“The one who reported me—I know who it is,” Xie Quan said. “It’s a senior who helped manage supplies in the medical system. We participated in the same competition, and before it started, he came to beg me to go easy on him. Too bad, I refused.”
As he spoke, Xie Quan narrowed his eyes mockingly,
“He’s nothing but half a bottle of water sloshing around and still wanted others to hand him a trophy. Pathetic. Thought a little trick like this could take me down? Too naive. It’s just that from now on, it’ll be a little more troublesome for me to get my meds.”
“You’re planning to keep taking them?” Lu Nanyang looked at him.
“Even if you can still handle it now, what about later? When you develop tolerance to diazepam, when it’s no longer enough to meet your growing needs, then what? What else will you turn to?”
Xie Quan’s fingers visibly trembled.
He quickly clutched his other hand into a fist, the rain-soaked bandage cutting harshly into his wound, making even Lu Nanyang wince.
“Lu Nanyang, you don’t understand me,” Xie Quan said calmly. “When I’m not medicated, I’m terrifying.”
“If I hadn’t taken anything, what happened last night wouldn’t have just been forcing you to give me a blowjob.”
…Talk about bringing up the most awkward thing possible.
Lu Nanyang stubbed out his cigarette, stretched his still sore jaw, propped an elbow on his knee, and looked at Xie Quan.
“First of all, thank you for admitting you were a jerk last night. Second, you can’t beat me.”
Xie Quan raised an eyebrow.
“If I wanted to fight back, I could’ve pinned you down with one hand and twisted your arm behind your back.” Lu Nanyang said.
“So there’s no such thing as ‘forcing’ here. No one and nothing in this world can force me.”
Xie Quan stared at him for a while and suddenly smiled.
“Lu Nanyang, you know, you talk like an elementary school kid.”
“But you’re still listening,” Lu Nanyang shrugged indifferently.
And he was right.
Not only was Xie Quan listening—he believed him.
He believed that nothing in this world could truly shackle this wild, free soul. That fearless heart sometimes made Xie Quan jealous to the point of madness—he wanted to rip it out, cage it, make it his.
Xie Quan bit fiercely into his left thumbnail.
But then, a hand pressed down, stopping him.
Lu Nanyang lowered his head and gently pulled Xie Quan’s hand away, unfolding it, and started unwrapping the soaked bandages around his palm.
“You freaked out last night just at the sight of a plate of cilantro beef, right? There’s a reason for that, isn’t there?”
Xie Quan watched silently as Lu Nanyang unraveled the bandage layer by layer without answering.
“It’s fine if you don’t want to talk now. When you’re ready, I’ll ask again,” Lu Nanyang said, tossing the wet bandages into a corner after checking Xie Quan’s palm.
“It’s okay, not too deep.”
Xie Quan awkwardly pulled his hand back.
“You’re right. I don’t understand you,” Lu Nanyang said, brushing off the dirt from his pants as he stood up. He looked at Xie Quan.
“But I think you don’t like the feeling of losing control. Last night, your expression—your smile—was uglier than if you had been crying. It looked like you were the one who got assaulted.”
“…” Xie Quan lifted his head.
“Has anyone ever told you that the way you talk makes people want to punch you?”
Lu Nanyang laughed and reached out a hand to Xie Quan.
“Come on, still sitting here freezing? Let’s go.”
“You’re skipping afternoon classes?” Xie Quan asked.
“Yep. Skipping,” Lu Nanyang said.
Xie Quan lowered his head, let out a small laugh, and placed his hand in Lu Nanyang’s.
It was dry and warm, the slight calluses on the joints still carrying a faint, lingering scent of tobacco.
…..
That night, after returning to the apartment, Xie Quan came down with a high fever that lasted all night.
He drifted between sleep and waking, wandering through bizarre and twisted dreams.
He even dreamed of Lu Nanyang forcing him to eat a bowl of burnt congee laughing afterward,
“With a body like yours, you wouldn’t even be able to fight for a boxed lunch in our unit.”
When Xie Quan woke up the next morning, he realized—that wasn’t a dream.
On the nightstand sat an empty bowl that had once contained congee, a glass of water, a packet of cold medicine, and a small, unopened bottle of new diazepam.
He stared at the unfamiliar packaging on the bottle for a long time before slowly opening it.
At first, he poured out six pills into his palm, hesitated, then pushed two back into the bottle.
He swallowed the remaining pills, leaned against the bed frame, and closed his eyes loosely.
The entire apartment was peaceful and quiet.
He could hear the crisp birdsong outside and the laughter of children.
Suddenly, Xie Quan felt that the new curtains he had put up were a little too dark.
….
In the end, the post on the forum didn’t cause much of a stir. Just when the discussion was heating up, the original poster deleted the thread themselves.
At the same time, it was rumored that the school removed several student helpers from the infirmary system, leaving only Xie Quan and a senior student from the Traditional Chinese Medicine department, who was about to graduate and stay on campus.
Xie Quan was neither expelled nor disciplined; the matter simply passed without a clear beginning or end. However, after this, there was a noticeable increase in negative gossip and vicious speculation about him.
Xie Quan would sometimes find the chocolates in his drawer maliciously broken into pieces and scattered everywhere; the roses in the vase torn apart; even a few pens from his pen holder mysteriously disappearing.
But he didn’t care. The very next day, the students who had played these pranks in his office were all summoned to the academic office for a stern talking-to, and the one who stole was even given a demerit.
It didn’t matter — the surveillance cameras would take care of things.
Besides, soon the students at Yuncheng University had no time for gossip anyway, because the hell of final exams had arrived.
This was the most studious period of the entire semester: not only were the library and study rooms packed, even the cafeteria was taken over by students cramming at the last minute. All gossip and romance topics were replaced by “Did the teacher hint at what’s going to be on the exam today?”
….
On the hottest day in Yuncheng, final exams finally ended.
As soon as Wen Fei walked out of the exam room, he stretched out his arms and shouted at the sky, “Finally—it’s over! I can finally go home! High heels, queen boots, cute skirts, here I come!”
Lu Nanyang twisted open a bottle of water and gulped it down, letting Wen Fei bounce around beside him, singing and dancing like a monkey.
“Shit, if I’d had three more minutes, I definitely could have solved that last big question!” Jia Rong came out punching a tree in frustration. “Three minutes!”
“Oh, cut the crap,” Da Ze sneered. “Even if you had thirty more minutes, you wouldn’t have pulled it off.”
“And you would have?” Jia Rong retorted. “Dream on! I bet you won’t even make it into the Party after senior year.”
“That’s just my dad’s wish, not mine,” Da Ze grumbled. “Once I get home, the old man’s definitely gonna nag me about it again.”
“Hey, at least you have someone nagging you,” Jia Rong said. “My mom doesn’t even ask about my school stuff. She doesn’t care about my grades at all. Last year when I went home, she even asked if I was moving up to sophomore year—you tell me, isn’t that ridiculous?”
“What are you planning to do this summer?” Wen Fei bumped Lu Nanyang with his elbow. “Are you gonna avoid going home the whole break?”
Lu Nanyang said casually, “If I can avoid it, I will. If I have no choice, I’ll go home for a day and find an excuse to come back. I rented an apartment anyway—it’s not like I don’t have a place to stay.”
Wen Fei asked in a lower voice, “What about your roommate? Didn’t you say you didn’t get along with him? A whole summer’s a long time, you know.”
“He… probably won’t stay the whole summer,” Lu Nanyang paused, “probably.”
How long would it take to repair the fire damage? Even if it was fixed, knowing Xie Quan’s neat-freak tendencies, he might not even want to move back in.
And if he were looking for a new place, all the good listings around the university would already be gone—what would be left would be old and overpriced. Finding a decent one would be pure luck.
But was Xie Quan actually looking for a new place? Or had Lu Nanyang just not noticed?
“Lu Nanyang.”
Just then, a clear voice called from behind them. The group all turned around to see Xie Quan, wearing a white coat, smiling as he walked over.
“Dr. Xie, what a coincidence!” Wen Fei, despite claiming he wasn’t interested anymore, still excitedly waved like crazy at the sight of the handsome guy.
“Here.” Xie Quan tossed something at Lu Nanyang, who instinctively caught it — it was a piece of chocolate wrapped in pink paper.
“‘Here’ my ass, are you feeding a dog?” Lu Nanyang snapped.
“Dogs can’t eat chocolate. I thought you knew that,” Xie Quan replied with a beaming smile.
Lu Nanyang: “…”
The rest were clearly shocked by how smoothly and familiarly the two of them talked, their gazes shifting back and forth between Xie Quan and Lu Nanyang.
Xie Quan smiled at them — a polite, warm, harmless smile.
Only Lu Nanyang shot him a sideways glance.
This guy only smiled that brightly when he was plotting something.
“Are you done with exams?” Xie Quan asked, casually resting his hand on Lu Nanyang’s shoulder. “Then let’s head back together.”
“Together… huh?” Wen Fei’s eyes widened. “Wait, you two — what’s going on?”
He knew it.
Lu Nanyang coldly snorted, biting into the chocolate with a crisp snap.
“Oh, didn’t he tell you?” Xie Quan said with a smile. “We’re roommates. We get along really well.”
Amid the deafening cries of disbelief from the others, Lu Nanyang licked the chocolate off his finger and looked toward the approaching campus gates, suddenly hit by a strange sense of reality.
The realization that he was really about to spend the next two months of summer vacation together with Xie Quan.
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Author’s Note:
Xie Quan: (Still holding a grudge)
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