Chapter 21: Act of Bravery
Li Yan was doing his professional coursework for once, while Yun Ci was zoning out in his dorm room.
Li Yan: “You’ve been staring at that page of notes for half an hour. Are first-year knowledge points really that hard to remember? Good thing I didn’t choose your major, law, sounds like a ton of stuff to memorize.”
Yun Ci put down his notes: “Is it possible that I haven’t been looking at them at all?”
Li Yan: “…Oh.”
He added: “Your review status isn’t great, your odds of passing the exam tomorrow are gonna drop.”
Yun Ci made a rough estimate: “Hmm, probably drop by five percent.”
Li Yan, surprised it was only that much: “…”
Yun Ci: “If the questions are tricky, or they test us on parts we haven’t learned yet, I might not be fully prepared. So, I’d say five percent.”
Li Yan thought to himself, I’m going all out against you guys who ace everything.
It’s just an ordinary little quiz, but you’re even prepared for tricky questions and unlearned sections.
But then Li Yan, as usual, thought, this is just his uncle’s normal behavior. During those years at West High, even for English vocabulary tests, this guy always had to compete with that surnamed Yu.
He often consoled himself, the reason he couldn’t get first in the grade was because he lacked a destined rival. The kind who, if he lost to them, would cause him sleepless nights and loss of appetite, and even if he saw his life flash before his eyes before dying, the rival would appear in it.
While Yun Ci was spending time at his second home—Li Yan’s dorm, planning to sleep on the floor there tonight, a new message popped up from a black avatar.
yx: [Dorm check.]
The dorm manager downstairs checked the dorms on time every night. Sometimes Yu Xun wasn’t around and would get marked absent, but more often, his various brothers would take turns covering for him, leaving after the dorm manager finished roll call.
Liu Zi had helped cover once or twice too, entering with a sideways glance and leaving the same way.
Yun Ci couldn’t stand seeing messages from this person anymore.
The black avatar. The way he held his phone. He even inexplicably thought of that day singing in the karaoke room when Yu Xun said, “Yes.”
He had someone he liked.
Who did he like, and why couldn’t he say?
When Yun Ci came to his senses, he realized his mind was full of Yu Xun.
“You,” Yun Ci tapped the desk, gesturing to Li Yan, “go to 608 and answer roll call for me.”
Li Yan: “…You planning to sleep in my dorm?”
Li Yan: “It’s not that I’m against it, but this bed is really narrow.”
Yun Ci: “I’ll sleep on the floor.”
“…”
But Yun Ci still made it back to his dorm in time for roll call.
He returned just in time for lights out, the darkness easing some inexplicable tension between him and Yu Xun, hiding an unspoken awkwardness between them.
He groped his way into the room, just in time for the dorm’s night chat session. Tonight, they weren’t talking about games for once.
Darkness not only hides emotions but also amplifies feelings. Peng Yiyuan started: “I think I’ve fallen for a girl in our major.”
Wang Zhuang skillfully responded: “No wonder Master Peng’s been going to class himself lately.”
Peng Yiyuan had chosen his major with his eyes closed, found people to replace him in class after school started, and the head teacher still didn’t know what he looked like until he met love in the acting department.
Peng Yiyuan: “How should I pursue her? I don’t even know if she likes my type.”
Luo Sifang asked: “What’s your type?”
“Rich.”
“…”
“If you define yourself so superficially,” Luo Sifang joked, “I think very few people could refuse you, like me. Even if you pursued me, you’d have a chance.”
Peng Yiyuan: “…Let’s change the subject, I’m getting goosebumps.”
Luo Sifang: “Okay, to be honest, I got goosebumps too.”
After washing up, Yun Ci climbed back into his upper bunk, habitually pulling the blanket over his head. But his phone kept buzzing.
His roommates were chatting.
The black avatar was also texting him.
yx: [Can’t sleep.]
You can’t sleep, so what does that have to do with me? Yun Ci thought.
yx: [Exam coming up. I’m nervous and anxious. I’m a studious person, can’t sleep if I don’t understand it.]
yx: [Xiao Ci. Teach me.]
Seeing this “Xiao Ci,” Yun Ci turned over heavily in bed.
At that moment, the dorm’s night chat shifted to Yu Xun.
“By the way, doesn’t Yu-ge also have someone he likes,” Luo Sifang said, “you two could exchange experiences.”
Peng Yiyuan: “But doesn’t Yu-ge’s crush have to remain a secret—isn’t it like a secret love?”
After a while, Yun Ci heard a “hmm” from the lower bunk.
Peng Yiyuan: “But liking someone does feel quite special. The other day, I passed by the classroom and saw her sitting by the window, wearing a white dress.”
Peng Yiyuan’s sensitive teenage heart kept fermenting through the night.
He continued, “Since we can’t say who it is, can we say how you came to like them?”
The guys in dorm 608 had witnessed how Yu Xun didn’t mention a word about it and drank heavily that day.
Just when they thought Yu Xun wouldn’t reveal anything this time either, Yun Ci clearly heard Yu Xun’s voice through the blanket: “Maybe, without realizing it, I’ve cared for a long time.”
“If I had to say,” Yu Xun’s voice lowered, as if wanting to hide but unable to, as if whispering in his ear, “…it’s because of an act of bravery.”
It was as if he hadn’t said anything.
An act of bravery, what does that mean?
So which girl helped an old lady cross the street one day?
Everyone ended the night chat session in confusion and went to sleep.
Yun Ci really wanted to ignore the string of messages from the black avatar, but his conscience couldn’t let it go, so he quickly wrote a brief summary and understanding of the knowledge point and sent it over.
He was so flustered that the message was full of typos.
–
“The in-class test papers are being handed out, pass them back, keep your seats apart—” The Jurisprudence teacher said while handing out the papers, “You’re all university students, I shouldn’t have to remind you about discipline. It’s just a few questions.”
Yun Ci glanced at the paper and realized he had overestimated this test. The questions were indeed very simple, not as tricky as he had imagined.
He finished quickly. After he finished, he looked up instinctively to find a certain someone, wanting to see if he had finished, but after scanning the large classroom, he didn’t see Yu Xun.
The teacher was also counting heads and frowned: “What’s going on with Class 1? Are we missing someone?”
Typically, this teacher didn’t call roll every time; sometimes he just counted heads, and if no one was missing, he wouldn’t call names. Roll call only happened for two reasons: first, if he found someone missing, and second, if he was in a particularly good mood and felt like calling roll.
“I’ll call roll.”
The teacher called out a few names, and halfway through, he realized who was missing: “There’s a familiar face who’s not here today. Isn’t the class monitor from Class 1 absent?”
“Yu Xun?”
“…”
No one answered.
The professional course teacher was quite angry, mixed with a bit of disbelief, similar to how Yan Yue had reacted before: “Even though this is just a small test, it’s still an exam—this isn’t just missing a class, this is missing an exam, what’s going on? Where is he? Why didn’t he come?”
The other students in Class 1 shook their heads, indicating they didn’t know.
Yun Ci looked down at the half-finished paper, recalling that when he got up and passed by the lower bunk this morning, it seemed like the bed was already empty.
So he wasn’t there to get a seat early?
The next words from the professional course teacher were very familiar to Yun Ci.
Yan Yue had said the exact same thing.
In a daze, he seemed to return to high school, being subjected to Yan Yue’s somewhat neurotic questioning every midnight: “What do you think is the reason? Where is he? Why can’t he just take a leave?”
Yun Ci glanced at his phone again, the black avatar quietly lying there, without any movement.
…
Evening, after class. In the counselor’s office.
Gao Pingyang sighed, somewhat worried: “I called you in to get some insight. We can’t contact Yu Xun now. You and Yu Xun were high school classmates.”
Yun Ci added: “The kind with a bad relationship.”
Gao Pingyang: “Yes, exactly, the whole school knows. But for some reason, when I asked around among your former schoolmates, they all said the person who knows his whereabouts best besides Liu Zi is you.”
Yun Ci: “…”
Gao Pingyang also marveled at the complexity of their relationship: “Though I don’t quite understand what’s going on between you two, Liu Zi just left, and I asked him, but he doesn’t know either.”
Yun Ci appeared calm: “I know even less.”
“This matter could be big or small,” Gao Pingyang said, “if he doesn’t return tonight, he’ll be missing for a whole day. It’s your first time away from home for school, and the school is very concerned about your safety.”
That was true, aside from personal grievances, it was indeed something to worry about.
So Yun Ci stayed silent.
Gao Pingyang: “If you know anything, you must tell me.”
This time Yun Ci was more serious. He stood up straight and said, “I really don’t know. If I knew, I wouldn’t keep quiet.”
Before leaving the office, Gao Pingyang called him back: “—By the way, do you know where he lives? He didn’t fill out his home address properly, just put a subway entrance. Who knows which part of the subway entrance he lives at.”
…If Yu Xun were here now, he’d probably jokingly say his family is so poor that he has to sleep in the underground passage of the subway to get by.
Yun Ci brushed off this first reaction and didn’t want to admit his extraordinary level of understanding of Yu Xun.
Then he instinctively wanted to say “I don’t know,” but as the words were about to leave his mouth, he remembered something from a long time ago.
Where does Yu Xun live? He did know.
That was back in the first semester of high school.
Before the final exams, Yan Yue was anxious, waking him up at midnight every day by sitting at his bedside and shaking him: “What if that student disappears again for the finals? This is the finals, not just any exam. How can he miss the finals?”
“What should we do?”
“Is there any way? I don’t want that student to miss an important exam in his life.”
Yun Ci, half-squinting, half-sitting on the bed, was very frustrated.
By then, the whole school already knew who the frequently absent student Yan Yue talked about was, and the two had clashed, competing throughout their first year, so he said: “…Then find a rope, get a room, and tie him up in advance. Let him go after the exam.”
Yan Yue: “That’s illegal.”
“…Well, there’s nothing we can do about that.”
Under Yan Yue’s “torment,” and because Yun Ci was indeed very concerned about whether Yu Xun would take the exam—after all, going to battle without an opponent would make scoring high and staying up late to study meaningless—he decided to find out where Yu Xun lived, hoping to drag him to the exam on the day of the final.
“North side, near a sports stadium,” said Scout No. 1.
“South side, he said he lives in a village,” said Scout No. 2.
“West side…” said Scout No. 3.
“Alright,” Yun Ci said, leaning against the classroom window, dismissing the unreliable scouts. “Next time, someone will probably tell me he lives on the east side, completing the compass.”
In the end, Yun Ci found Yu Xun’s address in an exercise book.
That exercise book belonged to Yan Yue and was on the study table. Yun Ci thought it was a forgotten homework notebook but found an address written inside with a “Yu” next to it. The address was not far from his home.
However, he didn’t find Yu Xun’s house that day. On the way there, he encountered a disheveled woman in a nearby park. She seemed to be mentally unstable, sitting on the ground, muttering incoherently, “No, not.” Another man was pulling her: “What are you looking at? There’s nothing to see. Mind your own business. She’s my wife—she’s having an episode, and I’m taking her home.”
The woman was being dragged forward, surrounded by onlookers who pointed and commented but did not step in to help.
“Other people’s family matters, such domestic issues, even the police can’t handle them when they come. Why get involved and cause trouble for yourself?” someone said. “The person may not even appreciate it. Once the couple reconciles, they’ll both blame you.”
“This kind of thing happens often; it’s not easy to deal with.”
Yun Ci ignored all this. Young people never think ahead when they act. He took off the backpack from his back and tossed it aside, then rushed into the crowd.
The man was stunned, probably not expecting anyone to intervene.
“I’ve already called the police,” Yun Ci said, half-squatting and holding the woman’s wrist, taking off his school uniform and draping it over her. “Whatever the issue is, you can tell the police when they arrive, or if you can’t wait and want to fight now, that’s fine too. Let go.”
…
Yun Ci didn’t find Yu Xun’s house. In his scattered memories, that morning was quite chaotic.
He didn’t know much about the aftermath of that incident. He was sent back to school by the police: “Not bad, today’s students are really brave. We’ll handle the rest; you don’t need to worry about it. Hurry back to school.”
He ended up entering the exam room just in time, getting a scolding from Yan Yue for not wearing his school uniform. After that, the incident slowly faded from his memory.
Back in the dormitory, Yun Ci stood on the balcony and called Yan Yue. He wanted to talk about Yu Xun but didn’t know how to start.
After hanging up, he opened the chat with the black avatar.
He typed intermittently: [You…]
Yun Ci wanted to type “Why didn’t you come to the exam,” but couldn’t press send.
In the end, he sent two messages that fit their relationship better:
[Afraid you won’t be able to beat me…]
[You didn’t even dare enter the exam room?]
The sent messages received no reply.
Not only Gao Pingyang, but even Luo Sifang was worried: “Could something have happened? We can’t reach him. Does anyone know where he lives? If it’s not far, we should check on him.”
With a roommate missing, they couldn’t just sit and do nothing.
Yun Ci, holding his phone, stood up suddenly after a few minutes: “It’s not far, I’ll go check.”
It was only a ten-minute drive, about five or six kilometers from Nanyang University, not far at all.
Yun Ci decided to give it a try, planning to take a quick look and leave if he didn’t find anyone.
However, to his surprise, following the remembered address, he passed through the park and reached an old residential building.
The area was full of life, with clothes hanging on racks outside and the smell of cooking in the hallway.
He walked up the concrete stairs, hesitating on the fourth floor.
Before he could knock, the door next to it opened. A woman in her forties came out and stared at him. Just as Yun Ci was about to ask if Yu Xun lived there, she spoke first: “Oh, I remember you. Are you the brave student?”
Yun Ci: “…?”
Woman: “Yes, yes, it’s you. You were wearing a school uniform, probably from West City High School, right? I have a good memory. I remember all the exciting things I’ve—wait, no. Anyway, I remember you. You helped out their family that day. I remember you.”
When she said “their family,” she pointed to the door in front of Yun Ci, the one he hadn’t knocked on yet.
Yun Ci asked, a bit stunned, “Their family?”
Woman: “Yu Xun, yes. Aren’t you his classmate? His aunt had an episode and ran out that day.”
“Later, he asked me whose school uniform it was, and I described you to him. Don’t you know each other?”
“I was there that day,” the woman said, patting her chest as if relieved, “but I didn’t dare go up. I just notified Xiao Yu to come back quickly.”
The woman repeated, “Anyway, I remember, it was you, brave student!”
These repeated mentions of bravery left Yun Ci a bit dazed.
Yu Xun had mentioned liking someone for their bravery, and in his distant, fragmented memories, the police had praised him with “Not bad, today’s students are really brave” while patting his shoulder, almost wanting to give him a little red flower. Now, at this moment, these words overlapped perfectly.
Almost simultaneously.
The door in front of him opened, and Yu Xun, holding a bag, pulled it open. He was wearing a black windbreaker, looking much thinner than at school. At this moment, he seemed heavier, with a somewhat weary demeanor.
Seemingly surprised to see Yun Ci, Yu Xun raised the corners of his eyes slightly when he looked up, a faint sharpness in his gaze that was different from when they clashed at school. “…Why are you here?”
Yun Ci stood at the doorway, meeting Yu Xun’s eyes.
His mind was not just confused this time but also a bit numb. “I…”
“I got full marks on the surprise quiz,” after a pause, with his mind still reeling, his mouth blurted out uncontrollably, “came to show off.”
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