CH 29

Translation checker: Rin

Editor: Junyans

Painting blackboard newspapers with watercolor paint looked much brighter and more vibrant than using chalk. The waves of the sea were so vivid that the teachers who entered the class couldn’t help but praise them when they saw it. Only then did the classmates realize that Yu Ran, who was usually slovenly, had an artistic talent, and they couldn’t help but be impressed with him.

“Why does this paper have so many shitty questions? If only the midterm exam was a drawing exam.” Yu Ran was listlessly lying on the desk, wiping the paint from his fingertips using a wet wipe. He had several Chemistry papers pressed under his face. The highest score was not more than forty. Because of this, he was called by the teacher to go to the office from now on during the lunch break to take make-up lessons until he passed the midterm exam.

He thought for a while and turned around to face Chu Mian, placing his chin on the other person’s desk. “Chu Mian, tell me some questions, I’ll memorize them at home.”

Chu Mian was doing his homework, and replied smoothly: “The questions of the midterm exam are made by the district. Unlike the previous monthly exam, the original homework questions won’t appear.”

Then he put down his pen and looked up at Yu Ran. “Give me your notes, I’ll highlight the key points.”

Yu Ran missed the days before National Day very much. At that time, there hadn’t been much homework and the class tests were easy. Now that the midterm exam was approaching, teachers of all subjects had asked students to go to the office to listen to the lectures every day. The materials were becoming more and more difficult. He often didn’t even have time to drink water. He just bounced around in several offices after class. In class, he was also the subject of spot checks by the teachers. After a day of class, he understood what “mental exhaustion” meant.

Fortunately, there were club activities classes every Wednesday night, which was one of the few things Yu Ran looked forward to at school.

He was now a titular member of the basketball team. Since he couldn’t participate in the girls’ training, he could go to other clubs as he pleased every week. Today, he had followed Zhou Weixi to play badminton.

“Yu Ran, what are you staring at? It’s your turn to serve.”

“Oh,” Yu Ran responded to Zhou Weixi half-heartedly. His eyes were still fixed on the wall at the back door of the school.

— Someone was coming in from over the wall.

It was dark, and Yu Ran couldn’t see the appearance of the person in the distance, but he knew that the person was definitely not from their school, otherwise that person would have entered the school directly through the back door.

Yu Ran put aside his curiosity for the time being, swung his racket, hit the shuttlecock, and passed it repeatedly with Zhou Weixi.

The shuttlecock fell out of the court. Taking advantage of the time when Zhou Weixi went to pick it up, Yu Ran looked back at the wall and found that a student was receiving the person who had climbed the wall. This student’s back was very familiar, he had seen it this morning.

It was Cai Hanchuan.

Yu Ran couldn’t help but frown. Although Cai Hanchuan hadn’t bothered him for a long time, he knew that this person had been in contact with Huang Feng recently, so he couldn’t take it lightly.

Zhou Weixi, who was on the opposite side of the net, was ready to serve: “Yu Ran, if you receive the shuttlecock this time, I’ll call you dad!”

Yu Ran was distracted just now. After listening to Zhou Weixi’s words, he hesitated for half a second before raising the racket, but before he could receive it, the shuttlecock quickly passed over his head and landed several meters behind him.

Yu Ran turned around to pick it up, glanced up, and found that Cai Hanchuan and the others were walking towards this side. He was not sure whether the other side had noticed him or not. After he finished picking up the shuttlecock, he immediately turned around and continued playing with Zhou Weixi.

Since he was a bit distracted now, Yu Ran failed to successfully receive the shuttlecock several times in a row, which made him feel even more unhappy. As he once again watched the shuttlecock pass by him, he turned his head to find that a group of people had already approached him.

When Huang Feng’s face appeared in his sight, Yu Ran was startled. The unknown premonition in his heart just now had finally settled down at this moment.

“Something wrong?” Yu Ran asked calmly.

“Don’t be nervous, Yu Ran.” Huang Feng stepped forward and put his hand on Yu Ran’s shoulder in a familiar manner. “We don’t plan to touch you today. Just do as you’re told and come with us. We’ll discuss something.”

As he spoke, he rubbed Yu Ran’s shoulders with five fingers and pinched them painfully.

Yu Ran didn’t frown. Although he was resistant to be close with them in his heart, he didn’t want to start a conflict so quickly in front of Zhou Weixi, so as not to worry his friends. He turned around and winked at Zhou Weixi as if there was no problem, then picked up his school bag on the ground and followed Huang Feng and the others.

He had thought that they would take him out of the school to talk, but the place they took him turned out to be an abandoned equipment room in the school. The room was not ventilated, and there was a pungent, damp and musty smell.

It seemed that they wanted to clean him up in this kind of inconspicuous place.

Yu Ran was not surprised, but very confused.

Not only this time, but ever since junior high school, Yu Ran had been puzzled by the basic situation of bullying among boys. In the No. 44 Middle School, where the problematic teenagers were concentrated, the reason for the hatred among students was very simple. Any trivial matter in life could gradually evolve into a conflict, easily dividing people into camps.

The words like “apology” and “reconciliation” did not exist in the dictionary of boys like Huang Feng. They had taken in the most negative perspective of the world from adults since they were young, and believed that “violence can solve all problems”. The stronger they were, the less tolerant they were.

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Fortunately, he had tried to get admitted to a normal middle school, and now he had found that most of the boys were very peaceful and tolerant. Huang Feng’s kind was only a minority.

“One-on-one or all of you together?” Yu Ran dropped his school bag and asked.

“I already told you, we won’t touch you today.” Cai Hanchuan sat on the mat and looked through Yu Ran’s school bag since he had nothing to do. “Call Chu Mian to come over, then you can leave.”

Yu Ran’s heart sank and he didn’t know why: “How do you know him?”

Cai Hanchuan raised his hand, lifted his hair, and let Yu Ran see the bandage. “That bastard almost gave me a concussion. It’s already good that I didn’t find him for compensation. Now, I want an eye for an eye. It’s not too much, right?”

Yu Ran frowned: “Don’t fucking talk nonsense. Chu Mian and I are together every day, so why don’t I know about this?”

“During military training.” Cai Hanchuan put down his hands, his eyes were gloomy. “If you don’t believe me, ask your classmate Cui He.”

Yu Ran was confused. He couldn’t understand this sudden situation. Anyway, it was impossible for him to call Chu Mian here according to their request, no matter how unreasonable the two people in front of him were.

Yu Ran’s school bag was already in Huang Feng’s hand. He directly held it upside down, letting all the contents spill out. Then, he smiled and kicked them to make everything more messy.

“You still draw, Yu Ran?” Huang Feng picked up the sketchbook from the homework pile, opened it and looked at it. “I remember you used to draw every day when you were in junior high school. They’re not bad, you’ve also drawn quite a lot.”

Yu Ran wanted to say something but stopped. He kept staring at the other party’s hand movements.

“Call that Chu what…to come here.” Huang Feng shook the sketchbook at him. “Don’t worry, our Brother Han just wants to return the punch he received last time. After all, he lost his face in front of a girl. A person wouldn’t let it go after suffering from such grievance, right? For your sake, we won’t hit too hard—”

Before he could finish his words, Yu Ran interrupted him with a calm expression on his face: “If you want to vent your anger, do it on me.”

After letting out a “ooo”, Huang Feng said, “You guys are really close, but we’re looking for him today. It’s useless to replace him with you.”

Yu Ran secretly clenched his fists, and staring at the two of them, he said, “I won’t fight back.”

“Don’t waste time.” Huang Feng took out a lighter from his pocket and pressed the switch. He was holding the sketchbook in his other hand. “If you still want this shitty sketchbook to be unharmed, be fucking well-behaved and do as we say.”

Yu Ran’s expression froze.

It was dark outside, Chengjun’s playground was brightly lit, and the club activity class was already halfway through.

Chu Mian had been sleepy before class, so he temporarily slept in the classroom for a while. After waking up, he felt refreshed and felt too lazy to go to the rooftop to feel the breeze, so he took out Yu Ran’s notebook and continued to help him highlight the main points.

Yu Ran’s notes were incomplete on every page. Even now, there were many sentences that were partly written because he had been too lazy to finish the latter half. Chu Mian had to bend the corners of such pages for him as a reminder to fill them in later.

In the quiet classroom, there was only the sound of his pen tip rubbing against the paper. Chu Mian raised his head and looked at the empty space in front of him, thinking about how to remind Yu Ran to lend him the sketchbook.

Yu Ran had obviously agreed last night to bring it today, but he hadn’t taken it out to show him the whole day. Chu Mian thought that Yu Ran had forgotten to bring it.

While he was speculating, Chu Mian heard someone running in the corridor. The sound of footsteps got closer and finally stopped at the door of the classroom. He looked up and saw Zhou Weixi who was panting, and the other party said, “You’re in the classroom”.

Zhou Weixi ran back to his seat, took out his forgotten mobile phone from the bookcase, and called the homeroom teacher.

Chu Mian didn’t care and continued to focus on his own affairs. He didn’t expect to hear Zhou Weixi immediately mention Yu Ran’s name, and it directly attracted his attention.

After Zhou Weixi hung up the call, he turned his head and found that Chu Mian had already stood up.

Chu Mian asked: “Where’s Yu Ran?”

“I don’t know, I directly came here to tell the teacher after he left.”

Chu Mian didn’t ask more, and immediately left the classroom.

He knew the school structure fairly well, and remembered some of the blind spots of the cameras. After looking for them one by one, only the inconspicuous old equipment room was left. The door was usually locked here, but now there were two boys wandering around, as if they were on the lookout.

Chu Mian walked over and was unexpectedly not stopped by the two of them. After that, he opened the door without thinking, and a damp smell wafted to his face.

The people inside subconsciously turned their heads and looked over. When their eyes met, both sides were taken aback.

Seeing Yu Ran standing there safe and sound, Chu Mian was relieved for the time being. But Yu Ran hadn’t expected Chu Mian to show up. He didn’t know how to react for a while, so he only whispered to him: “Hurry up and leave.”

Cai Hanchuan and Huang Feng were even more surprised than Yu Ran. They were just wondering how to make Yu Ran call Chu Mian, but Chu Mian directly came to the right place. Cai Hanchuan asked Yu Ran in surprise: “Fuck, how did you call him, telepathy?”

Chu Mian looked at Cai Hanchuan. His voice didn’t have any inflections: “Is there something wrong, senior?”

Cai Hanchuan made a gesture to his fellow attendants, and several of them immediately pressed Yu Ran’s arms and shoulders to keep him from moving.

“You started a conflict that time and left me with a concussion.” Cai Hanchuan pointed to his head. “If you fucking obediently give in today, we’ll put everything behind us and let bygones be bygones.”

Chu Mian glanced at them coldly and said, “I don’t think that this has anything to do with Yu Ran.”

Without waiting for Cai Hanchuan to respond, Yu Ran directly cursed at them. He wanted to continue to say something, but his mouth was directly covered by several people around him, and he was pushed to a corner and pressed against a shelf.

Huang Feng was still fiddling with his lighter. He tore off a page of the sketchbook and set it on fire, and that page quickly turned to ashes.

Chu Mian didn’t notice him at first. After smelling the burning smell, he was shocked to discover that all the objects scattered on the ground were all Yu Ran’s, including the sketchbook in Huang Feng’s hands.

It turned out that Yu Ran had brought the sketchbook today… It was just that he himself was unable to make it in time to take a look at it.

Chu Mian was startled, and blurted out: “Don’t touch his things.”

Huang Feng raised his eyebrows, then his head, and finally raised the sketchbook in his hand, “This?”

Chu Mian knew that it was something that carried Yu Ran’s dream.

— He had made a promise with me to realize the dream together.

His chest was a little stuffy. He tried his best to endure the anger that was rising at the moment, and said gloomily: “Don’t touch it.”

“Okay, you just need to be well-behaved and let our Brother Han blow off his steam, and I won’t burn the rest.” Huang Feng lifted his thumb from the lighter, and his eyes moved to Yu Ran in the corner. “Yu Ran, just watch it well.”

Chu Mian stood in place and didn’t speak. Cai Hanchuan regarded this as him acquiescing to the negotiation condition. He smiled and moved his wrist before getting up and walking towards Chu Mian.

Yu Ran was held in the corner by a few seniors and he tried to break them away with all his strength. His brain had long lost the ability to think anything else, and the only thought he had was “I can’t let anyone hurt Chu Mian”. Just hearing the tone of Huang Feng threatening Chu Mian, his anger spread rapidly through his internal organs.

He opened his eyes wide when he saw Cai Hanchuan’s fist swinging straight towards Chu Mian’s profile—

There was a muffled “bam”, and everyone in the equipment room couldn’t help but freeze.

Cai Hanchuan instinctively opened his mouth wide to breathe. His nose was suddenly painful, and his vision blurred. He tasted a strong bloody taste in his mouth. Blood seemed to be gushing out from his nose and falling to the floor one after another.

Yu Ran instantly forgot to struggle and stared at Chu Mian intently, watching him kick Cai Hanchuan’s knee, causing the opponent to half-kneel on the ground.

“Fuck, you’re fucking looking for death.” Huang Feng glared at him and stood up. The sketchbook in his hand had been forgotten by him and slipped from his hand.

Chu Mian did not speak. He also did not have time to respond. The other party took this as an opportunity to punch him in the belly. The pain was tolerable for the time being and Chu Mian did not flinch. He raised his elbow neatly and hit Huang Feng’s throat below his Adam’s apple, making him retch and his eyes water.

Chu Mian held his breath to avoid inhaling too much bacteria in this room. He stepped forward and grabbed Huang Feng’s collar, relied on inertia to make the opponent take a few steps back, then raised his leg to attack the location of the hip bone.

It was not that Huang Feng didn’t try to fight back, but it was just that not only was Chu Mian able to withstand the pain, he was also able to attack critical points of the human body in the next second without reserve. Especially when places such as the throat and stomach were in pain, it would affect a person’s ability to put strength into their arm. Huang Feng had only let down his guard slightly and Chu Min grasped the opportunity to press his head onto the ground.

He opened his eyes and saw the gloomy expression of the young man.

In order to keep his emotions from fluctuating too much, Chu Mian now had no choice but to let his mind go blank to avoid a cataplectic attack. He pinched Huang Feng’s neck with his five slender fingers, and then slowly said, “Don’t touch Yu Ran’s belongings. Also, don’t threaten me.”

Chu Mian’s voice was so low that it was almost hoarse, and even Yu Ran almost couldn’t tell that it was him.

The few people who had restrained Yu Ran had already unknowingly eased their strength. Some people hadn’t even reacted to the fact that two people, Cai Hanchuan and Huang Feng, had actually lost so easily to a seemingly well-mannered boy in front of them.

Chu Mian stood up and walked to the side, bent over and hurriedly stuffed Yu Ran’s things back into his school bag, then turned to look at him.

The two looked at each other silently.

It was completely dark, the students had long gone home one after another, and there was no one on the playground.

Several parents gathered in the bright office, and even the director who was off work rushed back to the school to investigate the situation with the parties involved.

When Chu Heng found Chu Mian, he was sitting in the stairwell with another boy next to him. She walked over worriedly, put a hand on Chu Mian, and took a close look at his exposed skin. “Miēmiē, are you hurt anywhere?”

“I’m fine.”

“Where’s your director’s office, Miēmiē?” Chu Heng covered her forehead anxiously. “Is the student you hit okay? Has he been taken to the hospital?”

“Yeah.” Chu Mian nodded. “It shouldn’t be too serious… Don’t worry.”

Chu Heng didn’t even have time to gasp for breath, she immediately went to the director’s office.

Chu Mian sat down again next to Yu Ran, and the two continued to look through the sketchbook.

Chu Mian squeezed the thickness of the sketchbook. It had about two hundred pages, and was full of drawings. There were drawings of many anime characters as well as pure scenery. Although not every drawing was refined, the lines and colors were complete.

The last page of the sketchbook was a scene of a school under the blue sky and white clouds, surrounded by lush green trees. The drawing was rich in colors but not flamboyant, and it looked very refreshing.

Chu Mian asked, “Is this a drawing of your junior high school?”

“The location of the school building is, but the others aren’t,” Yu Ran said, “There weren’t so many trees in my junior high school, the walls weren’t clean, a lot of glass on the building was broken, and the sky was always cloudy.”

“I don’t think cloudy days have anything to do with your school. It’s not like it was cursed.”

Yu Ran straightened up immediately, and with a serious expression, he said, “Really, now that I recall junior high school, the image is all cloudy and rainy, very strange!”

After he finished speaking, he lowered his shoulders, looked at the school he drew, and told Chu Mian: “My ideal school is like this. There are no exams, no homework, and I can be happy every day.”

Chu Mian glanced at him. “You have homework and exams now. Are you unhappy every day?”

“I’m happy, because I can play with everyone,” Yu Ran replied sincerely, “It’s also because I go to the cafeteria every morning. It doesn’t matter whether I finish my homework or not. I’m in a good mood when I see my friends in the morning.”

Chu Mian continued to flip the pages and saw the missing page, with only a row of narrow jagged edges remaining.

“What was drawn on this page before, do you remember?”

“Hmm… No impression,” Yu Ran shrugged and said relaxedly, “Anyway, I drew this whole sketchbook casually. One missing page is just one missing page, it doesn’t matter.”

The more Chu Mian thought about it, the more he regretted it. It would have been good if he had reminded Yu Ran to give him the sketchbook as soon as he had arrived this morning. That way, that one page wouldn’t have been burned and trampled on by others.

After his mind became clear at this point, the accumulated anger in his chest finally took shape.

His fingers turned soft, and with his last ounce of strength, he fell on Yu Ran’s shoulder.

Yu Ran hugged him and asked anxiously, “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing really.” Chu Mian breathed a sigh of relief. “It’s just a cataplectic attack, I’m a little tired.”

Yu Ran realized that Chu Mian’s hair was a bit messy, so he reached out to help him smooth it out. “Will your aunt scold you when you return home?”

“No, she has always been gentle to me since I was young.” Chu Mian’s mouth was very close to Yu Ran’s ears, so he softened his voice. “Painting is very important to her as well. If she knew that others had torn your work casually, she’ll only blame me for not hitting them hard enough.”

Yu Ran nodded and asked, “Does she usually like animals?”

“The snakes I keep have to be 20 meters away from her, and she seems to be quite scared of other animals too.”

Yu Ran felt puzzled: “Then why does she always say ‘Miēmiē‘ like a sheep to you?”

Chu Mian was dumbfounded, and a quick blush of shame overran his face.

In order to prevent Yu Ran from realizing that Miēmiē was his nickname, Chu Mian quickly found a reason: “She…loves to act young.”