Heat surged up Cao Feng’s neck, and the base of his ears turned red. He tried his best to cover up his emotions until even the curve at the corners of his lips wasn’t too obvious. Cao Feng moved the hand supporting the back of Duan Yuche’s neck, so it was now hugging Duan Yuche’s shoulders: “En. Sleep on gege’s lap, then.”
Duan Yuche naturally didn’t think too much about it. He leaned over, resting his head on Cao Feng’s lap, and closed his eyes again.
Cao Feng was frozen for several seconds, before finally he finally picked up the book he’d dropped on the floor, turned to the page he had been reading just now, and continued to read.
But his mind was not on the book at all. All the coding instructions in the book seemed to be floating up into the air. Cao Feng was pretending to read, but in reality he was only looking at didi. Duan Yuche looked like he was sleeping, but his sleep wasn’t steady. At first he was facing outwards, then he suddenly turned over and faced Cao Feng.
Cao Feng squeezed his eyes shut, took a deep breath, and then read the coding tutorial again. At the same time, he couldn’t control the blush spreading across his face.
When he was studying in the county, many male students would blatantly and vulgarly talk about the girls in the class. They’d debate on who had the biggest breasts, who had the best figure, who was the most good-looking, and what would it be like if they could sleep with her for a night. Cao Feng had even been dragged to film theatres to watch extremely “vulgar” Hong Kong films, but he had never been moved by any of it. At that age, his mind was only filled with studying. If he wanted to work hard, to succeed, then he couldn’t fill his brain with those kinds of “dirty” things.
He never would have imagined that, in school, in the library, he would ever feel these kinds of emotions.
He had barely even read a few pages of the book, but the library closed at 5:30 and the teacher wanted to go have their meal, so Cao Feng woke his didi up. Duan Yuche sat up, and opened his eyes a little dazedly. Cao Feng noted down the page number and closed the book. He helped Duan Yuche pack up his pillow, and then pulled him up: “The library is about to close, should we go to the cafeteria to eat?”
Duan Yuche nodded, and let Cao Feng guide him outside. It wasn’t until they had gone downstairs, felt the chill of the wind, and taken off his earphones, that Duan Yuche slowly felt more awake.
–
The sports festival would be held on Thursday. The results of last week’s monthly exam were also about to come out, but the school seemed to want to prevent students from being hit by the results, so they hadn’t reported it yet. However, Duan Yuche didn’t care about this. He had gone to the exam, but only as a formality. He answered one multiple choice question and didn’t touch anything else.
In their class, there were more boys than girls, so the boys had been signed up for more activities.
Cao Feng alone had to participate in the 3000 metre race, 1000 metre race, long jump, high jump, and relay race.
Duan Yuche only found out the day before the sports festival. Hearing Mr Xiao Bo read out the name list, Duan Yuche discovered that Cao Feng had actually signed up for that many activities. And all of the most difficult activities were being done by Cao Feng, by himself.
Were they trying to kill him?
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.
“Qtb jrxfv sbe ab rluc eq obg rb wemt?” Cr atfs kfca tbwf atja cluta, Gejc Temtf mbeivc’a tfiq tlwrfio ogbw jrxlcu.
“I didn’t really know what I applied for either. The sports committee member helped me apply. He asked me, I just said yes.” Cao Feng had a thick English-Chinese dictionary on his lap. This book was new. It cost ninety-eight yuan a copy, and he used it day and night, so he carried it everywhere with him, for fear of losing it in school.
Gejc Temtf atbeuta Jjb Mfcu kjr j ilaaif yla vewy, yea Jjb Mfcu atbeuta la kjrc’a rb yjv: “P erfv ab tjnf ab ub vbkc atf wbecajlc jcv kjix afc xlibwfagfr ab ub ab rmtbbi.” Kb rjs atja Jjb Mfcu tjv ab mgbrr wbecajlcr jcv rklw jmgbrr glnfgr ab ufa ab rmtbbi kjr tjgvis fnfc jc fzjuufgjalbc. “Vb gecclcu j ilaaif ab ufa ubbv gfreiar obg atf mijrr lr bxjs.”
Duan Yuche didn’t know what to say, so he asked Xiao Zhang to stop at the pharmacy outside their neighbourhood. He got out of the car, and bought a box of glucose: “They say to drink glucose. Put it in your school bag and take it with you tomorrow.”
The car drove into the neighbourhood, and Xiao Zhang parked the car at the door. The house was pitch black from the outside, and, seeing this, Duan Yuche asked: “Is my dad not off work yet?”
Xiao Zhang said: “He still has some work to do.”
“Why is it always like this nowadays…” Duan Yuche muttered.
Cao Feng knew in his heart why Duan Shumin wasn’t coming home lately, but he couldn’t tell didi.
Cao Feng went back to his room. He opened his schoolbag, and took out the class uniform that was just issued today. It wasn’t his, but Duan Yuche’s. After it was issued, Cao Feng had just kept it in his schoolbag.
Cao Feng unwrapped the plastic packaging, and when he took out the uniform, it had an unpleasant smell. The quality of the fabric was also very poor, and the tailoring wasn’t good either.
If it were his own clothes, Cao Feng wouldn’t be picky. But this was what Duan Yuche had to wear. For the price to be so expensive and the quality so poor, Cao Feng couldn’t stand it.
Cao Feng held the clothes in his hands and knocked on Duan Yuche’s door, wanting him to test the fit of the uniform. As soon as Cao Feng entered the door, he heard Duan Yuche talking to someone on the phone, and the language he was using was something Cao Feng couldn’t understand – it wasn’t English.
Duan Yuche seemed a little anxious, as if the phone he was speaking to on the other side of the ocean had something difficult attached to it.
Cao Feng didn’t interrupt Duan Yuche’s conversation. He just walked in, and put the clothes on the stool at the end of the bed.
Duan Yuche hung up the phone not long after.
“Xiao Che, do you want to try the clothes to see if they fit? I’ll wash them for you later, so you can wear them tomorrow.”
“Okay.” The Chinese tunic suit was a two-piece suit, and Duan Yuche chose a size XL, with a white shirt underneath.
He took off his school uniform and put on the coat.
Cao Feng asked from the side: “Were you talking to your aunt on the phone? Is something wrong?”
“It’s not my aunt, it’s…the auntie who lived next to us, she told me a gege I have a very good relationship with left home, only leaving behind a letter. The auntie sent me an email and asked if I had any news about him.” Duan Yuche buttoned up his suit, then walked to his walk-in closet and looked at his reflection in the mirror. “Is it a little too big?”
Cao Feng walked behind him, and his lowered gaze swept over Duan Yuche’s snow-white neck. Cao Feng used his fingers to measure and said: “The shoulders are a little wide, and the waist can also be tucked in, but the length is fine. I have a sewing kid, I’ll help you tailor it later.”
Duan Yuche made a questioning noise and looked up at Cao Feng: “Cao Feng, you know how to tailor clothes too?”
“A little bit. When my seniors don’t want their clothes anymore, I just need to alter the clothes and I can wear them. It’s really easy.” Cao Feng roughly estimated how much he’d need to change, and used his hands to measure Duan Yuche’s waist. He probably only needed to take in the waistline a little bit. If the suit was too tight it wouldn’t look good either. Cao Feng said: “Do you want to try on the pants? After I finish fixing it, I’ll help you wash it.”
“Pass me the pants.”
Cao Feng went to go get them, and Duan Yuche bent over at the waist to take off his school trousers. He didn’t seem to care at all if Cao Feng saw.
When Cao Feng turned back around, he froze. He couldn’t help from looking at the way the slightly oversized black suit draped over Duan Yuche’s body, making his legs look even more slender and pale. It was like the glow from an ivory tusk, and Cao Feng’s gaze darkened. Then he looked away, and handed the pants to Duan Yuche.
Duan Yuche put the pants on, and stood up and walked a few steps. He said: “The waist is a little too big, but the length is still pretty suitable, so there is no need to change it. I’m only going to wear it once, anyway.”
Cao Feng took the Chinese tunic suit back to his room, and brought all the dirty clothes, underwear, and socks to the laundry room. Then he turned on the lamp in his room, tidied up his messy desk, and used scissors to cut open the thread at the suit shoulders.
Tailoring the suit jacket took around two hours. Cao Feng squatted in the laundry room and scrubbed the underwear, sorted the clothes by colour and put them in the washing machine, pressed the clothes and dried them, and then went to knock on Duan Yuche’s door again.
Duan Yuche had just turned on the computer and was about to search for something. Seeing Cao Feng come in, Duan Yuche shut the lid of his laptop: “You have a competition tomorrow morning, why are you still awake?”
“Any news about your neighbour?” Cao Feng put a mug of freshly warmed milk on Duan Yuche’s bedside table.
“Not yet. He only left yesterday, and Victor’s already an adult and left a letter. The police won’t care about this matter…”
Victor was the missing neighbour.
Duan Yuche threw the computer aside and took a drink of hot milk. Then he remembered to take calcium tablets and vitamins, so he opened a drawer and took out a few medicine bottles.
“Why did he run away from home? Did he have any conflicts with his family?”
“Not really.” Duan Yuche thought about it. Did coming out count as a big conflict? He decided that it didn’t, and began stuffing the pills into his mouth one by one. While chewing, he said, “Victor’s letter said that he was going to chase his own freedom and happiness.”
When Duan Yuche was still young, he’d gone to the neighbour’s house to play once. While he was there, he’d accidentally seen Victor and a male classmate pressed intimately against each other in Victor’s bedroom, kissing, and so discovered Victor’s secret.
This wasn’t an earth shaking, moral shattering discovery. Even though he’d still been young at the time, Duan Yuche accepted this matter tolerantly, and never thought of Victor badly because of it.
Victor asked him to keep it a secret, because according to his father’s religious beliefs, gay people would be burned to death.
But Duan Yuche had already been back in China for many years, and he didn’t know the specific situation between Victor and his family.
After Cao Feng left, Duan Yuche turned on the computer again and entered the gay dating forum that Victor liked. He knew that Victor liked to come on this site to make friends, and worried that Victor might have run away from home because of someone he’d met online. So Duan Yuche thought he’d go on the website to see if there was any useful information.
Duan Yuche scrolled for around ten minutes, and found Victor’s account. But it hadn’t been updated in a long, long time.
i’m sorry for the late update! hope you all still enjoy this chapter 
also very late thank you, but thank you so much to JP for the two kofis ~
specifically the word used is 录像厅. this refers to the places back in the 80s which would play physical tapes, back in the days before DVDs and such. apparently many of these places had a less than stellar reputation: there were people who’d pay for a movie and just sleep there since a ticket was cheaper than a night at a hotel; allegations of these theatres promoting violence, crime, and sexual content to The Youth, etc. i wasn’t around in the time so i’m getting all this info off of baidu, let me know if it’s not correct !
it’s a type of sugar supplement thing, think energy drinks/powder
👈👉
Thnx for the translation ❤️❤️