Chapter 2

“Ah,” Qi Ling said apologetically, “Sorry, new classmate, I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Song Wenzhou was still patting his chest to stop coughing while waving his hand to signal that it was fine.

Mu Chi first glanced at his new deskmate, who had been ignoring him during class, but was now blushing slightly due to the coughing, and then looked up to ask Qi Ling, “What do you want?”

“Why are you so fierce?” Qi Ling teased. “I’m here to congratulate you. Congratulations, you’ve got a new deskmate.”

Mu Chi was sitting on the inner side near the wall. Qi Ling, in order to talk to him, half of his body leaned over onto Song Wenzhou’s desk. Song Wenzhou had no choice but to lean back in his chair, holding a book and pretending to read seriously, though his attention was actually on their conversation.

It wasn’t that Song Wenzhou was nosy—he wasn’t an uncurious person. It was normal to be curious when you enter a new environment.

The classmates in front heard Qi Ling’s words and turned around, joking, “Let’s make a bet. Bet on how long it’ll take before Brother Chi and his deskmate get separated.”

“I bet one week,” one classmate spoke up first.

Qi Ling held up three fingers. “I bet three days, max.”

—

Song Wenzhou silently turned a page of his book, reluctantly becoming an unwitting participant in the bet. While feeling embarrassed, he was also curious why they were saying this. Did Mu Chi have some kind of weird habit with his deskmates?

“I bet two eggs,” Mu Chi eagerly joined in on the bet he had created for himself.

“How long?” Qi Ling asked.

Mu Chi thought for a long moment before slowly making a scissor gesture with his fingers.

“Two days?” the front-row classmate asked.

Mu Chi shook his head.

“Two weeks?” another classmate asked.

Mu Chi shook his head again.

“Two months?”

Mu Chi continued shaking his head.

“It won’t be two…” Qi Ling hesitated, then, under Mu Chi’s expectant gaze, reluctantly finished, “Two class periods, right?”

“Get lost,” Mu Chi said angrily. “I mean two years.”

Qi Ling, the front-row classmate, and the others: “…”

Qi Ling, the front-row classmate, and the others: “Pffhahahaha.”

Song Wenzhou’s hand holding the book shook: “…”

A bunch of crazy people.

Mu Chi glanced at Song Wenzhou, deeply feeling that Qi Ling and the others were practically dancing on his face in front of his new deskmate. Gritting his teeth, he said, “If you don’t shut up, do you believe I’ll make sure you can’t laugh anymore?”

“Come on, Brother Chi,” Qi Ling held back his laughter, “Don’t talk about two years. Have you ever had a deskmate for more than two months since elementary… since kindergarten?”

“Tch,” Mu Chi sneered, “A real man doesn’t dwell on past glories. I’m no longer the immature person I used to be. From now on, until I graduate high school, I won’t change my deskmate.”

Mu Chi said this as he turned to face Song Wenzhou, and, seemingly worried about scaring him, he asked in a soft voice, “Is that okay?”

Song Wenzhou didn’t expect Mu Chi to suddenly ask him, and he wasn’t sure how to respond. He blinked a couple of times, confused.

Mu Chi paused, inexplicably looked away, and said, “Anyway, you’ll see.”

Qi Ling and the others exchanged glances and laughed, “Alright, we’ll wait to eat Brother Chi’s eggs.”

“Get lost,” Mu Chi said with a disgusted look, “Don’t fucking gross me out.”

After the group returned to their seats, Song Wenzhou felt his breathing become a bit smoother. He placed the book back on the desk and quietly flipped back to the previous page, starting over.

After observing Mu Chi from all angles, he reached a conclusion—his new deskmate was a bit distant.

It was fine that he ignored his hints during class, but even when he tried to talk after class, he didn’t respond.

Mu Chi spun his pen quickly and secretly made up his mind to get along with his new deskmate as soon as possible, helping him integrate into the new environment. After all, he had encountered even colder deskmates before, and in the end, hadn’t they…

The most important thing was, he had just boasted to Qi Ling and the others. As the saying goes, ^[1]“Don’t sell wheat and then buy a steamer” is a Chinese proverb that essentially means “don’t make decisions that go against your own interests or logic.” It suggests that … Continue reading“Don’t sell wheat and then buy a steamer,” which meant he couldn’t let his face get slapped too quickly, like a tornado.

“Cough,” Mu Chi grinned, “Hello, I’m Mu Chi.”

Song Wenzhou smiled and nodded, “I’m Song Wenzhou.”

Mu Chi said, “I interrupted your reading just now, right? Those guys are a bunch of crazy people, always making noise.”

Song Wenzhou thought, aren’t you just as bad as them? He shook his head and said, “It’s fine.”

“How about we switch seats? I’ll sit on the outer side so they won’t bother you when they come.”

“No need,” Song Wenzhou habitually declined, “I’m fine.”

“Alright then,” Mu Chi leaned back onto the desk, “Just let me know if you want to change seats.”

It didn’t take long for Song Wenzhou to understand why Mu Chi had suggested changing seats.

Mu Chi was restless, and almost every class break, he had to go out, either to the bathroom or to the hallway for some fresh air. If not, he would either mess around with the classmates or Qi Ling would come find him to play.

Not only that, Mu Chi didn’t let himself stay idle during class either. If he was sleepy, he would nap, and if he wasn’t, he’d try to talk to Song Wenzhou. Song Wenzhou would often respond with just a few words, then ignore him. After hitting a wall a few times, Mu Chi had no choice but to fiddle with the items on the desk.

Spinning pens, spinning books, spinning rulers, anything that could be spun.

He spun them so much that Song Wenzhou could only catch glimpses of them out of the corner of his eye, feeling dizzy, and this continued until the end of the day’s classes.

The last period of the evening study session was the true self-study period, where students worked on their own without teacher supervision.

Song Wenzhou had just written his name on the textbooks he received that afternoon, and when he was almost done with the last one, Mu Chi, who had been quiet beside him for less than ten minutes, spoke up again.

“Give me a few books, I’ll help you carry them back to the dorm. It’s too heavy for one person to carry all these,” Mu Chi propped his head with one hand and looked at Song Wenzhou. “By the way, which dorm are you assigned to?”

From the first year of high school, Experimental High School required evening self-study sessions, and by the time school ended, it was already late at night. In order to ensure the safety of all students, the school mandated that everyone must stay on campus, and only students with special circumstances could go home on weekends.

Song Wenzhou closed the book and said, “Teacher Li told me to stay in Dorm 402.”

Mu Chi perked up and said, “What a coincidence, I’m in 402 too. There’s an empty bed in my lower bunk, so I’ll be sleeping above you from now on.”

Song Wenzhou smiled, holding back from correcting the small mistake in his statement.

Mu Chi mumbled something about fate and then said, “Why don’t you just come with me later? That way you won’t get lost trying to find your dorm.”

“I’m not staying in the dorm tonight.”

Song Wenzhou had come to register empty-handed and wasn’t prepared with any personal items. His parents had already applied to the teacher to delay his move-in for a day.

The next day at noon, Mu Chi turned down Qi Ling’s invitation to play basketball, claiming he had something important to do. He left the school with practiced ease and went to… well, a key-making shop.

The shopkeeper recognized Mu Chi’s face immediately. Upon seeing him, the shopkeeper greeted him warmly as if he were a son returning home from school. He smiled and said, “Back again, huh?”

Mu Chi took his key out of his pocket and handed it to the shopkeeper, saying in a tone that was almost like a code, “Just like before.”

The shopkeeper chuckled as he opened the machine and joked, “Did you change girlfriends again?”

Mu Chi nodded. “Yeah, yeah.”

Mu Chi often lost his keys and had to visit the shop every now and then. Over time, the shopkeeper had become familiar with his face and liked to joke around with him.

Mu Chi, being someone who never kept his mouth shut, made up stories about how the keys were for his girlfriends so they could visit him at the dorm. Each time he made a new key, it meant he had a new girlfriend.

The shopkeeper had initially been skeptical, asking, “Do the girls at your school really have free access to the boys’ dorms?”

“Of course not,” Mu Chi said proudly, “But my girlfriend is special. She climbs over the wall to get in.”

The shopkeeper raised an eyebrow and said, “I guess one of your standards for a girlfriend is that she can climb over walls.”

After returning to school, Mu Chi slid the key across the desk towards Song Wenzhou.

Song Wenzhou looked at the sharp teeth marks on the key and the fine dust left on it, asking, “Did you have this made?”

“Made?” Mu Chi suddenly remembered the key-making joke and replied without thinking, “Of course I had it made.”

“…” Song Wenzhou didn’t know what went wrong with Mu Chi, so he ignored the nonsense and said, “Thanks, how much is it? I’ll transfer you the money.”

Mu Chi waved it off generously, “No need to worry about small things between roommates, especially since you’re my deskmate.”

Before Song Wenzhou could respond, Mu Chi quietly pulled out his phone and cheerfully said, “By the way, let’s add each other as friends.”

The small amount of money Song Wenzhou tried to give Mu Chi was never accepted. Although it was just a few bucks, Song Wenzhou didn’t want to leave the impression that he was taking advantage of Mu Chi, and he kept thinking about it.

Although Mu Chi had claimed they were both roommates and deskmates, they had only known each other for less than two days, and it didn’t make sense for them to be that close.

What Song Wenzhou didn’t know was that the key was originally supposed to be his.

Each dorm room housed four students, and when freshmen moved into their dorms, they were each given a key. Dorm 402 originally had four people, but one student moved to another dorm after deciding to pursue liberal arts in their second year. The key was left behind in 402.

Mu Chi had lost his own key during the break and, when returning to school, had simply used the key left behind by his classmate.

That night, after returning to the dorm with Song Wenzhou, he found out who the other two roommates were: Qi Ling and Zhang Feiyu, two of the students who had been making bets with Mu Chi around Song Wenzhou’s desk the previous morning.

Qi Ling and Zhang Feiyu had already heard from Mu Chi the night before that Song Wenzhou would be moving in. They weren’t surprised when they saw him, greeted him casually, and then hurried to wash up, eager to play a couple of games before lights out.

“The account’s up, Brother Chi,” Qi Ling reminded while holding his phone horizontally.

Mu Chi shook his head in frustration. “I asked you all to study, but you’re only focused on winning games.”

Qi Ling looked up at him and sarcastically said, “Hey? Feiyu, who was that guy we were playing with last night from our trio?”

Zhang Feiyu knowingly joined in, “I don’t know him, but his skills were pretty good.”

Mu Chi curled his lips, about to pretend to be humble and tell them to tone it down, when Qi Ling said again, “What a shame. I wonder if we’ll ever get to play with him again.”

“Opportunities,” Mu Chi said in a deep tone, “ou have to seize them yourself.”

Qi Ling didn’t want to talk to this hypocritical guy anymore, so he turned to ask, “Song Wenzhou, do you play games?”

Song Wenzhou was sorting his clothes in his suitcase. He replied, “I do. Let me know if you have a spot sometime.”

Mu Chi quickly chimed in, “I’ll play next time too.”

Qi Ling clicked his tongue and pulled Zhang Feiyu into the game room. “Ah, once you have a deskmate, you forget your brothers.”

Song Wenzhou felt there was something a bit off about Qi Ling’s words. It wasn’t until he lay in bed that night that he realized the original saying should have been “Once you have a wife, you forget your mother.”

He found it a bit strange why Mu Chi and his friends were so obsessed with the title of “deskmate.” It wasn’t until later, after getting to know Mu Chi better, that he learned why Mu Chi had never kept a deskmate for long. In simple terms, it was because Mu Chi talked too much.

Since kindergarten, anyone who sat with Mu Chi knew his incessant talking habits. He never kept a deskmate for more than two months. Some of them couldn’t stand him and asked the teacher to switch seats, but the majority became good friends with him. Eventually, it would lead to the teacher being unable to tolerate the two chatting non-stop during class, so they’d have to be moved apart.

As a result, Mu Chi’s homeroom teachers throughout the years had tried various methods to stop him from talking during class. Sometimes they’d assign him an introverted girl as a deskmate, thinking that maybe he’d tone it down. But those girls would often look at Mu Chi with admiration, and the teachers’ new concern became how to prevent early romance among the students.

Sometimes, they’d even take the big risk of seating Mu Chi with the top student in the grade and sternly warn him not to influence the top student’s studies. To their surprise, Mu Chi would end up teaching the top student how to play games and, in the process, surpass him in academics to become the new top student.

The previous top student, now ranked second, suspected that Mu Chi was deliberately trying to compete for the top spot and broke off their friendship.

The most ridiculous time was when a student with mild autism transferred into their class. This student had been discriminated against in their previous school, and his parents were worried he would face the same treatment in the new school. When explaining the situation in the teacher’s office, his mother couldn’t help but cry.

Mu Chi’s homeroom teacher at the time had just had a baby, and her motherly instincts were in full force. She thought, “Why not try pairing him with Mu Chi, maybe he can help?”

Well, less than a month later, the autistic student had become another nonstop chatterbox, much like Mu Chi.

Of course, this “headache” was only for the teachers. For the student and his parents, they were overjoyed and almost wanted to give Mu Chi a banner of thanks.

After observing that the former autistic student showed no signs of a relapse, the teacher decided to move him away from Mu Chi.

This incident became a memorable story from Mu Chi’s middle school years.