyu knew perfectly well. When they said get drunk, they really meant get drunk. Not even slightly joking.

He asked Yan Chen in a low voice, “How’s your alcohol tolerance?”

Yan Chen: “Not great.”

“Huh? Then when the time comes…”

He grew worried, pressed his lips together and thought for two seconds, then said seriously, “It’s okay, I can drink for you when the time comes.”