Chapter 35: Forced Education

Song Yu’s life after college entrance exams wasn’t much richer than before.

He still woke up early every day and carried his schoolbag to the library to stay there for the entire day. He returned back home for dinner, and when he had nothing to do at night, he would play games in his room. He didn’t live at all like an eighteen year old boy.

A fifteen year old boy’s interests and hobbies clearly ranged much wider, but Yue Zhishi didn’t have the time to enjoy his life, his time all squeezed into studying. The high school entrance exams were inching closer, and the usually calm Yue Zhishi was also caught into everyone else’s tension and nervousness.

The Song family was much more nervous about his entrance exams than compared to Song Yu’s exams. In order to send him off well, a few days before the actual exams, Lin Rong familiarised herself with the way to the exam centre and plotted out the food menu for the few days of the exams, worried Yue Zhishi would get an allergic reaction or have an upset stomach.

Song Yu grudgingly finished all the food as Lin Rong experimented with the menu. His role as her true born son was to be a free lab rat for her younger son, and he wasn’t allowed to resist.

The night before his exams, Yue Zhishi was released from school early. Lin Rong gave him a long list of things he needed to double check and told him he needed to follow the checklist one by one after he finished dinner, just in case he forgot to bring something. Yue Zhishi felt they were going a bit overboard, but even Song Jin, who was usually quite relaxed, felt this kind of worry was to be expected.

In the entire family, only Song Yu appeared to not care about Yue Zhishi’s exams.

This sharp contrast made Yue Zhishi a bit frustrated.

He felt like Song Yu didn’t care about him the way Yue Zhishi cared about him.

He was shooed upstairs to shower by Lin Rong after dinner. “You have to sleep early tonight, okay? It’s not a joke if you don’t sleep well.”

Yue Zhishi stood up, nodding, and prepared to go upstairs when he heard Lin Rong tease Song Yu, “Xiao Yu, why are you going to the library every day? You’re not going on a date with a girl you like, right?”

Song Yu said with his face devoid of any expression, “You can follow me.”

“That’s not interesting at all.” Lin Rong placed the bowls and chopsticks into the dishwasher. “I’m just curious, you’re an adult now. You really didn’t like anyone during all those years at school?”

Song Yu stayed silent, but his face showed traces of disdain at her curious gossiping.

Lin Rong automatically took his silence as denial, so she said, sighing, “You’re not like me at all. I started liking boys since elementary school.”

Yue Zhishi dragged his feet up the stairs into his room, the pyjamas Lin Rong had washed for him lying on his bed.

He didn’t know why, but the two questions Lin Rong asked Song Yu kept echoing in his head. A bit absentmindedly, he went into the bathroom, took off his clothes and showered, the water running down from his head and wetting his hair and eyelashes. Everything in front of his eyes was hazy — sometimes it’d be white, sometimes grey, and then he imagined a scene where Song Yu met a girl in the library. The plot he imagined was very standard: the two of them just happened to see each other in between the gaps in a bookshelf, just happened to like the exact same book and then just happened to reach out at the same time to get that book.

That kind of plot line seemed to often appear in shoujo manga, but Yue Zhishi didn’t like shoujo.

He also didn’t like the girl who impelled Song Yu to go to the library, even if she didn’t exist.

This slightly nasty way of thinking had appeared for just one moment when it shattered at the sound of knocking at the door, his thoughts vanishing into thin air. Yue Zhishi wiped his face and turned off the water.

“Who’s it?”

“Me.” It was Song Yu’s voice. “Are you showering? Then I’ll come back in a bit.”

“I just finished!”

Yue Zhishi swiftly dried off the water on his body and carelessly rubbed his hair a few times. He left the shower area and realised his pyjamas weren’t in the dry zone.

He usually placed his clothes on the shelf.

Song Yu waited outside. Suddenly, the bathroom door slightly opened, and he thought Yue Zhishi was coming out. But a pale hand, still warm and steamy, extended from the crack in the door. Song Yu couldn’t help but walk over to see what he wanted, and just as he reached the door, Yue Zhishi’s hand grabbed onto the bottom of his shirt.

The accuracy of Yue Zhishi’s grab was as if his hand was a robotic hand in a gold mine searching for stones, each lunge heading directly to a piece of gold. He pulled Song Yu’s shirt once, realised it didn’t feel right and immediately let go, hand retreating back behind the door.

“What are you doing?”

“I....” Yue Zhishi hid behind the crack in the door, showing only his eyes, damp neck and half of his collarbones. “I forgot my clothes. Are they on the rack in front of the door?”

Song Yu pulled back his line of sight and slowly looked around him. “No.”

Yue Zhishi suddenly remembered. “They’re on my bed! Can you help me get them, gege?”

Song Yu went and grabbed his clothes, and then he stood next to Yue Zhishi’s desk, waiting for him to come out after putting on his clothes.

Having just showered, Yue Zhishi’s entire body was emitting soft swirls of steam, his hair still slightly damp. He ran out of the bathroom with bare feet. As he stepped on the floor, he was shorter than Song Yu by only a head, and yet Song Yu always felt there was a natural innocence about him.

He knew people usually entered social interactions based on their expectations of others; these expectations were based off what they imagined others to be, meaningless personality traits such as kindness, elegance and candour subjectively endowed upon them.

He knew this, and yet he continued to insist that Yue Zhishi was innocent.

“Are you looking for me for something?” Yue Zhishi slightly lifted up his face and looked at him. Droplets of water still hung from his lashes like the morning dew hanging on the tips of leaves.

Only then did Song Yu remember what he came for — he walked to the door and brought in the little paper box he’d left outside, placing it onto the floor next to Yue Zhishi. “These are all things I organised after graduating. There are some notes that might be useful for you to keep.” He then looked down and pulled out two items from his pocket to give to Yue Zhishi. One was the protective talisman Yue Zhishi had prayed for and given to him, and the other was a pen.

“This is the pen I use most. It writes really well, you can bring it as a backup pen.” Song Yu told him to rest early after his simple explanation. He turned around, about to leave, but Yue Zhishi called out to him.

“What is this?”

Song Yu looked over his shoulder. Yue Zhishi was kneeling on the floor, the handmade sketchbook in his hand and head tilted towards him in question.

“That.. I bought it a while ago. I bought it in an accident and haven’t used it.”

“Where’d you buy it? The sketch paper is such high quality! Are you really giving it to me?” Yue Zhishi hugged the sketchbook as he stood back up.

Song Yu stiffly made a noise in affirmation and then left.

Yue Zhishi always felt Song Yu’s behaviour was a bit familiar.

He was just like Orange, who would reluctantly grumble and always pretend to dislike being petted despite clearly enjoying it.

One of Yue Zhishi’s hand held onto the sketchbook, while his other hand clasped the protective talisman and pen. He looked down — the front side of the protective talisman looked the same as when he’d initially given it out, but after flipping it over, he noticed a row of words in Song Yu’s neat handwriting.

“May you always be successful,” he softly recited.

He’d thought it would be something like?good luck on your exams.

But not only did Song Yu wish for his exams to go well, he hoped for Yue Zhishi to achieve everything he wanted.

Holding onto Song Yu’s many little hidden thoughts and prayers, Yue Zhishi fell onto his soft bed, his heart full and content.

A small piece of his heart steadied.

When it was finally time for his exams, Yue Zhishi was even more relaxed than he imagined he’d be. The exam questions weren’t as complicated as the questions on the mock exams, and even though math was slightly difficult, he progressed very well, the final two major questions similar to those he’d previously completed incorrectly and had been forced to review. Song Yu had also taught him how to do those two questions before, and they’d left a very strong impression on Yue Zhishi.

Most importantly, the pen Song Yu gave him played a huge role in his exams. His own pens didn’t work well, the ink not flowing smoothly. They were all newly purchased, so it was highly likely he’d bought a batch of bad quality pens.

Luckily, he had Song Yu’s pen.

As he finished his exams one after another, Yue Zhishi cheerfully felt he was doing quite well, and when he reached his final exam, he checked over his work again and again until the very last second.

The hot sun was high and bright in the sky when Yue Zhishi finally left the exam venue. Lin Rong saw him come out, and she went to walk with him back to the car, shielded by her umbrella.

“It’s hot, isn’t it darling. Quickly head in and cool down.”

Yue Zhishi opened the car door, not expecting to also see Song Yu. In such a hot day, he wouldn’t have even dreamed of Song Yu coming to pick him up.

“Song Yu gege, how come you’re here?”

The tone of his voice exposed his complete and utter delight. Song Jin was sitting in the driver’s seat, and he joked, “Everything must be a coincidence today. I was meant to be signing a contract right now, but the other side had something urgent come up and pushed the signing earlier. Xiao Yu also just said something was happening at the library, so he didn’t go this afternoon.”

Song Yu, for the first time, decided to explain his actions without being prompted. “Renovation. They’re only allowing people to borrow books.”

This was a fantastic piece of good news to Yue Zhishi, who was never suspicious of good news. But in this case, the good news was followed by a piece of bad news.

“We can’t go to Japan anymore?” Yue Zhishi deflated into his seat. “But I already had an attack strategy of where to go. ”

He’d already planned out the restaurants and official merchandise stores he’d go to together with gege.

As well as the Mount Fuji gege would’ve really liked.

They all disappeared.

Lin Rong leaned back against her seat as listlessly as he did and sighed. “Who would’ve thought there would be a typhoon warning? And for such a long period of time, too.”

Song Jin chided them. “Safety comes first, safety comes first.”

Because of the temporary cancellation of their Japan holiday, Yue Zhishi was in low spirits for a while. The third day after finishing his exams, his classmates organised a dinner and karaoke party. Yue Zhishi was originally not interested in going, but Jiang Yufan called him two hours before the planned meeting time.

“One Piece merchandise? The limited edition one? Really?” Yue Zhishi was thrilled and ate a big piece of watermelon, fed by Lin Rong.

“Then I’ll go too. Wait for me.” Yue Zhishi hung up the phone and happily ran up the stairs. He carried a basketball when he finally came down — it was the present he’d prepared a long time ago to gift to Jiang Yufan.

“Are you going to play basketball?” Lin Rong asked.

“This is my graduation gift to Jiang Yufan. I’ll give it to him when I see him later at the dinner party.” Yue Zhishi couldn’t resist bragging, “Jiang Yufan bought me a limited edition piece of merchandise I’ve been wanting for a while. I was planning on buying it myself when we got to Japan.”

Using a spoon, Lin Rong slowly scooped out a large bowl’s worth of watermelon flesh. “That’s so nice of him. You should invite Xiao Fan over for dinner soon.”

Song Yu came out of his room half an hour after Yue Zhishi left. Lin Rong was about to carry up the now cooled watermelon to give to him, and the two of them saw each other at the stairs.

“Just in time. Come down and have some watermelon.” Lin Rong pulled him to the dining room and started to scold him. “You’re always hiding in your room every day. Look, even your brother’s gone out to his classmates’ dinner party.”

Song Yu raised his head, glancing at the time. “Dinner party? Where?”

Every time he left the house, Yue Zhishi would report when and where he was going to his family, and this time was no exception. Lin Rong told Song Yu the location, and Song Yu’s only thought was that it sounded a bit familiar.

The dinner party was held at a 24 hour karaoke bar with a dinner buffet. Yue Zhishi arrived later than most people, and by then, everyone had already started to freely eat and drink.

“Le Le’s here!”

“Le Le come here, sit over here.”

The majority of junior high boys and girls matured early these days — even though they were in an enormous room, everyone sat apart, the girls clustered together with their friends and the boys crowded into the corners. The room was a bit dim, the light not quite enough, and Yue Zhishi carefully walked into the room to meet up with Jiang Yufan.

Seeing Yue Zhishi truly carrying a basketball, Jiang Yufan felt everything was worth it and pulled Yue Zhishi next to him to give him his present. The surrounding male classmates looked on and were highly envious.

“Your relationship’s so good.”

“This basketball’s not bad, let’s go play some rounds after this.”

Yue Zhishi actually didn’t really like places like karaoke bars. They tended to be very noisy, and whenever parties were held in one of them, everyone tended to turn rowdy and make jokes Yue Zhishi didn’t enjoy once enough people arrived. But Jiang Yufan was also there, and his new merchandise was truly very well-made. Using the light from the big karaoke machine screen, Yue Zhishi earnestly inspected his new gift, to the point he didn’t hear Jiang Yufan tell him he was going to the toilet.

There were two, three boys in their class who had matured very early, each of them dating, smoking and getting into fights. They couldn’t be more familiar with karaoke bars. Yue Zhishi was a bit hungry, so he ate a piece of apple from Jiang Yufan’s food tray. He’d just chewed twice when he saw those boys heading towards him.

“Le Le, you’ve arrived. How come you’re not singing?”

Yue Zhishi shook his head, vaguely explaining he wasn’t a good singer. The boys were all holding cups, and they jostled aside the people sitting next to Yue Zhishi before sitting down. One of them was even holding a cigarette, a red dot clearly burning in the dim room.

Yue Zhishi’s throat itched from the smell of cigarette smoke. He tried to cough and clear his throat, but his throat remained uncomfortable.

“The smell of my cigarette must be choking you.” The smoking classmate extinguished his cigarette by stubbing the head into the table. He then clapped his hands together. “Look, your face is all red from coughing.”

Yue Zhishi’s throat was still itchy, so he wanted to drink some water. There were many cups on the table, and they all looked exactly the same. He grabbed the cup closest to Jiang Yufan’s food tray, and after drinking a mouthful, realised it wasn’t what he expected. It tasted of alcohol.

“That’s my beer.”

“Ah?” Yue Zhishi hurriedly put the cup down, coughing a few times. “You’re not of age yet, you can’t drink alcohol.”

They all started laughing. Yue Zhishi could tell he was once again being mocked. The boy on his right said, still laughing, “Le Le’s a good child. Don’t smoke or drink in front of him, or else you’ll look like a delinquent.”

“How am I a delinquent, I haven’t even taught him how to do bad things yet. Aren’t you blaming me too early?”

“You can teach him how to jack off.”

As soon as those words left the boy’s mouth, all of the boys surrounding them loudly cracked up. Only Yue Zhishi sat there in confusion — he didn’t understand what had happened and innocently asked, “What’s jacking off?”

Everyone knew Yue Zhishi was a late bloomer, his natural personality innocent and childish, but no one expected he was innocent to such an extent.

“Shit, we’re about to start high school. How can you not know what that is!”

“This is too funny. How can there be a guy who doesn’t know what jacking off is?”

Yue Zhishi was a bit unhappy over how much fuss they were making, feeling as if they were looking at him like he was an idiot. He grabbed out his phone. “I’ll just look it up.”

“Don’t.” The boy who was previously smoking grabbed his wrist. “Since we’re bored and have nothing to do, why don’t we give you some sexual education.”

Just like that, Yue Zhishi was kidnapped and brought away.

They went into an empty room, and the so called sexual education was a boy bringing up a precious, indescribable website as the rest of the boys crowded around him.

“This one’s good. Her body’s amazing.”

“You little shit, your saved bookmarks are some good stuff.”

Yue Zhishi was watching along, very sincerely hoping to learn, when he realised the reactions of these guys were overly excited — but the sexually explicit images still gave him a strong visual impact.

The smoker smacked Yue Zhishi’s shoulder and purposefully teased, “Do you find this stimulating?”

Yue Zhishi honestly replied, “It’s okay.”

“Even this isn’t stimulating enough?” He shook his head. “Is there something wrong with you?”

He reached out, wanting to touch Yue Zhishi’s bottom half. Yue Zhishi was startled enough that he fell to the right, and in all the confusion, someone’s hand accidentally pressed onto an advertisement. The currently playing video was immediately replaced by another scene, a huge video advertisement playing on the entire screen.

“Holy shit, who pressed this?”

“Lu Zi, are you a pervert, trying to watch this? I have to stay away from you.”

“Fuck, it really wasn’t me. I don’t know how it turned to this.”

The cell phone screen distracted everyone’s attention. Having gotten some space, Yue Zhishi propped himself up on the sofa, getting a glance at the content playing on the screen. Honestly, the two videos weren’t all that much different. The only difference was that the previous female role was replaced by a man who was very skinny, very pale and didn’t resist.

Yue Zhishi’s heartbeat abruptly, rapidly increased. It felt like his face was being pricked by many needles, his whole body electrified.

“I’m going to die laughing, straight men must fuck other men!”

“Hurry up and go back. I’m all soft now, fuck.”

They all turned away, but the scene stubbornly remained. Yue Zhishi was suddenly hit by a violent coughing fit, his face turning completely red from his coughs. It felt like the little bit of alcohol he’d just drunk was burning its way down his throat, heating up his entire body.

He pushed away the classmates who’d come up to help him and escaped from the sleazy and unpleasant little room.

It was such a little bit of beer; it shouldn’t have created such a strong allergic reaction. But he truly was feeling hot, feeling there wasn’t enough air — so he followed the corridor and ran outside, ran downstairs until he reached the entrance of the karaoke bar. He wanted to breathe some fresh air.

He didn’t expect to see Song Yu’s figure at the door, standing next to a stopped black car.

Yue Zhishi thought he was hallucinating, but at that moment, a window on the second floor was pushed open. Qin Yan’s voice came out. “Song Yu, are you still not coming back up? There’s no point in you being down there. It’ll still smell like smoke after you come back.”

Song Yu looked up, but the first thing he saw was Yue Zhishi standing at the door. He told Qin Yan he wouldn’t be coming up for a while and then walked over to Yue Zhishi.

“How come you’re here?” Yue Zhishi asked, standing on final step in front of the door. Song Yu reached him, and because of the step, for the first time, they met each other face to face, eye to eye, without any height difference.

“Same as you guys. Group activity.”

Song Yu noticed Yue Zhishi didn’t look quite right. With his two hands in his pocket, he leaned forward, face drawing closer as he intently observed him.

The distance between the tips of their two noses suddenly shrank. Song Yu’s body emitted a very pleasant smell — the familiar body wash fragrance was mixed with the smell of menthol cigarette smoke that had yet to disappear.

At such a close distance, Yue Zhishi’s Adam’s apple moved up and down. He forced himself to not overthink.

“Your face is so red. What have you been doing?”

The author has something to say:

Gege didn’t smoke, other people were smoking and he didn’t want to bring the smoke back to Le Le.

Le Le’s classmates don’t know what he’s allergic to — they didn’t mean for him to drink alcohol on purpose. It was such a small sip, no need to worry.

I suggest for everyone to read my new novel without comparing it to my other ones (and in the future as well), because I want to always be improving and trying new things. To say it differently — things I’ve written before I won’t write again. There are so many topics and styles I want to try. Every time I start a new novel, I always have to go through people comparing my new work with my old, and even though I haven’t written all that many, it’s already become a bad habit hhhh

I’m still going to say the same thing as usual — read the novel you prefer. There’s not much point in comparing. Even if you say my previous novel was better, I still won’t write something similar again.

I initially started writing this slice of life novel to adjust myself, because I’m planning on writing a novel focused more on plot next. I wanted to switch things up with a healing slice of life (and another reason was because I wanted to read about childhood sweethearts myself but there were too little options, I had to write it myself hhh). I didn’t expect to find slice of life so hard to write when I was stockpiling chapters. I couldn’t add in too much drama plot points, and I needed to make the lives in the novel read like ‘real life’, like I was truly showing you moments in their lives. I also needed to establish my characters in such a calm story environment, so as I continued to write, there had to be a dramatic change in my writing style. I want to see myself change; I always want to leave myself with room for improvement.

So it was very clear, a slice of life novel needed a realistic writing style. It’s not right to have vast, dramatic romance moments or unrestrained fantastical moments in a novel like this. There are many glittering pieces of joy in the small lives of every day people — life may be ordinary, but as two people grow up together, the tiny details of their journey are also very beautiful.