Mutual Lullaby

Looking at the screenshot Song Yu had sent, Yue Zhishi frowned.

[Yue Zhishi: You made me look so ugly in the screenshot, it's all blurry]

[Brother: Don't change the subject.]

Yue Zhishi thought for a moment and felt this was a perfect opportunity to call Song Yu. He prepared to make a voice call, but he accidentally selected the wrong option and started a video call instead.

In a fluster, Yue Zhishi wanted to quickly hang up and redial before Song Yu could react, but unexpectedly, Song Yu answered.

On the camera, his side was completely dark. It seemed the lights were already out. The only light source was the glow from his phone screen, just enough to illuminate Song Yu's face.

Strangely, in this kind of light, Song Yu looked exceptionally three-dimensional and handsome. The camera was very close, and his features were magnified, making it seem as if he were right beside him.

Yue Zhishi zoned out for a moment. His phone vibrated, and he backed out of the video call to find a message from Song Yu.

[Brother: Why a video call?]

[Brother: The dorm lights are out, I can't talk.]

Yue Zhishi returned to the video interface, gave Song Yu an OK sign, and then told him, "I originally wanted to make a voice call, I just clicked the wrong thing by accident."

The phone vibrated again.

[Brother: I'll hang up then.]

Yue Zhishi immediately shook his head at him, "No, no, no, I want to video chat with you, just for a little while."

[Brother: Don't you have anything to explain?]

Seeing this, Yue Zhishi finally remembered his original reason for calling. "Oh, right, about the game. I don't play it anymore. I haven't played it even once since I got back. The person in the screenshot is indeed that classmate who used to play games with me, I've told you about him. But how did you know?"

In the video, Yue Zhishi could see Song Yu's lips pressed into a tight line. He didn't look very happy. He softened his voice and called out "Brother," only then did his phone vibrate.

[Brother: I guessed.]

"You're amazing, you guessed it right away. Actually, I've only played with him two or three times. He plays more often with the other boys in our class."

[Brother: Are you two close?]

Seeing this question, Yue Zhishi picked up the yogurt on his desk, took a sip, and said in a casual tone, "It's alright, I get along well with everyone in my class."

Song Yu typed a few words, but then deleted the person he was referring to and replaced him with someone else.

[Brother: Compared to Jiang Yufan?]

Yue Zhishi's answer was almost without hesitation. "That's not comparable. We only met in the second year when the classes were reorganized. Of course, Jiang Yufan and I are the closest."

Seeing this reply, Song Yu felt the breath he had been holding release.

He didn't know whether his intuition was accurate or not, but his mood upon seeing that video had certainly not been good.

The opportunity to video chat was rare, so Yue Zhishi seized it to tell his brother a bunch of recent happenings—how much more weight Cotton Candy had gained, how many cans of cat food Orange ate a day. In the camera, Song Yu's expression didn't change much, but he switched sides, seeming to find a more comfortable and relaxed sleeping position.

Staring at the screen, Yue Zhishi also unconsciously propped himself on the desk, turning to the side and resting his head on his elbow. Looking so closely, he could see Song Yu's eyelashes clearly; his profile was right before his eyes.

Gazing quietly, Yue Zhishi felt as if he had returned to that night when he and Song Yu were trapped by the heavy rain.

"Brother, why are you sleeping so early? Are you very tired?"

After listening to Yue Zhishi talk for a while, Song Yu was also a little dazed and forgot that he couldn't speak, humming in agreement.

"Then I won't talk for too long, so I don't disturb your sleep. I have to study too." Afraid that Song Yu still thought he was playing games, Yue Zhishi deliberately added, "I'll uninstall that game in a bit. I'll download it again after the exams."

Song Yu didn't speak, but the curve of his lips softened slightly. Yue Zhishi smiled at him, "Then you should get to sleep. Good night."

"Good night."

Song Yu subconsciously whispered the words, and the video call ended on the other side. He suddenly heard sly laughter from within the dorm. Puzzled, he turned around to see three flashlights aimed at him, just like an interrogation.

"Who were you saying good night to, Mr. Handsome? So considerate. Your cool and aloof persona is completely shattered."

"You're overthinking it. He was definitely saying good night to me."

"Damn, is another person in our dorm about to stop being single?"

"You guys are so boring." Song Yu put on his earplugs and closed his eyes to sleep.

This time, he fell asleep very quickly.

The college entrance exam was imminent. In the top right corner of the classroom blackboard, a large countdown number was written. It changed every day, getting smaller and smaller.

Everyone arrived earlier and earlier and left later and later, pouring all their energy and time into the final review sprint.

The air felt compressed, so heavy it could barely flow, weighing down on everyone's shoulders along with the endless knowledge points that were impossible to fully memorize.

Yue Zhishi was more easygoing; his mentality was relatively calm compared to others. His deskmate, Zhang Yueyue, had already cried twice. The first time, she hid from Yue Zhishi, crying by herself in the girls' restroom and coming back with red eyes. Yue Zhishi knew she was stressed, so he gave her some rainbow candy he had just bought. The second time, she just lay on her desk and cried.

"Seriously, Zhang Yueyue? You're crying before the exam has even started?"

Hearing someone tease her for it, Yue Zhishi said solemnly, "Crying is an effective way to relieve stress. You have to cry before the exam. If you wait until after, it'll be too late."

Just like that, the last ten-odd chaotic days before the college entrance exam flew by. In the blink of an eye, it was the final night before the exam. To help them relax, the head teacher stood at the podium and told them embarrassing stories from his own college entrance exam. As Yue Zhishi listened, he felt a little dazed.

He clearly hated waking up early and going to bed late every day, hated memorizing largely similar knowledge points day after day, and also hated grinding through the same past exam papers over and over. He longed for these dull, tedious, and tense days to end sooner.

But when this day finally arrived, Yue Zhishi felt a sense of reluctance.

With half a minute left before the end of the evening self-study session, a boy in the class suddenly shouted, "Go, Class 10, Year 3!"

Everyone was stunned for a moment, but only for two or three seconds. Someone laughed, and then someone else joined in, shouting "Go!" More and more people joined in, the sound piercing through the walls and spreading to the next class.

Somehow, the entire third year began to shout, the sound echoing through the building as if they were all cheering each other on.

After cycling home, Yue Zhishi followed Lin Rong's advice and drank a glass of warm milk. He washed up, went to bed early, checked all the things he needed to bring to the exam hall tomorrow, and then prepared to rest.

It was only ten-thirty at night when he lay in bed.

He couldn't sleep at all.

Tossing and turning for a long time, Yue Zhishi found his heart beating fast. His mind kept thinking about tomorrow, and the more he thought, the more awake he felt.

He was too nervous.

He took out his phone. The lock screen lit up, the background a photo of the main gate he had taken on his last visit to W University. In the darkness, he stared at it for a long time, only snapping out of it when a message from Song Yu appeared.

[Brother: Remember to check if every pen works. Relax.]

How could it be that easy? Yue Zhishi felt miserable. Back when Song Yu took the college entrance exam, he was the one who got sick from nervousness. Now it was his turn to take the exam, and he was still this nervous. One exam, nervous twice. What a raw deal.

He felt that he wouldn't be able to sleep at all if this continued. After hesitating for a long time, he couldn't resist calling Song Yu. The dial tone rang only once before the call connected.

"What's wrong?" Song Yu's voice sounded particularly deep and mellow over the radio waves, giving Yue Zhishi a tangible comfort in the dark night, like a gray cloud that looked cold but was soft to the touch.

Yue Zhishi snuggled under his covers and turned over. "I have a bit of insomnia."

"Can't sleep?"

He heard Song Yu's voice, deliberately lowered.

"Mhm. I tried, but I think I'm too nervous. The more I try to sleep, the more awake I feel. Can you talk to me for a bit to distract me?"

Song Yu was quiet for two seconds on the other end. "Are you sure that listening to me talk won't make you even more unable to sleep?"

Yue Zhishi thought about it and felt he had a point, but there was an exception. "When you explain math problems to me, I get sleepy very easily."

Song Yu on the other end of the line seemed to let out a soft chuckle, which Yue Zhishi keenly caught, so Yue Zhishi smiled too.

"Where am I supposed to find a problem to explain to you right now?" Song Yu's tone held a hint of helplessness.

"True." Yue Zhishi closed his eyes, imagining Song Yu was right beside him. "Then can you pretend to be a math teacher and read something that would make me sleepy?"

Some faint rustling came through the earpiece, like the sound of someone looking for something. Soon, Yue Zhishi heard Song Yu get up and seemingly move to a different location. The background noise changed, sounding much more spacious.

A few seconds later, he heard Song Yu ask in a low voice, "Oxford's A Very Short Introduction: Mathematics, how about it?"

"The name alone sounds very sleep-inducing." Yue Zhishi agreed.

He heard the sound of pages turning, and then, Song Yu began to speak in a deep voice. His tone was low, without much emotional fluctuation, but it had a pleasant resonance that could soothe Yue Zhishi's restless mood.

"...When we examine the solution to a physical problem, nine times out of ten we can draw a clear line between the scientific contribution and the mathematical contribution..."

The words he read were obscure and profound, but as they reached Yue Zhishi's ears, the text seemed to be stripped away, becoming pure audio waveforms that poured into Yue Zhishi's heart. He rose and fell with the frequency of this wave, his breathing slowed, his limbs relaxed, and he finally entered a stable, tranquil state.

"...As it turns out, even very simple models of interacting particles can behave in extremely complicated ways, giving rise to mathematical problems that are profoundly difficult and, indeed, in most cases, unsolved."

Sensing the steady breathing from the other end of the line, Song Yu also slowed down and gradually stopped.

The most complex and difficult problem in the world seemed to have been temporarily pacified.

"Good night."

Standing in the empty corridor, Song Yu gently closed the book in his hand, stood quietly for a moment, and returned to his dorm.

......

Time during the college entrance exam seemed to flow at a different speed. It felt like he had just stepped into the examination hall, watching the proctor break the seal on the test packet, and in the blink of an eye, a day had passed.

After the first day of exams, Yue Zhishi felt it went pretty well. The math paper had quite a few problems he had reviewed. Peiya School had arranged a school bus to take them back to school. The students on the bus were all comparing answers. He didn't want to listen, so he put on his headphones and listened to music.

He heard that their exam questions were trending, but Yue Zhishi was in no mood to look, only opening his chat with Song Yu.

[Yue Zhishi: The book you read to me yesterday really works well as a sleep aid.]

[Yue Zhishi: Do you also read it when you can't sleep?]

Just as he was about to get off the bus, he received Song Yu's reply, which revealed his helplessness towards him.

[Brother: I don't read this kind of book to fall asleep.]

Yue Zhishi laughed at his phone.

The next day's English and liberal arts comprehensive exams were his strengths, but Yue Zhishi still begged Song Yu to read that book to him for one more day, and Song Yu agreed.

His senior from the same lab watched as Song Yu got up, took a thick book, and went to the pantry next door. She thought he wanted to rest, since he had been busy all day trying to finish processing data, even skipping dinner.

She thought for a moment, opened a drawer, took out a packet of instant oatmeal and some Oreos, and got up to bring them to her junior.

When she reached the pantry door, she saw Song Yu's back. He was wearing headphones and reading a book at a steady pace. His voice hadn't necessarily changed, but his tone was completely different from how he usually spoke in the lab; it wasn't cold and emotionless.

It was very subtle, because he wasn't reading some prose poem, but rather what seemed to be a dull and tedious popular science book on mathematics. Yet, the flowing emotion hidden in his voice was obvious.

Her intuition told her not to disturb him. She gently closed the pantry door and placed the oatmeal and cookies she hadn't given him on Song Yu's empty workstation.

She suddenly realized that this quiet and reserved junior wasn't so different after all.

Working desperately to compress a workload that might have taken three days into two, he was probably rushing to do something, to see someone.

The nightly sleep-inducing reading left Yue Zhishi full of energy. The subjects on the second day were all his strengths, the weather was good, and everything went smoothly. When the final bell rang, he took one last look at the name on his paper.

It felt like participating in a long-distance running test. He had run forward desperately in the crowd, following the rules and others' expectations, constantly struggling with his willpower.

At the very last second, the stopwatch was pressed to a halt. All the strength was drained from his body as he left the track that had confined him.

It was finally over.

Everyone was much calmer than expected. Only one student shouted something loudly after leaving the exam hall. Yue Zhishi was in the bustling crowd, following everyone out of the exam venue. There were many parents outside. His gaze was unfocused as he searched repeatedly, holding onto a faint hope.

Finally, his gaze unexpectedly met a pair of eyes.

Song Yu was wearing a white T-shirt, blue jeans, and the same baseball cap Yue Zhishi had worn when he went to W University to see him. He gave him a faint smile.

Even though his outfit was very ordinary, Yue Zhishi felt as if all the light was shining on him.

He ran forward and stopped in front of Song Yu.

"Looks like you did well on the exam," Song Yu commented simply on his state.

The smile on Yue Zhishi's face was irrepressible. "I'm very close to my first college entrance exam wish. It seems the koi at W University really did bless me."

Song Yu raised his eyebrows. "You stepped on it, and it still blessed you. What a fish that repays malice with kindness."

As the two were talking, they saw Lin Rong and Song Jin not far away, waving at them. It was rare for the whole family to be together. Lin Rong sat in the passenger seat, chatting happily. Yue Zhishi felt time had entered a kind of loop, as if he had returned to three years ago, with Uncle Song driving and Auntie Rong in the passenger seat, seriously planning for after the exams.

"We'll eat at home in a bit. I made your favorite dishes, as well as cheesecake and mango pomelo sago."

Yue Zhishi nodded. Seeing Song Yu leaning against the back of his seat, he quietly asked him when he had arrived.

"Just now. I took the subway." Song Yu said briefly.

The subway must have been tiring. Yue Zhishi asked again, "You didn't drive?"

"A little sleepy." Song Yu propped his elbow on the car windowsill, resting his chin in his hand. "It's dangerous to drive."

Yue Zhishi moved closer to him, tugged on Song Yu's arm, and patted his own shoulder, his face full of a 'you can rely on me' expression. "You can lean on me and sleep."

Song Yu glanced at him, then turned his face away. "I'm not a kid like you."

Having heard their exchange from the passenger seat, Lin Rong couldn't help but laugh. "You're wrong about that. In this car today, Lele is the boss."

Song Jin, who was driving, played along and asked why. Lin Rong said, "Because the exam taker is the most important."

"Exactly." Yue Zhishi tugged on Song Yu, forcibly pulling him toward his shoulder. "Just lean on me and sleep for a while. You'll be home when you wake up."

As if afraid Song Yu would still refuse, Yue Zhishi leaned close to his ear and whispered, "Just think of it as a return gift for these past two days. Didn't you help me fall asleep too?"

Yue Zhishi's hand was gripping his shoulder. He felt Song Yu's body seem to stiffen for a moment, but fortunately, this reasoning worked, and Song Yu finally agreed. He leaned over somewhat reluctantly, then adjusted himself again, seeming not quite satisfied. Yue Zhishi thought he was about to sit up and panicked slightly. "Is my shoulder too bony? Is it uncomfortable?"

"Mhm."

The next moment, Song Yu, who Yue Zhishi thought would sit up straight, pulled down the brim of his cap and leaned down again. Only this time, his target wasn't Yue Zhishi's shoulder; he rested his head directly on Yue Zhishi's lap.

"This is much better."