Chapter 21: CH 21

“You…..” Li Qinhe painfully said, “You want to help Fu Jia?”

Lu Qi’an ‘ens’ in agreement.

Looking at him so indifferent, Li Qinhe frustratedly lowers his head, his momentum all gone. He understood, with Lu Qi’an’s personality, if he does something that disgusts Lu Qi’an, even getting a sentence like “You are my friend” for comfort, will be something very difficult..

He said: “You want me to understand you, but if you aren’t willing to explain anything, how am I supposed to understand?”

Lu Qi’an doesn’t say anything.

Li Qinhe knew he wouldn’t get an answer. Not explaining anything is indeed bad, however explaining everything is also not realistic. He stopped and thought for a moment, carefully searching for the suitable adjective, “Honestly even if you didn't say anything, I could still guess some things. From the very beginning, I felt that you treated Fu Jia differently, different from Wanqing jie, and even FengFeng.

“Of course.” Lu Qi’an acknowledges, “Different people will always view things differently”.

“You know what I’m saying is different.” Li Qinhe said seriously, “Wanqinq jie still has Fengfeng, they both know that the way they treat Fu Jia is wrong, that Fu Jia didn’t do anything wrong, and that we are venting our anger on him. We try our best to control ourselves, and yet we have only managed to stop hating Fu Jia, but we still have prejudice in our hearts. This is a feeling that the people on Wanqinq jie’s side should have, but you are completely different; it’s fine if you don’t hate Fu Jia, but is that all you feel? Is it that you….like him a little?”

This doubt had lingered in Li Qinhe’s heart for many years, and before this, it was only a vague feeling. But right after he had asked those questions, he was finally sure of his own doubts.

He grew up with Lu Qi’an, and is Qi’an’s closest peer. Because Li Qi’an’s personality is naturally cold, when the two interact, Li Qinhe would usually maintain a certain distance from the other. This allowed him to observe Lu Qi’an, and therefore he was able to notice many unusual details about him.

Ever since Qi Bing passed away, Li Qi’an original quiet personality became even more extreme; he became reticent and unsociable. He had even stopped talking to his father and aunt. So why, for 10 years, would he frequently go to the Lin family to see Lin Feng?

Li Qinhe used to think that it was because Lu Qi’an felt bad for Lin Feng, so he would frequently go and accompany him. But now, a certain guess made Li Qinhe’s heart jump.

The “like” that Li Qinhe said doesn’t have any other meaning, he meant “like” as in how he liked Fengfeng, and how FengFeng liked him, the platonic kind of love.

But in Li Qi’an’s heart, does this “like” really not have any other meaning?

He never thought in that direction. In the past it never crossed his mind, now he doesn’t dare to think about it, and in the future he doesn’t need to think about it.

Li Qi’an blinked, “Like? If only it was such a shallow feeling, then it would be easy to deal with”.

His tone was flat, like it didn’t concern him. Li Xinghe’s eyes widened, he panicked.

Looking at Li Qinhe’s face that slowly changed from bewilderment to panic, Li Qi’an had a hint of a smile in his eyes, it was not very genuine, as if it was purposely shown to comfort people: “I can deal with my own affairs. If you don’t have anything else to do, just leave, don’t you always complain that your girlfriend has waited for you for a long time?

After persuading Li Qinhe to leave, Lu Qi'an stood in place for about ten seconds before heading to the classroom.

Earlier, the three had argued for a while, then he and Li Qinhe talked for a while. The classroom’s third year students had already left. In the empty classroom, Fu Jia didn’t sit, but stood cautiously at the desk, staring at the book in his hand.

Yesterday, when he was waiting in front of Lu Qi'an's apartment, he was leaning against the wall to read a book. If someone who didn't know his past saw him, they would definitely think that Fu Jia was a hard to come by good student.

Lu Qi'an walked towards him, and even though he didn't call out to him, Fu Jia quickly noticed him. His shoulders moved and he closed the book abruptly, turning the cover towards him and hugging it in his arms.

Lu Qi'an noticed the book in Fu Jia's arms. No matter how well you hide the high school textbooks, it is useless. Each subject has its own unique characteristics, and you can differentiate just by looking at the corner of the book.

He didn’t bother to care, instead he asked: “Why aren’t you sitting?

Fu Jia hugged the book very tightly, saying that standing was more comfortable.

But in an unfamiliar environment, how can standing be more comfortable than sitting?

Lu Qi'an said: "I rarely take notes in physics. The physics book is almost blank, there is nothing to see. If you want to look at my notes, you can look at chinese.”

Fu Jia, embarrassed, opened his hand, he was indeed holding a physics textbook. He put the book back on Lu Qi'an's desk and said, "I’m not interested in looking at your notes, I was bored waiting here, so I wanted to flip through the textbooks for the third year, to see what the difficulty is like…”

Lu Qi’an nodded, following Fu Jia’s words: “How’s the difficulty?"

His question stunned Fu Jia. He didn't even understand anything, what does he know about the difficulty? He thought about it and said: "It's okay... I'll work hard."

He has no assurance towards his studies, and is only able to say some flowery words.

Lu Qi’an nodded, his facial expression had no changes, making it difficult to tell if he was satisfied with Fu Jia’s answer.

Before Fu Jia came searching for him, Lu Qi'an had been organizing the table. Although the school did not mandate that seats should be rearranged during the weekly test, Lu Qi'an's head teacher was strict, and insisted that the weekly test must have random seating. The one who sat on Lu Qi'an's seat earlier had moved the things on the table around, so the physics book was randomly placed on the table.

He tucked the book in and asked: “Why are you looking for me today?”

Hearing him ask, Fu Jia realized that he(Fu Jia) had been holding back for a long time. There was no one here to interrupt him now, so he said excitedly: "Because the weekly test is over. I wanted to tell you: the questions you circled for me appeared on the math test, and I answered them correctly, so I should end up with a good score.”

Lu Qi’an looked at him, his eyes clearly saying “so?”.

The excitement Fu Jia had diminished by half with that look. He didn’t think too much, just that he put in a lot of effort to pass the test, and felt a sense of accomplishment.

He urgently wanted to tell someone, urgently wanted to receive…

A compliment.

“That’s it?” Lu Qi’an asked.

Fu Jia nodded hesitantly: “That’s it.”

He nodded his head too slowly, making it look more like he was shaking his head instead.

Lu Qi'an restrained his temper: "Just say what you want to say."

Fu Jia looked around, but said nothing. Almost all the people in the classroom had already left, and only a few people were still sitting in their seats. Although they didn't look his way, they might have been silently paying attention to what was going on.

Fu Jia said, "Are you going back to the apartment to rest now? I'll send you out of the school gate. We can talk while we walk."

Lu Qi’an agreed: “Ok.”

One in the front, one in the back, they walked out of the classroom and down the stairs. The stairs were wide and void of people, the two of them could walk side by side, however FuJia purposely stayed a step behind, following Lu Qi’an’s back.

He was still thinking about how to say what he wanted to say, or if he should say it at all?

This state of walking in separate rows continued until the two walked out of the building. Lu Qi'an slowed down and waited for Fu Jia to catch up, but before Fu Jia thought it through, he subconsciously slowed down.

On both sides of the road leading to the school gate, camphor trees grew. They walked in the shade, slower and slower, and finally stopped.

Lu Qi'an turned around and said, "Let's just talk here."

Fu Jia almost bumped into him. He still hadn’t prepared himself yet, so he said “Let’s talk while we walk.”

Lu Qi’an looked at him “The walk from here to outside the school gate is only 3 minutes. Are you able to finish within that time?”

“But…won’t I delay you from going home to rest?”

“It’s not a problem.”

Fu Jia breathed a sigh of relief. He lowered his head and gathered up his courage to say, "Actually... I want to ask you for a reward."

His voice shook.

"I mean, although you pointed out a question for me, it's not easy for me to get a place in the weekly test, so I want to ask you for a reward." He paused and added: " Isn't that how you had encouraged Lin Feng to eat medicine before?"

Fu Jia hated mentioning Lin Fengxun, especially during his alone time with Lu Qi’an.

He said this vaguely, but Lu Qi’an still understood it.

He once let Fu Jia watch him bring a gift to coax Lin Feng to take his medicine. That time, Lin Fengxun vomited because of the bitter medicine, which made Lu Wanqing angry, and then Lin Fengxun refused to take the medicine.

Fu Jia saw the whole process from the window, and ran to the courtyard to ask him, "A person that has no one to encourage him, no one to praise him, how is he supposed to persist?

At that time, he had acted knowledgeable and gave him an answer, telling Fu Jia that he had to use his own dignity to motivate himself. But now it seems like he did a cruel thing. He showed Fu Jia something beautiful, and attracted his attention, only in the end to throw him a bitter fruit.

Lu Qi'an neither agreed nor refused: "Talk clearer."

Fu Jia didn't say it right away. He looked at Lu Qi'an, and his face slowly turned red.

"Just treat it as me asking for a favor, okay?" Fu Jia said, "If I can rank in the top 20 within the class for the weekly test, can you... just let me hug..."

Fu Jia's voice gradually became lower, and for the last word, Fu Jia only mouthed it.

He lowered his head very low, almost buried it in his chest.

This allowed Lu Qi'an to see the clean back of his neck —— Fu Jia trimmed his hair very neatly and never left any excess hair.

For no reason, Lu Qi'an suddenly had an urge: he wanted to touch the back of Fu Jia's neck, only a light touch with his fingertips was enough, he wanted to know whether that piece of skin was cold or hot, wanted to know if the transparent fine hair is as soft as he thought.

However, Lu Qi'an was good at suppressing his impulses, which was his habit.

“Why do you want to hug?” Lu Qi’an said, “You can’t.”

His tone was decisive and didn’t leave room for questioning.  Fu Jia’s blood ran cold, but still said “Then top ten. If I can get into the class’s top ten, then you let me hug, just an ordinary hug. I promise it won’t be like the time in No. 16 High, where I rubbed your neck…..”

As he talked, Fu Jia’s face turned red.

Fu Jia worried that Lu Qi’an knew that his condition of "entering the top ten" was no different from giving up. Even if Lu Qi'an highlighted all the questions in the math test for Fu Jia, there was still little hope of getting into the top ten.

Lu Qi'an looked at Fu Jia's eyes, his eyes penetrating, as if he could see through him.

"Why do you have to hug me? You can ask for something else."

In an instant, Fu Jia's heart almost jumped out of his chest.

The reason  Fu Jia insisted on a hug, does Lu Qi’an really not understand?

Could he not understand?

“I want this.” Fu Jia said, “I just want this.”