When they finished eating and were leaving, Yan Hang walked them to the elevator.

Guests who didn't know better probably thought they were some VIPs, with two waiters escorting them out together, until Yan Hang stopped them from following further.

"Brother Hang, no need to see us off," Hu Biao said. "We're not some bigshots."

"It's no problem," Yan Hang pressed the elevator button. "Students are pretty big deals."

"Come visit our school sometime," Zhou Chunyang said. "There's an especially good barbecue place near us. We can go skewer some meat together then."

"Sure." Yan Hang smiled.

Little Li's barbecue was quite good actually, there was no real need to go all the way to the place by their school.

Chu Yi watched the floor numbers change on the elevator display.

"I'll call you when I get off work." Yan Hang leaned close and said softly in his ear as the elevator arrived.

"Mm." Chu Yi nodded.

After entering the elevator, he looked at Yan Hang standing outside.

He had never seen Yan Hang wear black before. Most of Yan Hang's clothes were light colors. He didn't expect black to look so good on him.

He really admired Yan Hang for being able to wear clothes with this effect, not a trace of how he looked in sportswear could be found. From physique to bearing, it was all perfect.

After the elevator doors closed, he leaned against the car wall.

He couldn't remember which New Year's it was, but his aunt wanted to buy him a suit. She took him to the store to try it on. After putting it on, he was quite excited, feeling like he was about to become the most handsome in the whole city.

But the result was, standing in front of the mirror, he got so scared he turned and ran back to the fitting room, afraid of even one more person seeing him in what felt like a stolen suit.

After that, he felt it was safer to wear his school uniform. Everyone had a school uniform. No matter how ugly you wore it, no one would spare you an extra glance.

Safe.

He let out a soft sigh. When would he be able to wear any clothes as handsomely as Yan Hang?

"Chu Yi?" Someone beside him called out. Chu Yi snapped out of it and realized he had followed the others to the hotel entrance and was waiting for a taxi to pull up.

"Hm?" He responded.

"Add me." Hu Biao waved his phone.

"Oh." Only then did he notice everyone was adding each other. He quickly took out his own phone and they all added one another.

"Your friend said he doesn't have WeChat," Zhou Chunyang said. "Is that for real? There are still people these days without WeChat?"

"Who?" Chu Yi felt his ears perk up.

A taxi stopped in front of them. Zhou Chunyang pulled open the front passenger door. "Yan Hang."

This time he felt like his hair was standing on end too. Chu Yi couldn't help reaching up and scratching his head a couple times. "He doesn't, doesn't use it."

"Oh." Zhou Chunyang didn't say anything else.

After everyone got in the car, Chu Yi looked out the window, feeling like maybe he should reflect on himself.

To him, Yan Hang was very important, extremely important. Growing up, his only friend, the only one who would chat with him easily, invite him over for dinner, make things to give him, do magic tricks for him...

Maybe other people had many friends like this.

But he only had Yan Hang.

He felt Yan Hang was great, handsome, smart, awesome...

When he suddenly discovered others also felt this way, would also take the initiative to get close to Yan Hang like him, he would get extremely nervous.

A feeling like some treasure was about to be snatched away.

Actually, everyone has many friends - some especially close, some average. He and Yan Hang should be the especially close kind. But for some reason, faced with Zhou Chunyang and Yan Hang's relationship that didn't even count as friends, just exchanging a few words, he would still get extremely nervous.

...He felt he and Yan Hang were especially close, but what about Yan Hang?

The whole way, the others were all chatting, only he was silent. Usually he just didn't like talking to people. Now he wanted to talk even less.

Feeling down.

When they returned to the dorm, Su Bin was still lying on the bed playing on his phone. The only change was the addition of a portable charger.

Chu Yi really admired him. Forget playing on the phone, he himself couldn't persist sleeping this long, from dawn to dusk to dawn again.

"Those two arrived?" Zhang Qiang saw luggage on the last two empty beds and turned to look at Su Bin.

"Mm." Su Bin grunted.

"Where'd they go?" Zhang Qiang asked again.

"How would I know." Su Bin said.

"I'm gonna f*cking clean you up you sooner or later." Zhang Qiang said.

Su Bin didn't make a sound, continuing his deep, soulful gaze at his own phone.

There was nothing going on in the afternoon. According to Chu Yi's own plan, he wanted to continue looking for part-time work. Handing out flyers wasn't bad, the hours were flexible and it wasn't too tiring. Before finding a long-term part-time job, Chu Yi felt this was a good temporary gig.

But the plan fell through.

When he napped for a bit and was getting ready to head out, the last two classmates to arrive at the dorm returned.

After some chatting, Chu Yi learned the two of them were locals like Zhou Chunyang, and even from the same middle school. The tall one was called Gao Xiaoyang, the short one was called Shor-...Wu Xu.

Chu Yi felt they were great. They at least looked like two normal students, not delinquents, and not weird. Plus, Wu Xu was shorter than him.

Of the eight people in the dorm, only Wu Xu was shorter than him. This really moved him. He almost ended up the shortest of them all.

The plan to go out and find work fell through because they returned. The three locals were very enthusiastic, immediately wanting to take them around the surrounding area.

Actually there wasn't much to see around the school. Chu Yi had already been all over, and hadn't even found a place to work.

But he still went out with the group. Even for school organized activities he would be by himself. This kind of student-initiated outing, even if it was this kind of aimless stroll, he had never experienced before.

-I just went on a big walk around with my classmates, just got back to the dorm

Yan Hang looked down at the message Chu Yi sent, smiling. The bullied mutt was also starting to hang out with classmates.

Although his concept of "classmates" had stopped many years ago, and he hadn't retained much impression because he really disliked school, he could still sense Chu Yi's happiness from this one line.

The classmates in the first year of school were alright. Although they were all silly boys except for that Zhou Chunyang, it could be seen that they didn't have any rejection towards Chu Yi's stuttering.

After all, no one here knew about Chu Yi's past, no one had witnessed his family, and there was no environment where people would bully others out of habit like a herd mentality.

But this definitely wasn't everything. From what Chu Yi's classmates said, he must have done something to make everyone quickly accept him.

Tsk.

The little mutt was really impressive now, almost turning into a bulldog.

"Brother Hang," a waitress walked over, "are you free?"

"What's up?" Yan Hang looked at her. The old waitresses called him by name, while the new ones called him brother.

"I want to swap shifts with Xiaopeng tomorrow," the girl was a bit nervous, "he agreed too. I wanted to ask if it's okay with you?"

"The reason for swapping?" Yan Hang asked.

"I have some family matters," the girl said, "need to go take care of it tomorrow."

Yan Hang took the shift schedule and glanced at it. "Okay, you two can swap."

"Thanks Brother Hang." The girl ran off.

Yan Hang took a look at the restaurant. There were no customers left. Once the cleaning was supervised and finished, he could get off work.

He sent Chu Yi a message.

- I'll come find you in a bit, should be able to leave in about half an hour

- Don't come over, it's too far, I'll meet you at Little Li's BBQ place

- You're hungry? Want to eat BBQ?

- Anything is fine, I'm heading out now

- Alright then

For some reason, seeing Chu Yi so anxious, he also inexplicably felt a bit hurried. He directly grabbed a rag and went over to start helping clean up together.

Fortunately, he was still only an acting supervisor now, and many tasks hadn't been fully handed over yet. Although there used to be a night shift manager before, Chen Jinling would still get off work at 9 or 10 every day.

After finishing the cleaning, he went to the locker room to change clothes. As soon as he came out, he saw Zhang Chen running over.

Please don't let there be anything, please don't let there be anything...

Yan Hang looked at him, silently praying in his heart.

"Thought you left," Zhang Chen handed over a few printed sheets, "the manager just brought over the new menu, you'll need to translate it, right?"

"I'm translating it?" Yan Hang asked. He had never translated a menu before.

"Sister Chen used to do it before." Zhang Chen said.

"Mm," Yan Hang took it and glanced over it. The content wasn't much, but seeing a bunch of words made him feel a bit dazed. "I'll give it to him tomorrow."

"You're going out again?" Hu Biao was sitting on the table making a phone call. Seeing Chu Yi taking his phone and walking out, he asked in some surprise, "You really are full of energy."

"Mm." Chu Yi responded.

He was indeed quite energetic. He was going to find Yan Hang. Even if he had to run there now, he'd have no problem.

"Hey wait," Hu Biao called out to him again as he was about to leave, then covered the phone receiver and lowered his voice to ask, "Chu Yi, do you have any nickname?"

"What?" Chu Yi was stunned for a moment.

"Like a nickname, some title or something?" Hu Biao was still keeping his voice down.

Chu Yi looked at him, very puzzled.

Nickname?

His nickname was probably Stutterer?

And title?

What the heck was a title?

"Huh?" Hu Biao looked at him very persistently and urgently, "For example, my nickname is Big Tiger!"

Ah!

Chu Yi felt he kind of understood. By that logic, his nickname should be Big One.

...It sounded very strange, not as nice as an animal.

Ah!

He suddenly understood very clearly and glanced at Hu Biao. "Mutt."

"Wha... M-Mutt?" Hu Biao was dumbfounded.

"Dog," Chu Yi said, "Mutt."

He really liked this name. Every time Yan Hang called him that, he felt very close to him.

Hu Biao stared at him for a good while. Finally releasing his hand covering the receiver, he said into the phone, "Mutt."

Chu Yi didn't know what Hu Biao was doing. He also didn't have time to ask. He was in a hurry to go wait for Yan Hang at Little Li's BBQ place, so he turned and left the dorm.

The mutt has left the building!

He ran down the stairs in a small jog.

Yan Hang originally thought he would arrive at Little Li's BBQ first, but as soon as he entered the door, the old man pointed to a table by the window. "That table."

Chu Yi waved at him very happily.

"You're so fast?" Yan Hang walked over and sat down, looking at Chu Yi, "By bus?"

"Taxi." Chu Yi rubbed his nose.

"Rich guy, actually took a taxi?" Yan Hang laughed.

"The bus was too, crowded," Chu Yi sighed, "The students from our school all come out at this, time, I couldn't, squeeze on."

"Taking a taxi here must be quite expensive, right?" Yan Hang said.

"No, first took a mini, bus," Chu Yi said, "then a taxi."

Yan Hang smiled without saying anything.

"What's, this?" Chu Yi pointed to the menu placed on the table.

"Our new menu, I brought it back to translate," Yan Hang said, "You want to take a look?"

"Sure." Chu Yi took the menu over with a curious expression and opened it.

With just one glance, he froze.

"I thought it was in Chinese." He looked at the full page of English.

"English to Chinese translation." Yan Hang said.

"Why are the dish names so, long?" Chu Yi didn't quite understand, pointing at the first line, "What's this?"

"Strawberry parfait*," Yan Hang glanced at it, "Strawberry parfait."

*T/N: Said in English

"Oh." Chu Yi felt he was indeed quite the mutt. Not only could he not understand English, he could only understand half the Chinese too.

But this was the first time he heard Yan Hang speak English. It felt completely different from how he usually spoke.

Chu Yi looked at him for a good while, then lowered his head again and pointed to another string of English. "What about this one?"

"Black Forest gateau*, Black Forest cake." Yan Hang smiled.

*T/N: Said in English

"Isn't cake k, k... ca-ke?" Chu Yi asked.

"Gateau is probably the more standard term," Yan Hang curled his lips, "I don't know it either, I'm guessing."

"Then..." Chu Yi's finger poked the paper and slid down. Actually, he had no interest in these things, he just wanted to hear Yan Hang talk.

It sounded very nice, and very cool.

"terrine of foie gras, fillet of sea bass*," Yan Hang read along where he was pointing, "French foie gras and boneless sea bass, these are quite simple, even us waiters know after working for a while."

*T/N: Said in English

"Mm." Chu Yi rested his chin in his hand, actually he didn't really catch what Yan Hang was saying, just felt it sounded nice.

"What's up?" Yan Hang asked.

"Nothing," Chu Yi smiled slightly, "Your English is really good, sounds great."

"Is that so," Yan Hang also smiled, "I think your stutter sounds very nice too."

"Don't...bul...ly...me..." Chu Yi said.

"I'm not bullying you," Yan Hang said, "Now that you're so impressive, who would dare bully you, tell me, did you do something at school, got your whole dorm under your wing?"

"No," Chu Yi suddenly felt a bit embarrassed, "I just broke up, a fight."

"Broke up a fight?" Yan Hang was stunned for a moment.

"Some guys from another dorm came over, to beat someone up," Chu Yi said, "I pulled them, apart."

"How many people?" Yan Hang asked.

"Six." Chu Yi said.

"...You're quite something?" Yan Hang looked at him, "A group fight, you were 1v6?"

Chu Yi didn't say anything, always felt like bragging about this stuff in front of Yan Hang, he had seen how effortless Yan Hang was in fights, just a lift of his arm.

"Let's have a match sometime," Yan Hang said with a smile, "Find a place when we're free and have a go at each other."

"Have a go at what?" Chu Yi was confused.

"Fighting." Yan Hang said.

"No." Chu Yi was startled, he knew he could handle fighting a few people now, but fighting Yan Hang, he had never even considered it, Yan Hang was not only fierce in fights, his moves were also very handsome, the scene of Yan Hang casually lifting a leg and knocking him to the ground when he first started practicing was still vivid, when he hit the ground he only had two words in his mind, so cool ah.

Oh, three words.

"Why?" Yan Hang asked.

"Afraid I'll make you cry." Chu Yi said.

"Oh my," Yan Hang laughed, "Hurry up and make me cry then, I haven't cried in years."

"When I'm free." Chu Yi nodded.

"How can you be so shameless?" Yan Hang laughed and passed him a skewer of lamb.

"With you, what's the point of, of having shame." Chu Yi said.

Yan Hang suddenly went silent.

Chu Yi took a bite of the lamb, felt something was a bit off, when he raised his eyes to look, he found Yan Hang looking at him, gaze a bit unfocused.

"What's wrong?" Chu Yi felt a rush of nervousness, afraid he had said the wrong thing.

"Nothing," Yan Hang took a sip of beer, after a while he softly said again, "Suddenly thought of my dad."

Chu Yi didn't know what would suddenly make Yan Hang think of Uncle Yan, but now with Yan Hang's words, it indeed made his heart tremble.

Not only thought of Uncle Yan, thought of his own dad, thought of Old Ding who had died, thought of that thing he had slowly started to not think about as much.

Also thought of the knife that had been hanging between him and Yan Hang for over a year with no sign of coming down anytime soon.

"Military training starts tomorrow?" Yan Hang quickly changed the topic.

"Yeah," Chu Yi nodded, "Got the uniform."

"Haven't taken a photo to show me yet." Yan Hang said.

"Tomorrow," Chu Yi thought for a bit, suddenly sat up straight and took out his phone, pointing it at Yan Hang, "Almost for, forgot."

"Should I smile?" Yan Hang looked at the camera.

"Both." Chu Yi said.

Yan Hang smiled slightly, he pressed the shutter once, handsome.

Yan Hang took a bite of fish, he pressed the shutter once, handsome!

Yan Hang took a sip of beer, he pressed the shutter once, super handsome!

"There's no end to this?" Yan Hang said.

"One more." Chu Yi said.

Yan Hang smiled and winked his left eye at him.

Chu Yi's hand even shook a bit when he pressed the shutter.

Luckily, it wasn't blurry.

When he lowered his head to look at the photos, Yan Hang took out his phone and snapped a couple shots of him, then looked at his phone: "Our mutt's eyelashes are so long."

Those two words "our mutt" made Chu Yi suddenly feel a bit dazed.

He didn't snap out of it the whole time until they finished the barbecue, following Yan Hang along the road towards the bus stop, he was a bit out of it the whole time.

"Take these back for your dorm mates," Yan Hang handed him a bag he was holding, "Or you should take a taxi, it won't taste good if it gets cold."

"Oh." Chu Yi took the bag, he hadn't even noticed when Yan Hang had packed up a bunch of barbecue.

Yan Hang mentioning his dorm mates suddenly made him think of Zhou Chunyang.

He frowned, looking at Yan Hang's side profile, held it in for about a minute, but in the end couldn't hold back: "He asked for your We, WeChat?"

"Who?" Yan Hang turned his head.

"Zhou Chunyang." Chu Yi said.

"That handsome guy?" Yan Hang smiled, "Yeah, but I told him I don't use WeChat, on my WeChat there's only you as a friend, don't want to add anyone else either."

Hearing Yan Hang's answer, Chu Yi felt a bit excited.

Only you as a friend! Don't want to add anyone else!

But before he could finish being excited, he suddenly reacted: "Handsome, guy?"

"Hm?" Yan Hang looked at him, "Who?"

"Zhou Chunyang is a hand, handsome guy?" Chu Yi stared at him.

"Ah," Yan Hang paused, leaned against the bus stop ad board and laughed, while laughing lightly patted his face, "Not handsome, you're the most handsome, you're the handsome guy."

Chu Yi didn't say anything.

Felt a bit embarrassed, felt like ever since seeing Yan Hang this time he had been a bit out of sorts, didn't know what was going on.

"There's an empty taxi," Yan Hang raised his arm, a taxi pulled over, he tugged Chu Yi, "Let's go, handsome guy, pretty boy, dashing mutt, rest early tonight, remember to show me when you change into your military training uniform tomorrow."

"Good night." Chu Yi originally wanted to say something more, but felt with how he was it was more appropriate to shut up, so he didn't say anything else and directly got in the car.

"Good night." Yan Hang said, hanging onto the car window.

No matter the time, no matter if you're full or not, barbecue has the same appeal.

A bag of barbecue brought back to the dorm was divided up in less than five minutes.

"Good buddy," Li Ziqiang said, "going out to have fun and didn't forget about the dorm bros."

"Let's go out for skewers tomorrow," Zhang Qiang said, "didn't we see a bunch of barbecue shops today?"

"Sure," Gao Xiaoyang immediately nodded, "staying in the dorm all night is too uncomfortable."

"Play cards." Hu Biao slapped the table.

Everyone nodded in agreement.

"I don't know how," Chu Yi said, "I'm going to sleep."

"There are actually people on Earth who don't know how to play cards?" Wu Xu was a bit surprised.

"I just arrived, on Earth yesterday," Chu Yi said while climbing up to the top bunk, "haven't adapted, yet."

"Alright then," Wu Xu said, "watch us play, it's super simple, you'll adapt after a few rounds."

"Okay." Chu Yi nodded with a smile while lying on the bed.

He really enjoyed this feeling of joking around and chatting casually with classmates.

Except he felt a bit annoyed when he saw Zhou Chunyang.

Actually, Zhou Chunyang was a pretty good guy, generous and not pretentious.

Chu Yi sighed.

Military training lasted a total of ten days, much longer now.

For people who had been lazy all summer, getting up at 6:30 AM was simply a nightmare.

Chu Yi was the only one in the dorm who got up on time. When he came out after washing up, Zhou Chunyang got out of bed yawning.

"You're really something," he looked at Chu Yi, "I thought I was the earliest."

"Should we wake them up?" Chu Yi asked. Assembly was at 7, if they didn't get up soon they'd all be late.

"Wake up," Zhou Chunyang took a lunch box from the shelf and banged it on the table, shouting, "Fight if you want to fight!"

Chu Yi was so startled he nearly jumped.

"What the fuck!" Li Ziqiang sprang up from the bed, "Fight who!"

"Fight!" Zhang Qiang also sprang up.

"We're going to be late," Zhou Chunyang said, "hurry up, in a bit there won't even be time for breakfast."

"Get up, assemble!" The teacher knocked on the dorm door, "Is everyone up!"

"We're up!" Hu Biao shouted.

After a flurry of washing up, getting dressed and mocking each other in the dorm, Chu Yi followed everyone out the door.

It felt very fresh and exciting, his brand new life was beginning just like this.

It seemed a bit unbelievable to think about it.

There were a lot of people in the cafeteria. After standing dumbfounded at the entrance for a while, they decided to give up. They each bought a couple buns from the shop and munched on them.

Only when they assembled did Chu Yi realize the school was indeed very big, with quite a lot of new students.

Just the assembly took a good long while.

During the assembly he saw the guys who had come to their dorm to fight yesterday, glaring at him with disgruntled expressions.

The formation was arranged in order of height, Chu Yi stood in the first row.

It felt a bit uncomfortable, as if there were eyes all over his back.

"Alright, Auto Repair Class 1, remember this order," the homeroom teacher said, "everyone in our class only arrived last night, and we haven't done self-introductions yet, so I'll do a roll call now."

The teacher flipped through the notebook in his hand and started calling out names.

For some reason Chu Yi felt a bit nervous, his palms starting to sweat.

"Chu Yi." The teacher called his name.

"Here." He responded.

"Mutt?" Someone in the formation said very quietly.

Chu Yi's heart jumped.

"Is it Mutt?"

"Mutt."

Chu Yi suddenly reacted, understanding why Hu Biao had asked him about nicknames yesterday. He turned his head and glared at Hu Biao standing diagonally behind him.

Hu Biao raised an eyebrow at him with a smug smile, his voice low and proud: "You're famous, don't thank me."

Famous my ass! Thank you my ass!

That guy in Auto Repair Class 1, known as Mutt!

Who the hell uses a nickname like Dirt Dog when making a name for themselves!