Death
On the morning of returning to school, Qi Wuchen fell into deep thought as he looked at the pile of books beside him.
From the moment they sat down in the classroom, there was always a pile of books between Ling Jianghan and him.
Qi Wuchen was depressed for two classes, still unable to figure out what had gone wrong that night. A more emotional person might have seen some joy in his eyes, but why did it become contempt in Jiang Han's eyes?
He buried his face in the table and recalled the whole process of that night again, but still couldn't figure it out.
After half a minute, he raised his face again and asked with tears in his eyes, "Ling, can you tell me specifically how I have disrespected you? Could you please be so kind as to give me a hint?"
"You don't know?" Ling Jiang Han stopped writing and looked at him with a smile in his eyes.
Qi Wuchen nodded three times like a chick pecking at rice.
"I don't know?" Ling Jianghan repeated himself, the smile on his face suddenly disappearing: "If you don't know, just read a book."
…
Qi Wuchen still didn't give up and leaned his head to look at Ling Jianghan beside him.
Jiang Han lowered his head to write the questions, and his left hand holding the draft book slightly tilted to completely block Qi Wuchen's sight.
“…”
Qi Wuchen actually knew that he shouldn't bother Ling Jianghan at this moment, but he really couldn't stand it anymore, so he bravely pushed aside the troublesome draft book and spoke carefully: "Deskmate Ling, didn't we agree to help each other? We can't let the relationship get damaged like this."
Ling Jianghan stared at him for a few seconds, and finally reached out to move the book between them.
Qi Wuchen took the lead in moving the pile of books to his own desk, resting his chin on the books and asked with a playful smile, "What do you want, classmate?"
Ling Jianghan pointed the tip of his pen at a solid geometry problem on the math paper and asked with a stern face, "How do I do this?"
Unexpectedly, Qi Wuchen said without warning: "Wait a moment, I'll show you."
This finally made Jiang Han's tense face smile. He patted his shoulder and said, "Speak properly."
Qi Wuchen immediately cleared his throat and said in a serious and clear voice, "Okay, boss."
Jiang Han smiled, and his handsome face met the warm sunshine that quietly slipped into the classroom.
Seeing Ling Jianghan laugh, Qi Wuchen also raised his head and started laughing. After they had laughed enough, Qi Wuchen stopped spinning the pen in his left hand and began to explain the problem to Ling Jianghan seriously.
After explaining the problem to Ling Jianghan, there were still twenty minutes of break time left. Qi Wuchen was about to lie down for a nap when he felt a pat on the back. Sheng Yao rested his head on his shoulder.
Qi Wuchen frowned and was about to push his head away, but he heard Sheng Yao whisper in his ear: "Brother Chen, have you seen our cultural committee member's circle of friends?"
Everyone in the class except Ling Jianghan knew that Sheng Yao had long admired their arts committee member. Upon hearing this, Qi Wuchen almost subconsciously said, "Why would I look at her Moments? Am I sick?"
He spoke the next sentence a little louder, causing Ling Jianghan next to him to look up at him.
Qi Wuchen waved his hand and smiled at him: "You write, then I'll read it when you're done."
After saying that, he turned around and asked Sheng Yao indifferently: "So what are you doing?"
“…” This attitude changed too quickly.
Sheng Yao said, "Nothing, I just want to show you a photo."
Unexpectedly, Qi Wuchen stared at him warily after hearing this: "What photos?"
"It's a handsome photo of the two of you." Sheng Yao looked at him in shock with a pair of extremely innocent eyes: "Fuck, what do you think it is?"
"How should I know?"
"That's why you misunderstood me, Brother Chen," Sheng Yao quickly explained, "You're overthinking it!"
"I know you too well." Qi Wuchen took out his phone from the drawer and unlocked it in front of him. "Let's go. I'll take a look myself."
"OK." Sheng Yao said and ran away quickly.
Qi Wuchen lowered his head, pretending to sleep, and clicked on the cultural committee member's WeChat profile picture. Before he could even open the other person's circle of friends, Jiang Ning's voice suddenly rang out behind him.
"Qi Wuchen?!"
“…”
Just before following Jiang Ning out of the classroom, Qi Wuchen glanced at his best classmate who was sleeping with a pen in his hand.
Five minutes later, Jiang Ning, who was sitting at her desk, put her phone into the drawer. Before she could utter a single word, Qi Wuchen bowed to her at a 90-degree angle. "Teacher, I was wrong. I shouldn't have left my phone in, let alone played with it in the classroom. From now on, I will study hard and make progress every day!"
Jiang Ning: “…”
She reorganized her words and was about to speak again, but Qi Wuchen said, "I know my mistakes and I'm willing to accept the punishment! Teacher, can you please forgive me this time because this is my first offense?"
Jiang Ning held his forehead with his hand helplessly and said, "I really don't know what to say to you."
As soon as he finished speaking, Jiang Ning's phone suddenly rang.
She picked up the phone after seeing the caller ID, and her expression suddenly became serious and heavy.
"Okay, I understand. Don't worry, I'll approve his leave right away."
After Jiang Ning hung up the phone, she took out the SIM card from Qi Wuchen's phone and returned it to him, still warning him, "I'll return the phone to you next semester. If you do it again, I'll tell your parents directly."
"Okay, thank you, teacher." Qi Wuchen took the phone card and prepared to turn around and leave.
"Wait," Jiang Ning called him to a stop. As she tore off a leave application and signed it, she said anxiously, "Go and get Ling Jianghan for me. I need to see him urgently."
Qi Wuchen hurried back to the classroom and saw Sheng Yao waiting in the corridor with an apologetic look on his face.
"I'm sorry, Brother Chen, I shouldn't have let you look at the photos at this time. As a result, your phone was confiscated and you got scolded." Sheng Yao thought for a while, and finally asked tentatively: "Brother Chen, how about I give you my phone?"
"No need," Qi Wuchen said as he walked towards the classroom: "I still have my phone. You can send me the photos this afternoon."
Seeing that he was not angry, Sheng Yao snapped his fingers and said, "No problem."
Qi Wuchen walked to his seat but before he could say anything, he heard his deskmate say, "I was working on my homework and didn't know the teacher was here."
"Never mind that for now," Qi Wuchen simply said, "Xiao Jiang wants to see you about something. He wants you to go to the office right away."
Ling Jianghan said "oh" and stood up to leave.
Unexpectedly, he was gone for most of the day.
Qi Wuchen felt something was wrong, so he immediately borrowed Sheng Yao's cell phone from the back row to call Uncle Wang and ask if Ling Jianghan was at his home at the moment.
Uncle Wang had just finished his work and hadn't left yet. After receiving the call, he hurried upstairs and knocked on Ling Jianghan's door, then said, "No one opened the door, so there should be no one in the house."
Qi Wuchen's heart tightened after hearing this, and without thinking, he said, "Uncle Wang, please call my sister right away and ask her to make up a reason to ask for leave for me immediately. I have something very important to do right now."
"Okay." Uncle Wang agreed and then asked, "Do you need me to pick you up?"
"No need, just let my sister help me get the leave successfully."
"OK."
After hanging up the phone, Sheng Yao, who had listened to the entire conversation, said very tactfully: "Take the phone away. The password is my birthday."
"Thank you."
"You're welcome," Sheng Yao said with a raised eyebrow, "We're just friends."
Not knowing what excuse Qi Chiyue made up, Qi Wuchen quickly left the school with the leave note.
He ran all the way into the residential complex, and while waiting for the elevator, he found Ling Jianghan's number and dialed it, but when he ran to the door of his house, the other party didn't answer the call.
Qi Wuchen knocked on the door and made a second call, but hung up after a while.
Now he was completely panicked and felt extremely useless for a moment.
He couldn't actually find Ling Jianghan.
Qi Wuchen rubbed his hair fiercely and continued to make the third call.
He had already prepared to make a fourth call, but unexpectedly, the other party finally answered this time.
Without waiting for Ling Jianghan to speak, Qi Wuchen immediately asked, "Ling Jianghan, where are you?"
There was no reply from the other end, only the sound of surprisingly even breathing.
Qi Wuchen's heart, which had just been at ease, instantly rose to his throat again. He tried his best to suppress the panic in his heart and called out cautiously, "Ling Jianghan?"
"Qi Wuchen," Ling Jianghan finally responded this time, saying in a frighteningly hoarse voice without any emotion, "Zhou Yuyi is dead."
Now it was Qi Wuchen's turn to be stunned.
Zhou Yuyi...dead?
The rain in Yishan stopped the day before yesterday. On the way back, the car Zhou Yuyi was riding in was hit by a huge rock rolling down the mountain. All five people in the car were killed.
The first person to receive the notification was Zhou Yuyi's father. The old man suffered from a very serious heart disease and passed away after hearing the bad news in the morning.
Afterwards, Qi Quchen accompanied Ling Jianghan and sat in front of Gu Yinglian's tombstone for a long time, so long that countless raindrops fell from the sky, before Qi Quchen finally heard Ling Jianghan's lifeless voice.
"Qi Wuchen, I believe that good and evil will be rewarded, but it is also true that sometimes God is blind."
"...Ling Jianghan," Qi Wuchen swallowed back what he wanted to say several times, and finally uttered only four short words: "My condolences."
I am sorry for your loss.
He once said this to Zhou Yuyi.
In a trance, Jiang Han heard two people saying "My condolences" to him, one was Qi Wuchen and the other was himself.
He seemed to be a little confused, and he heard again the words Zhou Yuyi said six years ago.
"Now I wish he wouldn't be so righteous, so that he and I could grow old together, but it seems too late."
The night when Gu Yinglian died while saving a drowning pregnant woman was still vivid in her mind. In her memory, Zhou Yuyi hugged Ling Jianghan and called Gu Yinglian's name over and over again. Each call was enough to break her fiancé's heart.
After a burst of thunder, Qi Wuchen saw Ling Jianghan lower his head and reach out to arrange the roses Zhou Yuyi had brought him before his death. He said to the person who was separated from them by six feet of yellow earth: "...My condolences. Remember to pick her up."
…
"Happy New Year! I'll come and celebrate the New Year with you again next year."
"Happy holiday! I'll come to your house for two meals tomorrow."
"Congratulations on starting school! I'll come visit Chuyi every Saturday from now on."
"Jiang Han, come to our house for your birthday this year. My parents will make you something delicious!"
When the last voice sounded in his ears, the hood of his sweatshirt suddenly covered Ling Jianghan's head.
He subconsciously turned his head to look at Qi Wuchen who put the hat on him, and a tear suddenly fell the moment their eyes met.
Qi Wuchen seemed to be frightened, staring at Ling Jianghan with wide eyes.
What surprised him was that until this tear completely merged with the rain on the ground, no tear appeared on Jiang Han's face, and his pair of eyes as bright as stars did not even have a trace of tears.
It was as if what just fell was just a drop of rain.
Jiang Han reached out to touch his eyes belatedly, as if he had not expected that he would suddenly burst into tears.
Qi Wuchen was afraid that he would be too sad, and also worried that he would catch a cold from the rain, so he could only gently persuade him: "Can you go back first? Chuyi is still waiting for you at home."
Ling Jianghan opened his mouth, and after a while he said, "Okay."
Qi Wuchen then felt that the stone in his heart had finally fallen to the ground, and without delaying for a moment he went back with Ling Jianghan.
After the two of them arrived home, Chuyi, who was lying at the door waiting for them to come back, had no time to turn around before Ling Jianghan, who was behind Qi Wuchen, picked him up and carried him into the bedroom.
Qi Wuchen was a few steps behind him because he was closing the door. Seeing that the bedroom door was not closed, he walked in lightly.
There was no light inside, but Qi Wuchen could see Ling Jianghan sitting silently on the floor to the right of the bed, holding the cat. He groped in the dark and quietly sat down on the other side of the bed.
After sitting there for an unknown amount of time, Qi Wuchen heard the breathing of the person opposite him gradually become steady, and he then walked quietly to Ling Jianghan's side.
Chuyi was also very sensible. When he heard him approaching, he wagged his tail twice and slipped away quietly from Ling Jianghan's arms.
Qi Wuchen stared at the tightly closed eyes for a long time, and only after confirming that Jiang Han showed no signs of waking up did he slowly lower his head.
Night had fallen, and the heavy rain had stopped. A kiss as gentle as a dragonfly skimming the water landed silently on the corner of Ling Jianghan's eye.
The two separated in an instant, but Qi Wuchen knew that these eyes had already cried.
Jiang Han’s closest relatives are already few and far between in this world, and Zhou Yuyi’s death means that his Jiang Han needs him even more.
Qi Wuchen gently carried the person to the bed. Jiang Han moved his head but did not wake up.
Ten minutes later, Qi Wuchen was fiddling with the new mobile phone he had bought a long time ago in his bedroom.
He logged into his WeChat and saw the photos Sheng Yao sent him.
Due to the shooting angle, Qi Wuchen, who was spinning a pen with his left hand, only had his back and side profile shown in the photo. Although this was quite eye-catching, the smiling boy next to him looked even more dazzling with the help of the warm sun.
He lost his phone just for this photo?
That's totally worth it.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
