He Chao habitually scanned through the exam paper from beginning to end, getting a rough idea of the difficulty level before putting pen to paper and jotting down some rough notes on the blank spaces of the paper.

His mind was in a jumble, and the words he wrote down were uncertain and unsteady.

He sat on the top step of the staircase, while Xie Yu sat at the corner of the stairs, facing each other from above and below.

As He Chao scribbled down his notes, he recalled what he had said to Xie Yu in the game, where he had been known as the "Trivia King".

It seemed like he hadn't said anything good.

He Chao's brain was slow to react. His pen tip touched the thin paper and wrote down the square root of two, but then he didn't move again. The ink gradually spread, and after a while, he remembered the most punchable thing he could say and blurted it out: "...I'll let you have three questions?"

Xie Yu still had his cap on, covering his head and looking down. From He Chao's angle, he could only see his nose and chin, with his lips pursed and his emotions seeming a bit off.

Could they not be off?

Xie Yu held the pen in his hand and felt like the possibility of meeting this idiot in his dreams was even greater. Maybe it really was a dream.

Xie Yu took a deep breath in front of the problem and said slowly, "Okay, you let me have it. I'll let you have ten."

He Chao: "..."

Two students who slept and played games all day in class, single-handedly bringing down the average grades of Class 3 to the point where every teacher wanted to jump off a cliff. They were the bottom of their grade, not even knowing which page to turn to during class, but now they sat in the hallway spouting nonsense.

Usually, the most common dialogue heard at school was: What question is the teacher talking about?

- Don't know.

- Do you know how to do this question?

- No.

- I feel better knowing you don't know. Then did you finish copying the homework?

After spouting off, they both felt a bit dazed.

Xie Yu had casually chosen a set from the "College Entrance Exam Questions" that He Chao brought over. He didn't bother, as the difficulty level was about the same for all of them. He casually tore off a sheet and glanced at his phone, then threw it on the ground.

Half an hour later, it was almost 11 o'clock and time to hand in the test papers.

Before seeing what kind of nonsense He Chao could come up with, Xie Yu remained skeptical, even though a faintly incredible thought kept creeping into his mind.

He Chao wrote two questions with fluctuating emotions.

He held the pen with protruding finger joints and stared at the ugly handwriting on the test paper before hesitating and switching the pen from his right hand to his left.

When Xie Yu finished writing, it wasn't even 11 o'clock yet. He looked up and saw the idiot on the steps had also stopped writing and was looking at him with the test paper on his knee.

The two of them quietly stared at each other for a while.

Xie Yu walked up the steps with his test paper to get He Chao's from his knee. But when he reached for it, He Chao held onto the test paper with one hand and grabbed his wrist with the other, whispering, "Um, can you let me off the hook?"

"You were quite arrogant, weren't you?" Xie Yu said as he slowly pulled the exam paper out of his hands. When he pulled halfway, he couldn't pull it any further and said, "Let go."

Xie Yu had thought it was impossible, but when he saw the exam paper, he...was speechless.

Apart from the ugly handwriting in the first few lines, the rest of the characters on the paper were bold and powerful, with a wild and beautiful style that was not quite conventional. It didn't even look like it was written by the same person as the first few lines.

Xie Yu didn't know what to say. He flipped the exam paper over and looked at it a few more times, making sure he wasn't seeing things.

"I'm left-handed," He Chao explained, feeling a bit nervous. "But my right hand writing is not bad either. It's just a different style. My right hand is more bold and free-spirited..."

He had always been more comfortable using his left hand since he was young. However, his family consciously made him practice using his right hand, hoping that over time, the "left" would not be too obvious.

"Let me correct you. It's dog shit."

Xie Yu thought that for this person, who was already known as the "Trivia King", suddenly having better handwriting was not surprising, and his professionalism was first-rate. But he still couldn't help feeling annoyed, so he added, "You may have some misunderstandings about being bold and unrestrained."

Half an hour for answering the questions was a bit tight, and He Chao answered the questions with a lot of jumping steps, taking three steps at once. He used only half of the answer area, leaving large blank spaces. He calculated the answer in the draft area, then directly circled it as the final step.

Xie Yuzai carefully started from the first question and read through to the end. He found that, apart from He Chao accidentally omitting a decimal point in the final answer, there were basically no mistakes.

He Chao was also looking at his paper.

With a quick glance, he noticed that his boyfriend had left the first ten questions blank.

He did exactly what he said, really quite arrogant.

Continuing down the page, each question was clear and concise.

He Chao had previously competed with "God X" on problem sets, and his logical thinking couldn't be faked. Whether it was the choice of approach or the habit of underlining and extracting important conditions while solving problems, it was exactly the same as the test paper in front of him.

After checking the answers, even if he didn't want to believe it, the fact was right in front of him.

At this moment, Xie Yu felt something uncontrollable rushing out of his mind. He couldn't quite describe the feeling, but amidst the shock, the most immediate sensation was that the other person looked like an idiot, and he himself looked even more like an idiot.

Hearing this, He Chao opened his mouth to speak, but before he could say anything, Xie Yu rolled up his sleeves and said, "I don't know what to say right now. Let's just fight for ten minutes."

He Chao protested, "That's not a good idea. Violence won't solve anything. We should sit down and talk calmly..."

Before he could finish his sentence, Xie Yu had already made his move.

He Chao tried to stand up, but stumbled back as another blow came at him like a gust of wind, merciless and unrelenting.

The space in the hallway was already small, and two people couldn't really move around. Although they weren't fighting for real, it wasn't just for fun either. Especially for Xie Yu, who had always been the street boss of Blackwater Street, solving any problem by pressing people to the ground and never hesitating to use his fists.

As he was getting beaten up, He Chao couldn't help but think to himself, "My boyfriend is so cute, he doesn't even hesitate to fight me."

Xie Yu started off strong, but gradually weakened. He Chao took the opportunity to embrace him, holding onto the disobedient little friend and kissing him without hesitation.

Although he was a tough guy, Xie Yu's lips were surprisingly soft.

With his back against the wall and his forehead covered by a loose hood, Xie Yu's vision was somewhat obstructed. The strongest sensation he felt was the hand gripping his waist, and the person who was invading his lips with aggressive and forceful movements.

The narrow hallway was filled with the sound of footsteps as several people walked up the winding staircase from below.

"I don't know what to say either," said He Chao, not fully releasing his grip on him. His lips hovered tantalizingly close to Xie Yu's, occasionally brushing against them as he spoke. He slowly pulled down Xie Yu's cap with his other hand and suggested, "Why don't we just kiss for twenty minutes."

"Get lost," Xie Yu retorted.

After the awkward encounter at the Century City entrance and seeing each other's near-perfect test scores, the tension between them gradually dissipated.

They sat side by side on the stairs, each trying to find the right words to say.

Xie Yu rubbed his sore lips and asked, "Do you have a cigarette?"

"You can't smoke, little friend," He Chao pulled out a lollipop from his pocket, wrapped in pink packaging and looking quite fancy. He pinched the stick and asked, "...Make do with this?"

Xie Yu took it and unwrapped the candy.

"What's going on with you?" Xie Yu remembered the study materials he had spent a lot of effort organizing not long ago and continued, "Do you fucking know how much I went through to organize that...?"

He Chao interrupted, "Second last, what's going on with you?"

When Xie Yu mentioned the two emails with study materials, he stopped halfway through his sentence. Then he remembered the two "Complete Solutions to High School Textbooks" that had inexplicably appeared on his desk, and he vaguely felt that something was wrong, catching a glimpse of a clue.

"You bought the books?"

He Chao pondered over the word "organize" and also recalled, "You sent the emails?"

"..."

Xie Yu remained silent, crumpling the candy wrapper into a ball in his palm.

Fuck, what the hell is this.

After circling around, he realized he was just worrying for no reason.

He watched as He Chao leaned against the steps, his hand resting on the edge. Suddenly, he felt like laughing. "I thought...actually Wan Da's analysis was pretty accurate."

"Accurate my ass, you actually believed it," Xie Yu muttered, still chewing on the candy in his mouth.

The footsteps from the lower floors gradually stopped, and the hallway felt empty.

He Chao suppressed his laughter and sat on the steps, looking down from above. After a moment of silence, he said, "Do you remember the last time we ate near the Tech school and ran into that...Trash Brother?"

Xie Yu bit down on the candy, mumbling a vague "yeah" in response.

He Chao thought that the day when he could proactively talk about that thing would never come, and he could only keep it in his heart.

He kept it there until it was crushed.

It was blocked, unable to come up or go down.

In fact, it had been several years. Many details had gradually become unclear, but whenever he thought he could forget about it, he would wake up in a cold sweat one night.

After he finished telling the whole story, he still didn't dare to look at Xie Yu's face.

His mind was filled with thoughts like, would the little friend think he was really terrible, would they be disappointed in him, would they...

As He Chao thought and thought, he didn't realize that his palm had been pressing against the edge of the step, leaving a mark.

Xie Yu didn't say anything like "It's okay, it's not your fault" or "You really did something wrong", neither blaming nor comforting him.

As He Chao's anxiety grew, Xie Yu held the slender plastic stick and removed the candy from his mouth, offering it to He Chao.

"Brother, want some?"