Chapter 71 P - Thunderclap
After a day of rest and adjustment, they entered into a busy and tedious training camp. As for those strange emotions, Chu Beiling didn't pay much attention to them and subconsciously ignored them.
He felt that his current overthinking was due to the intense training that had driven him crazy, and that he would be fine once he returned to normal life. It wasn't a big deal.
Being confined to the base and engaged in another round of intense drawing left me with no time to think too much.
Disconnecting the internet at the training base has long been standard practice. With the joint entrance exam approaching, the inspection team is even more rigorous. Knowing that some students had brought their own cell phones, they even checked the toilet tanks.
The students from Xigao High School were just there to experience life, but the instructors didn't let them off the hook just because they were there. Everyone was pinned to their drawing boards, drawing sketches, colors, and quick sketches in turn. The workload was even heavier than before, and the group of students were often tortured to the point of dizziness and glazed over.
I'm too tired to even go crazy anymore.
One afternoon, after Shengxia finished changing the water, she returned to her seat and suddenly burst into tears. She cried so hard that she could hardly breathe. The people sitting next to her were startled and asked her what had happened.
Li Dong suddenly turned cold: "Xiaxia, tell me, who bullied you?"
Li Dong's reaction was entirely due to Sheng Xia's beautiful and delicate appearance, which is the kind of look most boys like. However, her personality was as soft as a marshmallow, making her easily bullied or teased.
They later learned that Sheng Xia had transferred schools after experiencing bullying at her original school, which was one of the reasons why Li Dong protected her.
Once, when she returned to school, none of them were there. Shengxia was so upset by some unpleasant words that she cried. Apart from that, she rarely cried.
Everyone assumed that Shengxia had been bullied and asked her for a long time.
Shengxia sobbed, "I'm so tired... I can't draw anymore. If I'm like this now, what am I going to do next year? I won't be able to get into art school."
Everyone breathed a sigh of relief when they realized she hadn't been bullied and took turns comforting her.
Xu Tunan: "It's okay, we'll think about next year's problems next year. If we don't pass the exam, we don't pass. We can always try again. There are plenty of students at the base who are retaking the exam for art school. We won't miss you."
The crying in the height of summer was even more intense.
"Hu Tutu, are you out of your mind?" Li Dong beat up Xu Tunan, then put down his paintbrush and pulled Sheng Xia into his arms to comfort her.
Feeling overwhelmed by stress and unable to release it, many people, like Shengxia, find themselves suddenly bursting into tears while painting.
Of course, they still had to keep drawing after they finished crying.
Chu Beiling put her paintbrush into the bucket of water, rubbing her cramped and aching wrist, and glanced sideways at Xing Yu, who was continuing to paint.
The afternoon sun was intense, streaming in through the clean glass window. Xing Yu's sharp jawline was almost transparent. He stared intently at the drawing board, his right hand moving nimbly across the paper.
Chu Beiling's heart skipped a beat, but quickly calmed down.
Most of the students in the class were drawing. Amidst the rustling of paintbrushes across the paper, the clattering of paintbrushes against buckets of water, and the chatter of a few students, he unexpectedly heard Xing Yu's breathing.
Even though it was so soft, Chu Beiling still heard it.
Perhaps sensing his gaze, Xing Yu looked over and said, "You must be tired of drawing too."
Chu Beiling had no time to dodge, so she had no choice but to bite the bullet and meet his gaze with a nod: "Yeah, my wrist hurts a bit."
Xing Yu put down his paintbrush, reached out and took his hand, massaging it to help him relax.
Chu Beiling looked down at Xing Yu pressing his wrist lightly. Compared to him, Xing Yu's body temperature wasn't too high. Every time he touched him, Chu Beiling felt like he was touching an ice cube.
I don't know if it's because the sun is too strong, or some other reason—
Chu Beiling felt that every inch of skin touched by Xing Yu was burning hot, as if a ball of fire was burning along the veins in his arm all the way to his heart, and then spreading from his heart to his limbs and bones.
He was practically burning up.
Aren't they good friends? Why is his reaction so strange?
Is this really how good friends act? Is it really possible for them to act this way?
But this was clearly an ordinary action, nothing special.
The neglected and uncontrollable emotions flooded his mind again like a tidal wave. Chu Beiling was agitated and pulled his hand away, hiding it behind his back.
Xing Yu paused for a moment, then looked up and asked casually, "What's wrong?"
"No, it's okay, I don't feel uncomfortable anymore, stop pressing it," Chu Beiling said.
A moment of silence—
Xing Yu replied, "Okay."
Chu Beiling tried to make conversation, maintaining a calm demeanor: "I've started painting, you should too." He picked up his paintbrush again and continued the painting he hadn't finished.
Chu Beiling thought that it must be because the training camp was too tiring that he had such abnormal emotions.
Aside from being bullied, even Sheng Xia, who doesn't usually cry much, couldn't help but burst into tears. Any of his emotions should be reasonable.
Xing Yu's gaze was fixed on Chu Beiling's increasingly pale face. Most of Chu Beiling's emotions were written on his face; whether he was happy or not was very obvious, as was his tendency to dodge and avoid the issue.
After a while, he slowed down and tried to speak in a calm tone: "If you can't do it, take a break for now. Don't force yourself to keep drawing."
Chu Beiling nodded.
In the following days, Chu Beiling remained the same as before. The group of them stayed together, but he always deliberately avoided physical contact with Xing Yu and moved back to his own lower bunk from Xing Yu's upper bunk.
Occasionally, after forgetting the habitual touch, Chu Beiling would quickly let go of Xing Yu's hand as if she had been electrocuted, pulling away from him.
Then I began to feel upset and confused for a long time.
Even Su Beichen asked him, "Did you and Xing Yu have a fight?"
Chu Beiling said, "I've been under a lot of pressure lately, and I can't sleep well at night. I'm afraid it will affect Xing Yu."
This wasn't just something he made up. Ever since that day when he came back from Wuzhen, he would become agitated whenever he was near Xing Yu, and he really couldn't stand sleeping so close together at night.
Unable to sleep due to restlessness, he kept tossing and turning at night, waking Xing Yu up several times as well, so he simply went back to his own bed.
Anyone could sense this intentional or unintentional avoidance, let alone Xing Yu, who was inseparable from him.
But he only avoided being touched; otherwise, nothing had changed.
Xing Yu, clinging to a sliver of hope, believed that Chu Beiling's condition was simply due to the immense pressure of recent intensive painting training, a sentiment echoed by Chu Beiling.
It was a Friday, a week before they were to leave the training base.
That morning, the sky should have been turning white, a bright and sunny morning, but without warning, dark clouds rolled in, the wind howled, and a bolt of lightning ripped through the clouds.
A rumble of thunder echoed across the sky, and a torrential downpour began.
Xing Yu was awakened from his sleep by the sound of thunder.
A fierce wind raged, and rain poured in through the window, wetting Xing Yu's bag hanging on the bed. Xing Yu and Su Beichen, who were near the window, got out of bed one after the other, one to close the balcony door and the other to close the bathroom door.
Xing Yu opened the bathroom door, a gust of wind blew the door open, and then it suddenly closed. Before he could react, his arm was caught in the aluminum door, and the pain brought tears to his eyes.
Su Beichen quickly closed the window and came over to check on him: "Are you alright?"
A sharp, needle-like pain assaulted all of Xing Yu's senses, his brain buzzed, and his vision began to blur.
After a moment's pause, Xing Yu shook his head: "It's nothing."
He took a deep breath, reopened the bathroom door, went inside, closed the window, and returned to the room.
Half of Chu Beiling's blanket was on him, and the other half was on the ground. Xing Yu picked up the blanket from the ground and covered him with it again. He then stuffed the clothes that Chu Beiling had thrown aside back into the blanket, tucked the blanket in, and wrapped Chu Beiling up in it before sitting down beside him.
Su Beichen sat down on the opposite bed. "Is your hand alright?"
Xing Yu rubbed his aching arm and shook his head.
Su Beichen nodded, and then said, "If it weren't January, I would have thought a typhoon had arrived."
Xing Yu looked out the window. The sky was a chaotic and fragmented gray. The heavy rain pressed the sky low, and the distant mountain peaks were blurred in the downpour, like a wisp of shadow that would dissipate at the slightest touch.
For some reason, he suddenly had the feeling that this downpour would last a long time.
The torrential rain continued unabated until noon.
Because of the heavy rain, most people were unwilling to go out and simply went to the convenience store downstairs in the teaching building to eat noodles, vegetables and eggs for lunch.
The classroom was brightly lit, with occasional soft noises, but all other sounds were drowned out by the sound of rain outside the window.
After a satisfying meal, accompanied by white noise, it's so comfortable that it makes you want to doze off.
Ke Jincheng, returning from the cafeteria, shattered the tranquility: "Holy crap, a couple caught dating early at the base, and they're both boys. Their supervising teacher has already notified both sets of parents to come to the base to pick them up."
At that moment, the classroom fell into a deathly silence.
The next second, everyone instantly snapped back to reality, like water droplets popping and exploding in a boiling oil pan.
"Who is it? Which school?"
"How did you get arrested?"
"Really? Corgi, don't spread rumors."
"Wow, this is the first time I've ever heard of homosexuality in real life."
"This isn't normal! Is it abnormal?"
Ke Jincheng gestured with his chin at Chu Beiling: "It's that guy from Prince Fanfan's dorm, I think his surname is Su."
Liu Jiaxiang asked, "And the other one!"
Ke Jincheng: "It's the boy he often hangs out with."
Xu Tunan was shocked: "So what exactly happened?!"
Ke Jincheng: "It is said that they were caught kissing on the rooftop by the inspection team of teachers, and then they were taken to the academic affairs office."
The base is just a small area, so even the smallest things can be blown out of proportion. Since they're all busy painting and have nothing else to do, any unusual or novel thing will attract a lot of attention and stares.
Not to mention such a major piece of news.
Not only them, but students from other classes also ran out and gathered on the balconies to watch the 'homosexuality'.
Compared to the curiosity and heated discussions of others, Chu Beiling's already troubled mind was suddenly bombarded with questions.
Chu Beiling never imagined that same-sex couples could actually fall in love—and Su Beichen and Shen Zhi were indeed in a relationship.
Therefore, he was with Xing Yu.
Chu Beiling glanced at Xing Yu, who was staring at him with a hint of displeasure, and then quickly looked away.
A strong sense of unreality gradually spread, clouding all his senses. Chu Beiling was panicked, confused, and annoyed. His brain was buzzing, and a sense of helplessness surged into his heart, eroding all his reason and thinking.
Amidst the raging storm and the cacophony of discussions, his world instantly disintegrated, crumbled, and collapsed, as if the sky had fallen and the earth had split open.
Chu Beiling felt an unprecedented sense of heaviness, confusion, and helplessness—he truly loved Xing Yu.
But he's a boy~ Is that really true? Chu Beiling thought in confusion.
Boys at this age are prone to being cheeky, and with the pressure of intensive training driving them to the brink of madness, they start teasing other boys in the class after learning about these feelings.
The first to be affected were Xing Yu and Chu Beiling, who were inseparable.
Xue Ziang said, half-jokingly and half-malically, "Prince Fanfan, you and Xing Yu aren't a couple either, are you?"
Chu Beiling was already on the verge of a breakdown, and someone just happened to walk right into her trap.
He lost his temper the most he had ever ever, kicking Xue Ziang hard: "Are you tired of living? Are you looking for death?"
Chu Beiling was very strong. Caught off guard, Xue Ziang stumbled backward, tripped over several easels, and finally fell to the ground.
It was probably because no one had ever seen him so angry before; everyone in the class froze for a moment.
After a while, Ni Wenxuan finally pulled Xue Ziang up from the ground.
Xue Ziang was certainly not someone to be trifled with, but he restrained himself considerably due to his status as class monitor and his concern for everyone. In addition, many people in the class were speaking up for Chu Beiling, so even if he wanted to lash out, he had to swallow his resentment because of his pride.
Xue Ziang dusted himself off. "I was just joking. Why are you taking it so seriously? Can't you take a joke?"
Chu Beiling said, word by word, "This is not funny at all." He kicked the stool next to him and sat back down in front of the easel: "They actually think they're human now that they can speak."
Xue Ziang was so angry he almost vomited blood: "Chu Beiling, are you sick in the head?"
Chu Beiling raised her eyes slightly: "I was just joking, why are you taking it so seriously? Can't you take a joke?"
Xue Ziang was speechless with rage, glaring at him as if he wanted to bore a hole through him with his eyes.
Ke Jincheng, who had been watching the commotion from outside the classroom, went to report the latest news: "Their parents are here, and they're in the administration office now." Sensing something was wrong, he asked, "What happened?"
Someone leaned close to his ear to explain, and Ke Jincheng glanced at Xue Ziang and said, "Little class monitor, you can't just make jokes like that~ Look what you've done to my gentle little prince Fanfan."
Xu Tunan, fearing that Chu Beiling would be furious, pulled him up from his seat: "Chu Fanfan, let's go outside for some fresh air."
After a long pause, Chu Beiling finally said, "What did you say?"
Xu Tunan: "I said I wanted to go outside for some fresh air."
Chu Beiling nodded, then glanced furtively at Xing Yu behind him before quickly looking away. Perhaps it was just his imagination.
Xing Yu stared blankly at everything that had just happened until Li Dong came over and gently patted his shoulder: "What's wrong?"
Li Dong: "Are you alright?"
Xing Yu pursed his lips and didn't say anything more.
Li Dong sighed, "Give him time."
Looking at the dense crowd in the corridor, Shengxia said, "Tangtang, let's go check on Fanfan. I'm a little worried about his condition."
After thinking for a moment, Li Dong nodded, took Sheng Xia's hand, and went outside to look for someone.
Many people went out to watch the spectacle. Although many girls of this age have learned about this group through numerous novels, it is still too distant for them, and seeing it in reality is still a bit hard to accept.
Most people observe this event with a "let's watch the show" mentality, wanting to know what homosexuality is like, and whether it differs from normal human beings, as if they were observing a strange animal.
These curious, scrutinizing, or intriguing glances, though not necessarily malicious, are enough to cause physical discomfort and pain.
Chu Beiling watched helplessly as Shen Zhi's parents beat and cursed him, dragging him from the academic affairs office into the classroom, grabbing his tools, and then heading towards the dormitory.
The disgusting, sick, and perverted curses echoed through the rain-soaked teaching building, reaching everyone's ears.
Su Beichen's father, with a stern and imposing face, followed behind him, sternly stopping him when he couldn't help but turn around.
Because of their overwhelming presence, the students who were watching the spectacle all kept their distance as they passed by.
Xu Tunan tugged at him: "Let's go back."
Chu Beiling stood motionless at the end of the corridor, so Xu Tunan had no choice but to stay with him.
As Su Beichen passed by him, he left a message that only they could hear: "You and Xing Yu be careful, don't get discovered like us."
Li's father walked past him and glanced at him unexpectedly.
That one glance sent Chu Beiling trembling in his very soul.
Another clap of thunder echoed in the sky. He turned around abruptly and saw Xing Yu standing in the center of the crowd, looking at him from a great distance.
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