Duan Yuche was drowsy and dazed from sleep. He could feel that someone was hugging him and putting him on the bed.
He didn’t have the energy to open his eyes. He only heard someone call him “Tommy”, and thought it was Duan Shumin, so he called out in an extremely thin and delicate voice, “Dad.”
Cao Feng was helping Duan Yuche take off his coat. When he heard his call, he was slightly taken aback, and didn’t know if he should respond or not.
Duan Yuche leaned forward again and hugged Cao Feng’s arm. He looked like he had no idea of what he was doing, and mumbled angrily, “Dad, don’t leave me…”
Cao Feng paused. He looked down at Duan Yuche, trusting and depending on him. Cao Feng’s heart suddenly melted into a puddle of water, and he rubbed Duan Yuche’s hair, and said, “Okay, I won’t leave you…I swear.”
He had never experienced this kind of emotion before. It was very complicated. He wanted to hold Duan Yuche and protect him, and he loved his didi tenderly in a peculiar way. It was as if he were really thinking of Duan Yuche as his flesh and blood. If he were Uncle Duan, he would definitely love this son dearly. And, at least during this age when he needed love, Cao Feng would never choose to cast him aside. But feelings were a difficult thing to say clearly, and every person’s emotional needs were different.
Cao Feng stayed until Duan Yuche really fell asleep. Duan Yuche had hugged his arm as he fell asleep, and now it had become numb. Cao Feng helped take off Duan Yuche’s socks, tucked him in, drew the curtains, and then closed the door.
The typhoon outside was too strong, and Duan Shumin didn’t choose to drive home at that time. Duan Yuche found that he hadn’t come back, and tried to resist the urge to call him. In the end, Duan Shumin was the one who called.
“Is there anything to eat in the fridge at home?”
“Yeah, Cao Feng bought a lot.”
Duan Shumin explained: “When the peak period of the typhoon passes, Dad will go home immediately. The wind is too strong, and all the cars outside are calling the police.”
“It’s okay.” Duan Yuche said considerately. “That friend you went to pick up, how did it go?”
Duan Shumin paused for a moment: “Managed to pick them up. Sent them home already.”
Duan Yuche lowered his gaze: “That’s good, then. I’ll wait for you to come home.”
This typhoon lasted for a day and a half before it stopped. The school sent text messages to parents one by one to inform them that school would resume on Friday, and makeup classes would take place on the weekend.
This typhoon holiday lasted for two or three days.
Duan Yuche noticed that the Oxford dictionary Cao Feng often carried around had some signs of being water damaged. It was obviously newly bought, but it already looked like it had been used for many years.
However, this did not affect Cao Feng’s enthusiasm for learning in the slightest. Some people might study only to achieve a goal, such as getting good grades in exams and being admitted to a good university. Cao Feng certainly had those goals, but more than that, he was really eager to learn.
He loved learning, loved absorbing new knowledge and turning knowledge into wisdom.
Duan Yuche took advantage of the weekend to buy him an electronic dictionary: “Stop using this Oxford dictionary, it’s inconvenient to carry around. Use this instead. It’s easy to look up words, and it can teach you the correct pronunciation, British or American. Study whichever one you like better. I like the English accent more.”
Cao Feng knew at a glance that this item was not cheap. He wanted to return it, but Duan Yuche said that he had already torn up the receipt: “You don’t know where I bought it, so you can’t return it. Give up, I bought a cheap one, so just use it.”
Electronic dictionaries themselves weren’t worth much, but Duan Yuche specially chose a relatively small, but good quality, waterproof, and durable brand.
This had a lot of practical value for Cao Feng. On the night he received the gift, he excitedly memorised hundreds of new words. He had never used this kind of product before – he liked electronic products, but could never afford them. Instead, he had picked up many electronic bits and bobs in scrap yards, a mess of parts to study.
*
As the weather got colder, the students put on sweaters and padded jackets underneath their school uniforms. Duan Shumin also took Cao Feng to buy two sweaters and a down jacket exactly like didi’s.
In the morning, a few senior boys suddenly came to the door of Classroom 7. They looked fierce and like they shouldn’t be provoked, and their tone was not good. They reached out and grabbed a random student who was leaving Classroom 7, and asked, “Oi, your class’ Cao Feng, where does he sit?”
“He…sits there.”
“Which one?”
“The really tall one.”
Zhou Zeliang had just returned to class in the last two days, and just came over to call Duan Yuche away. Cao Feng knew that the two of them must have secretly gone to smoke.
Cao Feng was using his beloved electronic dictionary to look up words when a few tall troublemakers came to stand in front of his desk. Cao Feng had plugged in the earphones that his didi didn’t want anymore, and was listening to the standard British English pronunciation, imitating it quietly.
He was so focused that he didn’t even notice that someone was looking for trouble.
“You’re Cao Feng?” One of the men picked up a book on his desk, opened it, and took a look. Once he confirmed Cao Feng’s identity, he tossed the book on the ground.
Cao Feng bent down, picked up the book, and shook the dirt off it. He looked up at them, and said calmly, “Is there a problem?”
“Nothing much. Just heard that you’re pretty good at fighting, so I made a special trip here to take care of you.”
More than half a month has passed since that situation, and the wound on Cao Feng’s face had basically healed. The stitches in the wound on his neck had been removed, and the scars were fresh.
At this, Cao Feng didn’t say anything anymore. He had already guessed why they had come.
The students in the class were all frightened, looking at him and whispering: “What did Cao Feng do?”
“Why are there so many people coming to pick fights with 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.
“Ktf qfgrbc tf qgbnbxfv kjr atf atlgv sfjg’r zzz, beg rmtbbi’r ybrr. Jjb Mfcu’r vbcf obg.”
Vbwfbcf ilxf Jjb Mfcu, ktb bcis mjgfv jybea raevslcu, cjaegjiis vlvc’a xcbk jcsatlcu jybea atja. Llr jaalaevf kjr ralii nfgs mjiw: “Qtja vb sbe kjca?”
“P abiv sbe, P’w cba vblcu jcsatlcu. Qtfc sbe ifjnf rmtbbi, yf j ilaaif wbgf mjgfoei obg wf, jii gluta?” Ktfs vlvc’a vjgf ab tla jcsbcf klatlc j mijrrgbbw, jcv atfs mjwf tfgf lc remt jc brafcajalber kjs pera ab rmjgf tlw.
He didn’t expect that Cao Feng would be so calm, as if he wasn’t even taking them seriously.
Cao Feng “oh”-ed, and put on his earphones to play English pronunciations again without looking at them.
This indifferent and disapproving attitude was extremely irritating. As soon as one of the younger troublemakers saw this, he flung an arm out and knocked Cao Feng’s electronic dictionary to the ground, and stepped on it vigorously, crushing it. He swept his gaze over Cao Feng with provocative and contemptuous eyes.
Cao Feng tensed his jaw, one hand clenching into a fist, and touched the belt knife at the bottom of his school bag with the other.
The ice cold knife, a knife which had seen the blood of beasts.
Cao Feng’s patience was at its limits. The veins on his forehead twitched, as if he was about to violently kill someone in the next second.
He took a breath to try and control himself. Beneath his thick and dark eyebrows, his eyes were heavy, and the hidden violence was brewing like a hurricane. He said in an extremely calm voice: “Saturday afternoon after school, in the small square behind the Internet café street, I will be alone.”
The leader was stunned for a moment, and even a little admiring. He said, “You’ve got guts.”
They left, and Cao Feng bent down to pick up the electronic dictionary. He then picked up the little toy soldier that didi kept on his desk, which the troublemakers had accidentally knocked down.
Putting the little soldier back on the table, Cao Feng checked the electronic dictionary that had been stepped on several times.
The quality was very good. It hadn’t been completely broken, and only the corners had been smashed. The screen had also been scratched, and would start to flicker when pressed.
Cao Feng’s heart ached badly, and he clutched the electronic dictionary so hard that his hands were shaking.
*
By the time Duan Yuche came back, class had already started. His mouth smelled of cigarettes and it felt uncomfortable, so he asked Cao Feng for a plum candy.
It was as if he hadn’t noticed Cao Feng’s strangeness at all, nor the way that other people were looking at Cao Feng a lot differently now.
Only He Tiantian came to ask Cao Feng: “Who are they? Do you want to report them to the teacher?”
Cao Feng shook his head: “It’s nothing.” If he told the teacher, the messy things that happened before would inevitably be dragged out. He had beat up Duan Yuche’s friend. If he were asked why, he would keep his mouth shut, but other people might not.
He didn’t want anyone to have any chance of knowing Duan Yuche’s “secret”.
“Oh. Then if there is something, you must tell your parents and teachers.” He Tiantian looked a little worried, but it seemed like she and Cao Feng didn’t have a close enough relationship to pursue the matter. Every single time she chatted with him, this guy could kill the conversation with one line.
As soon as she left, Duan Yuche asked, “Report to the teacher? Report what?”
Cao Feng shook his head: “Study matters.”
What is ‘study matters’, you won’t tell me about study matters? Duan Yuche felt a little uneasy. “That He Tiantian, why is she always looking for you? Does she like you?”
Cao Feng: “…”
“How is that possible!” Cao Feng flatly denied it.
“Why is it impossible? Otherwise, why would she come to ask you questions every day when she sits so far away?” The more Duan Yuche thought about it, the more he thought that was the case. “If she’s chasing you, then just agree. I think she and you…are pretty suitable.”
He acknowledged Cao Feng’s excellent qualities, and in his heart he picked that girl apart, but still felt that that girl’s qualifications were not bad. Her personality was good, and her appearance was not bad either.
It was hard to find any words to put her down.
Her eyes were a little too big, but he couldn’t really say that she looked like a frog, right?
Cao Feng became more and more embarrassed: “Don’t say that…”
Duan Yuche thought he was shy: “There’s nothing wrong with puppy love, don’t listen to the teacher.”
“Puppy love is not good! No way!!”
“Why not?”
“I just don’t like it…and she doesn’t like me either, so don’t make random guesses.”
Duan Yuche laughed: “I don’t think you don’t like it. It’s because you have someone else in your heart, right?”
Cao Feng was stunned: “What do you mean someone else! In my heart…” He was busy studying all day long and taking care of Duan Yuche, so where did he have the space to put another person?
“Don’t deny it, what about that online friend? I heard you talking about it last time. Don’t you have some kind of online friend, and you’re also online dating with them, tsk tsk tsk…”
Cao Feng didn’t know why Duan Yuche would make such a guess. He wanted to say that there were no online friends at all, it was just made up by him, and the so-called online friend was referring to his didi.
Duan Yuche had the expression of, “you don’t need to explain, if you try to explain then it’s true”, like this was already a confirmed matter.
Cao Feng was speechless.
After school ended on Saturday, Cao Feng accompanied Duan Yuche out of the school, and said to him, “Xiao Che, gege has something to do, so I have to go home later.”
“You have something to do?” Duan Yuche was quite surprised. Cao Feng hardly even had any friends, so how did he suddenly have something on? He thought for a while, and suddenly realised: “A date, right?”
Cao Feng: “…En.”
Duan Yuche: “…”
“Well, if my dad comes back, I’ll cover for you.”
Sitting in the car, the more Duan Yuche thought about it, the more uncomfortable he felt. How could even Cao Feng, who is such a timid stick-in-the-mud, have a girlfriend?
He asked Xiao Zhang, “Did my dad go home yet?”
Xiao Zhang said: “The president is still busy with work.”
Duan Yuche sneered in his heart, knowing very clearly what kind of ‘work’ Dad was up to.
–
Cao Feng bought a roujiamoon the side of the road, and ate it while walking towards the row of Internet cafés.
There was an abandoned square behind that street, and it was a sacred place for a nearby vocational high school.
After Cao Feng ate the roujiamo, he threw the packaging into a trash can, feeling full of strength. He opened his schoolbag, took out the belt knife, and pinned it to the waist of his trousers.
“You really came here alone?” There were about fifteen or sixteen boys standing in the small square. Some were tall and some were short, some were fat and some were thin, some were students, some weren’t. The “hooligan” from that day, Grasshopper, was there too.
Cao Feng could tell at a glance that none of these people knew how to fight.
It was all to boost their numbers.
“Kid, you really have guts.” The ringleader who came to trouble him that day looked at him, and said, “Since you’ve got such guts, we won’t make it difficult for you. Just come over and kneel for him, admit your wrongs, and let him kick you twice. Then all will be forgiven.”
“I hit you that day, I’m very sorry.” Cao Feng remained polite, and the boys watching all laughed, laughing at him for being a coward.
Grasshopper had to stay in the hospital for two days because of his injuries. It hadn’t been serious, but he couldn’t forget the humiliation.
It was really inexplicable.
Then, Cao Feng spoke again: “As long as you promise me that you won’t get close to my didi in the future, and won’t come to our class for no reason and disturb the other students, I will pretend that nothing happened.”
“Pshh.”
The onlookers laughed louder: “Is he crazy?”
“Who do you think you are?”
“My a*s!”
“Yan-ge, you’re asking me to make a major issue into a minor one, f*** it! I can't stand it!” Grasshopper was really angry this time. He knew this minority could really fight, and so he walked forward a few steps, but didn’t dare to get too close.
Cao Feng said: “If you agree, I will sincerely apologise to you, and you can also punch me a few times. The repercussions of my actions, I will accept.”
“You really think you’re all that?!”
“In this situation, how dare you make requests! I’ll just be with your didi, what about it? No, no, Tommy isn’t your didi, you just live in his house, you poor. Beast.”
Cao Feng didn’t speak, and just threw his schoolbag on the ground.
Grasshopper’s eyes flashed sternly. He formed a gesture with his hand, and half of the people behind him rushed forward.
Cao Feng only moved once, with a very clear goal. He strode towards Grasshopper and grabbed his hair, and at the same time pulled the knife from his waist, and pressed it against Grasshopper’s neck, flashing with a cold light.
“I used this knife to kill a bear.” Although the bear hadn’t actually been killed, and he himself narrowly escaped death, the knife had penetrated the brown bear's body.
The group of people were all scared silly.
They’d seen people waving knives around before, but they hadn’t seen someone who had immediately cut someone’s neck with a knife before.
This dude is crazy.
They thought in unison.
Messed with the wrong person.
Cao Feng’s voice calmly rang in Grasshopper’s ear: “It doesn’t matter if you can’t stand it, you don’t have any other choice. Don’t bother me in the future, and don’t leak what happened today. The things about my didi, you’d better shut your mouth about it too. If he asks you what happened, do you know how to answer?”
A piercingly sharp knife on his neck.
“I know…I know, I want to get into university, I want to study hard, so I won’t come out to play anymore.” Grasshopper didn’t dare to move at all. His pupils had shrunk sharply, and he didn’t even dare to breathe.
“I don’t want to cause any trouble.” Cao Feng’s Mandarin was much better than when he first came, and the warning that carried an accent and nasal sound was full of menace. “Listen, if you want to take revenge on me, I’m not afraid of you. But you have to promise to kill me. If you can’t kill me, I will kill you.”
“Do you understand?”
The onlookers were all stunned, staring at him in horror, and retreated in unison.
“Un…understood.” Grasshopper felt that there was something hot on his neck, and he didn’t know if it was really bleeding, or it was his mind playing tricks on him. “Big…Brother, let me go, I promise I’ll stay far far away from your didi in the future, I will never come to your school to trouble you in the future, really…the knife, knife, take it down quickly, why don’t we just get along, if you have something to say we can just talk about it…”
Cao Feng’s eagle-like gaze locked onto his eyes, confirming that he was really scared. Only then did he move the knife away.
Grasshopper’s legs went limp and he knelt on the ground. He touched his neck and let out a sigh of relief when he didn’t feel any blood.
Even so, he could still feel that this Cao Feng, he was really not afraid, he really…would dare to kill him.
This kind of person…is he really only a teenager?
In full view, Cao Feng picked up the schoolbag on the ground, then smoothly wiped his knife and threw it in. Under the blood-weeping sunset, he walked away without ever looking back.
These half-grown teenagers collectively took a breath, and even had adoration in their eyes.
Cao Feng hadn’t known whether his method would work or not. He just had no other options, so he had to use it.
If it had been for any other reason, Cao Feng would have told the teacher or Duan Shumin a long time ago.
But this matter was a secret about his didi, and he could not tell anyone.
Cao Feng shakily listened to a cassette tape and took the public bus home. He felt a bit tired. He hadn’t used violence, but that didn’t mean that he hadn’t been afraid. He had thought that something might go wrong, such as if the other party was more vicious than he imagined, or unafraid of him.
If it had gotten to that point, Cao Feng thought, maybe he would have done as they said, kneel down and kowtow to admit his wrongs, and not let this matter get out.
He arrived home at seven o’clock in the evening.
At this time of the year, seven o’clock was already very late. The sun had already set, and the light in the sky was very dim.
Cao Feng used the key to open the door, entered, and saw that Duan Yuche had moved the giant puzzle to the living room. The TV was turned on, and his didi’s favourite show “Doctor Who” was playing.
Hearing the sound of the door opening, Duan Yuche raised his head, a little surprised: “Huh? Cao Feng?”
It was only seven o’clock, and he thought it was Duan Shumin.
“Didn’t you go on a date? Why’re you back so early?”
Cao Feng hadn’t gone on a date at all, and didn’t dare to answer. He asked, “Xiao Che, have you eaten yet?”
“Not yet. I’m hungry. My dad said he’d be back in a bit, and I didn’t tell him you were out so he thought I already had dinner.” Duan Yuche was a little bit aggrieved, and looked at Cao Feng accusingly.
“It’s gege’s fault, what do you want to eat? Let me get you a bowl of noodles first, to pad your stomach. Do you want noodles?”
“Okay…” Duan Yuche saw Cao Feng put down his schoolbag, take off his school uniform, put on an apron, and was about to cook, so he put down the puzzle and moved over to him: “Who are you dating? He Tiantian?”
“No.” Cao Feng turned on the fire.
“Then who? Online friend? Does they look good?”
Cao Feng shook his head: “Not as good as you.”
Duan Yuche laughed loudly at Cao Feng for being a flatterer: “Cao Feng, how are you going to find a girlfriend when you’re like this?”
“Not finding.” Seeing the water boil, Cao Feng threw the noodles in. “If you want, gege can cook for you for a lifetime.”
this last line..!! i gasped
sorry for a really late update, it was a bit hard to find time to translate because of irl. thank you to all of you who are still reading, i appreciate you so much !!
ah cao feng, cao feng…violence is not the answer etc. but you really have to admire his dedication to duan yuche. also we are a third (!!) of the way through and our male lead doesn’t even know he’s gay…….what is this slow burn
Thanks for the chapter 💜💜💜💜
thank you for reading ! ❤
Cao feng..you bad a$$☺️
I just love the fact that misunderstandings are flying in this novel😂😂😂
Cao Feng thinks Yuche is gay (but doesn’tnotice this about himself 😂😂😂)
Yuche thinks Cao Feng is dating while irl he has become his personal butler/bodyguard.
That dang Duan Shumin thinks he’s fooling Yuche while bro’s a$$ is exposed 😂😂😂
I’m just waiting for driver Zhang to turn around and pull an uno reverse.
Then this story will be complete (chef’s kiss)
😙👌