Translator: Mosstree
Chapter 52
Ye Zhou didn’t know how he came back; he only remembered that he’d almost ridden the bike into the flower beds several times.
Ye Zhou’s heart was still beating like thunder as he locked the bike in a fluster and climbed up the stairs.
“Eh, weren’t you just going to take a shower? How did you come back from the outside?” Liu Yutian came out from visiting the dorm next door and saw Ye Zhou just passing 404.
“Ah?” Ye Zhou said incoherently, “I just went out for something. I’m going to shower.”
Liu Yutian followed behind Ye Zhou and saw that there was an empty place on the flower stand by the doorway. He asked, “What about Shang Jin’s strawberry?? It wouldn’t have been carried away by birds, right!!”
Ye Zhou still held the two white flowers in his hand, but at the moment, they’d been kneaded together into a lump: flowers that were no longer flowers. He put his hand behind his back and said, “I…I don’t know.”
The students from 404 and 403 came out when they heard the commotion and surrounded the flower stand. In a moment, they poked their heads to look downstairs to see that it hadn’t fallen, and in another moment, they looked nearby to see if someone had played a prank and carried it away.
Taking advantage of everyone not paying attention to him, Ye Zhou grabbed his clothes and dived into the bathroom.
He showered and quickly went to bed. Facing the white wall, he didn’t dare to turn his head.
Ye Zhou didn’t dare to face Shang Jin, but he also didn’t understand why he didn’t dare to face Shang Jin.
Obviously he’d told the truth and all of this was Shang Jin’s misunderstanding, but it was also Shang Jin who’d eavesdropped on his and Su Yin’s conversation first.
Obviously, from any way he looked at it, he shouldn’t have a guilty conscience.
But why…
The dorm door was pushed open and Ye Zhou’s heart tightened.
“Why hasn’t Shang Jin come back yet?”
“I didn’t see him when I returned to the dorm.”
“Without rhyme or reason, how can the strawberry disappear!” Liu Yutian clicked his tongue and looked up, “Zhou, why are you sleeping so early today?”
“Lower your voice. I saw that he was just very out of it,” Wen Renxu pulled Liu Yutian’s sleeve and whispered, “Didn’t you see that he turned a deaf ear when you mentioned Shang Jin’s strawberry? If it were usual and Shang Jin’s matter was brought up, he’d be the first to jump up.”
Ye Zhou grasped the sheets. For the first time, he realized that he had such an image in the eyes of others.
“Shang Jin, you’re back. Your strawberryー” Liu Yutian stared at the cage in Shang Jin’s right hand and said, “You took the strawberry out?”
“Yeah, took it for a walk.” Shang Jin returned the cage to its place. Entering the dorm, he saw that Ye Zhou was facing away from him and he quickly removed his gaze. “You’ve all washed up?”
“Washed, washed.” Liu Yutian gathered by Shang Jin’s side, looked at Ye Zhou’s bed and asked, “What’s wrong with him?”
“Not too clear.” Shang Jin went to the sink, turned on the faucet and forcefully threw the cold water on his face.
Since Shang Jin’s return, Ye Zhou had his ears perked up all along. When he heard this sentence, he was furious in his heart: You’re the one who’s clearest! Originally, the two people were good. Why did he have to say such a thing? Otherwise, why would he need to lie in bed now…if it were usual, they would certainly observe the strawberry flowers together, and then they’d discuss whose strawberry would bear fruit first. Not like now, the flowers were plucked, and people were…
It was still a month away from summer vacation. How would he survive during this time…
Because Ye Zhou went to bed early this night, the other three people in 405 were very quiet all night.
In his sleep, Ye Zhou seemed to have returned to the bamboo grove, but there wasn’t a shadow of Shang Jin at the stone table, leaving only a pot of strawberry flowers gently swaying in the night breeze. He walked to the table and saw the two plucked strawberry flowers drift up from the table to the sky. In a gust of wind, the petals scattered and were soon blown away without a trace. In a moment of distraction, even the strawberry on the table disappeared.
Ye Zhou suddenly opened his eyes and the sky was already bright. He turned and carefully looked at Shang Jin’s bed.
He didn’t expect that Shang Jin’s bed was already empty. The quilt was stacked neatly on the bed and the sheet didn’t have a trace of a wrinkle. Casting his gaze down, the messy tabletop last night was also tidied up.
Ye Zhou took a moment to wake up. He lifted off his quilt and jumped out of bed. When he opened the door, there was only his own solitary strawberry left on the huge flower stand.
He took out his cell phone, opened Shang Jin’s number, and pressed the dial button for half a day without letting go.
What do you think you’re doing? Even if it went through, what could you say?
Ye Zhou looked at the contact and hesitated. Seeing Shang Ming’s name under Shang Jin, he was suddenly ignited by an impulse and simply packed his luggage. After washing, he didn’t even eat breakfast and rushed to the train station.
Meanwhile, Shang Jin carried his strawberry seedling and returned home.
“Shang Jin, you’re back.” The aunt at home was pleasantly surprised when she saw Shang Jin at the door, “Just right, Youyou has been shouting for her brother everyday.”
“Aunt Zhang, is there something to eat? A bit hungry.” Shang Jin changed his shoes and placed the strawberry seedling on the windowsill. The strawberry flowers glittered in the sunlight and the breeze ruffled the leaves. Shang Jin saw a flower had withered under the leaves and a small green fruit grew out from the middle. “It actually…began to fruit.”
The long-awaited scene appeared at this time.
There was no excitement of the unexpected, only a sense of disappointment and frustration.
If Ye Zhou hadn’t so obviously avoided him, he wouldn’t be afraid that Ye Zhou would be uncomfortable when he saw him and so rushed home early in the morning.
“Big brother!” Shang Youyou ran downstairs skipping and jumping. Qin Fei braced the side of her arm against the bannister and told Shang Youyou to slow down a bit while carefully descending the staircase.
Qin Fei breathed a sigh of relief and said, “I was just thinking of asking you to come back for the weekend.”
Shang Jin nodded to Qin Fei. Shang Youyou hugged his thigh and stood on tiptoes to look at the windowsill. Shang Jin picked her up and, sitting in Shang Jin’s arm, Shang Youyou asked, “Why does the flower have to be in the cage?”
“So the birds can’t harm the flowers.”
Shang Youyou suddenly realized and reached out several times, wanting to touch the flowerpot. In the end, the cage net was too close together and Shang Youyou’s hand could only go in a little bit. Worrying that her hand would get caught, Shang Jin placed Shang Youyou on the ground, undid the triangular clasp on the cage and took out the flowerpot.
Shang Youyou stood on the small bench with her two hands propping up her head. She looked at the flowers and looked up at Shang Jin again. “It’s so beautiful.”
“Youyou, help me look over them. Don’t let the birds hurt them, okay?”
Shang Youyou nodded and in a moment, she looked around vigilantly as if facing a great enemy. Her arms guarded on both sides of the flowerpot, lest a bird emerged to snatch the flowers.
“Shang Jin, can I trouble you to come home everyday during this time?” Qin Fei said carefully, “I’ll be due in a few days, Youyou…”
“No problem.” Shang Jin took the bowl of millet porridge and took a sip. “Anyway, I won’t have any classes in a week. At that time, I’ll come live at home.”
“That’s great.” Qin Fei breathed a sigh of relief. “I’ll be going to the hospital soon, and it’s inconvenient for Youyou to follow me in the evening. If you’re home, she’ll feel at ease.”
After a few mouthfuls, Shang Jin finished drinking the millet porridge and he put the bowl down. “When will you be hospitalized?”
Qin Fei touched her belly and said, “I’m afraid I’ll be going in two days.”
Shang Jin said, “Well, I will stay at home from now on. It only takes half an hour to drive to and from school. During the day, I can help you send Youyou to school.”
Qin Fei was startled. Although she’d hoped that Shang Jin would come back, but Shang Jin being so articulate was actually a bit unusual. Before, he’d been too lazy to make a trip back home even once during a semester, but now he actually volunteered to come back everyday. Qin Fei asked tentatively, “Is everything okay at school?”
“What can happen to me?” Shang Jin scoffed. It was only that he didn’t want to make things awkward for Ye Zhou. That fool always thought for others. Originally, it was he who had broken the harmonious relationship between the two people, but in the end, it was Ye Zhou who was full of guilt and didn’t dare to face him.
On the other side, A City train station.
“Tootー”
The train whistle sounded. Ye Zhou sat in the train, watching the scenery gradually receding out the window.
“Too cowardly!” Ye Zhou clenched his fists. Yesterday, it could have been better if he’d replied to Shang Jin, but he actually fled without turning his head back.
He grabbed his hair. What was he going to do with Shang Jin later on?
Not sleeping well at night, Ye Zhou sat in the car and dazedly fell asleep. Half asleep and half awake, he felt that the people around him were all walking. Ye Zhou opened his eyes and saw that most of the passengers were carrying their suitcases and getting ready to off-board the train. Ye Zhou carried his backpack and hurriedly followed behind them.
From the station, he took a direct bus to Shang Ming’s school. After forty minutes, Ye Zhou stood at T Uni’s gate. Taking out his cell phone, he listlessly gave Shang Ming a call.
“Come and pick me up…”
Shang Ming blanked first and then an exclamation burst out, “You came to my school??”
“Yeah.”
“Coming at once!”
Twenty minutes later, Shang Ming rushed over on a lady bicycle.
Ye Zhou’s mood lifted a bit when he saw a familiar person. “Your aesthetic is a bit…you wouldn’t have turned girly after staying with girls for so long, right?”
“Girly, your sister! My bicycle doesn’t have a backseat, so I borrowed one from a girl.”
Ye Zhou pulled his mouth. The backseat was almost as high as his knees. Can he really sit on it?
Shang Ming braced on the ground with one leg, rested his elbows on the handlebar and said, “Quickly get on.”
“I came all the way here and this is how you treat me?”
“It’s better than your wonderful broken pedicab.”
Once the pedicab was mentioned, Ye Zhou remembered Shang Jin and immediately didn’t have the inclination to jest anymore. He wanly squatted on the bicycle backseat and, clutching Shang Ming’s clothes, said, “Why so many words. Ride on.”
Shang Ming’s legs pedaled and laboriously dragged Ye Zhou slowly forward. Even more laborious were Ye Zhou’s shoes. Even if his legs were curled up to the extreme, the shoes were still inseparable from the ground.
In T Uni’s campus, two boys who were nearly 1.8-meter tall crowded onto a small lady bike. The scene was comparable to a circus bear riding a buggy, comical and hilarious, and it attracted countless T Uni students to stop and take pictures.
Ye Zhou buried his face in Shang Ming’s back and gnashed his teeth. “You deliberately set me up!”
Shang Ming also didn’t expect the consequences would be so “eye-catching”. He hatefully said, “Where have you seen someone messing with people also messing with himself!”
After twenty endless minutes passed, Ye Zhou and Shang Ming finally arrived safely at the dormitory.
There was no one in the dorm on the weekend.
Shang Ming poured out a glass of water for Ye Zhou, sat him in his chair and dragged another stool to the computer. “You’re not an impulsive person like me. Say it: what’s the problem?”
Ye Zhou grabbed his sleeve and said, “Shang Jin really confessed to me!!”
“Oh.” Shang Ming looked indifferently at his heart-in-panic appearance, pried opened his fingers and said with an expressionless face, “My heart has no fluctuation and I even want to laugh a little.”
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