CH 3

Li Ting left in a hurry and didn’t use the route he used when he arrived. Instead, he went around to the other end of the house, wanting to take a shortcut from the community’s back door. As soon as he entered the small garden, he unexpectedly heard a rustling noise around him.

He sensitively halted in his steps and silently watched the swaying movements of the bushes ahead. It was until the two people over there also noticed something was wrong that they slowly walked out. 

Li Han peeked out from behind the back of a boy with a horrified expression. He only let out a sigh of relief when he saw who it was.

“Oh it’s you, ge…”

Li Ting looked at him, then at the boy with the same nervous expression before finally landing his gaze onto their intertwining hands.

Li Han broke away with hindsight, straightened up his disorderly clothes and quickly walked to Li Ting: “Um… this, this is my classmate, he’s here to give me something.” He said as he observed his brother’s expression. 

For catching this major secret, Li Ting did not show surprised nor contempt. He was as calm as usual: “Is that so.”

Although Li Han still felt an oppression from the short phrase of the other, when he thought of his brother’s doting love for him, he slightly calmed down and said: “Mn, actually, we…”

Li Ting directly interrupted his brother who was struggling to explain, he didn’t question what he saw but asked unexpectedly: “You called me here, just to make time for you to do this kind of thing?” Li Han has poor health. Every time he gets a cold, a fever will definitely follow. Because Di Wei cares for him, her son is essentially not allowed to go out during his illness. Forget even going to school, he must have been trapped under his parents’ eyelids for many days.

Li Han was shocked: “H-how could that be, I… I really did miss you so I wanted you to come eat, we already haven’t seen each other for a month, ge…”

Li Ting made an “Oh” sound before nodding and was about to walk away, but Li Han grabbed on to him.

“Wait, ge…” Li Han squeezed out a smile, “Can you not tell…”

“I know.” Li Ting can guess what he wanted, and simply put the other’s heart at ease.

Before Li Han had time to respond, Li Ting quickly passed by them and submerged into the darkness. He was so chic that it made people unable to recover from their fascination. 

In the dark night, the boy still couldn’t help but ask anxiously: “Will it be alright?”

Li Han thought about it, smiled while pursing his lips: “It’s alright, he won’t talk much. Based on my ge’s attitude, he either won’t agree, but once he agrees, he will definitely keep his words, and… he treats me very well.”

Li Ting’s family lives in a high-end community in the city center and the place he is going to is quite some distance away from here. Fortunately, he has his electric scooter near him. Although it’s second-hand, it overcame many difficulties through rain and wind for him.

There were only rumbling noises breaking through the quiet community area. Roaring through the roads all the way until it stopped at the entrance of a street where a sort-of-famous bar in City A resides. Fashionable men and women come and go among various colorful neons on both sides. Li Ting didn’t even bother to look at them. He got off his vehicle and turned towards a dark alley beside him. 

With familiarity, he pulled out a slender figure in short skirt from a pile of debris. Regardless of the other’s struggles, Li Ting supported him on the waist with one hand and hooked him around his neck with the other. Then he dragged him out as if he was dragging a corpse.

“Fut.. P-, P’w cba ifjnlcu, P ralii kjca ab vglcx… ralii kjca ab vglcx…”

Cr atf mbgqrf gfrlrafv vfrqfgjafis, lar yfjealoei ojmf klat tjhs gfv afjgs fsfr kjr gfnfjifv klatlc atf ibcu megis tjlg, ktlmt ibbxfv nfgs qlaloei jwbcu atf mbibgoei reggbecvlcur.

Ol Klcu kjrc’a lc atf wbbv ab jqqgfmljaf remt rmfcfgs. Lf wjvf atf batfg rajcv eq ragjluta, ugjyyfv atf batfg’r tfjv jcv obgmfv la abkjgvr atf mbgcfg bo j kjii, atfc rjlv lwqjalfcais: “Po sbe kjca ab atgbk eq, atgbk fnfgsatlcu eq cbk. Po sbe fcv eq atgbklcu eq bc wf ijafg, P’ii vgbkc sbe lc atf rfkfg.” 

Uncertain if the other wasn’t completely drunk or if Li Ting’s threatening tone was too penetrating, the person under his palm obediently threw up chaotically after sobbing a few times.

Li Ting silently waited for the other to calm down before taking action again. He easily grabbed the other’s belt and threw him into the back seat of his electric scooter like a sandbag.

“Hold on tight, if you fall to death, I’ll exchange your life for insurance money.”

“We… when did we… buy insurance?” The person in the back seat cried as he asked a sincere question. 

Li Ting ignored him and turned on the accelerator. The scooter sprinted out.

He drove wildly. Although there was a lot of traffic near the streets of the bar, Li Ting drove as if he was on an empty track. The broken scooter transformed into a Harley’s motorcycle under his hands. It scared the person behind him so much that even though he hadn’t sobered up yet, he still knew to hold on tightly in order to not fly off.

Even with this speed, the two still used up almost an hour to return from the urban area to their rental house in the suburbs. None of the disrepair sensor lights in the corridor lighted up. Li Ting smoothly dragged that drunktard to the fifth floor in the dark through a bunch of accumulated objects.

Originally, the drunktard had already quieted down, but when Li Ting opened the door, he couldn’t hold back and started sobbing again. 

Li Ting didn’t panic at all, he switched his left hand to his right hand and very naturally lifted the person to the bathroom before throwing him into the tub. After adjusting the water from the shower head, he pointed it at the head of the person at his feet.

With a body full of sweat from running around under the weather at the end of June, he suddenly felt the rushing water that came towards him. The drunk that was immersed in sadness couldn’t help wailing.

“H-hot… it’s too hot! Li-zi, don’t… it’s burning me to death!!!”

Li Ting did not let go, the person in front of him was flopping around like a fish waiting to be slaughtered. 

“My skin’s going to peel off… Ahhhhhhh…”

After silently listening to a few minutes of the other begging for mercy, Li Ting finally said: “Are you going to continue making trouble?”

“No more, not gonna continue… wahhhh, I’m in the wrong… let me go, I’m about to be cooked…” The drunktard said in a hoarse voice as he reflected on himself.

Li Ting confirmed his sincerity before finally moving the shower head, but he didn’t let the person stand up. In two moves, he stripped the other off his clothes, lowered the temperature and as if he was washing a car, he rinsed the other clean from top to bottom before carrying him out and throwing him onto the bed. 

The drunktard was completely well-behaved now. He looked blankly at Li Ting, who’s helping him cushion a pillow and said pitfully while tearing up: “Li-zi, I… I’m heartbroken again.”

Li Ting ignored him.

Drunktard: “Say, why are there… so many scums in the world?… Hot but fickle, fickle to death, if only I can like you… If I’m with you, I definitely won’t get hurt.”

But as soon as he finished speaking, he immediately opposed: “Ah… no, I… can’t match with you, you’re so beautiful that you’ll overwhelm me when people compare us, that can’t do…” 

The answer Li Ting gave him was to pull the quilt over him, covered his face and blocked his blabbing mouth.

He cleaned up the other but ended up in a messy appearance himself. He returned to the washroom to wash up before sleeping. Only when he took off his clothes did he find that the pocket of his pants had been torn from the previous tosses and turns.

Li Ting hurriedly reached into it to feel around. After sensing the key in his pocket, he quietly let out a sigh of relief.

He carefully removed the keychain on it. It was a small finger-length robot, Li Ting fiddled with its limbs. After confirming its flexibility, he took the T-shirt that he just took off, wet it with some water and used it to wipe its face. Then he safely put it back on the key ring and put it into the pocket of the another pair of pants. 

…

Fang Huaining likes quiet environments and has a habit for cleanliness. After painfully enduring months of living with others, he moved out of the dorms during the second semester of his freshmen year. However, his relationship with his roommates did not grow apart due to this. The computer science and engineering mens are shut-in to the extent that other than data numbers and their hands, they only have each other. In the four years, they maintained a simple and solid friendship relying on games, BitTorrent and homework.

Today is the same, Zhao Peng invited Fang Huaining to lunch. After eating, they affectionately went back to the dorms to talk about feelings, and of course, asking the Ace to help him fix the code that he was stuck on for three days was only was merely a passing matter. 

He also very sincerely cleaned the bedroom in advance, mopped the floor, wiped the table and chairs, and even cleaned the keyboard. However, after Fang Huaining entered the door, he still halted two meters away from Fatty Zhao’s computer screen. Staring at the bed diagonally above and would not take a step further no matter what.

Zhao Peng looked around, then moved his plump body to climb up the ladder and took off the socks hanging there while mumbling.

“Jeez, say, you’re so bothersome, this is clean, I only wore it for about a week…”

Fang Huaining remained silent, and turned his gaze to the clutter of random things next to the seat. 

“It’s him.” Zhao Peng reacted very quickly and pointed to the other roommate, Wang Fuliang, who just came up, and said as he sold him out, “This junk of a computer was placed here by him.”

Wang Fuliang had thick glasses that were shaped like beer bottle caps. Knowing that Fang Huaining dropped by, he originally wanted to sneak in some help seeking but after hearing this kind of slander, he felt wronged: “You… you dead fatty, i-it was you who wanted to switch to a new computer and told me to leave it there to sell it together with your old one later so we can get more money.”

“My ass, you would actually listen to my words? Then why did you pass when I told you to fail microcomputer principles with me? Putting two fails together can count for more points too.”

“Ey? Y-you fucking…” 

Other than their hands, the shut-ins mens also could not keep their mouths idle and began their daily enthusiastic interaction. It only stopped when it got reluctantly interrupted with a knock on the door.

“Laozi’s takeout is here,” Wang Fuliang hopped over to open the door and naturally kicked Fatty Zhao while at it, “Don’t… want to waste my time on you.”

“You’re getting serious, aren’t you?” Zhao Peng, whose butt got attacked, did not want to take this loss, shouted back, “Later, I will clear away this broken computer from under my desk. If you make your father, me, get more point deductions from cleaning points during the end of the term cleaning check, I’ll beat you to death, you son of a turtle.”

In fact, Wang Fuliang wasn’t very nimble with his mouth. When he gets nervous, he stutters a bit. He was angry while trying to find money: “Then why don’t you-, why don’t you take it away, your old case is still-, still taking up half the space in my clo-, closet, you have to take that away today too…” 

“It’s not easy for your father to raise this fat body, carrying this thing down seven floors and walking another 20 minutes outside to sell, your father will lose 3 pounds, you take it first…” Fatty Zhao is not to be outdone.

“N-no, it should be you first…”

“Why must I, you first!”

Seeing the evolution of this argument becoming more childish and noisy, Fang Huaining, who should have been accustomed to it, frowned unbearably. He was about to interrupt, except one voice beat him to it. 

“I’ll take it for you guys.”

“Huh?” Wang Fuliang was surprised by the sudden suggestion, “You-, you’ll take computers?”

“Mn, give me both, 20.” That voice said again.

“What? Selling both for only 20 yuan? Are you mistaking something? Laozi’s hardware can all still be used.” Fatty Zhao followed up right after. He has a large stature and a voice that sounds like he’s quarreling when he’s only speaking, which gave him some threatening power. 

As expected, the other party’s voice stopped, but it very quickly picked up again in the same calm tone.

“I didn’t make a mistake, it’s you that made a mistake. It’s not me giving you 20, but you giving me.”

Fang Huaining is leaning while typing away on the keyboard, after hearing this absurd thing and the righteous tone. He finally couldn’t help but straighten up to look towards the door.