CH 16

Translation checker: Rin

Editor: Junyans

Chu Mian’s chest suddenly became stuffy. He raised his knuckles and touched his eyes, but didn’t find any traces of dampness. It had probably dried up a long time ago. He calmed down and simply found an explanation: “It’s okay, I just had a nightmare.” 

Although he couldn’t remember the specific content, it was ordinary and inevitable to get emotional in dreams. It was just that he was afraid he would unintentionally lose his cool in reality. He especially didn’t want to lose his face in front of Yu Ran, this idiot.

“Dreamt of monsters or bad guys?”

“Probably…both,” Chu Mian concentrated his attention and recalled. He seemed to have not dreamed of acquaintances for a long time. They were all abstract images of supernatural creatures. Even if he was awake now, he felt extremely disturbed, his heart was floating up and down, and he was unconsciously feeling repulsed by everything he saw.

Yu Ran thought of a way for him: “Then…why don’t you think about me more?” He slung his school bag over his shoulders, picked up Chu Mian’s sportswear and handed it over. “What one sees during the day is what one dreams of at night, so the next time you have nightmares, I can help you fight off the monsters and bad guys!” 

His tone was so serious that Chu Mian couldn’t help laughing, and he replied lightly: “Forget it, dreaming about you is even more terrifying.”

Anyways, Yu Ran’s serious and stupid words easily pulled Chu Mian back to reality. He put on the school uniform handed to him by the other party, and noticed that the weather had recently started to get cooler.

Every day after school, Yu Ran would accompany Chu Mian across the road, and then he would turn back to the bus stop to wait for the bus. The distance from the school to Hanning Mansion was only a few hundred meters, but after getting used to Yu Ran’s presence in the first half of the journey, Chu Mian would feel that time became longer when he went home alone.

When passing by the trash can, Yu Ran quietly threw away the ball of paper he had used to wipe Chu Mian’s tears before. Then, he quickly followed up and asked Chu Mian where he would go to have fun during the National Day holiday.

“I’ll be reviewing at home.”

“What’s there to review? Isn’t tomorrow the end of the exam?”

“There are midterms and finals next.” A calendar automatically emerged in Chu Mian’s mind, many days on it were marked with red circles. “I have three types of function problems that I’m not proficient in. The seven days of the National Day will be just enough to consolidate them solidly.”

Yu Ran gave an unintelligible “ah”, then stopped and said, “If you get tired of studying, remember to call me on QQ to play League of Legends. I’ll always be waiting for your call!” 

Chu Mian’s lips curled up. He had found that Yu Ran often turned up his volume while speaking, and he would practically shout the last sentence. He assumed that even Yu Ran hadn’t noticed this small problem.

Chu Mian told him: “I can’t play team games. If I fall asleep halfway through the game, I’ll only be a hindrance.”

Yu Ran didn’t mind this, “It’s okay, I’ll protect you while I carry everyone.”

It was “I’ll protect you” again, and Chu Mian reflected on these words again and again. He had heard “I’ll protect you” many times from Yu Ran. When it came to acting together, Yu Ran was consciously inseparable from him, and would actively ask him “Are you sleepy?”, or “Now sleep for a while, I’ll look after you”. Although Yu Ran was always very thick-skinned and insensitive, he would show meticulous patience in many small details. 

If it was someone else who was taking care of him, Chu Mian would have had a strong psychological burden, but Yu Ran had gradually become an exception after they had spent many days talking and laughing. While investigating the reason, Chu Mian thought that it was because Yu Ran’s risk factor seemed to be too low, so he let down his guard. But when he thought about it carefully, Chu Mian actually couldn’t come to a definite conclusion in his heart — did Yu Ran really have no ill intentions or was he just using his appearance to disguise as someone innocent?

“Te Ejc,” Jte Zljc olcjiis mbeivc’a tfiq yea rabq jcv mjii tlw.

“Lww?”

Jte Zljc rajgfv ja atf gbjv oliifv klat fcvifrr ragfjwr bo nftlmifr jcv jrxfv, “Ljnf sbe fnfg tjafv batfgr?” 

Te Ejc aliafv tlr tfjv ab gfmjii, “Tfr, P tjnf… yea P mjc’a gfwfwyfg ktb la kjr.”

Jte Zljc jrxfv tlw jujlc: “Ktfc tjnf sbe fnfg tjafv wf?”

Yu Ran obviously didn’t react, and after a few seconds, he looked at Chu Mian hesitatingly and shook his head.

“Not even once? Or feel that I always trouble you, I’m also a burden when taking physical education classes, and a waste of your time… or something like that, you may feel more or less like this usually, right?” Chu Mian sped up his speech a bit, “It’s okay, you can tell the truth, I’m just asking casually.” 

But when his words reached the end, even Chu Mian himself felt guilty when he said the words “just asking casually”.

He just desperately wanted to get an affirmative answer from Yu Ran. It was best to tell him honestly “Yes, I do think you’re a bit troublesome”, or a kind of magnanimous and decent truth like “It’s not too annoying”, so that he could rest assured and boldly abandon the idea of making friends with others, and stop wavering for the illusory sense of security in his heart.

Yu Ran withdrew his hand from his pocket, walked to Chu Mian, raised his head and said, “I didn’t hate you before, but I hate you now.”

Chu Mian was stunned, then he pursed his lips in silence. While he was hesitating, Yu Ran suddenly grasped his collar and pulled hard. Chu Mian leaned forward involuntarily and almost hit the other party’s face. 

“What if you fucking cause me trouble? Can I blame you for it when you’re my friend?” Yu Ran’s eyes were firmly fixed on him. “What, do you feel you ‘owe me’ again? One shouldn’t repeat the same mistake thrice. I didn’t care about it last time, and I’ll forgive you this time, but if you fucking mind about this with me once more, I’m telling you, Chu Mian—”

The other party’s warm breath was in close proximity, and Chu Mian listened intently to his next words.

“I’ll have no choice but to be sworn brothers with you!” Yu Ran snorted angrily and let go of his collar.

“…” 

Yu Ran’s understanding of the friendship between boys was very simple. It was normal for friends to cause trouble with each other. You shouldn’t easily apologize or say thank you. The more polite you are, the easier it is to lose friendship. Brothers should not bother about trifles, and should rely on each other. What he hated the most was when his friends acted estranged from him, treating him courteously like how grown-ups treated each other.

Chu Mian lowered his head and smoothed the wrinkles on his clothes.

“Also,” Yu Ran kicked the tip of Chu Mian’s shoes, and his voice slowed down, “if you encounter unhappy things, feel free to talk to me. Even if you cry in front of me, I won’t laugh at you.”

When these solemn words fell, Chu Mian’s throat suddenly tightened. He turned his face away, avoided Yu Ran’s gaze, and said softly, “Okay.” 

So far, Chu Mian had not found a standard for how to define the relationship between ”friends”. He only knew that human feelings couldn’t be controlled, and they would always rush out before rationality perceived them, or converge into streams, or overflow into disasters, or form a dependence on others.

And what Chu Mian hated the most was ‘depending on others’.

He hated it. Hated it. Really really hated it.

He hated it so much that in the “Annual Summary of Everything That Miēmiē Hates”, it had the Top 1 spot. 

He didn’t speak for a long time, and even forgot that it was time to go home now, and only when he heard Yu Ran’s self-satisfied words beside him did he recover—

“Heh, as expected of me. A few words can make Chu Mian extremely flattered. My ‘Talk no Jutsu‘ seems to have upgraded to the maximum level.”

Chu Mian keenly noticed the word “flattered”, so without thinking, he raised his hand and pushed Yu Ran away, telling him, “Stop showering affection on an uninterested party.”

Yu Ran stared at his eyes: “Why? Didn’t you just feel that I set off a stormy wave in your heart? I think you are ready to submit to me, was I wrong?” 

Chu Mian was most uncomfortable with the other party’s provocative words, so he stretched out his hand to pinch Yu Ran’s soft cheek and twisted it fiercely, “Yu Ran, have some common decency.”

“You let go. Oh, you won’t?” Yu Ran was grinning as Chu Mian pulled his cheeks. At this moment, his eyes dropped down and he stared at the other party’s legs, “You won’t let go, huh?”

Chu Mian sensed that he seemed to be trying to play that dirty trick again, so he quickly let go of his hand and grabbed his school bag to block the front of his body. This defensive action made Yu Ran burst out laughing, causing Chu Mian to hit him with his school bag in annoyance.

Taking advantage of the green light, Yu Ran ran and quickly returned to the bus stop opposite the zebra crossing. 

Chu Mian breathed a sigh of relief. He looked over and saw Yu Ran standing under the warm yellow street lamp, smiling and waving goodbye to him.

The evening breeze was gentle, as always.

After the monthly exam, the whole country ushered in the National Day holiday.

Yu Ran hadn’t opened his school bag since the start of the holiday. He only played games for several days in a row. When the vacation came to an end, he and Yu Jin wailed together in anguish and the two of them stayed up all night to finish their homework, and continued to catch up the next morning. 

“Why is there so much homework for Chinese Language? I’m going to die, I can’t finish copying.” Yu Ran wrote until he started panting, then threw away his pen and lay on the table. “I’m exhausted. Where’s mom? I want her to come over and help me copy.”

Yu Jin wiped away his tears and said, “She went hiking with her boyfriend and won’t be back until tomorrow. By the time she comes back, school will have already started.”

“Oh.” Yu Ran straightened up in disappointment. He finally finished copying the homework of translating traditional Chinese, opened QQ to look at the homework list in the class group, and immediately felt his head ache again, “Fuck, there’s also homework for Chemistry.”

And since there were no reference answers for Science homework, he could only do it on his own. Yu Ran scrolled through the chat list irritably, found Chu Mian’s dialog box, and sent a message: “Have you finished writing the homework for Chemistry, Physics and Mathematics?” 

“Let me take a look.”

“Brother.”

“Dad.”

Chu Mian replied, “Why are you in a hurry? It’s not due until after military training.” 

Yu Ran: “Holy shit, I forgot there was military training! Hahahahahahaha!”

This unexpected surprise caused him to slap the table directly, and he circled around Yu Jin with great vigor, “Dìdi, you never expected this, right? Gē will abandon you first. ”

“Then, then you help me write something!”

“Impossible. In the face of homework, I’ll disown all my relatives and friends.” 

Yu Jin was crying and writing over there, while Yu Ran lay comfortably on the bed with his mobile phone in his hands, and sent a message to Chu Mian: “Bring your Science homework tomorrow.”

In fact, Yu Ran didn’t have much hope. After all, Chu Mian’s usual mantra was “Dream on”, and he always sneered at things like copying homework. But after Yu Ran sent the message, the reply he got was: “You don’t want English homework?”

“I do!” Yu Ran hit a row of exclamation marks in succession. “Chu Mian, from today onwards, you’re my brother from a different mother, thank you Dad!”

Chu Mian on the other side couldn’t help laughing when he saw this messy address. He put down his mobile phone and got up to organize his homework for all the subjects. During the period, his mobile phone kept ringing on the bed, but he didn’t care much, thinking that Yu Ran was expressing his gratitude again by going out of his way to excessively praise him. 

When he went over and picked up the phone, he found that it was a message from QQ —

[Classic Motto of Life]: I only believe in three types of people in my life: one is the person who has shared my ups and downs with me, the other is the person who has helped me up when I fell, and the third is the person who never left me even when I had nothing! It’s okay if one doesn’t recognize words but one must not fail to recognize people! Just like how a tree that stands tall will never forget its roots, a person who is glorious should also never be ungrateful!

— The Wolf is Hiding Next to the Dog @You: For xiōngdi to take a look at!

[Hot-Blooded Quotes Book]: What are friends? Friends are like underpants, throughout your significant ups and downs, they will support you. What are Xiōngdis? Xiōngdis are like condoms, no matter how big of a trouble you cause, they will cover for you. If you have friends and xiōngdis around you, share this post! 

— The Wolf is Hiding Next to the Dog @You: Forwarding to my xiōngdi!

Yu Ran enjoyed flipping through the quotations from everywhere. Whenever he saw words such as “xiōngdi” and “friend”, he forwarded it to Chu Mian to see, in order to consolidate the friendship between the two.

[The Most Embarrassing Sentence of 2012]: Xiōngdis are like hands and feet, and women are like clothes. A real xiōngdi will be your clothes when you run around naked!

— The Wolf is Hiding Next to the Dog @You: Support xiōngdi! 

Chu Mian expressionlessly read all this, and then added Yu Ran to his blacklist without saying a word.

Finally, the world turned quiet.