Chapter 68

T/W: NSFW

She Xiao was no match for Lin Xigu’s eagerness. He was like a clingy and playful kitten that couldn’t be pushed aside or ignored. At last, She Xiao sighed and stripped Lin Xigu of his clothes. The sight of Lin Xigu lying patiently underneath him made She Xiao’s eyes glaze over with a red sheen of desire. 

The bedsheets looked like a battlefield. Lin Xigu’s legs were shaking as he eased off the bed. They hadn’t even done the full deed and he was already like this. He couldn’t imagine what it would be like once he and She Xiao went all the way.

She Xiao carried him to the bathroom. They pressed against each other under the shower’s spray.

Lin Xigu refused to let She Xiao out of his arms. He pressed his face against She Xiao’s shoulder, kissing his scars.

After they cleaned up the mess and changed the sheets, the two of them lay in bed. Lin Xigu held She Xiao’s hand against his chest, kissing the back of his hand every now and again.

He slept next to She Xiao that night, wrapped in She Xiao’s embrace. With She Xiao’s chest pressed against his back, he could hear every heartbeat. 

[/scramble]

It was a moment stolen from time. Even if just for one night, the emotional strength it gave Lin Xigu was incalculable.

The next morning, Lin Xigu awoke lying on top of She Xiao. He had fallen asleep in a normal position but he somehow found himself sprawled across She Xiao when he woke up. She Xiao was looking at him, his eyes open. Lin Xigu met his gaze and She Xiao gave him a small smile.

Lin Xigu rubbed the sleep from his eyes. “How did I end up on top of you?”

She Xiao only smiled, not answering.

He didn’t tell Lin Xigu that he couldn’t bring himself to fall asleep all night. Greedily taking in Lin Xigu’s guileless expression, he had touched Lin Xigu’s cheek, his hand, and that not being enough, She Xiao had lifted the whole boy onto his body, letting Lin Xigu’s cheek rest against his own while kissing his hair over and over again.

Lin Xigu rubbed his face against She Xiao’s chest, grumbling, “I don’t want to go to class…”

She Xiao stroked his hair. His morning voice was lower than usual. “Be good.”

That day, the only thing motivating Lin Xigu to get up and go to school was the knowledge that the Gaokao was right around the corner. She Xiao walked him to the school gate. Lin Xigu did not feel as upset as he had in the past, buoyed by the fact that the exams were so close.

They were very nearly there.

This was likely the last time he would see She Xiao before the exams. The next time they would see each other would be to pick up their exam admission forms and take their graduation photos.

At the gate, She Xiao turned and said to Lin Xigu, “Study hard… and do well on the exams.”

Lin Xigu nodded and said quietly, “You take care too.”

She Xiao smiled and replied, “Okay.”

A steady stream of people flowed through the school gates, leaving no chance for conversation in the crowd. Lin Xigu grasped She Xiao’s wrist, his eyes fixed on him, words bubbling up inside with no way to express them.

Finally, with tears welling up, he asked, “Do you think you’ll make it safely through the exams?”

She Xiao nodded. “I will.”

Those two simple words were enough to calm the worries that had been too close to the surface lately. She Xiao gently touched Lin Xigu’s hair. “Go.”

Lin Xigu gave a small wave, then turned and walked through the gate.

As he entered the classroom and looked through the window, he noticed She Xiao finally turning to leave.

She Xiao appeared the same as always, proud and alone.

Meng Tong brought a container of xiaolongbao again that morning, along with a bowl of sweet congee. He ate the same two things for breakfast almost every day.

Lin Xigu’s mind was otherwise preoccupied.

After finishing his breakfast, Meng Tong asked casually, “So was that your partner I saw last night?”

Lin Xigu glanced at him and seeing that his expression was still unaffected, didn’t deny it. He blinked once and didn’t respond.

”He’s a good-looking dude.” Meng Tong chuckled. “You two make a nice couple.”

Lin Xigu was a little taken aback. “You… you’re pretty open-minded.”

Meng Tong shrugged. “My friend’s gay too. He’s crushing on our art teacher.”

”I see…” Lin Xigu rubbed his nose, not knowing what else to say.

Meng Tong smiled. “I always wondered what kind of person your partner would be, with a personality like yours. You’re too soft.”

”Am I?” Lin Xigu blinked. “I thought I was average. I’ve been told I’m headstrong by more than one person.”

“Soft,” Meng Tong restated.

Lin Xigu thought it was rather weird to be debating his degree of softness with someone else, even if that person happened to be his tongzhuo.

”Do you have Renren¹Social media platform similar to Facebook?” Meng Tong asked.

Lin Xigu shook his head. “Renren? For our school? I thought it was only used by college kids.”

“Says who,” Meng Tong arched an eyebrow. “It’s not porn; there’s no age limit. It’s Renren, not Raw Men²Puns are hard. Meng Tong riffs on chengren, which means “adult” vs. Renren, which can mean “everyone”..”

Lin Xigu snorted, amused, then shook his head no. “I don’t have an account either way.”

“Make one. I’ll add you,” Meng Tong said.

Trying to live up to his newfound reputation as an A-student, Lin Xigu shook his head again. “Not right now, I should focus on math. If you want to stay in touch, you can add me on QQ.”

”That works too.”

Lin Xigu wrote his username on a sheet of paper and handed it to Meng Tong. “Add me as a friend and I’ll approve the request later. I’m going to get started on this problem set.”

Meng Tong really did leave him alone after that to fiddle with his phone.

Lin Xigu had a lot of friends on QQ, but he wasn’t in the habit of updating his contacts’ names, so he frequently had a hard time remembering who was who.

She Xiao was the only exception; his QQ account was in a category of its own. Lin Xigu had added him as a friend before they started dating.

She Xiao’s display name only consisted of a single underscore.

It wasn’t until after they were together that Lin Xigu discovered he was She Xiao’s only QQ friend.

That every time She Xiao had been online, he had only logged on for Lin Xigu’s sake.

After She Xiao returned to the city, he also returned to his regular school routine. Li Balei was finally able to relax. “Thank you for what you did the other day!” She told She Xiao. “I- I- I don’t have anything to repay you with, but if there’s anything you need me to do, just let me know!”

She Xiao answered mildly, “No need to thank me.”

He was much too cool. Even though Li Balei had wanted to carry on the conversation, She Xiao’s icy demeanour did not set the mood for smalltalk.

---

Time sped up in earnest as the Gaokao countdown entered the thirties. 

Although Lin Xigu’s condition wasn’t nearly as bad as it had been, it was still not ideal. In reality, he was just gritting his teeth and hanging on by the tips of his fingers until the Gaokao, waiting to see what kind of ending fate had in store for them.

She Xiao was difficult for him to read, but since She Xiao had been certain that he would breeze through the exams, Lin Xigu trusted him and was temporarily put at ease.

She Xiao’s mom was hospitalized at one point during all of this.

Lin Xigu was quite concerned, afraid that something would go badly wrong and cause She Xiao to miss the exams.

But fortunately, apart from missing one day of school, She Xiao went about his life as usual. He returned to school the next day, when his mom was discharged from the hospital.

Lin Xigu asked him over the phone, “How’s Ayi doing?”

She Xiao replied, “She’s fine, no worrying.”

It was raining outside that night. His dad was smoking on the couch, watching television. Listening to the droplets plinking against the window, Lin Xigu was struck with a sudden thought.

It seemed that everyone was buckling under the weight. Everyone was gritting their teeth and forcing themselves to stay upright.

Everyone.

Gaokao was the finish line that everyone was raring to cross, and not only his classmates, but also his dad who had abandoned his work to stay with him. And also She Xiao’s ever-resilient mother.

Lin Xigu found time every day to call his mom. She intentionally avoided the subject of the Gaokao exam so as to not cause additional stress and instead talked only about how much she wanted him to stay with them for the summer, how his younger siblings missed him very much.

She even suggested, with a smile in her voice, that he could bring She Xiao along.

Lin Xigu’s heart instantly softened. He also wished that he could bring She Xiao to a place so far away that everything else could be forgotten and left behind.

Later, Lin Xigu would tell She Xiao over the phone, “I wish the exams were over right now. The first thing I’d do is run to you as fast as I can.”

“I know,” She Xiao acknowledged quietly.

Lin Xigu tapped his pen lightly against the desk and continued, “When that time comes… I hope you won’t push me away again.”

She Xiao didn’t answer immediately. His breathing could be heard through the phone, a phantom of a sound. Lin Xigu strained to catch the faint sound, adjusting his own breathing to match She Xiao’s so they could be in sync, their breaths folding together.

After a while, She Xiao finally promised solemnly, “Okay.”

Lin Xigu smiled, content, wetting his lips as a surge of determination filled his chest, as if he had endless energy to spare. 

---

The teachers, too, were starting to feel the pressure. Having covered the entire curriculum, all they could do now was review key points and common question types, while encouraging their students to focus on their strong subjects and surpass their limits.

Lin Xigu kept up well with the fast pace. He could solve most of the problems he encountered, but he always skipped the last two parts of the final, multi-step problem. He would write down the formulas but leave them unfinished unless he had additional time leftover at the end.

Since he wasn’t aiming for a perfect score, it was more strategic to skip those parts. Spending time on them didn’t guarantee he’d solve them, so it made more sense to focus on the other questions instead.

The advanced questions weren’t meant for students like him anyway; they were designed for geniuses like She Xiao.

Every time the teacher said, “The questions towards the end of the exam are too advanced, so just skip them,” Lin Xigu would think to himself, “For someone like She Xiao, the hardest problem is a walk in the park.”

She Xiao always looked strikingly handsome when he was deeply absorbed in a problem. The way he held his pencil made his knuckles stand out, the tendon beneath his middle finger raised. The form of his hand was captivating when he wrote.

Lin Xigu shook his head, trying to banish thoughts of She Xiao and his hand from his mind, determined not to get distracted.

But after working through practice questions for a while, he found himself unable to resist thinking about She Xiao once again.

He thought that fate was, in its own way, striving to be fair.

The world would always be home to the blessed and the unfortunate. Though She Xiao’s life was plagued with misfortune, fate was nevertheless trying its best to compensate him. It gave him his beauty, his astonishing intellect, and it gave him someone who would love him unconditionally.

All unfortunate children grow up. All demons age to dust.

There will come a day when my She Xiao will chart the smoothest course, will finally find his sanctuary of peace.

Translator’s Note: Work has been getting my goat lately but I am determined to finish this. Sorry for the delay on these last few chapters!