Chapter 8 Apartment

Li Zimai finally coaxed the person to his apartment, a large flat on Xuelin Road, three kilometers away from Huazhong University of Science and Technology.

After entering the door, Li Zimai squatted down and placed the slippers at his feet. Cheng Che subconsciously tried to push away Li Zimai's hand that was lifting his trouser leg, "I can do it myself."

Li Zimai frowned, "What's wrong with your leg?"

It was too dark just now, and Li Zimai couldn't see clearly. Cheng Che's trouser leg was rubbed with a big hole, and the worn skin could be seen under the tattered black fabric.

Cheng Che's legs were so thin and white that they looked like they could turn blue if they were pinched with just a little force. Li Zimai was very dissatisfied to see scars on such fragile skin. He looked up at Cheng Che and put away his smile, "Why didn't you tell me you were hurt?"

It was the minor car accident an hour ago. Cheng Che fell off the electric bike and his calf was scratched by the asphalt road. No blood vessels were touched, but the skin was scratched and red and purple. It looked scary, but he didn't think it was a serious injury.

Cheng Che took a step back, avoiding Li Zimai's hand, "I just fell, it's nothing."

Li Zimai remained silent, his fingers frozen in the air clenched slightly. After a long while, he said, "Could you please not be so rough?"

Cheng Che's life was indeed very rough. He would be content with two white steamed buns for breakfast, and he didn't care if his hands were cut. It was common for him to help others carry buckets of water and drawing boards, as if he was the only one who could do the physical work that no one else could do.

Cheng Che put on his shoes, his face slightly cold, "I'm going out to find a place to stay."

"No, no, no, now that you're here, aren't you tired of going through so much trouble?" Li Zimai put on a smile again. "I was just kidding. I'm meddling in other people's business, okay?"

Cheng Che lowered his head and remained silent, seemingly unsure of how to respond to other people's kindness. He said awkwardly, "It's really okay, thank you..."

Li Zimai was rummaging through boxes and cabinets looking for medicine. When he heard this, his heart ached. The child was too annoying. "Go take a shower first. The bathroom is over there. Turn right for hot water."

"Can I find you some of my clothes to change into?"

"Um...thank you."

Li Zimai called the aunt who often came to the apartment to clean, asked where the medicine was, and then sat quietly on the sofa waiting for Cheng Che to take a shower.

The water was flowing, and all that flashed through Li Zimai's mind were Cheng Che's white and thin calves, his slender ankles, and the two sunken hollows on his ankles, which were soft and small, and seemed to fit just right when pinched with fingers.

It's really annoying.

[Yang Mingxi]: Li Shen, have you returned to school?

[Li Shen]: Well, I’m with Cheche now.

Yang Mingxi told him that Cheng Che was staying at school alone. Yang Mingxi's original words were: Brother Che seems to be alone in the dormitory. He just called me and said that someone sent a courier to the guard room and asked me if I wanted to pick it up. Didn't he go home?

After replying the message, Li Zimai stared at the bathroom door for a few more seconds, and the ointment in his hand was squeezed into a bow shape.

"Do you have any underwear?"

Cheng Che came out wearing a Lizmai T-shirt and shorts. His body was wiped clean without a drop of water. His skin was slightly red after being washed by the hot water, and his wet eyelashes covered his beautiful eyes.

Li Zimai looked down and saw Cheng Che's legs as he wished. They were visible from under the trouser legs that were several sizes too large. They were thin and white, and the lines of his calves were very beautiful.

Cheng Che didn't get an answer, so he looked up at him and found that he was staring at him in a trance. Cheng Che subconsciously looked away and repeated, "Do you have any clean underwear? Can you lend me one?"

Li Zimai's mouth was dry, his mind filled with yellow garbage, "You, you are not wearing anything now?"

"I accidentally fell into the water, did you? If not, forget it."

"Are you planning on not wearing it without you?!"

"Is it not possible?"

He thought Li Zimai was disgusted by the fact that he was wearing his pants but not his underwear, and added: "I will wash these pants and return them to you."

Who the hell cares about this? He's such an unromantic straight man.

Li Zimai went to the cloakroom and rummaged around, then handed him a pair of new underwear. "Put them on and apply medicine."

At the other party's strong request, Cheng Che took the ointment and returned to the room. Li Zimai stared at him at the door and emphasized seriously: "You must apply the ointment. If you don't want me to touch you, apply it yourself."

Cheng Che hates others touching him, including Li Zimai. Li Zimai knows that he still needs 100,000 Pritzker Prizes to enter the heart of this little hedgehog.

The next day, Cheng Che slept in for a rare time. He sat up and began to look around the room in the sunlight from the window.

Opposite the bed is a large Lakers poster with a signature below. I don't know whose it is but I guess it's real. The bedside tables are symmetrical on both sides, and even the angles of the lamps are symmetrical.

The carpet was in the style of deconstructionism, and the interior decoration was extremely high-end minimalism in the white style. Vines were planted on the two-span balconies outside the window, and the wooden canvas faced the bustling street. The paint had dried, and the painting was halfway done. His obsessive-compulsive disorder was not reflected in the painting at all.

Cheng Che walked out of the room and saw Li Zimai fiddling with something in the kitchen. He asked while talking on the phone, "Can you give me some simple recipes?"

"I put oil in it, it splashed, I put meat and vegetables in it, I put everything in it, but why did it still turn into a black mass?"

"Forget it, I'll just order takeout."

"When did Aunt Feng come over?"

Li Zimai was ready to give up cooking, and didn't want his first time cooking to become a black mark on Li Shen's history. "Are you up? I'm going to order takeout. What do you want to eat? Chinese food or..."

Cheng Che leaned over, tasted a mouthful of the meat in the pot with Li Zimai's chopsticks, and swallowed it with a very ugly expression.

Li Zimai, who was deeply shocked, first squatted down to check his calf, then looked up at him and sighed, "I know I flipped over, you don't have to tell me again."

Cheng Che pushed his head away, "...I didn't say it was unpalatable."

Li Zimai stood up, and the oppressive feeling caused by his tall figure suddenly hit him. Cheng Che took a half step back and took the spoon skillfully. "What dishes do you have?"

"Can you cook?"

Li Zimai didn't expect this benefit to come to him. "Let me see what's left in the refrigerator."

In the end, all that could be stir-fried was a small piece of beef, green peppers, and a few ruined tomatoes. With Li Zimai constantly following him around and getting in the way, Cheng Che finished two dishes in half an hour - stir-fried beef with green peppers and stir-fried tomatoes with eggs.

"Cheche, you are so virtuous, you are perfect to be a daughter-in-law."

Cheng Che was immune to his gay talk. He rolled his eyes and said coldly, "You are so useless that you are not suitable for finding a wife."

"I...."

"Okay, shut up and don't spoil my appetite."

He didn't want to hear Li Zimai promote himself again.

Cheng Che didn't understand why the more he came into contact with him, the more he felt that the Li Shen he had heard about throughout his freshman year seemed like another person. That Li Shen was noble, mysterious and unattainable, while this Li Zimai was childish, narcissistic and disabled.

"How about my place? I'll show you around. Then you can consider moving in with me."

"Not considering it."

Li Zimai insisted on showing Cheng Che around his house. The large apartment, which was several hundred square meters, was shown back and forth three times. The whole process was just Li Zimai's official introduction. Cheng Che only asked one question, "What is that?"

That was Li Zimai's cello, covered with a white cloth and placed in the corner of the piano room. The huge piano room housed various musical instruments, including the dusty cello.

Cheng Che recalled that he first matched the name Li Zimai with a person on a classmate's computer.

At that time, Cheng Che had just entered college as a freshman and was helping someone fix their computer. After the repair, a girl clicked on a video to test the device's sound. Cheng Che saw a video of a boy playing the cello on the computer screen. At that moment, half of the class gathered around and shouted, "Isn't this Li Zimai!"

That was the starting point of Cheng Che's acquaintance with Li Zimai.

"Why, do you want to hear me play the violin?"

Li Zimai jokingly said, "I didn't expect Brother Che to have such good taste that he actually wanted to watch me play the violin."

After that, he sighed again, "But I haven't played the violin for a long time."

Cheng Che rarely confronted him, but instead asked, "Why?"

Li Zimai glanced down at Cheng Che and said half-jokingly, "Do you want to know? Then let's exchange secrets."

"I don't want to know."

Li Zimai looked at his back without even turning his head and said with a helpless smile: "What a heartless guy."