WP 10

It was Si Shaorong’s first day living at Jiang Yibai’s place.

Jiang Yibai got up at ten. He made breakfast, cleaned the house, and watched a movie in the living room. At one in the afternoon, a student came for a lesson. She was a frail young girl who had fallen behind in school due to illness and was currently on leave.

The girl looked pale and thin. Her expression was either vacant or gloomy, like a flower slowly withering in a place untouched by sunlight. Just looking at her stirred a sense of quiet pity.

Her parents probably wanted a change of pace for her and sent her here to learn piano. This was the first time Si Shaorong had seen Jiang Yibai teach seriously.

“Let’s warm up with last week’s fingering exercises.”

By the window, Jiang Yibai wore a short-sleeved, gray-striped shirt over a plain white T-shirt, jeans, and flip-flops. His naturally curly hair looked fluffy and soft in the sunlight, the kind that made people want to reach out and touch it.

Si Shaorong stood at the study doorway, leaning against the frame with a book in hand, looking toward the living room. From that angle, he could see the entire space.

The piano sounded out in uneven rhythm. The girl wasn’t yet skilled. Her fingering was clumsy, the notes weak and inconsistent, her fingers clearly lacking strength.

Jiang Yibai didn’t scold her. He just sat beside her, watching quietly. His long, fair fingers tapped gently on his knee. The sunlight fell across his profile, giving his face a soft glow, and made his features appear gentler and more focused.

Si Shaorong could see the shadows under his lashes, the shading beneath his lower lip that made it look fuller.

The piano didn’t feel noisy. Instead, the scene calmed him, brought him a sense of peace.

Back when he lived with He Jia, things had been different. Before He Jia started dating, he’d been fairly normal and easy to live with, even friendly. But it wasn’t like this. Other than meals and the occasional chat, they each kept to themselves. The living room was always quiet. The remote and tissue box on the coffee table sat like permanent fixtures, unmoved for months at a time.

Si Shaorong poured himself a cup of hot tea, then returned to his room with the book. The room wasn’t big, but it had everything: bed, desk, wardrobe, and a narrow floor-to-ceiling window. It was clearly added later. Old buildings like this never had that kind of feature.

The floor-to-ceiling window was framed with dark gray curtains. Looking out, one could see thick clusters of ivy climbing across the old wall opposite. The floor remained the same polished cement, and the dark desk and wardrobe looked like they came from the same set. The bed was set against the wall with no headboard, and there were three large drawers underneath it. Along the edge of the wall were pillows and cushions scattered about in no particular order.

In the corner sat a large Stitch plush toy, about knee-high on an adult. The little monster bared its teeth, looking fierce but somehow endearingly silly.

The room had been tidied thoroughly. Yesterday, Jiang Yibai had told him he could decorate the room however he liked, but Si Shaorong hadn’t yet come up with any ideas.

The bag he brought was tossed on the floor behind the door. His clothes were already neatly placed in the wardrobe, but moving out of a familiar space so suddenly still left him feeling awkward and unsettled.

The phone on the desk lit up. Si Shaorong stepped over to check and saw a string of messages from his assistant, Zhen Zhen.

He pulled out the chair and sat down, unlocking his phone with one hand and booting up his laptop with the other. He tapped on Zhen Zhen’s voice messages.

A woman’s incredulous voice burst from the speaker.

“You moved out? Without telling me? That fast?!”

“Where did you move to?”

“He Jia told me yesterday you left. He said he’ll refund the money. Since you didn’t finish the quarter, he won’t charge you extra. Said you blocked him, so he transferred the money to me instead.”

“It was the middle of the night. I didn’t see his messages until this morning. Great Master, that was quick. What, found yourself a girlfriend? Did you and He Jia fight again last night?”

“Send me your address. I’ll come by this afternoon. Let your new roommate know.”

These messages had come in early that morning, but Si Shaorong hadn’t checked his phone until now.

He picked it up, replied: “No girlfriend. I’m staying at Jiang Yibai’s place. Jiang Luanyu. It’s nice here.”

Two seconds later, a shocked emoji popped up on his screen. Then the phone rang.

Si Shaorong plugged in his earphones and answered the call, typing at the same time. He didn’t like wasting time.

“You’re living with him? Jiang Luanyu is gay. Didn’t I tell you that yesterday?”

“Yeah. So?” Si Shaorong kept typing, lowering his voice a little.

“What do you mean, so? Do you even know him? You only just met! Do you know what he writes? How did you end up moving in with him?”

“I know. He writes danmei,” Si Shaorong said. “We didn’t know each other before, but I think he’s a good guy.”

“You think? Based on what? You’re not usually like this. Did he brainwash you? Maybe you should just move out now. You’re too pure. Give it a few days and he’ll have you chewed up and spit out.”

Si Shaorong’s fingers stopped moving. He leaned back into his chair slightly and frowned.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’re already living there, and you didn’t even bother checking what kind of stuff he writes?” Zhen Zhen sounded like she had a headache. “He loves writing 18+ content. His style is super raunchy. He writes all kinds of wild shit, and…”

She lowered her voice, sneakily adding, “He even writes 3Ps and… you-know-what. People say his personal life is a mess. Of course, that’s just a rumor, I’m not saying it’s true. I’m just giving you a heads-up.”

Si Shaorong raised his eyebrows in surprise. He honestly hadn’t pegged Jiang Yibai as someone who’d write things like that.

“Never judge a book by its cover…” he muttered.

“What?” Zhen Zhen didn’t catch that.

“Nothing,” Si Shaorong replied after a beat. “Let’s talk when you get here this afternoon. I moved out yesterday because I had no other choice.”

“No choice. Wait…” Zhen Zhen paused, then her tone immediately shifted. “Was it that woman again? Qin Cheng stirred up more trouble? I swear, once I get there, I’m going to find out exactly what she’s trying to pull.”

Si Shaorong didn’t want to get into it. “We’ll talk this afternoon.”

Zhen Zhen knew he didn’t like talking about this stuff. She silently made up her mind to grill He Jia herself later. If he was still blindly defending his precious girlfriend, then she wouldn’t hold back. Just because Si Shaorong didn’t want to meddle in other people’s business didn’t mean she couldn’t fight this battle for him.

Did they really think Si Shaorong was some quiet, easy target just because he minded his own business? And what, she, his assistant, was just some kind of decoration?

Si Shaorong ended the call and stared at the outline on his screen, momentarily lost in thought.

The piano was still playing outside, and every so often he could hear Jiang Yibai’s low voice. That warm, serious teacher, always joking and upbeat, could he really write that kind of stuff?

Si Shaorong didn’t have a problem with 18+ material. As long as it didn’t cross any moral or legal lines, creative expression should be free. Everyone had their own thoughts and preferences. To him, writing was a way to express emotion, spirit, and ideas, and that was what made it so fascinating.

Authors and readers didn’t need to share values. Maybe they were indifferent, maybe they clicked, or maybe they couldn’t stand each other. But both sides had the right to choose. Neither could control the other. No one had the right to dictate what someone else should think.

Still, what threw Si Shaorong wasn’t the genre. It was that Jiang Yibai’s vibe was nothing like how Zhen Zhen had described him.

You can’t judge a book by its cover.

Si Shaorong caught himself and made a mental note. Never judge a person’s character by their appearance, and certainly not their abilities or limits.

After a moment’s hesitation, he did something he rarely did. He opened a browser and typed “Jiang Luanyu” into the search bar.

…

The little girl wasn’t in great health. After the second lesson, Jiang Yibai went to make her a cup of passionfruit honey tea.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Jiang.” She was quick to get discouraged, clutching the glass and chewing on the straw. “Maybe I’m just not cut out for piano.”

“There’s no such thing as being cut out for it. There’s only liking it or not,” Jiang Yibai said with a smile as he took her sheet music and marked the fingering for her. “Some things can’t be rushed. You have to take it one step at a time. And even if you don’t like it, that’s okay. Just think of it as a way to relax.”

“My hands are ugly,” the girl said glumly. “My fingers aren’t long. Even the person who sold me the piano said you need long fingers to play well.”

The little girl glanced at Jiang Yibai’s hands. “Mr. Jiang, your hands are really pretty.”

He had been complimented on his hands for so long that it barely registered anymore. Right now, he was holding a pen between his fingers, and with a quick flick, he spun it effortlessly. The girl let out a loud “Wow!” and giggled with delight.

Jiang Yibai smiled and said, “I have a friend, a girl. She loved to dance when she was little and studied ballet for many years.”

The girl looked at him curiously.

“She once had the chance to study under a famous ballet teacher,” Jiang Yibai continued. “Someone who’d appeared on TV and choreographed major productions. This teacher was well-known. The year my friend turned four, news got out that the teacher was opening a class, and parents rushed to enroll their kids. But by the time my friend’s family heard, they were too late. The teacher had already stopped accepting students.”

“What did she do?” the girl asked, now fully invested.

“She threw a fit,” Jiang Yibai said with a grin. “Her dad pulled some strings and brought her straight to the teacher’s house. The teacher looked at her once and said,” Jiang Yibai leaned in, eyes twinkling. “Said she’d never grow tall enough. That she had no future in ballet.”

The girl gasped. “She was only four! How could they know that?”

“Crazy, right? But the teacher was right. She really didn’t grow very tall,” Jiang Yibai said. “Still, the teacher ended up taking her in anyway. That girl was incredibly stubborn. No one really knew where she got it from. If someone told her she couldn’t do something, she would insist on proving them wrong. She held her father’s hand and looked the teacher in the eye and said,”

He pitched his voice up into a high, exaggerated imitation of a little girl. “‘I haven’t even learned yet, so how do you know I’m not good at it!’”

The little girl burst out laughing, mostly because Jiang Yibai’s impression was so ridiculous.

“And what happened?” she asked eagerly. “Did she become amazing?”

Jiang Yibai shook his head. “She danced for ten years, from age four to fourteen. But with school getting harder, her family wanted her to focus on her studies, so she gave it up.”

“Oh…” The girl’s expression drooped. “But I thought she was really stubborn.”

“She was,” Jiang Yibai said. “But that was part of it too. Back then, she threw herself into studying just as seriously. People change. Passions change. “She decided at four that she wanted to dance, studied for ten years, earned all her ballet certifications, and eventually found a new path.”

“You don’t have to stay on the same path forever,” he said. “And you don’t have to crash into a wall to know it’s time to change direction. Just live in the moment.”

Jiang Yibai casually pushed up the fringe over his forehead, basking in the sunlight like he was glowing with philosophical brilliance. A pity that Si Shaorong wasn’t around to see it.

The little girl, however, didn’t understand a word of it. She blinked and gave a dazed “Oh.”

After the lesson, just before she left, she hesitated, then looked back at him and said, “Actually, I really don’t like playing piano.”

Jiang Yibai was silent.

“But talking to you is pretty fun,” she added. “See you next week. Bye!”

Jiang Yibai stayed silent, simply watching her leave.