"Qian'an, are you sick?"
Looking at the tall boy who claimed that he just had a nightmare, Aunt Su frowned and could not hide the extreme worry in her tone when she spoke.
Aunt Su had been in the Fang family for so many years, and had watched Fang Qian'an grow up. In her memory, even when Fang Qian'an was beaten so badly by Fang Chengke that he couldn't get out of bed, he had never been as dying as he was now.
Normally a domineering and arrogant person, he seemed to have lost his soul. His face was pale and his eyes were dark.
Fang Qianan's unusual haggardness made her very worried.
"...Or, where are you hurting? Qian'an, you're old enough now, you should know that your health is the most important thing." Aunt Su looked at Fang Qian'an suspiciously, wondering if Fang Chengke had hurt Fang Qian'an yesterday. "How about I call Old Chen and have him take you to the hospital? Sigh, Old Fang is so cruel, sending you back like that. If you were still in Beijing, you wouldn't do this. Just call Doctor Xu to take a look."
Aunt Su was talking and she started to babble without realizing it.
After Fang Qianan returned with Fang Chengke, many of the benefits he had enjoyed with his father were gone. If he had a headache or a fever, he could only go to the hospital honestly. It was impossible to call the family doctor as before.
"I'm really fine. The old man didn't do anything to me yesterday, so don't overthink it. I really just didn't sleep well..."
Fang Qianan rubbed the back of his head and felt a headache as he looked at the elderly woman who began to speak up for him. He spoke perfunctorily.
Seeing Fang Qianan speak like this, Aunt Su could only sigh and say, "Then why don't you come down and have some soup? Eat something? I see you didn't eat much yesterday. Are you hungry?"
"No, I have no appetite." Fang Qianan said without hesitation. After a brief pause, he added, "I, I have to go to school quickly now."
"School?"
Aunt Su was stunned for a moment and almost didn't react.
Fang Qianan was so anxious to go to school that he didn't even eat? If the boy in front of him hadn't been raised by her, Aunt Su would have thought that the man who appeared in the bedroom was a substitute for Fang Qianan.
Not to mention in a remote area like City A, even in Beijing, where he enjoyed the truly top-notch educational resources, Fang Qianan never went to school seriously.
But today, Fang Qianan, the famous poor student, the king of tanking in school, and the lifespan-reducing machine for teachers, actually started to rush to go to school.
I was so anxious that I didn't even have time to eat breakfast.
Aunt Su stared in amazement as Fang Qianan rushed back to his room, tinkered around for a bit, and then rushed out the door. She didn't come to her senses for a long time.
"This kid... is finished. Did he fall and hit his head yesterday?"
The older woman murmured as she looked at Fang Qianan's back, the worry on her face growing instead of diminishing.
*
Of course, Fang Qianan didn't know that his bizarre behavior caused Aunt Su extreme worry.
His mind was now filled with yesterday's dream within a dream within a dream... and the frail young man who appeared in the dream.
"A Xiu."
Sitting in the car on the way to school, Fang Qianan raised his hand and looked at his arm, murmuring unconsciously.
When he woke up this morning, Fang Qianan wondered several times whether he was still trapped in a dream.
The feeling of weightlessness and breaking wind as he jumped from the railing on the seventh floor of the school while hugging someone was so vivid in the nightmare, but what was even more vivid... was the intense heartbeat of Li Xiu pressed against his chest as he hugged her tightly and jumped off the building.
Because he was using so much force, the boy's body seemed to fit into his arms.
For some reason, Fang Qian'an had a strange intuition - if he had not woken up from the nightmare at that time, it is very likely that he would dream of the final ending.
He and Li Xiu would fall directly to the ground, and under the action of gravity, they would turn into a bloody mass of flesh. From then on, you were in me and I was in you, and it was impossible to completely distinguish who was who between the two merged remains.
…
"laugh--"
A strange chuckle filled with greed and satisfaction suddenly came from the back of the car.
The driver, Lao Chen, who was driving, suddenly clenched his hands on the steering wheel.
The voice sounded strange, but it didn't sound like Fang Qianan's voice.
But now, there are only Lao Chen and Fang Qianan in the car? Lao Chen thought while subconsciously looking in the rearview mirror in the direction of Fang Qianan.
The latter did not smile at this time, and there was only a trance on his face as pale as paper.
Old Chen was stunned for a moment.
Maybe he just ran over something and the noise outside the car made him hear it wrongly.
At that moment, Lao Chen didn't think too much about it, he thought so.
Just as Lao Chen was about to turn his gaze back, he suddenly met Fang Qianan's eyes in the rearview mirror.
"Hmm?!"
The boy's extremely light-colored pupil trembled strangely, then trembled suddenly and was pushed aside by another blood-red pupil.
In one eye, there is a pair of strange pupils.
Time seemed to be stretched out.
In a brief moment, Fang Qianan stared at Lao Chen with his pupils without blinking, and he suddenly grinned.
Suddenly, Lao Chen heard a sound similar to tinnitus. His head was spinning, and in panic, the man slammed on the brakes, barely stopping the car at a red light.
"Hey, who is that?! Are you driving like crazy—"
He nearly bumped into a pedestrian on the zebra crossing, who tugged at his bag in embarrassment and angrily cursed at Lao Chen.
Although there was no accident, under normal circumstances, Lao Chen would have to get out of the car to deal with the problem. However, he held the steering wheel tightly with both hands and sat in his seat for several seconds.
"Fuck, Uncle Chen? What are you doing?!"
Fang Qianan was sitting in the back seat without a seat belt, and a sudden brake hit his head. He looked at Lao Chen with annoyance, and his tone became very unpleasant, almost swearing.
Old Chen slowly turned his head and looked at Fang Qianan, and there was nothing strange in the latter's eyes.
It was as if everything just now was just an illusion.
"Uncle Chen! Green light!"
Fang Qianan glared at Lao Chen and raised his voice a little.
At the same time, there were constant honking sounds from behind their car. Old Chen suddenly woke up as if from a dream and quickly sat down, following the traffic lights and continuing to drive forward.
While driving, the man licked his lips and tried to calm himself down.
"Sorry, Mr. Fang, I was a little distracted just now."
"Tsk." Fang Qianan was also upset today, and his mood was even worse after being tormented by Uncle Chen. "Even if you're distracted, you should pay attention to the road, right? You almost hit someone just now! Oh, come on, I should have driven myself..."
Looking at Fang Qianan who was as bad-tempered as ever,
Only then did Old Chen's heart relax a little.
Fortunately, the magnificent school gate of Qiming soon appeared in Uncle Chen's sight.
The car drove into the school. Fang Qianan got out of the car without saying a word and rushed towards the teaching building with full steps.
Old Chen looked in the direction he left with a strange look on his face in the driver's seat for a long time before he breathed a sigh of relief.
"What the hell is wrong with me?"
Old Chen wiped the cold sweat from his forehead and muttered with a wry smile.
Just now, I must have had some kind of hallucination, right?
Fang Qianan was a child who grew up under his care. No matter how hard he thought about it, it was impossible for someone to have two pupils in one eye.
But even though he thought so, Lao Chen was still tense when driving.
He couldn't explain why, but he just felt that Fang Qianan, who was sitting behind him, was a little creepy.
It was a very strange feeling.
It's like when people stare at a word for too long, they will feel that the word is a little bit unfamiliar.
Now when Uncle Chen looked at Fang Qianan, he actually felt that he looked more and more unfamiliar.
*
Because of an incident on the way to school, when Fang Qianan arrived, Class A1's morning self-study had already begun.
When his eyes fell upon the full classroom, Fang Qianan's mouth twitched and he instinctively slowed down his pace. Fortunately, he soon spotted Li Xiu, who was sitting in the last row of the classroom.
The boy who usually concentrates on his homework looks a little abnormal today.
He clearly had a pen in his hand and the test paper was spread out on the desk, but the boy's eyes were empty as he looked down at the paper. His fingers didn't move for a long time, and the paper was blank. Clearly, Li Xiu was distracted.
The early morning sunlight shone through the glass window onto the frail boy, making his pale cheeks look almost translucent.
"Bang, bang—"
Fang Qianan clearly felt something in his chest beating wildly.
Even the severe psychological trauma left by this classroom in his dream last night faded away in an instant.
"A Xiu——"
Fang Qianan took two steps at a time, took a deep breath, rushed into the classroom, then grabbed Li Xiu and dragged her out.
"Fang Qianan?! What are you doing?"
Li Xiu struggled a bit, but the strength of her struggle was no different from a kitten's scratching under Fang Qianan's shackles, and it had no effect at all.
Staggering all the way, Fang Qianan dragged Li Xiu directly to the grade lounge.
There was no one else in the lounge that early in the morning.
As soon as Li Xiu entered, Fang Qianan pushed him directly onto the sofa in the lounge, which was as wide as a bed. Then he heard a "click" sound, which was the sound of the door being locked.
"Fang Qianan, what's wrong with you?!"
Li Xiu struggled to stand up and cursed at the tall boy who slowly turned around from the door.
Like Fang Qianan, Li Xiu also had dark circles under his eyes. The frail young man cursed without any momentum, and his voice was slightly hoarse, as if he had been crying.
Fang Qianan took a deep breath, licked his lips, and stared at Li Xiu with his bright eyes.
"I had a dream last night, a nightmare." One step, two steps, Fang Qianan suddenly came in front of Li Xiu, blocking him like a mountain. "I thought I would definitely die in there, but fortunately, you were in my dream."
Hearing this, Li Xiu shuddered violently, and his stiff voice was heard in the lounge a little late.
"... You're crazy, I don't understand what you're saying."
Fang Qianan blinked.
He supported himself on the edge of the sofa with one hand, leaned down suddenly, and came directly in front of Li Xiu.
"You dreamed about me too, didn't you?"
He said.
This posture brought the two people very close, and Fang Qianan's golden pupils looked more and more like some kind of large cat. Li Xiu looked at his reflection in those eyes and inexplicably felt that he was the poor prey that was locked.
Feeling a pang of palpitations, Li Xiu lowered her head to avoid Fang Qianan's focused gaze.
"Meng, Meng, you big-headed ghost, Fang Qianan, I still have morning self-study to go to, what on earth are you going to..."
But before she could finish her words, Fang Qianan grabbed her wrist.
"Look, here's the evidence."
He said.
Li Xiu followed his gaze and looked at her own palm - on the edge of her palm, there was a tooth mark with blood on it.
That was what he left behind in his nightmare when he was trying to control himself from screaming.
Li Xiu: "...Is it not okay for me to grind my teeth while sleeping?"
Anyone could see Li Xiu's extreme avoidance, but Fang Qianan did not let him go.
"Okay, what about this?" As he spoke, Fang Qianan stood up, took two or three steps back, and took off his shirt in front of Li Xiu.
"Ahem...what are you doing?!"
Seeing Fang Qianan taking off his clothes directly, Li Xiu was caught off guard and almost choked on his own saliva.
"Let me show you my evidence."
Fang Qianan didn't notice Li Xiu's panic. The boy spoke anxiously and hurriedly showed his back to Li Xiu.
There were several clearly visible scratches on both sides of the boy's muscular back.
It is impossible not to be afraid when jumping off a railing. Even the bravest person, when holding another person tightly and jumping off a building, will involuntarily use force and dig his nails deeply into the other person's flesh.
There were many bruises on Fang Qianan's back, but those slightly red and swollen scratches were still extremely conspicuous.
"When I woke up this morning, I kept trying to convince myself it was just a dream."
The boy turned around, stared at Li Xiu, and spoke every word seriously.
"But when I was getting dressed, I found this...this spot. It couldn't have been me who caught it, could it?"