ATIBESLM 8

Ye Lingwei didn’t know how he ended up standing up. Perhaps it was because he recalled that silent, bleak silhouette standing in front of Pokémon in the shadows of the hallway.

“I’ll give it a try, but I can’t guarantee I can solve it…” Ye Lingwei took the chalk and said to Little Old Man standing below the podium.

Little Old Man stood with his hands behind his back, showing a rare leniency. “It’s fine, just go ahead. If you can’t solve it, we will let it go.”

The class erupted in a stir. Their Little Old Man was famous in the school for being ‘Iron-Faced and Impartial’¹“Iron Face” refers to a stern, unsmiling expression that shows no emotion or favoritism. “Wusi” means selfless or unselfish. Together, it describes a person who is strictly just and cannot be swayed by tears, bribes, or relationships.—even girls crying in front of him didn’t work. This new guy is something else.

Then why was he faring so miserably in his previous class?

They were reviewing second year problems, which weren’t exactly simple. Ye Lingwei thought for a moment, calculated the answer in his head, and began to write out the formulas and steps one by one, very languidly. With his hesitant movements and the way he would occasionally glance at others’ work, he played the role of a slacker²Literally “Study Dregs/Scum.” Someone who is terrible at studying, fails exams, or just doesn’t try. to a T.³Literally “has the mold and the shape.” It means imitating something so well that it looks authentic or stylish.

However, in the end, he had definitely solved the problem. He just deliberately wrote a transformation sign wrong, causing the final answer to flip from positive to negative.

Even so, Little Old Man was very satisfied. He waved his hand, letting Ye Lingwei return to his seat.

Ye Lingwei breathed a sigh of relief. Playing a slacker is harder than being a top student.

As long as Ye Lingwei didn’t come down from the podium, Fei Lan had to keep standing. It wasn’t until Ye Lingwei finished solving the problem that Fei Lan was allowed to sit.

When Ye Lingwei returned to his seat, he happened to lock eyes with Fei Lan. The latter’s gaze was like a sharp blade, carefully scraping at Ye Lingwei’s skin and gouging his flesh, wanting to slice him open to see exactly what kind of blood and flesh this audacious boy—who didn’t know the height of the sky or the depth of the earth⁴It describes someone who is naive, arrogant, or bold because they don’t understand the severity or danger of the situation.—was made of inside.

They had only just met, hadn’t they?

Ye Lingwei didn’t think much of it; he had just lent a hand in passing. However, after class, Fei Lan turned his head around and solemnly said thank you to him.

Gao Linhao wiped the sweat from his palms. “Tell me, are you hiding your true strength? Last exam you were ranked behind me. This problem was so hard, I even saw the class monitor frowning.”

Ye Lingwei had the milk candy Gao Linhao gave him this morning in his mouth. The tip of his tongue pushed the milky white candy, rolling it from one cheek to the other, as he said indistinctly, “I had a sudden awakening. I pulled back from the precipice, I tied my hair to the beam and stabbed my thigh with an awl…”

Gao Linhao’s head ached just listening to him. “Go ahead, keep spinning your yarns⁵Literally “to weave” or “to compile.” In conversation, it means to make up stories, to fabricate, or to bullshit..”

Ye Lingwei gave a sheepish smile and looked toward Fei Lan’s seat—it was empty. The person was gone. Following his gaze, Gao Linhao paused, glanced around, then immediately dragged Ye Lingwei by the arm to lean over the classroom windowsill.

“I forgot, Fei Lan seems to be taking leave. His grandfather is sick, and his mom is here to pick him up home.” Gao Linhao said, but then suddenly slapped himself, “Spoke wrong—it’s his stepmother.”

Ye Lingwei subconsciously echoed, “Stepmother?”

Just as they were speaking, they saw a woman step out of the driver’s seat of the BMW at the gate. Her jet-black hair was draped smoothly behind her head. She wore a white V-neck knit top and a black velvet skirt that cinched at her slender waist, making her look sophisticated and elegant.

Ye Lingwei had seen many beautiful people, but never like this—never had a single person stirred such a strange sense of familiarity in him. Ye Lingwei’s heart felt inexplicably heavy.

Gao Linhao’s voice continued to drone on in his ear. “His stepmother, honestly, she really has her ways. She’s not young anymore either. Fei Lan’s dad never lets women outside bear his children, but this woman somehow managed to give him another son.”

Ye Lingwei muttered in dazed, “Woman outside?”

Isn’t she a stepmother?

“Fei Lan’s dad hasn’t actually married her yet. However, aside from the official title, he’s given her everything else. Fei Lan was even forced to bow his head and call her ‘Mom’.” Gao Linhao got angry just thinking about it. He still remembered how Auntie Ai used to personally make desserts for the whole class. However, that was back in their first year of middle school; Auntie Ai had passed away that winter.

Ye Lingwei turned his head and asked, “Did Fei Lan actually call her that?”

Even as he asked this, Ye Lingwei already knew the answer in his heart—Fei Lan definitely wouldn’t do it.

“Call her that? Fart!”

Gao Linhao said, “Lan-ge’s backbone is so hard it could chisel right through an iron plate⁶It describes someone who has a strong backbone, is unyielding, stubborn, and refuses to bow down to authority or humiliation.. Do you know what Brother Lan said when his dad told him to call that woman ‘Mom’?”

Ye Lingwei was also a bit curious. “What did he say?”

Gao Linhao mimicked Fei Lan’s disdainful, haughty demeanor. “Lan-ge said: ‘Dad, how about you make her kowtow and serve a cup of tea to my mom first?’ Fuck, fuck, fuck, Lan-ge is truly a badass. Then, for the first time in his life, Lan-ge got beaten up.”

“He got beaten up! Do you know what Lan-ge was like back then? A star of the future! The most beautiful flower of the motherland! Competition awards? He grabbed them like nothing. He could have his pick of any high school in the city…”

Gao Linhao’s exaggerated expression and tone suddenly froze. “I think I said too much. Don’t tell anyone I said this.”

Ye Lingwei fixed his eyes on that woman standing at the school gate and said in a low voice, “I won’t say anything.”

This was Fei Lan’s private affair. What did it have to do with him?

Ye Lingwei and Gao Linhao leaned over the ledge watching as Fei Lan emerged from the school building. The woman smiled immediately upon seeing him, and Fei Lan’s attitude was actually quite pleasant.

As the two spoke, for some reason, Fei Lan glanced up at the building and happened to catch Ye Lingwei looking down at him with wide and sparkling eyes.

The corner of Fei Lan’s lips hooked up, and he withdrew his gaze. Jiang Hui followed his line of sight, and the first person she saw happened to be Ye Lingwei. Her face turned as white as a sheet in an instant.

Ye Lingwei looked at her in confusion.

Gao Linhao stared at the woman for a long time, then looked back at Ye Lingwei beside him. He slowly arrived at a conclusion. “That woman’s eyes, they’re the same as yours.”

Ye Lingwei paid him no mind. There were plenty of people in the world with the same eye shape.

Fei Lan certainly didn’t miss the change in Jiang Hui’s expression. Once they were in the car, he asked her nonchalantly, “Do you know Ye Lingwei?”

Without a second thought, Jiang Hui replied, “How could I?”

Fei Lan watched the Teru Teru Bozu⁷A traditional handmade doll made of white paper or cloth, hung by the window to pray for good weather. swaying from the rearview mirror and suddenly laughed. “But how did you know he is called Ye Lingwei? How did you know exactly who the Ye Lingwei I mentioned is?”

Jiang Hui’s fingers clenched tight around the steering wheel. She bit her lip and said nothing.

Fei Lan leaned back in his seat, found a comfortable position, and closed his eyes. The boy’s indifferent voice rang out in the car, but to Jiang Hui, it landed like a clap of thunder.

“He is your son. If he knew you claimed not to know him, imagine how heartbroken he would be.” Fei Lan softly said, “Don’t forget, his health isn’t very good.”

Tires screeched across the ground, rubber grinding against the asphalt as the car came to a sudden, violent halt. Jiang Hui twisted around to look at Fei Lan. “What are you trying to do?”

Fei Lan’s breathing rhythm didn’t shift in the slightest. He said with indifference, “What I will do depends entirely on what you intend to do.”

Jiang Hui froze. She took slow breaths, slowly closing her eyes. After a long moment, she opened them. She then reached out and violently yanked the Teru Teru Bozu off the rearview mirror. As if suddenly resolved, she smiled. “I don’t know that classmate of yours. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Fei Lan let out a low hum, his response utterly languid. “Understood.”

Ye Lingwei’s face surfaced in Fei Lan’s mind again—specifically those eyes. No wonder he had found them familiar. However, unlike Jiang Hui, the former’s gaze was limpid and unversed in the ways of the world, while the latter was filled with calculation and scheming.

To be honest, he didn’t dislike Ye Lingwei. Thinking back to this morning, when the boy had called him ‘Gege’ with such dazed audacity, Fei Lan wondered. If Ye Lingwei found out about the true nature of their connection, what kind of shock would fill those eyes? Would he still call him ‘Gege’ the way he did this morning?

He was actually quite looking forward to it.

Fei Lan acknowledged that he was someone who believed in guilt by association⁸Historically, this was a legal practice in ancient China where family members or neighbors were punished for a crime committed by one individual.. Platitudes like ‘the sins of the parents should not fall upon the children’ held no water with him. Anyone connected to Jiang Hui usually didn’t meet a good end, let alone her own son.

However, if it was Ye Lingwei… Fei Lan could consider letting him off the hook.

Just for the sake of that ‘Gege.’

—

Ye Lingwei received a call from Ye Cen in the afternoon. It’s his grandfather’s birthday, he needs to come back home for dinner tomorrow. Once he’s done eating, he can get the roll out.

Ye Lingwei: “…”

This was something that should have been mentioned in advance, yet Ye Lingwei only received last-minute notice. One can easily imagine just how transparent and disregarded the original host was in this extended family.

Coincidentally, the next day was Sunday. Usually, at a time like this, the original host would definitely go and pick out a gift for the elder. Ye Lingwei might have skipped over the specific plot point regarding the gift-giving, but it goes without saying that those people would likely just toss the gift aside upon receiving it and wouldn’t even open it.

So, this time, Ye Lingwei chose to go empty-handed. He needed to start looking out for his own future now, rather than trying to curry favor with others.

If it were the original host, surely even he would have had enough by now.

Materially, the Ye family never shortchanged the original host. Due to his poor health, the family housekeeper would cook a wide variety of dishes tailored specifically to his tastes. Even now that he had moved out, the housekeeper would still come regularly to cook and stock the refrigerator; the original host only needed to heat it up to eat. When she returned the next day, any uneaten food was thrown away immediately—there was absolutely no chance of leftovers ever appearing on his table.

However, no one loved him. Even though he grew up immersed in candy and fresh flowers, because to those people, those were merely the cheapest means to brush him off.

The original host actually knew this with crystal clarity, yet he still yearned for even the slightest bit of warmth and concern from his family.

However, right up until his death, he waited in vain.

Ye Lingwei finished his shower and lay down on the bed. Idly, he picked up the book he had tossed onto the headboard last night. His gaze froze when it swept over the pages. After a long pause, he flipped through it and after checking the table of contents, he confirmed it. Last night, this book had 35 pages, but today, it had 40.

Five pages of content had appeared. Ye Lingwei started reading from the first page to see exactly what had been added.

A full five pages detailing Ye Zumin’s seventieth birthday banquet. Due to the original host’s gift being deemed too shabby, he was mocked by a flock of siblings and cousins, stressing him to the point of hospitalization. Meanwhile, Ye Zumin felt both openly and secretly that Ye Lingwei falling ill at his birthday celebration added a layer of bad luck. The longevity sutra the original host had hand-copied was thrown directly into the trash can.

The original host possessed extremely beautiful handwriting.

Ye Lingwei flipped further. The rest was content he had already seen, stopping at the passage where the original host died. Beyond that lay only blank pages.

It suddenly dawned on Ye Lingwei. The content at the back of this book likely followed his current actions. As he made a move, the book updated. The fact that the content remained stalled at the original host’s death led Ye Lingwei to a bold conjecture—if he didn’t change anything, the original host’s fate would continue along its predetermined trajectory. He would still suffer a heart attack at some point and die, silent and unnoticed.

Even though he was Ye Lingwei, their fates were already inextricably bound together.

Ye Lingwei tossed the book back onto the nightstand. Was this role difficult? No, it’s simple. He would make all those people come to love him.

The prerequisite for being loved by others is to love yourself first, and Ye Lingwei knew this was something he excelled at.

In the warm and quiet room, a text notification alert suddenly chimed, interrupting Ye Lingwei’s train of thought. He assumed it was Ye Cen again. Aside from Ye Cen, there was truly no one else who would send him messages. The original host’s second brother had yet to make an appearance.

Ye Lingwei picked it up to look at and froze. The sender was: Mom.

Didn’t the book say he had no father or mother?

Ye Lingwei clicked open the content of that text message: Stay away from Fei Lan.

“He is your gege⁹Technically speaking, his mom is saying he’s his big brother, although not blood related since they’re step-brothers..”

“…”

Ye Lingwei stared at those words. How was the original host’s mother connected to Fei Lan, and why was she telling him to stay away from him? Ye Lingwei was completely baffled. He hadn’t noticed these relationships in the book at all.

Older brother?

He didn’t even need to think about it—it definitely had to be someone’s prank.

Ye Lingwei knew that asking directly would definitely not get the answer he wanted. So, he rapidly tapped out a string of words and sent them without hesitation.

“Why should I stay away from my gege? Who are you?” The boy’s unruly, rebellious tone could be felt even through the screen.

• 1
  “Iron Face” refers to a stern, unsmiling expression that shows no emotion or favoritism. “Wusi” means selfless or unselfish. Together, it describes a person who is strictly just and cannot be swayed by tears, bribes, or relationships.
• 2
  Literally “Study Dregs/Scum.” Someone who is terrible at studying, fails exams, or just doesn’t try.
• 3
  Literally “has the mold and the shape.” It means imitating something so well that it looks authentic or stylish.
• 4
  It describes someone who is naive, arrogant, or bold because they don’t understand the severity or danger of the situation.
• 5
  Literally “to weave” or “to compile.” In conversation, it means to make up stories, to fabricate, or to bullshit.
• 6
  It describes someone who has a strong backbone, is unyielding, stubborn, and refuses to bow down to authority or humiliation.
• 7
  A traditional handmade doll made of white paper or cloth, hung by the window to pray for good weather.
• 8
  Historically, this was a legal practice in ancient China where family members or neighbors were punished for a crime committed by one individual.
• 9
  Technically speaking, his mom is saying he’s his big brother, although not blood related since they’re step-brothers.