Chapter 84 Do you have a boyfriend/girlfriend? "The word 'you' is pronounced 'le'..."

Li Leshan's night shift schedule is fixed. He goes out after his grandmother falls asleep, and returns before she wakes up. He hears the door to the main room close, puts on his coat, and prepares to leave. Then he rushes back to the third alley before dawn.

Of course, besides keeping it from his grandmother, he also had to keep it a secret from Jiang Yueming.

Although they had sworn to each other not to keep everything to themselves, Li Leshan hesitated for a long time before deciding not to speak. He didn't want Jiang Yueming to worry about him, and he didn't want him to get involved in this mess.

During the day, he still stayed with Jiang Yueming, studying, preparing for lessons, and chatting in bed. But at night, he couldn't let Jiang Yueming sleep at home anymore, because he had to go out to work.

Fortunately, Jiang Yueming didn't think of anything else. Although he was always especially reluctant to part ways, he couldn't put Li Leshan in a difficult position.

Li Leshan was just too tired after finishing his night shift. At first, it wasn't a big deal, but after a while, dark circles appeared under his eyes, and his complexion wasn't as good. He kept listening to Jiang Yueming talk, and eventually, he fell asleep on Jiang Yueming's shoulder.

Liu Qi always looked for him at the internet cafe. Before, she didn't know Li Leshan's whereabouts, and because of the distance between Sanxiang and Zhonghua Market, it would take her a while to go there. Now it's much more convenient; she comes to the internet cafe right at the ten o'clock shift every day.

"Li Leshan!" Liu Qi excitedly pushed open the glass door and immediately saw Li Leshan sitting at the front desk. Just sitting there, he was like a beautiful sight. "Do you want fried noodles? I brought an extra portion."

Liu Qi found a stool and sat down next to Li Leshan. She then proceeded to open the lid of the fried noodles. She had bought them from a nearby snack shop and had been handling them like a precious treasure, afraid they would get cold in the wind.

"Thank you," Li Leshan said quickly before she could even open it, "I'm not hungry."

"This portion isn't much either." Liu Qi was a little embarrassed, feeling that she had been a bit too familiar with him.

"Bring me something to eat?" Liu Yang walked out of the card room. He had been watching for a while and didn't understand what Li Leshan was gesturing, but he could tell what the situation was just from the atmosphere.

"If you want to eat it, that's fine too." Liu Qi was a little reluctant, and asked Li Leshan again if he really didn't want to eat it. Faced with his affirmative look, she had no choice but to push the fried noodles to Liu Yang.

"Why do you keep coming here every few days? I've never seen you here before." Liu Yang said with a smile, but there was something else in his words.

"Brother!" Liu Qi felt her thoughts had been exposed. Worried that Li Leshan might have noticed or sensed something was amiss, she quickly stopped him, "Aren't you always at the card table? Why are you out here..."

"It's boring, I always lose."

Liu Qi was restless and could only watch Li Leshan's expression nervously. She suddenly stood up from her seat and said, "I'm going home to study!"

After leaving those words, he fled in disarray.

After spending so many days together, Liu Yang already knew that Li Leshan was a student, which he could tell from the fact that Li Leshan stayed at his desk every night doing practice problems. He had never seen anyone who didn't go to school like doing test papers.

He didn't say much, after all, Liu Qi liked him. Saying anything would only upset the girl. Besides, there really wasn't much to say; he couldn't find a single fault with her.

This person can sit here from night until morning without sleeping. He probably sleeps all day.

"Aren't you sleepy?" Liu Yang asked casually.

Li Leshan then realized that the sentence was meant to tell him something. He glanced at Liu Yang's face and shook his head.

This person was rather cold and aloof. Liu Yang decided not to make a fool of himself and was genuinely worried for Liu Qi. From what he had observed so far, this kid seemed to only be happy when checking the answers.

"Your name is Li Leshan." Liu Yang casually picked up a math problem from the side, turned to the first page, and asked, "Is this character pronounced 'le' or 'yue'?"

Li Leshan picked up the ballpoint pen next to him for bookkeeping and gently wrote down the pinyin on the paper.

"Oh," Liu Yang flipped through two pages of math problems. Judging from his level of just graduating from high school, he couldn't understand a single word now. Counting from high school graduation, he had been in the workforce for seven or eight years, and now he had to use a calculator for addition and subtraction of numbers up to three digits. "I heard from Liu Qi that your grades are pretty good."

Actually, you don't even need to ask; just look at the math problems and you'll see that there's practically no "X" in them. At this level, it's probably not even that good.

"Do you have a boyfriend?" Liu Yang cut to the chase.

When Li Leshan finally responded to the question, to everyone's surprise, the boy who seemed aloof from everyone actually nodded.

...

Hold.

"Sister." Liu Yang felt a pang of sadness for Liu Qi. He wasn't so foolish as to go and tell her this bad news. He just hadn't expected that this seemingly asexual boy would actually be in a relationship; it was completely unimaginable.

Li Leshan's partner is currently—

“Wrong,” Jiang Yueming yawned and shouted into the living room, “Auntie, I can’t teach your daughter anymore, she’s too stupid!”

"Jiang Yueming!" Tian Tian was clearly unhappy. "Our teacher said that students are developing individuals, and I still need to develop!"

"Hey, are you going to take the teacher qualification exam?" Jiang Yueming teased her.

"I don't want to study anymore, I want to sleep." Tian Tian said unhappily, not wanting to study anymore. "Didn't you stay at Brother Lele's house every day the past few days?"

Sweetie muttered to herself that she really wished her brother could stay at Lele's house forever, so she wouldn't have to force herself to study, do exercises, and memorize every day. She always said things like "the early bird catches the worm," but was she really that stupid? Why did she have to start so early?

Jiang Yueming pursed his lips, then suddenly deflated. Did he not want to stay? He wished he could stay there forever, sticking close to Li Leshan, ideally never to be separated. He just didn't have a place to stay, and Li Leshan hadn't said he wanted him to stay.

"Do you think I want to stare at you like this every day?" Jiang Yueming stopped teaching her; it made her dizzy.

He lay on the bed, holding his textbook with both hands, watching the increasingly blurry words on it. The textbook hit him hard in the face. It hurt a little. Jiang Yueming rolled over, took his phone out of his pocket, and found that his chat history hadn't ended until last week.

"We just met today," Jiang Yueming thought, "so why do I still think about it?"

These days, there aren't many spam text messages. Big data hasn't been widely adopted by everyone yet, unlike today, when you open your text message and all sorts of messages from carriers, advertisers, and scammers flood in, and you can't delete them all.

He edited the message, deleting and re-deleting, until he finally sent it without sending a single word. Jiang Yueming lay on her side in bed, looking at the photos on the screen over and over. Back then, even with the screen brightness turned down, mobile phones were still unusually bright, emitting a pale blue light.

The image quality was poor, making the people appear somewhat blurry. Jiang Yueming's eyes grew tired after looking at it for a while, and she slowly closed them, eventually drifting off to sleep with her phone still in her hand.

After that, Li Leshan stayed home during the day and worked at night. Liu Yang was a nice person and even gave him a raise, probably because Liu Qi spoke well of him.

Li Leshan hadn't seen Li Yong for a short while. But that didn't mean Li Yong had left Shengping. He didn't know where Li Yong lived or where he was now. This gave him a sense of panic, as if he were in the open while Li Yong was in the shadows. He always felt that Li Yong might suddenly appear beside him at any moment, catching him completely off guard.

Sometimes, as he walks home, he looks back every now and then. That feeling is sometimes near, sometimes far, sometimes right beside him.

Li Leshan knew he couldn't just sit and wait to die. He also needed to know Li Yong's movements, what Li Yong was doing, and he had to do something.

“I have some things to do at home tomorrow and the day after,” Liu Yang tapped on the table in front of Li Leshan. “Don’t come over tonight. Stay home and rest… catch up on your homework.”

He calculated that Li Leshan had been working for at least half a month, if not twenty days, and he hadn't seen him bring any winter vacation homework. He remembered his own winter vacation homework being several thick volumes back then. When did the system change? Is there no winter vacation homework now? Did he just miss out on some good opportunities again?

Li Leshan snapped out of his reverie and nodded to Liu Yang, indicating that he understood.

“Okay,” Liu Yang glanced at the table and pointed to the pile of instant noodles in the corner. “Hey, there are instant noodles on the table. If you haven’t eaten, make yourself a bowl. You can fill it with hot water.”

Li Leshan thanked him using sign language.

In the ten days or so I spent with Li Leshan, the phrase I heard most often was this one. Even Liu Yang, who has a bad memory, could recognize it because it appeared so frequently. Li Leshan used "thank you" as a comma.

"No need to thank me," Liu Yang said. Although he couldn't be a proper brother-in-law anymore, he really wanted to take care of Li Leshan a little more. "I'm a good boss, I don't exploit my employees."

"Thank you, boss." Li Leshan smiled at him, a rare occurrence for him.

Liu Yang was stunned for a moment. With his limited knowledge of sign language, he couldn't understand the sentence, so he could only ask, "What do the last few gestures mean?"

After hearing this, Li Leshan lowered his head and wrote two words on the test paper. He then held it up and showed it to Liu Yang.

Liu Yang leaned closer to take a look and saw the word "Boss" neatly written in the blank space on the test paper. He realized what it meant, felt a little amused, and looked Li Leshan up and down. "Okay, Boss got it."

Li Leshan ultimately didn't eat and continued to sit in his seat. When someone came, he would assign them a number, and the price per hour and the discount for a certain number of hours were clearly written on the cardboard next to him. There was almost no need for him to speak.

Occasionally, a few people were dissatisfied with his service, finding him somewhat aloof and wondering why an employee should be so arrogant. Some even joked that Liu Yang had hired a mute—was it because the wages were cheaper?

Li Leshan remained silent, focusing on his work. Liu Yang told him not to worry about it, as those who nitpick act as if they're the ones who pay for the work.

But in truth, he had long been accustomed to this silence and didn't always care much about it. As he grew older, he became much more indifferent to these discussions and criticisms. In his life so far, there were many things that mattered to him, and being "mute" didn't even seem to be on the list.

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Author's Note: Since the main focus is on Lele's story now, the perspective will occasionally switch between Lele and Yueming. Thank you for your understanding, my darlings! [pity][pity] Love you all =3= (This is a new emoticon I learned hh)