Chapter 20: Zuan Liberal Arts Champion
Summer vacation is over.
The door panel of the boys' dormitory finally made a "creaking" groan under the heavy weight when I cursed it for the hundred and first time that it needed to be lubricated, and I pushed it open with my shoulder.
The surging heat and the familiar smell that I hadn't seen in two months, a mixture of sweat, takeout remnants, and something suspicious (probably Lao Si's dark cooking had gone wrong again), hit me in the face and almost pushed me back into the corridor.
"Damn it! Who is this monster? How dare you break into a private house in broad daylight!" A howl comparable to that of a pig being slaughtered was heard first.
I squinted my eyes and finally adapted to the dimly lit environment of the dormitory, where clutter piled up like post-war ruins, before I could see that it was the fourth brother who made the noise.
The kid was slumped in the chair, his hairy legs arrogantly placed on the desk piled with instant noodle boxes. He looked at me as if he had seen a ghost, and he even forgot to chew the half-eaten apple in his hand.
Another brother gasped, "Hiss—Brother Rui? Is that you? I almost thought it was some passing female bodhisattva who had walked into the wrong door! This summer... was you marinated in a jar of milk by Lin Yan?"
The fourth child complained with endless grief and indignation. He had just crawled out of the hell of trying to get his driver's license back home. He looked like he had just been pulled out of a pile of coal, with only the whites of his eyes and teeth stubbornly proving he was a primate.
"Brother Rui! Are you still human? Look at me! Look at you! Lin Yan's family runs a large-scale precision pig farm, right?! This skin care, this rosy white effect... our lives that are tanned into black eggs are not worth living?"
He patted his dark arms tragically, and the crackling sound was like hitting a piece of fine ebony.
I kicked the door in anger, making a louder "clang" noise. "Get lost! I'm naturally beautiful and I can't give up on myself, understand? What does that have to do with Lin Yan? He's just... a supervisor!"
I subconsciously touched my face, and the daily routine of Lin Yan pressing my head to apply sunscreen, holding an umbrella, and drinking honey lemon water during the summer vacation flooded into my mind uncontrollably, and my ears felt slightly hot.
The dormitory was suddenly filled with a tacit "Ah!" sound, mixed with the fourth brother's exaggerated chest-beating and stamping of his feet: "Supervisor? Brother Rui, you're kidding! This is definitely VIP supreme emperor-level feeding! Kick over my stainless steel dog bowl! I can't swallow this dog food anymore!"
The atmosphere of laughter, playfulness and jokes instantly filled the small 307.
The three of them seemed to want to pour out all the nonsense they had been holding back for two months, from their silly experiences during the summer vacation to their gaming records to gossip about their teachers in the department.
The dormitory was filled with table-slamming laughter, Wang Qiang imitating the coach's swearing, and the fourth child coughing loudly after choking on instant noodle soup.
I also completely relaxed, sinking into the creaky old man's broken chair, chewing on the potato chips he contributed, and enjoying this long-lost and familiar chaos.
After some obscene turn, the topic inexplicably came back to me.
The fourth brother lowered his voice, speaking with the seriousness of a senior academic discussion, "Seriously, Rui, you've been living with Lin for two months... Has he been stewing bird's nest at home every day? Your skin is in such bad shape, tsk tsk, how can the girls in our department be embarrassed?"
"Bullshit!" I accurately threw my slippers in the direction of the fourth brother. "It's just a normal schedule! Normal meals! Plus a certain obsessive-compulsive disorder... Hey, how come that pervert Lin Yan can be like a robot, eating, sleeping, and applying sunscreen with no more than a minute's error?"
I spoke with disgust, but the corners of my mouth curled up unnaturally.
"Tsk, a full man doesn't know the hunger of a hungry man!" Wang Qiang sighed softly, like a resentful woman in the palace. "This wave of affectionate display is not very harmful, but extremely insulting! Especially to my black egg, which has been ravaged by the scorching sun..."
No one could have imagined that outside the dormitory door, there was a human-shaped gecko - Zhao Lei, the "loudspeaker" from the next class.
This guy has always adhered to the life creed of "gossip is lifeline, sharing is virtue".
At this moment, in dormitory 307, key words such as "Lin Yan cohabiting", "supervisor", "raised to be fair and rosy", etc., accompanied by uncontrollable low laughter, were like precision-guided artillery shells, drilling straight into his pricked ears through the crack of the door.
He was so excited that he almost jumped up on the spot, his fingers tapping rapidly on the cold screen of his mobile phone, and even his breathing trembled as if he had discovered a new world.
He even forgot that he had a straw in his mouth. The plastic straw was deformed and creaked from his unconscious biting, looking like a twisted white earthworm.
The next morning, for the professional class, I walked into the lecture hall with my head drooped, holding my textbook, despite my body being hollowed out by Lin Yan.
The air suddenly became extremely strange.
The originally noisy classroom seemed to have pressed the mute button the moment I stepped into it.
Dozens of gazes, with different expressions - curious, inquiring, sudden realization, envy, jealousy, and even a little... indescribable excitement?
—silently focused on me, like a dense spotlight, pinning me firmly to the awkward spot on the floor at the door.
I paused, my scalp going numb.
At this moment, a deliberately raised female voice, filled with artificial surprise, came from the front: "Hey! Look, look! Here they come! One of the real ones!"
Another voice immediately followed, as smooth as a supporting actor coming on stage: "Tsk tsk, take a closer look! Sure enough... it lives up to its reputation!" The tail tone was drawn out, full of profound meaning that made people want to throw the book at it.
My temples were pounding, and I suppressed the irritation in my heart and found a seat by the side in the back row.
As soon as my butt touched the chair, the whispers from the side coiled around me like the tongue of a poisonous snake, hissing.
"I said there was definitely something wrong with them! That look in Lin Yan's eyes last semester...tsk tsk..."
"I never thought they were living together? They're so quick!"
"No wonder Chen Rui is so pale and shiny. Boss Lin is wealthy and has plenty of nutrition!"
"Guess... who's on top and who's on the bottom?" This sentence was spoken in a very low voice with a mischievous smile, but it pierced my ears like a needle.
"Do you need to guess? Look at Chen Rui. He used to be as shady as a goblin, but now he's been taken care of by Lin Yan..."
"Shh! Keep your voice down!"
"What are you afraid of? You dare to do it, but you are afraid of what others will say?"
I spread out the textbook expressionlessly, and the tip of my pen drew a deep scratch on the paper, almost piercing the backing.
Damn, what era is this? Is finding a partner as rare as unearthing a cultural relic?
I took a deep breath and silently chanted the mantra of peace of mind: Patience for a moment brings peace… Step back and the horizon is wide open… My heart is as still as still water…
Unfortunately, some people are born to challenge my blood pressure limits.
During the break, I went to the vending machine at the end of the corridor to buy some water. As soon as I unscrewed the cap and took a swig, a clear, unconcealed female voice rang out beside me.
"Chen Rui! Classmate Chen Rui! Excuse me!"
I turned around and saw a girl with short hair, a round face, and startlingly bright eyes. She was holding a notebook in front of her chest with both hands, her cheeks flushed with excitement. She stared at me as if she had discovered a rare treasure. Next to her was a close friend, her eyes also shining.
"Well... just... just one question!" The girl took a deep breath, as if about to make some important announcement. "You and Master Lin... are really together, right?"
After she asked, without waiting for my reply, she quickly dropped the real bombshell, "So—you must be a bottom, right? Right, right? Lin Shen is so cool, with an aura of two meters and eighty... You must be a super cute little bottom, right? Ahhhh, I knew I had it right!"
At that moment, the green light that burst out of the girl's eyes was comparable to that of a wolf that had been hungry for three days in the wilderness and finally saw a fat rabbit.
The best friend next to her also nodded like a chick pecking at rice, with an excited expression on her face that said, "Sister, you understand me."
The ice water in my mouth nearly spurted out. I forced myself to swallow it, and the ice water slid down my throat, making me shudder.
A surge of unholy fire shot up from the soles of my feet to the top of my head, burning me to the point of smoke rising from all my orifices. My knuckles, gripping the mineral water bottle, made a slight cracking sound.
Cute? Little bottom? What's wrong with being a bottom? I'm eating your rice!
I can’t stand it any longer, I don’t need to stand it any longer!
Just before I was about to transform into a fire-breathing Tyrannosaurus, a deliberately amplified burst of laughter came from the other end of the corridor.
The leader was a tall boy wearing a fancy basketball vest. He was the "loudspeaker" Zhao Lei who had peeked through the crack in the door last night.
He was surrounded by a few followers. At this moment, he was imitating some effeminate posture and shouting in a pinched voice: "Oh my~ legal breeder~ licensed~" The people around him burst into even louder laughter.
Zhao Lei squinted at me, his eyes filled with undisguised contempt and defiance, his voice so loud he almost thought the whole floor could hear him: "Tsk, tsk, tsk, Chen Rui, you're being 'raised' well by Young Master Lin, aren't you? You're rosy and fair, like a grown-up girl! So, are you enjoying serving your sponsor? How much 'nutritious allowance' does Young Master Lin give you a month? Tell us so we can open our eyes and learn some new business."
He deliberately emphasized the words "feed", "serve", "nutritional fees" and "business", and his malice was almost overflowing.
The roaring laughter and obscene looks were like sticky dirty water, pouring down on one's head.
With a "crash", the string of rationality in my mind completely broke.
Endure? Endure your mother's head! I'm the top scorer in the liberal arts department of Zuan. I've been holding back all this morning's primordial strength. If I don't make you bloom like peach blossoms today, you don't know how many eyes Lord Horse has!
I turned around suddenly, moving as fast as lightning, and in a few steps I was in front of Zhao Lei and his group.
I stopped, leaned forward slightly, my dark eyes burning with cold anger, and looked down at Zhao Lei's annoying face with a hideous "smile" on the corner of my mouth.
"Yo," my voice was not loud, but it carried a harsh feeling like ice scraping against glass. It clearly drowned out the laughter around me and instantly attracted the attention of half of the corridor.
"Isn't that Zhao Da Laba? Did you enjoy listening through the crack in the door yesterday? What's up, weren't you satisfied eavesdropping? Today you want to experience the 'breeder's' fist yourself? Did you just clean the sewer and didn't rinse your mouth, or was it born with a hole in your ass? You spray shit so smoothly? Who I'm friendly with is none of your business? Looking at your jealous look, you must have begged Lin Yan to 'breed' you, but he looked down on you because you're too rough and foul-mouthed. With your appearance, you'd be afraid of being a pig in the slaughterhouse! You're covered in hair, and you call others monsters? Do you need me to broadcast your little stories on the loudspeaker in a loop? If you say another word, believe it or not, I'll perform 'physical silencing' on your broken voice on the spot?"
A series of precise blows like a storm, full of satisfaction, every word is sharp, every sentence is piercing, and it specifically hits Zhao Lei's pain points.
The entire corridor was silent again, so quiet that you could hear a pin drop. Everyone stared at me in amazement.
Zhao Lei's face turned pale and blue from my scolding. Especially the words "rejected for feeding" and "affecting the meat quality" really hit him in the face. He was so angry that he was shaking all over and pointed at me: "You... you fucking..."
"What the hell is wrong with me?" I took a step forward, staring him down. "Want to fight? Come on! I'm here with you! This is a good time to stretch your muscles and see if those muscles are the result of training or just pumped up!"
I clenched my fists, and my joints cracked.
Zhao Lei was choked by my fierce momentum and ruthless exposure of his shortcomings. The followers next to him were even more shocked by my gaze. They subconsciously shrank their necks and avoided my gaze.
In the end, Zhao Lei just blushed, said "You wait!", and walked away dejectedly through the crowd with his men.
After I finished cursing, I felt a stream of foul air burst out from my chest, and my whole body felt comfortable.
I flicked my wrist and spat at Zhao Lei's embarrassed back: "Coward!"
Then he turned around and raised an eyebrow at the stunned girl who was still holding her notebook, and said in a relaxed tone, "Thanks, classmate. Next time you ask a question, I suggest you choose a safer place so you don't get accidentally injured by a mad dog."
After saying that, I unscrewed the bottle cap and took another big gulp of water to moisten my throat. Ignoring the petrified air behind me, I walked with a step that didn't recognize anyone, and under the gaze of countless petrified eyes, I walked straight through the corridor and went back to the classroom.
Every step he took was full of vigor, and it seemed as if four big words were written on the back of his head: I win!
It's satisfying to curse someone, but what about the consequences...
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