NH chapter 030
by VolareBecause this is a standard suite, there was only one bed, and they inevitably had to share it—oh, but there were still two pillows.
Huo Ye had prepared hot water and usually took some sleep aids he carried with him before sleeping. Unexpectedly, just as he swallowed half, Shen Tingyu opened the door while wiping his wet hair and stopped to stare at him.
“Are you hungry?”
Huo Ye’s eyelids twitched, and he disguisefully blocked himself with a water cup, swallowing hard to explain, “Vitamin C.”
Shen Tingyu said “oh,” showing no particular reaction, and continued using the hairdryer on his damp hair. He stood a bit close to Huo Ye; whether it was intentional or not, the water from the tips of his hair splashed onto Huo Ye’s face.
Huo Ye said nothing about it, calmly wiped his face, and lay down on the other side of the bed, trying to cultivate sleepiness.
He silently prayed that Shen Tingyu’s sleeping habits wouldn’t be too bad, such as kicking or any loud noises. Huo Ye was a light sleeper, easily awakened at the slightest disturbance, and then struggled to fall back asleep.
Just as Huo Ye began to feel drowsy, Shen Tingyu finished drying his hair, put the hairdryer away, and lay down in bed.
“I hate eating Vitamin C, as well as any health supplements.” After a long time, he finally heard Shen Tingyu speak.
Huo Ye didn’t open his eyes and lazily responded, “Mm.”
Perhaps the hangover medicine was working; Shen Tingyu seemed suddenly much more awake. Still a bit drowsy, he insisted on continuing, “My mom always forces me to eat a bunch of things I don’t like, yet she expects me to like what she does, so I don’t end up liking anything.”
“…Hm?”
What was he mumbling about? Huo Ye didn’t understand a word.
Shen Tingyu asked him, “Are you asleep?”
“No.” Huo Ye slowly replied, “You go ahead. I’m listening.”
“Then turn around, don’t face away from me.”
Huo Ye really didn’t want to move, “…Actually, I’m asleep.”
“No way, I’m still awake. How dare you sleep?” Shen Tingyu pulled at his shoulder from behind, which meant he did it half-heartedly.
Huo Ye turned around voluntarily, letting out a sigh, “Young Master, today is my birthday. Please let me off. I’m so sleepy.”
The person beside him quieted down for a while, not knowing what he was thinking.
After a quarter of an hour, Shen Tingyu spoke again, “I just want to tell you, not everyone can sleep with me. You’d better not snore or grind your teeth at night, or I will kick you out—Huo Ye, did you hear that?”
“……”
No one responded; it was rare for Huo Ye to be impolite.
Shen Tingyu huffed angrily, demanding he turn back, but then turned away himself, looking as if Huo Ye were the one clinging to him.
After this day, they officially welcomed the final exam week. Everyone temporarily restrained their playful spirits and prepared for the last round of revision and sprinting for the semester.
Even the conversations between Shen Tingyu and Huo Ye became less frequent, usually revolving around previous exam questions or college entrance examination simulations. Shen Tingyu was surprised to find Huo Ye’s thirst for knowledge and ambition stronger than he had imagined.
In the morning, before picking him up for school, Huo Ye would get up at five o’clock, running while memorizing vocabulary, running to their usual breakfast shop to buy the freshest soy milk and fried dough sticks, then driving out to wake Shen Tingyu.
Sometimes Shen Tingyu would linger in bed, sometimes he wouldn’t. On the days he did, a phone call wouldn’t wake him, so Huo Ye would usually go directly into his bedroom, pulling open all the curtains to let the sunlight in.
At this moment, Shen Tingyu would throw a pillow; Huo Ye would dodge nimbly while also helping him grab clothes and pack his bag.
By the end of December, even the mornings in Guangdong were quite cold, and the chilly wind whipped through the bones, causing Shen Tingyu to linger in bed more often, even the curtain pulling wouldn’t work. So Huo Ye would first wash his hands in cold water, then reach into Shen Tingyu’s warm bed, touching his warm cheeks and ears, and even going so far as to reach into Shen Tingyu’s pajamas.
This trick was always effective. Shen Tingyu would instantly explode and try to pinch him, while Huo Ye would laugh and immediately raise his hands in surrender.
During these few months spent in Lanjing, Shen Tingyu didn’t even realize that his emotions could be so rich. In just over a hundred days, he had tossed his previously stagnant heart, like a ceramic doll yet to be colored, high into the sky and then landed in the inflatable castle that Huo Ye had built for him with cotton candy.
If Shen Tingyu during those eighteen years was like an unpainted porcelain doll, it was only until today that he realized anger was red, joy was pink, the sky at school was blue, and even the green of the trees was distinctive.
Finally managing to get through the exam week, the mere twenty-day winter break was finally willing to give students a bit of sweetness. On the last bell of school, within half an hour, almost the entire school was empty and the traffic at the gates was jammed.
On the way back, the traffic was severe. Huo Ye casually asked, “Where are you planning to spend the winter break?”
“Where else, Linshan.” Shen Tingyu sounded listless.
Huo Ye asked, “What, don’t want to go home?”
“It has nothing to do with whether I want to,” Shen Tingyu said, “If I’m out of my mom’s sight for a day, she thinks I’m going to turn bad.”
Huo Ye was driving with one hand, the other pinching a cigarette, with sparks glowing against the half-open window, presenting the aura of a refined scum—a subtle implication, thank you.
“How can it lead to turning bad? Are you learning from me?” The traffic light ahead had a camera. Huo Ye shook off the ash and skillfully ducked back.
Shen Tingyu glanced at him, “…You’re not bad.”
“Mm-hmm?”
Huo Ye raised an eyebrow with interest.
After saying this, Shen Tingyu stopped talking.
Huo Ye took a deep drag on his cigarette, then turned his head during the traffic jam, resting his hand on the back of Shen Tingyu’s passenger seat, exhaling smoke near his ear, deliberately asking, “Am I not bad?”
Shen Tingyu, pressed against the car door, couldn’t help but cough, nearly looking like he wanted to jump out of the car, “Don’t disgust me.”
“Since you think I’m not bad, then why are you dodging?”
Shen Tingyu replied, “Get lost, the green light is on!”
Hearing the “get lost,” Huo Ye was satisfied, extinguished his cigarette, then stepped on the gas and continued driving into the busy streets.
After this farewell, they did not meet for more than half a month—this was the first time their distance had been so far since they met, and neither of them was particularly used to it.
Although they couldn’t meet, they still had contact via WeChat, and it could be considered frequent. Every few days, they would send each other messages about how life had been and what had happened lately.
Previously, WeChat was just a payment app for Shen Tingyu; he hardly chatted with anyone. Who would have thought that over these past half a month, he suddenly became fond of using it? Sometimes he would post three updates in a day, with content that was utterly uninteresting.
For instance, he would post what he ate for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, each with a simple sentence and no accompanying pictures.
Huo Ye had no mutual friends with him on the list, so each like seemed to come solely from Huo Ye, making him his only audience.
However, in reality…
Shen Tingyu’s posts with words about exquisite delicacies didn’t really impress Huo Ye, who even thought of giving a thumbs down.
Couldn’t he refrain from posting things he couldn’t eat and that were just sour and smelly?
Yet every time he refreshed his WeChat moments, Huo Ye would still stop and grudgingly like them before moving on.
[Big Miss]
Lobster macaroni and cheese, disgusting. I hate seafood.
—1 minute ago.
[Like] 007
In the days leading up to the New Year’s Eve, Huo Ye accompanied Song Jianlan on an almost eight-hour-long bus ride back to the countryside.
Their Huo family was rooted in western Guangdong, located in a relatively poor and backward mountainous area, very rustic and very village-like. To get ingredients for a meal, it took a twenty-minute drive to navigate the winding mountain roads to reach the town.
Song Jianlan suffered from motion sickness, and upon arrival, she immediately vomited. Huo Ye told her to go rest in her room, while Huo Lijun didn’t even glance at her, complaining that this woman was too pampered and nearly soiled his car.
Huo Yan couldn’t bear to hear him speak ill of their mother but also dared not argue back, stamping her foot before turning and running away.
But as the eldest son in the family, Huo Ye couldn’t slip away. Hearing that the Old Huo family had returned, Huo Lijun insisted on taking him to visit relatives.
Huo Lijun always cared about appearance, the type to inflate his sense of worth. Even though his pockets were empty, living in straitened circumstances, and he owed a mountain of high-interest debt he didn’t know how to repay, every time he returned home, he had to be the most generous and the most flamboyant, almost as if fearing others wouldn’t see that he lived exceptionally well and was particularly wealthy.
His exterior had to be shiny and radiant, yet in truth, he wore underpants with holes for over ten years, just managing to avoid buying new ones.
Huo Ye’s grandparents were over seventy years old and still relatively healthy. The Old Huo family inherited Huo Lijun’s temperament—prideful, vain, and quick to anger, with a strong preference for boys over girls, and a more severe feudal mindset.
Knowing that Song Jianlan had motion sickness but not seeing Huo Yan around, they asked not a single question, just held Huo Ye’s hand tightly, grinning with creased faces, cheerfully calling him, “Little Seven, my dear grandson! You’ve finally come back, and you’ve grown taller!”
Huo Ye’s grandmother had a loud voice; her pitch was high and her features squished up, making her somewhat unpopular in the village.
Once, she passed by an old man from the same village who casually mentioned some crude rural slang. Upon hearing, Huo Ye’s grandmother took offense and rushed home to complain to Huo Lijun, saying that the old man had disrespected her.
Huo Lijun was buzzing from drinking, and upon hearing this, he became furious. With a red face and a thick neck, he snatched up a liquor bottle and stormed out to confront the old man.
Song Jianlan and a group of women couldn’t stop him, and he ended up seriously injuring the wronged old man from their village, resulting in a bloodied head wound—luckily, it didn’t lead to a death, but the whole village knew that Huo’s family was not to be trifled with.
There were many similar quarrels, but to sum it up, Huo Lijun was a tyrant in the village, the bully of all bullies.
On the third day back in the village, around eleven at night, Huo Ye helped clean up after the banquet, and after washing up, he planned to sleep early since there were things to do the next day.
Just as he lay down, his phone vibrated with a WeChat message. Opening it, to his surprise, it was from Shen Tingyu.
[Big Miss]:
Are you asleep? Are you home?
…
[007]:
At home, what’s up?
[Big Miss]:
Nothing much, I’m coming to find you now.
…
Huo Ye immediately lost all sleepiness and replied with a “?”
[007]:
Where are you?
…
Five minutes later, he finally received a reply.
[Big Miss]:
Just got off the bus, I’m at the airport.
…
[007]:
Changing tickets.
…
Shen Tingyu sent a “?” back.
[007]:
You change your ticket; I’m not in Lanjing.
[Big Miss]:
Didn’t you say you were at home??? Did you move?
[007]:
No, I’m at my hometown.
[007]:
During the New Year, did your mom kick you out?
…
Shen Tingyu: “.”
[Big Miss]:
Shut up, I’m running away from home. Send me your address.
…
Huo Ye couldn’t help but chuckle, knowing he had guessed right again.