"Yesterday was his seventh day!!"
The tapping of the keyboard stopped. He Yu stood up from the desk
in the faculty dorm room. The apartment wasn't even sixty square meters.
Next door, in the living room, a tedious variety show about poetry was
playing on an old-fashioned TV. The program was accompanied by the
static humming of the faulty signal.
The sofa was still that sofa in the story. The snacks for the tea, the tin
of biscuits—they were all still there. But the time on the clock read 8:09,
and the streetlights were on outside. It was the middle of summer, and the
air was very humid. Moths circled beneath the lights, mosquitoes buzzed
low to the ground, and rain had yet to fall.
He Yu left the little study in the faculty dorm. When he opened the
door, light spilled in at an angle through the filthy windowpanes, making
the entire space seem rather surreal, more so than the story he had just
finished writing.
A young woman lay on the sofa. The air conditioning was set to a
very low temperature, and she was sleeping under a coral fleece blanket.
Before her were several crumpled tissues that had been used to wipe away
tears and snot.
"Wake up," said He Yu.
"Ngh…"
"Get up."
"Not so loud… I barely even fell asleep…" The young woman
groaned wearily, smacking her lips. "Gonna nap for a bit longer…"
He Yu was about to say something else, but the variety show on the
TV started introducing an old movie.
"There's a Brokeback Mountain in every person's heart…"
He gave up trying to wake her up and took the remote to change the
channel.
He Yu really disliked homosexuality.
"Welcome, everybody, to our medical wellness program today…"
He changed the channel again. He Yu also disliked doctors and
hospitals.
"Once, Zhuangzi dreamt he was a butterfly, a butterfly fluttering
about…"
This time, he left the program on. Given his tastes, he could accept
this as background noise.
He Yu put down the remote and glanced over at the snoring woman
still lying on her back. He turned and walked into the kitchen. He opened
the greasy refrigerator, and the light from the appliance illuminated his face.
After he surveyed the refrigerator's contents several times, he took
out two eggs and a chunk of ham, as well as a bowl of yesterday's leftovers.
Then, he raised his voice to ask the woman sleeping in the living room,
"Xie Xue, do you have green onions here? I can't find any."
The woman didn't move.
"I'll make you Yangzhou fried rice."
There was no response from the living room. He Yu glanced back
again to see that the young woman had gotten off the sofa and was leaning
against the kitchen doorway.
"…Then you'll need two eggs, plus a big piece of luncheon meat," the woman said, then hesitated. "Do you know how?"
He Yu rolled up his sleeves and looked back at her with a suave smile.
"Sit outside and wait. It'll be ready soon."
The woman named Xie Xue tottered away to wander around the other
rooms. Seeing that the computer in the study was switched on, she sat down
to skim over the opened Word document. "He Yu! Did you use me as your
muse?"
The range hood was too loud. "What?" He Yu asked.
"I said! Did you! Use me! As your muse?!" Xie Xue brought his
laptop out. "For the Xie-laoshi in this ghost story!"
"Oh." He fell silent for a while before cracking an egg with a smile.
"Yep. You're exactly the person I imagined. Art imitates reality, Xielaoshi."
"But you wrote that you were secretly in love with me?"
"…Art is not the same as reality, Xie-laoshi."
But that last part was a lie.
He really was secretly in love with her
He Yu and Xie Xue had known each other for more than ten years.
Xie Xue was five years older than him. This was her first year as a lecturer
teaching screenwriting and directing in the School of Fine Arts at Huzhou
University. He Yu was one of the students in her class.
When Xie Xue first saw the roster for the incoming screenwriting and
directing majors, she had sent a shocked message to He Yu. "Fuck, what a
coincidence! One of the boys in the two classes I'm teaching has the same
exact name as you!"
At the time, He Yu had been on a plane. He was sitting in a window
seat and looking out at the flickering lamplight of the airport tarmac with
his cheek propped up on one hand. His phone dinged, and a familiar profile
picture popped up. He looked at the message from the girl he had been in
love with for ten years and was just about to reply when the request for all
passengers to switch their devices to airplane mode sounded over the
intercom.
He Yu tilted his head and thought for a minute. He didn't reply to her
message before turning off his phone.
How could there be so many coincidences in this world?
Idiot.
He had fought for this opportunity himself, of course. It was
completely unlike the story He Yu had written.
As for He Yu himself, not only was he not penniless, he wasn't ugly
either. He was blessed with a very handsome face, and as the son of apharmaceutical tycoon, he had been born with a silver spoon in his mouth
and attended high school overseas. But less than thirty minutes after finding
out that Xie Xue had become a lecturer at Huzhou University upon
graduating, He Yu applied for the institution's School of Fine Arts.
Several months later, the semester began.
However, the newly appointed Xie-laoshi was too young; she didn't
understand how treacherous workplaces could get.
Jiang Liping, the morality advisor in charge of the screen‐writing/directing classes one, two, and three, was an infamous eccentric. Supposedly, she had no relevant education or training and had gotten this fluff position in the school simply by sleeping with the board of directors. Jiang-laoshi was ostentatiously beautiful and didn't feel a bit of shame about using sex to get what she wanted. She spent every day blatantly flirting with the board members in broad daylight and was overtly hostile toward any female student or teacher with decent looks.
When Xie Xue rushed into the classroom for her first lecture with her
laptop in her arms, she saw Jiang Liping there in a floor-length red dress,
hogging her lectern to discuss important items with the new students.
"I'm sorry, Jiang-laoshi, the first class is starting…" Xie Xue tried to
remind her.
But the other woman merely waved her hand. "Just wait a minute, the
morning study period was too short. I still have two items to go over."
Who knew if she was picking on her on purpose, but Jiang Liping
stretched out the last two points for fifteen, almost sixteen, minutes before
she finally finished. "All right, that's all I had to cover. I won't disrupt your
class anymore." She then turned to Xie Xue. "Uhh…I'm sorry, I didn't
catch your name earlier. Anyway, stay focused, don't be nervous."
Professor Jiang strutted away, her towering scarlet heels clicking
against the ground. Her vintage Hong Kong-style dress fluttered in proud
crimson waves in her wake, leaving the dejected Xie Xue to shuffle up to
the lectern, laptop still in her arms.
She was so fucking screwed.
Maybe things would have been all right if Jiang Liping hadn't said
anything. But now that she had, Xie Xue had to gulp nervously.
Most students in prestigious schools were exceptionally talented and
not easily won over. They didn't trust younger teachers as much as they did
older ones in the first place. Now, Jiang Liping's parting words were
nothing short of a vicious kick to Xie Xue's knees.
This group of prodigies immediately understood that, oh, their
instructor was still a teacher-in-training—one whose name their advisor
didn't even know.
What an outrage! No matter how much fiery motivation burned in
Xie Xue's heart, it couldn't fend off the disparaging comments that this
class was spitting at her. It only took ten minutes for the new faculty
member Xie-laoshi to devolve from a confident woman to a stuttering mess.
She began to feel dizzy and faint.
So caught up was she in her emotions that she didn't even notice the
tall young man who was leaning back in his seat in the last row of the
classroom, watching her while spinning his pen idly.
"Hello, everyone. I'm your screenwriting and directing teacher. My
name is Xie Xue. Um…"
The students weren't buying it. "Laoshi, how old are you?"
"Jiejie, why don't you order milk tea with us too?"
"Ooh, Laoshi, you look even younger than me…"
The situation was spinning out of control. Xie Xue had no choice but
to feign sternness like a paper tiger. "Silence! I'm not messing around with
you. Don't waste your precious youth during your university years. You
must study hard and gain knowledge. I'll have you know, I'm a very strict
and uncompromising person, and the percentage of students I fail is far
higher than my colleagues. So all of you need to be on your toes; don't you
dare brush off my words."
He Yu couldn't contain his mirth. He looked down as the corner of his
mouth curved carelessly upward.
She was just a fucking dumbass.
The students in the classroom fell silent, staring at her as if she were
an animal in a zoo. One student even sighed and picked up his backpack to
leave.
"Hey! You there! You—"
"Laoshi, I won't fail no matter how much you threaten me. I have a
date with my girlfriend, so I'll be leaving now."
"Fascinating. So Huzhou University actually hires teachers-intraining who threaten to fail us if we don't attend class? We got into this
university after enormous effort—we're not here to become lab rats for the
teachers to experiment with, are we? How come you're the one teaching us
while Professor Shen teaches next door? I'm going to write a letter of
complaint to the dean later. Excuse me for not staying."
Xie Xue was in a terrible predicament.
Although she forced herself to calmly ask for the students' names and
took points off on her tablet, this sequence of events had dealt her such a
heavy blow that she wasn't able to recover for a long while. Her carefully
prepared lesson had become a half-forgotten mess. She blathered
pointlessly for an age before finally reaching what she had previously
thought would be a very interesting interactive activity. However, not a
single person was willing to come onstage and participate.
Just as she was on the verge of tears, thinking of running away in
defeat, a male voice suddenly came from the last row of the classroom.
"Laoshi, I'll do it."
Xie Xue was so miserable that she didn't even realize how familiar
that pleasant voice was. She immediately sought out the source of the
sound, looking for her savior through eyes filled with grateful tears.
When she saw the boy she hadn't seen in three years, Xie Xue was so
surprised that she gaped at him without regard for her image. "H-He Yu?!"
The boy sat at his desk. His eyes were bright and clear, the corners of
his mouth were upturned, and his lips were strikingly thin. He looked a little
haughty, a little mischievous—much like the moment when a young Lau
Kin Ming in Infernal Affairs II raised his head and gazed toward a drunk Mary, with some of the smugness of a young man who had discovered his
prey and sated his desire.
He arched a brow. "Long time no see, Xie-laoshi."
Long story short, that's what happened.
After returning to the dorm, Xie Xue couldn't hold back anymore and
began to sob in an almost cathartic manner. He Yu had a crush on her, but
he wasn't particularly tactful and didn't know how to comfort her properly.
He actually said, "Go ahead and cry it out, then. I'll go write in your study
for a while. Once you feel better, I'll come out and have dinner with you."
"He Yu, do you know how to cheer people up at all?!"
"Do I have to finish the homework you assigned or not?"
"…Just go."
But when He Yu came out after finishing the story, Xie Xue had
already cried herself to sleep.
She didn't wake when he called for her, but he wasn't in a rush.
Xie Xue's favorite activity was eating, with sleeping a close second.
As long as you made her something yummy, she'd definitely crawl out of
bed right away. Even as a university instructor, this trait wouldn't change.
Fifteen minutes later, she was staring down at the food He Yu held
before her.
"…What's this?"
Looking down at the pathetically mushy "fried lumps of rice with egg
and ham" in his hands, He Yu felt a little embarrassed. He told his teacher
extremely loftily, "Can't you tell? It's Yangzhou fried rice."
"You call this Yangzhou fried rice?"
"…Fine, don't eat it then. I can order delivery." The student picked up
his phone with a deadpan expression and looked up the highest-rated
restaurant. He was filling in the delivery address when the doorbell rang.
He Yu raised his almond eyes. "Who is it? A colleague here to see
you?"
"Probably not, I haven't gotten to know them yet." Xie Xue put down
her chopsticks and looked up at the clock. "Who would come at this
hour…"
As she spoke, she shuffled over to the doorway in her slippers.
A few seconds later, Xie Xue's excited voice came from the doorway.
"Ge! Why are you here? You're not working overtime today?"
The sound of the word "Ge" crashed down like thunder. He Yu's
original scoundrel aura and his careless lazy mood were instantly shattered.
Countless dark memories flashed through his mind like a knee-jerk
reaction.
Springing to his feet, he grabbed that appallingly disgraceful fried
rice from the table and strode quickly toward the trash can in the kitchen.
But it was too late. Xie Xue had pulled her big brother into the room.
"Ge, I haven't even told you yet. He Yu's back from overseas, and
he's one of my students. He's sitting inside right now. You two haven't seen
each other in a long time either, right? Hey, He Yu!" Xie Xue's call stopped
him midstride. "Where are you going with that plate?"
He Yu froze stock-still in silence.
Never mind.
Since he'd come back, he'd inevitably have to face him again.
He Yu stood with his back to them, wiping his genuine emotions from
his face before slowly turning around, looking gentle and refined, elegant
and poised.
Facing the elder brother of the Xie family who was a full thirteen
years older than him, he actually seemed to match the man in his presence.
He gazed toward the head of the Xie family, at the man who somewhat
resembled Xie Xue. Then, he reached up to pinch his own nape, his eyes
lingering momentarily on the man's features. "Long time no see, Doctor
Xie. You look…"
He Yu paused, assessing him.
This man hadn't changed a bit. His features were indifferent and
grim, while the planes of his face were sharp and hard, outlining a strong, combative face. His eyes were pretty—a pair of peach-blossoms similar to
Xie Xue's. Though they would appear alluring on anyone else, his eyes
were a testament to what it meant to have your features align with your
personality. On this extraordinary man, they could freeze even thousands of
leagues of peach-blossom pools into dark ice. Despite the similarities to Xie
Xue's lovely eyes, his pupils were ice-cold. With his rigidly poised
physique, he exuded an aura of absolute detachment.
Very tyrannical, very dictatorial. He resembled the big boss of an
autocratic feudal clan—all he needed was an atmospheric black fur coat to
contrast against his pale face and two of those silver cloak clasp chains
worn by military warlords to complete the look.
In the end, He Yu smiled warmly, but there was no mirth in his eyes.
"You look the same as before. You haven't aged a bit."