Chapter 134
Throughout the weekend, Jiang Xing’s cell phone and WeChat never stopped ringing. After seeing him go to the balcony to answer the phone again and again, Lin Qingyu asked him what had happened.
Jiang Xing said, “Have you seen the photo I posted on Moments?”
“I saw it.” Lin Qingyu said, “Ke Tang also posts similar photos. Is there any deep meaning behind it?”
Jiang Xing said with a smile, “It’s normal for her to post this kind of photo. But for me, I can sometimes go an entire year without posting anything. That’s why everyone’s making a big deal over nothing.”
Lin Qingyu thought for a while, and guessed, “You think that milk tea is delicious and you want to recommend it to your friends?”
“That’s exactly it.” Jiang Xing said casually, “Good things should be shared together, right? Let’s not talk about this. How about we duo queue?”
Jiang Xing set his phone to do-not-disturb mode. — Although running away was shameful, it was just so much easier.
Lin Qingyu was doubtful. If it were over something so simple, Jiang Xing’s phone wouldn’t keep on vibrating. But high schoolers who study tirelessly five days a week, shouldn’t be forced to talk about matters they didn’t want to talk about during their hard-earned rest days.
Lin Qingyu logged into the game, opened the room and waited for Jiang Xing to go online. After waiting for a couple of minutes, Jiang Xing still hadn’t logged on. He looked up and saw Jiang Xing, holding his phone, his face looking as though it were about to crack.
“This is not good.” Jiang Xing smiled wryly, “She really made good on her word.”
“She?”
“My aunt. She used to dote on me the most. It’s her ID card I used to play games. Just now, she actually untied her ID card from my account — so cruel.”
Lin Qingyu asked, “Why’d she do that?”
Jiang Xing looked at the game’s login interface and sighed. “She probably wants me to concentrate on my studies.”
Elders wouldn’t want their children dating so they usually block off their bank cards and unbind their ID cards. This must be Pei Zhiqi’s bright idea.
“She’s right, you should concentrate on your studies.” Lin Qingyu smiled lightly, his eyes like limpid waters. But Jiang Xing thought he could detect a tinge of schadenfreude in them. “It can’t be helped. I’ll just solo queue and you can do your homework.”
It felt like a fishbone was stuck in Jiang Xing’s throat. “Why does that sound terrible for me?”
“Then, grow up quickly.” Lin Qingyu took the phone away from Jiang Xing’s hand and downloaded “Five-Year College Entrance Examination, Three-Year Simulation” to it. “When you grow up, you can do many things.”
Jiang Xing raised his eyebrows. “For example?”
Lin Qingyu knew what Jiang Xing wanted him to say. He raised the corners of his lips, “For example, I can help you pop…” Lin Qingyu suddenly broke off in the middle of speaking, “Forget it, pretend I didn’t say anything.”
He got up and made to leave, wanting to leave Jiang Xing alone to study at ease. But unexpectedly, the other party grabbed his wrist. Before he had time to react, he was already sat on Jiang Xing’s lap.
“Pop what, Baobei ? —is it pop my cherry?” Jiang Xing embraced him and smiled, “Where did you learn such inappropriate words?”
Lin Qingyu calmly said, “Then what should I have said – deflower you?”
Jiang Xing was silent for a couple of seconds and then said worriedly, “I think, rather than not letting me play games, it should be you who has his time online controlled. What have you been learning from the Internet, Lord Prime Minister?”
“How can you and I be compared? Lin Qingyu said lightly, “So long as adults don’t break the law, they’re allowed to learn anything.”
There are still many things a male high schooler barred from playing games could do. He could catch up on new episodes, watch movies, browse forums and if nothing seemed good enough, there’s always napping. While Lin Qingyu was playing solo, Jiang Xing came over to watch him play. He even said he would play the erhu for him.
All in all, as long as it wasn’t studying, Jiang Xing found anything interesting.
Lin Qingyu has long been accustomed to this. How Jiang Xing looked not wanting to study was very similar to how he looked when he didn’t want to read reports in the Dayu. But Lin Qingyu wasn’t worried at all. Whether it was doing homework or reading reports, if it was something Jiang Xing needed to do, no matter how reluctant he was, Jiang Xing would do it well and do it before the deadline.
Lin Qingyu originally thought that Jiang Xing wouldn’t start doing his homework until Sunday night. Unexpectedly, he found him conscientiously studying after lunch. Lin Qingyu was very surprised and asked him why.
Jiang Xing clicked on Chen Zihao’s post and showed it Lin Qingyu: [Today I broke my record. I only took 35 minutes on my math exercise. Unfortunately I missed a multiple-choice question…]
It turned out that it was the male high schooler’s competitive nature at work. Lin Qingyu couldn’t help but smile. “Do you best, Classmate Jiang.”
Jiang Xing twirled his pen, “Classmate Jiang needs to be accompanied by his boyfriend to do his best.”
“Alright, I’ll go grab another chair.”
“No need. Let’s get in bed and I’ll just study there.”
Lin Qingyu was thus kidnapped by Jiang Xing to lie in bed while it was still light out. The high school student lay on his beautiful wife’s lap memorizing words. When he reached “vacant, vague”, he suddenly got stuck.
Lin Qingyu said, “The next one should be ‘vat’.”
Jiang Xing looked up at him, “How do you know?”
Lin Qingyu said calmly, “I just heard you when you were reciting it last week.”
Jiang Xing: “…Oh.”
By the end of the month, the wind had turned cool. The air conditioner that had been working for half a year was finally able to take a break. Jiang Xing changed into his autumn and winter long-sleeved school uniform. Auntie has had a lot of experience making soup and the daily soups she cooked for the two of them weren’t heavy. The taste was comparable to the ones made by the Shangshi Bureau in the palace.
It was a pity that not all students enjoyed such privileges as Jiang Xing. Many of the students made do by buying dinner from the roadside stalls outside the school. In order to prevent the students from eating so much unhealthy food and to also to encourage them to eat at the canteen and thus save more time for studying, the school issued a new regulation prohibiting day students from leaving school during dinner time.
The taste of the dishes in the canteen could be said to be quite interesting; there really were too many things about it to complain about that they didn’t know where to even start. The students didn’t want to eat in the cafeteria and so parents were left with no choice but to work harder, preparing dinner and sending it to school every day. Jiang Xing didn’t hate eating in the cafeteria, but the housekeeper worried that he wouldn’t be able to get the right nutrition and so, insisted on bringing him meals every day.
After a few days, Jiang Xing faintly felt something was wrong. He asked Lin Qingyu to feel his abdominal muscles. “Do you think it’s become less distinct?”
Lin Qingyu touched it several times and told him, “I don’t think it feels any different from before. Why are you worried about them disappearing?”
Jiang Xing said, “Auntie sends me twice as much food as I eat by myself every day. I ate it while reading and before I know it, I’ve eaten it all. And after I eat, I just sit in class. There’s a big risk of getting fat.”
When students reached the third year of high school, some became “fat from overwork”. The boy at the desk in front of him had already gained ten pounds in just one month.
Lin Qingyu thought for a while and asked, “Do you still not remember what happened in Gu Fuzhou’s life?”
“Not yet.” Jiang Xing’s heart skipped a beat, “Could it be that I was also troubled about putting on weight in that life?”
“During that life, your biggest problem wasn’t gaining weight.”
“Then what was it?”
“Hair loss, going bald”
Jiang Xing: “…”
Lin Qingyu suppressed a smile and took the opportunity to persuade the high schooler to exercise more. “The body is the capital of the revolution. During breaks, go out and move around. And stop sending me messages during PE classes and do actual exercise instead. If you really lose your abs, I’ll despise you.”
Although he knew that what Lin Qingyu said was a lie, in order to protect Lin Qingyu’s beloved abs, Jiang Xing was forced to change. From then on, whenever his PE classmates invited him to play, he wouldn’t refuse.
It was just that playing basketball was really tiring.
Today, while auntie was making soup, she received a WeChat message from Jiang Xing. Jiang Xing had forgotten an important form at home and he had to hand it over to the teacher before class ended that afternoon. And so, he had to ask the housekeeper to bring it to him at school.
Auntie found the form and was about to go out when she received a call from home. Auntie’s father had slipped at home and was sent to the hospital. Lin Qingyu told the housekeeper to go and attend to that matter. He could take care of delivering Jiang Xing’s form and dinner.
Lin Qingyu went out with the lunch box and the form. During the walk there, which usually didn’t take more than five minutes, a little incident occurred. There was a bug in the traffic lights at an intersection. The time for the pedestrians to cross was changed from 60 seconds to 5 seconds. If you wanted to cross the road, you had to run.
Lin Qingyu watched as the other pedestrians ran wildly across the road one by one, with unsightly panting faces.
This traffic light was simply unreasonable. Was no one going to handle this? Running across the street like that was simply undignified, especially with a lunch box in your arms.
But the soup Auntie made was best eaten while hot.
Lin Qingyu closed his eyes, unhappily put up the hood of the sweater and hugged Jiang Xing’s lunch box against his chest. Run? I’ll run! Let’s run! In any case, no one can accuse him of not running for Jiang Xing.
When they arrived at school, the students still hadn’t finished class yet. Lin Qingyu explained why he was there to the security guard and after registering, he was let in. This was his first time at Jiang Xing’s school. The building was quite old and it felt quite settled. The teaching buildings were connected together and from a distance, one can see black heads inside the classroom.
Lin Qingyu did not go to the teaching area but walked towards the sports ground. Jiang Xing’s weekly PE class was at this time. Jiang Xing had also messaged him before his PE class.
There weren’t many classes having PE at this hour so Lin Qingyu spotted Jiang Xing’s field relatively easily.
It wasn’t long after class started, the PE representative was leading everyone to warm up. The PE teacher was quite considerate, knowing how much stress they were under, he simply made the students run a couple of symbolic laps and then let them play as they wished.
After the two laps, Jiang Xing’s body was already feeling hot. The PE rep came to him, a basketball in his hands. “Jiang Xing, are you playing?”
Jiang Xing said reluctantly, “I’ll play. You guys go on ahead. I just need to send a message first.”
“Who are you sending the message to?” The PE rep said with a smile, “Your milk tea date?”
Jiang Xing bowed his head and typed. He absent-mindedly said, “Who else?”
Jiang Xing: [Qingyu, I’m off to preserve my abs. I won’t have my phone with me so I might not be able to reply to your message right away.]
Lin Qingyu: [No need to reply, just turn around.]
Jiang Xing was momentarily stunned. He then raised his head and turned around. His heart skipped a beat.
Lin Qingyu was standing by the sports ground, wearing the black hoodie he’d bought for him not long ago and a mask, looking straight at him.
Why’d he even have to warm up? He spent so long warning up when all he needed to do was lock eyes with Qingyu?
Lin Qingyu watched Jiang Xing running towards him. The corner of the boy’s mouth curled up. His hair was a little messed up by the wind and the rays of the setting sun danced nimbly on him.
Lin Qingyu couldn’t help his face from breaking into a smile, waiting for the boy to come to him.
Jiang Xing ran faster than even when Lin Qingyu tried to beat the traffic light.
“Qingyu, why are you here?” When Jiang Xing smiled, the corners of his brows and eyes twinkled, “Why didn’t you tell me first?”
“Whenever you give me little surprises, you don’t notify me in advance.” Lin Qingyu gestured to him with the things in his hand, “Your form and your dinner. Something came up at Auntie’s home so she left first. I didn’t want to make two trips so I just brought both.”
Jiang Xing took the lunch box and said, “It’s so heavy. Auntie must have packed it for two.”
As the two were talking, many students cast curious glances at Lin Qingyu. Lin Qingyu said, “Then I’ll go back first.”
Jiang Xing didn’t want to accept this kind of inhumane scenario. “I only have half an hour until class finishes. Why don’t you wait for me and we’ll have dinner at school together?”
Lin Qingyu thought for a while, then nodded and agreed, “Alright. Anyway, I have nothing else to do at home.”
The PE rep shouted, urging Jiang Xing, “Jiang Xing, you coming or not? You’re the only one missing.”
“Go,” Lin Qingyu said, “I’ll watch you from the sidelines.”
Jiang Xing suddenly became nervous. He gulped and said, “Sigh, do you want to watch me play basketball…”
Lin Qingyu asked, “I can’t?”
Jiang Xing laughed: “You can, you can. But having you watch me, makes me nervous. If I fail to appear forceful and get abused, what will I do in the future?”
Lin Qingyu turned expressionless. “Then should I go?”
“Don’t, Baobei. I’m just joking with you.” Jiang Xing pulled on Lin Qingyu’s hoodie cap, not letting him go. “I will try my best not to be abused and to not embarrass you.” Saying so, Jiang Xing took off his school uniform jacket, handed it to Lin Qingyu along with his mobile phone, turned around and ran towards the court.
