CH 17

Translation checker: Rin

Editor: Junyans

After the autumn rain, the weather turned cold and foggy, and the yellow leaves became sparse. 

In the early morning, a layer of mist lingered in the school grounds. The first year students, who were about to undergo military training, were gathered in the field outside the school building. Xiang Xuehua counted the number of students twice, but one person had still not arrived from their class. When Bai Yuzhu was ready to contact his parents, Yu Ran finally arrived, dragging his huge luggage.

“What are you bringing so much stuff for? Are you moving?” Bai Yuzhu looked at Yu Ran as he struggled to lift a 28-inch trolley bag up the steps. “We let you participate in military training so that you’ll be able to bear hardships, but you take it as going to a party, don’t you?”

After successfully moving the suitcase, Yu Ran breathed a sigh of relief. While gritting his teeth, he picked up the heavy hiking backpack on the ground, before replying to the homeroom teacher: “I’ve brought the “English-Chinese Dictionary”…”Oxford Dictionary”…”New Concept English”, and listening tapes… One can have a broken head, but one can’t have broken English!”

As he said this, his body was almost unable to support the weight of the bag, and he was almost lying on the ground with his waist bowed, his back looking like a hill. Even so, he had to hold on and tell the teacher: “The power of knowledge is about to crush me…” 

Bai Yuzhu was amused by the look of his flushed face, and personally went to help him hold his luggage. In passing, she told him: “Yu Ran, you’ve to be well behaved during the military training. Don’t get into trouble, otherwise any disciplinary action will be recorded in the file as a serious demerit.”

“Āiyōu… I’m not that disobedient.” Yu Ran was displeased and felt that she was being long-winded. “I still haven’t finished a bunch of vacation homework, so I don’t have time to do anything else.”

Bai Yuzhu deliberately stared at Yu Ran fiercely, and pointed a finger towards him as she said, “You better remember today’s words. Also, I’ll ask you one thing. Did you ride the statue in front of the school before?”

Yu Ran said righteously: “Yes, what’s the matter?! Isn’t the horse for people to ride?”

Bai Yuzhu was so angry that she almost smacked him. “You’ve really set a great example! Now there are people secretly riding the horse every day, and its base is about to crack. Can those things that are meant to be on display be able to withstand your wild act?”

“It means that its quality isn’t good. Look at the bronze horse statue on Jiubao Street. I rode it and it’s still fine.” Yu Ran was full of innocence and had a strong argument.

Bai Yuzhu gave him a fierce look, turned her face to a row of boys in the class and said, “You guys watch Yu Ran, supervise each other, and abide by the rules during military training.”

After the number of students in each class was counted, it was also time for the bus to depart. Even though the students were already in senior high school, there were still many parents gathered at the entrance of the school, and they would feel relieved only after watching their children get on the bus with their own eyes. 

Chu Mian was sitting in the first row of the bus, and was organizing his headphone cable with his head lowered. The seat next to him suddenly sank, and he turned his face to see Yu Ran leaning over.

He immediately refused Yu Ran coming over: “Don’t sit with me, it feels too crowded.”

“Fang Zhao insisted on sitting in the last row, and I have motion sickness.” Yu Ran put his bag by his feet and took off his camouflage jacket. “Why do you have so little luggage? I’d bought snack boxes but they couldn’t be stuffed in.”

“All the snacks you bought were puffed food, right? The packaging is full of air. Of course it takes up space,” Chu Mian put on the headphones and said casually, “Bringing a few buckets of feed will suit you.” 

“Why, to feed you?” Yu Ran leaned back relaxedly, his eyes focusing on the backpack on Chu Mian’s lap. “What did you bring? Is there something delicious?”

Chu Mian didn’t say a word, but directly picked up the bag and placed it on Yu Ran’s lap, tacitly allowing him to rummage through it. Yu Ran opened its zipper and glanced inside, and a golden bottle in one of the compartments attracted his attention.

Chu Mian was in the middle of skipping a song when he heard Yu Ran ask loudly: “Chu Mian, why did you even bring sunscreen, huh?”

Chu Mian pulled off his earphones, feeling surprised. 

Last night, he had fallen asleep in the middle of packing his luggage, and his aunt had added the rest. He didn’t expect that she would put sunscreen in his bag. Chu Mian grabbed the bottle and stuffed it back into the compartment, and warned Yu Ran in a low voice to not make any noise.

Yu Ran was still yelling: “Hey, please don’t say you also put heating pads under your clothes in the winter? If you really do that, I’ll look down on you, Chu Mian. Are you still a man if you’re afraid of the sun and cold wind?”

He turned his head towards Chu Mian and found that the other party had turned his face away, facing the bus window and ignoring him. After that, no matter what he said, Chu Mian didn’t reply. Yu Ran had to carefully shake the other party’s arm, and confess his mistake in a soft voice: “Okay, okay, I won’t say it anymore. How good is sunscreen! If a man can’t even protect his skin color, what else can he protect?”

Yu Ran craned his neck to observe Chu Mian’s face and found that his eyes were closed, maybe he was asleep. In order to make him sleep more comfortably and not have nightmares, Yu Ran lowered his head and found the switch to adjust the angle of the seat’s backrest, and held it down without thinking, causing Chu Mian’s seat’s backrest to quickly fall backwards— 

The girl in the back seat was caught off guard and screamed. Her mobile phone fell to the ground, which caused the earphone plug to fall off.

Before Chu Mian could react to the surprise of suddenly falling backwards, he heard a man’s endless moan near his head. The moan was clearly let out in a state of confusion and infatuation, sounding sexy and ambiguous.

…No matter how you listened to it, it seemed to come from some R18+ material.

Chu Mian suddenly opened his eyes and got up, awkwardly put on his headphones again, and pretended to not have heard anything. 

Tf Wl ibbxfv vfjatis qjif. Vtf bqfcfv tfg fsfr klvf jcv rajgfv ja tfg qtbcf atja kjr ecvfg Jte Zljc’r rfja, ktfgf atf rmgffc mbcalcefv ab qijs “Vfcrlalnf Ubgcbugjqt”, atf DO tfcajl rtf tjv vbkcibjvfv ijra cluta. Aera cbk, gluta ktfc rtf uba ab atf qjga atja wjvf tfg tfjga reguf, atf ogbca rfja revvfcis ofii yjmx, ktlmt rtbmxfv tfg rb wemt atja rtf agfwyifv jii bnfg, tfg qtbcf ofii pera ilxf atja, jcv bcis atf fjgqtbcf mbgv kjr ifoa yfakffc tfg olcufgr.

The most terrible thing was that Chu Mian’s seat’s backrest was just in front of her, so there was no room to bend over to pick anything up. She could only listen to the amazing performances of the voice actors in the video. In the stiff atmosphere of the bus, every moan from the anime characters’ voices seemed to slap her fiercely through the air; every gaze directed towards her by the surrounding students were slashes to her self-esteem.

— Wow, the weather today is good enough…to directly jump out of the bus and die.

In Ye Xi’s blank brain, only this sentence, written in bold letters, slowly appeared. 

However, this was not the pinnacle of her embarrassment today.

After Yu Ran was attracted by these sounds, he tried his best to peek at the phone on the ground through the gap between the seats, and directly sentenced Ye Xi to death with a single sentence—

“Āiyōu, what are they talking about?”

Ye Xi stretched her legs and escaped into the land of ultimate bliss. 

Chu Mian hurriedly covered Yu Ran’s eyes, pushed him back to his original position, and hurriedly straightened his seat’s backrest, so that Ye Xi could pick up her phone and put an end to this embarrassing accident.

After a long time, the atmosphere in the bus warmed up.

Yu Ran couldn’t sit still, and began to harass Chu Mian again: “Do you know what ‘hentai’ is?”

“…” Chu Mian didn’t want to discuss this with him, and responded coldly: “I don’t want to know.” 

“Then I’ll give you some knowledge in this area.” Yu Ran rolled up his sleeves enthusiastically.

Chu Mian gave an impatient “tsk” and pushed him away. Yu Ran kept chattering beside him all the way, telling Chu Mian what “hentai” and “ero” meant in a serious manner. However, during his explanation, he didn’t delve deep into the topic, but only stayed at the level of noun interpretation.

Chu Mian’s face was originally hot, but after listening to him, he calmed down.

The bus gradually slowed down and arrived at the military training site smoothly. 

Yu Ran’s arms crossed Chu Mian’s chest and raised the curtains. Then, he loudly read the words outside: “Ronggang People’s, Defense Education Base.”

“It’s Civil Defense Education.” Chu Mian patted him on the forehead. “Sit down, the bus will continue to drive in.”

Ten minutes later, the bus stopped steadily, and the students slowly came down to get their luggage. Yu Ran was carrying a mountain-like package on his back and dragging a large box along, so he was unsurprisingly left behind from the group. After Fang Zhao and the others had selected the dormitory, they went downstairs to help him move his things up.

“Yu Ran, how is it that I can hear the sound of clanging and banging from inside?” A boy asked him. 

Yu Ran said lightly: “Oh, that’s hot pot.”

The boy who asked this question was named Zhou Weixi, and he was a classmate who had recently become acquainted with Yu Ran. In fact, at the beginning, the two of them had disliked each other very much. Zhou Weixi had felt that Yu Ran was noisy, fierce, and had the aura of a hooligan, and Yu Ran had felt that Zhou Weixi was too fond of acting like a pretentious prick. From time to time, Zhou Weixi would recite a few ancient poems or English prose, and he always wandered around with a folding fan in his hand, so he looked like he needed a spanking.

In the previous History class, Yu Ran had been called again by Brother Xuan to answer a question, and he had stammered and hadn’t been able to say anything, but Zhou Weixi, who was a few meters away, had stolen the conversation, and in the end, even ridiculed him by saying “You don’t even know this.”

Yu Ran was very upset at that time: “Do I need you to take my place and answer? Why do you have such a bad mouth?” 

Zhou Weixi closed his folding fan lightly, and slowly said, “I think you are wasting too much time. Do you understand?”

Yu Ran patted his desk and almost wanted to go over and beat him up: “Āndésīdàn your ass. If you’re Chinese, don’t pretend to be a westerner with me!”

The hatred they had formed in the History class was all resolved in the Physical Education class. The reason was that they had played Happy Corner, a popular and timeless game for middle school boys in the country.

In northern cities like Ronggang, this kind of behavior was commonly known as “Conning people”. “Con”, a verb, referred to the playful behavior of a group of boys lifting a boy and holding his arms and legs to collide or rub his private part against other objects. This “object” was mainly trees or railings, but of course, it could also include cacti, mace, or even ceiling electric fans, or another boy… 

Zhou Weixi was the one who had been “conned” the most in the class, because his usual way of saying sarcastic words in an elegant way indeed indicated that he needed some discipline. From the classroom door frame to the multimedia computer, from the central flower bed to the stage, every corner of Chengjun Middle School had been left with the messy traces of Zhou Weixi being conned. This morning, Yu Ran had even suspected that the bronze horse statue at the gate of Chengjun was actually damaged by them playing Happy Corner.

In the midst of repeatedly joking and mocking each other, the friendship between young boys always easily increased. Soon, Zhou Weixi gained a nickname, “Zhou Shuren“.

A few days later, his nickname evolved into “Cha Gē.”

“Cha Gē, do you want to sleep in the upper bunk or the lower bunk?” Yu Ran placed his luggage and discussed the allocation of bedding with Zhou Weixiu. In the end, the two of them simply went with deciding based on rock-paper-scissors. Yu Ran regretted losing, for he could only choose the upper bunk. 

He took out the sheets Li Guirong had prepared for him and put them on the bed. Looking up, he found that Chu Mian was in the upper bunk next to him, and their pillows were only ten centimeters apart. Yu Ran crawled forward and asked, “Do you like sleeping on the upper bunk?”

Chu Mian laid the clean sheets flat and said, “I don’t need to train.”

Firstly, it was troublesome to climb up to the upper bunk. And after coming back from training, everyone would definitely want to immediately lie down and rest, and would find climbing up to the upper bunk too tiring. Chu Mian was suffering from narcolepsy, and overwork during military training would only aggravate the symptoms. The leader had allowed him to stand aside and learn during training. As the position of the bed was not important to him, he thought it would be better to let others feel comfortable.

The instructor blew the whistle in the corridor, urging them to quickly change into their military uniforms and gather outside. 

Yu Ran rolled up his trouser legs and paired his camouflage suit with white Adidas casual sneakers, which made him look more energetic.

Everyone changed into their military uniforms, gathered outside the building, and arranged themselves in line according to their dormitories.

The instructor blew his whistle again before shouting: “Those who want to be the dorm head, come out of line!”

Yu Ran was laughing and whispering with the people next to him when he was suddenly pushed hard on his back, and he stumbled and almost hit the instructor. 

“Fuck, Chu Mian, you fucking…” Yu Ran turned his head, gritting his teeth.

Chu Mian stood upright and raised his eyebrows at him with a smile.

Yu Ran was forced to become the head of the dormitory, responsible for waking everyone up and counting the number of people every day. If anyone in the dormitory made a mistake, he would also be punished.

After the election of all the dormitory heads was over, the instructor reinforced discipline and then led the team to a military training mobilization meeting. The male dormitory was far away from the meeting place, and when they arrived, students from many classes had already gathered there. 

However, in less than a minute, Chu Mian became the focus of the girls around him.

Not only did the teenager have handsome facial features, there was also a kind of indifferent and cold arrogance ever present in his eyes. This sense of detachment happened to be the most charming thing in the girls’ hearts. Especially since he was now wearing a camouflage uniform like everyone else, his unique temperament directly made him stand out.

They saw Chu Mian occasionally smiling and talking to a boy who was squatting on the ground tying his shoelaces. His expression was not gentle, as if he was sneering at something. When the boy next to him stood up and turned his face, a group of teenage girls’ hearts burst open again — the boy looked handsome and bright, which was completely opposite of Chu Mian’s temperament. His brows and eyes were full of youthful spirit and wit; although it made him look swift and fierce, he still looked friendly.

From the beginning to the end of the mobilization meeting, the two teenagers firmly attracted the attention of the girls of the same age, and some girls thought about writing a note, and giving it to them. However, since Chu Mian’s face read “I don’t want to be approached by strangers”, they didn’t dare to talk to him rashly, so they could only focus their target on Yu Ran. 

“What’s this?” Yu Ran unfolded a note and saw a series of numbers. He couldn’t help but fall into deep thought, then he said in a deep and low voice, “This mysterious number seems to indicate some kind of disaster in the future… Well, I see, thank you for performing this dangerous act of bravely risking your life to convey this message to me.”

He frowned, then nodded meaningfully at the girls.

Chu Mian lowered his head and asked him, “What did they write to you?”

“A code word.” Yu Ran’s face was gloomy. “Actually, I don’t know which organization is targeting me. I’ll study the meaning of these codes later.” 

Chu Mian took the note from his hand, read it and just smiled before giving it back to him.

After the meeting, each class was led by the instructor to the dining hall to have lunch. As soon as they got inside, they had to follow a strict sitting posture. Whenever someone laughed, everyone was punished with fifteen squats. When it was time to distribute the dishes and chopsticks, everyone’s legs were a little sore.

Chu Mian went back to take a nap early after eating. Not long after Yu Ran and the others rested, they ushered in afternoon training.

“Chu Mian, since I, this dorm’s head, won’t be here for a while, you will have to behave yourself.” Yu Ran tightened his belt and jumped a few times, then said in a sincere tone, “You shouldn’t open the door if someone knocks, and you also shouldn’t touch the power supply, okay?” 

Chu Mian rolled over on the bed and stared down at Yu Ran. It was rare for him to cooperate with Yu Ran once: “Then remember to carry the key, dormitory head.”

“Well, I’ll leave.” Yu Ran’s smile deepened at the corner of his mouth, and he hurriedly went out with a water bottle and a folding stool.

Chu Mian lay down and closed his eyes, and could vaguely hear the voice of the instructor downstairs giving orders. After a while, it became quiet, and he breathed smoothly, having already fallen asleep.

This time, he dreamed that there was a dark blue whale in the sky, wandering among the clouds, and it seemed to be crying. It was a pity that as a human, he couldn’t hear the ultrasonic waves it emitted, so he could only follow it all day and night. The dream had no emotions, it started silently, and ended smoothly. The time in the real world was slowed down by it, extending from noon to dusk. 

When Chu Mian woke up, it was almost dark. The light was not turned on in the dormitory, and when he got up to stretch, he found that a cell phone screen was lit up below.

“Why are you alone?” Chu Mian asked him, “Turn on the lights.”

Yu Ran put away the phone and went to press the switch. When his field of vision suddenly turned bright, Chu Mian squinted and just sat on the bed for a moment, before opening his eyes to look at Yu Ran.

He smacked his tongue, turned his face to the wall and said, “Yu Ran, put on your pants.” 

“What ‘put on your pants’? I’m about to take a bath. I didn’t come back to call you.”

Right now, Yu Ran was wearing only a black vest, with a pair of briefs underneath, and his two slender and fair legs were completely exposed.

He took the shampoo and shower gel he had brought, and raised his head to urge Chu Mian: “Come with me, there’s hot water now. It’ll definitely turn cold if you go later.”

“I won’t go.” Chu Mian lowered his head in order to avoid seeing Yu Ran’s body. “I’ll go to the teacher’s dormitory to bathe in a while. I’ve already told the History teacher about this earlier.” 

“Ah? Why won’t you wash with us?” Yu Ran looked at him strangely. “Are you afraid of us seeing ‘it’?”

It was a matter of dignity. Chu Mian’s nerves were tense, and he almost blurted out: “Don’t you already know the size?”

“Oh, yes.” Yu Ran had almost forgotten that he had personally felt Chu Mian’s thing. “Well, it’s as if you’ve raised a gourd kid, seven flowers on a vine.

Chu Mian clenched his fists while sitting on the bed, and his knuckles cracked crisply. He couldn’t wait to turn his head and scold the other party, but as soon as he changed his line of sight, he was met with Yu Ran’s two bare legs again. The youth was slender and well-proportioned. His leg muscles were just right, neither too thick nor too thin. His legs looked a bit skinny when standing ramrod straight. He must have hurt himself a lot, because his knees were white with a touch of red. 

When Chu Mian’s words came to his lips, they turned into an impatient sentence, “Yu Ran, put on your pants.”

“I’ve to take it off after a while anyway, so putting it on now is really troublesome.” Yu Ran pulled off the towel. “What are you doing? You don’t want to take a bath with us and you’re also asking me to wear pants. Are you crazy?”

Chu Mian calmed down and said, “It’s you being shameless.”

“Fuck.” Yu Ran put the basin in his hand on the ground, quickly walked to Chu Mian’s bed, raised his head and said threateningly, “Do you or do you not believe that I’ll just take off my underwear now? Chu Mian, if you take a look at it, you’ll also be shameless!” 

As he said this, he lifted the edge of his underwear with his fingertips.

Chu Mian quickly closed his eyes and turned his face to the side. He felt his bed swaying, and when he listened carefully, he found that Yu Ran was trying to climb up to his bed.

“Yu Ran, you go down!” Chu Mian closed his eyes tightly. His face was completely red up to the roots of his ears, and then he said the word “go away” for the first time in history.

He knew that Yu Ran had already climbed up, for the other party’s breathing was very close to him, and perhaps he was still naked. 

His nerves were tense, and he heard Yu Ran whisper “Don’t be afraid” beside him.

“Āiyā, I’ll stop teasing you. Look how scared you are.” Yu Ran’s arms were propped up on the bed board, and Chu Mian could feel the other party’s breathing when he laughed beside his ears. “I’ve covered it with a towel, so even if you want to see it, I won’t show you.”

Chu Mian’s eyebrows slightly smoothed out, but he still didn’t believe Yu Ran and kept his eyes closed.

“Here’s milk for you,” Yu Ran placed it on Chu Mian’s quilt. “Don’t you drink it every day at school? As it happens, there are some shops close to our military training base, so I bought it for you.” 

In Chu Mian’s daily diet, milk was absolutely indispensable, but it was inconvenient to carry liquid in the suitcase, so he had decided to endure it for a few days.

Only when his stretched out hand touched the straw on the milk carton, did he slowly open his eyes and glanced down at Yu Ran on the bedside, who was indeed honestly using a towel to wrap his lower body.

“Why not take a bath together?” Yu Ran stared at his face. “It’s very fun when everyone is washing together.”

When Chu Mian thought about the structure of the public bathhouses in the north,

he felt conflicted. He couldn’t accept standing naked in front of so many people. It was like stripping off one’s demeanor and dignity in front of others. 

Yu Ran carefully looked at Chu Mian’s dodging eyes and couldn’t help asking: “Chu Mian, are you shy?”