"Your son?" Chun Chang sounded incredulous. "Since when did you start chasing celebrities?"
Cen Jin raised her phone for a closer look. "Is he really comparable to an idol?"
Her voice was filled with disbelief, yet she remained completely unaware of the faint, unconscious pride leaking through her words.
Chun Chang leaned in again, sticky-sweet. "I didn't get a good look earlier, but at a quick glance he's quite handsome."
She tried to snatch the phone. "Let me see!! Let me see!!! Let me have a proper look!!!!"
Cen Jin raised her hand to avoid the grab. She hadn't intended to share it, but her friend's deliberately pitiful puppy-dog eyes were too much to resist. Reluctantly, she handed over the phone.
Chun Chang eagerly took it, staring intently at Li Wu's photo. She zoomed in and out, out and in, studying his facial features and physique as if analyzing cellular components. After a long moment, she exhaled sharply. "Not bad... and he's tall too."
Her head drooped lower and lower until her eyes were practically pressed against the screen.
Cen Jin touched her brow, disgusted. "That's enough. You're about to lick it."
"No," Chun Chang straightened up, beaming. "It's been so long since I've seen such fresh young flesh in a school uniform. Have some mercy on this old auntie."
Cen Jin retrieved her phone and pocketed it. "Don't you work at a magazine? Don't you see handsome guys every day? Celebrities and male models?"
"You don't understand. Those are mostly packaged pretty boys. This one looks so pure, that face, oh my god, perfection," Chun Chang was still savoring the image, smacking her lips. Finally, she returned to the main point: "But who is this handsome young man?"
Cen Jin paused, unsure where to begin.
Noticing her slight hesitation, Chun Chang pointed at her with a sly smile. "Oho—something's going on!"
"Stop," Cen Jin met her gaze, immediately understanding the implication in her eyes. "Don't even go there. Remember that sponsored student I complained to you about the year before last?"
"Yeah, you ranted about it for three days and nights."
Cen Jin sighed softly. "The person in the photo is that kid. His family had some issues, so I helped transfer him to Yi High School."
"Is this like stumbling upon a treasure? Was he this good-looking before?" Chun Chang clicked her tongue in amazement.
"...That's not the point, thank you."
"So he's living with you now?" Chun Chang's eyebrows shot up, buzzing with excitement as if pumped full of hormones. "Ah! Oh my god!"
Cen Jin could already guess what wild scenarios were running through her mind. "He lives in the dorm."
"How disappointing, my friend. You're no fun at all," Chun Chang instantly deflated, clutching her wrist in frustration. "You have no idea—high school boys are diamonds, diamonds!"
"?"
...
Before bed, Cen Jin suddenly remembered she hadn't replied to Li Wu's text. She opened the message interface.
The echoes of Chun Chang's exaggerated exclamations still lingered in her mind. She opened the photo and examined it again.
Cen Jin had always known Li Wu wasn't bad-looking, but she never thought he was as exceptional as Chun Chang made him out to be.
Perhaps influenced by her friend's effusive praise, the boy in the photo now seemed... slightly more pleasing to the eye than before.
The woman's gaze shifted from scrutiny to appreciation.
After a moment, she looked away, casually set the photo as Li Wu's contact picture, then tossed her phone aside and put on her sleep mask.
That night, Li Wu never received a reply from Cen Jin.Leaning against the headboard railing for nearly an hour with restless thoughts, Li Wu pursed his lips and blamed the culprit: "Cheng Rui, this photo of yours doesn’t seem very good."
Cheng Rui cried injustice: "What the hell, what’s wrong with it? I practically knelt down to make you look two meters eighty."
"The background is a bit messy." Anyway, it wasn’t his own problem.
Cheng Rui, provoked, sat bolt upright and said sarcastically, pointing under the bed: "Then go down and retake it now? Use Lin Honglang’s white T-shirt as the background. After taking it, you can apply for a passport right away."
Li Wu: "..."
Lin Honglang: "Fuck you."
Ran Feichi giggled in the darkness.
Ran Feichi clicked his tongue: "What kind of elder asks a kid for a school photo? Could it be some online crush, Li Wu? As someone who’s been through it, you can’t escape my sharp eyes."
"No." Li Wu denied it as quickly as a reflex.
"You’re acting strange, something’s up with you," Ran Feichi asserted.
Cheng Rui chimed in with sudden realization: "Yeah, yeah, yeah! Maybe you were just exchanging photos earlier. So I was just setting the stage for someone else?"
Li Wu fell completely silent, the rims of his ears slightly reddening. He tossed his phone back by the pillow and lay down, using this to feign invisibility and lower his presence.
Lin Honglang laughed lazily: "Give him some face, will you? Anyone can see Li Wu’s a virgin. What’s wrong with having a platonic romance?"
Cheng Rui retorted: "As if you aren’t one too."
Lin Honglang was like a combustible gas tank: "Piss off! How would you know?"
The two started bickering again, locked in a heated argument.
Finally free from the commotion, Li Wu calmed down and secretly pulled out his phone again to check his messages.
Still no reply.
Li Wu placed it back by the pillow, turned over, and forced himself to sleep.
The night passed without dreams.
The next day, Li Wu woke up early as usual. The morning light seeped through the poorly light-blocking curtains, like quivering egg whites behind a thin film.
His roommates were still sound asleep, snoring and breathing in turns.
Li Wu turned on his phone and opened the messages. The chat history still ended with his photo.
The light in the young man’s eyes dimmed slightly. Then, his arm dropped, letting the phone rest loosely on the blanket.
After washing up with a heavy heart, Li Wu went to breakfast with his roommates and returned to class.
Fortunately, once in the classroom, those wildly growing, tangled emotions that could trap him in a dead end instantly subsided.
This was his sterile paradise, where he could shut out distracting thoughts.
When the class ended, Cheng Rui came over to invite him to the restroom and hang out in the hallway. Li Wu shook his head and refused, staying seated behind his desk to read, creating his own secluded space.
He always sat with a straight back, as if holding learning in reverence. When he had questions, he rarely asked his classmates, preferring to seek out various teachers for answers.
This attitude naturally earned praise from teachers and parents, but among his peers, it came off as a bit "pretentious" and a bit "pedantic." Especially since he was quiet and rigid, like a lone pine mistakenly planted in a windy birch forest, out of place amidst the surrounding noise.
"You’re reading again? Let’s see how you do on the midterm," the boy in the front seat said sarcastically every time he turned around to talk, only to find Li Wu reading. Feeling ignored, he couldn’t resist the taunt.
"Anyone would think the college entrance exam is next month," his deskmate sneered in agreement.
His pen paused. Li Wu hesitated to speak when suddenly, a dry shout came from the side: "Li Wu!"
Li Wu looked up, his brow slightly furrowed.Behind the window frame stood Cheng Rui, his face etched with utter annoyance, along with three unfamiliar girls. They stared at him curiously for a few seconds, some covering their lips, others brushing aside their bangs, before linking arms and scampering off with giggles.
This situation had been escalating since his second week as a transfer student.
Cheng Rui returned to the classroom with visible disgust. Seeing that the seat in front of Li Wu was vacant as its occupant had wandered off elsewhere, he plopped down astride the chair, facing Li Wu, and rested his chin on Li Wu’s textbook. "So annoying, a bunch of starstruck girls from other classes. Next time I’m charging an admission fee."
Li Wu lifted his eyes, puzzled. "What’s wrong?"
Cheng Rui tilted his head. "Are you for real?"
"?"
"You can’t possibly not know what those girls are up to," Cheng Rui rubbed his bristly scalp, then exploded: "They’re here to see you! Handsome!"
"What’s so interesting to see." Li Wu brushed it off and continued solving problems.
"Wow, so aloof, they totally love it," Cheng Rui feigned breathlessness, mimicking in a pinched voice: "They totally love it~"
Li Wu: "..."
Cheng Rui stared at him for a moment, then hatched a new money-making scheme: "Li Wu, send me that photo of you in the school uniform I took."
Remembering that incident, Li Wu’s mood sank. "What do you need it for?"
"I want to print and sell it. Twenty yuan per copy. Oh, and do you have QQ or WeChat? Those can be sold too—guaranteed high demand."
"..."
"We’ll split the profits fifty-fifty, deal? Then you won’t have to keep eating at the Poverty Alleviation Canteen," Cheng Rui was already envisioning the future: "I’ll have money to recharge Q-coins and buy players on weekends too. A win-win—both our living standards get a major upgrade. I doubt anyone would turn down such a lucrative deal."
Li Wu wasn’t buying it: "No."
"Why are you so inflexible? Wasting your looks is a crime against nature."
Li Wu lowered his gaze and picked up his pen, his entire demeanor turning cold and stern, making his refusal to engage further unmistakable.
Thwarted before even starting, Cheng Rui wanted to say more, but just then Li Wu’s deskmate returned, forcing him to scatter like a shooed duck.
Grudgingly shuffling back into the aisle, Cheng Rui prepared to return to his seat when girls in the corridor called Li Wu’s name again. He immediately snarled ferociously at them: "What are you staring at! Li Wu’s already in an online relationship!!"
The class fell dead silent. A few seconds later, noise resumed.
Li Wu was stunned too, turning to look for him with bewildered eyes.
Cheng Rui glared back, making a slicing motion across his own neck: If I can’t have you, I’ll ruin you!
Thoroughly defeated without a word, Li Wu wasn’t angry but instead smiled faintly, the corner of his lips quirking with a mix of resignation and warning.
Cheng Rui instantly felt his scalp prickle and slunk back to his own seat.
―
Returning to the dorm after lunch felt like re-entering a cursed world. That suffocating sensation closed in again, and Li Wu just wanted to find an escape quickly. After sitting down, he almost instinctively pulled his phone from the drawer.
There was a new message notification on the screen.
Instantly, Li Wu relaxed both physically and mentally. He leaned back in his chair and opened it.
Cen Jin: Forgot to reply yesterday.
Cen Jin: Handsome.
The boy’s lips curved, a smile spreading from his eyes. He stealthily glanced sideways, scanning his roommates to ensure no one was paying attention, then settled his gaze back on the second message, those two words.
After staring for a while, he flipped the phone face down, suddenly feeling restless.
He rested one hand on the desk edge, tapping randomly like playing disordered piano keys, as if with nowhere to vent. Yes, it did nothing to ease this happiness.Li Wu flipped his phone back over, propped his head up, and read the text message for the third time.
No more looking.
He admonished himself, placed it back in the drawer, and shut it firmly, as if hiding away a box of treasure.
After a moment of silence, Li Wu pulled an English textbook from the bookstand, flipped to the back, and began reciting softly.
The noise in the dormitory abruptly ceased.
The boy's voice was low and clear, with a steady rhythm:
“adolescence，a-d-o-l-e-s-c-e-n-c-e，adolescence.”
“adore，a-d-o-r-e，adore.”
“a/dult，a-d-u-l”
The next moment, his roommates collectively cursed from beside him: "Are you insane, reciting vocabulary at noon! Do you have to be so pretentious!"
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