They swept up all the broken glass beads and other pieces from the floor and threw them away. Then Sheng Renxing found a bag, and Xing Ye packed the remaining parts neatly inside. Once he was done, Xing Ye went back to his room to sleep.
Sheng Renxing wandered around the apartment for a while and discovered decorative knickknacks everywhere. Behind the sofa were even two Impressionist paintings that took up an entire wall.
Wei Huan’s personal style was unmistakable. No wonder he had said the rent would only be a thousand if Sheng Renxing didn’t touch anything.
Sheng Renxing sat on the sofa. His suitcase was still lying on the floor, but he had no desire to unpack. He decided he would leave it like that and take things out one at a time whenever he needed them.
What Xing Ye had said today kept circling through his mind. From the moment that person had appeared, every sentence Xing Ye had spoken, every expression on his face… Sheng Renxing could feel it now. He had probably fallen for him. Actually, it had started the very first time he saw Xing Ye—with that unusual enthusiasm and curiosity he felt toward him.
He simply hadn’t taken it seriously then. Xing Ye’s looks and aura happened to hit every one of his preferences. Feeling attracted to him had seemed perfectly normal.
But slowly, that attraction had grown stronger and stronger, until alarms were blaring wildly in his head: Danger.
It was like the first time he had ridden a motorcycle through the mountains. The unfamiliar mountain road had been swallowed in darkness, the sharp wind shoving against him only to be split apart by his body. As the speed climbed, it felt as though he controlled the wind—and at the same time, as though he were skating along the edge of losing control.
The thrill of danger and his desire for control had both reached their peak.
But this was different. Back then, that “loss of control” had still been something he could manage, an illusion created by surging adrenaline.
This loss of control wasn’t. He couldn’t get a grip on it at all.
Sheng Renxing stared somewhat blankly at Xing Ye’s door and suddenly wanted to run away—to go outside for a run, smoke a cigarette, anything.
Then he thought the security guard might stop him as a thief. When they had come in earlier, the guard had stared at him for a long time before letting them through, wearing such a grave expression that you’d have thought the building behind him wasn’t an ordinary affordable apartment complex in Xuancheng but the United States Embassy.
The way the guard had looked at him, as though trying to determine whether he had two bombs hidden on him, had annoyed Sheng Renxing. Xing Ye, standing right beside him, hadn’t received so much as a glance.
Afterward he had even asked Xing Ye whether he had secretly bribed the guard. What, did Sheng Renxing really look that vicious?
Xing Ye hadn’t said anything. He had only pinched a lock of Sheng Renxing’s hair.
Sheng Renxing had originally wanted to find some beer, but there was only wine in the cabinet, and none of it had price tags. Thinking of that nameless piece of junk worth ten thousand, he shut the refrigerator and went to bed. The night before, the two of them had even traded secrets. If you wanted to put it in sickeningly sentimental terms, they had opened their hearts to each other.
But afterward, they actually saw each other less often than before. For one thing, Xing Ye stopped staying at his place.
He had probably rented somewhere outside. Sheng Renxing had wanted to ask him to stay, but he had only just told Xing Ye about his sexuality the night before. No matter how he phrased the invitation in his head, it sounded like, I’m interested in you. After wrestling with it for a while, he gave up.
For another, Sheng Renxing had agreed to enter the mathematics competition. Partly because he wanted something to distract himself, and partly because he felt he ought to start doing something. Big-Head Qiu had posted his exam results on Moments last time, including a photo showing most of the test paper. Sheng Renxing realized his old school had already moved far ahead of them in the curriculum.
That gave him a sense of urgency.
But the next monthly exam wasn’t a joint exam. Coming first at No. 13 High didn’t feel like anything worth showing off.
He wanted a result that could prove he hadn’t come here to “run away from pressure” and take a vacation.
If he wasn’t going to do it, fine. But once he decided to do something, second place was unacceptable.
This mathematics competition was meant to select students who could participate in the Chinese Mathematical Olympiad in December. Ordinarily, only students who had participated in the National High School Mathematics League in September were eligible for the December competition. That was why Sheng Renxing had said it was already too late.
But there was another saying: if you have connections, use them; if you don’t, find some.
The principal clearly had connections. He managed to secure an extra slot for Sheng Renxing.
He even sighed dramatically and sold him a favor. “I swallowed my pride and begged all over the place for this slot. If you don’t bring back any sort of ranking, then my reputation and your father’s reputation will both be smashed into the ground.”
To be honest, Sheng Renxing had been deeply tempted at that moment. He had almost wanted to hand in a blank paper. After that, he began grinding through practice problems.
Because he couldn’t find the materials he needed in Xuancheng, he contacted Big-Head Qiu on WeChat and asked him to help find some problems for him.
His former mathematics teacher even called specially to check on him. Sheng Renxing hated this kind of social obligation most, but the teacher genuinely meant well, so he patiently exchanged a few pleasantries. After hanging up, he went right back to solving problems.
Before this, he had spent most of his time locked in an endless battle of wits with Sheng Qiong, so it had been a long time since he had worked on problems like these. Picking up his pen again now felt strangely difficult.
And he didn’t only work at home. He did problems at school too.
As his deskmate, Captain saw the most of it.
Sometimes Sheng Renxing would get stuck. If he noticed Captain staring over, he would ask, “You know how to solve it?”
Captain immediately waved his hand cleanly in denial. After a moment, he asked, “What are you working on?”
“Math.” Sheng Renxing lounged back in his chair, one hand resting on the desk.
“Oh.” Captain leaned a little closer. “That looks really hard.”
Chen Ying, whose ears were always tuned to everything around him, immediately turned around. “What’s hard? Let me see!” He considered himself pretty good at math. Among all his subjects, it was one of the few that pulled his overall score upward.
Captain looked up at him, clearly wanting to say something. He felt Chen Ying probably wouldn’t understand the problem anyway.
Sheng Renxing was generous enough. He lifted the problem set and handed it over. It was a booklet he had bound himself. He sorted all the problems into categories and compiled them into volumes. This was already the second booklet.
Chen Ying took it, turned around backward in his chair to face them, held up a hand in a “pause” gesture, then pulled a pair of glasses out of his desk drawer.
He only ever took those glasses out when the teacher showed a movie. In other classes, he sometimes raised his head and stared at the teacher as if listening seriously, but the fact that he never put his glasses on made it obvious he was just zoning out with his eyes open.
He stared at the problem for a long time. Then he looked up at Sheng Renxing, lowered his head again, and frowned over the question once more. Back and forth, several times.
Fatty leaned over to look with him. “If you can’t do it, just say you can’t. What are you doing, boiling an egg and waiting for yourself to warm up—holy shit, my eyes! What is this?!” Fatty abruptly squeezed his eyes shut and groped wildly with both hands. “I think I just saw the ultimate truth! I’m blind!”
Sheng Renxing pulled the booklet out from between them. Chen Ying sighed profoundly and stroked the arm of his glasses. “My Professor Agasa has gone offline!”
“Conan’s glasses can’t solve math problems,” Captain added speechlessly.
Chen Ying clicked his tongue. “I knew that!”
Fatty, meanwhile, frowned in astonishment. “That was a math problem?”
“It was English.” Sheng Renxing propped up his head and looked at them. He took a red pen from his pencil case and circled the problem.
“No wonder.” Fatty suddenly understood and slapped his forehead. “I was wondering why I couldn’t even understand the question.”
“Idiot!” Chen Ying cursed him, then asked Sheng Renxing, “What is this?”
Before Sheng Renxing could answer, a burst of noise came from outside the window. He turned his head and saw Xing Ye and the others coming down the corridor from the far end.
The corridor was narrow to begin with, yet Jiang Jing and the others insisted on walking shoulder to shoulder in a line, blocking the passage so thoroughly that the people behind them could only trail along in silent resentment. The scene looked very much like a gang heading out for a fight. Xing Ye was following behind them too.
Because the corridor only had room for about three and a half people abreast.
Sheng Renxing’s gaze shifted to him. Suddenly it didn’t look like a gang entrance anymore. It looked like F4.
He was a little puzzled. What were Xing Ye and the others doing here? Then he watched them stop outside his classroom. The classroom quieted down. Sheng Renxing found the scene strangely familiar. Apparently the surrounding spectators did too, because they immediately began chattering among themselves.
Clatter. Sheng Renxing slid the window open.
“Something wrong?” he asked Xing Ye.
Xing Ye stepped closer and leaned beside his window.
Yellow Hair was the first to speak. “What are you guys doing?”
The window was a sliding type that could only open on one side, so he squeezed closer toward Xing Ye.
“Talking.” Sheng Renxing glanced at him.
Yellow Hair nodded, then looked down at the window and burst out noisily, “Ah, fuck! Here! Right here! This is where you trapped my arm! The damn frame is still bent!”
Everyone else lowered their heads to look too. There really was a slight deformation.
Jiang Jing said, “That’s not right. Wasn’t it on this side?”
“Huh? Was it this side?” Yellow Hair turned his head to look. “Did I remember wrong?”
“Did you come here to relive old memories?” Sheng Renxing watched speechlessly as Yellow Hair held his arm beside the window frame to compare it with the mark.
Yellow Hair chuckled.
Cui Xiaoxiao, who had been standing beside them the whole time, suddenly shouted, “Chen Ying!”
“We’re hiking this weekend. Are you coming?” She stared at Chen Ying, her eyes bright.
Yellow Hair and the others, who had been making a racket a second ago, all fell silent.
Sheng Renxing understood what they had come for and couldn’t help glancing at Cui Xiaoxiao. The girl had guts.
Everyone’s eyes turned toward Chen Ying.
As the male lead of the moment, Chen Ying reacted strongly—but not in the way everyone expected. He stammered for a second, then asked instead, “Hiking? Which mountain?”
Beside them, Xing Ye rested his arms on the windowsill and asked Sheng Renxing, “Are you going?”
Sheng Renxing turned to him. “Saturday?”
Xing Ye nodded. “Either day works.” His gaze swept across Sheng Renxing’s desk. “Doing homework?”
Sheng Renxing showed him the booklet with a smile. “Yesterday’s math homework.”
Xing Ye held it and looked for a while. Unable to tell whether it really was homework or not, he said, “Your handwriting is nice.”
Sheng Renxing nodded. “I used to practice calligraphy.” As he spoke, he took the pen and wrote his own name in the booklet.
“Jingting Mountain,” Cui Xiaoxiao told him. “Coming?”
Chen Ying looked troubled. “I’ve got something going on Saturday. I have to go out with my dad.”
Cui Xiaoxiao bit her lip and looked toward Yellow Hair and the others.
Yellow Hair had his hands in his pockets. He cocked his head at Chen Ying, one corner of his mouth curling up, looking every inch the delinquent. “Then Sunday. Any time works. Whenever you’re free.”
“Looks good.” Xing Ye nodded as he looked at Sheng Renxing’s handwriting, then at him.
“Running script.” Seeing Xing Ye watching him, Sheng Renxing hesitated, then wrote “Xing Ye” in the blank space beside his own name.
Xing Ye looked at the characters and smiled. “You could make a fortune writing Spring Festival couplets.”
“Why, thank you so much.” Sheng Renxing glanced at him.
Then he turned toward Chen Ying, who still looked awkward and unable to get the words out. Fatty beside him looked embarrassed, while Yellow Hair and the others seemed to be getting a little angry. Cui Xiaoxiao was still staring directly at Chen Ying.
“I can’t go this weekend,” Sheng Renxing told Xing Ye.
Xing Ye paused. Even Yellow Hair and the others looked over.
Sheng Renxing tapped the booklet on his desk. “I have to work on this.”
It wasn’t as though he truly couldn’t spare the time. He just wanted to put a little distance between himself and Xing Ye.
“What’s that?” Yellow Hair looked over curiously.
Sheng Renxing didn’t let him touch it; his hands looked dirty. “Olympiad math problems. The competition’s coming up.”
Xing Ye said nothing and pressed his lips together.
Jiang Jing tried to persuade him. “Come on, spending two straight days doing math problems is exhausting. Go hiking and clear your head.”
“No.” Sheng Renxing shook his head.
“Then dinner tonight?” Jiang Jing nodded and pointed at Xing Ye. “He’s treating tonight. We’re eating at Little South Gate.”
Sheng Renxing’s eyes widened slightly as he looked at Xing Ye. “How is it your turn to pay again?”
“He skips our get-togethers all the time, so we’re fining him.” Yellow Hair gave a sly grin.
Sheng Renxing nodded. “I’ll pass.” He waved the booklet in his hand at Xing Ye, indicating he had problems to work on tonight. “I’ll save you some money.”
Xing Ye didn’t say anything.
Meanwhile, Cui Xiaoxiao had already started pestering Chen Ying relentlessly. “I’ve asked you out so many times and you never come. Are you the President of the United States or something? Or do you just not want to go out with me?!”
Chen Ying softened his voice. “I really don’t! I genuinely have something to do! Can you not…”
Everyone was watching them. Sheng Renxing thought, You have something to do, my ass. You were just making plans with Fatty to go play games at an internet café.
Then, without warning, Xing Ye’s voice sounded beside his ear. “What about Xiao Ma’s place? It’s right behind the back gate of your complex. You can go straight home after eating.”
He turned and saw Xing Ye bent over the windowsill, lips pressed slightly together as he stared at him.
The alarms in Sheng Renxing’s head started blaring again.
Sheng Renxing looked away, refusing to meet his eyes, and showed an apologetic expression. “No. You guys eat. I’ll treat you next time.”
