Moving, even if it was just across the hallway, consumed energy and caused suffering. Therefore, Wen Di decided to take it slow. He moved himself over first, and then gradually transported clothes and daily necessities.
“Senior won’t be back for another two weeks, and you’re already giving the place to me?” Yu Jingyi felt immensely happy with the sudden sense of personal space. Then, as if out of nowhere, she produced a coffee machine and offered him her heartfelt blessing, “Happy cohabitation.”
Wen Di expressed gratitude for the gift but felt doubtful about the blessing. Was the future of cohabitation really that wonderful?
Bian Cheng clearly shared the same concerns.
“What if there is a marriage crisis?” he asked.
Wen Di thought for a moment and said, “Let’s set up an early warning mechanism.”
He took a black rubber band from Yu Jingyi and looped it around Bian Cheng’s wrist: “If you say or do anything that makes me angry, I’ll snap this at you.”
Bian Cheng thought it was a good idea. Mistakes would receive negative feedback, allowing the brain to build a database for analysis and reduce the likelihood of repeated errors.
Thus, with trust in love, Wen Di moved to the opposite door on an auspicious day. Since the apartment belonged to Bian Cheng, he thought it would be best to follow the local customs and align the living habits of everyone. He placed his bag on a chair and said, “Tell me the rules of this place. I’m sure there’s a ton.”
“Not many.”
Wen Di looked at the three large trash bins by the door, expressing doubt.
Bian Cheng followed his gaze and pointed at the labels, saying: “Waste sorting—you should already know this.”
“Unforgettable.”
“I put pictures on each bin,” Bian Cheng said, pointing at them. “Just follow the pictures when you throw things away.”
Wen Di bent down to take a closer look. The ‘Recyclable’ bin had pictures of books, cardboard boxes, clothes, and the like. The ‘Non-Recyclable’ bin had pictures of medicines, paints, and so on. This was probably to make it easier for Jiang Yu to understand.
Even though he had just moved in and hadn’t produced any trash yet, he was already feeling tired.
“Food cannot leave the dining area,” Bian Cheng added.
“Not even snacks?” Wen Di felt a headache coming on. “Who eats snacks at the dining table?”
What was the point of life if he couldn’t sit cross-legged in his computer chair, munching on chips while watching shows?
Then Bian Cheng pointed at a mop standing by the bathroom. “Most importantly, after taking a shower, everyone must immediately mop the bathroom. No hair or water stains should be left behind.”
Wen Di took a deep breath. When it came to the troublesome and disgusting task of cleaning the bathroom, both he and Yu Jingyi chose to tolerate it until they could no longer stand it. Cleaning once a week was already their limit, but every day? And with three people taking turns?
The friction on the bathroom tiles would be completely worn out ba!
Wen Di already felt the urge to escape back to the next door. This wasn’t a good start. He thought he needed to adjust his mindset, so he shifted the topic from living habits to something more practical: “Where will I work?”
“I have a desk in the bedroom. You can work there.”
“What about you?”
“I have a movable tabletop that I can put on the dining table. The height is adjustable, it should work pretty well.” As he spoke, Bian Cheng brought out the tabletop. It wasn’t small, just the right size for a monitor, a desk lamp, and a laptop. On the side of the tabletop was a button. Pressing it made the surface rise automatically.
“Isn’t there a whiteboard in the bedroom where you calculate? Moving it back and forth sounds troublesome. I’ll use the tabletop,” Wen Di said. Then only the final, weightiest issue remained. “Where will I sleep?”
Bian Cheng looked at him in surprise. “Of course, you’ll sleep with me.”
“Oh,” Wen Di looked at him teasingly. “You finally guessed it right.”
“The sofa is just a lazy chair—you can’t sleep on it,” Bian Cheng said, pointing at a yellow fabric sofa next to the dining table. “Obviously, you can’t sleep with Jiang Yu either. My room only has one double bed…”
Wen Di stretched out his hand, tugged on the rubber band, and snapped it.
Bian Cheng was baffled by the sudden punishment. “What did I do?”
“Too much nonsense,” Wen Di waved him off and took his laptop out of his bag. “If you have nothing else to do, just go ahead and do your thing.”
After receiving the quantitative analysis report, he browsed through several directions at lightning speed and found inspiration in an article from the 10-year Shakespeare Quarterly on the application of colloquial vocabulary in Shakespeare’s plays. With trembling hands, he drafted a paper outline and reported it to Old Liu, hoping his advisor would finally act human this time. After all, without the advisor’s approval, he couldn’t change his research direction.
Two hours later, Old Liu replied: [After nearly four years, you’ve finally decided to use your brain.]
This person had a peculiar talent for making even compliments infuriating.
Then came the usual lecture: [I’ve told you long ago, you can’t just research whatever I tell you to research. Without some innovation, you won’t survive in academia…]
In the department, there was a legendary senior who, after receiving his graduation certificate, went to Wennan Building and dismantled the door of Old Liu’s office. Wen Di completely understood him.
But before escaping this sea of misery, he decided to ignore all negative comments and focus solely on the results: this person had approved.
Venturing into another field was extremely challenging. Wen Di put on his headphones, opened his laptop, and began studying previous research while munching on a quantitative analysis tutorial. As he struggled to take notes and untangle the logic, furiously hammering away at his keyboard, a familiar… grating… deadly… sound suddenly blasted from the bedroom.
Noisy!
Wen Di pushed the table and stood up, stormed to the bedroom, and flung the door open. Bian Cheng, holding a violin bow, looked like a thief caught red-handed. Wen Di grabbed his wrist, pulled the rubber band taut, and snapped it hard.
“What is wrong with you?” He pointed at the bloody weapon in Bian Cheng’s hand. “Why are you sabotaging my work?”
“I thought you couldn’t hear it with your noise-canceling headphones on.”
“I can hear it!” Wen Di felt his head splitting. “Do you have to play that violin?”
“I was thinking about an equation,” Bian Cheng said hesitantly. “Playing the violin helps me get inspiration.”
“What kind of ridiculous theory is that?”
“Really,” Bian Cheng said. “Music is a way to communicate with the Muse.”
“Communicate?” Wen Di retorted. “The Muse must have gone deaf from your playing!”
Bian Cheng lowered the violin bow. “Is it really that bad?”
“In business wars, you don’t need to use poisonous carp to water the fortune tree—just stand in front of the company and play your violin. The Trisolarans wouldn’t need to send a droplet; just have the sophons loop your violin sound on Earth,” Wen Di said sincerely. “Can’t you hear what the hell you’re playing yourself?”
“I was thinking about an equation.”
“And what about Jiang Yu?” Wen Di turned his head and saw Jiang Yu rushing over from the other room, standing at the doorway, watching them intently. “Did you not hear your brother playing?”
Jiang Yu said, “It sounds good.”
Wen Di rolled his eyes to the heavens. My goodness, he was the only normal person in the whole family of tone-deaf people.
“I won’t play anymore,” Bian Cheng closed the violin case. “You can do your work.”
Wen Di returned to the dining room and sat down. After begrudgingly chewing through a section of the econometrics course in anger, he closed his laptop, pulled out a bottle of juice from his bag and downed it in one go.
Just as he was about to toss the bottle into the trash bin, he noticed a cardboard box by the door, filled with bottle caps. There was a label on the box that read: The plastic used to make bottle caps is different from the plastic used for bottles. Mixing them together would reduce recycling efficiency.
He stared at the label, his brow furrowing deeply as a destructive impulse surged within him. After several deep breaths, he reluctantly unscrewed the cap and threw it into the box, then threw it away separately from the bottle. Having done his part as an environmental pioneer, he suddenly realized he desperately needed a reason to rekindle his affection. He walked to the master bedroom and saw Bian Cheng still deep in thought in front of the whiteboard, clearly not having found a solution yet.
When Bian Cheng noticed him, he turned away from the densely packed formula. “What’s wrong?”
“I didn’t understand something just now. Can you explain it to me?”
Bian Cheng quickly came over.
Teaching was wonderful—it highlighted the intellectual advantages of your partner to the greatest extent. Even his otherwise maddening communication skills seemed to magically elevate to a normal level when explaining things. Wen Di’s surging emotions gradually calmed down like receding waves.
After understanding the knowledge points, he stretched, looked at the notes on his computer, and began reflecting wistfully on how times had changed.
“Sigh, my brain isn’t as sharp as it used to be. Learning math is so slow now,” Wen Di said. “Back then, Jiang Nanze spent several days trying to explain Zariski topology to me, and I still didn’t get it,” Wen Di said, “Time spares no one ah; I scored over 140 in math on the college entrance exam.”
“This has nothing to do with time,” Bian Cheng replied. “High school math is just a tiny, tiny corner of mathematics, completely different from the problems we’re researching now. If you haven’t studied calculus, you’re learning math from a thousand years ago. If you’ve studied calculus, then you’re just scratching the surface of math from three hundred years ago. Topology is math from a hundred years ago…”
“I understand,” Wen Di said, “You mean my math is still at the level of the Tang Dynasty, and I can’t understand something as advanced as the Republic of China mathematics.”
“A thousand years ago was the Song Dynasty.”
Wen Di took a deep breath and felt that the love that had just risen up was shrinking back like the receding tide.
He stared at the rubber band. Bian Cheng followed his gaze, pulled the rubber band taut, and dutifully snapped it on his own wrist.
“I’m tired. Let’s sleep,” Wen Di said.
Sleeping was good; no talking, no moving, being able to touch and hug, taking the essence while discarding the dross of the handsome guy, will surely illuminate their marital path.
With hope for his lifeline, Wen Di walked to the bed and lay down slowly. Moments later, the ceiling light went out, and the bedroom was plunged into darkness. After a sound of footsteps, the bed beside him sank, and a warm breath wafted over from the bedding.
Wen Di turned onto his side, facing the person beside him, only to find Bian Cheng also looking at him. Their gazes met in the dim light, and in the faint moonlight, only the sound of their breathing remained.
Bian Cheng raised his hand slightly, gently touching Wen Di’s face. Wen Di closed his eyes and, almost instinctively, leaned toward the warmth of that palm. Under the blanket, the space between their bodies silently shrank until they could feel the warmth of each other’s breath.
Then, suddenly, Bian Cheng sat up.
Suddenly losing the warmth of skin to skin, Wen Di was startled: “What’s wrong?”
Bian Cheng raised his hand to turn on the light, and Wen Di squinted his eyes due to the stimulation of the light.
“This tag should face the foot of the bed,” Bian Cheng said, holding a corner of the blanket.
Before Wen Di could ask ‘Why?’, Bian Cheng had already flipped the entire blanket a full 180 degrees. The blanket flew into the air, the wind it stirred blew away the warmth, and then the blanket fell back down.
“At the angle just now, the part that should cover the feet ended up covering the head,” Bian Cheng explained.[footnote]I understand Bian Cheng on this because same girlll[/footnote]
Wen Di’s mouth opened and closed, finally letting out a cold command: “Sleep.”
The light went out, and they lay down. Wen Di had lost the desire for any more physical contact. As soon as Bian Cheng’s hand touched his arm, he was hit back by him.
Sleep, Wen Di closed his eyes; tomorrow would be a new day.
His heartbeat gradually slowed, and his consciousness slowly relaxed. Just as he was on the verge of falling asleep, the person beside him suddenly sat up again.
Wen Di jolted awake, anger erupting uncontrollably from the top of his head: “What now?!”
“This comforter isn’t set right,” Bian Cheng said, fumbling to adjust the duvet cover to align it with the comforter. “This side is all bunched up, it’s uncomfortable.”
Wen Di’s back teeth were grinding against each other. In the dark, he reached out, grabbed Bian Cheng’s wrist, stretched the rubber band to its limit, and let go. The sharp ‘snap’ echoing through the room.
“The most uncomfortable thing is you!” Wen Di said. “I’m begging you, let’s just sleep!”
“I can’t sleep like this.” Bian Cheng said while rubbing his aching wrist.
Wen Di took a deep breath, reminding himself that he was an adult and needed to manage his emotions and violent impulses.
The rustling of the comforter continued for a long time, with each second increasing the probability of a murder.
Finally, the comforter was perfectly flat and Bian Cheng lay down contentedly. Wen Di, beside him, covered his face with his hand and asked lifelessly, “Do you snore?”
“Unless I’m too tired, I usually don’t.”
“Very good,” Wen Di put his hand down, “I am a light sleeper and wake up at the slightest noise. If you snore again, we will have to get divorced.”
Bian Cheng looked at him in horror. The other person turned over and slept with his back facing him.
The room fell silent again.
Ten minutes, twenty minutes…
In the middle of the night, the snoring rumbled like thunder.
Bian Cheng opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling for a long time.
Who asked who?!
The person next to him seemed delicate and weak, but when he snored, it sounded like a symphony!
Sometimes it was like a bellows, sometimes like a whistle, sometimes like a boiling hot pot. Sometimes it was high, sometimes low, sometimes it stopped, sometimes it continued. Every time the snoring stopped and he was about to fall asleep, the next wave of thunderous attacks would suddenly sound. It was simply mental torture!
After tossing and turning for a while, he glanced at the clock. It was nearly 1 a.m. He sighed, carefully got up, and quietly exited the bedroom, gently closing the door. He went to the storage room to grab a blanket, and then awkwardly curled up on the sofa, falling into a deep, peaceful sleep in the rare silence.
The author has something to say:
Come on, let’s hurt each other.
T/N: This book is almost come to an end! There are only a few chapters left and then there are Jiang Yu’s extras. Anyway, I’ll try to update everyday until the main story ends.
Title is from The Merchant of Venice, Act 2, Scene 6. The literal translation for the title ‘慈悲不是出于勉强’ would be ‘The excitement in pursuit is always stronger than in enjoyment.’
