Chapter 9: Nosebleed

Zhu Yu usually doesn’t act drunk after drinking, and throughout the process of Fu Wenyu taking him into the apartment and up to the elevator, he remained very quiet.

However, at the start, he insisted on holding onto the wine bottle in his arms, refusing to let go no matter what.

Fu Wenyu and he struggled downstairs for a while before Fu Wenyu managed to snatch the bottle from him and throw it into the trash can.

Then, from the elevator to Room 514, Zhu Yu’s tears flowed down like they were free.

“Where’s the key?” Fu Wenyu asked after finally getting him to stand steady, his sweat dripping.

Zhu Yu swayed as he dug into his pocket and pulled out a bunch of keys, with a sunflower-shaped pendant hanging from them.

“This one,” Zhu Yu muttered, lowering his head and sorting through the keys. Finally, he held a half-new key in his hand, then groggily tried to poke it into the keyhole.

The sound of the key hitting the door was loud, but it never aligned with the lock.

Fu Wenyu glanced at his phone and saw his mom was already urging him to head to the airport.

But Zhu Yu still wasn’t ready. He put away his phone and snatched the key from Zhu Yu’s hand, acting like an anxious mother. “Let me do it. At this rate, are you planning to poke at it all night?”

He aligned the key with the keyhole, just as the door handle turned right under Fu Wenyu’s nose.

Fu Wenyu: ??

He thought he must have been seeing things and focused to take a closer look.

With a “clang,” the door opened.

A cool, unfamiliar fragrance wafted out, and a man in black long-sleeved pajamas appeared before them.

The man had handsome features and a tall frame. His loose pajamas couldn’t hide his broad chest muscles and muscular arms. Fu Wenyu, shocked by his build, pulled Zhu Yu back half a step.

“Damn,” Fu Wenyu wasn’t startled by the man’s sudden appearance.

He was shocked by the man’s physique.

Since Fu Wenyu also worked out, he knew just how difficult it was to achieve a body like the man in front of him. For a moment, he felt a pang of insecurity, much like when Zhu Yu first saw Bai Chen, but Fu Wenyu also felt a sense of admiration.

Regaining his composure, Fu Wenyu quickly looked up at the dorm number—514. That was right, wasn’t it?

“Excuse me, who are you?” Bai Chen glanced at Fu Wenyu before his eyes landed on the drunken Zhu Yu. “Are you a friend of Zhu Yu?”

“Senior,” Zhu Yu called out to him.

“Hey! You know each other?!” Fu Wenyu thought Zhu Yu had made a mistake with the dorm number. But hearing the man call Zhu Yu by his name and Zhu Yu call him “Senior,” he immediately breathed a sigh of relief.

Earlier at dinner, Zhu Yu had referred to this Senior as a Bodhisattva, so the man in front of them couldn’t be a bad guy.

He assumed that this “Senior” was Zhu Yu’s roommate.

“Zhu Yu is drunk, you’re his roommate, right?” Before Bai Chen could respond, Fu Wenyu quickly shoved the swaying Zhu Yu into Bai Chen’s arms. “Can you help him back to his room?”

“I need to catch a flight back to the country.” Fu Wenyu raised his hand to check the time, realizing that if he didn’t head to the airport now, he would be late.

“Thanks, man.” Fu Wenyu spoke without pausing to breathe, leaving no time for Bai Chen to respond before the drunk Zhu Yu was shoved into his arms.

Bai Chen supported Zhu Yu and was about to stop Fu Wenyu to explain that he wasn’t Zhu Yu’s roommate, but Fu Wenyu had already entered the elevator.

“Senior!” Zhu Yu pulled away from Bai Chen’s arms, stood at attention, and cheerfully greeted him, “Good evening!”

Zhu Yu swayed and steadied his legs. He looked up at the person in front of him, but through his tear-filled vision, the person’s face was completely blurry. Squinting his eyes, he could barely make out a handsome facial outline.

“Good evening, Zhu Yu.” Bai Chen, concerned that Zhu Yu might fall, quickly reached out to grab his arm.

Zhu Yu, looking thin, indeed had a very slender arm with hardly any muscle.

“What are you doing at my place?” In Zhu Yu’s mind, Fu Wenyu had just dropped him off in front of his dorm room.

But now, Bai Chen had suddenly appeared in “his” dorm room.

This was very strange.

It seemed he was truly drunk.

Once confirming this fact, Bai Chen sighed lightly.

He steadied Zhu Yu, calling him gently, “Zhu Yu, do you have the key?”

“Yes!” Zhu Yu’s “yes” was as strong and firm as when he answered during military training.

He felt around his pocket and pulled out a bunch of colorful keys.

Bai Chen helped Zhu Yu to the door of Room 515. The apartment’s keys were all the same style, so Bai Chen quickly found the dorm room key.

“Zhu Yu, you’re drunk.” Bai Chen wasn’t angry, just steadying the swaying person with a firm tone.

Zhu Yu sniffed and stubbornly shook his head. “I’m not.”

Seeing that Zhu Yu was about to get upset, Bai Chen quickly changed his tune. “Right, you’re not drunk.”

“Let’s go inside first.” Bai Chen opened the door with one hand and guided Zhu Yu into the room.

“Meow—” As soon as the door opened, Liu Bo ran out from the bedroom. It circled around them, making it impossible for them to move.

So Bai Chen bent down, scooped Liu Bo up with one arm, and carried him in his arms while using his other hand to steady Zhu Yu as they made their way to the bedroom.

Zhu Yu didn’t smell much like alcohol, instead, there was the fragrance of camellia flowers. He was probably the type of person who would get drunk just by a little contact with alcohol.

Because the room layout in the international student apartments is standardized, Bai Chen quickly found the bedroom light switch without any difficulty.

When the switch clicked, the bedroom lights turned on brightly. The bedroom light was much brighter than the living room light, almost blinding.

The sudden brightness was a bit hard for both of them to adjust to. Bai Chen slightly turned his head to ease the shock, but Zhu Yu immediately raised his hand to cover his eyes. “Ah!”

“Senior, my eyes!” He dramatically mimicked the tone of ^[1]Ziwei (紫薇) is a reference to a character from the classic Chinese TV drama Princess Pearl (《还珠格格》). In the show, Ziwei is a gentle and intelligent girl who, at one point, temporarily … Continue readingZiwei when she went blind. “I can’t see anything!”

Bai Chen listened to his words, his lips curling up into a silent smile.

He helped Zhu Yu sit down on the bed, placed Liu Bo on the floor, and then spoke in a very gentle voice, “If you can’t see, just sleep for a bit.”

“You’ll be fine when you wake up.” His tone was reassuring.

After saying that, Bai Chen turned to switch on the desk lamp beside him, then turned off the room’s overhead lights.

Zhu Yu skillfully kicked off his shoes. Not controlling his strength, he accidentally sent one shoe flying to the door, making quite a loud noise.

Only then did he cautiously open his eyes.

The room’s main lights were off.

The only source of light was the desk lamp on the bedside table, casting a soft yellowish glow.

Bai Chen adjusted the light’s intensity.

Zhu Yu watched as the warm light on Bai Chen’s body slowly dimmed.

Because Bai Chen was bent over, the buttons of his pajama shirt lifted slightly, perfectly exposing the gap between the second and third buttons.

Zhu Yu couldn’t help but look at what was underneath the shirt.

It was a well-defined chest, firm and strong, offering a solid sense of security. The lines were smooth, and there was a small red mole on the left side of the chest.

Zhu Yu wasn’t nearsighted, and from this distance, he could even see the tiny hairs on Bai Chen’s skin.

To be honest, Zhu Yu had never observed this part of a person so closely before.

And the first time he did, he found himself looking at Bai Chen’s extraordinary, perfectly sculpted body.

What big… pectorals… Zhu Yu’s eyes widened in amazement.

In that instant, Zhu Yu felt something warm flowing out of his nose.

The discomfort made him raise his hand to wipe it away, and the bright red liquid smeared across the back of his hand. He instantly sobered up.

Bai Chen had just adjusted the lighting and turned around, only to meet Zhu Yu’s stunned gaze.

Zhu Yu, holding his nose, felt blood seeping out between his fingers.

“Zhu Yu, what happened to you?” Bai Chen, unaware of the reason behind Zhu Yu’s nosebleed, asked with concern.

As for the reason, of course, Zhu Yu didn’t dare to say a word. He could only shake his head innocently with his large eyes wide open.

Bai Chen grabbed a tissue to press against his nose and helped him to the bathroom.

He turned on the faucet, but his hand froze in front of a row of colorful towels on the wall. He didn’t know which towel Zhu Yu used to wipe his face.

After a moment’s hesitation, Bai Chen grabbed two tissues from the roll.

“Zhu Yu, take your hands away for a moment,” he said softly. “Let me see which nostril is bleeding.”

Zhu Yu had both hands over his mouth and nose, with blood leaking out between his fingers.

He looked at Bai Chen’s face blankly, as if he hadn’t quite understood Bai Chen’s words, his expression like that of a helpless child.

Bai Chen then gently took hold of Zhu Yu’s hands and pulled them away.

It was the right nostril that was bleeding.

Bai Chen pressed the tissue to his bleeding nostril and then dampened the tissue to wipe the blood off Zhu Yu’s face.

“Just wash your hands, and you’ll be fine,” Bai Chen said gently.

Zhu Yu obediently moved his hands under the faucet and started washing them slowly.

Bai Chen watched his drowsy profile.

He silently felt relieved that Zhu Yu, though drunk, didn’t seem to have a habit of making a scene when intoxicated.

“All done,” Zhu Yu said, turning to Bai Chen with his hands outstretched.

Bai Chen couldn’t help but smile. He took Zhu Yu’s hands, grabbed two more wet tissues, and dried the water off his hands. With a tone almost of helplessness, he said, “Why does it feel like even your tongue got drunk?”

Zhu Yu lifted his lashes at the sound of Bai Chen’s voice and carefully studied the person in front of him. When Bai Chen had been cleaning his nosebleed, some water droplets had splashed onto Bai Chen’s body.

Zhu Yu saw the transparent water droplets slide down from behind his ear, trailing down his neck, to his collarbone, and then disappearing into the V-neck of his pajamas…

The steam in the bathroom made the light dim and ambiguous, and the water droplets left faint traces of moisture on Bai Chen’s skin. Suddenly, Zhu Yu recalled the mole he had just seen.

Zhu Yu’s eyes suddenly widened.

Then, warm liquid began to slowly drip from his left nostril.

Just as Bai Chen finished drying Zhu Yu’s hands and was about to look up and speak to him, a warm drop of red liquid suddenly fell onto his hand.

The blood splashed on his hand in a small, blooming pattern.

Bai Chen froze, looking up at Zhu Yu.

Zhu Yu quickly covered his nose with his hand before Bai Chen could look at him.

Bai Chen: ?

—

Ten minutes later.

Zhu Yu had tissues stuffed in both nostrils, and Bai Chen gently helped him onto the bed. He had already fallen asleep, his messy bangs still damp with water, sticking to his fair face.

In the soft, yellow light, Zhu Yu slept soundly, his thin lips slightly parted, gently snoring, his breathing gradually becoming steady.

His long, fan-like lashes fluttered slightly. It was unclear what kind of dream he was having, but in his sleep, he murmured, “Please… I…”

“Touch, touch…”

Bai Chen leaned closer to listen, but couldn’t make out what he was saying.

He didn’t understand.

He pulled the blanket up to cover half of Zhu Yu’s face. The fine, pink hair slipped through his fingers, giving him a tickling sensation.

Bai Chen lowered his gaze to his fingers, then looked at the person on the bed.

He felt that Zhu Yu seemed to have no guard up around the people close to him.

What if he were a bad person, taking advantage of him? Bai Chen thought.

Soon, Bai Chen sighed lightly.

He carefully stepped away from the bed, wiped off the blood that Zhu Yu had accidentally spilled on the floor, and after filling Liu Bo’s bowl with cat food and water, he left.

The night breeze was desolate, slipping through the window gap, rustling the leaves of the money tree by the window, making a soft sound.

That night, Zhu Yu didn’t dream, but he didn’t sleep peacefully either. In his sleep, he kept feeling like he had done something unforgettable before going to bed…