Chapter 76 What are you thinking? "The best is right here."...

"Yueming! Jiang Yueming!" This was the third time Cao Fan had called his name in his ear. This man wasn't usually like this; today, no matter how many times he called, he remained unmoved. Looking at his longing expression, Cao Fan wondered, could it be... he's really... really heartbroken?

But he's never been in a relationship!

Unrequited love?

Hmm. Cao Fan thinks this is very likely.

Jiang Yueming suddenly realized that he had been lost in thought for a long time. He wiped his face to clear his mind and asked, "What's wrong?"

"Holy crap... bro." Cao Fan was horrified, as if he'd seen a ghost. Even if it was a handsome ghost, it didn't matter!

He pointed at Jiang Yueming's face, "Your dark circles, your..."

"Alright," Jiang Yueming said irritably. "I just didn't sleep well."

Actually, he couldn't sleep all night because he was thinking about Li Leshan. He tossed and turned in bed all night, unable to fall asleep, like a pancake. The last thing he saw was 3:30 a.m. He didn't know how he managed to stay awake until 5:30 a.m., sleeping for less than two hours in total. He got up and went to school crying.

"Why?" Cao Fan asked, completely oblivious to the situation. "Do you even know what 'brother' means?"

Jiang Yueming, with dark circles under his eyes, looked at him without saying a word. Cao Fan could tell from his eyes that he was speechless.

"I'm an expert in psychological counseling. Tell me what's bothering you, and I guarantee it'll cure you completely," Cao Fan assured him.

Jiang Yueming curled the corners of his lips. It wasn't that he thought asking Cao Fan was useless; it was just that even an upright official would find it difficult to settle family disputes. If he wanted to know the outcome of this matter, he could only ask Li Leshan.

Would he tell me? Jiang Yueming wondered. And how should he ask?

What is your relationship with Xu Qing?

What were you doing yesterday?

Why didn't you tell me?

Jiang Yueming felt that the older a person gets, the more they think about, and the harder it becomes to say certain things. It's like a tangled ball of thread stuck in their throat, impossible to spit out. If he were a child, he probably would have asked about this on the spot.

Why was my first reaction to turn around and run away?

Well, Cao Fan saw that his eyes were starting to glaze over again and thought to himself, "This kid's been daydreaming again."

"Sister Ran, can I use your mirror?" After a while, Jiang Yueming quietly patted the girl in front of him on the shoulder. He had been washing up with his eyes closed the whole morning and hadn't looked in the mirror at all.

Xu Ran turned around, glanced at Jiang Yueming, and was just as surprised as Cao Fan. She quickly handed him the small mirror, asking, "What's wrong with you?"

"It's nothing." Jiang Yueming smiled, picked up the mirror and looked at himself. It was a small mirror with a pattern that was popular at the time printed on the back.

You don't know until you look, and it's really quite obvious... Jiang Yueming thought to himself, touching the dark circles under his eyes, hoping they would disappear quickly.

Jiang Yueming spent the whole day in a daze, either spacing out or lost in thought. He stared at the test paper all day long, but didn't manage to write out a single complete question. Li Leshan had told him a few days ago to bring the monthly test paper home this week so he could write out the solutions for him.

Jiang Yueming was tempted to alter his physics test paper, which had a score of 36. He hesitated for a long time, holding a red pen, but didn't dare to do it. He was worried that it would be embarrassing if he was caught, making him look like a dishonest person.

"Physics 36, Chemistry 65, Biology 68..." Jiang Yueming hissed. He didn't know how he managed to score 600 on the high school entrance exam; he'd basically had to go back to school to retake it all. Could he show these scores to Li Leshan? Would he think he was stupid?

After thinking for a long time, feeling like he was staring at the exam paper until it was worn out, Jiang Yueming slammed his head on the table. His hand was secretly making small movements under the table. His phone slowly turned on, and the screen lit up with a faint light, reflecting a photo of him and Li Leshan smiling side by side. Only when he saw this scene did Jiang Yueming feel a little at ease.

It's become common for him not to go home to sleep on Friday nights. He usually lets his aunt know he's safe, but when he goes to Li Leshan's house, he always passes by his own building. Lin Cuiqin might even see him from afar and wave to them from the balcony.

The journey was unusually quiet. Jiang Yueming and Li Leshan rode their bicycles side by side. He didn't speak, so the whole way was silent.

Li Leshan seemed to have noticed something, glancing at Jiang Yueming every now and then. Seeing that Jiang Yueming showed no sign of looking in their direction, he quietly shifted his gaze back.

"Yueming and Lele are back?" Grandma was standing at the door waiting for them early in the morning, helping Jiang Yueming with his schoolbag while beckoning the two of them in.

"I made you some pork rib soup, you can eat in a little while," Grandma said with a smile.

"Thank you, Grandma," Jiang Yueming said with a smile.

Li Leshan glanced at him again, noticing the dark circles under his eyes that hadn't yet faded, and asked, "Didn't you sleep well?"

"Oh," Jiang Yueming forced a smile, "No. I had a lot of homework last night, and I stayed up half the night writing it."

He felt a pang of bitterness in his heart. It wasn't that he hadn't slept well; he clearly hadn't slept at all. Nor was he doing homework; he was thinking about something.

Jiang Yueming stared into Li Leshan's eyes, watching his slightly trembling eyelashes, and thought to herself, "You probably don't know, but I've been thinking about you."

After returning home, Jiang Yueming became much more normal than at school, just like always. When talking to her grandmother, she was full of energy, chatting about this and that, and once she started talking, she couldn't stop.

Li Leshan listened quietly from the side, serving food to Jiang Yueming as he listened.

"Have you made any new friends at school?" Grandma asked with a smile.

Jiang Yueming was taken aback. He glanced at Li Leshan subconsciously. "My classmates are all alright, none of them are particularly good."

"The best is right here," Jiang Yueming said softly, his voice so soft that his grandmother didn't hear him clearly, but Li Leshan certainly did. Although he wasn't saying it to Li Leshan, it came from the bottom of his heart.

Li Leshan usually does the dishwashing at home. He doesn't let his grandmother do it, firstly because she's old and prone to bumping into things and injuring her hands, and secondly because he doesn't want her to be too tired. So he takes on the task himself. His grandmother always says that Leshan can do everything—cooking, washing dishes, washing clothes—there's nothing he can't do.

After Jiang Yueming arrived, he washed the dishes with Li Leshan. The two of them worked quickly, even though Li Leshan always told him to leave.

But as time went on, Jiang Yueming persisted, leaving Li Leshan with no choice but to compromise.

So the small kitchen could barely accommodate the two of them. The door frame was a bit low, and they both had to stoop to get in. They had grown so fast over the years. The height line drawn on the wall outside the convenience store with red bricks had stopped at 1.75 meters sometime in some year and had never moved since, even though they had long since grown taller than 1.75 meters.

Han Jiang's height of 1.3 meters remained unchanged. He always forgot to mark his height, and apart from Jiang Yueming and Li Leshan's marks, the marks on the wall had not increased.

"Pajamas." Li Leshan took out a set of clothes from the simple clothes rack. Actually, calling them pajamas was just a way of saying they weren't worn much, and the fabric wasn't as soft as pajamas. But these two weren't picky; having something to wear was enough.

“I’ve adjusted the water temperature,” Li Leshan said in sign language. “If you feel it’s too cold or too hot, just call me.”

Jiang Yueming nodded and took the clothes into the bathroom.

Steam gradually filled the bathroom, blurring the old mirror. Jiang Yueming took off his clothes and stood under the shower, not knowing how long he had been standing there or how much time had passed. The scene he had witnessed in the gazebo last night kept replaying in his mind.

He grew increasingly agitated and subconsciously raised his hand to rub his aching temples. The movement was too forceful, and his elbow slammed into the edge of a slightly rusty metal shelf next to him. This shelf held shower gel, shampoo, and other items.

There was a rough, raised area on the edge of the metal sheet. A faint, crisp sound was heard, followed by a sharp, stinging pain from my arm.

"Hiss—" Jiang Yueming gasped and abruptly pulled her hand back. Looking down, she saw a cut about an inch long on the inside of her forearm. It wasn't deep, but blood immediately seeped out, standing out conspicuously under the light.

He instinctively reached for a towel to hold it down, but in doing so, he accidentally knocked the showerhead off, causing it to make a loud noise as it came into contact with the metal frame.

To be honest, when people are down on their luck, they really are down on their luck.

Almost simultaneously, there was a rapid knocking on the bathroom door, probably because Li Leshan thought something had happened to him.

"It's nothing... Lele. I just bumped into her by accident." Jiang Yueming subconsciously tried to cover it up, but her voice trembled slightly due to pain and guilt.

There was a moment of silence outside the door.

Immediately afterwards, the doorknob was turned—Li Leshan always remembered to leave the door open for him, in case he needed any help inside.

In the rising steam, Li Leshan immediately noticed the glaring red stain seeping from Jiang Yueming's arm. His expression changed instantly, and he strode in, ignoring the water stains on the floor, grabbing Jiang Yueming's wrist. "How did this happen?"

"I just... accidentally bumped into that metal frame. It's really nothing." Jiang Yueming smiled, indicating that he shouldn't worry.

The water was still gurgling, and the two stood very close together in the damp, cramped space, their breaths filled with warm, humid steam.

Li Leshan pulled his arm over and carefully rinsed away the blood and foam around the wound with cool water. His movements were gentle and focused, his brow furrowed in a frown. After thoroughly rinsing it clean, he grabbed a clean towel hanging nearby and gently pressed it against the wound to stop the bleeding. After doing all this, Li Leshan didn't let go; instead, he gripped it even tighter.

Jiang Yueming could clearly feel the warmth and slight dampness of his palm, as well as the subtle trembling that could not be ignored.

Finally, Li Leshan raised his head and looked at Jiang Yueming. His usually calm eyes were now churning with complex and unpredictable emotions.

A moment of silence enveloped the small area. Li Leshan released Jiang Yueming, slowly raised his hand, and asked with an undeniable force, "What are you thinking?"