Chapter 233.1: IF Route 5 (Extra 7)
Wu Heng couldn’t bring himself to say it, even when the parrot had hopped right in front of him, urging him on. He still couldn’t get the words out.
“It’s getting late. I should head back.” Wu Heng grabbed his backpack. Not wanting to leave too abruptly, he turned back and said, “See you at school.” One person and one bird standing by the island counter watched his back until it was shut out behind the door.
The twilight after sunset didn’t last long. It faded too quickly to carry him all the way home, so by the time Wu Heng arrived, the sky had already gone completely dark.
Lin Mengzhi leaned on the fence, one hand holding a bowl and the other chopsticks. “I suspect you’re in a relationship.”
“Nonsense.”
Wu Heng covered his burning ears as he walked into the stairwell. His movements while taking out his keys became increasingly hurried and flustered. Love had nothing to do with him—but the mere existence of love was enough to make one’s heart race and face flush.
After the door opened, the warmth in his body instantly cooled. He put on a lifeless expression, as if he had stepped into a tomb, and greeted the three people eating in the living room one by one. Before Wu Zhi could even respond, he had already walked into his room.
Zeng Like helped Wu Shiming pick a dish and sighed. “This child probably hates us now.”
Wu Shiming’s thin face showed a strange smile. “He’s just a kid. After one night’s sleep, he won’t remember anything.”
The woman deeply agreed.
Wu Heng understood exactly what they were thinking. He studied in his room until late at night. After the other three people in the house had gone to rest, he went to the bathroom to wash up. Aside from his own room, his presence in the apartment was very faint—most of his belongings were placed in corners. Like his things, he was the same. He didn’t care.
During those hours of revision, he never looked at his phone. When he finally did, it was already flooded with messages—most of them from Lin Mengzhi, and only a few from Xie Chongyi.
[Class Monitor: Got home?]
[Class Monitor: It seems Xiao Xie really likes you. After you left, it was still at the window looking down.]
[Class Monitor: Do you have someone you like at school?]
[Class Monitor: I’m certain you don’t.]
After replying with a question mark, Wu Heng randomly selected a sticker and sent it to Lin Mengzhi. Anyway, Lin Mengzhi didn’t care what he replied with—he just kept sending messages on his own.
The chat window was completely empty. It was too late, and Xie Chongyi hadn’t replied. After thinking for a moment, he typed “Good night” and sent it over—but just as he saw Lin Mengzhi’s side showing typing…, and guessed another incoming barrage of messages, he turned off his phone, closed his eyes, and fell asleep.
Early the next morning, Wu Heng opened the chat filled with “99+” messages and again randomly sent a sticker.
The school commute was the same as usual. He went to school alone, passing by groups walking together. At worst, even lone students would find companions at the school gate—only he remained alone from start to finish.
But his presence didn’t draw attention. Once someone accepts their own loneliness, the world also accepts that person’s loneliness. However, that didn’t mean the boy’s appearance was as unremarkable as his movements.
His eyes, his nose, his lips, the elegant lines of his face, even the faint crease between his brows when he frowned in annoyance—all of it had been discovered and recorded by attentive girls in the “No. 1 Middle School Beauty Book.” And after summarizing their observations, they concluded that Wu Heng was actually the most beautiful person in the entire history of the school.
However, even such a dazzling title couldn’t add much brilliance to someone like Wu Heng, who was as plain and solid as a pebble. Most classmates cared more about who embarrassed themselves by pulling their pants down during the flag-raising ceremony than about beauty—and good-looking people often became nothing more than someone’s private thought.
For example, Xie Chongyi—his focus wasn’t as vulgar as other people’s—but before Wu Heng even walked into the classroom, he had already been sitting at his seat, spinning a pen for almost half an hour. Normally, he only arrived right on time for class.
The boy rested his chin on his hand, casually observing everyone who walked into the classroom. But in truth, there was nothing in his eyes—he wasn’t looking at anyone at all. It was as if a hazy fog had obscured his vision. The people walking in were chickens and ducks, cattle and horses, shrubs and bushes—anything, but not human beings.
Until Wu Heng appeared, the sunlight seemed to disperse the thick fog lingering in the classroom. Only then did he hear a few hurried shouts: “It’s raining! A torrential downpour!”
Xie Chongyi lowered his left hand and moved his stiff neck, then switched to supporting his face with his right hand. He watched, unhurried, as Wu Heng came closer and closer, admiring the way droplets slid from his hair tips, down his cheeks, and along his face.
Wu Heng kept wiping them away with his palm, but there were always stray drops slipping through, sliding into his collar and tracing down his chest and abdomen.
He could replace them. He could lick deeper than they could.
Xie Chongyi blinked once, finding this turn of events rather troubling. He had originally thought that his feelings for the other person would be slightly more noble and pure than the common emotions in society.
Yet that self-assumed belief hadn’t even lasted twenty-four hours before he realized he might have crowned himself the king of indecency because of this budding fixation.
Wu Heng, completely unaware that their friendship had already changed in nature, gave Xie Chongyi a smile that, in the other’s eyes, could only be described as sweet, and said, “Good morning, Class Monitor.”
Xie Chongyi reacted quickly, curling his lips into a smile. “Morning.”
—
During the final stage of revision, coursework was heavy. The laughter in school rarely came from the senior year students; even after class, the classroom remained quiet.
Wu Heng lay on his desk for a nap, using the stack of worksheets handed out that morning as a pillow—multiple subjects layered together.
He had risen more than twenty places in the grade ranking in this monthly exam. The paper had been difficult, and he was one of the few who could still manage to sleep through it.
At school, he didn’t interact much with Xie Chongyi. One sat in the front-right of the classroom, the other in the back-left. They weren’t in a relationship where speaking was necessary; in student life, that kind of distance was roughly equivalent to half the Earth.
Yet such a distant gap still allowed Xie Chongyi to look in that direction without restraint.
In just one morning, Xie Chongyi had already noticed several moles on Wu Heng’s body—each one, in his mind, no less significant than Newton discovering gravity.
Until a snap echoed in front of him.
Xue Shen pulled out the empty chair in front of Xie Chongyi and sat down, following his line of sight. “What are you looking at?”
Xie Chongyi calmly withdrew his gaze and said indifferently, “I don’t chat with people who don’t have guaranteed admission.”
“……”
That sentence successfully redirected Xue Shen’s anger.
“You’ve been disappearing every weekend for several weeks now,” Xue Shen said. “Xue Qi has asked me about it several times.”
“Does he need something from me?”
“…Not really. He just wanted to ask if you want to play games together.”
“Boring,” Xie Chongyi replied flatly. “The college entrance exams are coming soon. Doesn’t he know that?”
“Then I guess he’s just wondering what you’ve been doing all this time. Can’t he ask?” Xue Shen was increasingly suspicious that his friend had been doing something shady during his free time.
“Nothing much. I just went out to eat a few meals with Wu Heng.”
Xie Chongyi hadn’t intended to hide it in the first place, but he also didn’t have the habit of detailing his schedule to others. However, not telling his friends about his relationship with Wu Heng might have had another reason: he felt their relationship was still more than what it seemed, and it was too early to define it.
At the same time, he didn’t want to act secretively either. He and Wu Heng weren’t anything shameful.
Xue Shen’s mind took a moment to catch up. With Wu Heng? Eating together? Wait—how did Xie Chongyi and Wu Heng even end up together? Was it just because of that unavoidable shared-room situation some time ago?
“You two had a one-night stand?” Xue Shen raised an eyebrow, deliberately pushing the exaggeration further.
Xie Chongyi paused for a moment, then let out a helpless sigh. “I’m afraid I have to disappoint you. Things didn’t develop in the direction you’re imagining.”
At times, Xue Shen really wondered if Xie Chongyi would die without speaking in riddles.
But as a friend, he also understood him. The reason he always spoke in such an indirect, roundabout way was because the other person was simply performing a solo act—no one else was on the same stage.
Xue Shen turned to look at the person at the center of the topic. Only half of Wu Heng’s face was visible. He was calm, like a small stretch of lake in a winter wilderness. He lay there sleeping—unlike Xie Chongyi, who was constantly restless and energetic.
“Does he know?” Xue Shen asked, then answered himself. “He doesn’t.”
A person like Wu Heng, if he found out that Xie Chongyi liked him, would probably turn and run immediately.
Still, Xue Shen couldn’t be sure he was right—after all, the first time he met Xie Chongyi, he had also misjudged him as arrogant, brainless, and having vulgar taste with nothing but a pretty face.
So curiosity crept in. “But you two don’t look familiar at all.”
Xie Chongyi sent him away. He didn’t like discussing his private matters with anyone. Besides, even he himself was only a discoverer of this situation—he hadn’t decided what to do about Wu Heng yet.
After all, Wu Heng wasn’t really his snake. He was a living, breathing person. He couldn’t truly keep him like a snake in a warm box, feeding him a few pinky mice every day and then placing him beside his pillow when he slept…
The more Xie Chongyi thought about it, the more appealing it became, and the clearer he became about what he wanted to do.
But snakes were usually timid and easily startled. Xie Chongyi adopted the same posture as when he napped with Wu Heng and lay down on his desk, thinking to himself that his smooth, trouble-free high school life had finally been interrupted by something irritating.
The heavy rain had eased into a light drizzle in the afternoon, but it never fully stopped. Even by the time school ended, it was still falling steadily.
Wu Heng was one of the few students who had brought an umbrella.
He paid no attention to the classmates stuck in the classroom, slung his backpack over his shoulder, took out his umbrella from the desk drawer, and walked out amid the envious gaze of his deskmate.
Less than three minutes later, the boy who had left hurriedly came rushing back, slightly out of breath. He stood at the classroom door, scanning the room, and as expected, he found Xie Chongyi.
Just as he thought, the class monitor didn’t have an umbrella either.
But he wouldn’t ignore Xie Chongyi the way he ignored others. He pushed through the people crowded at the front of the room, frustratedly watching the rain, his hair slightly messy, and walked up to him in a low voice.
“Leaving or not?”
Xie Chongyi was leaning sideways, rummaging through his desk when he looked up in a hurry. “Hm?”
“You don’t have an umbrella. I’ll take you to get a taxi. Let’s go.”
Wu Heng was always generous toward “his own people.”
Xie Chongyi confirmed that his own umbrella was properly hidden, stood up with his backpack, and very naturally put an arm around Wu Heng’s shoulder.
“The rain outside is really heavy. Good thing I have you.”
Wu Heng glanced at the arm resting on his shoulder with a puzzled look—did they really need to use a posture meant for sharing an umbrella while they were still indoors?
The umbrella ended up in Xie Chongyi’s hand. Being slightly taller than Wu Heng, he tilted most of it toward him. Then, as if casually, he brought up the parrot.
“After you left yesterday, Xiao Xie kept acting up.”
“Ah?” Wu Heng didn’t immediately react, still not used to calling the bird “Xiao Xie.” “Oh, really? Maybe it’s just not used to the new environment. It’s not because of me.”
“It knows your name. It must be because of you.”
Wu Heng looked at him.
Xie Chongyi smiled at him. “I didn’t teach it.”
The boys usually went home by taxi. Many cars were waiting at the intersection.
Wu Heng took the umbrella from his hand, holding it over the roof of the car. Only after the other boy got in did a sudden grip close around his damp, cold wrist.
“There’s still some time before the college entrance exams,” the boy said. “Tell your dad this—my house is quieter, better for studying. Come stay at my place.”
Wu Heng’s gaze was distant and unfocused. “You care about my studies more than my own father does.”
The back of the taxi disappeared into the rain curtain.
Wu Heng rested the umbrella on his shoulder. The puddles on the road easily soaked his old canvas shoes. After refusing Xie Chongyi’s suggestion, his mind remained blank for a long time.
He had always believed that humans, like many lower animals, possessed a strong sense of territory. Even though he had never been qualified to have such a thing himself, that didn’t mean Xie Chongyi didn’t.
And someone as proud and aloof as Xie Chongyi would find it even harder to truly open his home to someone—yesterday had only been a visit, not living together. Living together meant sharing a nest, like animals do.
But he had invited him. He had shared it with him.
Wu Heng did not avoid a single puddle on the road. He even deliberately let water spill into his shoes. The coldness below his ankles could not offset the heat spreading through the rest of his body.
