HS Chapter 40

In the afternoon, there was a large French major class with four classes meeting together in the large classroom of Building 5.

There were no separated areas for different classes and everyone sat scattered about. Before class started, the room was noisy and chaotic. Students from different classes rarely gathered together, so they took this time to get together and chat.

Chi Dongting was outgoing and popular everywhere; he had acquaintances in every class. Even before class started, he was chatting with people all around him. His social network was astonishingly wide.

Ye Wenyu, who was sitting next to him, formed a sharp contrast with him.

From the moment he entered the classroom and sat down, Ye Wenyu hadn’t uttered a single word, just staring at his hands in a daze.

He originally planned to fish out what Yan Chen liked in order to break the deadlock and get closer to him, but unexpectedly, before he could even start, Yan Chen laid his cards on the table. Even more surprising was that what Yan Chen liked was his hands.

It wasn’t some expensive thing he couldn’t afford, nor a rare and hard-to-find item, but his hands, a part of his body, which were easy to deliver to Yan Chen without effort.

It seemed ever since meeting Yan Chen, his luck had always been unexpectedly good.

It would be a lie to say he wasn’t secretly happy. Ye Wenyu’s thoughts were simple: since Yan Chen said he liked it, then he would amplify Yan Chen’s liking to the fullest.

He wanted to use this opportunity to give Yan Chen enough sweetness, preferably until Yan Chen couldn’t live without him, maybe even love everything related to him, developing from liking his hands to liking him as a person.

Then when he confessed his feelings, it definitely wouldn’t fail.

His plan was optimistic and perfect, and it lifted the gloom from his day quite a bit. But at the same time, he couldn’t help but feel puzzled.

Why?

Yan Chen said he liked his hands and said they were beautiful, but no matter how many times he looked at them, he didn’t see anything beautiful about his hands. Weren’t they just ten fingers and ten nails like everyone else’s?

Not understanding was one thing, but his selfish pride was another.

While secretly happy, he also felt dissatisfied and regretful. Why wasn’t Yan Chen’s liking for his hands as passionate and overwhelming as his liking for his lips?

If it was, then he wouldn’t have to painstakingly think about how to chase someone to satisfy his ever-expanding greed.

“Wenyu.” Chi Dongting bumped his elbow, “Still daydreaming? I know your hands are beautiful, but do they need to be admired this long? We’ve flipped several pages already.”

The old professor kept his head down, reading the textbook content. Ye Wenyu quickly flipped to the same page.

Chi Dongting whispered, “How is your cousin’s progress lately? There must be some progress, right?”

Ye Wenyu: “Probably.”

Chi Dongting: “Why does your ‘probably’ sound so unreliable?”

Ye Wenyu: “…”

Ye Wenyu: “He’s been working hard recently to cater to her preferences.”

“Cater to her preferences?” Chi Dongting chewed over the phrase thoughtfully, “How do you cater to someone’s preferences? Asking about hobbies and giving gifts?”

Ye Wenyu: “More or less.”

Chi Dongting said “Oh”, and nodded, “That’s better, it’s definitely better than dragging people and chatting nonsense all day.”

Ye Wenyu was still thinking about a sentence he had just said casually, “You said my hands are beautiful?”

Chi Dongting said naturally, “Yeah.”

Ye Wenyu: “What’s beautiful about them?”

Chi Dongting: “Everything about them is beautiful. Hey, there is something’s off about you, Wenyu. You don’t usually care about these things.”

Ye Wenyu couldn’t tell him he wanted to know exactly which fingers were beautiful, so he could fully exploit that to attract Yan Chen. He could only come up with a lie that wasn’t too far fetched: “A high school classmate does advertising design and needs a hand model.”

Chi Dongting suddenly understood, “They came to you, huh? No wonder. Your hands really are good-looking…your fingers are longer and thinner than those of most boys, and they are well-proportioned. They are definitely one in ten thousand. Your friend has good taste.”

‘One in ten thousand…’

To fully interpret it, it meant although rare, it wasn’t unique. There were still others whose hands looked as good as his, or even better.

That uncontrollable sense of crisis reappeared.

He became uneasy about competitors who hadn’t even appeared yet. Suddenly, his phone vibrated; Dong Xi sent a message in the dorm group.

Dong Xi: [Do you have plans tonight? If not, let’s watch a movie together?]

Yang Liang: [What movie? Passengers?]

Dong Xi: [No, it’s a sci-fi film about robots called BaN, which has not been released in China. The resource is from my girlfriend’s brother and it’s HD.]

Yang Liang: [Sounds good!]

Yang Liang: [Yan-ge and Wenyu should be okay too. I’ll vote 111111111 for them.]

This was Ye Wenyu’s first time to participate in the team-building activity in dormitory 508.

Night fell, and the doors at both ends of the dorm were tightly shut. The bed curtains were drawn without leaving any gaps, blocking out any noise and light that could affect the viewing experience.

The laptop was set up. Four people moved chairs into a curve around Yang Liang’s desk. When the play button was pressed, the 17-inch computer screen became the only light source in the dorm.

This was a movie with technology as its theme, roughly telling the story of a technological revolution taking place in the future world where robot lovers are the mainstream.

The movie was spectacular. Both the special effects and the scenes were grand and realistic, but Ye Wenyu just couldn’t get into it.

He leaned back against the chair, one hand holding his phone, while the other was being loosely played with by the person sitting on his left. All his attention was pulled away by the warmth of Yan Chen’s hand, leaving none for the content of the movie.

In a dim environment, it was easy for the most unspeakable desires buried deep in the heart to grow and fester.

Where the eye couldn’t reach, Yan Chen slowly and deliberately rubbed his hand…from the protruding bones of his wrist, across the smooth back of his hand, then up from the bony base of his fingers to the soft, tender fingertips.

Careless, yet meticulous.

Ye Wenyu had never known a hand could be so sensitive. The calluses on Yan Chen’s hand rubbed against his skin, the sensation so clear that he could almost feel the thickness and shape of those calluses.

Dry, rough, grounded, and even… an indescribable intimacy.

It was as if his hand had become a rare and precious treasure in Yan Chen’s possession. He was afraid of it being stolen or lost accidentally, so he had to hold it tightly in his hand to feel at ease, and never getting tired of playing with it.

The door had been shut too tightly, and no air was coming in from outside. Ye Wenyu felt stifled from the heat inside the dorm, otherwise, how could he explain the rising temperature on his face and the tingles in his hand?

Two little people seemed to appear in his brain, one cheering and jumping with joy, the other frowning with worry, concerned that Yan Chen’s rubbing was too detailed… what if he discovered a flaw that he didn’t like…

Knock! Knock! Knock!

There was a knock at the door. Yang Liang, who was sitting closest to it, shouted, “Who is it?”, and stood up, turned on the light and opened the door.

The dim space was suddenly flooded with light, and all secret actions were now exposed.

Ye Wenyu was like a startled bird awakened from a dream. As his pupils reflexively shrank under the light, he quickly pulled his hand out of Yan Chen’s hand and hid it under his right hand along with the tingling sensation that hadn’t faded yet.

“What are you doing, sitting here in the dark?”

It was a boy from the dorm next door. As he spoke, Ye Wenyu heard a soft “tsk” from his left. The sound was quiet, but because of the proximity, it felt especially clear.

Ye Wenyu’s breathing paused for a moment as he heard the boy say, “If one didn’t know, they would think there were people having an affair inside with the door closed.”

“……” Ye Wenyu’s face instantly turned as red as a monkey’s butt, his eyelashes trembling so much it seemed like they were about to take flight. He didn’t dare turn his head to look at Yan Chen.

Yang Liang: “A bunch of rough old men sneaking around for what? Just speak it quickly, our movie is at the exciting part.”

The boy: “We wanted to call you over for barbecue, we bought beer too.”

Yang Liang: “No time now, maybe later after we finish watching.”

“There’s definitely time, hurry up, we’re saving some for you.” The boy said this while glancing at Ye Wenyu: “You guys should also open the balcony door for some airflow, look at how stuffy Wenyu looks like.”

Yang Liang turned his head, and looked at Ye Wenyu, whose face was red but sitting upright and looking straight ahead. He was slender and fair, squeezed in among them like a little lamb lost in a wolf pack.

And the biggest wolf was guarding him closely.

Oh, then his previous sentence had to be changed. Not all of his dorm mates were rough old men.

After sending off the neighbors, Yang Liang planned to go to the balcony to leave the door slightly open for ventilation, but Yan Chen, who was sitting at the innermost side, stood up and took over the task.

There was always wind at night on the fifth floor. It squeezes in through the cracks in the door and blows the curtains back and forth. When the lights are turned off, there was a faint incandescent light coming in from outside the balcony in the dormitory.

Dong Xi pressed play to continue. Yan Chen sat back down, and the back of his hand was gently touched. Then a hand carefully squeezed itself into his palm.

He looked up and saw pale blue light fall on Ye Wenyu’s long, thin eyelashes. He looked like a well-behaved student appearing obedient in class, with his lips slightly pursed and eyes focused, but his hand was secretly teasing him where no one could see.

After a long time with no response, Ye Wenyu anxiously and aggrievedly hooked his index finger.

Ye Wenyu did want to coax Yan Chen.

He had just reflexively pulled away too quickly, which probably made Yan Chen unhappy, but he didn’t know how to make it right, so he silently put his hand back and tried to continue like nothing had happened.

But Yan Chen didn’t seem to buy it.

Things had finally started to make progress—was he going to mess it up again?

Ye Wenyu was nervous and uneasy. But with the other two roommates around, it wasn’t good to speak, so he tried to use body language instead, hooking Yan Chen’s finger to silently apologize.

The next second, his hand was tightly grabbed back by Yan Chen.

Fingers squeezed through the gaps of his fingers until their bases touched, and the ten fingers interlocked. He was trapped perfectly by Yan Chen, and there was no way he could break free unless Yan Chen let go.

They looked like an underage couple secretly dating under their teachers’ and parents’ noses.

The movie reached its climax. The male lead’s love for the robot heroine exploded, burning through the logic that kept humans and machines emotionally apart.

The man was covered in blood and bruises, and the robot heroine’s body was battered and broken, but neither that nor the rain could extinguish the joy of reunion. They kissed fiercely and messily in the ruins.

Ye Wenyu looked at the tightly clasped hands of the two characters and quietly tightened his own fingers, secretly holding Yan Chen even more firmly.

Cold air kept sneaking in through the crack in the door, yet his face was hotter and redder than before the ventilation.