Chapter 28
“My bike!” The young man clutched his head and shouted, his voice cracking outright. He had only bought this bike not long ago—a collaboration edition with a game. It had not even been in his hands for a full week before it was ruined.
He had saved up for a long time to buy it. Now the money was gone, and the bike was gone too.
Looking at the bicycle with its head and body separated, the young man glared at Xia Fengsheng as if swords were drawn. “You blind bastard! Pay for my bike! Do you even know how much that thing cost?!”
The young man stepped forward to grab Xia Fengsheng by the arm, clearly intending not to let him leave without paying. If he had no money on hand, then he could call his family and make them come.
Who would have thought that after knocking over the bicycle, Xia Fengsheng simply picked up the long stick again. He stood there silently for a few seconds, then without warning started swinging it wildly at him.
Smack smack smack—
Every strike came close to hitting him, missing by a hair and landing just in front of his feet instead. Afraid of getting hit, the young man stumbled about in a panic, dodging the stick Xia Fengsheng kept swinging his way.
Xia Fengsheng had no intention of hitting him.
After all, in China, hitting people was illegal.
But the young man perhaps had some cerebellar coordination issues, because he kept crashing into the stick on his own. One blow landed squarely in his face.
Xia Fengsheng: So he’s an M.
The young man covered his face with one arm, baring his teeth in pain. Trying to dodge the stick landing near his feet, he tripped over the flowerbed and crashed straight to the ground.
He looked up, only to see the stick falling like raindrops. Terrified, he scrambled away with his head in his arms, his pupils shaking as he stared at Xia Fengsheng in disbelief.
Was he really blind?
What a bizarre type.
He had never seen a blind person so agile. It was as if Xia Fengsheng could see perfectly—wherever he was standing, Xia Fengsheng seemed to know.
Forgetting all about the bike, the young man ran first to save himself from getting beaten.
“Meow! Meow!!”
Xia Fengsheng turned back, and Bubai inside the airline pet carrier started crying again, circling restlessly inside the carrier.
Looking at the young man fleeing in panic, Xia Fengsheng lifted his sunglasses and settled them on top of his head, revealing a smooth, sharply contoured forehead.
Then his eyes dropped to the airline crate.
This cat had always sounded this ugly when it cried, from childhood till now.
Watching the entire sequence of Xia Fengsheng’s actions, Shi Ye let his gaze fall onto the stick in Xia Fengsheng’s hand and asked curiously, “Where did you get that stick?”
Did convenience stores sell sticks too?
Right then, the automatic sensor doors of the convenience store slid open.
A store clerk ran out holding a broom with no brush head on it and threw back his head in a howl: “Thief! There’s a thief!!!!”
Shi Ye: ……
Once the tactile paving situation was handled, Xia Fengsheng returned the broom handle.
Shi Ye apologized to the clerk on his behalf. “Sorry. He didn’t mean it.”
From inside the pet carrier, Bubai: “Meow!”
The clerk, seeing that the stick had been recovered, did not make a fuss. The two sincerely apologized, bought some snacks from the convenience store, and went home.
This was Xia Fengsheng’s first time visiting the place where Shi Ye lived.
He had imagined it would be big. After all, wicked capitalists practically weighed their property deeds by the pound; of course the place they lived in would be outfitted to the highest possible standard.
But the moment Xia Fengsheng stepped inside, even he had not expected it to be this big.
The view was wide open, a grand flat overlooking the tech city. The balcony alone was so large you could build a whole swimming race lane on it.
His home had a very fresh atmosphere. On the balcony stood a great many carefully tended green plants. From a distance it looked like a botanical garden. Even when Shi Ye was not home, people still came by every day to clean and water them.
The floors were spotless. The whole house was fitted out with high-tech appliances. There were more rooms than one hand could count. If a thief broke in, you might not even know.
It was practically a paradise for burglars.
The first thing Shi Ye did when they got home was open the airline crate. With a sharp cha, a black blur shot out of it like thunder and lightning.
With the force of a storm, as if it meant to shatter everything in its path.
Xia Fengsheng was baffled. “It runs that fast—so why is it that fat?”
It did not look like a cat lacking exercise at all. After all, if it did not exercise regularly, a cat that fat could not possibly run like that.
The very next second, Bubai skidded to a stop in front of its food bowl and turned into an evil shameless serpent.
“Meow!!!!!!!!!!”
Bubai: Bring food!
With the force of thunder, smash the food bowl.
Xia Fengsheng: ……
Normally, when a cat changed environments, there was usually a short period where it would refuse to eat. Bubai, however, did not have an ordinary appetite.
Shi Ye took cat food out of the cabinet. “You feed it.”
“Me?” said Xia Fengsheng.
Shi Ye replied, “If you feed it, it’ll help the two of you bond better.”
In truth, that was not the case.
Back in high school, Xia Fengsheng had fed it plenty. When Bubai was still a kitten, it would eat and run. If he came to see it without bringing food, the little cat would even hide when it saw him.
Ungrateful to the core.
Teenage Xia Fengsheng became the world’s first keeper of a white-eyed wolf.
Shi Ye held the food out in front of him. “And besides, you used to be the one who fed it.”
Xia Fengsheng said, “If I was always the one feeding it, then why did it start screaming the second it saw me today?”
And in such an ugly way too. Anyone could tell those were not nice words.
“Ah, did it?” Shi Ye played dumb. “Maybe it just missed you after not seeing you for too long. Got too excited.”
He tipped his chin up and looked at the ceiling, avoiding eye contact with Xia Fengsheng.
Even he knew he felt guilty when lying.
Shi Ye continued urging him on. “There’s a trick to feeding Bubai. Put the food in its bowl and then say, ‘I love kitty, kitty loves me,’ and it’ll come rub against your hand without even caring about eating.”
Without even caring about eating.
This pig in front of them?
No matter how you looked at it, it sounded like a lie. It felt like even a three-year-old would not be fooled by nonsense like that, yet Shi Ye still had the nerve to say it.
Xia Fengsheng’s narrow eyes turned skeptically toward him, his black-and-white eyes filled with suspicion. “Really?”
Shi Ye blinked those peach-blossom eyes. “Of course. Cats understand human language too. If you say you like it and love it, it’ll understand, and naturally it’ll get closer to you.”
Xia Fengsheng did not quite believe him.
Actually, not quite was putting it lightly—he did not believe it at all.
Other than Old Yellow, there had never really been any small animal that took to him. Maybe it was innate, the way some people were born with animals loving them, while he was born with animals disliking him.
Xia Fengsheng did not really want to feed it, but that semi-truck bouncing across the floor looked like it would feel richly satisfying to the touch. Its fur was fluffy and glossy too; you could tell its owner had taken very good care of it.
His major, combined with the body-and-soul pressure brought by Yang Liwan—pig spirit reincarnate—had left him under enormous strain. In order to release stress and ease his tightly wound nerves, Xia Fengsheng had secretly bought quite a few squishy toys online.
Because their cute appearance did not match his own vibe, he always kept them hidden when he played with them.
This semi-truck looked like its touch would be no worse than a squishy toy.
Xia Fengsheng narrowed his eyes and changed his mind. Fine. Then he would be magnanimous enough to feed it once.
From the side, Shi Ye kept adding fuel to the fire. “Say it cuter. Guaranteed to work.”
Taking the cat food from Shi Ye’s hand, Xia Fengsheng crouched beside Bubai’s food bowl. In order to strengthen the bond, Shi Ye had deliberately kept to the original style of feeding—putting food out for Bubai himself every day and never buying any automatic feeder.
Xia Fengsheng scooped up a spoonful of food with the plastic scoop and tipped it into the bowl.
The semi-truck, seeing it, bounced over.
Shi Ye told him the timing. “Now! This is the moment!”
Xia Fengsheng wet his lips. The words were a little hard to say. His sharp mouth pressed into a line, his whole expression taut. In the end, he said it with the solemnity of a man reciting an incantation: “I love kitty, kitty loves me.”
The words fell, and the semi-truck buried its head and began gobbling furiously.
Shi Ye urged him on. “Get closer. Try again. It was eating too seriously and didn’t hear you.”
Xia Fengsheng turned to look at him.
Shi Ye tipped his chin toward Bubai.
Lowering his head again, Xia Fengsheng tried a second time. He was so close he might as well have been eating alongside the cat. Right next to the little cat’s ear, he said, “I love kitty, kitty loves me.”
Then, faintly expectant, he looked for Bubai’s reaction.
Bubai: Do you think I’m going to respond to you?
Xia Fengsheng froze there.
Why wasn’t it working?
From beside him, Shi Ye lowered his voice and said, “Because I was lying to you.”
Xia Fengsheng: …… So you’ve eaten too many red beans and got lovesick, huh.
Looking at Xia Fengsheng, whom he had successfully tricked—
Shi Ye: “:D”
He had managed to play him. Very happy.
This easy to fool? Just watch how he tricked him in the future until not even his underwear was left.
*
Recently, fewer and fewer students had been coming to his lectures.
Yang Liwan felt that something was wrong.
How could this be? In the past, when he gave a lecture, there had not been a seat to spare. He could even be considered a popular lecturer. The classroom had been packed, not a single seat empty. Some students would even sit on the steps with little stools just to come hear him speak. But now, at the very least more than half were gone. And that was being conservative—the classroom was practically empty.
He was an expert, wasn’t he? So why was nobody coming to listen?
Yang Liwan spoke up. “Xiao Tan, tell me—why are fewer and fewer students coming to the lectures?”
Xiao Tan was Yang Liwan’s new teaching assistant, a student borrowed over from another teacher’s group. Xiao Tan was capable enough, except they only handled teaching-assistant duties and nothing else.
There was no one under Yang Liwan who could replace Xia Fengsheng. Every single person left by his side was more irritating than the last.
The group meetings they held were a total disaster too—nothing worth looking at, none worth bringing along. Bringing them might as well have been worse than not bringing them at all. Besides causing trouble, they were useless, the sort that could raise any normal person’s blood pressure.
Xiao Tan was not one of Yang Liwan’s students. They had only agreed to come assist with the lecture for credits.
Yang Liwan suddenly dropped this question out of nowhere.
Xiao Tan silently rolled their eyes.
Sure enough, the higher people climbed, the less able they were to see themselves clearly. Why were people not coming? Did he not have any sense of it at all?
These days, how many “experts” were actually trustworthy? Not to mention Yang Liwan was not even at the level of a real expert yet—over the past two years he had not produced much in the way of academic results either.
Everyone across the different research groups knew about how he squeezed his students dry. Some students who had once wanted to join his group, but had ended up elsewhere after Yang Liwan did not take them, were probably laughing in their dreams now.
A few years ago, there had been a brilliant student named Qin Buming. Yang Liwan held him back for two years without letting him graduate.
And over the past two years, there had been Xia Fengsheng, equally outstanding and intelligent—except now he had lost his memory. Privately, people all guessed he had been driven into amnesia.
With a supervisor like that, who wouldn’t lose their memory? Not going mad would already be impressive.
In his younger years, Yang Liwan’s academic level truly had been excellent. He had had the skills, and there had been things about him worthy of admiration.
But the world of fame and profit was dazzling, and over the last decade he had become drunk on gain. In finance he had not achieved any major success or upward breakthrough. What had gone rotten first instead was his reputation—among the teachers at school, it stank to high heaven.
Xiao Tan had heard their own advisor complain in private more than once that Yang Liwan exploited students, keeping the good ones pinned under his thumb and refusing to let them go until they had produced even more academic results for him.
Looking at Yang Liwan now, Xiao Tan felt genuine discomfort from the bottom of their heart.
Yang Liwan continued, “Do you think maybe students are just busy with finals lately and don’t have time to come to lectures?”
Xiao Tan did not want much to do with him and perfunctorily said, “Maybe.”
Anyone with eyes could tell it was because Xia Fengsheng was no longer there.
If Xia Fengsheng were there, attendance would definitely be just as high as before. If Yang Liwan let Xia Fengsheng wear a suit and act as teaching assistant, attendance might even double.
Before, Yang Liwan’s lecture assistant had always been Xia Fengsheng. The only part of the lecture that wasn’t Xia Fengsheng was the actual speaking—everything else was done by him.
Every time, Xia Fengsheng would stand by the multimedia station helping Yang Liwan adjust the PowerPoint and software, arranging everything in perfect order.
He wore suits impeccably, his hair styled neatly back, the mature and elegant aura about him obvious. Throughout the whole lecture, he barely smiled, yet the PowerPoints he made were humorous and suited to young listeners, deeply engaging.
His face and figure seemed as if they had planned it together—both striking, both eye-catching. Standing there, he looked like a human standee. There was nothing more pleasing to the eye. On the lecture platform, he was undoubtedly the brightest presence in the room, a person who seemed to exist on an entirely different layer from everyone else in the classroom.
Some student auditing the lecture had secretly filmed him once, and it exploded online for an entire week. It even spawned a whole series of imitation versions. From then on, Yang Liwan’s lectures blew up in popularity, and huge numbers of people came to sit in—from his own university and from others—nearly turning Yang Liwan into an internet-famous lecturer.
On top of that, Xia Fengsheng had the boost of elite credentials: a student at a top university, highly capable, basically heaven for people who worshipped excellence.
Xia Fengsheng, however, remained busy with his studies and paid no attention to the internet buzz, continuing with his daily routine of leaving early and returning late.
The more mysterious he was, the more people liked him.
The harder he was to see, the more they wanted to see him!
As long as Xia Fengsheng was the teaching assistant, Yang Liwan’s lectures never had empty seats.
Thinking that it had been a while since he last filmed a video, Yang Liwan said, “Xiao Tan, come help me shoot a Douyin.”
Then he could post it to his own short-video account. The traffic on that account was still fairly good; Yang Liwan was trying to recover some confidence from it. Every time he posted, he still got plenty of likes and comments from fans.
The last time he filmed, it had been Xia Fengsheng helping him.
Truth be told, Xia Fengsheng had not actually filmed him that well—every time he would accidentally record his own voice, or one of his fingers would slip into the frame, which greatly dissatisfied Yang Liwan.
Xiao Tan: Credits are hard to earn, and shit is hard to eat.
But since Yang Liwan had spoken, Xiao Tan had no choice.
Yang Liwan instructed, “Film my full three hundred and sixty degrees. Circle around me once.”
Xiao Tan was much better at using filming apps than Xia Fengsheng. Not only could they edit, they even added background music to Yang Liwan’s clip. If netizens were forced to hear Yang Liwan’s father-flavored voice, Xiao Tan would have considered that their own failure.
It had already been two months since the account’s last update. The moment the video was posted, a flood of comments really did pour in.
“Hubby I’m here! Let me see my hubby’s long pretty fingers again [soybean shy]”
“This smooth filming style, this natural bgm—truth revealed, this wasn’t shot by my hubby.”
“Dragged the progress bar to the end and still didn’t see my hubby.”
“Where is my hubby’s voice, may I ask.”
“So this time it’s only the teacher? Where’s that teaching assistant?”
“No sign of the teaching assistant, and now not even his voice? Is he not being used anymore?”
“Hey! Where’s my hubby? Be sensible and hand him over!”
“I haven’t seen hubby in two months, and I ran over the second this updated only for you to make me watch this? [face-to-face stare]”
“No, seriously, does anyone really think they’re here because they love watching this teacher?”
“Old geezer, hand my hubby over.”
“Don’t want old geezer, want hubby!”
Yang Liwan scrolled through his phone. There were fewer likes than before, and all the comments were asking about Xia Fengsheng.
Xia Fengsheng.
Xia Fengsheng!
Just thinking about Xia Fengsheng annoyed him. Right now, the thing giving him the biggest headache was Xia Fengsheng.
At that moment, someone pushed open the door and walked in.
“Uncle.”
The newcomer was a relative’s child of Yang Liwan’s—Zhou Qiong.
He also studied finance at Guanghua School, Jing University, and because he had a relative like Yang Liwan in the school, he had benefited from backdoor help more than once.
The two had not spoken for a week. Yang Liwan had been busy lately, so busy his feet practically kicked the back of his head. He had not had time to chat with Zhou Qiong.
Yang Liwan looked surprised. “Why are you here?”
Zhou Qiong smiled sheepishly and scratched his cheek with a finger. “Uncle, did you forget about this?”
He gave a tactful reminder. “It’s about that thing… my graduation publication paper. Uncle, didn’t you say before that you had a lead on it?”
Quite some time had passed already, and Yang Liwan still had not given him the paper.
Zhou Qiong said, “The editor over there wants to look at my finished manuscript, and I’m…”
He spread both hands—empty.
Yang Liwan remembered now. He really had told Zhou Qiong he would help with the paper.
But that had been then. This was now.
At the time, he had agreed because he really had been able to get one. Xia Fengsheng had written an article, and before losing his memory, Yang Liwan had told him to send it over. His plan had been to get the article in hand, appropriate it, and put Zhou Qiong’s name down as first author.
Who could have expected that before the article even reached him, Xia Fengsheng would lose his memory? Where was he supposed to find a paper for Zhou Qiong now?
This nephew of his was utter trash, not a drop of ink in his belly, to the point that even the graduation paper needed someone else to worry about it for him.
Since the comments online were all asking after Xia Fengsheng, Yang Liwan was already furious. Zhou Qiong walking in now was like directly detonating the fuse.
He lifted his hand and smacked Zhou Qiong on the head.
“Paper! Paper! Do you think it’s that easy to just come here and ask for one!”
“Your graduation is my graduation, you idiot! You can’t write a single page of your own coursework and all you know how to do all day is reach out and ask ask ask!”
“What do you know besides sticking out your hands to ask for things? I’ve got no paper here—only shit! Do you want it?!”
Zhou Qiong had not expected Yang Liwan to blow up like this. Was he on the wrong medication? He had come over all smiles, and Yang Liwan was actually treating him like this? No one struck a smiling face.
He grumbled in his heart.
Yang Liwan smacked him again. “You’re cursing me in your head, aren’t you!”
Zhou Qiong clutched his head, face full of horror.
How did he know? He had not made a sound at all.
Yang Liwan was so angry he felt ready to rise into heaven. This idiot had all his thoughts written right across his face.
Since he needed something from him, Zhou Qiong lowered his head. “Then what do I do, Uncle? Without a paper, I can’t graduate.”
He switched to emotional blackmail.
“Uncle, dear uncle, I’ve always been closest to you since I was little. If you won’t help me, no one will.”
Yang Liwan gave a cold snort.
Xia Fengsheng had lost his memory, but the paper he had written had not vanished. It was still in Xia Fengsheng’s hands; Yang Liwan just had not gotten it yet.
The memory of Xia Fengsheng kicking him half a meter across the lake still made Yang Liwan’s skin crawl. His back still hurt even now.
Lately, Xia Fengsheng had not come to annoy him, and Yang Liwan had no idea what he was up to.
He also utterly did not want to see that headache of a student. He did not want to speak to him either.
So he said to Zhou Qiong, “The paper is in the hands of one of my students. Go get it yourself.”
Zhou Qiong said, “If he’s your student, Uncle, can’t you just say the word?”
Yang Liwan shot him a blade-like glare.
Zhou Qiong’s mouth instantly puckered into a chrysanthemum.
Having never asked anyone for a paper before, Zhou Qiong still asked, “Uncle, how am I supposed to ask him for it?”
The next second, Yang Liwan hit him right out the door.
“Ask however you want!”
“Your graduation is my graduation!! If you can’t get it, then you can repeat the year!”
Zhou Qiong fled with his head in his hands.
Xia Fengsheng was lying on the sofa in Shi Ye’s house, looking at his phone, with a power bank set beside him.
Shi Ye’s house was so large that charging a phone on the sofa would require dragging an extension strip over, so after rummaging through the place, Shi Ye had found him a power bank instead.
Not long after looking at his phone, Xia Fengsheng’s eyelids began to droop, heavier and heavier, until finally his head tipped to one side and he fell asleep.
Xia Fengsheng: ZzzZzz.
He did not know how long he had slept, only that he remembered having a nightmare. In it, a large truck kept rolling back and forth over his body, the force so overwhelming he could not breathe and was on the verge of suffocating.
Feeling miserable, Xia Fengsheng opened his eyes, only to see Bubai pacing back and forth on top of his chest.
Xia Fengsheng: ……
Not all that different from the dream.
“Do you know how heavy you are?” Xia Fengsheng suddenly spoke, startling Bubai.
The next instant, the semi-truck let out an “owr” and jumped half a meter away.
What? Weird cat.
Whenever he slept, it came over. Whenever he was awake, it acted as if it had seen a tiger, hiding the second it saw him.
Or maybe it simply disliked the sight of him and had taken the opportunity to come stomp on him while he was asleep.
Xia Fengsheng ignored it and closed his eyes to keep sleeping.
The next second, that familiar crushing weight returned again. The semi-truck was back.
Nervous wreck of a cat.
Xia Fengsheng slowly lifted his eyelids and met Bubai’s green eyes.
Bubai stood on top of him, looking down at him.
Xia Fengsheng: ?
Why wasn’t it running away this time?
He reached out to pet it. Bubai dodged like a sack of wet cement.
He reached again. It dodged again, just as limp and cement-like.
Xia Fengsheng: ……
What a cheap little cat.
Bubai trampled across him a few more times, then finally found a comfortable spot and sat down.
Xia Fengsheng, struggling more and more to breathe: ……
It felt as though all the air in his lungs had been sat out of him. This deranged cat had to be doing it on purpose.
It had not been this deranged when it was little.
Truthfully, seeing it now still shocked Xia Fengsheng quite a bit.
In his memory, this little cat had already disappeared long ago. Its sudden reappearance felt like someone had forcibly inserted a fragment into his past.
Back then, Bubai had not even been called Bubai yet, and the semi-truck had only been a kitten about the size of a palm.
The first time he had encountered it had been in late autumn.
The streets had been carpeted in fallen golden leaves. A school-uniformed boy with a backpack passed by the alley entrance when a faint cry came from inside.
Xia Fengsheng did not react at all and kept walking straight past. He did not have that much compassion or that much time. He still had work to get to.
Be late once and they docked twenty yuan. There was not a trace of mercy in him for whatever pitiful thing might be in that alley.
After all, it had absolutely nothing to do with him.
The second time he saw it, the kitten was lying at the mouth of the alley. Xia Fengsheng had just gotten off work late at night, and in his hand happened to be some discarded food from the place he worked.
That had been his dinner.
“Meow!!!”
The kitten looked weak, but its cry was strong, as if begging Xia Fengsheng to give it something to eat.
It did not look very big—barely over a month old.
“You think I’d give it to you?” Under the moonlight, Xia Fengsheng questioned it coldly. “Why should I?”
The boy strode away.
Stretch out a paw and beg for food—shameless.
Only the kitten remained in the alley.
Though in front of it there was now a slice of ham and a pair of chopsticks.
Gradually, the kitten’s life stopped being quite so miserable.
The alley was close to the school, and students who discovered the kitten would come by to pet it and look at it.
Xia Fengsheng always treated the kitten coldly.
Beggar cat.
But every now and then, he would still give it a little food.
Xia Fengsheng was not generous. What he gave was stingy. Once, the slice of ham was a little large, and he could not quite bear to hand over the whole thing.
“If I give you this whole chunk, would you even know what to do with it?”
Xia Fengsheng bit off half before giving it the rest. The kitten buried its head in it and gobbled happily, without the slightest complaint.
Xia Fengsheng had no desire to raise it, nor any intention of taking it home. He was merely giving it a bite to eat.
One Friday at noon, Xia Fengsheng appeared in the alley and gave the kitten a little bread.
“You ever had bread before?” Xia Fengsheng questioned it.
The kitten did not answer. It only buried itself in eating.
At that moment, a mocking voice came from behind him.
“Xia Fengsheng, if you’re not going to keep it, then don’t feed it.”
“If one day you stop feeding it, and by then it’s already gotten used to humans giving it food and no longer has the ability to find food on its own, then how is that any different from killing it?”
