TFOF Ch3

No one would ever know just how much effort Qi Wu exerted that day to suppress the maddening desire raging within his body when Xie Xishu hurriedly tried to leave him.

When he grabbed Xie Xishu by the collar and pulled him close, what he truly wanted was definitely not to ask if the other had worn perfume—he knew better than anyone that the captivating scent was something no blend of fragrances could ever replicate.

He could tell.

That heavenly, exquisite scent came from deep within the boy’s skin, damp with sweat.

Too exquisite, too sweet, rich, and intoxicating.

So much so that in that instant of touching the other, Qi Wu was horrified to find that he… he actually wanted to lick him.

*

The thought was absurd but overwhelmingly strong.

Even Qi Wu himself was alarmed and bewildered by this strange desire, a certain formless fear suddenly engulfing him. In that moment, he briefly regained his fragile sanity and let go of the boy.

But Qi Wu knew things weren’t that simple.

His family had always praised Qi Wu for having a beast-like sharp instinct when working, his intuition always so precise, never wrong.

This time was no different.

His instincts were screaming, warning him that he was sliding into an abyss—one that was unknowable and indescribable.

He was facing utter disaster.

However, that day, Qi Wu still put on an indifferent and lazy façade. He casually took the clothes Xie Xishu had left on the bench, acting so well that no one noticed how his hand trembled as he stuffed the school uniform into his backpack.

That night, when Qi Wu returned to his nearly empty room, he closed all the doors and windows, disabling the ventilation system.

Then, he carefully took out the school uniform.

Qi Wu’s throat moved as he pressed the uniform against his face.

Xie Xishu’s scent still lingered in the fibers of the cheap fabric, and as Qi Wu breathed heavily, it was continuously drawn into his nose, gently and tenderly soothing every one of his olfactory cells.

Qi Wu closed his eyes, stretching his back in the darkness, sinking into that unbelievably wonderful scent.

…After a long time, Qi Wu realized that his tongue had already stretched out, like a long, red, wet snake, tightly coiling around the collar of the uniform—the place where that person’s scent was the strongest.

And his saliva had soaked that spot thoroughly.

*

Qi Wu was startled by himself.

A normal human tongue could never be like his—so thin, so long, so flexible, as if it were the tongue of a scaled-up reptile.

Or as if an alien creature had unknowingly parasitized his body.

Startled, Qi Wu let go, and the next second, his tongue snapped back into the depths of his mouth.

Qi Wu frowned.

He went to the mirror and looked at himself. From the outside, he still looked the same as always, completely normal like any other person, but when Qi Wu opened his mouth, he noticed more abnormalities.

His jaw seemed to open very wide.

Some fine white spots were wriggling under the deep red mucous membrane inside his mouth, ready to spring out at any moment.

The muscles of his tongue had become unusually strong, powerful, and significantly long.

Of course, there were other things that had nothing to do with his appearance.

Qi Wu realized that while absorbing the tiny, pitiful scent molecules from the uniform, he had also developed an uncontrollable hunger and desire for the owner of that scent.

*

He was very hungry.

*

……

……

The next day, after noticing Qi Wu inexplicably staring at him, Xie Xishu was late.

The reason for his tardiness was a nightmare.

Naturally, the main character of the nightmare was Qi Wu. In that dream, Xie Xishu decisively pushed away the desk and walked straight to the back of the classroom where Qi Wu sat.

“Why do you keep staring at me?”

Xie Xishu heard himself ask in the dream, his voice trembling violently, filled with fear.

Dream Qi Wu still maintained that lazy posture that Xie Xishu remembered, but his entire figure was shrouded in a dark shadow, his features and expression a blurred mess. It wasn’t until after Xie Xishu’s questioning that he slowly raised his head and then grinned at the boy standing in front of him.

The moment Xie Xishu saw that face, he let out a short scream—

A tongue.

A long, red tongue stretched out from Qi Wu’s mouth.

But Qi Wu’s face didn’t just have one tongue. His eye sockets, where his eyeballs should have been, had sprouted two more wet, thick, saliva-dripping tongues, wriggling like a snail’s tentacles, reaching toward Xie Xishu.

Xie Xishu couldn’t escape at all, as those tongues coiled around him like the most greedy, cunning anacondas.

“I stare at you because… I really… really want to lick you…”

The vague mutterings spilled from Qi Wu’s throat, stuffed full of tongues.

“You’re sweet.”

“I want to lick you.”

“Let me have a taste… I won’t bite you… I just want to lick…”

More tongues sprouted from Qi Wu’s body.

And at that moment, they all wrapped around Xie Xishu.

……

……

Xie Xishu sat up from bed, drenched in sweat.

A large amount of cold sweat had soaked through his pajamas, and the sticky feeling on his skin made the images from the nightmare even more vivid, so much so that Xie Xishu couldn’t help but cover his mouth and retch.

Fortunately, after a few minutes, as the grogginess of just waking up faded, Xie Xishu calmed down. Forcing himself to get up, he rummaged through his bedside table for a thermometer. After taking his temperature, the number on the LCD screen made Xie Xishu’s already pale face even more bloodless.

He had a fever again.

“Ugh—”

A wave of intense self-loathing surged over Xie Xishu.

He knew very well why he had a fever—it was simply because noticing Qi Wu constantly staring at him caused him too much stress, and that stress led to his fever.

This had happened many times already, so many that even Xie Xishu had gotten used to it.

Since his parents had long gone abroad for work, there was no one else at home. After getting up, Xie Xishu made himself some fever medicine, packed his school bag, and prepared to go to school. However, the moment he opened the door, the humid, stifling summer air rushed into the room, enveloping Xie Xishu’s body. In a daze, Xie Xishu once again thought of the nightmare from the previous night.

Qi Wu’s dark and strange gaze, and the sticky, warm sensation of those tongues, still lingered faintly on him… as if he had never truly woken up from the nightmare.

Xie Xishu’s steps paused briefly.

…Actually, since he wasn’t feeling well, it wouldn’t be a problem if he stayed home to rest. Nanming Third High wasn’t strict about attendance, and besides, he had the privileges of being a top student. Even if he took a day off, no teacher would pursue the matter.

The pale, slender boy gripped the door handle with one hand, absentmindedly picking at the strap of his school bag with the other. He stood there for several seconds, then suddenly shuddered slightly. Then, as if waking from a dream, he slammed the door shut—with a bang. In the final second before the door closed, Xie Xishu unconsciously lifted his head, his gaze landing at the end of the corridor.

The door to his parents’ bedroom remained tightly shut.

*

He couldn’t say why.

But for some reason, he didn’t want to stay home just because of a routine fever, even if there was no one else at home.

*

……

……

After dragging himself to take medicine and leaving the house, by the time Xie Xishu arrived at school, the bell for morning self-study had long since rung.

But he didn’t pay much attention to it. After all, at Nanming Third High School, whether it was the morning self-study bell or the class bell, they had always been more symbolic than anything. For the students here, just showing up at school was already considered being obedient.

However, today, things were different from what Xie Xishu remembered.

He hadn’t even reached the school gate yet when he heard the distant sound of commotion. Then, he saw that, at the school gate, where no one usually cared whether students were late or left early, a large crowd had already gathered.

And a familiar figure, standing with the imposing demeanor of one who could hold back a thousand enemies, was blocking the school gate, holding a pointer with a livid expression.

It was none other than Teacher Li.

Despite not being very old, Teacher Li, likely to maintain authority over the students, always wore a somewhat outdated and stiff suit, and today was no exception.

The only difference was that today, Teacher Li really did seem capable of intimidating the students: the young female teacher’s eyes were filled with red veins, and behind her thick glasses, her slightly bulging eyes stared so wide it seemed they could fall out of their sockets at any moment.

Her expression was unusually severe, so severe that even her face looked somewhat twisted.

When she spoke, her voice was even sharper and louder than usual.

Even from a distance, Xie Xishu could hear her roaring: “Haven’t I told you all before, if you’re coming to school, you should behave like students?! The school rules say you must wear uniforms and follow the regulations, so you should listen properly. Otherwise, don’t come to school. Look at yourselves… showing up late with those grins on your faces. Do you even realize that if you keep acting like this, you’ll only become society’s trash and scum…”

Faced with her tirade, the few students blocked by Teacher Li at the school gate didn’t respond, but it was clear they weren’t afraid of her. They were simply stunned by this sudden change in her behavior.

Everyone knew that Nanming Third High had been like this for a long time, and Teacher Li hadn’t been there for long. Any normal person should have figured out how things worked by now. Yet today, this teacher seemed to have gone mad, not only starting to care about their studies but also nitpicking over minor things like not wearing uniforms and being late.

Okay, maybe in other schools, this would be normal.

But at Third High, Teacher Li’s actions were practically absurd comedy. If anyone had dared to speak to these unruly students like that on a normal day, they would have certainly retaliated.

However, today, Teacher Li was different from any other day. There was a palpable sense of agitation around the young teacher, a feeling that made everyone uneasy. It was obvious to anyone that something wasn’t right with her.

For the moment, everyone was cowed by her aura. Even the most troublesome students stood still, dazed and unmoving.

Xie Xishu’s eyelid twitched suddenly. He had an inexplicable sense of foreboding and instinctively took a step back—yet, from a distance, Teacher Li’s sharp gaze immediately caught him, as if she had eyes in the back of her head.

…She caught him red-handed.

*

A few minutes later, at the school gate—

“Xie Xishu? You… how did you end up like this too?”

Teacher Li’s eyes were full of reproach as she looked at Xie Xishu. She mumbled the words, her voice trembling slightly.

Xie Xishu didn’t respond. He wasn’t exactly the type to give up on himself like the other students at Third High, but even he found himself at a loss for words in this situation.

It was just being late. Even in a regular, reputable high school, it wouldn’t be such a big deal. But to Teacher Li, it seemed like an unforgivable, grave mistake.

“Go stand over there—later, all of you are going to have your names taken down!”

Seeing that Xie Xishu didn’t react, Teacher Li grew even more agitated. She glared at him, frustrated and angry, the vein on her temple throbbing rhythmically, her pupils squeezed into tiny dots by the red whites of her eyes.

Xie Xishu’s lips moved slightly, but before he could say anything, the sight of her overly excited face made him fall silent again.

“…”

He silently walked over to join the group of unfortunate students at the gate, experiencing the punishment of standing in place.

“You lot, don’t think being late is a small matter. It’s because you don’t take the school rules seriously that you’ve become so undisciplined. If you keep drifting through life aimlessly like this, your future will be completely ruined. You’ll drag down your families, drag down society…”

After gathering the students, Teacher Li’s emotions didn’t calm down; instead, she became more excited, her voice rising higher and higher.

“Damn, is this crazy woman addicted to scolding people? Does she really think we’re scared of her?!”

“Yeah, we’ve been giving her a break since she’s clearly lost it, but if she keeps going on like this, we’ll have to put her in her place.”

…

Xie Xishu overheard some boys nearby grumbling impatiently.

Meanwhile, someone from the teacher’s side also noticed the growing agitation in the crowd. A staff member approached Teacher Li, speaking a few words to her in an attempt to calm down the visibly abnormal woman.

Just as the situation was becoming increasingly chaotic, several figures appeared at the school gate, distinct from the rest of the students.

The previously noisy crowd fell silent with their arrival.

The newcomers were none other than Qi Wu and his gang.

“Hey, what’s going on here? Why’s everyone crowded here?”

The first to speak was Xiao Wu, who peeked over at the scene at the gate, raised an eyebrow, and exclaimed with interest.

“No way? Damn, since when did Third High start cracking down on lateness? Have they gone mad?”

Looking around, the newcomers quickly grasped the situation, and their voices now carried a note of surprise.

Hearing the clearly impolite shouting from those young students, the dean, who had been trying hard to calm Teacher Li, didn’t scold them but instead turned pale in an instant.

Even Teacher Li’s voice lowered, as if she had suddenly snapped out of her previously neurotic excitement.

She stared fixedly at Qi Wu, her cheeks twitching several times.

Qi Wu was obviously one of the late students, and according to Teacher Li’s earlier ranting, he should be one of those whose names would be recorded and reported to the entire school for criticism… but really, was there anyone who dared to publicly criticize Qi Wu?

The situation instantly became awkward, but what no one expected was that Qi Wu actually took the initiative to stop in front of Teacher Li.

The boy’s cold and indifferent gaze swept across the crowd and finally paused on Xie Xishu’s pale face.

“Those who are late need to have their names recorded, right?”

Qi Wu lowered his eyes and asked softly, without any emotion in his voice.

“I get it.”

Without waiting for Teacher Li to respond, Qi Wu had already turned around and walked straight into the group of unlucky students standing in punishment at the school gate.

He paid little attention to the others’ shocked and dazed faces, as if it didn’t matter. He casually picked a spot to stand, and that spot just happened to be right next to Xie Xishu.

*

At this point, not to mention the group that had been planning to rebel earlier.

Even the dean was completely stunned. The chubby, thick-faced man’s eyes flickered as he repeatedly looked back and forth between Teacher Li and Qi Wu, his expression as rich as if he had eaten some undercooked Yunnan mushrooms.

For a moment, everyone’s attention was fixed on Qi Wu.

Xie Xishu was no exception.

Qi Wu, of course, didn’t stand too close to Xie Xishu, but even the short distance between them couldn’t diminish the boy’s overwhelming presence.

That vague sense of danger surged again, and despite the scorching summer morning, Xie Xishu found himself breaking out in a cold sweat.

“Hoo…”

Xie Xishu wasn’t sure if he was just being paranoid, but he did feel that Qi Wu’s breathing was unusually heavy.

Heavy and labored.

And in that instant, his hair stood on end.

Then suddenly, Xie Xishu heard Qi Wu speak in a very low voice: “Xie Xishu?”

Xie Xishu trembled, turning his head in shock to look at Qi Wu.

Qi Wu still wore that expressionless look.

But Xie Xishu noticed that the muscles in his jaw were tightly clenched.

“…You’re running a fever, so why did you still come to school?”

The boy’s tone was strangely off.

Focusing on the faint bulge of Qi Wu’s veins, it took Xie Xishu a beat longer to process what he had just said.

How did Qi Wu know he had a fever?

Too shocked to react, Xie Xishu stood there frozen, unable to respond.

After asking the question, Qi Wu fell silent again.

It was as if what Xie Xishu had heard was merely his imagination—as if Qi Wu had been standing quietly in place all along, with the only abnormality being his unusually slow, heavy breathing.

For Xie Xishu, time had never felt so slow.

Though, in reality, everything ended rather quickly: Qi Wu’s arrival put an immediate stop to the farce that Teacher Li had stirred up.

Suddenly deflated, the female teacher’s eyes became unfocused, and in a daze, she stepped aside, allowing the students to enter the school. She spoke, telling them to go in.

But the students huddled at the gate and jostled each other for a while, with no one daring to move.

They were all watching Qi Wu, waiting for his move.

Under so many people’s gaze, Qi Wu remained unfazed. He stood in his previous position, with his eyes downcast, seemingly lost in thought. After a long while, he took a deep breath, straightened up, and began walking toward the gate.

Perhaps too focused on his thoughts, as he passed by Xie Xishu, Qi Wu’s fingertips brushed against the back of Xie Xishu’s hand.

Xie Xishu shuddered slightly from the heat of Qi Wu’s touch, instinctively curling his hand and taking an involuntary step back.

*

In his fear, he felt that Qi Wu seemed to glance at him deeply.

*

With Qi Wu’s movement, the others followed him into the school, and the Third High School gate returned to its usual chaotic and disorderly state… seemingly back to normal at last.

Xie Xishu furrowed his brow, staying at the back of the group, and only after making sure that the distance between him and Qi Wu was far enough did he finally follow along, still shaken.

Yet before he could step through the gate, Teacher Li once again called out to him from the crowd.

“Xie Xishu, you know, I’ve always thought you were a good student with the potential to get into a top university.”

Teacher Li grabbed Xie Xishu’s hand with surprising strength.

Xie Xishu looked at his teacher in confusion, hesitating before nodding.

“Th-thank you, Teacher, I’ll work hard…”

“You mustn’t end up like that group of scum and trash, Xie Xishu. Promise me you’ll never be late again, alright?”

Xie Xishu was increasingly feeling something unsettling about Teacher Li.

But thinking about how much she had cared for him recently, Xie Xishu still nodded and quietly said, “Sorry, I won’t be late again.”

“That’s good, that’s good. I know there’s still hope for you, and I believe in you.”

Upon hearing this, Teacher Li grinned at him.

At that moment, as soon as he saw her smile, the uncomfortable feeling in Xie Xishu’s heart surged again. Instinctively, he shook off Teacher Li’s hand.

“Well, I should get to class now. Teacher, I’ll be going.”

Xie Xishu spoke to his teacher stiffly.

Just before he was about to leave, however, Teacher Li grabbed him again.

“Xie Xishu.”

The young female teacher tilted her head as if trying to discern something, her nose twitching slightly.

“…Students should focus on their studies. You’re a student, and you’re a boy, so you shouldn’t be messing with things like perfume or other frivolous things. It will affect your grades.”

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