CH 21

Translation checker: Rin

Editor: Junyans

The air was clear and cold, and occasional drops of rain fell on the tip of the nose. 

“Don’t touch me.” Chu Mian walked forward quickly, afraid that Yu Ran would catch up to him if he wasn’t fast enough.

“You fucking got me dirty! So you can’t be clean either!” Yu Ran jogged a few steps to catch up with him, spread his arms and hugged Chu Mian tightly from behind. He took advantage of Chu Mian’s unpreparedness to rub against him, causing the other party’s camouflage uniform to be stained with mud.

Chu Mian laboriously swayed his body from side to side in an attempt to get rid of him. When he saw several instructors smoking and walking towards him, he quickly turned around and said, “Yu Ran, there are people in front of us.”

Yu Ran didn’t let go, but just poked his head from behind Chu Mian and looked at him. “So what? It’s not training time now.” 

Without saying anything, Chu Mian twisted his wrists, separated their bodies forcibly, then turned around and nodded politely to the instructors.

The instructors in charge of Chengjun Middle School had all heard about the incident of the two boys “sleeping in the woods”. Now that they saw the two handsome boys getting up early to hug and cuddle, they immediately understood the relationship between the two of them.

“Very good and energetic.” The instructor laughed teasingly, and when he saw Yu Ran frowning and shaking his wrists, he told Chu Mian meaningfully: “A girl needs to be loved, and a boy needs to be spoiled. When both parties have contradictions, you shouldn’t keep being stubborn. Ah, you two are both men, so you have to support each other even more, alright?”

Chu Mian was overwhelmed by the earnest teaching of the elder, and he could only nod awkwardly and meekly. As soon as the instructors left, Yu Ran, who was next to him, laughed.

“Why are you still laughing? What’s so funny?” Chu Mian was annoyed and pinched Yu Ran’s left cheek. “Don’t laugh anymore.”

Yu Ran’s voice was slurred: “Why the fuck are you so well-behaved in front of adults. You’re so good at pretending.”

“I’m just being respectful to elders, unlike you who considers everyone beneath your notice.”

“I’m also cordial to elders, okay? Or else why else would uncle growing vegetables send me food?” 

While talking, both of them felt small water droplets falling on their heads, and they could predict that rain would fall in a short while. Yu Ran was now very happy because a day without training that he had longed for had finally come. So, he hurriedly took Chu Mian to a nearby shop to buy drinks to celebrate.

After returning to the dormitory, Yu Ran sat at the table and took out his unfinished National Day homework. With bread in his mouth, he worked hard to copy Chu Mian’s test paper answers. But he copied the homework without using his brain. After half a page of Physics had been written, he turned it over and found that he had copied the front and back sides backwards, and he frantically took the correction tape to fix it. The noise of the plastic gears rubbing together was very sharp, and it made other people wake up one after another.

Chu Mian couldn’t stand it anymore and said: “With these correcting marks, it’s obvious that you’ve copied. It’s better to tell the teacher that this page got lost.”

“Ho, you’re quite good at finding excuses,” Yu Yan laughed, “Have you ever copied homework before?” 

“No.”

Not only that, he had also never lent his homework to other people to copy before. It was probably because others didn’t dare to be so shameless like Yu Ran, so he could easily reject them.

At first, Chu Mian really minded that the answers he had deduced seriously were copied by lazy people. Later, Yu Ran begged him more often and he became accustomed to “lending homework”, unknowingly violating his own principles and morals as a student.

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His eyes gradually became heavy, and he couldn’t tell whether it was a dream or reality. Like many “narcolepsy” patients, Chu Mian often retained the illusion of being awake after falling asleep, such as he would think that he was still reading, but actually he would have been lying on the table for a while; he would think that he was still answering teacher’s questions, but in fact, he would have already fallen down in full view of everyone.

So when he heard Yu Ran climbing onto the bed next to him and talked to him, Chu Mian hesitated subconsciously for a long time.

“In the past few days of military training, you haven’t fallen asleep as often as when you first started school,” Yu Ran asked in a low voice beside the railing, “I checked Baidu Encyclopedia. It says that if one is in a good mood, one’s condition would be relieved and they won’t always fall over. So does that mean you are very happy these days?” 

Chu Mian subconsciously wanted to answer “yes”, but he couldn’t open his eyes and mouth, and understood that his body would go to sleep again in a few seconds. Before he was disconnected from the real world, he heard Yu Ran ask him again: “If you are happy every day, will you be able to get better soon?”

Before Chu Mian had time to give an answer, his brain stopped thinking.

He slept for a rather long time. Not only did he miss lunch time, but he also failed to wake up before everyone went to visit the memorial hall in the afternoon. Sleeping during the day led to severe insomnia at night, and when the others went to sleep, he quietly got out of bed and turned on the desk lamp to review.

After a while, there was movement on Yu Ran’s side. 

“I’ll finish my homework, make some room.” Yu Ran smiled lightly and sat down next to him, and flipped open Chu Mian’s exercise book. “You don’t need to finish the next few units right? You learned them beforehand?”

“En, since I don’t have the chance to listen in class.”

Chu Mian turned his face to look at Yu Ran, and saw that the warm yellow light of the table lamp had cast a deeper shadow on his high nose bridge.

Chu Mian wanted to ask him to confirm “Did you ask me any questions today?” but he hesitated, feeling that the question was meaningless. Even doctors all over the world could’t find a cure for this disease, and of course they couldn’t jump to the conclusion that it could be cured in the future. There was only one thing that Yu Ran really got right: keeping a happy mood could effectively alleviate excessive sleepiness. 

But Chu Mian didn’t want to say this to Yu Ran, because he knew that with Yu Ran’s character, he would definitely find a way to make him happy every day.

But how long could such a method last?

In the future, they would go through the division of classes, go through the college entrance examination, go through graduation, and one day Yu Ran would disappear from his daily life. If he relied on the happiness Yu Ran brought him now, he would definitely welcome more sadness when Yu Ran would leave his life, and perhaps his condition would worsen.

— I can’t rely on others. 

Chu Mian reminded himself once again.

“Ai, I guess I won’t be able to finish even if I write all night today,” Yu Ran said in a low voice, “Why is this stupid little slider moving in the direction of force in all directions? Can’t it be well-behaved and stop running around? I really want to get a saw—”

Chu Mian patted him lightly on the back of his head, motioning him to be quiet and not to disturb others’ sleep.

“You still have tomorrow afternoon and six more days to write. You can also take my homework back to copy.” 

“You sure you want to give it to me? Aren’t you afraid that I might lose it?”

“You try losing one.”

“Fuck, don’t look so scary.” Yu Ran shrank his shoulders, then dropped his pen and laughed. “Then I’ll stop writing now, and go to sleep.”

“En.” 

It became quiet, and Chu Mian was able to concentrate on his studies again. Yu Ran did not immediately close his eyes after going to bed, but lay on the pillow and silently gazed at Chu Mian’s back as he read a book. Seeing that he was still so tall and upright, without slacking a bit, Yu Ran couldn’t help but feel in his heart that Chu Mian was “very handsome”.

Yu Ran always thought that Chu Mian was handsome. He was not attracted by the other party’s face. He simply felt that when Chu Mian had a serious look, his aura was more powerful than any other boy he had ever seen. Even though he was lethargic most of the time, once he woke up, Yu Ran felt that he could go all out to accomplish anything.

Chu Mian’s eyes were always focused on the end result of winning and losing, which was very different from him, who was more focused on the process and stressed the importance of “participation”. Chu Mian didn’t even allow his game account to have a losing record. He was so arrogant that Yu Ran felt that he was dashing and terrifying.

However, ever since they had met each other, Yu Ran’s impression of Chu Mian could be described with just one concise word, “handsome”. 

Chu Mian was very handsome in everything he did…

As the male protagonist, of course he had to destroy this handsome look!

An evil thought was about to start wriggling in Yu Ran’s mind. He squinted at Chu Mian’s back, feeling that he was about to awaken the dark power of the villain.

— Heh. 

— I’ll get you conned after I go back.

The next morning, when the military training ended, many students gathered around the instructors, crying and taking photos, before reluctantly bidding farewell to the base, and boarded the bus back to school.

Chu Mian still chose the front row seat. As expected, Yu Ran sat next to him again, and the first words he said were: “Chu Mian, why do you have less sunscreen?”

The outcome was that Chu Mian applied even more sunscreen on his face, and without any suspense — his skin became patchy. 

The short weekend passed quickly, and Yu Ran finally finished his holiday homework. On the first day of school on Monday, students met each other again in their black uniforms, and many of them couldn’t help but miss the time when they lived together during military training.

However, their cheerful time didn’t last for long. Soon, the class president informed everyone of a terrible news—

“The results of the monthly exam will be announced today.”

Without waiting for the whole class to express “what the fuck”, Xiang Xuehua continued to drop another bomb: “First period, Language.” 

The atmosphere in the classroom immediately turned grim. Cui He, who wasn’t in the know, hurriedly asked Chu Mian: “What’s wrong with the Language class? Is the teacher very strict?”

Fang Zhao happened to be next to Chu Mian and replied for him: “Have you ever listened to the vegetable market aunt bargaining?”

Cui He nodded.

Fang Zhao then said, “Our Language teacher, one person is an entire wet market.” 

This scale was a bit big. Cui He was silent.

But she soon discovered that Yu Ran was the only person in the class who did not dread the Language class at this time and even had an expectant smile on his face.

She, who had never attended class before, mistakenly thought that Yu Ran’s grades were very good. So, her impression of him suddenly evolved from a “dumb handsome guy” to a “dumb genius handsome guy”, which was comparable to Chu Mian.

“Let me tell you, I’ve written a good composition in the exam.” Yu Ran twisted the upper half of his body to talk to Chu Mian in the back seat. “Do you want me to give you spoilers? You will know what ‘outstanding literary talent’ means.” 

When Fang Zhao passed by them, he heard a set phrase popping out from Yu Ran’s mouth, and stopped in shock.

Chu Mian raised his head and asked Yu Ran: “Are you confident enough that the teacher will read your composition in class?”

“I just ran into her in the hallway, and she told me that herself.” Yu Ran laughed cheerfully. “She said that even if she didn’t read the one that got more than 35 points, she had to read mine.”

“…” Chu Mian helplessly looked at Yu Ran’s radiant expression, “What she said should be a hint that you failed.” 

“Bah!” Yu Ran pushed Chu Mian’s forearm aside with his palm. “She’s implying that I got a perfect score in my composition!”

Chu Mian sneered and nodded perfunctorily, pretending to believe what he said.

Before the class bell had even rung, Teacher Wang entered the classroom energetically with a pile of heavy papers and urged everyone to hurry back to their seats: “Hurry up, hurry up! What did you do during military training, huh? Why are you still moving so slowly? This is the only Language class today and we still need to take out some time for Silent Writing. Hurry up and don’t delay my time—”

Cui He was urged to rush in a flurry by volume and speed of the teacher’s speech, and she finally understood why everyone was afraid of her. She had an overbearing manner of speaking. 

But when she turned around, she found that Yu Ran was still as breezy as ever, which really couldn’t be underestimated.

“Let’s talk about the composition first, so as to save yourself the trouble of having to leave class without finishing it later. In this exam, one person scored a perfect score in the composition, four people scored more than thirty-five points, and one failed.”

Teacher Wang stood on the podium, looked around and found Yu Ran’s position.

She opened her eyes wide, shook her head slightly, and said, “Yu Ran, you’re really talented. Why didn’t I know this before?” 

Yu Ran laughed out loud on the spot. He had been criticized by Teacher Wang in every Language class for a month. Now that the day had finally come when she was impressed with him, he naturally couldn’t conceal his exuberant state.

“Ai, can’t help it.” Yu Ran laughed and slapped his palm down on his desk.

He still didn’t forget to turn his head to show off to Chu Mian: “Being talented is like being pregnant, and I’m blessed with many children and grandchildren.”

Teacher Wang didn’t expect him to take her sarcasm as a praise, and she became even more annoyed. She rolled up her sleeves and said, “Come on, Yu Ran, come here.” 

“I’ll give you an abortion.”