Xie Yu was irritated. "Of course it's for you, who else would it be for?"

He snatched the scarf box from Shen Ci's lap and tossed it onto the backseat with a clatter. "Don't just stand there looking dumb, put it on, let me see."

Shen Ci paused slightly. The fabric in his palms was exceptionally soft, made of excellent material; a single scarf could cover several months of his food expenses. Feeling somewhat awkward, he wrapped the scarf around his neck, winding it tightly twice.

It looked as if he intended to use this scarf to hang himself.

Xie Yu: "...Are you an idiot? Forget it, let me do it."

He leaned over to retie the scarf for Shen Ci, making a beautiful knot. The fringed tassels hung loosely over the trench coat, completely wrapping Shen Ci up.

Shen Ci gathered the scarf, casting his eyes down to watch Xie Yu tie the knot. Young Master Xie's fingers were long, beautiful, and exceptionally dextrous. "...Sorry, I haven't tied this kind before."

There were no scarves at home, only his grandmother's old-fashioned silk scarves, which had been washed until they were wrinkled and faded, their patterns completely gone.

Xie Yu paused, finished tying it properly for him, and then sat stiffly in the driver's seat. His fingers absentmindedly rubbed against something, and he didn't speak for a long while.

Shen Ci: "Then I'll go to class?"

He pulled the door handle, wanting to get out of the car.

Xie Yu shouted to stop him. "Don't move! There's something else!"

Seeing Shen Ci stop, Xie Yu clutched the box in his hand, cursing the god-awful plot ten thousand times in his heart. Then, he closed his eyes and ordered, "Uhm, you, lower your head."

Shen Ci was slightly taken aback but cooperatively lowered his head.

Xie Yu: "Brush your hair back, expose your earlobe."

Shen Ci tucked his hair behind his ear, exposing his earlobe.

Xie Yu opened the packaging and reached out to hold the edge of his ear. The next second, Shen Ci felt a slight pinch of pain on his earlobe as something clipped onto it.

Xie Yu: "This..."

He swallowed a certain noun whole. "This ear stud too, you are not allowed to take it off before class ends."

The word "ear" was deliberately slurred, spoken vaguely.

Shen Ci turned his head and, through the car's rearview mirror, clearly saw the small accessory. It was a platinum ear clip the size of a grain of rice, shaped like an English letter "x" in calligraphy. The lines were smooth and beautiful, like intertwining vines.

The ear clip was unadorned. Because it was small enough, it was very understated and didn't attract attention. It was a unisex style, hanging coolly on his ear with almost no sense of presence.

Shen Ci touched it. "x?"

Xie Yu narrowed his eyes. "The first letter of this Young Master's surname. What, you don't want to wear it?"

In the perverted novel, the original owner stubbornly wanted to leave a mark on Shen Ci. The original text described it as "a [censored] piercing engraved with Young Master Xie's name." Although the censored word was mosaicked out, Xie Yu could figure out what the hell it was with his toes. Feeling incredibly speechless and thoroughly repulsed, he found a jeweler overnight and custom-ordered this ear clip.

As for why it wasn't a stud, first, it was because Xie Yu didn't know how to pierce ears, and second, he felt it was weird to ask Shen Ci, a man, to get his ears pierced for him. Fortunately, although it wasn't a stud, it was close enough, and the System didn't raise any objections.

Shen Ci pinched it. The tiny ear clip hung on his ear, and being bundled up by the scarf, from a social distance, one could only see a speck of silver, making it almost indistinguishable.

While he was observing the accessory in the mirror, Xie Yu's Adam's apple bobbed slightly, feeling uncomfortable all over. The guy was just coming out to attend class, yet he insisted on branding him and even marking his own name, like claiming property. He was practically acting like a psychopath. Although it was the System's requirement, it was still utterly perverted.

Xie Yu felt a bit irritable. "If you don't like it, just sell it after this class. It can fetch quite a bit of money."

Young Master Xie wasn't short of money. The ear clip was haute couture from a luxury brand, a one-of-a-kind custom design. Even secondhand, it could sell for a lot, enough to cover Shen Ci's expenses for the next few years.

Shen Ci's hand, which was pinching the ear clip, paused.

Xie Yu continued to be irritated. "Anyway, I don't care how you deal with it later, but you must wear it during this class, understand?"

"Mm," Shen Ci said, and after a moment added, "I won't sell it."

As class time approached, the people at the entrance of the teaching building gradually increased. Xie Yu's Bentley was extremely eye-catching. Seeing that there were less than five minutes left before class, Shen Ci pushed the door open. "I have to go."

He glanced at Xie Yu and, seeing that he had no intention of starting the engine, hesitated slightly. He originally wanted to say, 'Are you going to wait for me?', but then felt that Young Master Xie's time was precious, and saying so would be too presumptuous. Thus, he asked, "Do you have any plans later?"

Xie Yu often hung out with a small group of second-generation rich kids, but since He Zhiyuan was in the police station, they probably wouldn't be able to play today.

Who would have expected Xie Yu to pull out the car keys and jump out from the other side. "I'll go with you."

Shen Ci paused. "With me?"

Xie Yu: "Go to class with you."

He pulled a long face. "What, I want to listen to your class, is that not allowed?"

Shen Ci: "It might be a bit boring."

Today was a Q&A session for a major course. A University, as the top academic institution in Jiang City, was filled with exceptional students, and the academic difficulty was extremely high. The course Shen Ci taught had a failure rate as high as 50%, and half the students in this major couldn't understand it. If Xie Yu insisted on listening, he would definitely find it extremely boring.

Xie Yu thought to himself that he had no choice but to listen. With this dogshit plot right here, he had to act it out. He nodded with a cold face. "I know."

Shen Ci had no choice but to take him to the classroom.

As the end of the term approached, even those who usually skipped or ditched class had shown up, and the classroom was fully packed. Xie Yu looked around, headed straight to the back, and found a corner seat to sit down.

In high school, he liked to sit in the back, sleeping in places where the teacher couldn't see.

Shen Ci watched him sit down and stepped onto the podium. He spread open his lesson plan, his clear eyes sweeping across the room, pausing slightly on Xie Yu before moving away. "Everyone, let's first go over the exercises with the highest error rate in the homework..."

Shen Ci was tall and slender, wearing a tailored camel hair trench coat—the very one Xie Yu had bought last time. The belt outlined a beautiful curve at his waist. Standing on the podium like this, he looked both refined and ascetic.

Xie Yu admired him for a moment, raising his hand to check the time. "System, keep an eye out for me."

According to the novel's requirements, there were still a few plot points left.

Time passed, the PPT advanced three slides, and the students buried their heads in calculations.

System: "Host, click the remote control."

Xie Yu pulled out a TV remote control, rested his hand under the desk, and pressed buttons blindly.

This thing was a hotel TV remote control. With the two locations over ten kilometers apart, the remote was naturally useless; otherwise, it would rewrite the history of infrared communication technology. Xie Yu brought this thing purely because of the original text's requirements, pulling it out at the last minute to use as a prop.

The original description was: "The elegant and beautiful young man on the podium was slowly giving his lecture. His posture was excellent, his back taut and perfectly straight. Young Master Xie took this in, let out a mocking laugh, and thought to himself, 'What a tough nut to crack. He's held it in to this extent, yet he still refuses to bend.' He suddenly felt intrigued, wanting to test where the young man's limits lay, so he curled his lips slightly and pressed the remote control..."

To this, Xie Yu expressed: "What remote control is not a remote control? Who stipulated what kind of remote control must be used? Is my TV remote control not a fucking remote control?"

He followed the System's prompts. When the System said increase, he pressed the volume up button; when the System said decrease, he pressed the volume down button. Through a flurry of random operations, he managed to bluff his way through.

Over there, Shen Ci was lecturing, chalk scratching across the blackboard. He had just finished breaking down two major problems and had now switched the PPT, having the students practice on the spot.

No student dared to disregard the practice questions before the final exam. For a time, everyone buried their heads, the rustling sound of pen tips rubbing against paper echoing out. Meanwhile, Shen Ci stood on the podium, his gaze making a suspiciously deliberate sweep of the room before landing steadily on Xie Yu.

System: "Quick, quick, quick, you've made eye contact! Host, touch your scarf!"

In the novel, after the original owner left a humiliating mark on Shen Ci, he also wore a matching necklace around his own neck. When they made eye contact, he deliberately caressed his neck, like a lofty master reminding a slave of their status, full of the smugness of a petty villain.

Xie Yu wasn't wearing a necklace; he wore a matching scarf. So, he raised his hand and unnaturally touched his scarf.

"System, I thank you." Xie Yu's expression was wooden. "This is the first time I've known that adjusting a scarf could look so sleazy."

Shen Ci also noticed this action. As if he had been burned, he hurriedly shifted his gaze away and buried his head in reading the lesson plan.

In the original text, Xie Yu's actions were only this much. Now that he had finished them, but class wasn't over, Xie Yu couldn't leave either. So, he half-sprawled on the desk, listening to Shen Ci's lecture.

Shen Ci must have been a teaching assistant who was very well-liked by the students. His speaking pace was neither rushed nor slow, and his logic was clear and rigorous. As he spoke eloquently, many students revealed expressions of sudden realization.

But Xie Yu wanted to sleep.

This sort of major course was very interesting to top students, but to poor students, it was truly boring. Moreover, Xie Yu was a poor student from a completely different major. Shen Ci was reciting nothing but incomprehensible nouns and unfamiliar formulas. Xie Yu listened in a daze, dreaming of his high school classroom. In less than two minutes, he became overwhelmingly sleepy. The Shen Ci on the podium seemed to turn into a double image, and the profound vocabulary turned into chanting, spinning round and round his head.

Xie Yu: "...So this is what the world of an academic god is like? After listening for two minutes, if I didn't know I was just sleepy, I would have thought my psychosis was acting up again."

More than halfway through the class, Xie Yu couldn't hold on any longer, buried his head, and fell asleep.

Shen Ci looked up slightly, his gaze landing on him, and he paused.

Xie Yu sat in the back row by the window. Outside the window were large swaths of ginkgo trees. At this time, it was right in the middle of late autumn, and the ginkgo leaves had all turned golden yellow. Sunlight shone through the window frames, taking on a warm and lazy hue. Those halos fell on his coat, his scarf, and the skin of his cheeks, highlighting the tiny peach fuzz. He looked fuzzy and warm, soaked in the scent of the sun.

It was truly a peaceful, sweet slumber.

Shen Ci looked at him, unexpectedly stunned for a moment.

Xie Yu exuded an aura completely different from Shen Ci's. Shen Ci was tense, cold, and austere, radiating a solitary and aloof detachment. But Xie Yu was relaxed and lazy, like a large cat basking in the sunlight—comfortable and cozy, making one unable to resist the urge to lean in and give his fur a good rub.

Shen Ci looked at him, and suddenly thought aimlessly, 'It would probably be very comfortable to hold him.'

He was startled by this bizarre thought, and then suddenly remembered—he had already held him.

On many past nights, on the large bed in the hotel, he had pressed close against Xie Yu. At the time, he only considered it as fulfilling a contract, but thinking back on it now, the temperature from that time was somewhat burning.