Thank you J for the Kofi. Here are your Kofi chapters (1/4)—
Chapter 16: Come and apply medicine
After sending this message, Yun Ci felt completely out of place.
It was hard to describe this strange psychological reaction.
Before today, he had always wanted to block and delete Yu Xun and had made up his mind that he would never send him a single word in his life.
He and Yu Xun had nothing to talk about.
But after becoming roommates, their interactions in various aspects suddenly increased, and many things started to spiral out of his control.
…
He couldn’t bring himself to speak, so he could only send a message.
Yu Xun noticed the message notification on his phone and put down his pen.
The next second.
The black avatar replied with a few words.
yx: [Just a cut.]
yx: [Minor injury.]
yx: [I’ll put some ointment on it later.]
Yu Xun didn’t ask why Yun Ci messaged him about this when they were right next to each other, naturally acting as if they had always been communicating via WeChat.
A few minutes later, he sent another message.
yx: [How much of the reflection have you written, Xiao Ci?]
He got hurt because of him.
For once, Yun Ci replied to his message: [Six hundred.]
yx: [That’s impressive. Someone like me, who isn’t good at writing reflections, has only written sixty words.]
Yun Ci: “……”
You’re not good at writing reflections. You used to write so many that you got extras.
Yun Ci’s mindset habitually exploded, but then he stared at the message, realizing for the first time that Yu Xun’s way of speaking was very evasive. The main point was clearly the injury he sustained protecting him, yet he didn’t mention it at all.
He recalled an incident.
In the second year of high school, there was a city-level competition, and Yan Yue’s expectation was for him to win first place.
Besides Yan Yue’s expectations, his own character was like that too. He was surprisingly stubborn in certain aspects. Since he was competing, he aimed to take first place. For this, he put in the same effort as when he used to study late into the night, just to surpass Yu Xun and go to Class 7 to challenge him.
In those few weeks, he focused on preparing for the competition.
He even stopped going to the basketball court.
Even when Yu Xun came to provoke him, leaning on the back window of Class 1’s classroom to watch him do problems, he endured it.
“Solving so slowly,” Yu Xun propped his elbow on the window, his school uniform collar open, completely ignoring the curious glances from the rest of Class 1, “….not using the sum and difference formulas?”
“……”
Yun Ci filled in the answer, “None of your business.”
After solving two more problems, Yun Ci held back his anger and said, “Are you leaving or not?”
Outside the long corridor of West High’s teaching building, there were many plane trees, their branches and leaves lush, occasionally being blown into the corridor by the wind. Light filtered through the gaps in the leaves, scattering in.
Yu Xun leaned against the window, looking leisurely, continuing to watch him do problems without leaving, “I’m quite interested in this set of problems.”
He turned his head slightly: “I’m so eager to learn; you wouldn’t stop me from studying, would you, Xiao Ci?”
Hearing this, Yun Ci rummaged through his drawer for a long time.
Yu Xun watched him search.
After a while, Yun Ci found a piece of paper, folded it into a ball, and threw it at him, “Registration form.”
“If you’re so eager to learn, then you go compete.”
Yu Xun caught the paper ball with one hand through the window, turned his head, and laughed, “….If I go compete, you won’t have a chance to get first place.”
…
But he lost in the semi-finals of that competition.
The competition was a points system, and before the exam, there was a flu outbreak. Unfortunately, he caught it, causing his total score to drop out of the top three. Originally leading by a wide margin, his score suddenly fell behind, putting immense pressure on the final match.
Yu Xun didn’t come to the window anymore, but he stayed up several nights in a row, his nerves stretched taut.
The final match was held in the city. For some reason, the organizers even set up an audience section below the stage. Holding his pen and sitting on stage, he spent the first few minutes adjusting his mindset while others started filling in the answers to the first question, but he hadn’t even begun solving.
It was impossible not to be nervous. Under the spotlight, the words on the paper blurred.
After severe dizziness—
The audience suddenly became noisy.
He looked up and saw a group swaggering in through the side door of the small venue—about a dozen students. The leader seemed to make a point of being recognized as from West High, even wearing the school uniform.
That uniform, with no shape to speak of, still stood out on him.
He deliberately sat in the front row, directly facing Yun Ci.
Yun Ci’s right eyelid twitched hard.
Sure enough, he saw that familiar face he would never forget.
Yu Xun brazenly made a hand gesture, and then, led by Liu Zi, the group started shouting on the spot, “Yun Ci, are you nervous? How can you be nervous about such a small competition?”
“You’re West High’s number one, leading second place by three points—”
“……”
On the competition stage, Yun Ci’s emotions were a mix of a hundred feelings, finally condensed into a single “damn.”
Yu Xun. Damn you.
You brought people to watch the show.
But, thinking about it, it wasn’t surprising that someone like Yu Xun would do something like this.
Yun Ci’s emotions were pushed to the peak by this move, and all the blood in his body rushed to his head. Now, all the attention in the room was on him, and his entire focus shifted from the pressure of the competition to the person leading the group below.
When his emotions reached a certain peak, he suddenly became much clearer.
And for some reason, perhaps because he had fought with Yu Xun so many times, he liked to compete in all matters related to Yu Xun.
He exhaled a breath, suppressed his emotions, and began to seriously look at the questions. The questions on the exam paper became exceptionally clear.
There was no way he could lose this competition.
There was absolutely no way he could lose in front of Yu Xun.
And indeed, he won first place in that competition.
…
Yun Ci snapped back to reality.
He stared at the reflection paper for a while, and finally, without replying, he put his phone aside and continued writing his reflection.
“Are you done writing?” Gao Pingyang held a water cup, patrolling inside and out, “1,200 words, not a single word less. You should know that we university teachers are best at checking for plagiarism. Don’t copy from the internet; we want originality.”
Li Yan felt a bit desperate and crumpled the page he had copied with a fluke mindset into a ball: “Oh.”
Liu Zi asked, “What about borrowing ideas?”
Gao Pingyang: “? To what extent?”
Liu Zi: “The kind that’s 100% similar.”
Gao Pingyang smiled wearily: “What’s the difference from copying?”
Hearing this, Liu Zi could only tear up the reflection he had just written.
Gao Pingyang took a deep breath and sighed: “…You two are really a pair of exceptional talents.”
He bypassed the two of them and collected the first batch of reflections: “Those who have finished, hand them in and quickly go back to the dormitory. It’ll be locked up soon.”
Gao Pingyang collected a few sheets in the office, then went out into the corridor to check on his two key subjects.
The two students with the surnames Yun and Yu were sitting together.
He had just approached and was about to ask Yu Xun, “Are you done writing?” when Yun Ci quickly filled in a few lines on his paper, then slapped the reflection paper, which was filled with two pages, in front of Gao Pingyang: “He’s done.”
Gao Pingyang was stunned.
Yu Xun was also stunned.
He lowered his eyes and looked at the reflection paper.
The paper was filled to the brim with clear logic and coherent thoughts.
At the top of the page was Yu Xun’s name.
The hastily scribbled characters “Yu Xun” were Yun Ci’s handwriting.
Then Yun Ci, taking advantage of Gao Pingyang’s lack of reaction, pulled the almost blank reflection paper from under Yu Xun’s hand in front of himself.
Yun Ci: “This one is mine. Only sixty words are written.”
Gao Pingyang was taken aback by Yun Ci’s righteous attitude: “…You have the nerve to report sixty words?”
“Everyone else has finished,” Gao Pingyang continued, “You only have sixty. What were you doing just now?”
Yun Ci replied indifferently, “Thinking.”
Gao Pingyang: “?”
Yun Ci: “I didn’t have any inspiration.”
“…”
Gao Pingyang: “You’d better practice writing reflections more. Hand in 2,000 words to me.”
***
In dorm room 608.
The other three who stayed in the dormitory were like anxious parents waiting for their son to come home, not knowing what trouble their son had gotten into and awaiting judgment.
When Yun Ci, Yu Xun, and Peng Yiyuan were released by Gao Pingyang and came back, they entered one after the other.
The other three immediately swarmed over.
“I heard you fought.”
“I heard you fought so fiercely at the east gate that even the police came.”
The loudest was Wang Zhuang. He had been at the cake shop ordering a cake and missed the whole event, so he had been gathering information everywhere to find out what happened to them: “I heard you fought to the death; the police couldn’t stop you. Each of you had a stick, fighting in the alley by the east gate, and several ambulances came in the end.”
“…”
What kind of nonsense was that?
How did it become so ridiculous?
This is how rumors spread at lightning speed and end up completely contrary to the actual situation.
Yu Xun said, “It’s all a misunderstanding.”
Peng Yiyuan proactively explained, “No, they were saving me. Although in the end, both of them did bring their own groups, looking aggressive, like they were about to start fighting—I think if I weren’t there, they might have actually fought in the alley, needing several ambulances.”
The dormitory fell silent.
The dorm leader, Luo Sifang, who was just about to say, “I think even though they don’t get along, based on their recent interactions, they probably wouldn’t go that far. We should give these two roommates some trust,” hesitated.
Yun Ci looked at Peng Yiyuan: “You better stop explaining.”
After speaking, he asked, “Where did you all hear these false rumors?”
Wang Zhuang: “The school forum, of course. It’s a hot topic today, all over the homepage. And not just the forum, but a few senior sisters from the Media College wanted to use your story as practice, to see the effect of applying communication theories in practice, and posted it on WeChat Moments for further sharing.”
As he spoke, Wang Zhuang opened his phone and tapped into his Moments: “Here it is, ‘Shocking! Two new students from Nanyang University actually did this on the street!'”
Clicking into this Moments post showed a selection of hot comments, with quite a few from former classmates of West High.
1L: This is so typical of them.
2L: As a former West High student, I actually feel a bit touched. After entering university, I realized life changes rapidly, but the flame of their rivalry never dies.
3L: Reply to 2L; it’s not just undying; it’s getting more intense.
4L: They’ve gone to university, and they’ve grown up. For example, their combat skills are stronger than in high school, and their relationship is even worse than in high school.
…
16L: They even study the same major. Are they going to fight all the way from school to graduation, and then into society?
17L: As absurd as it sounds, given it’s them, it’s very possible.
…
As Wang Zhuang continued talking, he realized that Yun Ci had already disappeared.
“One bottle of disinfectant, one roll of bandages, two packs of band-aids,” the cashier at the convenience store downstairs from the dormitory tallied up the price, saying, “That’s a total of sixteen yuan and fifty cents.”
This convenience store was located on campus, right next to several dormitory buildings, for the convenience of the students’ daily needs. Many students usually came here to buy their daily necessities.
Yun Ci swiped his campus card to pay.
During this time, Yan Yue called him seven or eight times, but he ignored them all.
He just carried the items, with people around him sneaking glances.
As he left the convenience store, he vaguely heard someone behind him whispering, “That’s him, the one who fought today. He’s buying medicine; he must’ve gotten injured in the fight…”
“Disinfectant, what kind of injury could it be?”
“A knife wound? I heard they not only had sticks but also knives.”
“…”
Yun Ci couldn’t be bothered to respond, carrying the items back to the dormitory.
When he reached the dormitory door, he stopped.
What should he say when he sees Yu Xun?
“Here, for you.”
Or maybe throw it over with a “Take it, don’t ask.”
Or perhaps say nothing at all.
Yun Ci stood at the dormitory door for several minutes, people coming and going in the hallway, unable to make up his mind.
Just as he was about to text Luo Sifang for help, the door creaked open from the inside.
Yu Xun, who had just showered, stood at the door holding two pieces of laundry to hang, and the two of them unexpectedly faced each other.
Yu Xun’s hair was half-wet, and he looked down at the bag in Yun Ci’s hand.
No turning back now.
Yun Ci squeezed out a word from between his teeth, “Hand.”
Yu Xun didn’t even ask and directly extended his hand.
Yun Ci immediately shoved the bag into his hand.
“You,” Yun Ci wanted to say something calmly, but facing Yu Xun, the words turned into something full of gunpowder, “You should use your eyes. You should be able to see what this is.”
“Apply the medicine yourself.”
Finally, he turned his head away, a bit awkwardly, and said, “…Thank you for today.”
Yu Xun looked at the bag for a long time. After a while, he tightened his grip on the bag and, looking up again, had that familiar provoking expression: “Is this how you thank someone?”
“?”
“You should at least help me apply the medicine to show some sincerity, Xiao Ci.”
Yu Xun continued, “My hand is injured right now, so it’s inconvenient to apply the medicine myself.”
Yun Ci reminded him, “You still have one hand.”
Yu Xun “oh”-ed and said, “It’s inconvenient with just one hand. For example, I can’t open the cap of this disinfectant bottle with one hand.”
“………”
When you could pin someone against the wall, it didn’t seem like you would have trouble opening a bottle cap.
While they were talking, the dormitory building reached lights out.
All the lights in the dormitory were cut off, Luo Sifang’s desktop computer shut down, and only the screen of Wang Zhuang’s phone still emitted a bit of light.
The dormitory was filled with intermittent sounds.
“So you went to that internet cafe again, and that’s where you met them?”
“…Yes.”
Dorm leader Luo Sifang was lecturing a roommate: “You idiot, someone asks you for money, and you just give it to them!”
Peng Yiyuan: “…What else could I do? I can’t beat them.”
Luo Sifang: “Call the police!”
Peng Yiyuan, fully revealing that his family had some money, said, “I didn’t think it was much money and thought I could solve it with money.”
“…”
“Anyway, next time you encounter something like this,” Luo Sifang said, “tell us immediately, and we’ll all discuss it together.”
These voices gradually faded away. Yun Ci stared at the plastic bag he had just shoved into Yu Xun’s hand. It seemed he made up his mind and took the bag back: “Come in and apply the medicine.”
Two minutes later, Yun Ci, with a wooden expression, dragged the now lamp-shadeless rechargeable desk lamp from his bed and placed it on the long table, then unscrewed the cap of the disinfectant bottle.
Yu Xun sat there, his shirt sleeves rolled up several times, revealing half of his forearm.
No one would have thought that the so-called mortal enemies, who supposedly fought so fiercely that several ambulances were called, would be applying medicine to each other in the dormitory after lights out.
Yun Ci himself couldn’t have imagined it.
In high school, he and Yu Xun were like water and fire.
In college, while their outward relationship became even more hostile, living in the same dorm seemed to start creating some subtle chemistry between them.
“If you,” he said each word with difficulty, “feel pain.”
Yu Xun, in a relaxed posture, with his long legs stretched out, waited for him to apply the medicine in an almost leisurely manner: “What, if it hurts, will you be gentler?”
Yun Ci finished his sentence: “There’s nothing I can do about it.”
“…”
Despite his words, Yun Ci was very careful when applying the medicine.
He held a cotton swab, leaning close to the lamp to examine Yu Xun’s hand.
The wounds that were unclear during the day were now completely exposed in the light.
Yu Xun’s fingers were long, with distinct joints. Yun Ci lowered his head, and the proximity allowed him to see every detail, even the fine lines and veins on his palm.
At the same time, he also noticed Yu Xun’s fingers trembling very slightly, so slightly that it seemed like an illusion, perhaps caused by tension.
…Was he nervous?
Yun Ci blinked.
He couldn’t see it anymore. Yu Xun appeared as usual.
Yun Ci stared at Yu Xun’s hand, becoming increasingly impatient.
Holding the cotton swab soaked in disinfectant, he didn’t know why the air seemed so thin and only wanted to finish quickly.
As he continued, Yun Ci found it hard to maintain the initial meticulousness, feeling like time was dragging. Finally, unable to bear the close distance with Yu Xun, he hastily applied the disinfectant a few more times and was about to put on the band-aids.
However, just as he was about to unwrap the bandage, Yu Xun used his other hand to press down on Yun Ci’s.
“Here.”
Yu Xun pointed to a spot near the edge of the wound, an area that was easy to miss if not looked at carefully. He released his hand and said, “You didn’t cover it.”
“Apply it thoroughly,” Yu Xun, completely unfazed, even went so far as to direct, “—after all, these hands of mine look pretty good. It’d be a shame if they scarred.”
Yun Ci: “…”
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