Dappled tree shadows swept past the bus window, flickering between light and dark. The sky was deep blue, and the white clouds looked like chopped-up cotton candy as the pale green school bus traveled steadily along the road. Ke Bu rested his right cheek against the window, his gaze vacant. The city is so vast, there’s no end in sight. Find a woman, build a house, buy a piece of land, carve out a view, and after that you’re headed straight toward a dead end. For no particular reason, that line from a movie suddenly flashed through his mind.
The excited freshmen filled the bus with lively chatter. Ke Bu turned toward the window to avoid making eye contact with anyone, but the boy beside him was completely oblivious and patted him on the shoulder. Ke Bu turned back to find a dazzling smile waiting for him. He clicked his tongue. Anyone who could grin that foolishly was, in his book, probably an idiot.
“Hello, classmate. My name is Gong Zhu. Because it sounds similar, a lot of my friends like to joke and call me ‘Princess.’” He had barely finished speaking before he eagerly broke into a smile.
“If we’re going by sound, ‘boar’ would be more accurate.” Ke Bu gave the boy a sidelong look. Large blinking eyes, a small straight nose, slightly upturned lips, flushed cheeks, a slender build, and undeniably good looks. Gong Zhu did not get angry. Instead, he smiled with the indulgence of a loving father humoring a child. “You’re really interesting. I think we’ll become good friends.” There it was, a hopeless do-gooder living in a fairy-tale world!!
Elio’s Notes: Gong Zhu’s name, 公诛 (Gōng Zhū), sounds close to 公主 (gōngzhǔ), “princess,” while 公猪 (gōngzhū), “boar,” is an exact homophone. That is why Ke Bu insists “boar” is the more accurate joke.
“No thanks. I’m not a kind person at all, and our personalities don’t match. If we want to leave each other with a good first impression, the best choice is for both of us to keep our mouths shut.” Acting on instinct, Ke Bu shifted a little farther away. Gong Zhu ignored him. “I’m a little nervous. It’s my first time studying so far from home. Maybe I’ll even end up having a romance everyone will envy.” Pure innocence.
“Don’t tell me you think you’ll crash into a beautiful girl carrying books, and she’ll shyly press down her fluttering skirt and say, ‘Ah, stop looking!’ Then your fingers will accidentally touch the same book in the library and you’ll stare into each other’s eyes for ten seconds, or you’ll pass by in the rain and see her playing with an abandoned cat, willing to get drenched herself just to hold an umbrella over it. Stop dreaming. These unrealistic cliché plots should have been burned to ashes ages ago.” Ke Bu, an extremely realistic boy who never entertained even the slightest positive fantasy about the world.
Gong Zhu waved a finger, rejecting Ke Bu’s assumptions. “I think I’ll suddenly run into a powerful student council president. Everyone else respects him, but I’m the only one who coldly ignores him, so he keeps picking on me while refusing to let me be with anyone else. Or maybe a teacher will hug me from behind in the guidance room when no one’s around and whisper in my ear, ‘You weren’t very well-behaved in class today.’ Or maybe I’ll suddenly wake up somewhere unfamiliar and find someone sleeping beside me, and from then on there’ll be this faint, hard-to-define bond between us.” The more he spoke, the more excited he became, his smile growing brighter and brighter until the space behind him almost seemed to fill with pink bubbles.
Ke Bu’s eyes widened slightly, his back nearly plastered against the bus window. Well-read in such matters, how could he not understand? Everything this “Princess” had just described was straight out of BL!! Shielding his eyes from the dazzling light, he thought, This is bad. It’s the first day of school and I’ve already run into a top-tier shou. Ke Bu suddenly felt genuinely uneasy about the school life ahead.
Elio’s Notes: Shou is a Chinese BL fandom term for the receptive partner role or archetype in a male-male pairing.
The bus slowed to a stop while Ke Bu was still reeling. He followed the crowd off and found a magnificent school gate before him, brick towers on both sides and an ornate black European-style gate in the middle, with uneven walls enclosing the greenery beyond. Ke Bu took out his luggage and stood among the noisy students, squinting at this legendary school. This private academy was fundamentally different from ordinary schools, and he had only barely managed to get admitted because one of his father’s friends taught here. It sat in a remote suburb, an hour by bus from the nearest city district, and even the buses ran pitifully infrequently.
At some point, Gong Zhu had appeared beside Ke Bu again, his eyes shining like those of a lovestruck girl. Ke Bu followed his gaze and spotted that person in the crowd with a single glance. Standing beneath the glaring yet warm sunlight, he seemed to give off an irresistible aura from every part of him. His face was breathtakingly beautiful, so beautiful it was hard to look straight at him, yet equally hard to look away. The boy looked as though he did not belong to this mortal world. Even the tall, slender girl standing in front of him only reached his shoulder. Ke Bu instinctively glanced up at the sky. For such a sweltering season, today was relatively cool. Not bad luck. He had no idea when he had developed the habit of constantly keeping an eye on the weather.
“C-can I ask… ask your name?” the girl asked timidly.
“What?” Nothing could be read from that face.
“Can I ask your name?” the girl repeated.
“What?” he repeated right back.
Gong Zhu whispered, “Does His Highness the Prince have bad hearing?”
“Call him that one more time and I’ll beat you into ‘Lord Bun.’”
“Can I ask your name?” The girl raised her voice this time, seemingly making one final attempt to confirm he had heard her.
“What?” The same mechanical repetition. He had obviously heard her! The girl seemed to realize that too and left awkwardly with her companion. Ke Bu dragged his suitcase over. He had meant to walk straight past the boy, yet his steps somehow became difficult, an involuntary reaction beyond his control that left him a little embarrassed.
“What, are you here to ask my name too?”
“I just want to ask when you’re going to die,” Ke Bu shot back.
The boy did not get angry. He thought for a moment. “Around fifty, probably.”
“You don’t have to answer that so seriously!! And you’ve set your own lifespan way too short!!” Ke Bu could not help shouting.
“Compared with your twenty-year lifespan, it’s not that short.”
“Stop randomly putting an expiration date on my life!!” Ke Bu was almost too exasperated to argue.
“Zhi Li, so you’re here!!” A boy in the distance called Zhi Li’s name and ran over. Ke Bu sniffed unhappily and dragged his suitcase away, while Gong Zhu chased after him from behind. “I thought you were the type who never admitted defeat. Lord Zhi Li said that to you and you’re just letting it go?” Ke Bu did his best to ignore the title and curled his lip. “My survival instincts tell me to avoid unnecessary conflict whenever possible.”
“It’s not nearly as exaggerated as you make it sound. I think Lord Zhi Li looks pretty easy to get along with.” Ke Bu let out an inexplicable cold laugh, his shoulders trembling. Gong Zhu then fidgeted awkwardly. “Th-that… what do you think of Lord Zhi Li?” Ke Bu was no fool. An ordinary question like that usually hid a very unordinary heart. He stopped and turned around. “Who you like is none of my business, but let me give you one piece of advice. Someone like Zhi Li is better kept at a distance. He’ll drain every last one of your maidenly romantic fantasies.”
“You make it sound like you know Lord Zhi Li really well.”
“I’m just good at judging people.” With that, Ke Bu walked away. A kind of love that cost you your very life, and for a man at that? He would never be stupid enough for that. Ke Bu shook his head, remembering a few frightening things from the past. The moment he pushed open the dormitory door, a lewd, corrupt aura rushed straight at him. He caught one glimpse of the figure inside and immediately shut the door again, let out a deep breath, then opened it once more to make sure it had not been an illusion. Ke Bu rolled his eyes toward the ceiling.
“This is seriously like seeing a ghost,” Chu Hao Yu said helplessly.
“That’s my line. What are you doing here?” Chu Hao Yu, Ke Bu’s high school classmate, had a head so stuffed with erotic nonsense there was no room left for a brain. He had nothing going for him but an excellent face and body, and the entire section of the dorm belonging to him was already plastered with posters of busty women.
“This is my dorm. If I’m not here, where else would I be?” Heaven really did enjoy cruel jokes. Why did Ke Bu have to share a room with this thing? He yanked open his suitcase zipper and started taking out clothes and daily necessities.
“By the way, Ke Bu, have you noticed anything different about me today?”
“I don’t want to know.” So this is the first day of school? It feels like the beginning of a disaster. Why did it have to be Chu Hao Yu?!
“I’m not wearing underwear today.” Chu Hao Yu said it smugly. Ke Bu hurled the clothes in his hand at him. “I already said I don’t want to know!”
“I heard it lets you release male hormones better. Crap, look at the time. I need to go find Zhi Li.” Zhi Li. Zhi Li again. Ke Bu picked up his clothes and stared at the ceiling. “Lord Zhi Li, you’re seriously everywhere.”
The name Zhi Li was like an impish criminal, casually burrowing its way deep into Ke Bu’s very bones.