ASSHKHME Chapter 39
by VolareThe temperature gradually lowered, moving from a breezy late autumn towards a piercing winter.
From that day on, Xie Yu really didn’t return to the dorm.
Even though the business school and architecture school’s teaching buildings were right next to each other, and they occasionally had classes in the same building on different floors, Chen Zhuo hadn’t run into him once in a whole week.
At noon, the restaurant was bustling with people. Chen Zhuo listlessly poked at the meat sauce rice noodles in front of him. The newly opened window at Cafeteria 3 had a pretty good flavor, but he didn’t have much of an appetite.
Zhao Jiashu came over with his tray to find him. “Hey, Zhuo’er, I just ran into Yu-ge. He didn’t even see me standing in front of him, looking preoccupied. Did something really happen to his family? I asked him just now, but he wouldn’t say.”
Chen Zhuo’s brow twitched slightly. When he heard Zhao Jiashu say that Xie Yu was in a bad mood, he suddenly felt hungry. He slurped a mouthful of rice noodles and mumbled, “Who cares about him? He can do whatever he wants.”
Zhao Jiashu picked up a strand of rice noodles from his bowl and tasted it. “I always feel like you two had a fight. You haven’t seemed too happy lately either.”
Chen Zhuo grabbed the leanest piece of braised pork from Zhao Jiashu’s tray and was about to reply when a glimpse from the corner of his eye, through the scattered crowd, met the gaze of the person who was making him upset.
Xie Yu was holding a tray and subconsciously took two steps in Chen Zhuo’s direction, but Chen Zhuo quickly withdrew his gaze, smiling and chatting with Zhao Jiashu, as if he hadn’t seen him or didn’t want to acknowledge him at all.
His footsteps paused. A friend not far away waved at him, “Yu-ge, I found an empty table, over here.”
“Okay, coming,” Xie Yu replied, glanced at Chen Zhuo, and walked in the opposite direction.
Zhao Jiashu noticed the smile on Chen Zhuo’s face quickly fading away and looked in the direction of his gaze with a puzzled expression. He only saw the noisy crowd. “What’s wrong? Zhuo’er, who did you see?”
Chen Zhuo forcefully poked his bowl with his chopsticks, sullenly saying, “No one.”
After lunch, Zhao Jiashu went to a departmental meeting. Chen Zhuo aimlessly kicked fallen leaves as he walked towards the dorm.
With nothing to do, he planned to go back and draw. Although architecture was an engineering major, it leaned towards design. Without love and interest, the four years of university would be very painful.
The weather wasn’t good today. There wasn’t a single ray of sunlight at noon. The sky was covered with thick dark clouds, a dark oppressive expanse, and the wind had picked up.
The withered and yellow leaves on both sides of the road swayed precariously on the branches, blown by the wind onto Chen Zhuo’s shoulders.
Chen Zhuo tightened his collar and looked at the rolling black clouds in the sky. He took out his phone and looked at the weather forecast. Sure enough, there was rain, probably a heavy rain. He prayed inwardly that there wouldn’t be any thunder.
Chen Zhuo quickened his pace towards the dorm. Suddenly, he felt someone running towards him from behind. Before he could turn around, his shoulder was grabbed.
The person rushed over in a flurry, leaning their weight on him with a smile. “Hi~ Baby, what a coincidence!”
It was Jiang Song from the neighboring art school, a year above him, whom he’d met in an elective course on landscape art appreciation.
Jiang Song perfectly fit the public’s stereotype of art students: delicate and beautiful, with messy hair tied into a small bun at the back of his head.
The woody floral scent of his perfume drilled straight into Chen Zhuo’s nose. Chen Zhuo pushed away the face that was getting too close and said ruthlessly, “Get away, the powder on your face is going to rub off on my clothes.”
Jiang Song “tsk”ed and followed him. “I’m not wearing makeup today! This is all natural beauty, okay?”
Chen Zhuo gave a perfunctory nod.
He hadn’t known Jiang Song for long. They only met once a week for class. Perhaps because they were of the same kind, they got along pretty well and could be considered friends.
It’s just that he couldn’t quite handle Jiang Song’s energetic aura, which made him seem a little cold.
Jiang Song walked alongside him, squinting his eyes and looking him up and down. “Dark circles are so heavy. Have you been having insomnia lately? Why are you having insomnia? Did you break up? That’s not right, you’re not even dating. Did a secret crush fail? Did the other person get a girlfriend?”
Chen Zhuo was stabbed several times by his accidental remarks, and he closed his eyes in annoyance, retorting, “Don’t guess wildly, who has a secret crush! None of that happened!”
Jiang Song blinked, his face full of sympathy. “You fell for a straight guy?”
Chen Zhuo paused in his tracks, looking very unhappy, and said emphatically, “No!”
Jiang Song wore an “I understand, I understand everything” expression, patted him on the shoulder like someone who’s been there, and said earnestly, “Think positive, you’ll get over it.”
Chen Zhuo rubbed his brow. “I really didn’t… Forget it, I’m too lazy to explain it to you. I’m going back to the dorm.”
Jiang Song smiled, “Okay, okay, if you say no, then no. Let’s go together, I’m going back to the dorm too.”
Chen Zhuo raised his eyebrows. “But today’s the weekend, aren’t you going out to have fun?”
Hearing this, Jiang Song curled his lips, resentfully saying, “Don’t mention it. I ran into a lunatic last week and embarrassed myself badly. I don’t have the face to go, I’ll wait a while.”
Chen Zhuo was just making a casual remark and wasn’t interested in his personal life. He nodded and didn’t ask further.
Because it was a cloudy day, the dorm was very dark.
Chen Zhuo turned on the desk lamp, tidied up the clutter on the desk, took out drawing paper, a parallel ruler, and other tools he needed, and then leaned back in his computer chair, staring blankly at Xie Yu’s empty bookshelf.
That guy was really ruthless. Before he left, he not only took all the textbooks with him but also folded up the bedding and put it away. He wasn’t even from their architecture school, so he probably wasn’t coming back.
The desk lamp flickered a couple of times due to a bad connection, snapping Chen Zhuo back to reality. Only then did he realize that his thoughts had wandered off to Xie Yu again. He quickly got up and went to the balcony to splash cold water on his face to clear his head.
Chen Zhuo supported himself on the sink, sighed, and thought he wouldn’t really be like what Jiang Song had said, falling in love with a straight man, would he? That would be too tragic.
Around six or seven in the evening, Zhao Jiashu returned to the dorm with the dinner he had bought for Chen Zhuo. The dorm was pitch black, and Chen Zhuo was lying on the bed.
Zhao Jiashu turned on the light and found that the drawing paper on Chen Zhuo’s desk was blank, without even the trace of an eraser.
“Zhuo’er, come down and eat. I bought you mala tang. There’s no space on your desk, so I put it on Yu-ge’s desk, okay?”
Chen Zhuo lazily grunted in response, turned over and sat up, scratching his head, and asked, “Is it raining outside?”
“Not yet, but the wind has picked up. It almost blew me away. Achoo—” Zhao Jiashu rubbed his nose. “Li Ang isn’t back yet? Looks like the power of love is stronger than the wind.”
Chen Zhuo laughed and jumped off the bed. It was already completely dark outside, with only the dim streetlights emitting a faint light. The wind howled, and the trees were bent over as if they were about to break, their roots gripping the earth tightly.
A heavy rainstorm would sweep through Jiangbei City tonight.
Chen Zhuo calmly closed the curtains, shut the balcony door tightly, and sat at Xie Yu’s desk, slowly eating his mala tang.
Extra spicy, extra numbing, not too hot.
Around nine o’clock in the evening, lightning flashed and thunder rumbled, and a heavy rain poured down, instantly plunging Jiangbei City into an endless black curtain of rain.
Zhao Jiashu and Li Ang were a little excited, “This rain is really heavy, perfect for sleeping.”
Chen Zhuo put in his Bluetooth earphones tightly.
But in the pauses of the music, the thunder still crashed into his mind like a needle, plunging him into the torrent of time, taking him back to that dark night ten years ago, the pale lightning illuminating the black body bag and viscous blood, his vision filled with glaring red.
Chen Zhuo’s ears rang, and his face instantly lost its color. He clenched his trembling fingers, as if he could still feel the warmth of his parents before they passed away.
Suddenly, his phone “dinged” with two new messages.
Chen Zhuo was briefly pulled back to reality.
Rambunctious Wild Boar: [Are you afraid?]
Qingyou-ge: [Are you resting?]