CH 18

Translation checker: Rin

Editor: Junyans

The huge male bathhouse was filled with dense water vapor, and the voices of the boys laughing and fighting echoed endlessly. Yu Ran rubbed his face as he went in with a basin to change his clothes.

Fang Zhao had taken up two more shower seats in advance. Seeing Yu Ran come alone, he asked where Chu Mian was.

“He doesn’t want to wash with others ’cause he feels ashamed.” Yu Ran turned on the shower, and warm water gushed out.

“We are all men, what’s there to be ashamed of… Oh, I see.” Fang Zhao’s face was covered with shampoo foam, and he squinted his eyes to face Yu Ran. “Is Chu Mian afraid of ‘picking up soap’, huh?”

“What does that mean? I always see this phrase on the internet.”

Fang Zhao felt that this topic was quite difficult to explain in a public place, so he quickly rinsed the foam on his face, moved two steps toward Yu Ran, and whispered: “When you’re taking a bath and bend over to pick up soap, your butt will be facing others, and then you’ll be taken advantage of!”

His expression and the final words were quite intriguing. Yu Ran pondered it twice, and then asked Fang Zhao: “How do you get ‘taken advantage of’?”

Fang Zhao smiled mysteriously: “This can only be understood and not explained.”

“Is that so?” Yu Ran raised his hand and neatly knocked Fang Zhao’s soap box to the ground, “You can teach it by showing an example.”

Fang Zhao: “Fuck!”

A piece of milky white Safeguard drifted on the slippery floor and moved slowly along the water towards Fang Zhao’s feet. His scalp suddenly tingled and his legs unconsciously clamped together.

Yu Ran laughed: “You fucking show it quickly.”

“You, do you think this can stump me?” Fang Zhao was unwilling to show weakness. He first looked around and made sure that there was no suspicious person around him. Then he straightened his back and took a deep breath, before bending his knees forward, and kneeling on the ground with a “thump”, his face neither haughty nor humble.

He laughed out loud: “Haha! Yu Ran, you didn’t expect it, did you? How can I really bend over to show you?”

However, when his fingertips were about to reach the soap in front of him, Yu Ran raised his leg and kicked it away. With the help of the accumulated water on the floor, the white soap bar slid directly into the center of the crowd and stopped in front of the Class 2’s tough and stocky class president.

“Yu Ran, you fucking—” Fang Zhao was shocked.

Yu Ran laughed so hard that his shoulders shook and he had to hold the wall to stand up. He watched as Fang Zhao very bravely went over, did a split in the crowd in order to pick up the soap, and finally slipped back to him as if fleeing, swearing several times in a row.

“Yu Ran, you just wait. Later, I’ll call some people to have you conned!” Fang Zhao flew into a rage from shame and said harshly, “Con a trash can! Con a tractor! Con a light bulb!”

Without waiting for Yu Ran to finish bathing, he hurriedly packed up his toiletries, grabbed the towel, and walked away.

Before he knew it, there were fewer and fewer people in the bathhouse. Yu Ran was drenched all over. He didn’t rush to use the shower gel, but first enjoyed the touch of the warm water flowing across his skin, making it feel weak and numb. He was pouring water while being in a daze, his thoughts lightly entangled with the air.

The pain on his cheeks had long since disappeared. Yu Ran unconsciously raised his hand and pinched it where Chu Mian had pinched it just now.

Then he laughed softly, feeling that Chu Mian really was a strange boy. He was different from all the classmates he had met before. He was always very reserved and elegant. He didn’t even hit hard when fighting, and pinched other people’s faces at most, which was ridiculously childish. But sometimes he was very domineering, standing by his words and telling others what to do and what not to do, just like a dignified adult.

Yu Ran couldn’t help but recall Chu Mian’s usual actions, and when he came back to his senses after he laughed foolishly, he realized that he was the only one left in the bathroom.

It was getting dark, and the temperature had dropped a lot in the autumn night. It was a bit cold for Yu Ran to walk outside wearing only a black tank top, and he felt a bit more comfortable when he was back in the dormitory.

He looked up and saw Chu Mian sitting on his bed in his pajamas, playing with his phone. His hair was fluffy, it seemed that he had just taken a shower from the teacher’s dormitory.

“Hey.” Yu Ran raised his arms to Chu Mian, signaling him to twist his arms.

Chu Mian frowned before letting go of his phone. Then, he held Yu Ran’s forearm as if completing a daily task, and warned him at the same time, “Be quiet, don’t make a sound.”

Yu Ran felt that the feeling of his arm being tightened was simply more comfortable than a massage. He had looked for many boys in the class to cooperate with himself, but only Chu Mian’s hand strength was just right every time, neither light nor heavy, which made him feel refreshed and particularly content.

After his arm’s meridians were “opened up”, Yu Ran moved to the side with great energy to flip through his luggage, and then climbed onto the bed with a pen and paper.

Chu Mian thought he was making up his homework for the National Day holiday. After a while, he took a closer look and found that Yu Ran was sketching on the bed, with a 2B pencil in his hand, and he had lowered his head to trace the lines without any distractions.

Yu Ran, who had just taken a bath, had a red nose and all the hair on his forehead was lifted back, making him look very competent. Chu Mian usually saw more of his careless and casual side, so now when he saw Yu Ran’s serious expression, he couldn’t help but be surprised.

Lbkfnfg, Jte Zljc vlvc’a vlraegy tlw ys wjxlcu j rbecv. Lf pera delfais ibbxfv ja Te Ejc’r jaafcalnf jqqfjgjcmf jr tf xfqa vgjklcu, fgjrlcu, jcv wbvloslcu. Ktfc, Te Ejc ibkfgfv tlr tfjv jcv yifk bc atf regojmf bo atf qjqfg, jcv atf fgjrfg rtjnlcur gbiifv abkjgvr Jte Zljc’r yfv.

Jte Zljc lwwfvljafis sfiifv “Te Ejc” lc vlruera, gertfv bnfg ab qlmx eq tlr qliibk, jcv xfqa qjaalcu atf rtffar klat tlr qjiwr.

Yu Ran laughed wildly, threw the pen on the bed, then stretched himself hard.

Chu Mian glared at him, then looked down at the paper, “What are you drawing?”

Yu Ran said, “I’m just drawing randomly.”

Chu Mian recognized that it was a sketch of a gypsum geometric shape. He had seen many of them in Chu Heng’s sketchbooks since he was a child. Although he was a layman in fine arts, he could also judge that Yu Ran’s sketching was very standard, so he asked him, “Have you ever studied drawing?”

“No.”

Chu Mian wanted to say something, but hesitated and did not continue. He didn’t want to praise Yu Ran to his face saying something like “Then you are quite talented” and so on, lest the other party get carried away.

Perhaps because it was the first day of military training, the instructors were fairly tolerant, and only called everyone out to do dozens of squats at night before letting them go back. After turning off the lights, Yu Ran played with his mobile phone on the bed, and heard the movement of the instructors going from room to room to check the bed and give instructions.

As a dormitory head, Yu Ran had to remind everyone to pay attention to put away their phones. After the room was dark, he asked a question out of the blue: “Do you guys think…when the instructor comes to check on us, he will find me if I stand behind the door?”

The room was quiet for a few seconds, then the others laughed and rebuked Yu Ran with “stupid” and “you’re crazy”.

“I’ll try, don’t expose me by laughing later.” The more Yu Ran thought about it, the more he felt that his proposal was feasible. He quickly got out of bed excitedly and stood quietly behind the door. His ears were against the wall, and he felt the instructor’s footsteps getting closer.

Creak—

Bright hallway lights rushed in as the door was pushed open.

“You guys are quite obedient here.” The instructor saw that there was no light from cell phones in the room, and was very satisfied. “Good good. Tomorrow I will praise you guys individually for playing a very good role and setting an example.”

At this moment, there was only the door between Yu Ran and the instructor who was talking. If the instructor opened the door at a larger angle, he would definitely feel that someone was hiding behind the door.

This tense and exciting feeling stirred everyone’s nerves, and Yu Ran bit his lower lip to keep himself from laughing out loud.

But the happiness didn’t last long, and the instructor’s next words froze his smile—

“Who is the dormitory head? Get out of bed and come out for a meeting.”

The instructor waited, but no one answered. He felt strange: “Where is the dormitory head? Asleep?”

Yu Ran wanted to beckon them to get up and pretend to be him, but the lights in the room were all off, and with only the light from the corridor, they could not see each other’s expressions clearly.

The instructor urged again, so he had no choice but to bite the bullet and slowly move from behind the door towards the instructor: “It’s me…”

When a ghost-like figure suddenly appeared in front of him, even the instructor, who had seen the wind and waves, was taken aback. “You, what are you doing?”

Not surprisingly, Yu Ran was taken out by him and severely criticized.

When he came back, the dormitory was filled with a cheerful atmosphere.

“Fuck, you guys have no tacit understanding with me at all! Just now, why didn’t anyone come out to replace me?”

Fang Zhao laughed so hard that his stomach hurt, and told him while stammering: “We would have, but we all wanted to see you get caught hahahaha…”

“Fuck you.” Yu Ran remembered the course of events just now, and laughed out loud along with them.

After going to bed, the boys chatted in small voices again, and before long they all fell asleep. The snoring of Zhou Weixi and the other two boys was so loud that Yu Ran couldn’t sleep and he stared at the darkness in a daze, bored out of his mind.

He turned his head and asked Chu Mian, who was next to his bed, “Are you awake?”

Soon, the other party let out a deep “En”.

Yu Ran did not feel sleepy at all. He turned over and lay on his stomach before asking again, “Wanna go out for a walk?”

“What do you want to do again?”

“It’s boring, they’re too noisy, and I don’t want to sleep either,” Yu Ran said, “When we came here this morning, I saw a lake in the woods, it looked like a park. Wanna go and have a look?”

Chu Mian actually did not care about the surrounding environment, but he slept too much during the day and suffered from insomnia almost every night until late night. Instead of listening to the deafening snoring of others in the dormitory, he might as well take the risk to go out and kill some time with Yu Ran.

The two quietly got up, put on their jackets and shoes, and left the dormitory with very light steps, crossed the corridor, and walked outside.

“Wow, there really is no one in the middle of the night.” Yu Ran began to get excited again.

The base’s road was very quiet. They deliberately avoided the building where the instructors were resting, and detoured into the woods. There was indeed an artificial lake in the center, which was very small and the water level was not high. The road lamps were faint white, attracting flying insects to collide against them.

Yu Ran found a bench and sat down, and called Chu Mian to come over.

“I almost laughed to death in the dining hall earlier tonight. There was a boy in Class 3 who was too fat to fit into the pants he was given. He had only taken a breath and a button popped out. The instructor was talking, and the button flew directly into his mouth.” Yu Ran laughed heartily, and was reminded by Chu Mian to restrain himself so that they would not be discovered.

“It’s okay to be discovered. You can’t be punished for not sleeping, right?”

“This is discipline, Yu Ran,” Chu Mian said softly, “Even if it’s just not sleeping, it’s still a mistake, so it’s not strange to get punished for it.”

Yu Ran turned his face to look at him and asked, “Then since you know, why did you still come out with me?”

Chu Mian remained silent, as he looked straight at the calm lake ahead. The water only reflected the light of the road lamps, and when you looked up, you would find that it was cloudy tonight; there was no moon, let alone stars, and there was only a bleak night sky.

In the silence, Chu Mian heard Yu Ran’s clear voice: “Chu Mian, what do you want to do when you grow up?”

The faint night breeze swept across the back of his neck, and Chu Mian shrank his neck unconsciously.

— What kind of person do you want to be when you grow up?

In the past, Chu Mian didn’t put the matter of “growing up” into consideration. Since birth, he had been able to see the world higher and farther than his peers. Whether it was talent, family background, or any other precious things that others had been longing for, they were all at his fingertips. All the conditions he had were the best, and he firmly believed that he would never need to wait for the “best time” like others.

So the word ”growing up” did not have much special meaning for him in the past.

“I want to be a doctor,” Chu Mian replied after taking a deep breath, “Preferably in neurology.”

Yu Ran nodded, “It’s related to your sleeping sickness, right?”

“En, after all, we still don’t know what its pathogenesis is, nor can it be cured.” Chu Mian’s line of vision gradually turned lax. “The doctor had said that many people will recover automatically when they grow up, but he did not say how many years old is considered ‘grown up’. If you are a little bit unlucky, you might have to sleep like this for the rest of your life.”

Yu Ran stared at the distinct contours of Chu Mian’s side profile, opened his lips, and said, “Have you ever met someone like you?”

“Not yet, but this is certainly not a rare disease.”

Chu Mian’s tone was very confident, “Narcolepsy is very common abroad, but in China, there are very few people diagnosed with it. Also, no one will go to the hospital just because they sleep too much. Anyone who sees this kind of person will only find it strange and feel that this person is very lazy, and perfunctory in everything he does.”

After a pause, he continued: “There is almost one in every two thousand people who suffer from narcolepsy. This figure is much higher than that of a real rare disease. What’s more, this is only the number of people diagnosed in China. Most of the patients actually unknowingly—”

Chu Mian’s voice stopped abruptly, the Adam’s apple of his throat rolled up and down. He felt that his emotions were fluctuating, so he didn’t really want to finish his sentence.

Most of the patients actually unknowingly—

Reproach themselves and blame themselves, unable to understand themselves.

Watching their grades regress, screwing up the simplest things, accepting the cold ridicule of others, arguing with friends and family… So many “people of the same kind” had similar experiences. Their originally beautiful lives get shattered by their sleep little by little. They could only curl up during the day, and be lonely at night.

— But it was obviously not their fault.

“That’s why, I want to be a doctor.” In the quiet night, Chu Mian repeated again.

Yu Ran knew that majors like Medicine and Finance required high grades, so of course he could understand why Chu Mian was racing against time to study every day. “Then which college do you want to go to?”

“Peking Union Medical College.”

“I haven’t heard of it. It must be the best, right?”

“Until this year, probably. Maybe it’ll change in 2015.”

“I knew it,” Yu Ran laughed, “You’d definitely want to go study in the best one.”

Chu Mian lowered his head and raised the corners of his mouth.

When talking about his goals in front of Yu Ran, he would easily get the other person’s affirmation. Because Yu Ran basically had no idea about the college entrance examination scores, he would not know how difficult it was for a narcolepsy patient to achieve high goals. But even if the other party was ignorant, Chu Mian was willing to hear Yu Ran’s trust in him.

“It’s a coincidence, I also want to take the entrance examination of schools in Beijing.” Yu Ran leaned back in his chair comfortably, looking up at the gray night sky. “Do you know the Central Academy of Fine Arts?”

“I know,” Chu Mian replied. He, of course, remembered the place from where his aunt had graduated.

“Baidu said that this is the best school for painting.”

Chu Mian thought of the gypsum geometric sketch that Yu Ran had done today, and asked him, “Didn’t you say that you haven’t studied it?”

“It’s true that I haven’t studied formally, but my Master has taught me before,” Yu Ran said, “He said that in painting, practice makes perfect, so he asked me to practice more, and there are also many online tutorials. There’s no need to go to the studio before the third year of senior high school.”

Chu Mian turned his face and glanced at him. “Do you want to be an illustrator?”

“I want to be a manhua artist.”

Chu Mian had heard from his aunt before that the domestic manhua industry was very narrow, and the possibility of taking this as a career and being successful was very slim. Most of the manhua artists would transition to illustration or design. He wanted to tell this to Yu Ran, but just as he opened his mouth, he immediately held back.

Just as Yu Ran trusted him, he didn’t want to say anything that would disappoint Yu Ran.

After thinking about it, he seriously told Yu Ran, “You sketch very well, better than those who have studied formally.”

“No, I think it’s very bad.”

Although Yu Ran said so, the luster in his eyes did not diminish in the slightest. “But it doesn’t matter. Inevitably there’ll be a day when I’ll improve to a very good level.”

Chu Mian had thought that Yu Ran would be complacent after hearing the compliment, but he did not expect him to be unexpectedly humble in this regard.

“Then which kind of manhua do you want to draw?”

“Um… Like “One Piece”.”

“Haven’t heard of it.”

“It’s ‘Hǎizéiwáng‘! How come you don’t even know its real name?!”

“Oh.”

When Yu Ran mentioned something he liked, his eyes would always gleam especially brightly. Chu Mian looked sideways at Yu Ran’s smile, but what appeared in his mind was the appearance of him lying on the bed and concentrating on sketching not long ago, expressionless, calm and steady.

Chu Mian felt that he might have seen another side of Yu Ran that no one had ever seen before. Yu Ran had restrained himself from publicizing his talented side, and this was more eye-catching than any unrestrained behavior.

It was also at this moment that Chu Mian reflected on this fact — however rather slowly — it turned out that he was talking about his dreams with Yu Ran.

Everything that was hidden in the softest corners of his heart had, unknowingly, been revealed to Yu Ran.

When he was in a daze, Yu Ran had clenched his left hand into a fist and raised it to the height of his chest.

“Since we both want to take the entrance examination of schools in Beijing, let’s make a promise to see each other in three years.”

“…” Chu Mian came back to his senses and looked him straight in the face.

Although there was nothing wrong with the current atmosphere, the fact that two boys were sitting here in the middle of the night with their fists raised, to “promise” on something…was a little weird and shameful.

But in the end, Chu Mian stretched out his right hand, and clenched it, before gently bumping into Yu Ran’s fist.

The teenagers’ joints were interlocked, and the space in between their fingers had the same temperature.

Chu Mian suddenly felt his chest getting warm, and everything becoming clear at once. He wanted to talk to Yu Ran, but now he couldn’t lift his head, his eyelids slowly closed, and his body fell unconscious.

Yu Ran hurriedly opened his arms to embrace him.

Chu Mian fell asleep smoothly, as his head rested on Yu Ran’s shoulders. Yu Ran felt his warm breath rubbing against his skin, which felt as comfortable as the temperature of the water in a hot bath.

Now that he was the only one who was still awake, Yu Ran couldn’t help but smile dumbly. Then, he leaned close to Chu Mian’s ear and whispered, “Good night.”