Chapter 19: Brotherhood

Chen Shuo's gaze fell on Pei Yumin, who then widened his eyes and stared back at him. In short, his eyes were always a little bigger than Chen Shuo's, as if having big eyes was something that involved a man's dignity and something he absolutely could not lose.

Chen Shuo caught a glimpse of Lu Shangyan out of the corner of his eye, then stared intently at him. Pei Yumin, seeing him shift his gaze, immediately straightened his chest.

He won this silent competition between men.

He let out a short, smug laugh, slightly raising his chin at Lu Shangyan, and very experiencedly reminded him, "Look back."

He felt that Lu Shangyan's eyes were already big enough and didn't need to be widened any further. Lu Shangyan's Adam's apple bobbed, and he looked at him like he was an idiot. Then he quietly moved to the side, hiding half of his body behind a tree. He regretted it now. He should have left immediately instead of staying a little longer because of Lu Shangyan's words, "poor thing."

He's not a pitiful stray dog. At least he rents a place now and has a home of his own. He's not homeless, so he's not pitiful.

Pei Yumin didn't know what he was thinking, only that he had indeed listened to him and "watched" Chen Shuo, so he immediately straightened his back even more.

He won this silent struggle, and Lu Shangyan must win too.

Seeing his serious expression, Lu Shangyan couldn't help but lower his head and laugh. Pei Yumin glanced at him, but when he looked back, Chen Shuo had already looked away.

He immediately realized that the smile was Lu Shangyan's victory smile.

Chen Shuo was pulled back by Xiao Yu, who cupped his face and forced him to look at her face: "Are you trying to distract yourself? Or are you feeling guilty?"

Chen Shuo said, "Bullshit! Why would I be guilty!"

"Then why don't you dare look at me?" Little Fish's eyes crinkled. "Or do you want to choose both?"

Chen Shuo saw him smiling, but always felt a chill run down his spine: "I won't choose either of them! You've mistaken me for someone else!"

Xiaoyu held up her phone to show him: "I've given you so many chances already. My patience is limited, Chen Shuo. You don't think I'll always be this easy to talk to, do you?"

“The fact that I dared to come to you alone should tell you that I’m not the kind of person you can just dismiss. I’m not short of money or company. I find you amusing right now, so I can spare some patience to play along. But if you keep making me angry like this, I’m not so sure what will happen.”

Chen Shuo looked at the boy who was a size younger than him. He had never taken this kind of effeminate man seriously before, and could even be said to despise him. But now, when Xiaoyu looked at him, he felt uneasy.

He gritted his teeth and forced a smile, which looked stiff and ugly: "Brother, stop teasing me, okay?" After saying that, seeing the smile on Xiaoyu's face slowly fade, he immediately said: "Can we talk in private? There are so many people here, and the noise is making my head spin. How can we talk business?"

Xiaoyu glanced at Pei Yumin and quickly said with a smile, "No, what if you run away when there are fewer people? Besides, what's the difference between choosing now and choosing later?"

"Or are you just going to pretend to comply but not actually do it, and simply want to get rid of me?"

Chen Shuo saw that his expression softened, but after glancing at Pei Yumin, everything changed.

He wasn't stupid; he immediately rushed over and grabbed Pei Yumin by the collar: "I told you it was you! You petty old man! You're the one who brought him here!"

He and Xiaoyu hadn't seen each other for almost three months, and he had almost completely buried the matter in his heart. But suddenly Xiaoyu sent him a message. He thought it was just something she sent while drunk, but who knew that this time she was serious! She even followed him to the school!

The more he thought about it, the angrier he became. The gazes of the people around him were almost suffocating him, piercing his body like thorns.

His suffering seemed particularly pleasing to Pei Yumin, who looked at him defiantly: "Isn't what he said the truth?"

Chen Shuo released his grip and raised his arm to strike, but Pei Yumin kicked him in the knee first, causing him to stumble back several steps in pain.

Pei Yumin opened his phone, entered a private space, and found a group chat called "Eliminate the Cockroach Army".

There were only five people in the group, but he still named himself Commander-in-Chief of the Army:

[Initiate the operation.]

After doing all this, Pei Yumin looked down at Chen Shuo as if nothing had happened.

Someone stepped forward from the crowd: "He targeted Lu Shangyan so much before, but it turns out he likes men too. It seems he was just deliberately trying to cause trouble for Lu Shangyan!"

"His usual behavior of being disgustingly gay was just a cover-up for his own insecurity!"

Chen Shuo shouted at the crowd, "I don't like men!"

"They're still pretending. Even after being confronted, they're still trying to distance themselves. They have no sense of responsibility whatsoever!"

"It seems that the photos of Lu Shangyan in the bar were deliberately released by him, and he also incited the whole school to ridicule Lu Shangyan."

"And Lu Shangyan went to the bar because he tricked him! He deliberately set a trap for Lu Shangyan, wanting to take photos to cause trouble!"

"He always likes to cause trouble for Lu Shangyan, so he must have done this on purpose! I just didn't expect that he himself likes men and still has the nerve to mock others! He's shameless!"

Xia Li finished class and heard that something was going on here. When she arrived, she found the place crowded with people. She didn't want to join in the fun, but when she heard someone calling Lu Shangyan's name, she turned back and pushed through the crowd.

Hearing this, he immediately said, "I can testify! He also frequently stalks Lu Shangyan and takes photos of him secretly whenever he has a chance, just to continue smearing Lu Shangyan!"

Someone immediately chimed in: "My God, he said before that Lu Shangyan was interested in him, but now it seems more like he likes Lu Shangyan and is deliberately causing trouble because he can't have him."

The crowd erupted in a long "Oh!" as they realized what was happening, followed by belated laughter.

Chen Shuo was even more embarrassed. He struggled to get up from the ground and tried to pounce on Pei Yumin.

Pei Yumin continued, "I'm gay, and I'm happy to admit it. Besides, whether I like men or women is none of your business. I don't even know you. Lu Shangyan was the same; as soon as he realized he liked men, he immediately moved out of the dorm, afraid that you wouldn't be able to adapt. We're all trying to find solutions, but you're the only one creating trouble."

“In my opinion, regardless of one’s sexual orientation, as long as it doesn’t affect others, it shouldn’t be criticized. Unlike you, who dares to do something but doesn’t dare to admit it? You’re like a rat in the gutter, crawling around everywhere.” After saying that, he looked at the little fish: “Spreading germs everywhere.”

Xiaoyu's expression changed, then she remembered something and quickly added, "Luckily, I felt something was wrong after he ran away, so I went to the hospital for a check-up immediately."

Chen Shuo was so angry his eyes were practically spitting fire: "Don't you dare slander me!"

Xia Li ran to his side in a few steps: "Everyone who knows you knows what kind of person you are! If they're slandering you, why isn't anyone standing up for you?"

Chen Shuo dared not look at the people surrounding him, much less meet their gaze. He was used to being high and mighty, and had never been so dejected as he was now. He wished he could dig through the bricks and crawl inside!

Pei Yumin seized the opportunity to say, "You call yourself a well-educated college student? How come you don't even understand the most basic respect?"

Xia Li immediately said, "That's right!"

Her roommate chimed in, "Yeah, what business is it of yours what other people's sexuality is? You keep bringing this up in public, tricking people into going to bars, taking photos to incite online bullying—that's school bullying!"

Xia Li nodded: "I like boys too! I'm open to admit it!"

She always appears gentle and soft-spoken when facing outsiders, but when she spoke these words, her voice was full of energy. People who didn't know her might have thought she had come out as gay in public.

Her roommate, standing beside her, head held high and chest puffed out, as if making a solemn declaration: "I like men too!"

Pei Yumin was inspired and stood to Xia Li's right: "I like it too."

The three men stood in a row, their solemn and dignified postures suggesting that they were facing a bottomless abyss and were ready to jump off at any moment to prove their loyalty.

Lu Shangyan had already retreated to the side of the road, wishing he could immediately open the taxi door and run away to show that he didn't know these people.

Zhao Jian was the complete opposite. He had only wanted to check out the message in the group chat, but seeing the three of them getting more and more excited, he ran out uncontrollably as if he had been injected with chicken blood. In front of everyone, he ripped off his waist-length hair, revealing a short, stiff buzz cut.

“I also like wearing women’s clothes! I like my girlfriend to be my husband! But I have a stray dog ​​and cat rescue base, which costs millions of yuan every year. My orientation has not had any impact on this society. On the contrary, because of my Xiao Fu, hundreds of stray cats and dogs have found homes!”

As soon as he finished speaking, the scene fell silent. Finally, someone exclaimed in admiration, "Brother, you're so handsome!"

Then thunderous applause erupted from the crowd.

Chen Shuo was about to vomit blood. He squatted on the ground, clutching his hair, and dared not raise his head again.

Zhao Jian was picked up and thrown into the air. His puffy skirt came undone, and he covered it as he shouted, "Higher! I do so many good deeds so that I can stand high up and mock those heartless old sly dogs!"

His gaze fell on Chen Shuo, and someone noticed, taking the opportunity to stomp on Chen Shuo several times.

Lu Shangyan, who was initially unmoved, was moved by this scene.

Sneaking into the crowd, she lightly stepped on his little finger, then quickly crossed the crowd to the other side. Seeing that Chen Shuo was already kneeling on the ground, showing no intention of finding out who had stepped on him, she slowly began to walk back into the circle.

Stepping on Chen Shuo is addictive for him; stepping on him once is a way to relieve his addiction, and stepping on him twice is a way to make money.

But before he could succeed, he saw two rows of security guards running out of the gate. Even the sixty-year-old man who was guarding the dormitory and cleaning downstairs in the men's dormitory came out with a broom and a serious expression.

The school leader, carrying a megaphone, walked briskly, his car keys dangling from his waist. He stopped five meters away from the crowd and shouted, "Which college are you from?! Gathering a crowd to cause trouble! All your participation points will be deducted! You'll receive a demerit!"

Participation points are crucial for getting over 60 points on the exam! If you lose all of them, you'll have to retake the exam, which is even more frightening than a demerit!

They threw Zhao Jian on the ground and then ran away in a swarm.

These model students behaved themselves for three years in high school, but in college they experienced their first collective rebellion. Years later, when they talked about their youth, the most common thing they remembered was how they grabbed the megaphone from the school leaders to avoid being recorded by them, and shouted for their companions to "run!"

Even more extreme cases involved individuals who, to protect their companions from being beaten, stole the broom belonging to the over-sixty-year-old dormitory supervisor and hid it in their own dorm rooms, hanging it behind their doors as a badge of honor for their four years of university life, which they then passed on to their juniors after graduation.

......

Meanwhile, Lu Shangyan, holding only Pei Yumin, quickly crossed the street with Xia Li and her friend, and hid in a milk tea shop.

Only Zhao Jian, because of his mobility issues, was left on the ground and caught red-handed by the school leaders: "Strange clothes! Which class are you in? What's your counselor's name!"

Zhao Jian was a poor student since childhood and was afraid of teachers: "I didn't even graduate from high school before I went abroad to get a degree. I'm not a student at Z University."

The leader's voice was even louder: "You still dare to cause trouble! Go to the police station!"

In the end, Pei Yumin had a change of heart and bailed him out.

After Chen Shuo was taken away, he was soon taken away from the school by his uncle Tian Sheng, who left with a face that was extremely dark.

His face was bruised, but he still retorted, "My mom came back a couple of days ago. My dad likes to be a coward, but my mom always sides with me. She'll definitely get her revenge for this today!"

A note from the author:

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Pei Yumin: My wife has big eyes, and I have a small heart, we complement each other perfectly [kiss]

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