CH 38

Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

Editor: Mimosa

Xiao Ke slept in Zhou Zui’s bed that night while lying next to him with his legs wantonly lying crookedly on top of Zhou Zui’s body. Neither of them were sleepy at the time, and Xiao Ke remembered the first two times that Zhou Zui had slept in the store, and how he would wake up when he suddenly appeared.

Xiao Ke traced his arm with his finger while asking him, “When you sleep…Are you afraid?”

Zhou Zui was relaxed and unfocused. It took him a while to make a sound after Xiao Ke spoke, “Hmm?”

Xiao Ke laughed, “What are you thinking about, baby?”

Zhou Zui also laughed and said, “My mind is empty, what did you just say?”

Xiao Ke then repeated, “I was asking if you are afraid when you sleep.”

Zhou Zui paused before speaking, “Not afraid, but I will dream. I can easily wake up from a deep sleep.”

Xiao Ke felt uncomfortable from just hearing this, and the thought of not waking up was suffocating.

Xiao Ke then turned sideways to reach out and touch Zhou Zui’s head. He liked the feeling of this too much, and he thought that he would have to let Zhou Zui shave his hair for life.

Zhou Zui asked him, “Do you like it?”

Xiao Ke smiled and said, “Yes, I like it very much. I’m so sorry, I never shaved like this even before I became a teacher.”

Zhou Zui thought about how Xiao Ke would look if he shaved his hair till it was short since Professor Xiao’s eyes were so beautiful and he had a handsome boy-like figure. Xiao Ke, while stroking Zhou Zui’s prickly head, said with a smile, “Then think about Professor Xiao every day before you go to sleep.”

“Yeah.” Zhou Zui nodded seriously. “Okay.”

Xiao Ke loved his serious look, and if not for the discomfort of having just done it, he would have wanted to do it again immediately. After all, the biggest thing that he thought about was the desire to have sex with him all the time, to be at a negative distance from him, to see him deep in lust, and to see his face at the moment of ejaculation while out of control and holding himself back.

Xiao Ke could not easily eat Teacher Zhou since this thing must be announced to the world and had to be shown off, but he also had to give the man a proper name.

Thus, Xiao Ke saved up for the next weekend and called all of Zhou Zui’s friends, but he only called Fang Qimiao from his own circle since he was the only one in his circle who knew about his sexual orientation. When he had told Fang Qimiao about the gathering, the other had teased him for a long time. 

“Master Xiao was acting as if he was going to die the night before yesterday, but today, he said goodbye to his bachelorhood.”

Xiao Ke sent a voice message back to him, “Then you can think of me as bitter about the end of my single life.”

“You can forget it,” Fang Qimiao laughed two times, “You can’t wait to say goodbye to the single life. Let me ask obscenely, which one of you two….”

Xiao Ke could not possibly answer such a question and said, “You’re being too vulgar, take a break.”

Xiao Ke finished and then ignored him since men were unimaginable. Fang Qimiao was normal and personable, but sometimes when he drank too much, he didn’t have eyes to see. If he mentioned this subject, then Xiao Ke would not answer it.

Xiao Ke quit the chat interface with him only to find that Fang Xi pulled him into a group, and the group name was very direct and appropriate for this group of people as it was called “Dog Men.”

As soon as Xiao Ke entered, Lin Xuan sent, [Welcome, Professor Xiao! From now on, the average level of education in our group will be graduate students.]

Old Cao said, [Show some respect, big brother.]

Lin Xuan, [Big brother, does he have such a thing? I don’t think he was born with it.]

Xiao Ke did not speak, and straightaway sent a thousand yuan in red packets which were two hundred in a series of five.

Cheng Ning grabbed three himself before he came out and said, [This group has not seen red packets since the day it was built. I love Professor Xiao.]

Old Cao, [I’ve loved Professor Xiao for a long time, step aside, Old Cheng, you should also be ashamed.]

This group was usually quite lively so Xiao Ke talked with them for half a day, and since he was already quite familiar with everyone, he got along well with everyone and blended nicely everywhere.

Zhou Zui usually did not talk much, and it would be easy for him to go an entire half month without sending a single line. This time he appeared quite fast. After Xiao Ke chatted for a while, several red packets suddenly appeared on the screen.

Zhou Zui sent a bunch of them and then said, [Welcome, Professor Xiao.]

Xiao Ke immediately gave back a “kissy” emoticon and the “little rabbit sent love” emoticon.

It was a little bit spicy on the eyes so Old Cao said, [Don’t come out to show off your casual kiss and insult our dog eyes.]

Zhou Zui had disappeared after that statement and didn’t speak again. Xiao Ke was now looking at Zhou Zui with his own filter, and he liked it all. He deliberately came out to send the line, [Welcome. Professor Xiao], to also let him feel a little love.

Xiao Ke sent to the group, [Let’s have dinner together next week.]

Cheng Ning sent, [Come to my place.]

Xiao Ke didn’t agree to go to his place, and told them that he already had a reservation. This meal must be his treat, and going to Cheng Ning’s place meant that he could not pay. A meal was nothing, but it was not that important.

Old Cao said, [I’ll have to pass. My love has been lost since last Saturday. Ke, ah, if you ever can’t deal with Old Zhou anymore, or find that this old man isn’t good enough in bed, come find me. I’m a vital tiger.]

Fang Xi, [….Just get a cucumber, Yuan’er.]

Cheng Ning, [Fuck.]

Jiang Tao, [Old Cao, don’t be like this in front of Teacher Xiao.] 

Zhou Zui, who had disappeared for half a day, suddenly made a sound again and sent a voice message directly with a flat voice, “Don’t think about it, can’t you remember these words?”

Fang Xi also smiled and also sent a voice message, “You dare to think about Professor Xiao? Old Zhou will really fuck you.”

Xiao Ke looked at Zhou Zui’s message with his eyes bent with laughter, and he saw Old Cao saying, [I’ll remember it for now, but I may forget it tomorrow or the day after.]

He also chatted with them for a while before he locked the screen and put down the phone. This time, he was really busy. A new experiment had begun in the group, and a new batch of imported equipment came to the lab that was still in the debugging stage. Xiao Ke, although happy with his love life, did not dare to be careless in his work.

His doctoral supervisor asked him to help with two more master’s degrees, and Xiao Ke also had to find time to help with thesis revision. His doctorate wasn’t completed at this school, and his teacher wanted him to stay in school while Xiao Ke also still wanted to come back. Since his teacher was quite sorry about it, he still wanted to keep bringing him along with him.

The quality of this year’s batch of master’s students wasn’t that great. Xiao Ke thought that their papers weren’t even as good as the undergraduate students’. They had grabbed bits and pieces off of the web, but it didn’t make sense when put together. If this were in the past, Xiao Ke might help them edit it a bit, but his mentality changed after becoming a teacher himself. He directly returned the papers to them and told them to rewrite them.

He traveled for two days from Wednesday till Thursday to Beijing to hold an academic seminar. His level was actually inadequate for this kind of seminar, but the dean treated him well and generally brought him to these types of opportunities.

Although Xiao Ke was young, his professional ability was very strong, and he was also very perceptive so he made people feel very relaxed and comfortable.

The meeting was very serious, but in fact, these well-known professors in the profession were familiar with each other since many of them were even classmates or brothers who shared the same teacher which was why it was customary to have a dinner gathering after the meeting. It was fine when there were a lot of people, because these gatherings turned out to be filled with the customary eating and catching up. They would discuss some academic topics. However, it was more difficult when there were fewer people. These small get-togethers were definitely filled with people from the same school. 

This time, Xiao Ke followed the vice president to a meeting, and the table was full of the vice president’s classmates that remained in the field of education.

Xiao Ke had just had a drink last weekend, but he had eaten something first to cushion his stomach at that time, and this time, he started to prevent the wine from reaching the vice-president before he could eat a few bites. There were seniors at the table so they did not mean to make things difficult for him. The vice president himself also drank a lot, but Xiao Ke was the younger one so he had to block the drinks.

After the meal, everyone was really a bit overwhelmed, but the performance they put on was one of normality since they even talked as if they were sober and disciplined while Xiao Ke sent the vice president back to his room.

However, Xiao Ke’s tense nerves were all gone when he returned to his room. After taking off his suit jacket, he found the back of his shirt already soaked with sweat. Xiao Ke didn’t even take a shower and went straight to bed which was partly due to the numbing effect of alcohol, and his stomach really hurt like pins and needles. Xiao Ke’s face went white after thinking about a group of old pedants who could still drink so much.

When Zhou Zui sent a message, Xiao Ke remained in a huddled position as he touched his phone and looked at it. It was Zhou Zui asking if he had rested.

Xiao Ke called him directly.

Zhou Zui answered quickly and picked up with a nice “Professor Xiao.”

Xiao Ke smiled and felt that the discomfort was relieved. He took a few deep breaths to calm his breathing and then called out, “Teacher Zhou.”

“Have you been drinking?” Zhou Zui asked him.

Xiao Ke was lying on the bed while clutching his phone and told Zhou Zui, “I drank a lot.”

Zhou Zui asked, “How’s your stomach?”

Xiao Ke heard this question and felt satisfied even though it did not help with anything, but he had only once said that he had a stomach ache after drinking too much wine. From then on, Zhou Zui thought about his stomach every time he drank which made Xiao Ke feel very warm.

Xiao Ke had never been a hero at such times, and he was the best at buying misery and asking for comfort so he trailed off before he said, “Not very good. It hurts like hell…”

Zhou Zui paused, and the voice then died down. Xiao Ke waited for half a day but could not get a word out.

Xiao Ke laughed and asked, “Nothing more, Teacher Zhou? No consolation?”

Zhou Zui whispered, “I haven’t thought of what to say, but I feel like it’s useless to say anything.”

Xiao Ke instantly felt comfortable and warm in his heart. Zhou Zui was indeed this kind of person where he simply would not say nice things to coax people. For other people, their boyfriends would be able to give them lots of care, tell them to drink hot water, to take medicine, and to rest early. However, Zhou Zui was not that type of person as he knew that these words were useless so he simply did not say them since these empty words were ones that he never bothered to use when coaxing people.

However, his voice full of concern as Xiao Ke heard just how worried he was.

Xiao Ke’s nose was covered with cold sweat, and he wiped it with his fingers before he suddenly said to Zhou Zui, “Teacher Zhou, I have a scar on my ankle from a fall when I was a child.”

The topic jumped so fast that Zhou Zui couldn’t follow his thoughts, “Hmm?”

Xiao Ke smiled slightly and closed his eyes before he said, “When I come back home, give me a tattoo as well.”