The university campus in early September was like a bottle of orange soda that had been calm for a long time, only to be suddenly dropped with a Mentos.
In the slow descent of the afternoon sun, the shadow of the trees swayed near Ye Wenyu’s feet and he lightly retracted his legs, as if they had touched him and he was dodging from the tickle.
“Oh yo, are you chasing me, huh? I’m dodging, dodging again, dodged again, grave relocation successful, shuan Q!”
Behind him, the clatter of the keyboard rang out clearly and rapidly, a tight burst of typing followed by two seconds of silence, then quickly resumed with the same stubborn energy.
Ye Wenyu turned a deaf ear to the noise of his internet-addicted roommate.
He sat in front of the computer. Aside from occasionally lowering his head to reply to messages when his phone lit up, he spent the rest of the time focused on watching live broadcasts.
—”J’ai alors beaucoup réfléchi sur les aventures de la jungle et, à mon tour, j’ai réussi, avec un crayon de couleur, à tracer mon premier dessin. Mon dessin numéro i. Il était comme ça…”
The male anchor sat in front of the camera, holding a French edition of *The Little Prince* in his hands. While reading, he would occasionally look up and smile at the camera, or blink, interacting with the audience.
The barrages flew by quickly, either praising the anchor’s good looks or complimenting how pleasant his voice sounded.
Ye Wenyu’s attention was fixed on the corners of the boy’s mouth.
When he wasn’t smiling, the corners drooped slightly. When he deliberately tried to lift them, the height on both sides wasn’t symmetrical, which made it uncomfortable to watch.
And his pronunciation wasn’t standard.
Ye Wenyu moved the fingers on his mouse slightly and, without hesitation, slid over to the next live broadcast room.
—”Sisters, family, this color shade really makes your skin look fairer and brings out your complexion. It doesn’t stick to your teeth or stain your cup. The moment you apply it, your aura skyrockets. It’s universally flattering for men, women, young, and old…”
The girl leaned the lower half of her face close to the camera, explaining rapidly like a machine gun while subtly adjusting her angles so viewers could appreciate it from all directions.
While others in the live broadcast room were focused on the lipstick’s effect, only Ye Wenyu was scrutinizing the girl’s lip bead.
No, not just the lip bead, but also the cupid’s bow, the lip peaks, and the philtrum.
Every key area showed signs of artificial modification. The collision of the upper and lower lips revealed an unnatural stiffness.
This was especially obvious after applying thick lipstick.
Ye Wenyu frowned and clicked the mouse again. Next.
—”This is called strawberry coconut jelly. It’s just coconut jelly drizzled with strawberry jam. But the color of this strawberry jam is a bit different. Let me have a small taste first.”
In the live broadcast room, a boy picked up a strawberry coconut jelly and cautiously took a small bite of the jam on top.
Ye Wenyu’s gaze naturally dropped, watching him lick off the jam that had stuck to his lower lip and begin to taste it carefully.
—”Oh, I get it. It tastes like condensed milk. The strawberry jam must be mixed with condensed milk. It’s very sweet and fragrant. Let me try the coconut jelly.”
He turned his head slightly and took a careful bite of the coconut jelly.
Then his eyes lit up slightly, and he licked his rosy lips…
Then his eyes lit up slightly, he licked his rosy lips and let out a soft “mmm”, smiling with curved eyes at the camera. He made a small fist and waved it gently against his chest, endlessly praising the coconut jelly.
Ye Wenyu: “…”
He rarely glanced at the barrage:
[Wow wow wow baby is so good and cute, I want to wipe my baby’s mouth for him~（*^*)]
[……mlgb my calves are cramping, who gets it?]
[99…9..does anyone need a box of Ganmaoling, family (toes curled so hard I dug into the dungeon edition)]
**Ganmaoling is herbal medicine for colds and flu.
Actually, putting aside the little fist gestures, the boy in the video really did have a good-looking face. This could be seen from the many viewers who gritted their teeth and held on without exiting the live broadcast room.
But when Ye Wenyu’s gaze swept over his lips, his frown deepened, and a clear look of disappointment appeared in his eyes.
The clattering of keyboard keys behind him had stopped at some point. Chi Dongting had shut off his computer and wandered over to watch with him out of boredom.
“Eating live broadcast? Wenyu, your feed is so broad. Weren’t you just watching ventriloquism videos a couple days ago?”
“Tsk, this is too much. So many desserts, can he really finish them alone? Doesn’t he feel it’s overly sweet?”
“But that one looks pretty good!”
Chi Dongting took a liking to a plate of desserts in the video: “The colors and presentation don’t seem to have any flaws. It looks delicious just from appearance. It’s called Ganlu Cake? I’m going on Taobao right now…”
‘No flaws?’
Ye Wenyu caught the keyword and corrected him rigorously in his heart: ‘No, there is a flaw!’
The upper lip was too thin. In contrast, the lower lip was a bit too thick. When making exaggerated expressions like opening his mouth wide, the upper lip nearly disappeared, making the entire mouth look odd.
Objectively speaking, this wasn’t a particularly obvious flaw. Same went for the few previous anchors, if no one specifically pointed it out, maybe no one would even notice.
But it couldn’t be helped. Ye Wenyu was a bit special. This not-so-obvious detail would be automatically magnified in his eyes, over and over, until it was all he could see.
All because of a rare fetish; he was a heavy lip-con.
Just like how people who are into hands or voices tend to notice others’ hands or voices at first glance, he would also subconsciously pay attention to other people’s lips.
And to him, this could no longer be called a habit, it was an instinct engraved deep in his subconscious.
It was just a pity that his standards were simply too high.
From the shape of the lips, their size, thickness, color… even down to every arc when in motion, he had his own strict aesthetic criteria.
As long as there was one thing that didn’t meet his standards, no matter how good everything else was, he would instantly lose all interest.
And precisely because his standards were too high and his tolerance for flaws too low, even until now, there hadn’t been a single person who truly caught his eye.
Like the boy in the live broadcast right now. His lips were actually considered unusually good-looking, but according to Ye Wenyu’s standards, they still didn’t even reach the passing line.
Although he clearly knew he was being overly picky, and that people weren’t dolls or sculptures he could mold at will, nor could every little detail grow exactly according to his wishes.
It was just hard not to feel dissatisfied.
Like a collector who could never find their most coveted treasure in a lifetime, that kind of regret, perhaps no one else could ever truly understand or empathize with.
“There’s nothing on Taobao. This name must be made up, right?”
Chi Dongting scrolled to the bottom of the search results and still didn’t find any Ganlu cake. He glanced at the time. “Eh, it’s almost two thirty. Do you think the finance office staff are back at work?”
Ye Wenyu exited the live broadcast platform. “Yeah.”
Chi Dongting stopped looking for the Ganlu cake, put away his phone, and started getting changed to head out. “Then I’ll go. I forgot to transfer money into my card when they deducted the tuition before. The counselor told me to go handle it myself.”
The finance office was at the south gate, and their dormitory was at the north gate, so he’d have to cross the whole campus.
While digging through his clothes, Chi Dongting muttered complaints, “It’s so far, seriously annoying…”
Ye Wenyu had just received a message and glanced down at it, then shut his laptop. “I’ll go with you.”
Chi Dongting poked his head through his shirt collar. “Okay, you haven’t paid tuition either?”
“No,” Ye Wenyu said. “Just picking up a package.”
They took a shortcut, and as they passed the sports field, they could already see from a distance that there were a lot of people warming up on the courts and track.
“Now I finally feel like we’ve merged campuses.”
Chi Dongting stretched lazily and tilted his head back with a sigh. “A couple of days ago, I was still wondering why the student population didn’t grow after the campus merger. It turns out their territory’s over here.”
Ye Wenyu: Strictly speaking, it’s not a full campus merge. Only the Arts Department and the Sports Department moved over.”
Xuan University had two campuses, and theirs was the main one with a larger area.
The other campus needed some renovations this semester, so the Arts Department and the Sports Department that were originally over there had temporarily relocated to this one.
“Wow, look, they’re all so tall and strong.”
After walking for quite a distance, Chi Dongting was still constantly glancing back. “How long do you have to train to get muscles like that? So cool! If one of them punched me, I’d definitely die in a second.”
Ye Wenyu didn’t comment on his vivid description that used himself as a unit of measurement.
The express delivery station was located in the staff dormitory, which was quite a distance away from the finance office.
Chi Dongting didn’t want to go back alone after paying the tuition. Wearing a bitter face, he said, “Wenyu, I’ll run there and run back, could you wait for me a bit after picking up your package?”
Ye Wenyu: “Okay.”
Chi Dongting brightened up. “Don’t worry, I’ll be quick!”
The two briefly went their separate ways. Ye Wenyu picked up the express delivery and came out of the staff dormitory area. There was a group of sports students on the track next to him.
Judging by their looks, they had just finished training and were completely exhausted, lying flat on the ground and gasping for breath.
There were still people running on the outer track, so Ye Wenyu consciously moved to the side and slowed his pace while waiting.
Before long, the phone in his pocket vibrated repeatedly. Chi Dongting had sent him messages:
Chi Dongting: [Wenyu! You can go wait for me by the parallel bars next to the basketball court.]
Chi Dongting: [When I passed by just now I saw two benches under the bars, and there’s shade. You can sit and cool off!]
Ye Wenyu: [Okay]
Just as he pressed send, there was another ding.
Ye Wenyu exited the chat window and returned to the list. Chi Dongting had just finished whining to him a second ago and was already tossing a picture into the dormitory group the next.
It was a poster of a trending female celebrity.
Chi Dongting: [She actually endorsed my game.]
Chi Dongting: [I have to say, her styling is pretty awesome, it looks almost exactly like that NPC in the game, perfect!]
Ye Wenyu opened the full image.
The photo had been edited to the point of near distortion, with excessive skin-smoothing. The mouth area didn’t even have lip lines anymore, but he could still tell that the upper lip was flat and lacked smoothness.
If it had been the original photo, it probably would have looked even worse.
As expected.
The word “perfect” carried far too many harsh criteria for Ye Wenyu, and his rationality had long yielded to reality, no longer holding expectations.
On the track, the training instructor blew a whistle, prompting the exhausted group laying on the ground like fish to groan and get up for more training.
The bright sun reflected off the phone screen, making his eyes dizzy.
Ye Wenyu politely replied with a [Looks good], then put away his phone and looked up to find the parallel bars.
They were only a few steps away.
But someone was sitting up there now, and Ye Wenyu’s gaze naturally landed on him.
It was a boy, sitting on one of the bars with one leg bent and resting on another. His arms were casually draped over his knees, and he was holding a nearly-finished popsicle in his mouth.
Loose black tank top, white shorts, sweat-soaked hair on his forehead, and his arms and legs had particularly smooth and beautiful muscle lines. It was obvious he was one of the sports students.
He hadn’t seen Ye Wenyu, just half-squinting lazily in the direction of the basketball court. The shadowy blur of treetops swayed over his shoulders and neck. Looking up from there, the side profile of his face had an exceptionally rare superiority.
Someone was there, so going over again wouldn’t be appropriate.
Ye Wenyu began to hesitate between waiting for the person to leave and changing places to wait.
Out of habit, his gaze swept over the other party’s lips before he looked away…
His eyes froze, and his steps suddenly stopped.
Welcome to the pit☺️☺️ it’s been a long time since I last posted on here. Hope you enjoy this short but sweet story!! Updates are on Tuesday and Thursday.
Looking forward to this
Thanks for the translation ♥️