Chapter 24

“Hmm,” Song Wenzhou said calmly, “Please, make sure you take this seriously.”

With that, Mu Chi struck first.

Qi Ling, seeing Song Wenzhou joining him in attacking Mu Chi, excitedly called out, “Yay, Brother Chi, be careful, now we have two people!”

He had completely forgotten his earlier thought that two people ganging up on one wasn’t fair.

“Tch,” Mu Chi said, trying to act tough, “Dealing with the two of you is a piece of cake for me.”

Qi Ling carefully formed a snowball, always ready for Mu Chi’s attacks. Seeing that Mu Chi was completely focused on fighting Song Wenzhou, Qi Ling seized the opportunity and threw the snowball at Mu Chi’s shoulder.

Mu Chi was too busy dodging the snowball Song Wenzhou had thrown to notice Qi Ling, and the snowball hit.

Qi Ling: “Oh ho ho~”

He seized the next opportunity and threw another one, hitting again.

Qi Ling: “Eee yay yay~”

I’m so accurate, Qi Ling thought.

After hitting several times in a row, Qi Ling gradually realized—

Mu Chi hadn’t even looked at him, all of his attention was on Song Wenzhou!

“Hey—” Qi Ling shouted.

Mu Chi bent down to dodge Song Wenzhou’s attack while throwing his own snowball, calling out, “Here it comes.”

Song Wenzhou, usually calm and steady, was now jumping around, making it quite lively.

Qi Ling watched them go back and forth and weakly asked, “Aren’t you going to throw snowballs at me?”

No one answered him.

“Be careful, don’t slip,” Mu Chi warned Song Wenzhou as he ran.

Song Wenzhou, however, didn’t appreciate it, saying, “Watch your own feet.”

“Brother Chi!” Qi Ling unwillingly raised his voice, shouting, “Throw snowballs at me too, come on!”

Mu Chi half-heartedly threw a handful of snow in his direction, not putting much force into it, and it fell to the ground before reaching him.

“…”

Qi Ling held up a snowball, looked at Mu Chi, then mechanically turned his head to glance at Song Wenzhou.

He was feeling emo.

The happiness was theirs, but all he had left was loneliness.

The next second, Qi Ling’s raised arm was deflected, as the snowball was thrown from Song Wenzhou’s direction.

He immediately started laughing again, turning around and targeting Song Wenzhou.

But as soon as he hit Song Wenzhou once, Mu Chi, who had previously ignored him, suddenly started focusing on him again.

Slowly, the three of them formed a stable triangular formation, each one attacking indiscriminately.

The scene became very chaotic for a while.

After some time, Song Wenzhou’s hands turned bright red from the cold, but his body had become warm due to the intense activity. Sweat began to form beneath his thick clothes, and the scarf wrapped tightly around his neck made his breathing heavier and faster.

“Hah…” he tugged at his scarf, trying to catch his breath. Before he could calm down, a snowball, carrying a chilly breeze, hit his neck, making him shudder. “Hiss!”

Qi Ling pointed at him and laughed loudly.

Song Wenzhou shook his scarf, trying to flick the ice out, but unexpectedly, the melting snowball, now smaller, slipped down from the gap in his clothes and landed on his chest, sending a sharp, cold sensation through him.

Song Wenzhou hummed softly, lowering his head as he searched for the annoying little ice.

“How’s that?” Mu Chi asked, coming over to Song Wenzhou’s side with concern.

“So cold,” Song Wenzhou replied.

He could feel the ice moving across his chest with every movement, but he couldn’t see or touch it.

Mu Chi raised his hand, as if trying to reach into Song Wenzhou’s clothes to help him get it out, but after hesitating for a moment, he quietly withdrew his hand.

Song Wenzhou lowered his head, and from Mu Chi’s angle, he saw his nose, which had turned red from the cold.

“Enough playing,” Mu Chi said, pulling Song Wenzhou’s arm. “Let’s go inside and warm up.”

Once inside, Mu Chi turned on the heater. The three of them sat in a half-surrounding formation, their six hands almost touching the heater.

The room was already warm from the heater, and being so close to the hot stove, their frozen hands quickly started to warm up, and soon their whole bodies felt comfortably warm.

“Hey?” Qi Ling suddenly remembered something. “Why was Song Wenzhou in your room so early in the morning?”

This question was directed at Mu Chi, and Song Wenzhou expected Mu Chi to answer, so he stayed silent. However, Mu Chi just looked at Qi Ling with a half-smile.

“You two slept together last night?” Qi Ling asked again.

Mu Chi made a vague noise of acknowledgment.

Song Wenzhou shot him a glance and said, “No, I came this morning.”

“Wow, you really came early,” Qi Ling remarked. He had just gotten up, and Song Wenzhou was already here.

Song Wenzhou smiled, “It’s fine.”

In fact, he hadn’t wanted to come that early.

Mu Chi, who was beside them, rubbed his nose and interrupted, “Why did you come find me?”

Qi Ling made a face, as if to say “I didn’t want to come,” and said, “Aren’t you and Grandma leaving tomorrow? My dad asked me to come help you ‘move.‘”

Mu Chi’s grandfather was a teacher, and Qi Ling’s father had been his student, holding him in high regard. They would visit each other during holidays, so Mu Chi and Qi Ling had known each other since childhood.

Since the two families were very close, Qi Ling’s father had made sure to place Qi Ling in the same school and class as Mu Chi whenever they moved up a grade, thinking the two kids could look out for each other.

A few years ago, Mu Chi’s grandfather passed away, and Qi Ling’s father felt that Mu Chi and his grandmother had it hard, so he took good care of them and would often send Qi Ling over to help with various tasks.

“Oh,” Mu Chi said nonchalantly, “If your dad knew you not only didn’t help me but also smashed my window, I don’t know how he’d react.”

Although Qi Ling knew Mu Chi was just joking, he straightened up, feeling a little guilty, and muttered, “I-I told you, snowballs couldn’t possibly break your window.”

“What if the glass I chose is too weak to withstand even the slightest bit of force?” Mu Chi glared at him sideways. “You never learn.”

Song Wenzhou looked at the two of them in confusion, his expression somewhat dazed.

Mu Chi adored the innocent look that Song Wenzhou accidentally showed, which was far more endearing than Qi Ling, who was just clueless.

So, Mu Chi switched to a completely different expression from the one he had when facing Qi Ling, and smiled as he explained to Song Wenzhou.

Since childhood, Qi Ling liked to knock on the window to let Mu Chi, who was inside, know that he had arrived.

When Mu Chi was younger, he lived on the first floor, and the window of his room faced the yard. Every time Qi Ling came over, he would head straight for the window and knock loudly on the glass.

Later, when Mu Chi moved to a room on the second floor, Qi Ling could no longer reach the window, so he started throwing small sticks up at it.

At that time, they were probably in first or second grade, and Qi Ling didn’t realize the danger. One time, he threw a stone up, and the window glass of Mu Chi’s room shattered with the sound of glass breaking.

Little Mu Chi, who happened to be in the room, was startled. When he curiously went to the window to check, he cut his hand on the broken glass.

Song Wenzhou’s pupils slightly dilated, and he glanced downward.

Mu Chi subtly pulled his hand away from the heater and opened it to show Song Wenzhou, somewhat embarrassed. “It’s fine, just a little cut. But back then, I was young, and when I saw a little blood, I was terrified and cried my heart out.”

Qi Ling’s father found out and gave him a good beating.

“Oh, right,” Mu Chi emphasized, “After he got beaten, he cried even worse than I did, so I forgave him.”

After that, Qi Ling learned his lesson and stopped throwing things at windows.

When they reached middle school, the rebellious age, Qi Ling came over one weekend, holding a basketball, and called out for Mu Chi in the yard for quite some time, but Mu Chi didn’t respond.

So, he threw the basketball up, intending to hit the wall next to the window, but unfortunately, his basketball skills… were horrendous. The ball hit the glass instead.

Once again, the glass shattered with a loud noise.

Sitting on his bed, Mu Chi was so startled that he immediately dropped his phone on the floor. After calming down and getting his heart back in his chest, he ran to the window and scolded Qi Ling.

As expected, Qi Ling was once again severely beaten by his father.

“He got a good beating,” Mu Chi said, “But he pretended not to cry, so I didn’t forgive him. I made him pay for the window replacement.”

The way he said this sounded like a schoolchild having a petty quarrel. Song Wenzhou couldn’t help but ask with a wry smile, “So, your standard for forgiving someone is whether or not they cry?”

Mu Chi proudly lifted his chin. “Exactly.”

What Mu Chi didn’t tell Song Wenzhou was that when Qi Ling had come to find him for basketball that day and had been calling for him in the yard, Mu Chi hadn’t ignored him on purpose. He just hadn’t heard him.

At that time, Mu Chi was sitting on his bed with headphones on, deeply engrossed in watching a video on his phone of two men fighting in bed.

During that period, he vaguely realized that his sexual orientation seemed different from that of the other boys around him. So, taking advantage of the weekend when his grandparents weren’t home, Mu Chi secretly locked himself in his room, double-checked to make sure his headphones weren’t leaking sound, and, after confirming there was no chance of being exposed, opened a video he had been searching for for a long time…

When the glass shattered, he had just reached the more intense part of the video. His lower body had started to react, but he immediately panicked and shrank back.

He scolded Qi Ling out of anger, but only he knew how embarrassed and flustered he felt, his ears burning red, his heart racing, and his speech slurred. Even he himself didn’t know what he was saying.

Fortunately, Qi Ling was so startled himself that he didn’t notice Mu Chi’s unusual reaction.

Mu Chi didn’t forgive Qi Ling not just because he scared him half to death that day, but also because after that, he couldn’t watch videos peacefully anymore. He only dared to wear one earphone.