The results of the sports meet were announced, and Ke Bu’s class came in third—a completely useless ranking. If Zhi Li hadn’t waited for everyone else, if he hadn’t dragged Ke Bu along with him, they would have had a very good chance of taking first. But Ke Bu didn’t feel disappointed. A little prize money and seven days of free time seemed far too cheap compared with what Zhi Li had given him. What did leave Ke Bu puzzled was how Dora had simply disappeared without causing another disturbance. Suddenly, Ke Bu tapped himself on the head. “That’s not what I should be thinking about right now! We’ve already muddled our way to Section 10, haven’t we?!” Forgetting everything else, he flung open the bathroom door. Zhi Li, fresh from exercising, was showering inside. Ke Bu pointed toward Zhi Li’s lower body, blurred by the steam. “What’s that? Say the word for it!”
“Leg.”
“No, that.”
“Abdomen.”
“Look properly at where I’m pointing.”
“Come closer and point. Then I’ll be able to see.”
Ke Bu slammed the door shut with a bang. That brief glimpse had already pushed him to his limit. Calmly standing there watching Zhi Li shower was far more difficult than it sounded. He paced back and forth across the dorm room. Everyone was on high alert by now, so tricking any of them into saying a banned word would be difficult. But Zhi Li shouldn’t be this innocent and clueless either. Could he have figured it out already? No way. Given his personality, there was absolutely no chance he would willingly let Ke Bu call out another person’s name in bed. Ke Bu kicked the leg of the bed. It had been a long time since he had felt this irritable. While Zhi Li was still showering, he decided to find Ying Xiu Jie and come up with a solution. When he reached Ying Xiu Jie’s dorm room, Ying Xiu Jie was already packing. He had piled several pieces of clothing and some daily necessities onto a bedsheet, bundled everything together, and hoisted it up.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m taking a leave of absence. I’m leaving this place and going somewhere far away to live for a while. Farewell.”
“Don’t make it so dramatic.”
“You call this dramatic? If I could beat Zhi Li, would I need to run away? I already looked online. There are plenty of places in China where you can learn martial arts. I’m going to—” Ke Bu clapped a hand over his mouth. “Stop talking nonsense! You’re going to make this chapter end even faster!”
“Whether I die sooner or later, I’m still going to die. I’m not afraid. I’m a grown man, damn it. Farewell.”
Elio’s Notes: Ying Xiu Jie uses the expression 七尺男儿, literally “a seven-chi man,” a traditional phrase emphasizing that one is a full-grown, manly man. It is not meant as a literal statement of height.
“If you’re not afraid, then why are you running away?!” Ke Bu sent Ying Xiu Jie a message on his phone: [I still have a trump card.]
Ying Xiu Jie, who had already reached the door, stopped and replied: [What trump card? You think you can exploit some loophole and escape You Yan’s sharp eyes?]
[When Zhi Li and I are doing that, I’ll let you know beforehand. Then you call me. Obviously, I’ll have my phone on silent. I’ll look at the incoming call and say, “Ah, ah, Ying Xiu Jie.” That way, the recorder won’t be able to tell what I’m doing, and Zhi Li will just think I’m saying the caller’s name. Even laws that have been revised countless times by countless people over countless years still have loopholes. How could the punishment for this bet not have one? I’ll be in bed. I’ll be doing that kind of thing with Zhi Li. And I’ll have called out the name. Every condition will be satisfied.]
[Not bad. No wonder Zhi Li’s been training you for seven years. Your brain works pretty fast.]
[I am not his pet!]
Ying Xiu Jie could relax now, but Ke Bu still couldn’t. He couldn’t afford to underestimate Su You Yan. Who knew what kind of trick she might come up with? He would just have to deal with things as they came. By the time he returned to the dorm, Zhi Li had finished showering. Drops of water kept falling from his hair and dampening his clothes.
“You never properly dry your hair.” The fact that Zhi Li had managed to survive this long with his lifestyle was practically a miracle. He never locked doors, never looked for cars when crossing the street, and relied entirely on his frightening instincts to stay alive. Ke Bu dropped a towel over his head. “You’re not a little kid anymore. Dry it yourself.”
“No. It’ll dry on its own.”
“This kind of weather makes it especially easy to catch a cold. You’ll find out how bad it is once you get sick.”
“Then I want to find out how bad it is.” Zhi Li said it with complete innocence. He wasn’t joking. The fact that someone with such pure, straightforward thoughts could exist inside Zhi Li was both contradictory and strangely distinctive. Helpless, Ke Bu reached out and began rubbing Zhi Li’s hair dry. “Your personality is seriously unfair. Aren’t you basically forcing other people to take care of you?”
“You’re the one meddling in things that don’t concern you, then blaming me for it.”
“I finally do something out of the goodness of my heart, and you call it meddling.” Ke Bu wasn’t exactly saying anything pleasant either. He continued, “I’m not trying to scare you, but colds are terrifying. The moment you catch one, a female ghost appears and plugs your nostrils with her fingers so your nose gets blocked and you can’t breathe. And that’s not all. She’ll shove her foot down your throat too, so you can’t make a sound.” Ke Bu solemnly filled Zhi Li’s head with nonsense. Lan Yin had already spent Zhi Li’s entire childhood stuffing him full of bizarre ideas, so surely it wouldn’t hurt if Ke Bu added a few of his own.
“You think I don’t even know what a cold is?”
“Sorry. I genuinely thought you didn’t.”
“Want to compare our final exam scores?”
“No. I admit your grades are better than mine. But except for kindergarten, even elementary-school textbooks barely teach basic life skills. And as for the kindergarten you went to… I won’t bother commenting. Just look at the kind of students it produced.”
“What kind of students did it produce?”
“Why are you asking me when you’re one of them? Go look in a mirror if you want to know!”
“You’re saying strange things again.”
“Fine, fine. I’m the strange one. Then answer this: what are you supposed to do when you catch a cold?”
Take medicine or see a doctor. He should at least know that much. Ke Bu waited for Zhi Li’s answer. Zhi Li thought about it for a moment, then suddenly wore the expression of someone who had found the solution.
“Go somewhere crowded and infect everyone else.”
“Whatever you do, never become a zombie! The entire world would fall in an instant!” Ke Bu pressed a little harder with both hands and pulled the towel over Zhi Li’s face. There were plenty of embarrassingly sentimental things Ke Bu would rather die than ever say aloud. He loved Zhi Li’s contradictory, peculiar personality so much he could hardly stand it. If some pure and kindhearted hero or heroine with the compassion of a saint appeared in a manga, Ke Bu would probably just kick them. He didn’t believe absolute saints existed in this world. Either people made themselves look like saints, or everyone around them built them into one.
“A zombie is someone wearing really thick foundation who bites people on the neck, right?”
“Stop pretending you know what you’re talking about. That’s a vampire. Zombies can bite anywhere. I can download some movies for you. Watch them properly.”
They had reached the end of the tenth section. Ke Bu could hardly believe he had spent it chatting with Zhi Li about such utterly pointless nonsense. There was no escaping the punishment now. He might as well spend the rest of this peacefully.
“But if a zombie lunged at someone and bit their chest and their junk, wouldn’t that look like an adult film?”
“Normal movies don’t have zombies deliberately choosing those two places to bite, especially the second one. You—” Ke Bu abruptly stopped. He stared hard at Zhi Li’s completely unchanged expression.
So he knew.
Otherwise, why would he deliberately choose this exact moment to say those words?
He had made Ke Bu worry for so long, yet Ke Bu couldn’t bring himself to get angry.
Right. Why did I fall for Zhi Li in the first place? Because he’s bad beyond saving. How could I possibly get angry at him for exactly that?
Leave a Reply