CH 31

Chapter 31: Suspected Online Relationship

The red line of entrance examinations was just ahead, and no matter whether it was junior high year three or high school year three, the students spent their days living as virtuously as monks. Because Song Yu was in the building across from him, Yue Zhishi would study in the fifth floor’s self study room every night, waiting for Song Yu to finish his night study session before they left for home together.

“You’re going to Beijing for training?” His bike twisted as it traveled along, and Yue Zhishi immediately steadied it with his hands. “When?”

“The day after tomorrow.”

“So soon?! You’re going in two days?”

“Mn.” 

“Then… how long does the Mathematical Olympiad training camp go for?” Yue Zhishi tried to cover up his dropping mood as much as possible. 

“One month.” Song Yu finished speaking and opened his mouth again. Yue Zhishi thought he wanted to say something, but there was nothing else even after they arrived home.

The morning all the students going to the camp gathered together in front of the school for the large bus to Beijing, Yue Zhishi was in English class and wasn’t able to send Song Yu off. After the class ended, he lay against the window frame and looked out for a very long time, the school entrance completely empty with nothing to see.

The Mathematics Olympiad team chose very few people to take in — Peiya only had two students, and one of them was Song Yu.

Jiang Yufan headed over to him, knocking his shoulder. “Hey, I heard your brother was chosen for the Mathematics Olympiad training team. They all say you’re pretty much guaranteed to get into Tsinghua University if you get chosen. Is that true?”

“Don’t know.” Yue Zhishi wearily replied, remaining on the window frame.

One month isn’t too long. 

He silently tried to convince himself. 

The coach bus was provided by the Bureau of Education, and it started its trip from Peiya, stopping on its way at Jingjian High School where two more people got on the bus. Song Yu was leaning against a window, earphones on and eyes closed in rest, when someone suddenly patted his shoulder. He opened his eyes.

“Yo!”

The smile and tiger teeth were super dazzling.

Song Yu took off one of his earphones and lifted his head to meet Xia Zhixu’s eyes, crooking the corner of his mouth without saying anything. Xia Zhixu placed his luggage to one side and sat in the empty seat next to him, flinging open his arms and shaking his legs. “I’m so tired. I should’ve eaten more earlier.”

“Who told you to bring so much stuff.”

“Who else but my mom.”

Sure enough, all mothers in the world were the same.

“I hear the camp’s super strict with its rules. Bet we’ll be bored as hell.” Xia Zhixu looked over at Song Yu and sighed. “Good thing you’re here, at least I won’t be too lonely this month.”

Song Yu’s fingers toyed with a wireless earphone. “It’s useless even with me here.”

Xia Zhixu felt guilty at the implication in his words. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Oh.” Song Yu lifted an eyebrow.

“What are you oh-ing about? You’re such a strange guy.”

The life of a Mathematics Olympiad trainee was much more difficult compared to high school year three. The quantity of questions and sheer intensity of the training were several times higher than their usual lives. Students improved much faster under high intensity and high pressure, but the consumption of energy was also much higher.

Yue Zhishi always sent messages to Song Yu every night at 10pm. The nature of his messages were very different compared to other people’s, however — for example, Song Yu’s mom would consistently send questioning messages such as what did you eat tonight? or did you sleep well? tired? and then wait for Song Yu to reply.

But Yue Zhishi differed in that his messages were always about himself and never required a response. Sometimes he would send a photo of a fish-shaped cloud he’d seen on his way to school, or a photo of a highly scored test with a halo effect drawn around the score, or even a photo of some random brand’s new soda flavour he’d just tried. 

Song Yu didn’t reply for the first three days. The training team’s adviser was very strict when they’d first arrived, forbidding them to carry their phones with them. The phones could only be left in their dormitory rooms. Song Yu would see the messages only after a very long time had passed, and even though he wanted to reply, he suddenly felt embarrassed about being so late. 

But on the fourth day, he responded.

That night, he was tired enough to collapse, having just returned to the dorm at 11:30pm. He lay on his side in bed and opened his phone — he hadn’t yet received Yue Zhishi’s daily updates when he accidentally fell asleep holding his phone. His phone vibrated and woke him up after an unknown amount of time, and he peeled open his eyes, frowning.  

[Yue Zhishi: sent a photo]

His sight was still blurry from sleep, and the little photo icon was blindingly white. He sleepily pressed on the photo to open it, only to discover it was Yue Zhishi’s arm with a very small rash.

Song Yu was immediately awake.

[Xiao Yu gege: What happened to you?]

Yue Zhishi pretty much responded right away with a voice message. “Jiang Yufan bought the new oden from the school’s supermarket today. I only ate a few fishballs, but those cheap manufacturers actually mixed in a lot of wheat flour.” He sounded slightly indignant. 

Yue Zhishi very quickly sent over a second voice message, his voice very weak. “I didn’t do it on purpose, the fishballs were so white and looked really yummy. I thought they would be like the fishballs we have at home and be made out of only fish paste.”

Xia Zhixu returned back to their room after finishing his phone call and was very surprised to see Song Yu sitting up and furiously tapping away on his phone in bed, completely unlike his usual behaviour.

This guy usually conserved his energy as much as he could — he only knew how to work and sleep, just like a robot. 

But there would be times Song Yu would be quite strange. He usually ate his meals in the training camp’s cafeteria with his head lowered without saying a single thing, but he unexpectedly raised his head and watched a few minutes of the One Piece episode playing on the cafeteria’s big screen yesterday.

It was very interesting — seems like a hot blooded shounen anime fan rested inside the ice mountain’s inner heart.

Song Yu didn’t notice his temporary roommate had come back as he quickly typed his reply and sent it out.

[Xiao Yu gege: I’ve said this so many times — you need to avoid eating outside things as much as you can, it’s so hard to avoid such a common allergen like wheat. You’re already this old, and you still don’t understand this?]

[Yue Zhishi: I do]

He sent over a sticker of a little puppy crying.

Xia Zhixu carelessly rubbed his hair a few times and went to sit on his own bed across from Song Yu. He ridiculed, “I can’t believe you’re still chatting. It’s amazing, I thought you’d secluded yourself in cultivation. I didn’t think you had a friend who could get you to sit up and chat.” 

He particularly emphasised the words ‘sit up’.

Song Yu’s eyes left his phone screen and without even looking at Xia Zhixu, he said, unwilling to be outdone, “I can’t compare to you. One phone call takes one whole hour, and you even report everything you ate for dinner every day. What, you dating?” 

Xia Zhixu had just taken a sip out of his cup of water and almost spat it back out. 

This guy’s really aggressive…

“Who, who’s dating! How can I be dating?”

“What are you so guilty about.” 

His phone vibrated once again, so Song Yu lowered his head and unlocked it.

[Yue Zhishi: Song Yu gege, I miss you]

“You’re the guilty one. I can tell these things.” Xia Zhixu turned off his beside lamp and lay down. “Gonna sleep.” 

But just as he said this, he noticed Song Yu staring at his phone screen in a daze in the darkness, a subtle change on his face.

Xia Zhixu actually started to doubt if his eyes were working correctly. 

He wrapped himself in his blanket and stared at Song Yu. “Hey, what are you smiling about? How creepy.”

Compared to getting a reply, the screen turned off by itself faster, and the last remaining source of light in the room vanished in a flash. 

“No such thing,” Song Yu denied.

“No way, I just saw your eyes smile — what a miracle!”

“You talk too much.”

“I speak a normal amount. Ah, I know, you were just projecting, you’re the one actually dating, right?” 

“No,” Song Yu very decisively said.

Xia Zhixu felt something wasn’t quite right, but he also felt continuing to question him would drag himself into the conversation. He rolled over and blinked at the dark ceiling. “That’s fine then, neither am I.” 

In the midst of the darkness, he once again heard Song Yu’s voice.

“Xia Zhixu.”

“Hm?”

“Has no one told you sometimes you’re too stupid to be a top student?”

Xia Zhixu: “……”

From that day on, Yue Zhishi would receive Song Yu’s replies every day, so he would stay up and wait no matter how late it was. He didn’t even turn on his phone’s do not disturb mode when he went to sleep, in fear of missing even one message. 

Yue Zhishi used to be afraid of being startled awake by his phone while he slept, but now, as long as it vibrated even once, no matter how sleepily confused he was, he would immediately wake up and check his phone.

It was just that sometimes it would be an empty-handed search, resulting in annoying harassment messages from insurance or stock companies.

Seeing Yue Zhishi send over a photo of Orange and Cotton Candy fighting, Song Yu would reply with a question mark. Seeing a photo of a late night snack, Song Yu would respond with a period rejecting the social media sharing of food late at night. Sometimes Yue Zhishi would forward a question he didn’t understand, and a few minutes later, he would receive a photo with written explanations on how to solve the problem.

Yue Zhishi felt like Song Yu was actually a tree hole robot with slightly more intelligence. He sent over daily snapshots of his life and would receive a simple reply or evaluation, and when he encountered any problems, he would be able to harvest answers.

It was actually very good like this — maybe he himself was also a lonely little robot, needing to complete his daily mission of interacting with Song Yu before he could be rewarded with bits of emotion.

And then afterwards, their programs would continue to smoothly operate, no software bugs to ruin the flow of their lives. 

“Aren’t you too clingy with your brother?” There were a lot of people in the cafeteria, and Jiang Yufan sat next to Yue Zhishi, watching as he typed in a new message. “They should be almost finished by now, right?”

Yue Zhishi had just typed in the words [let me tell you] when he suddenly froze, hearing Jiang Yufan’s words. He turned his head over and asked, “Really?” 

Jiang Yufan didn’t understand what he was asking. “Yeah, aren’t there only ten more days? I’ve even counted the days for you.”

“No.” Yue Zhishi asked again, “Do you really think I’m too clingy?”

“Oh, that. Maybe just a little bit?” Jiang Yufan ate a mouthful of stir-fried noodles and didn’t really think about what he said. He was very quickly distracted. “They call this stir-fried noodles with shredded meat, but where’s the meat? Cafeteria’s such a trap.”

Yue Zhishi was in no mood to care about the quality of the cafeteria’s dishes — he had a new understanding of how clingy he was as a person, and even started to panic because of it. He’d initially wanted to delete the message he was originally writing, but he accidentally pressed the send button.

[Yue Zhishi: Let me tell you]

As soon as he saw the message was sent, he tried to hurriedly recall it back. He didn’t expect a new message to immediately pop up.

[Xiao Yu gege: Mm]

So fast… Yue Zhishi thought for a long while, partially trying to remember what he’d initially wanted to say and partially feeling his constant messages to Song Yu truly might be pestering him. Song Yu said before he didn’t have much time to sleep.

So Yue Zhishi finally replied with never mind. 

After a few seconds, his phone vibrated.

[Xiao Yu gege: ?]

[Xiao Yu gege: Then why’d you message me?]

It was the first time Yue Zhishi felt Song Yu actually wasn’t as busy as he said he was. He read Song Yu’s question, and his first reaction to it was very simpleminded, leading him to reply with a plain sentence without much emotion.

[Yue Zhishi: I can’t message you if I have nothing to say?]

He read his message again after he sent it and inexplicably felt it didn’t sound quite right — and yet he couldn’t really explain how it sounded wrong. He stared at it for a while before he finally turned to Jiang Yufan for help.

Jiang Yufan squinted at it and then laughed. “How come you sound like a little wife throwing a tantrum? ‘Can’t message you if I have nothing to say?’” He read out the line in a very exaggerated tone. “You dare to say stuff like that even with your brother’s temper.”

No wonder he felt particularly awkward. That sentence carried emotional ambiguity when in writing — if he’d asked Song Yu that question face to face, he definitely wouldn’t have used the tone Jiang Yufan just added.

He was just going to explain when Song Yu responded.

[Xiao Yu gege: You can.]

He can?

This reply was already very odd, and even more strange was the lengthy amount of time the little chat box displayed the words ‘the other party is currently typing…’ Yue Zhishi waited for a very long time, and yet he didn’t receive any new messages. He was starting to nervously suspect Song Yu was writing an essay to reprimand him.

Just as they were leaving the cafeteria and preparing to return back to their night self-study session, Yue Zhishi finally received a message right before he turned off his phone.

[Xiao Yu gege: You can call me after 10:15pm. My lessons finish then.]

[Xiao Yu gege: If you want.]

Xia Zhixu walked over carrying his food tray and saw Song Yu staring at his phone. He’d thought Song Yu would never bring his phone out since only the cafeteria and dormitory had signal.

He placed his tray onto the table with a bang, Song Yu raising his head. Even though his facial expressions always changed in very minute ways, Xia Zhixu was able to catch a very very small hint of guilt. “Tut tut, you look like you’ve been caught cheating.”

Song Yu flipped his phone face-side down and lowered his head to eat his wontons. He very calmly said, “Are you finally bored enough to entertain yourself with analysing facial expressions?” 

“I finally managed to force your important self to say such a long sentence.” Xia Zhixu cracked up, his tiger teeth exuberantly displaying. “I’m so curious, what kind of person could get you to be so focused on chatting? Don’t tell me someone with facial paralysis like you has a habit of getting into online relationships.” 

“I’m not chatting,” Song Yu flatly denied. “I’m just reading the news on Weibo.”

His words had just left his mouth when his phone suddenly decided to crazily notify him of messages, one after another, causing the entire table to follow along in shaking.

It was like the phone came with the ability to undermine Song Yu’s words.

Song Yu’s face said ‘I don’t feel awkward at all’, and he calmly lifted his phone and opened up WeChat.

[Yue Zhishi: Really?!]

[Yue Zhishi: I want to call!! I really want to!!!!]

[Yue Zhishi: How about tonight, gege? I want to call you today!]

[Yue Zhishi: Can I call you every day? I promise I’ll only speak for a little while, I’ll definitely won’t bother you!]

[Yue Zhishi: Please please [pitiful puppy sticker.jpg]] 

Xia Zhixu couldn’t help but laugh out loud. “What big thing is happening on your Weibo? The push notifications are so excessive. It wouldn’t happen to be some big celebrity courageously revealing they’re in a relationship, right?” He fished out his own phone. “Let me have a look too.”

Song Yu could feel the vein on his temple jumping.

Right now, he was in regret — regretting offering Yue Zhishi a chance to call him as a way to distract him from being angry.

“I won’t make fun of you anymore.” Xia Zhixu put down his phone and started to eat his noodles. “You should hurry up and reply.”

Song Yu’s phone shook once again, and Xia Zhixu took the chance to tease him again. “Look, that person’s impatiently waiting.”

Song Yu never intended to speak too much with Xia Zhixu, so he lowered his head and looked at his messages

[Yue Zhishi: Song Yu gege, are you resting? Can I call you for just one minute? I really want to hear your voice right now.]

Xia Zhixu’s attention remained on Song Yu, who took his phone and left the cafeteria without finishing his wontons. After a moment, as if he’d solved one of the world’s biggest mysteries, he sent a message to Xu Qichen who was far away in Jingjian. 

[Zhixu: Let me tell you, Song Yu is definitely in an online relationship!]

The author has something to say:

Having received this message —— [Yue Zhishi: I can’t message you if I have nothing to say?]

Little Jade’s inner heart: Is he angry? He’s definitely angry. He must be, I made my little brother angry.

Xia Zhixu: what is this facial paralysed guy doing?