Another Friday.

Lena was still feeling guilty about last week’s incident and sent a message in the afternoon asking if he was going to BLUE for drinks that night.

Yu Guang felt annoyed, deliberately ignored her for half an hour, and only replied after the calligraphy class was over.

Yu Guang: I have something else tonight, so I won’t come

In fact, there was nothing special planned for tonight, just an excuse to decline. Lena evidently understood his refusal, and after a moment of silence, she sent a message saying “I’m sorry.”

Even so, she didn’t mention any clues about that night.

It seems Lena was determined not to reveal the identity of that coward to him.

Yu Guang chuckled, tapping lightly on the edge of the ceramic inkstone, his gaze drifting into space, lost in thought.

Actually, that string of unknown numbers only sent him a text yesterday.

No, to be precise, it was a multimedia message.

Who would have thought that in this age of advanced electronic devices, he and that stranger with peculiar habits would still use such outdated means of communication?

His thoughts drifted back to yesterday.

When the multimedia message arrived, Yu Guang was helping Gao Leilin with basic physics homework. He heard the sound of his phone’s message, but didn’t think much of it, casually unlocking the screen to check.

【Unknown Number】: [Image JPG]

When his gaze fell on the four words framed there, Yu Guang’s breath momentarily caught, and the hand holding the pen paused.

Before he could react, Gao Leilin’s impatient voice came from beside him, “Who’s messaging you? Do you have to check it now?” He didn’t sound pleased.

Yu Guang half-lifted his eyelids and secretly glanced at Gao Leilin, who was playing League of Legends with headphones on his ears.

Strange.

Gao Leilin was clearly wearing noise-canceling headphones to play games, so how could he notice the movement on his side so quickly and even hear the subtle message notification sound…?

The doubt flashed by, but it was just a flash.

Yu Guang didn’t have the energy to deal with Gao Leilin right now, so he solemnly replied, “No one, just a junk message,” then turned back to check the message bar.

In the clean message bar, only one message hadn’t been swiped away, glaringly visible.

Text message, 5:18 PM

【Unknown Number】: [Image JPG]

An image? What image?

Could it be one of those unsightly harassing photos?

But Yu Guang quickly dismissed the thought.

Because he had an intuition that the other party wouldn’t be so vulgar and indecent—after all, they belonged to the same category in his subconscious, and he always held some expectations.

After pondering for a moment, his fingertips hovered over the phone screen for a while.

Against all odds, Yu Guang still clicked on the message in the message bar, a hint of interest inadvertently revealed in his actions, even unbeknownst to himself.

The image loaded inch by inch—

Until the whole picture was revealed, Yu Guang’s hand holding the pen trembled a few times, and almost skewed the paper.

The photo showed the balcony of the 407 dormitory building where he lived, taken from a first-person perspective below the dormitory building.

The sunlight was bright, casting a hint of life onto the withered potted plants on the balcony railing, and the familiar clothes hanging on the clothesline were swaying gently in the breeze.

Although the color tone of the picture was lively and cheerful, the square shape of the photo was completely filled with the cramped and crowded balcony.

Crowded and cramped.

The oppressive feeling brought by the composition completely overwhelmed the blessing of the bright colors.

The dormitory was framed in the photo, as if he living in the dormitory was also framed in the invisible cage of the photo…

The idea seemed absurd, but they were of the same kind, and Yu Guang could understand the other person’s mentality.

So he knew that the seemingly strange feeling was actually the true desire of the person behind the phone screen.

Yu Guang stared at the photo without blinking for several seconds.

Then he clicked to enlarge the image with two fingers.

The photo’s resolution wasn’t very good.

Whether it was due to the poor quality of the phone’s camera or the compression during multimedia messaging.

After zooming in, the originally detailed contours of the photo turned into a mess of colored pixel noise.

Dragging his finger across the photo, Yu Guang stared intently.

From the withered brown potted plants to the various colored clothes, and finally stopping at the glass door separating the outside from the inside of the balcony.

—This was the deepest point reached by the voyeuristic perspective, desire glaringly climbing out of the blurry photo, grinning.

But coincidentally, the glass door of the balcony reflected the sunlight when it was sunny, and it was covered with densely packed gray-black pixel noise, making it impossible to see any figures inside.

But what if it was at night?

The dormitory was brightly lit inside with incandescent lights. If they took another photo at night, they wouldn’t be disappointed…

Lost in thought, Yu Guang’s phone vibrated again, and the vibration spread rapidly to his heart along his wrist. Subconsciously, he glanced at the phone screen—

Text message, 5:20 PM

【Unknown Number】: [Image JPG]

Yu Guang’s gaze lingered for a moment on the coincidental time of ‘5:20’, and the image loaded completely.

It was still the same location and angle, but the focus of the lens was different this time.

This time, it was the white shirt he had carefully selected to meet Senior Ye Si, hanging on the balcony where he had dried it;

It was also the white shirt that had been criticized by the person in the shadows for not buttoning up, deliberately seducing…

The clean and flawless pure white became even more translucent under the rays of the sun, with reflections of light on the edges of the buttons, as if looking at this photo could evoke memories of the faint, elegant embrace of that day’s pinewood scent.

Yu Guang’s thoughts slowed down slightly due to the fleeting thoughts in his mind, but he quickly came back to his senses.

‘Stirring—’ The chair legs made a few sharp, piercing noises as they rubbed against the marble floor.

Yu Guang shivered, but he didn’t have time to pay attention to it. He got up and walked towards the balcony glass sliding door, ignoring Gao Leilin’s puzzled shouts.

Comparing the angles of the two upward-facing photos, Yu Guang looked towards a small stone path southwest of the dormitory building—

The bluestone path extended into a small secluded bamboo forest. Although it was not clear inside, it seemed that there was no one at the intersection.

Immersed in his own thoughts, Yu Guang didn’t notice the sound of the headphones hitting the table behind him and the approaching footsteps.

Until his forearm stung.

“Yu Guang, are you crazy? Messages keep coming one after another, what’s going on, do you have a secret partner downstairs in the dormitory building?”

Gao Leilin’s anger came without warning and suddenly. Yu Guang was dumbfounded, and for a moment, he didn’t even have time to pretend.

He was still in the posture of being pulled by Gao Leilin’s arm, slightly tilting his head, staring at the young man in front of him with wide eyes. The scattered soft bangs naturally fell on both sides, revealing a pair of agile and charming eyes.

He had typical peach blossom eyes.

Round and slightly drooping, with the corners upturned, the black and white of the eyes were not clearly defined, misty and beautiful.

Gao Leilin felt a little palpitation after just one glance.

He knew that his weak roommate was good-looking, but he had only seen the usual fair skin and pink lips… He hadn’t expected these embellished eyes.

It was as if his heart had been poured with hot tea, scalding it so much that the whole heart curled up, and it took half a moment to stretch out again.

Gao Leilin suddenly let go of the hand he had just grabbed, and saw with his own eyes the place on the boy’s forearm where he had been grabbed by himself, turning red at a visible speed.

“Y-Your… your hair is messy…”

Gao Leilin stammered, and after speaking, he quickly pushed the door and entered the dormitory, leaving Yu Guang standing alone on the balcony. He even forgot his initial intention to check Yu Guang’s phone.

Yu Guang, on the other hand, gradually regained his senses from his daze, watching Gao Leilin’s fleeing figure with a playful smile.

Finally, he glanced in the direction of the bamboo forest at the end of the stone path, lowered his eyelids, smoothed the messy bangs in front of his forehead, covering his brows and eyes, and then pushed the door into the dormitory.

“Sorry… I, I’ll finish the homework for you right away.” He stood in front of Gao Leilin with his head down, apologizing, his throat tightening, pretending to tremble slightly.

Sure enough, Gao Leilin, who usually had a bad temper, was exceptionally easy to talk to this time.

His ears turned completely red, and he waved his hand as if escaping, saying shortly, “Just do your own homework.”

This reaction undoubtedly confirmed Yu Guang’s speculation.

He felt extremely curious—

Would someone actually like a creature like him, hiding in the gutter and dark alleys?

Even if it’s just liking the bright shell of his decaying flesh and blood.

Does this prove that he also has a chance to—

Try to make Senior Ye Si fall in love with him?