Suddenly, everything went silent.
All the commenters stopped talking.
Some even secretly deleted their previous comments, and the one about the New Oriental Culinary School quickly disappeared.
It took them a long time to process Yun Ci’s statement and convert it into something they could understand: this was made by his boyfriend, and Yu Xun had also posted this photo.
…
Combining the clues, a conclusion could be drawn.
Someone was the first to react: [Did Yu Xun go to Yun Ci and his boyfriend’s house to fight?]
[Spread the word, Yun Ci got a boyfriend in college, Yu Xun went over to bum a breakfast, and even took a photo.]
After waiting for a long time, Yun Ci finally responded with these two sentences: “…”
“Are they crazy?”
Why would Yu Xun come over just to bum a meal?
…
Yun Ci’s head started to hurt.
He didn’t care that all this was the result of his own conflicts with Yu Xun back in West High.
Sitting across the dining table, Yu Xun didn’t speak, just tapped something on his screen.
Then, under Yu Xun’s post, there was a personal reply from him: [Made for my boyfriend.]
This time, the two of their circles of friends were really shaken.
–
Around eight in the morning.
Li Yan and Liu Zi’s WeChat was blowing up.
Li Yan had an early class today, set several alarms, but none woke him up. It was Liu Zi’s call that did. As soon as he pressed the answer button, Liu Zi’s voice came through: “You’re sleeping? Li Yan, how can you still sleep???”
Li Yan, still half-asleep, asked, “Why shouldn’t I be sleeping?”
Liu Zi continued to yell, “Something huge happened! How can you sleep!”
“…,” Li Yan, still not fully awake and clueless about what had happened, stubbornly said, “I slept just fine, okay? If you can’t sleep, don’t disturb others. Hanging up.”
Liu Zi stopped him with just one sentence: “They made it official on their moments.”
“……….”
A few seconds later.
Li Yan sprang up from bed: “Official?”
Then, harboring a sliver of unrealistic hope, he said, “Which two? It’s not the two I’m thinking of, right?”
Liu Zi: “Yes, it is.”
Liu Zi felt very complicated. He thought the two of them had definitely broken up, after being apart for so long. Who could have imagined they’d get back together?
Li Yan quickly browsed through their moments, finding that the comments under these two posts were numerous. He scrolled several times and still hadn’t seen them all, with exclamations filling the screen.
[What happened!!!!]
[West High’s rivals are together.]
[This world has become so unfamiliar!!!!!!]
Exciting, he thought numbly.
He had already experienced this excitement more than a year ago.
As the best friend of one of the parties involved, he replied to messages like a customer service rep: [I’ve heard something about it, but I’m not particularly clear on the details.]
There were too many messages.
He couldn’t reply to them all.
After responding to a bunch, he saw a message from his uncle amid the unread ones.
yc: [Let’s have dinner together tonight.]
yc: [Bring everyone along.]
Li Yan responded with a dazed “oh,” realizing that their two once mutually hostile groups were going to sit together for their official announcement dinner.
He had no one else to share his current feelings with, so he squatted on the balcony and called Liu Zi back: “Did Surname Yu call you guys?”
Liu Zi: “He did. He asked me to bring all the brothers in the group, said he wanted everyone to meet his partner.”
“…”
The two of them fell silent on the phone for a while.
This day had finally come.
Li Yan said, “It’s been more than a year, and I’m still not mentally prepared.”
“Do you think I am?” Liu Zi replied.
“…”
Li Yan glanced again at the message from Yun Ci.
In his uncle’s messages, there was another line: [You guys are important friends, so I want to introduce you again.]
That sentence was so sincere.
Li Yan looked at it several times and couldn’t help but feel moved.
Finally, before he hung up the phone, Li Yan habitually asked: “You’re not going to bring a banner, right? Don’t do that. If you secretly bring a banner, we’ll look really unimpressive.”
Liu Zi choked for a moment: “Are you stupid or am I? We’re already in our third year, don’t be childish.”
–
The dinner was arranged off-campus, at a familiar hotpot restaurant.
Actually, it had been a long time since they all gathered. In their third year, the coursework became busier, and it was hard to be as free as in their first year, when they could just say they were going to fight and quickly fill the whole East Gate Alley.
After booking the place, Yun Ci told Yu Xun: “Seven in the evening, are you free?”
Yu Xun, after tidying up the dining table and rinsing the plates under the tap, replied over the sound of water: “Almost.”
Yun Ci recalled their class schedule: “You don’t have classes today?”
Yu Xun responded: “I need to go to the law firm.”
Yun Ci couldn’t find a suitable term to describe that man, cursing felt too dirty, so he just said: “…That guy’s matter?”
Yu Xun turned off the tap, the water stopped: “Yes.”
After more than a year, his feelings towards Yang Wei had gradually become calm.
After all, he experienced it repeatedly every day.
Yang Wei would cause trouble from time to time, but when it came to legal proceedings, he would chicken out, trying every way to evade cooperation, even using Yu Ying’s mental issues as a shield.
The lawsuit dragged on for a long time.
It took almost a year just to file for divorce.
He didn’t have a lawyer’s license yet, so he hired a lawyer as his agent. Every day, he commuted between school, work, the law firm, and his apartment.
Yang Wei initially refused to agree, but Yu Xun filed a second lawsuit against him.
Even after the divorce case was over, Yu Xun didn’t seem inclined to let it go. He appeared to be planning to hold Yang Wei accountable for more. Yang Wei felt emboldened, knowing that without immediate police intervention and a medical examination, they lacked crucial evidence.
But Yu Xun never gave up. He even spent his days closely monitoring Yang Wei for this case.
…
Day after day, month after month, as time accumulated, Yang Wei realized that this time it wasn’t him pestering Yu Xun. Instead, it seemed like this lunatic truly wanted to put him in jail.
He didn’t even know why he was panicking, perhaps because he had been watched by Yu Xun for so long: “Are you crazy? You can’t sue me, stop wasting your time.”
“I’m not suing him,” Yu Xun told Yun Ci, “so I’m just watching him.”
“Because a gambler never bets just once.”
He had been waiting for that opportunity for more than a year.
That opportunity to righteously sue Yang Wei.
Yun Ci often felt that those one and a half years occasionally resurfaced in various forms, reminding him of how Yu Xun had endured during their time apart.
—”Being with me will be exhausting.”
So, he shouldered everything on his own.
Yun Ci didn’t have any classes today either, so he went out with Yu Xun before he left.
Yu Xun thought he was going to the convenience store downstairs: “What do you want to buy? I’ll bring it back for you.”
However, to his surprise.
While waiting for the elevator, Yun Ci reached out and held his hand.
At the moment their fingers interlocked, just like the first time they held hands, his heart skipped a beat uncontrollably.
Yun Ci, holding his hand openly, said: “I’ll go with you.”
The law firm wasn’t far from there.
The lawyer’s surname was Zhou, in his forties, wearing glasses, and looking very kind.
After entering, they chatted in the office for a while.
Lawyer Zhou briefly analyzed the current case and then said: “I haven’t helped you much; most of the things were organized by yourself and handed to me. Now Yang Wei thinks we’re trying to sue him for domestic violence. He has no idea that the evidence you’ve collected isn’t for that.”
Yu Xun was one of the most memorable clients he had ever encountered.
When this client first came, he was just a freshman. Throughout the process, almost everything was organized by himself.
Several times, Lawyer Zhou thought of asking if this kid wanted to intern at their firm in his senior year.
“…”
Finally, Lawyer Zhou, with a bit of gossip, asked him: “Not alone today?”
In Lawyer Zhou’s impression, this young man always came alone and spoke very little.
But today was different.
Another young man was waiting for him in the corridor, occasionally looking down at his phone. When he raised his head, his eyes locked onto him and didn’t move away.
They both wore the same color T-shirt, as if coordinated.
Slim and tall, full of youthful vitality.
“Yes,” Yu Xun’s usually calm eyes sparkled with a bit of light, “my partner.”
Lawyer Zhou: “Same major?”
Yu Xun: “Yes.”
Lawyer Zhou: “Good grades?”
Yu Xun who always competed for the first place with Yun Ci now replied without hesitation: “Better than mine.”
Lawyer Zhou’s mind was spinning, planning to recruit both: “Better than you? Both of you come to my firm for an internship in your senior year. If the defendant causes trouble, I’ll send him a lawyer’s letter.”
He and Yang Wei had been dealing with each other for a year and a half.
Lawyer Zhou: “What do you think? The defendant and I are old acquaintances by now.”
Yu Xun finally said: “Thank you, Lawyer Zhou.”
“We’ll see,” he added, “it depends on whether he wants to.”
Yun Ci waited outside for more than half an hour, observing the work environment and overall state of the law firm. After a while, he noticed that the two inside seemed to have switched topics and were looking in his direction.
After leaving the law firm, Yun Ci asked: “Why were you looking at me just now?”
This time, Yu Xun took the initiative to hold his hand: “Praising your good looks.”
“What else?”
“Praising my good taste.”
“…”
While talking, they walked away.
Outside, the sunlight was even brighter, and the streets were lined with green leaves providing shade.
–
At noon, they went straight to the hot pot restaurant.
They had visited this hot pot restaurant several times in their freshman year. It was also where the two groups had once sat after a cultural performance, ready to fight at the drop of a hat.
They were the last to arrive. When they entered, Liu Zi and Li Yan had already arranged the tables.
Though “arranged” wasn’t quite accurate since the two groups were still arguing: “It’s better to sit separately. It’s awkward to sit mixed like this.”
Liu Zi, sitting opposite Li Yan, slapped the table to signal his brothers to quiet down: “What’s the big deal? I’m already making a great sacrifice to sit next to Li Yan. Why can’t you guys mix?”
Li Yan was also annoyed: “Do you think I want to? You used three idioms in one sentence. How did you score in Chinese?”
Liu Zi: “You think you’re good at Chinese?”
Li Yan, confident in front of Liu Zi, who was academically challenged: “I scored 115 in the college entrance exam.”
Liu Zi shook his leg: “I scored 113. If you add the two points for neatness, I’m not lower than you.”
“…”
The absurd argument continued until the private room door was pushed open, and suddenly everything went quiet.
Then chaos erupted—
Liu Zi was the first to stand up, pulling out a banner temporarily stuck together with A4 paper, which read: Welcome, Sister-in-law.
Li Yan followed suit, angrily shouting, “Are you stupid? Didn’t you say only idiots do this?”
But despite his words, he also came prepared. He picked up a tablet beside him, and once it turned on, a bold message scrolled across the screen: Greetings to Sister-in-law Yu.
Liu Zi cursed, “Damn, you’re so vicious.”
Li Yan retorted, “You were unkind first, don’t blame me for being unjust.”
Liu Zi added, “Who’s the sister-in-law??? You wrote it wrong.”
Li Yan: “You’re the one who wrote it wrong. Don’t you know how to write ‘brother’?”
“……”
Yun Ci leaned against the door, regretting his suggestion to have a meal together.
He checked the time on his phone and then looked up, saying, “If we split up now, we still have time to eat in the cafeteria.”
“No splitting up,” Yu Xun said as he followed him in, casually strolling. The black string that was previously hidden under his shirt was now deliberately pulled out, hanging prominently around his neck. “Isn’t this lively?”
As Yu Xun spoke, his hand rested on Yun Ci’s shoulder.
He added, “…I don’t mind being called sister-in-law. Call me whatever you like.”
Yu Xun didn’t care much about these nominal titles.
After speaking, he leaned in close to Yun Ci’s ear and whispered in a volume only Yun Ci could hear, “Anyway—I’ll be on top at night.”
“……”
Yun Ci’s usually indifferent face blushed instantly.
After they sat down.
Li Yan, uncertain of how well he had performed and whether Sister-in-law Yu was satisfied, asked, “What did he say just now?”
Yun Ci, still flustered, replied, “He praised your handwriting.”
Li Yan reminded him, “…It’s a tablet, electronic text.”
“Oh,” Yun Ci, holding his chopsticks the wrong way, said with a blank face, “He praised your tablet’s font.”
_____
Author’s Note:
(Not very professional on the profession-related details, I apologize)
So sly Yu Xun…