Subtle Clues

The belated reveal of the secret did not diminish Yue Zhishi's joy; on the contrary, it doubled the effect of the surprise.

Before returning to school for evening self-study, he packed the supplementary textbook he had left in a corner for half a year into his schoolbag. But the book was too heavy, so Yue Zhishi took it out again, carefully cut out the two pages with Song Yu's message, and tucked them into the gray sketchbook Song Yu had given him.

Looking at Song Yu's handwriting on it, Yue Zhishi was suddenly filled with a strong desire to share. But he had no one suitable to share it with. After thinking it over, he felt no one was right, so in the end, he posted a status visible only to himself.

[Cheese1010: A message from half a year ago, received!]

Yue Zhishi felt that Song Yu might be a genius sent by heaven to tame him. He could have never imagined that there would come a day when he wouldn't have to be anxious about separation, and would even be eager to return home.

Any subtle clue left by Song Yu, no matter when it was discovered, could stir his emotions.

His phone vibrated. It was a message from Song Yu.

[Brother: Are you there yet?]

Yue Zhishi subconsciously started to reply that he had arrived, but then deleted the words and sent the photo he had taken of the two supplementary textbook pages instead.

[Yue Zhishi: You're so good at keeping secrets. If it were me, I wouldn't have been able to resist showing you.]

Song Yu spaced out looking at Yue Zhishi's message, recalling scenes of them playing hide-and-seek when they were children. It was indeed just as Yue Zhishi said. If they were both on the hiding side, Yue Zhishi could never stay still. If he wasn't found for too long, he'd want to come out on his own. Every time, Song Yu would have to cover his mouth and force him to hide properly, not letting him go anywhere.

Sometimes, when Song Yu was the one seeking, he would just have to call Yue Zhishi's name in the room, and if he was there, he would invariably make some kind of noise. That was why Yue Zhishi always lost—he couldn't hide.

But Song Yu was different. As long as he wanted to hide, Yue Zhishi could never find him. He would get so anxious he would start to cry, until Song Yu couldn't take it anymore and came out on his own.

Their relationship always seemed to be like this; it was hard to say who was coercing whom.

The dormitory door suddenly opened. Song Yu snapped out of his daze and glanced at the entrance. It was his roommate, Chen Fangyuan, who seemed to have just returned from outside. Shouting about how tired he was, he dropped his bag on his desk. "I thought it was going to be flooded for a whole week, I was even looking forward to a break. Didn't expect the water to recede today. I guess it's not time for the official 'ocean-viewing' season yet."

As he spoke, he noticed the neatly arranged pastries and cakes on his desk. A bit puzzled, he glanced at the other roommates' desks, then stuffed his hands in his pockets and sauntered over to Song Yu.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk..."

Song Yu looked up with a baffled expression, shot him a glance, and then let his gaze fall back to his book. "What's wrong with you?"

"Fess up, did you bring a girl in here?!"

Song Yu frowned, turned a page of his book, and said calmly, "You must be crazy."

Chen Fangyuan leaned his hands on Song Yu's desk. "Don't even think about fooling me. There are snacks for all of us on our desks."

Without looking up, Song Yu said, "My family brought those for me. I put them there."

"Bullshit. You'd never arrange them so neatly for us. Whenever you bring stuff from home, you just toss it on the windowsill for us to grab ourselves. And look here," Chen Fangyuan pointed to the flower on Song Yu's wall. "Look at this little white flower!"

A complete drama queen, Chen Fangyuan stood in front of Song Yu's desk, sniffing the flower's fragrance like a little puppy, then sighed contentedly, "Ah, the scent of our sister-in-law."

Song Yu got goosebumps. "...Are you sick in the head?"

"I have a serious case of 'face-con.' To be chosen by someone like you, whose standards are sky-high, she must be a total bombshell. Definitely fair-skinned, beautiful, with long legs—a real sweetheart. I want to see her."

Even though he knew Chen Fangyuan was just messing around, Song Yu seemed to have been brainwashed by his incessant chatter and actually began to check the descriptions off one by one.

Fair-skinned, beautiful, long-legged, sweetheart... Actually, he wasn't far off.

Being mixed-race would probably be a huge bonus point in Chen Fangyuan's eyes.

"I feel like our sister-in-law tidied my desk. It's so clean." Chen Fangyuan zipped back to his desk and ran a hand over its surprisingly clean surface. He recalled what it had looked like before he left. "I remember I had a few books scattered messily on my desk, and my chair was crooked too."

Song Yu was speechless. "I cleaned that."

Chen Fangyuan immediately denied it. "I don't believe you. You're not that nice. I must have a sister-in-law. I want to meet my sister-in-law!"

"Go meet her in your dreams."

Song Yu didn't want to explain that the visitor was his younger brother; Chen Fangyuan wouldn't believe him anyway.

Sure enough, when Chen Fangyuan saw the toiletries in the dorm bathroom that hadn't been put away yet, he started shouting from inside the bathroom.

"She even stayed the night?! Song Yu, you! You're really something!"

Song Yu put on his headphones and sighed. "I'm not that something. You're overthinking it."

A week after Yue Zhishi returned to school, Peiya School held its grand 70th-anniversary celebration. The school attached great importance to this rare anniversary, organizing a massive event. The Junior High and Senior High Divisions celebrated together boisterously for several days.

But the happiness belonged to others. As a third-year high school student, Yue Zhishi was not entitled to any activity time.

Peiya School had always been generous in this regard. To commemorate the 70th anniversary, the school leaders specially invited a professional film crew to record the entire celebration. Yue Zhishi, who couldn't participate in the activities, was walking from the cafeteria back to the academic building with a classmate when he was unexpectedly stopped by a director who was filming and was roped into a short interview to give his well-wishes.

The anniversary activities included a gala and a cultural festival, and the invitations were sent out widely. Even Song Yu, who had graduated three years ago, received a text message, but he was too busy to go back.

Besides, Yue Zhishi wasn't participating, so Song Yu felt there was no need to go back.

That evening, however, while sitting in his dorm writing a report, Song Yu received a barrage of WeChat messages from Lin Rong. He opened them to find they were all videos and photos. It turned out Lin Rong had gone to enjoy the festivities herself.

[Mom: I went to see Lele and took some pictures, look!]

At this rate, she'd "incidentally" gone to see Lele.

Song Yu wasn't very interested in the photos and videos she had taken. He scrolled down casually, saw nothing new, and was about to close the chat. Just then, Lin Rong sent a new message, which was a link to a shared article from a WeChat official account.

[Mom: Xiao Yu, look quickly, Lele is in the video in this, at three minutes and twelve seconds!]

After seeing that sentence, Song Yu finally clicked the link. It redirected to the official WeChat account of Peiya School, to an article about the anniversary celebration. Scrolling down, Song Yu searched for the video his mother mentioned and finally found it at the bottom, titled "Peiya Teachers and Students Celebrate the School's 70th Anniversary."

Just as he clicked on it, his dorm head, Wang Chengzhi, came over holding his phone. "Song Yu, have you filled out that application form? I sent it to you."

"Yeah, I'll fill it out later."

"What are you busy with?" Wang Chengzhi looked at his computer. "School anniversary? So you're from Peiya. I've seen a lot of people sharing stuff about it on my Moments recently. Turns out they're all your schoolmates."

Song Yu nodded and, following Lin Rong's instructions, dragged the video progress bar to three minutes and twelve seconds. Sure enough, he saw Yue Zhishi.

In the video, the guy was walking along in a daze, not watching where he was going, and looked a little flustered when he was stopped.

The interviewer was very enthusiastic, guiding Yue Zhishi to look at the camera. "Hello, student. Have you been participating in the Peiya anniversary celebrations?"

There seemed to be more than one camera, as Yue Zhishi took a moment to find the right one. "Ah, I... I'm a third-year, so I don't have time to participate in the activities, but I'm actually very envious of the students who can."

The person asked a few more questions, all of which Yue Zhishi answered very seriously, standing up very straight.

Seeing how intently Song Yu was watching, Wang Chengzhi couldn't help but ask, "This handsome kid is mixed-race, isn't he? Do you know him?"

Song Yu glanced at his dorm head. "Mm, he's my younger brother."

"You have a younger brother, that's great." Wang Chengzhi had clearly misunderstood. "Your family's genes are just defy-the-heavens good."

Song Yu didn't explain. When he looked back at the video, it had reached the part for giving well-wishes. Yue Zhishi was smiling like a sunflower, standing perfectly straight. "I hope our school gets better and better, and has another seventy years."

Just then, another boy suddenly appeared in the frame. He was very tall, a good half a head taller than Yue Zhishi, with very short hair. He threw an arm around Yue Zhishi's shoulders from behind, smiling brightly. "How is another seventy years enough? Let's make it seven hundred."

In the video, Yue Zhishi didn't shrug him off, but was instead amused into a laugh. "Seven hundred years is too long."

The boy kept his arm around him in that intimate posture and even held out a hand to the camera to make half of a heart shape. Yue Zhishi didn't get it at first, but after the boy nudged him with his shoulder, he realized. With a silly smile, Yue Zhishi slapped his hand away. "You're so weird."

"What's so weird about it? Happy birthday, Peiya!"

Soon, the camera cut away, and other students appeared in the video. Wang Chengzhi was still marveling, "Your brother's looks really stand out from the crowd in this video. Although that classmate of his just now was also a little handsome, he's still a notch below your brother."

As he was speaking, he felt it was strange that Song Yu didn't respond. He looked down and saw that Song Yu's expression seemed to have soured.

Was it his imagination?

Song Yu didn't watch the video anymore. He closed it directly, opened his chat with Wang Chengzhi, and found the form.

"Is this the application form you were talking about?"

Wang Chengzhi took a moment to react. "Ah, right... Just give it to me after you fill it out."

What was going on? It felt like he'd suddenly become a different person.

For the rest of the evening, Song Yu was unusually silent. And unlike usual, he went to bed very early, seemingly intending to rest. Chen Fangyuan, who slept across from him, felt something was off and sent a message to Wang Chengzhi.

[Chen Fangyuan: What's up with Song Fish today? He went to bed so early, he's not sick, is he?]

[Wang Chengzhi: I don't know, he was acting a little strange when he was filling out the application form tonight. It seems like he saw a video and suddenly got unhappy.]

[Chen Fangyuan: A video? Fuck, my Brother Fish didn't get cheated on, did he?!]

[Wang Chengzhi: ...How is that possible? He doesn't even have a partner. Cheated on before he's even in a relationship?]

[Chen Fangyuan: I think he does. My sixth sense is telling me Song Yu is in a relationship.]

Lying in bed, Song Yu was completely unaware of his two roommates' conversation. He simply wanted to get to sleep early, but things didn't go as planned. The more he wanted to fall asleep, the more awake he felt.

He opened his phone again, its light hitting the wall. He hesitated before opening his chat history with Lin Rong, staring at the link. Just as he was about to click it, a new WeChat notification popped up. It was from Yue Zhishi.

[Yue Zhishi: Brother, I scored really high on my weekly math test this time, look.]

Yue Zhishi sent the photo he had taken of his test paper, then very happily picked up his paper to look at it again. A moment later, he received a message from Song Yu.

[Brother: Mm.]

Just "Mm"? Yue Zhishi felt a little disappointed by this reply, but he noticed the "is typing..." indicator at the top of the chat window. So he waited very patiently. He waited until the indicator disappeared, but no new message appeared in the chat. After a while, the "is typing..." indicator appeared again...

Anxious, Yue Zhishi sent a message directly.

[Yue Zhishi: Are you writing a thesis, Brother?]

A minute later, he finally got a message from Song Yu.

He first sent a screenshot of Yue Zhishi during the anniversary interview—not just any frame, but the one of the failed attempt to make a heart sign.

[Brother: Is this the guy who's always dragging you to play games?]