Chapter 2
After that, however, Qu Tongqiu never again had a chance to speak with Ren Ningyuan.
The student organizations still had a strict hierarchy. If he thought of Ren Ningyuan as some righteous rising star, he was greatly mistaken. Ren Ningyuan was no saint; he had simply turned chaotic extortion into a highly organized and disciplined system of fees.
Anyone who couldn’t pay was beaten.
Yet everything looks better by comparison. Compared to the past, when he might be extorted two or three times a day by different people, paying a fixed fee in exchange for a period of peace was far more acceptable.
Someone like Qu Tongqiu, who only wanted stability, felt satisfied as long as life was better than before.
Even when he was occasionally beaten for being short on money, for having an irritating face, or even for reporting absentees to the teacher, he never developed any resentment toward Ren Ningyuan as the one in charge.
Zhuang Wei despised him, calling him “servile” and “spineless,” yet he could still calmly eat two bowls of noodles while being scolded.
He sighed over his own lack of ambition—every boy dreams of being a hero—but few ever become one.
This world needs rebellious figures like Zhuang Wei, but it also needs people like him who survive by compromise. Otherwise, how would the gaps created by pride and personality ever be bridged?
At least he never harmed anyone, Qu Tongqiu thought as he drank noodle soup under Zhuang Wei’s insults. His conscience was clear.
In fact, he didn’t dislike Ren Ningyuan at all—he even felt a vague fondness for him.
They had only met once, yet the impression lingered. Some people simply possessed extraordinary presence. For days, Ren Ningyuan appeared in his dreams, walking past him in everyday campus scenes.
It wasn’t deliberate; the memory had simply imprinted itself too deeply.
A person’s charisma doesn’t increase or diminish based on morality. Even someone like Chu Mo, who beat people without mercy, still had plenty of admirers among the girls.
Qu Tongqiu wasn’t gay, but he was still drawn to Ren Ningyuan’s presence and talent, feeling admiration and a desire to get closer.
Whenever he attended school competitions and saw Ren Ningyuan on the field, he couldn’t help smiling broadly. His classmates teased him for it.
He eventually noticed that Ren Ningyuan often played tennis nearby, so he began wandering over to watch.
To avoid looking too strange, he saved money to buy a decent racket and occasionally played clumsily himself. Soon his presence became familiar enough that Ren Ningyuan’s group began treating the unskilled chubby boy as a harmless joke.
Before long, he was eagerly fetching tennis balls for Ren Ningyuan.
After serving as a model ball boy for a while, he even saved breakfast money to buy tennis balls for them to use, collecting them afterward and taking them home.
They accepted this attentiveness without hesitation. He felt happy just to play tennis “with” them, even as he endured more mockery.
He didn’t know why—Chu Mo’s teasing embarrassed him—but he felt almost possessed in his desire to get closer to Ren Ningyuan.
Fortunately, Ren Ningyuan remained polite and gentlemanly, always thanking him with a warm smile.
One day, Qu Tongqiu noticed that Zhuang Wei had begun playing tennis with them too.
Zhuang Wei had once been strongly excluded—how had he become close to them? Chu Mo even seemed eager to please him. The change was astonishing.
Then Qu Tongqiu understood: people like him, who tried to please everyone, rarely rose above their station. But those with strong backbone, though they suffered early, eventually earned admiration—even from former opponents.
Zhuang Wei, with his proud bearing, naturally attracted respect.
Qu Tongqiu envied him, but becoming that kind of person felt impossible. People are simply different.
So Qu Tongqiu now fetched balls for Zhuang Wei as well. When Zhuang Wei realized this, he flew into a rage and nearly stormed off, accusing them of humiliating him.
Qu Tongqiu ignored it all, happily continuing to serve as Ren Ningyuan’s follower.
Ren Ningyuan never showed annoyance and always smiled kindly, thanking him for his hard work.
That alone made Qu Tongqiu feel happy.
Over the months, his exercise increased and his meals grew simpler. He gave up snacks and spent nearly all his money trying to get closer to Ren Ningyuan.
One day in the shower, he noticed he had grown slimmer and perhaps taller.
But he no longer cared about appearances. As long as he was clean, that was enough—no amount of effort would make a stone bloom into a flower.
Besides serving as Ren Ningyuan’s ball boy, Qu Tongqiu had also taken on another self-imposed task—buying breakfast for him.
It started one morning when he got up early to read aloud on the rough grass outside the campus. He was tearing pieces of dry bread while memorizing vocabulary, when he looked up and saw Ren Ningyuan walking toward him from afar.
He was still nervously hesitating, stammering inside over whether he should greet him, when Ren Ningyuan nodded first and smiled. “Morning.”
Qu Tongqiu was instantly delighted. “You’re here for morning reading too?”
“No,” Ren Ningyuan said casually. “Just taking a walk. The air’s nice at this hour.”
“Have you eaten?”
“No,” Ren Ningyuan replied with a smile. “It’s too crowded. I don’t like it.”
Breakfast was only served for a short time, and everyone rushed there at once. If you didn’t want to be left with the least popular pastries, you had to fight your way through the crowd.
But with Ren Ningyuan’s popularity, it wasn’t as if there were no lackeys willing to run errands for him and bring meals along.
“Oh, I don’t like what they buy,” Ren Ningyuan said. “That steamed egg cake is pretty good, but it’s always gone in a blink. Unless you’re the first one up, you can’t get it.”
Qu Tongqiu was surprised that Ren Ningyuan would talk so much with him, and even tell him what he liked to eat. He felt both honored and flustered.
Qu Tongqiu himself disliked crowds and was lazy, so he usually kept dry bread and biscuits on hand, or simply slept in and bought leftover steamed buns.
From that day on, he started getting up even earlier than before, forcing his way through the crowd no matter what to grab the egg cake, then snatching up the equally popular peanut milk. Holding them steaming hot, he would hurry off to find Ren Ningyuan.
Receiving breakfast from another boy made even Ren Ningyuan’s usually calm face show a flicker of surprise, but he quickly recovered and said, “Thank you,” before actually eating it.
The scene was rather ridiculous: a clueless chubby boy sitting stiffly, staring with burning enthusiasm at a handsome boy eating breakfast. Even through his glasses, that fervent gaze was unmistakable.
If Ren Ningyuan had been a pretty girl, this would have been an unmistakable act of courtship. Since he was a man—one with such a strong masculine presence that no one dared covet him—it was unmistakably blatant flattery.
Qu Tongqiu didn’t think that far, nor did he care what others said. He did realize it was a bit foolish that he sometimes forgot to buy breakfast for himself.
But at least, watching Ren Ningyuan eat made him happy.
He did all this purely on instinct. Who wouldn’t want to be kind to someone they admired? Fans shower their idols with gifts day after day with no return at all, and can persist for years without wavering.
At least Ren Ningyuan would smile gently at him.
If Ren Ningyuan had shown any reluctance or refusal, he would have stopped immediately. But Ren Ningyuan never declined. No matter what it was, he thanked him and praised the taste, so Qu Tongqiu happily delivered breakfast every single day.
The price he paid was eating even more frugally and waking up earlier. Not only his wallet, but his small belly began to shrink as well.
As the weather gradually turned colder, Qu Tongqiu felt the chill earlier than ever before, as if the layer of fat on his body was no longer enough to keep out the cold.
When Lü Yang, who slept on the top bunk, came in from outside, Qu Tongqiu was stepping on the middle rung of the bunk bed, trying to climb up to his bed.
“What are you doing?!” Lü Yang rushed over and yanked him down. “Damn it, what the hell—now my bed’s covered in dust!”
Qu Tongqiu knew Lü Yang was a cleanliness freak and hurried to explain, “It’s getting cold, I need to get my quilt. I’ve showered, and I’m wearing clean socks. I won’t dirty your bed.”
The dormitory’s storage cabinets for quilts were mounted horizontally above the bunks, slightly higher than the beds, with no ladder. Stepping on desks didn’t reach either, so only those sleeping on the top bunk could easily access them.
“How could there not be dust when you pull it out?!”
“It should be fine. It’s locked inside.”
“Can you guarantee there’s not a speck of dust?”
Qu Tongqiu thought for a moment. “When they took theirs out before, they were clean. I’ll be careful…”
“That’s just because you can’t see it!”
He hesitated. “But it’s cold at night. I need a quilt.”
“I just washed my sheets! If you climb up and step there, how am I supposed to sleep?”
“My feet are clean…”
“No matter how clean, you’re stepping right where I put my pillow! Could you stand someone stepping around your head?”
Qu Tongqiu wanted to say he really wouldn’t mind at all. But just imagining it already made Lü Yang look utterly uncomfortable.
“Y-you don’t need to get so worked up…”
Lü Yang’s voice shot up. “Who’s worked up?!”
Qu Tongqiu was so frightened he fell silent.
After a while, Lü Yang seemed to calm down and patted his shoulder kindly. “Sorry for snapping at you. Get the quilt in a couple of days, when I change my sheets. I’ll remind you then. Don’t worry.”
Hearing this, Qu Tongqiu felt Lü Yang wasn’t unreasonable, and was even quite polite. In fact, Lü Yang was usually fine—just overly obsessed with cleanliness.
But sleeping without a quilt really wasn’t possible. How could he sleep while freezing?
As Qu Tongqiu was pondering this, he suddenly heard Zhuang Wei say, “Ah, sorry, Lü Yang, I stepped on your slippers.”
The dorm wasn’t large, and such accidents were common. Stepping on a slipper or a pillow wasn’t a big deal among boys. But knowing Lü Yang’s habits, Zhuang Wei added, “Sorry. I’ll rinse them in a bit.”
When Lü Yang saw clearly which slippers it was, his face changed drastically. “Are you kidding me? These are the slippers I wear before getting into bed!”
“That’s why I said I’ll wash them.”
“You think washing helps? Where have your feet been? You think you can wash away the invisible filth?”
Zhuang Wei lost patience and sneered. “Yeah. I just came back from the bathroom.”
“You used bathroom shoes to step on my slippers?!” Lü Yang completely lost it. “How am I supposed to wear them now?!”
Zhuang Wei laughed coldly. “Not only did I go to the bathroom, I even dipped my feet in the toilet bowl and splashed around.”
Lü Yang nearly went insane. “Ahhh! You freak! I won’t let this go!”
“So what are you going to do?” Zhuang Wei said calmly.
“What do you think?! You stepped on my shoes—with your filthy feet!”
Zhuang Wei set down what he was holding and said coolly, “If you’re sick, go see a doctor. Why are you throwing a tantrum here? If you want princely treatment, don’t live in a dorm. No one’s stopping you from staying at a five-star hotel. Why don’t you go there? This place has more than feet that’ve been to the bathroom—there are cockroaches, mosquitoes, and rats. They might’ve crawled over your bed already. What, you’ve never seen them? Of course not—you can’t see them with the naked eye. They could lay eggs in your pillow and you wouldn’t know.”
Lü Yang’s reaction was so intense that Qu Tongqiu didn’t even dare look, feeling as though thunder and lightning had erupted in the dorm.
Zhuang Wei continued unperturbed. “Keep throwing a fit, go on. Believe it or not, I’ll step all over your bed right now with my shoes on.
“How have I wronged you? I stepped on your shoes. Is that worth acting like you’re dying? If you’re a man, don’t do things even women would disdain. Living together means mutual compromise, not everyone worshipping you like an ancestor.
“So what if you have a germ phobia? Does that give you the right to throw tantrums? To stop people from using quilts? I’ve got mental illness too—crazy people don’t get punished for killing. Want to try me?”
If this continued, the two were going to come to blows. Terrified, Qu Tongqiu rushed over to intervene. “Don’t fight, don’t fight—same dorm, no need for this. Calm down, calm down…”
The other stunned onlookers finally reacted and joined in to separate them. Amid the chaos, a fight was narrowly avoided.
As Zhuang Wei walked away with a scoff, he shot Qu Tongqiu a look and cursed, “You’ll be a coward your whole life.”
Though scolded, and though he felt some pity for Lü Yang, who was shaking with rage, Qu Tongqiu felt his first flicker of admiration for Zhuang Wei.
That kind of fearless personality was far bolder than his own constant timidity.
And Zhuang Wei was sharp-tongued, instantly finding points of attack. Unlike him—he always sensed something was wrong but could never argue back.
The difference was obvious. Zhuang Wei could forget about the slipper issue entirely, while he still had no quilt to sleep with.
Lost in thought, Qu Tongqiu climbed into bed, wrapped himself in the sheet, and tried to sleep.
The night grew colder and heavier with dew. With no solution, he shivered through the night.
When the wake-up bell rang the next morning, Qu Tongqiu knew immediately that he’d overslept. There was no hope of buying breakfast for Ren Ningyuan. He felt a pang of alarm, but his head was spinning and he couldn’t get up.
He ended up skipping all the morning classes. No matter how his roommates urged him, he couldn’t move. They assumed he was just sleeping in and left one by one.
By afternoon, he felt a bit better. He slowly got up, washed groggily, filled his bottle with hot water, packed some dry food, slung on his backpack, and went to class.
The afternoon was a general course, with all the freshmen of the department gathered in a large lecture hall. As Qu Tongqiu wandered in, the room was nearly full, yet he could still spot that striking trio at a glance.
Zhuang Wei sat next to an eager-looking Chu Mo, Chu Mo sat beside Ren Ningyuan, who was leisurely flipping through a magazine—and there was an empty seat next to him.
Ren Ningyuan saw Qu Tongqiu and smiled at him. As if pulled by a magnet, Qu Tongqiu shuffled over step by step.
Ren Ningyuan looked up and smiled. “Want to sit here?”
Qu Tongqiu felt overwhelmingly honored and quickly sat down beside him.
“Didn’t see you this morning.”
Flustered, Qu Tongqiu bent and nodded before answering. “S-sorry, I overslept…”
Ren Ningyuan smiled. “I heard you caught a cold?”
“Yes, yes, yes…” Qu Tongqiu replied hastily.
Ren Ningyuan chuckled at his nervousness. “You don’t need to be afraid. I’m not going to hit you just because I didn’t get breakfast. And don’t take a cold lightly. Take this medicine.”
Qu Tongqiu’s sense of being favored reached its peak for the day. He accepted the medicine with both hands, almost trembling.
The aura of his sheer nervousness was so strong that even Zhuang Wei, two seats away, shot him an exasperated eye-roll.
