“Is this matter too much trouble for you?” Fu Yuhan looked up. “I was just thinking, your relationship with your family isn’t very good either? But regarding Yong Rong’s matter…” He frowned. “Don’t…”
Putting himself in Wen Yu’s shoes, if someday he encountered something that forced him to beg He Yan for help, he would definitely be disgusted to death.
He didn’t want that, and naturally didn’t want Wen Yu to have to ask his family for anything because of him. That would be too big a favor to owe—although he actually wasn’t clear about what Wen Yu’s relationship with his family was really like.
Then again, even if he really forced himself, with Wen Yu’s personality, he might not say it out loud, just like after running the relay at the sports meet that day, he never complained about his foot hurting until the end.
Fu Yuhan wanted to say, “Don’t sacrifice yourself for me.”
But this sentence was really too mushy between the two of them, and he couldn’t say it.
“I shouldn’t what?” Wen Yu curved his lips, seeming interested. “Say it.”
“…Don’t do things you don’t want to do.” In the end, Fu Yuhan could only say vaguely.
“I want to, I’m very willing.” Wen Yu raised his eyebrows and continued typing messages with his head down. “Don’t you understand yet? Yong Rong might have just been interested in you at first. I guess he changed his mind and drugged you after I called—he wanted to step on me. Should I do nothing?”
Fu Yuhan was stunned. He really hadn’t thought of this layer.
But this way it made sense. Otherwise, he really didn’t think his charm was so great that others would have to drug him.
“Do you two have a grudge?” Fu Yuhan asked.
“Not really, but we really can’t stand each other.” Wen Yu paused. “His dad and my dad know each other. We inevitably met as children, and people would always compare us.”
Fu Yuhan said “oh”: “Then it’s quite normal for him to dislike you.”
“…” Wen Yu was amused by his anger and looked up. “Are you looking for trouble?”
“Just the truth. Who would like their own antonym?”
“True.” Wen Yu nodded. “It’s a bit shameless for me to say this myself, but I really am the ‘other people’s child.'”
As for Yong Rong, he was someone who played wildly in this city before settling down to open his own shop.
“Speaking of which, there’s a funny story.” Wen Yu curved his lips while typing. “One year his grandfather had a birthday, my dad brought my mom to attend, and Yong Rong had never seen my mom, so he flirted with her at the banquet.”
Fu Yuhan: “…”
“That day was absolute chaos. His grandfather was so angry he said he’d break his legs in public.” Wen Yu was almost dying of laughter.
“Which mom?” Fu Yuhan asked.
Wen Yu’s smile suddenly disappeared.
He stared at his phone, seeming to be in a daze or thinking. After a long time, he looked up and glanced at Fu Yuhan calmly.
“Of course my stepmother.” He said softly. “If Yong Rong dared to flirt with my mom, his grandfather wouldn’t need to lift a finger.”
That year Wen Yu was thirteen, an age when he didn’t need to be responsible for anything he did.
A dangerous light flashed in Wen Yu’s eyes and quickly disappeared. He soon adjusted his expression: “But that’s not the point. I just wanted to say he’s really outrageous. When he started his clothing business two years ago, my dad even praised him for finally figuring things out.” Wen Yu smiled contemptuously. “But I think a dog can’t change its habit of eating shit.”
“I’m not shit.”
“Mm,” Wen Yu nodded, “you’re not. I wasn’t talking about you, don’t misunderstand.”
“You’re the one misunderstanding.” Fu Yuhan sighed. “My ‘antonym’ didn’t mean that—I meant that although you don’t seem very well-behaved either, you wouldn’t do such unconscionable things.”
Wen Yu was stunned and looked up.
He suddenly smiled: “I’ve lived for 18 years, and this is the first time I’ve heard someone say I’m not well-behaved.”
“Since you never pretended in front of me from the beginning,” Fu Yuhan said, “don’t say such nonsense.”
“I wanted to pretend.” Wen Yu lowered his gaze, as if reminiscing. “But wasn’t it you who said I was fake the moment we met?”
To be honest, that day was a bit unexpected.
Wen Yu didn’t think there was anything wrong with his smile, but Fu Yuhan was very certain in saying “don’t smile if you don’t want to.”
He didn’t know where he saw it from.
“Facts proved I was right.” Fu Yuhan stood up and walked toward him, naturally flicking Wen Yu’s left earlobe with his index finger, his voice lazy: “Although I drink, go to bars, and pierce my ears, I know I’m a good student?”
Wen Yu swatted his hand away and said coldly: “I’ll remember to tell Yong Rong not to pay you.”
Fu Yuhan snorted lightly, his eyes and brows tinged with some indistinct amusement.
He walked toward the sofa: “I’m sleepy. I want to sleep before the takeout arrives. Remember to wake me.”
“Go sleep inside.” Wen Yu said. “It’s cold today, don’t get sick again.”
Fu Yuhan’s steps paused as he turned around and walked toward the bedroom.
The takeout didn’t arrive until nearly 2 PM. After the two finished a simple “breakfast” face to face, Wen Yu cleaned up the table and started working on test papers.
At first Fu Yuhan thought he hadn’t done his weekend homework again, but upon closer inspection, he discovered this person was doing something completely different.
“Competition practice problems.” Wen Yu said.
It was one thing for him to do competition practice problems, but what was terrifying was that he could do them while replying to phone messages to handle Yong Rong’s matter, and still not exceed the time limit required by the test paper.
It was as if his brain wasn’t a brain, but some kind of quad-core, eight-thread central processing unit.
Fu Yuhan, who had watched the entire process, began to doubt himself.
He once thought he was a good student, but now he realized his decline was just going from being 30% academically poor to 70%.
They were both academically poor, just to different degrees. The difference wasn’t big.
“Do you have nothing to do?” Wen Yu didn’t look up. “I didn’t do my weekend homework. If you have nothing to do, you can practice with my papers.”
“…I did my own.”
“Did you finish?”
“…I finished what I could do.”
“Then you didn’t finish.” Wen Yu looked up and thought for a moment. “Actually, if you need… you can also ask me about problems you don’t know. It’s troublesome to find teachers, and there are many people waiting to ask questions.”
Fu Yuhan didn’t like joining crowds. When there were many people, he would even actively avoid them.
Wen Yu suspected he had accumulated many questions without asking.
“…Then never mind.” Fu Yuhan twitched his mouth.
Wen Yu shrugged: “Up to you, but your current scores are still far from T University.”
“I plan to take the arts exam.”
“That’s still not enough.”
This was the truth. Art students who wanted to get into T University needed at least decent second-tier university scores. But Fu Yuhan was somewhat puzzled: “I never said I decided on T University? How much advertising fees does T University give you? P University will pay double.”
Wen Yu laughed so hard he almost threw his pen.
Fu Yuhan looked completely baffled: “Is it that funny?”
“You know,” Wen Yu said while laughing, “when Yang Fan called that day to persuade me to apply to T University, I gave him the exact same answer.”
They were similar in some ways.
Such coincidences amused Wen Yu.
Fu Yuhan: “…”
Fu Yuhan felt so sour. Thinking about Yang Fan repeatedly encouraging Wen Yu to apply to T University made him want to eat lemons.
Apart from the undone weekend homework and the competition practice problems the homeroom teacher had given him individually, Wen Yu didn’t have more test papers suitable for Fu Yuhan to work on.
Fu Yuhan sat spacing out for a while, finally couldn’t stand it anymore, and took advantage of a lull in the rain to say goodbye and go home.
When he got home, it wasn’t even 5 PM, but what Fu Yuhan didn’t expect was that He Yan was actually sitting in the living room.
“School ended so early today?” Her expression was stern.
“Ah,” Fu Yuhan responded, “yes.”
“You didn’t come home again last night. Where did you go?”
He definitely couldn’t tell the truth. Following convention, Fu Yuhan would make up some plausible lie.
But today, for some reason, his words suddenly changed to: “I went to Wen Yu’s to study. It got too late so I slept there.”
“Wen Yu?”
“Mm, the new transfer student in our class with very good grades.” Once a lie started, it became much smoother to continue fabricating. Fu Yuhan went on to describe details: “He’s my desk mate now—our subject teachers handle two or three classes each, everyone wants to ask questions, and I saw they were too busy, so I asked my desk mate for help. Is that not okay?”
He prepared for He Yan to go hysterically crazy, but unexpectedly, his volatile mother’s expression actually softened slightly: “You should work hard in senior year. Next time you stay at someone’s house, at least send me a message.”
“Oh.” Fu Yuhan lowered his gaze and changed his shoes.
“There’s one more thing,” He Yan said. “You didn’t take last week’s money. Do you still want this week’s?”
“No.”
“Sulking with me?”
“If you say so.” Fu Yuhan kept his eyes down, not looking at her. “I’ll be eighteen soon anyway. Don’t they say foreign parents only support their children until eighteen?”
He Yan stared at him with a half-smile.
Fu Yuhan just stood in the living room.
This was a skill he’d developed over the years for dealing with his mother—lower his eyelids, turn a deaf ear, let her scold as she pleased.
But today, He Yan didn’t criticize him at all.
“Fine.” She just said this. “We’ll talk when you run out of money.”
…And then?
That was it?
Fu Yuhan looked up in surprise, but saw that He Yan had already returned to her room.
Something that would normally cause a huge uproar at home had passed by so lightly. Fu Yuhan was confused for a while, then had a seemingly inappropriate thought.
—Good grades really were a useful shield.
—No wonder Wen Yu pretended to be well-behaved in front of others.
Who wouldn’t like someone handsome, with good grades, a gentle temperament, and helpful nature?
Even if it was just surface appearance.
Anyway, few people would delve into what was really hidden behind Wen Yu’s pretense.
That evening, Fourth Brother transferred money to him and said many apologetic words. Instead, Fu Yuhan himself was broad-minded. Since Wen Yu seemed angrier than him, he as the victim really couldn’t get angry.
After all, Yong Rong hadn’t taken advantage of him.
The next morning, school as usual. After the typhoon passed, the temperature suddenly dropped nearly ten degrees. Fu Yuhan got up early, but even wearing long-sleeved school uniform, he still felt vaguely cold.
The trees on campus had yellowed overnight. Fallen leaves would occasionally sway down from branches, scraping across the cement road with hollow “clicking” sounds.
Fu Yuhan opened the classroom door, nestled into his seat, and didn’t move.
At 6:45, Wen Yu placed a bag of breakfast on his desk.
Fu Yuhan had been catching up on sleep and was somewhat surprised when woken: “Don’t you usually arrive just in time? Why so early today?”
“Guessed you hadn’t eaten breakfast.” Wen Yu looked at him twice and lowered his voice. “Remember to go to the hospital for a follow-up this weekend.”
“I’m fine?” Fu Yuhan was bewildered.
Wen Yu: “I’ll take you.”
His tone was calm but had an indescribable finality. Fu Yuhan was speechless: “…”
Fine, if h
e wanted to go, they’d go.
Arguing with Wen Yu about such things was more troublesome than going to the hospital.
But—
“What time? I’m planning to visit Fourth Brother this weekend. He said he could teach me to paint.”
(advanced chapters available on kofi)
