WHI – Chapter 16

Chapter 16

Wen Lan had a look on his face that said, “Don’t pretend you don’t mean it.” He pulled Lin Ting’s desk over to his own, joining them, and then reached out to pull Lin Ting’s chair.

“Who was it that said they didn’t like to be disturbed, that desks shouldn’t be too close? Keep your distance? Three rules?” Lin Ting stood up smoothly, leaning against the back wall of the classroom, spinning his phone in his hand, tilting his head to look down at Wen Lan.

“You really hold a grudge. That was when you first arrived. Honestly, I couldn’t stand you back then, eavesdropping and not admitting it.” Wen Lan patted the chair, signaling him to come over.

Lin Ting remained leaning against the wall. “I wasn’t eavesdropping. You were hitting someone in public, and you didn’t want anyone else to ‘accidentally’ hear?”

“Was that accidental? I knew you were there listening for as long as you were, alright?”

“I was afraid ‘Brother Wen’ would find out, that’s why I didn’t dare move!”

“Oh, oh, oh, still calling me Brother Wen? You never treated me like a brother. Every time you say ‘Brother Wen,’ it sounds so sour. You’re just an ungrateful…”

“Mad dog?” Lin Ting finished naturally.

Wen Lan stared at him for a moment, then couldn’t help but laugh.

Lin Ting also found it incredibly amusing and walked a few steps closer, sitting down beside Wen Lan.

It had started to cool down recently, and the air carried a pleasant, crisp chill.

Perhaps it was because no one ever sat next to him, but having a desk mate so close suddenly made Lin Ting feel a bit unaccustomed.

For instance, he’d just felt the temperature drop, but with a 36-degree Celsius constant-temperature heater suddenly next to him, that coolness dissipated, and the air around them became warm.

For example, their seats were a little too close, and their elbows would occasionally bump, causing a slight, needle-like itch. Lin Ting almost blurted out “Sorry,” but knew he’d be laughed at for a whole year if he did.

Wen Lan, however, was perfectly at ease. Although the class bell had rung, the English teacher hadn’t entered the classroom yet. He unhurriedly opened a bag of shrimp crackers and began to eat, not forgetting to wave it in front of Lin Ting.

“No,” Lin Ting’s eyes conveyed his disdain for this bad habit of eating snacks during class.

Wen Lan wasn’t annoyed. He propped the bag against the wall of his desk, playing with his phone with one hand and occasionally taking out one or two crackers from the small bag with the other.

The teacher still hadn’t arrived for some reason.

Crunch, crunch. The sound of Wen Lan chewing was a bit loud.

Lin Ting turned to look at him.

Wen Lan stopped and pointed at the bag of shrimp crackers.

Lin Ting shook his head.

Wen Lan suddenly grinned mischievously and, reaching into the bag, found a long, thin cracker. He twirled it between his fingers. “Slurp, slurp, slurp…”

“Are you looking for trouble? I think we need to settle our accounts properly,” Lin Ting glanced at the door. The teacher still wasn’t coming, so he turned towards Wen Lan and said, “How about after school today? Let’s find an empty alley and have a fight?”

Wen Lan maintained his smile and raised his hand to put the cracker he was twirling into his mouth. The next second, Lin Ting’s sharp teeth bit down on the small cracker just above his finger.

What appeared before him in that instant were not only Lin Ting’s sharp white canines but also his face turned to the side with a mischievous grin, and the upward curve of his lips.

And the faint scent of white tea shampoo.

The distance was too close, so close that he could hear the rustling sound of Lin Ting’s eyelashes brushing against his eye corners, so close that he could see the specks of light reflecting in Lin Ting’s eyes as the sun hit them.

The curtains should be drawn, Wen Lan thought.

Lin Ting, in a single moment, took the cracker and then nonchalantly sat back down.

…

“Weren’t we supposed to fight?” Wen Lan, who had waited until after school, showed no intention of leaving, still leaning against the wall with extreme laziness. “Is Brother Lin letting me off the hook?”

Lin Ting packed his bag, ready to leave. Hearing this, he turned back and pointed at Wen Lan. “I’ve never seen someone actively looking for a beating before. You’re the first.”

Wen Lan remained leaning there, unmoving. “That’s not necessarily true. If biting isn’t allowed, who knows who would win.”

“Are you planning to… stay in the classroom tonight?” Lin Ting asked.

“It’s fine, you go ahead. I’ll… learn by myself for a while longer.” Wen Lan picked up a pen from his desk and tapped it twice on his book.

Lin Ting’s gaze lingered on it for a few seconds. “Then I’m leaving.”

“Get lost!” Wen Lan smiled at him.

Seeing that he didn’t want to say more, Lin Ting didn’t ask any further questions. He walked out of the classroom, but as he turned at the classroom door, his peripheral vision caught sight of Wen Lan looking out at the setting sun. The yellow light draped over him like a thin veil, making him seem much more lonely than usual.

For the next few days, Wen Lan seemed listless. He would leave school late almost every day and arrive the earliest in the morning. If Lin Ting hadn’t known that Wen Lan was either daydreaming or sleeping during class, he would have truly thought Wen Lan intended to give up his old ways and transform into a model student. Not only Wen Lan, but the 108 followers in the group chat had also become much quieter, observing each other. Lin Ting was starting to feel unaccustomed to it.

…Could it be that he was angry because he’d snatched the shrimp cracker from his mouth that day? It couldn’t be, could it?

Lin Ting recalled it himself and felt it was a bit inappropriate, but that moment of inexplicable impulse had come without reason.

Just like that bite on his collarbone.

After spending so much time with Wen Lan, Lin Ting felt his brain had become a bit dim. After finding the reason, he sat on his bed, deciding to focus on some interesting physics problems to distract himself and exercise his brain.

Just a few minutes into his studying, a chat window from Wen Lan popped up on his phone screen.

Tsk, no wonder people use paper materials for studying. Lin Ting hesitated for a long time between closing WeChat and disconnecting from the internet, but eventually reached out and opened it.

– Tomorrow, I’ll wait for you at your Gu family’s doorstep?

– For what? And what is “your Gu family”…

– You damn idiot, you forgot already? The adventure! The abandoned villa! I just didn’t know how else to say it.

– Forget it, say whatever you want. I thought you guys had given up since you haven’t been discussing it these past few days.

– Bullshit. Did you check the group chat?

– No.

Lin Ting casually opened the group chat, which he hadn’t looked at in almost a week. Even though their conversations had become less frequent recently due to Wen Lan’s low mood, there were still over 80 new messages.

At the top were casual chats from a few days ago about what to eat and where to go. The latest twenty-odd messages were about discussing tomorrow’s adventure.

– (Fang Ran) I’ll go after having lunch with Qin Wan tomorrow.

– (Han Ziqiu) I’ll go by myself. It doesn’t seem far from my place by taxi. Should everyone bring a few days’ worth of clothes?

– (Yu Zhile) I’ll bring a suitcase. Maybe we’ll be staying for a month.

– (Li Ziyao) Yu Zhile, are you an idiot! If you were really trapped in a nightmare for a month, would you be able to come out and change clothes?

– (Yu Zhile) Oh, right. Then I’ll just bring clothes for one night.

– (Wang Xingzhi) Everyone, tell us where you live. If it’s on the way, we can have a meal together?

The subsequent messages were everyone sending their locations. Lin Ting scrolled down casually and suddenly noticed that Wen Lan lived in one of the nearby villas.

He clicked on the chat window with Wen Lan:

– Your place is quite close. How are we getting there tomorrow?

– Brother Wen will give you a ride on his bicycle.

– …Are you sick? Go get treated.

– Just kidding. Shall we have lunch together tomorrow?

– Whatever.

After sending this, there was no reply from the other side. Lin Ting lay back on his bed and reopened the interesting physics problems.

Suddenly, they weren’t that interesting anymore.

“Give you a ride on his bicycle,” tsk.

…

The next morning, Lin Ting’s biological clock kicked in. He lay on his bed, tilting his head to look at the faint morning light filtering through the curtains. He took out his phone and checked the time – 07:45.

Those people in the WeChat group had chatted until past 3 AM. They must have just fallen asleep not long ago.

Lin Ting scrolled through the group chat, where people were discussing with the excitement of primary schoolers the night before an outing. Some talked about what clothes looked good for photos, some debated whether to bring Red Bull for energy to escape, and some even consulted an oracle online, saying tomorrow would be very auspicious and they would be safe.

Only Yu Zhile expressed some regret.

If Lin Ting remembered correctly, Yu Zhile and Li Ziyao were those two “Left and Right Guardians.” But who were Fang Ran and Qin Wan? Lin Ting searched the class group for a long time and confirmed that these two girls were not in his class.

Tsk, he didn’t think Wen Lan was that great, aside from being good-looking.

How could he be attracting both men and women?

…

It wasn’t until Wen Lan sent him a message that Lin Ting went downstairs. He hadn’t eaten a single drop all morning, just grinding through problems. When his stomach growled with hunger and he saw Wen Lan really waiting at the door on a shared bicycle, he suddenly had a strong urge to ditch him.

“Dozens of kilometers, are you serious?” Lin Ting leaned against the wall, his expression one of disbelief as he looked at Wen Lan’s smiling face.

“Get on first,” Wen Lan patted the back seat. “Just one bag?”

Lin Ting nodded. “Just for one night, not much stuff.” He then swung his leg over the back seat.

Unlike an electric scooter, the back seat of a bicycle had no backrest. Lin Ting shifted his hands several times, unable to find anything to hold onto.

“Let’s go!” Wen Lan shouted enthusiastically. Without waiting to see if Lin Ting was stable on the back seat, he started pedaling. This section of the road was a downhill slope, and the speed suddenly increased. Lin Ting almost fell off, not being able to sit steady.

By the time he reacted, he was already holding onto the hem of Wen Lan’s jacket.

“Brother, can you wait for me to get settled?” By now, the speed had stabilized, and Lin Ting had released his hands.

Wen Lan looked back at Lin Ting and smiled. “Who told you to be so indecisive? It takes half a day to get on a bicycle. If you have nowhere to hold, just hold onto me. We’re both guys, what’s there to be afraid of?”

“Who’s afraid of you? You’re the kind of person who claims an inch of territory around your seat. Do you think I’d dare to grab you randomly?”

“I realize you can really hold a grudge. Didn’t I pull your desk over? Why didn’t you mention it when you snatched the shrimp cracker from my hand? If I held grudges like you, we’d be fighting three times a day, believe it or not.”

Lin Ting smiled without speaking. It wasn’t until Wen Lan weaved through turns for about three or four kilometers, finally stopping in front of a vegetarian restaurant, that he couldn’t help but speak.

“You brought me here… to eat?” Lin Ting got off the bike and looked at Wen Lan, who was skillfully taking out his phone to lock the bike.

“I’m selling it here to you,” Wen Lan parked the bicycle and walked directly towards the entrance of the shop.

Lin Ting followed him in. “Then this is probably a Halal restaurant. They won’t serve you.”

“…Damn it, Lin Ting, I’ll sew your mouth shut sooner or later, believe it or not.” Wen Lan stopped and turned back, looking at Lin Ting, who was laughing heartily. The annoyance instantly disappeared. “If I could make you mute, I’d be quite happy to be with you.”

Lin Ting squinted, smiling and shaking his head. He walked past Wen Lan and found an empty seat.