Their movements in the back row were not very noticeable, but with Ye Si’s superior appearance and temperament, they always attracted gazes, whether brazen or restrained.

Yu Guang’s jaw was still being pinched by Ye Si, his lips parted, Ye Si’s slender fingers pressing on the wet tongue…

—An extremely passive and erotic posture.

Under the increasingly intense scrutiny, Yu Guang’s entire face flushed, the vivid color even spreading to his earlobes and the back of his neck.

The scorching temperature of his skin seemed to taint Ye Si’s chilly fingertips.

Ye Si stared for a while.

When the warmth between his fingertips became uncomfortably hot, and the faint pleading appeared in the depths of Yu Guang’s eyes, he finally softly scolded the classmates who turned their heads to look.

The gaze that felt like a thorn in Yu Guang’s back disappeared.

And the bleeding stopped.

Ye Si remained indifferent, as if performing a mundane task, slowly withdrawing his two fingers, along with the dark blue handkerchief stained with mottled blood.

With the handkerchief removed from his tongue, the cool air rushed in, alleviating most of the pain.

What followed was a tingling sensation, almost irresistible, making Yu Guang almost unable to resist licking his injured tongue against his palate.

“Don’t move.” Ye Si’s brow furrowed, his tone severe.

The fingertip pinching the jaw tightened as well, exerting a force that brooked no disobedience.

Ye Si rarely appeared so harsh, usually maintaining a polite but objectively distant demeanor.

So when he uttered this somewhat emotional sentence, Yu Guang was stunned for half a second, and then his whole body began to tremble.

Yu Guang had known for a long time that he was not quite normal in experiencing some aspects of the Love Valley—

He liked the faintly mixed pleasure during pain, liked the snowflake-like static that flashed before his eyes when suffocation reached a critical point…

So he both yearned for the love from his senior and hoped for his senior’s distant and harsh treatment.

It felt like being gradually whipped by thorny branches from light to heavy, with the sound of whistling in his ears.

Yu Guang was like a dying fish, actively biting the hook and being dragged ashore, covered in scratches from the grass, dirty and allowing himself to be whipped.

He didn’t dare to move anymore, his obedience to absolute authority rising to a terrifying level.

It was very difficult to keep his tongue in a steady position without trembling, but Yu Guang tried his best to maintain it, his tongue stiff like a shoot emerging from the soil.

Ye Si’s mouth curled up, as if he was satisfied with Yu Guang’s absolute obedience, and he pinched his jaw and looked left and right.

His gaze was like a torch, scorching one’s heart.

The bitten wound revealed crimson flesh, which, even without bleeding anymore, didn’t look very pleasant.

Yu Guang belatedly began to feel embarrassed, saliva that had been accumulating in his mouth for a long time forming a shallow layer.

Extremely embarrassing.

Yu Guang’s expression dodged as he tried to free his jaw from Ye Si’s hand.

He thought he would need to go through some twists and turns to get what he wanted, but he didn’t expect Ye Si to just let go.

Ye Si lightly shook his wet hand, then walked out of the classroom through the back door.

Yu Guang didn’t have time to see Ye Si’s expression before he turned around, but his actions were very clear—

Ye Si didn’t despise him.

Stopping his bleeding was just fulfilling an obligation, and he might have cursed many times in his heart.

A strange sharp pain stabbed at Yu Guang’s left atrium.

He rubbed his tongue, which was sore and numb, against his teeth, tearing open the scab that had formed where it had stopped bleeding.

Blood flowed and dried, flowed and dried again, but Ye Si hadn’t returned.

Unable to restrain himself, Yu Guang suddenly stood up and, ignoring the curious gazes around him, quickly walked out of the classroom through the back door—stepping on every tile that Ye Si had stepped on just now.

At the corner near the restroom, as he walked with his head down, he bumped into his senior head-on.

His forehead hit Ye Si’s broad and hard shoulder, hurting. But buried in the other’s arms, Yu Guang smiled brightly.

But soon he couldn’t smile anymore.

Ye Si pushed him away coldly, saying, “Be more careful next time.”

Clearly, last time at Lover’s Slope, he had received gentle and affectionate care when he pretended to fall down. But this time…

Where did the problem lie?

It was indeed because Ye Si despised him.

The hand that had been stained with his filthy blood had become clean again. It should have been rinsed with cold water, and even from a distance, there was a chill in the air.

The blush on Yu Guang’s cheeks had long faded, leaving him pale, but his lips were still crimson—bloody from his own biting.

He had to do something to redeem himself.

Yu Guang knew he was good-looking, especially his lips.

They were of moderate thickness, round and plump, covered with a thin layer of water gloss from being repeatedly bitten by teeth, looking very charming.

But he didn’t know that all his little thoughts were visible.

Ye Si looked at Yu Guang, who deliberately pursed his lips, then hesitated and reached out to tug at his shirt hem.

It was very light, like a cautious probing when a small animal sought affection—unless you paid special attention, you might not even notice it.

But when Ye Si’s gaze shifted, Yu Guang stopped talking, his thin shoulders curling up in embarrassment, his head hanging down, and his dumb hair swaying back and forth.

Knowing it was a fox’s pretense, Ye Si still found it cute.

But his face remained indifferent, just pursed his lips slightly, and his expression was inexplicably profound.

He pretended not to see the little pleading gestures of the young fox, just busied himself with buttoning his shirt cuffs.

There was a faint emotion in his eyes and eyebrows, neither fast nor slow, with a hint of literati charm.

But just a few minutes ago, his slender fingers had been pressing on Yu Guang’s tongue, all wet.

Yu Guang couldn’t guess what the other was thinking anymore.

An indescribable panic came down like a sudden rain, pattering on him, making him feel uncomfortable.

“Go back and listen to your class,” he heard the senior’s indifferent tone.

His heart seemed to be held by invisible hands, unable to contract or expand on its own.

All of Yu Guang’s persistence was to peek at him, to please him. But now that he had truly approached Ye Si, becoming a bead string to be played with at will in the other’s hands, he felt that all his so-called persistence was worthless.

“Senior, do you… despise me?” His brows furrowed, his words full of loss, “I dirtied your handkerchief, I can wash it and return it to you!”

But the usually gentle Ye Si’s expression was somewhat cold at this moment, and his long eyelashes hid most of the deeper emotions.

“No need, go back to class,” Ye Si waved his hand.

Two refusals.

Enough to shatter all the courage that Yu Guang had pieced together.

Lowering his head, Yu Guang felt the broken ends of his hair prickling against his eyelashes, an uncomfortable feeling prompting him to bury his head deeper.

“Then I’ll go back to class.” His tone was very low this time, and he wasn’t pretending.

Ye Si didn’t say anything to detain him either, his calm eyes reflecting the figure of the teenager disappearing around the corner.

The back door of the classroom creaked open and slammed shut, and Ye Si finally rolled his Adam’s apple, a hint of dark red flashing in his dark pupils.

But there was still a lingering smell of blood in the air, making one’s throat dry.

Ye Si’s eyes contained a hint of restraint, and he finally decided not to linger anymore, turning and leaving.

---

Back at his seat, Yu Guang became particularly restless.

He exhaled a sigh and reluctantly focused his mind, picking up the brush again and staring at the character that Ye Si had pointed out as not written well for a long time. His gaze was intense, as if trying to burn a hole through the character.

Just as he was about to lift his wrist to start writing, the ink fell on the rice paper before his wrist moved.

Yu Guang froze, his gaze slightly shifting, only then did he realize that his hand was trembling badly—

A tremor that was hard to suppress.

He had to use his left hand to hold his right wrist, reducing the tremor slightly but not by much.

The ink dripping onto the paper became increasingly dense with the shaking, like a light rain falling in a two-dimensional world.

He desperately wanted the comforting touch of nicotine.

This desire came on fiercely, even more urgent than his desire for Ye Si’s love.

Yu Guang was like an irredeemable addict, reaching into the dark recesses of his desk, like a scavenger dog drawn to the scent of decay.

Sneaking the cigarettes and lighter into his pocket, Yu Guang stealthily left the classroom for the bathroom.

Trembling, he lit the cigarette, trembling as he smoked… The white smoke, carrying the joy-inducing substance, entered his lungs and mingled with his bloodstream.

Leaning against the white porcelain wall of the bathroom, he huddled, exhaling smoke.

He smoked three cigarettes in a row.

Cigarette butts fell to the ground, bouncing lightly before lying still; he had accumulated three of them with just a little carelessness.

When he was about to light the fourth cigarette, he suddenly felt disgusted.

The cigarette case snapped shut and was thrown into the sink filled with stagnant water.

Yu Guang watched as the tobacco soaked in the dirty water, becoming damp and soggy.

From exuding a fairy-like aura to radiating decadence, it all happened in the time span of three cigarettes.

Yu Guang was occasionally capricious—especially when it came to smoking.

But his gaze towards Ye Si was always obstinate, often tinged with defiance.

There were few things in Yu Guang’s life that weren’t constrained by others, tampering with his college entrance examination results in secret was one, secretly liking Ye Si was another.

He had always been resolute, hadn’t he?

Persisting without giving up, shameless in his pursuits, enduring head-splitting pain…

And then, he would accept his fate.

^[1]Author’s note:

Ye Si, you know how to manipulate people’s hearts.