Jiang Zhihuo keenly noticed that Yan Mu seemed completely different when he said this sentence.
It’s as if…merely mentioning or thinking about a certain person could make his whole attitude softened.
Did Yan Mu really like Bai Yujun that much??
After returning home, Jiang Zhihuo didn’t mention today’s date again. He quickly took a shower, got into bed, and curled up in the air-conditioned room.
The next day was Monday, and they had class.
Yan Mu’s alarm rang on time.
That night, Yan Mu still didn’t sleep well. Having someone beside him was something he wasn’t used to, especially when that person stuck to him like glue.
The alarm was still ringing as Yan Mu reached out to turn it off, but another hand was quicker, emerging from under the blanket and groping around the bedside table.
Jiang Zhihuo didn’t manage to find anything. For some reason, he ended up bringing the phone even closer, with alarming ringing non-stop right next to his ear.
“So noisy.” Half-awake, Jiang Zhihuo pulled the thin blanket over his head, turned over, and rolled onto the other half of the bed along with the blanket.
Three seconds later—
Jiang Zhihuo’s body stiffened, and his eyes snapped open. He threw off the thin blanket and grabbed Yan Mu’s arm.
“…….” After a moment, Yan Mu’s calm voice came from above. “Can you let go now?”
Jiang Zhihuo, still half-asleep, closed his eyes again, found his way by touch, and kissed Yan Mu’s earlobe. Sitting up groggily, he asked, “Why did you wake up so early?”
“Class,” Yan Mu said, turning off the alarm and getting out of the bed to wash up.
Oh, it’s Monday today.
Jiang Zhihuo sat on the bed in a daze for a while, then looked sleepily at the time and was shocked. “It’s only six o’clock! Is the school gate even open? So early?! Do all of you top students not sleep?!”
After coming back last night, Jiang Zhihuo saw with his own eyes that Yan Mu stayed up late working on problems before finally going to bed.
Top students might need sleep, but geniuses really don’t.
Still feeling drowsy, Jiang Zhihuo lay back down, pulling the thin blanket up a bit, and said, “You go ahead, go ahead. I’ll sleep a bit longer.”
After Yan Mu finished washing up, and came in, he heard this and was lost in thought. He unexpectedly yanked the thin blanket off and lifted Jiang Zhihuo up, saying, “Go brush your teeth.”
“I’m not going.” Jiang Zhihuo clung to the blanket, refusing to let go, and exclaimed in frustration, “What are you doing?! Why do you want me to get up so early?! You’re killing me! This is a crime!”
After Jiang Zhihuo’s outburst, Yan Mu suddenly stopped moving. Jiang Zhihuo thought that perhaps he was finally done trying to make him get up, but the next second, a dark expression suddenly appeared on Yan Mu’s face.
Yan Mu leaned over and pinned Jiang Zhihuo down, one hand firmly pressing on his shoulder, the other gripping his chin. His thumb gently stroked the other person’s lips, and the scent of alpha’s pheromones brushed against Jiang Zhihuo’s face with his breathing.
What the heck?!
Jiang Zhihuo pushed Yan Mu away, stumbled backward, almost losing his balance from the shock of being woken up so abruptly.
“What are you doing?”
Yan Mu glanced at him and simply said, “Go ahead.”
Jiang Zhihuo: “……”
Seriously? Why does this person have to make things difficult for him? Does he really have to wash up?
At six in the morning, Jiang Zhihuo was still half-asleep. Although he was startled awake by Yan Mu and hurried to wash up, he found himself feeling drowsy again while standing in front of the mirror. When he returned to his room, before he could even ask Yan Mu what he wanted, a hand grabbed his shoulder.
Jiang Zhihuo: ?!
Yan Mu was very strong, and Jiang Zhihuo, caught off guard, was pulled backward. He instinctively reached out to grab Yan Mu; thus, the two of them ended up falling onto the bed together, making a muffled sound.
The mattress was very soft, so the fall wasn’t painful, but the current position…
Yan Mu was lying on top of Jiang Zhihuo, with his palm pressed against the side of his face, and one knee bent, supporting himself between Jiang Zhihuo’s legs.
Jiang Zhihuo: “..…”
Things turned out this way for no apparent reason. Yan Mu was too lazy to say anything more, and just lowered his head.
The moment their lips touched, Jiang Zhihuo finally remembered the reason Yan Mu had pushed him to wash up.
Jiang Zhihuo, still half- asleep, had forgotten, but Yan Mu hadn’t. They needed to be in contact to suppress the heat symptoms.
How long Jiang Zhihuo wanted to sleep or be late was his business. However, giving a kiss before leaving to control the heat was Yan Mu’s duty.
Because of what had just happened, the whole kissing process was led by Yan Mu. Yesterday, the two love rivals went on a three-person date, and that night the two even slept in the same bed. The next morning, they were kissing. Their relationships were getting more and more complicated.
Jiang Zhihuo was lost in thought. When he was about to placed his hand on Yan Mu’s shoulder to take some initiative, his body suddenly shuddered.
In the morning, both of them had not fully recovered yet, and once again, they were in this indescribable position on the bed, with their waists pressed extremely low—
The two things that shouldn’t have touched each other ended up coming into contact by accident.
Jiang Zhihuo: “……”
Yan Mu: “……”
“Ahem.” Jiang Zhihuo loosened his grip and forced a calm expression, saying, “We’re both men; this kind of thing is quite normal. There’s no need to make a fuss about it.”
He then wrapped himself in a thin blanket, lay down with his eyes closed, and calmly told Yan Mu, “That’s enough. You should go to school, I’ll sleep a little longer.”
Jiang Zhihuo didn’t sleep for long. When he woke up and checked the time, he was almost late.
Although school bully Jiang often skipped class, it was mostly the afternoon ones. As long as he was awake in the morning, he would always make an appearance at school.
At the intersection, he saw the director of the teaching department, Feng Zhi, standing at the school gate with a line of students who were also late. Feng Zhi paced in front of them, giving them a serious and earnest lecture.
Jiang Zhihuo quietly stood at the end of the line
Even while giving a lecture, Feng Zhi’s voice remained gentle. “Why does school close the gate? It’s not to make things difficult for you; it’s to help you develop a clear sense of time.”
“This is a very important matter. Not just in school, but also in university and in the society later on, you must not be late and must keep track of time. It’s both a small thing and a big thing. Do you understand?”
He spotted Jiang Zhihuo within a glance and smiled, “Not bad, you came a bit earlier today.”
He then said warmly to the row of the students in front of him, “Alright, everyone, submit a self-reflection report. Make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
The students who were late breathed a sigh of relief, as they only had to write a self-reflection report.
Feng Zhi smiled again and asked, “I hope not to see you at the school gate tomorrow. Got it?”
“Got it!”
The one who spoke was an omega boy wearing a black collar. There weren’t many omegas in the senior year, only two or three. Jiang Zhihuo remembered this person’s name, Qiu Bian.
Hearing Qiu Bian’s voice, Feng Zhi looked very pleased. He gave a slight smile and patted his shoulder, saying, “Alright, go to class.”
Feng Zhi turned to have a security guard open the school gate. A few people who knew Jiang Zhihuo greeted him, and they walked into the school together.
There was a bit of a walk from the gate to the school building. One of the boys said, “I think Director Feng is a really nice person!”
“Yeah! The teaching directors at the other schools are scarier. If you’re late, they won’t let you in directly and make you suffer too.”
Another boy said, “Exactly! The No. 2 High School next door, Director Lin is alway watching, watching for the lateness, watching during the PE class, and even watching over the hairstyles. Early in the morning, he stands at the school gate with a scissor. If anyone’s bangs fall below their eyebrows, he cuts them on the spot!”
“That scary?!”
Hearing their discussion, Qiu Bian couldn’t help but chime in, “I also think Director Feng is great.”
Probably due to being an omega, Qiu Bian’s voice change came later and hadn’t yet changed completely, making him sound softer among the boys. After he said this, the other boys looked over at him. A few of them furrowed their brows slightly, and although they didn’t show it intentionally, there was still a sign of disdain coming from them.
Male omega, what a damn nuisance.
Qiu Bian was already used to it. He lifted his eyes, smiled at them indifferently, and said, “Only Director Feng doesn’t discriminate against omegas.”
However, no matter how great Director Feng was, the self-reflection report still needed to be written.
In the morning study session, Jiang Zhihuo casually spread his book on the desk, pulled out a sheet of grid paper, and began to write.
Jiang Zhihuo has written many self-reflection reports. The teaching director of his junior high school was obsessed with them—he’d make Jiang Zhihuo write one even if he was seen throwing trash in the wrong place. He despised Jiang Zhihuo to the extreme, and later, when he heard that Jiang Zhihuo had gotten into the No. 1 High School, he was so shocked that he almost had a heart attack.
When Jiang Zhihuo first started writing them, he had to go online to copy and change the examples. After writing so many, he developed his own style. It wasn’t difficult; only three steps: sincerely apologize, geniusly promise to improve, and look forward to the future.
Before long, Jiang Zhihuo had filled a whole page with his writing. As he was turning the page, Chang Luo tapped him on the shoulder from behind, and asked, “Huo-ge, I heard you had a fight with the god of learning?”
Jiang Zhihuo: “Huh?”
Chang Luo said slowly, “On Saturday, you went to find the god of learning, right? The whole grade went crazy about it. You told him to come out directly. Weren’t you going to have a fight? What happened? Did you get hurt?”
Jiang Zhihuo: “……”
At the time, he felt so distressed that he wished he could just disappear on the spot and didn’t think about his tone. It hadn’t even been two days, and the news about the school bully and the god of learning fighting had already spread like wildfire?
Jiang Zhihuo refuted to the rumor, “It’s nothing. It wasn’t a fight, just a peaceful reconciliation of some personal grievances.”
“Is that so?” Chang Luo asked again, “Then the bruise on the god of learning’s hand isn’t caused by you?”
Jiang Zhihuo asked, “What bruise?”
After asking, Jiang Zhihuo remembered that on Saturday, he had indeed seen a large red mark on Yan Mu’s hand. However, the situation was unusual at that time, and Yan Mu looked like he didn’t want to answer. Since it was normal for boys to have some injuries on their bodies, Jiang Zhihuo didn’t pay much attention to it afterward.
“Oh, that.” Jiang Zhihuo said, “I don’t know either. Maybe it was scratched by someone?”
The topic was quickly brushed aside. The first session was Chinese. Shortly, Ding Jianhui walked into the classroom carrying a stack of paper and wrote two large characters on the blackboard.
—Dreams.
Ding Jianhui said, “In this session, we will write an essay. The topic is ‘Dreams’. There are no limits on the word count or the style.”
“Although the school started a month earlier, we are already real senior students. Everyone here is an excellent student. I hope you will use this session to seriously think about what you want to do in the future, what universities you want to attend, and what steps you need to take.”
“I won’t be grading this essay. I’ll return it to you before the college entrance exam.”
A stack of beautiful paper was passed down from the front row.
The classroom was noisily buzzing for a moment, as if in the discussion, but quickly quietened down. Soon, the sound of pen tips scratching across paper filled the room.
Jiang Zhihuo didn’t start writing immediately. He wrote a few characters on a draft paper, then crossed them out, crumpled the draft paper into a ball, and tossed it under desk. Next, he rested his head on the desk and closed his eyes.
He decided not to write. He thought it would be better to use the class time to rest. Jiang Zhihuo intended to take a short nap and also think about what to say if Ding Jianhui called him later for not submitting the essay. Unexpectedly, he actually fell asleep and even had a dream.
The scene in the dream was very chaotic.
In a large villa, the faces of the people in the dream were blurred, but Jiang Zhihuo recognized them all.
The woman sitting across from him was crying, while the man beside her was arguing with someone.
Jiang Zhihuo couldn’t make out their argument, but he only wanted to help the woman dry her tears, yet he couldn’t.
He was being firmly held by an ordinary-looking man. The man was somewhat hunched, with rough palms and calloused skin digging into Jiang Zhihuo’s wrist.
“Huo-ge, Huo-ge.”
Jiang Zhihuo was jolted awake by Chang Luo, realizing he was covered in a cold sweat. Ding Jianhui was standing next to his seat. Seeing that he was awake, he asked, “Why aren’t you writing?”
Jiang Zhihuo: “I don’t know what to write.”
Ding Jianhui smiled and said, “No worries. Take some more time to think about it. Come by my office after class and we can discuss it?”
