“That’s right, surprised?” Xia Zhixu looked around and said in a low voice, “I was passing by when I saw you, so I came in.”
Xu Qichen quickly caught an important point, “So where were you heading?”
“Ah?” Xia Zhixu walked to his side and casually flipped through a book on the shelf, “I was… not really going anywhere, just riding around. Because we’re off today.”
Xu Qichen didn’t say anything to that. This person has always been like this, and he could not be bothered to expose his lies.
As Xia Zhixu was taking out a mystery novel, his phone vibrated. Startled, he took it out, saw who it was and hung up Chen Fang’s call. He then sent a text message, [My stomach hurts, I won’t be going anymore. Tell them I’m sorry, next time is my treat. Have fun!]
After sending it, he turned his phone on airplane mode.
He turned around and saw Xu Qichen looking at him. His eyes said, ‘Are you sure you weren’t going anywhere?’
“Hehe,” Xia Zhixu laughed, and opened the book in his hands. They stood shoulder to shoulder, reading like this, each of them with one side of the earphone, sharing their time.
After a while, Xia Zhixu looked up. There was a beautiful wooden clock on the shop wall, indicating that it was already 12 o’clock. He glanced at the person beside him. How strange! He seemed to hold a mysterious power, making time move quickly whenever they were together.
It was only with him, that he experienced time flying as quickly as a horse running across a field.
After closing the book in his hand, Xia Zhixu took off the earphone from his own ear, and was about to remove the one in Xu Qichen’s ear as well. But when he reached up, his eyes landed on his ear.
Under the light golden sunlight, the capillaries on his auricles were faintly visible, flashing different colors under the pale skin. Due to the angle of the sunlight, his ears looked slightly fluffy.
It looked like a beautiful seashell.
Xia Zhixu’s hand stopped in the air and shook. Its shadow fell on Xu Qichen’s ear, touching his ear in his stead. He put his hand down, grabbed the earphone cable extending above his neck with his fingers, tugged gently, and took off the earphone.
“Let’s go for lunch.” Xia Zhixu said to Xu Qichen, who had turned towards him, confused.
Xu Qichen bought five books before leaving. At the checkout, the boss smiled and said, “You children have great taste in books.”
That fair little seashell was dyed a little red and was clearly seen by Xia Zhixu.
Xu Qichen could only carry his backpack, which now also contained his new books, on one shoulder, which was a bit inconvenient. Xia Zhixu originally wanted to help him carry it properly, but after struggling for a while, he decided it was too troublesome. In the end, he simply took the bag and said, “I’ll carry it. You’re injured ah.”
At first, Xu Qichen was unwilling and kept saying things like ‘I’ll do it myself’ as they walked. Xia Zhixu found it fun and pushed the bicycle with his bag on his back, but he refused to return it to him. In his eyes, Xu Qichen was like a child who didn’t dare to accept gifted candies easily, wanting to accept but stopping himself.
“What do you want to eat?” Xia Zhixu asked. “I can’t go home for lunch, so I’ll have to eat out. Eat with me ba.”
Xu Qichen replied quietly, “I can’t go home either.”
“That’s great, isn’t it? Poor us,” Xia Zhixu smiled brightly.
Xu Qichen pointed at a restaurant by the road.
It was Sichuan cuisine.
Xia Zhixu swallowed. “Sure.”
He guessed that Xu Qichen would not take the initiative to order anything, so he ordered several common dishes, and a plate of stir-fried baby cabbage for himself.
When the food came, a whole table full of red made a layer of sweat gather on Xia Zhixu’s forehead.
Xu Qichen, on the other hand, looked very happy, despite the lack of smile on his face. He tried the diced chicken with green pepper first.
“Is it good?”
Seeing him nod, Xia Zhixu also picked up his chopsticks. After much hesitation, he ended up picking the baby cabbage. He only chewed it twice before his entire throat began burning up. He began picking at the plate and found several piece of dried red chili.
Why must they add chili even in a green veggies dish?
Xia Zhixu swallowed a large glass of water, then ate some rice.
Xu Qichen ate so happily that he looked particularly weak in comparison. In order to cover up, Xia Zhixu searched for a topic and said, “Why do you like reading so much?”
Xu Qichen’s mouth was full like a hamster, so he could only reply with, “En.” After swallowing his food, he added, “Not really, I just really like words.”
“Words?” Xia Zhixu rested his chin on his hand. “Why?”
Xu Qichen nibbled on the tip of his chopstick. “Don’t you think Chinese characters are the fairest words?”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
Fairest words… Xia Zhixu had never heard such a saying before. “How so?”
We Hlmtfc ufcais ajqqfv atf ajyif klat tlr mtbqralmxr jcv rjlv, “Obbx, atfgf lr cb vlralcmalbc yfakffc mbiifmalnf jcv lcvlnlveji mtjgjmafgr lc Jtlcfrf mtjgjmafgr. Fcilxf Scuilrt, ktfgf nfgyr cffv ab yf agjcrobgwfv lcab rlcueijg jcv qiegji obgwr. Pc Jtlcfrf, atf reypfma cfnfg joofmar atf obgw bo atf qgfvlmjaf. Qtfatfg la’r j atberjcv rbivlfgr jcv tbgrfr bg j rbilajgs qfgrbc, atf kbgv ‘jvnfcaegfg’ mjc yf erfv ab vfrmglyf flatfg bo atfw.”
At the end of his speech, the corners of his mouth rose, as if he was laughing. Xia Zhixu looked at Xu Qichen blankly. He finally understood that when someone talked about something they love, they really do shine.
He looked down, “I feel like that reduces one’s sense of loneliness. Being alone is not so different from being in a group after all.”
Xia Zhixu looked at him in a daze, wanting to say something but couldn’t say it.
Xu Qichen had not noticed Xia Zhixu’s abnormality yet. He, who had finally begun to speak freely, dipped the back of his chopstick in water and drew a square.
“Moreover, the structure of Chinese characters is the fairest in the world, with ever-changing changes between square inches. Each stroke looks very ostentatious, but in fact they are all within the invisible delineation range. Whether it is a simple one character or a character with extremely complicated strokes, they can all be placed in the same square and look very well-proportioned. And this kind of beauty can only be appreciated by those who are familiar with Chinese culture. Otherwise, each Chinese character is like a painting, beautiful, but difficult to copy.”
Xia Zhixu agreed with this very much, “So in the eyes of Chinese people, Chinese characters are like vector graphics, but in the eyes of foreigners, Chinese characters become bitmaps.”
The collision of scientific and liberal arts thinking stunned Xu Qichen for a second. He then laughed, “Your analogy is really strange, but appropriate.”
Xia Zhixu was stupified.
The person sitting opposite was illuminated by the light flowing from behind him, his always downcast eyes were curved, and there was an incomparably gentle smile. The corners of his upturned mouth were lightly embedded in his soft and fair cheeks.
His gaze was like the tip of a sketch pen, tracing Xu Qichen’s rare smile little by little, with so much detail that he felt guilty.
“Your smile is very nice.”
His mind was half a step slower than his mouth, too slow to stop those words that should have only been a thought.
Xu Qichen was shocked. In a panic, he pursed his lips, lowered his head, and stuffed two mouthfuls of vegetables into his mouth.
He should not have said that.
The meal was uncomfortable. Xiia Zhixu, who could not eat spicy food, forced himself to eat some, making his throat dry and uncomfortable. When Xu Qichen went to the bathroom, he called the waiter to pay the bill. When Xu Qichen found out as they left, he was a little unhappy, “I’ll give you half of the money.”
Xia Zhixu said, “I’m too lazy to calculate. You can just treat me next time.”
A person whose talent for arithmetic was so high that even the teacher admired him, found it troublesome to calculate the cost of a meal? Xu Qichen kept silent. He saw a dessert shop next to them. He asked Xia Zhixu to wait a minute, and ran in by himself.
A moment later, he re-emerged from the shop and handed the milk ice cream in his hand to him.
“En?” he asked confusedly.
“Milk soothes the spiciness,” Xu Qichen glanced at Xia Zhixu’s red lips, and said calmly.
“Thank you.”
After dinner, they wandered around a bit before returning to their respective homes. As soon as Xia Zhixu’s mother opened the door, she asked, “Did your party end so early? I thought you wouldn’t be home for dinner.”
Xia Zhixu was shocked. He had completely forgotten about the gathering with Chen Fang and the others. With a hesitant hum he took out his phone. The moment he turned off airplane mode, Chen Fang’s call came in.
“Hello…”
“Oi! What on earth happened to you, did you buy books all the way to America? Or was your stomach so upset you had to go to the ER? I called you over 20 times and it failed to connect! Where on earth were you!?”
Xia Zhixu clutched the phone, glanced at his mother, who was staring at him suspiciously, and slipped into his bedroom.
“No, I went to buy books, and then I went to the toilet with a stomachache. Then when I came out of the bookstore, I witnessed a pickpocketing incident. Then I rode the bicycle to help chase him down. After chasing him for a long time, an uncle on a moped helped subdue the thief. My mobile phone fell out and broke when I was dealing with the thief. Then we were brought in by the police to give our statements. I was in there for a really long time, plus my phone took several hours to repair, so only now…”
The lies were so colourful that Chen Fang asked doubtfully, “Really? Then where are you now?”
“At the repair shop ah…”
Just as he said that, his mother called from outside the room, “Zixhu, do you want dragonfruit?”
“How dare you lie to me!”
Xia Zhixu held the phone away from his ear. When he was done yelling, he brought it closer again and said cheerfully, “No, I just came home from the repair shop…”
He was severely scolded by Chen Fang. The next day, according to his ‘compensation terms’, Xia Zhixu was forced to buy five cakes at the cake shop in front of the school, one for each of the girls at the gathering, plus several sets of new game skins for Chen Fang.
Although the girls were dissatisfied with his failure to turn up, it was no loss of face for them for the most popular boy in the first grade to deliver the cake in front of the whole class. They used this opportunity to chat with him for a long time. Although Xia Zhixu smiled, he was scolding Chen Fang in his heart.
When the class bell rang, those girls were finally willing to leave. Xia Zhixu lightly kicked the chair in the front. Xu Qichen, who was arranging notes, turned his head in a daze, and saw Xia Zhixu pointing to his desk, “Below.”
“En?” Xu Qichen frowned slightly, confused.
Xia Zhixu pointed again, “Look below.”
Only then did Xu Qichen lower his head, and saw Xia Zhixu handing him a box from under the table. He took the box with some doubts, opened it, and found a piece of delicate cake inside.
The teacher walked in, Xu Qichen closed the box, put it in the drawer, leaned his back against the edge of Xia Zhixu’s desk, and asked in a low voice, “Why?”
Xia Zhixu replied softly, “Thank you for the milk.”
Xu Qichen thought for a long time before he remembered the milk he bought for him yesterday. He pursed the corners of his mouth and moved his back away from the edge of the table in the back.
But he didn’t know that when Xia Zhixu was buying cakes, he bent down and carefully examined the glass cabinet for a long time, and chose the most beautiful and delicious one, wrapped it up and gave it to Xu Qichen. Meanwhile the girls’ cakes were just randomly chosen in less than two minutes.
Xia Zhixu was conflicted on whether he wanted him to know about this preferential treatment.
After the short vacation, the tense high school life officially kicked off. Xia Zhixu, who was able to go to school by bicycle, insisted on taking the bus every day. After a week or two, he gradually figured out the time when Xu Qichen went to school every day, summed up the rules from his experience, and then waited for Xu Qichen at the bus stop on time every day.
Until one day, he waited at the stop for a long time but he did not show up, and he was almost late. It just so happened that the teacher overseeing the morning self-study that day was the English teacher who loved to nag a lot.
“Don’t think that you can be carefree just because you have good grades. You are only in your first year now, and nothing is certain yet.”
Xia Zhixu lowered his head, but his eyes swept across the classroom, and found that Xu Qichen had not arrived yet.
“Go in and stand. Stand at your seat.”
With an ‘en’, he walked into the classroom dishevelled, glaring at Chen Fang who was grinning almost to the ears, and stood at his seat.
The boy behind him joked, “Great! Zhixu you can block me from the teacher’s sight while I finish up my homework.”
Xia Zhixu drooped his head listlessly, looked at the English book on the table, and read the text aloud like a scripture. When the English teacher walked towards to the first row, Xia Zhixu poked Xu Qichen’s deskmate on the shoulder with his pen.
“Where’s Xu Qichen?”
“I don’t know. When the teacher came in just now, the class monitor went up and said something to him. I guess it was to tell him that Xu Qichen isn’t coming.”
“O,” Xia Zhixu looked down again, found the spot where he had paused, and carried on reading aloud.
He regretted a little. Why didn’t he ask Xu Qichen for his contact information, mobile phone WeChat or something that day, so that he could contact him at any time, instead of foolishly waiting there?
But he never asked him to wait, Xia Zhixu suddenly realised, and felt even worse.
He never agreed to go to school together.. These had always been his own initiatives. Even if he asked for the phone number, he was not the head teacher, so why should Xu Qichen report anything to him?
Ai, it’s so difficult to make friends. Xia Zhixu decided to treat Chen Fang better in the future. After all, Chen Fang had been the one to approach him when they were in elementary school.
It was not until the last class in the morning that Xu Qichen returned to the classroom. It was math class. The math teacher, who was almost fifty years old, was drawing on the blackboard with a triangular ruler. When he heard Xu Qichen, he did not even turn to look and simply said, “Come in.”
Xu Qichen walked into the classroom under the gaze of the whole class. Xia Zhixu, who thought maths class was boring and was spinning his pen, dropped the pen on the table when he saw him.
So he went to get rid of the sling!
His deskmate stood up to let him in. Holding his left arm in his right, Xu Qichen took his seat.
Xia Zhixu kicked his chair lightly and asked in a low voice, “You went to the hospital?”
Xu Qichen nodded without turning around.
Xia Zhixu wanted to tell him that he had been waiting for him all morning and was even punished for being late, but just as he opened his mouth, the maths teacher turned around and called him, “Xia Zhixu, what are you stretching your neck out for?”
“Notihng,” Xia Zhixu retracted his neck. “My neck was sore, so I’m just stretching it.”
“Stop stretching, come up and solve this problem.”
Xia Zhixu let out a resentful groan, and walked up. He had not been paying attention to the class at all. So he took a chalk and stood in front of the blackboard to read the question.
“You weren’t listening ba,” the teacher pushed his glasses up his nose and glared at Xia Zhixu. “I knew it, not listening in class…”
“Teacher,” Xia Zhixu interrupted him, “this question…” He did not finish his sentence, instead he walked up to the board and changed the problem’s ‘(0, 1)’ to ‘(0, 1]’, then began solving it.
Seeing him correct the problem, the math teacher frowned and looked at the blackboard, then lowered his head to flip through the lesson plan on the desk. Before he could flip through, Xia Zhixu had already finished writing the answer.
He smiled and put the chalk back on the desk, “You must have written the problem like this to test me, right?”
The math teacher cleared his throat and glanced at the blackboard again, “Yes, changing the problem was a small test I hid, to see if you can figure it out. Alright, go back and listen to the class properly..”
Xia Zhixu thanked the teacher with a grin and went back to his seat.
“O, he clearly made a mistake and still talked so much,” his deskmate said.
Xia Zhixu made a shushing gesture at her, “Who doesn’t make mistakes?”
Xu Qichen, stared blankly at the process of answering on the blackboard, and gained another impression of the person on his mind that was not strange or troublesome.
When the bell rang at the end of class, Xu Qichen turned his head and said to his deskmate, “Could I borrow your notes for these four classes? I’ll catch up with them over the noon break.”
The female tablemate was pleasantly surprised, they had been sharing desks for several weeks, and Xu Qichen had only spoken to her a handful of times, but now he was taking the initiative to borrow something.
However, Xia Zhixu hurriedly patted Xu Qichen’s shoulder, “Why don’t you borrow from me?”
XIa Zhixu’s deskmate laughed, “You don’t even listen in class. The physics teacher told you to do the physics competition questions in class, and you were daydreaming in math class. What notes have you taken?”
Xia Zhixu, who was exposed, glared at her.
Why are you always blabbing away? Maybe I should tell Zhang Zhengxin tomorrow that I want to change deskmates.
No, what if he moves me away?
Several possibilities flashed through his mind quickly. Before he noticed, Xu Qichen had already stuffed his deskmate’s notebook into his schoolbag, and was about to go home with the bag on his back.
Xia Zhixu quickly stood up, “Ai ai, wait for me!”
Next time, he will be sure to take notes in class, just in case.
On the bus, Xia Zhixu habitually stood on Xu Qichen’s left. Xu Qichen realized it and reminded him softly, “My hand is already healed.”
“Oh, right.” Xia Zhixu laughed in embarrassment, “I forgot. It’s so strange to see you with your hand down.”
For some reason, he always felt a lot of pity when he saw others with their arms in a sling, but when it came to Xu Qichen, Xia Zhixu instead felt a rare desire to protect. Now that his arm was healed, he felt that he had been deprived of some kind of privilege and felt a little uncomfortable.
Today, bus 729 was exceptionally packed. Xia Zhixu happened to see the road construction notice posted on the bus window, and realized that it was because of the road construction that some buses temporarily changed their routes, so the passenger flow of 729 was much higher than usual.
Xu Qichen was holding the pull ring on top of his head, but the driver braked too hard, and it slipped out of his hand, making him fall on Xia Zhixu. Embarrased, he apologised. After he caught his balance again, he looked up, and the pull ring he was holding onto before was now in someone else’s hands. Now he could only hold onto someone’s seat for some support.
At the nextstop, a large group of passengers rushed up, yelling, “Move to the back!” and squeezing the two of them together, especially Xu Qichen who didn’t have a proper handhold.
Xia Zhixu smiled at him helplessly, “It’s so packed today.”
The bus started suddenly, and there was another violent shake. Xu Qichen, who was already unsteady, crashed right into Xia Zhixu’s arms. His instinctive sense of survival made him reach out and grab Xia Zhixu’s arms.
Facing the sudden, literally ‘throwing into his arms’, Xia Zhixu was a little at a loss.
Xu Qichen let go of him awkwardly, but there was nowhere for him to go and widen the distance between them. They were so close that he could feel Xia Zhixu’s body temperature through his thin shirt. Xu Qichen couldn’t help but lower his head.
Xia Zhixu was a person who hated disorder and congestion.
But at this moment, he was somewhat grateful for the choking traffic in the city.
After getting off the bus, the two walked side by side to the usual junction. Before turning the corner, Xu Qichen suddenly spoke.
“The piano piece you played the other day was very nice. Who’s the composer?”
Xia Zhixu had to think for a while. He used to learn the piano, and there were many pieces in his phone. He played one randomly that day, and didn’t pay much attention to it. He tried hard to recall, “I think it was Chopin, but as for exactly which…”
“It’s okay. Then I’ll go back now.” Xu Qichen turned around quickly, not giving Xia Zhixu a chance to continue to recall or think.
Xia Zhixu felt strange, usually he had a good memory, even if he was simply walking on the road while listening to a certain piece of music, he would be able to recall it later. Why did he forget which piece was played on that day?
No matter how hard he thought about it, there was complete silence in his mind. It was filled with only the image of Xu Qichen looking back at himself.
He quickly crossed the road, and ran home, took out his mobile phone from his drawer, looked through the song history, and found the piece.
‘Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor’.
This is so sweet that I can taste it
😭😭
yingyingying I dont want this story to end so soon…
……zhixu is truly adorable….i bet he was too occupied with qichen beauty to pay attention to the piano tune …..haha