Chapter 3
That really did not sound like something Pei Zhi would say, so Xie Ning did not respond right away.
They looked at each other, one second, then another. Xie Ning asked in confusion, “Haven’t we already added each other on WeChat?”
On the day Xie Ning first moved into the dorm, Chen Xi had taken it upon himself to liven things up, enthusiastically introducing everyone one by one, then pulling out his phone to make a group chat.
They should have added each other back then, right? If they had already made a group chat, then they should have added each other as friends too.
Xie Ning genuinely could not remember. It was such an insignificant matter that he would never normally pay attention to it.
Pei Zhi said, “We only joined the group chat. We never added each other.”
“Was that so?” Xie Ning said. “Sorry, I’ve been too busy lately. I always thought we had already added each other.”
“Then can we add each other now?” Pei Zhi asked again. Before Xie Ning could speak, he added, “If you don’t say anything, I’ll take that as a yes.”
Xie Ning, who had not even gotten the chance to answer: “…”
It was Pei Zhi who scanned Xie Ning’s code. Before Xie Ning could accept the request, a phone call came in. The person on the other end was wailing dramatically, “Brother, brother, why aren’t you here yet? Where are you? Where are you?! Your little brother is already this heartbroken, and you still haven’t come over!”
“Wuwu, I thought he was a sweet girl, but it turns out he’s a guy just like me!!”
Xie Ning turned slightly to the side and said softly, “I’ll be there soon.”
As soon as the call ended, Pei Zhi said, “Go take care of your business first. As for what you asked me, I’ll give you an answer as soon as possible.”
…
At the café.
Across from Xie Ning, a young man was slumped over the table, scratching at his hair until it looked like a bird’s nest. Xie Ning could not bear to watch and said, “Then what have you decided to do? Cut your losses in time, or just go along with it and see where it leads.”
This was Xie Ning’s younger cousin, Qi Ran. Qi Ran said in horror, “But he’s a man! I got catfished in an online relationship, and you’re telling me to just go along with it? It’d already be merciful if I didn’t beat him up in real life.”
Xie Ning quietly waited.
Sure enough, Qi Ran’s face filled with conflict. “But… he really is cute.”
Recently, Qi Ran had met a “sweet girl” in an online game. Every night they talked over voice chat and ranked together… and things got sweeter by the day. It was only when he suggested meeting in person that he found out the other party was actually, just like him, a man.
On the one hand, he had already invested too much emotionally, and the sunk cost was too high. He was too conflicted, so he had asked Xie Ning to help him sort it out.
“You don’t actually seem disgusted that he’s a man. You’re just angry that he lied to you. If you still aren’t sure, then I suggest you calm down…” Xie Ning said, “and listen to your heart.”
Qi Ran let out an annoyed howl. After venting, he looked much more relieved. He said, “By the way, how are your new roommates? Are they hygienic?”
One major reason Xie Ning had changed dorms was that his previous roommates had no sense of hygiene. They would leave underwear unwashed for half a month, and their stinky socks could pile up until they grew mold.
Xie Ning said, “My current roommates are very nice, and they care about cleanliness too.”
Qi Ran said, “Really? But they’re athletes. Shouldn’t athletes be even more… okay, fine, I shouldn’t stereotype. Maybe there really are sports students in this world who care about hygiene, and you just happened to run into them.”
“They really haven’t bullied you, right? Like isolating you or anything?”
After all, Xie Ning was not even in the same major as them.
Xie Ning said, “No.”
If he really had to name a flaw, it was that he disliked the smell of smoke, and his roommates all seemed to like smoking. Sometimes they would come back carrying the scent of cigarettes on them…
No, that was not right. Pei Zhi did not seem to smoke.
Xie Ning had never smelled cigarette smoke on Pei Zhi.
Smoking itself was not a huge issue. As long as they did not smoke in the dorm, it was fine. Everyone had different living habits, and when you lived under the same roof, mutual tolerance was necessary.
While he tolerated his roommates, they were also accommodating him.
Xie Ning took a moment to glance at a notification in the class group chat, and at the same time, he received a message from Pei Zhi.
[Z: Hello, I’m a scammer.]
[Z retracted a message.]
[Z: I’m a firecracker.]
[Z retracted a message.]
[Z: Pei Zhi.]
If Xie Ning had not watched the entire process of Pei Zhi sending and retracting those messages, he really would have thought Pei Zhi was extremely aloof, the kind of person who would only type out his name and refuse to say even one extra word.
It was precisely because he had seen Pei Zhi’s repeated blunders that Xie Ning felt that Pei Zhi, despite seeming so imposing and cold, was maybe not all that aloof after all.
“What’s going on? What did he retract?” Qi Ran leaned over. “Who is that?”
Xie Ning locked his phone screen. “My new roommate.”
“Why is he messaging you in the middle of the night? Does he have nothing better to do? Wait, Pei Zhi… I feel like I’ve heard that name before. Isn’t he the campus heartthrob from your sports department?” Because of his own online relationship disaster, Qi Ran was extremely sensitive about these things. “People online say there are a lot of gay guys among sports students too. You need to be careful. With your face, you’re seriously at risk. Don’t get tricked by some gay guy pretending to be straight.”
“I’ve read stories like that before. The protagonist keeps saying he’s straight, and then next thing you know, he’s holding hands, kissing, and climbing into the same bed. A crafty gay through and through.”
Xie Ning said, “My roommates are all very straight.”
Especially Pei Zhi, who was publicly recognized as a steel-straight man and a noted homophobe.
Qi Ran’s worry was completely unnecessary.
Qi Ran said, “Back then, I also thought all my bros were totally straight.”
In high school, every one of Qi Ran’s close male friends had been one hundred percent straight—but after seeing Xie Ning, every single one of them had bent, without exception.
That evening, there was a heavy rainstorm, and Xie Ning decided to head back early.
Outside the café, the cold wind blew gently. Xie Ning stood by the roadside waiting for a car, his slim frame elegant and upright, his hair and the hem of his clothes swept back by the wind. Tiny specks of dust floated around him, leaving scattered glimmers on his long lashes.
Qi Ran had always known his cousin was exceptionally good-looking, but even now, his heart still skipped a beat.
He suddenly understood why his stubbornly straight friends had all turned.
Xie Ning had one of those unforgettable faces. Just standing there and doing nothing, he looked like a finely painted portrait of a beauty. His expression was always cool and indifferent, but that very expression added a touch of proud nobility to his coldness, making it dangerously easy for people to fall into a kind of obsession.
Xie Ning got into the car, and Qi Ran memorized the license plate number.
Inside the car, Xie Ning took a wet wipe out of his pocket and slowly wiped his pale, slender fingers clean.
…
Dorm 505.
It rained hard that night. Gu Nian stood in front of the mirror on the balcony, admiring his mullet with great satisfaction.
He glanced at Chen Xi’s permed foil curls and looked disgusted.
While scrubbing a pair of socks, Chen Xi said, “This weekend I’m planning to go to Lingxin Temple and make a wish. I hope my destined partner shows up soon.”
“What era is this? You’re still into feudal superstition?” Gu Nian twitched his mouth and asked, “Is it really that effective? If it is, take me along. I’ll go pray too.”
Chen Xi said, “Everyone who’s gone says it works, whether it’s for romance or anything else. The craziest story I heard was about a man and a woman who met in a huge crowd, but didn’t have time to ask for each other’s contact information. So they both went to Lingxin Temple and made sincere wishes… Not long after, they ran into each other again, and in the end they even got married!”
“It’s that effective? By the way, if you get married during college, do you get extra credits? I’m kind of tempted…” Gu Nian shouted, “Brother Pei, you’re local to City A. Is Lingxin Temple really that magical?”
By the time they finished washing socks, Gu Nian and Chen Xi had already completed love, marriage, and all the major milestones of life inside their imaginations.
Pei Zhi was still distracted. Looking down at his phone screen, he saw that ten minutes ago, Xie Ning had accepted his friend request and sent him a message.
[Ning: Hello, I’m Xie Ning.]
It was such a simple sentence, yet Pei Zhi stared at it for a very, very long time.
“Brother Pei? Brother Pei? What are you looking at?” Gu Nian urged. “Is Lingxin Temple actually effective or not?”
Pei Zhi seemed to snap awake all at once. His fingers tapped open the message box as he thought about what kind of reply would seem polite enough. In an indifferent tone, he said, “It’s not.”
“How do you know it’s not? Did you make a wish there before?”
Pei Zhi could not be bothered to answer.
He sharply sensed that someone was swiping a dorm access card outside.
Their dorm used a card-entry system, and the machine was old. When you placed a student card on the sensor, you had to wait a few seconds. Gu Nian and Chen Xi were fooling around on the balcony, so whose student card could it be unlocking their room?
The answer was obvious. The moment Pei Zhi took off his earphones, the dorm door opened at the same time.
It had rained outside, and Xie Ning had still failed to avoid getting soaked. There was practically no dry spot left on him, and water dripped steadily from his whole body.
His thin shirt, wet through, clung to his narrow waist, and through the fabric you could see the rise and curve of his shoulder blades.
His snow-white skin was lightly flushed from running through the rain, and droplets of water clung to his collarbones. Damp strands of hair stuck to his forehead and temples, adding a faint, indescribable charm to his usually cold expression.
The driver had only been able to stop at the school gate. Xie Ning had rushed into the dorm building before curfew ended, and since he was not good at physical activity, he was now slightly out of breath and beginning to feel dizzy even while walking.
“Who is it?” Hearing the noise outside, Gu Nian on the balcony wanted to come out and take a look.
Pei Zhi stood up and used his body to block Gu Nian’s view.
He had noticed that Xie Ning’s condition seemed off. His steps were unsteady, and with one misstep, he was about to slip and fall right where he stood.
Pei Zhi, who normally hated physical contact, unexpectedly reached out. At the exact moment Xie Ning was about to fall, he grabbed him and steadied him.
The moment his wrist was caught, burning body heat came along with the sensation of skin touching skin. Xie Ning’s mind buzzed for a moment, and as if out of reflex, he flung Pei Zhi’s hand away.
There was a brief blankness in Pei Zhi’s expression. Then he lowered his gaze to the back of his hand, where a red mark had appeared.
Xie Ning leaned weakly against the wall, breathing hard, his shoulder blades trembling slightly.
Even though the physical contact had already ended, the area around his wrist still seemed to be wrapped in a ring of tingling current. The itch slowly crawled outward from deep beneath the skin, as if countless tiny insects were greedily gnawing at his flesh and demanding more.
Xie Ning’s head was in chaos, but he still apologized immediately. “Sorry, I didn’t react in time just now…”
Before he could say much more, another surge of indescribable tingling shot through the place on his wrist where he had been touched.
Whenever his skin hunger flared up before, its demands were never satisfied. That sudden touch had stirred it awake, and now it was ready to fully erupt.
Fortunately, Xie Ning and Pei Zhi had not been in contact for long. Xie Ning only needed to steady his breathing for a while to calm himself down again.
Throughout the process, Xie Ning kept leaning against the wall. His skin, which had only been lightly pink before, was now steamed bright red. Yet his whole body was drenched, droplets sliding from the tips of his soft hair and falling into the slightly open collar of his shirt, making it wetter and more transparent still.
Compared to his usual cold and delicate beauty, he looked a little softer now, a little more obedient.
Xie Ning was very practiced at suppressing thoughts he should not have. Now that he had regained his calm, he remembered clearly that Pei Zhi had kindly helped him up, only to be shoved away by him.
He had already apologized. Now he should thank him.
Just as he was about to speak, a low male voice sounded first.
[So obedient. Want to fuck him.]
Xie Ning froze. “What did you say?”
Pei Zhi frowned, his cold, handsome face equally puzzled. “I didn’t say anything.”
Then what had Xie Ning heard?
