Jiang Cheng's few classmates were not particularly handsome guys or beautiful girls, but like Gu Fei's first impression of Jiang Cheng, these people looked like they didn't belong here with just a glance.

The casual aura of an ordinary high school student from a big city that they carried with them made them seem so different from everything around them.

"My classmates, you've met Pan Zhi before, don't know if you still remember," Jiang Cheng walked over to him and introduced a few classmates, "Shall we go find something to eat?"

"Okay," Gu Fei nodded, "let's have fried rice cakes."

Jiang Cheng's eyes widened as he was about to say they've had nothing but fried rice cakes these past two days, but before he opened his mouth, Pan Zhi said from behind, "Oh not bad, I haven't had fried rice cakes for a while."  

"That sounds good, I like the sweet soup rice cakes too," Li Yuqing immediately chimed in.

"Let's go," Gu Fei got on the bicycle next to him and rested his leg in a cast on the pedal, scraping his other leg on the ground, "It's not far."

"Is it convenient for your leg?" Pan Zhi asked.

"It's fine," Gu Fei said.

"Let's go," Jiang Cheng called out and came over to help steady the handlebar, swiftly caressing Gu Fei's hand as he did so.  

Gu Fei quickly gave him a thumbs up and traced his thumb on Jiang Cheng's palm as he retracted his hand.

After the group caught up to follow behind, Gu Fei moved to the side of the road and listened to their chatter.  

Jiang Cheng didn't talk much, it was mainly Pan Zhi and the other classmates talking, mostly catching up on all kinds of gossip at school since the semester started. Gu Fei followed along listening.

"Oh right, Cheng'er, he gave you a letter," Pan Zhi said when talking about their class teacher, taking out a kraft paper envelope from his pocket, "almost forgot."

"Thanks," Jiang Cheng took it and stuffed it into his own pocket.

This class teacher wasn't bad, Gu Fei slowly pedaled forward, maybe he could be on par with Old Xu... Cheng'er?

Gu Fei turned his head and Jiang Cheng happened to look over at the same time. He squinted his eyes.

Jiang Cheng tilted his head in confusion, and Gu Fei tilted his head too, mouthing silently.

Wtf.jpg

It took Jiang Cheng a moment to realize what Gu Fei was focused on, and he was a little embarrassed at first, but then really wanted to laugh.

Pan Zhi only had two ways of addressing him, Cheng'er, Grandpa.

The Grandpa address was usually used privately or in more agitated contexts, while Cheng'er was his daily address... There was nothing weird about this, but if Gu Fei pestered him endlessly like "Why does he sleep on the bed not the sofa, why does he have to sleep on the sofa not get a hotel room," he really wouldn't know how to respond.

Because usually he just called Pan Zhi by his name, Pan Zhi.  

Why do you call him Pan Zhi and he calls you Cheng'er?

Jiang Cheng glanced at Gu Fei again, and Gu Fei had lowered his head to light a cigarette. Sensing his gaze, he turned his head again, continuing with a silent mouth shape.

Wtf???

Jiang Cheng couldn't help but laugh.

"Right!" Pan Zhi said something next to him, "I almost died laughing, almost got kicked out of class again..."

"Ah," Jiang Cheng responded, "Idiot."

He didn't actually know what Pan Zhi was talking about, but this response worked for anything between him and Pan Zhi.

"Oh, for that basketball game you played last time, did you get any videos?" Pan Zhi asked again, "Send them to me, I don't get a chance to play together anymore, might as well watch."

"Don't know," Jiang Cheng turned to Gu Fei, "Do you have any?"

"There are some," Gu Fei said, "Wang Xu must've kept them."  

"Who's that?" Pan Zhi asked, then immediately shifted focus, "Send me a copy?"

"Add me," Gu Fei tapped his phone a couple times and held up the screen to Pan Zhi.

"Got it," Pan Zhi immediately took out his phone and scanned the code to add Gu Fei's contact. "This is your number? Quite... cute."

Jiang Cheng watched as the two smoothly added each other, and as soon as Pan Zhi put his phone away, Xu Meng pulled him to the side.

"No no, can't do that," Pan Zhi said softly, "No no, go ask for it yourself..."

"Fuck?" Jiang Cheng really couldn't stand it. Pan Zhi wouldn't tell Xu Meng now, but after going back, or who knows, maybe not even waiting until they get back, if Xu Meng asks for it herself, it'd be hard to refuse a request for just a WeChat ID.

He glared at Gu Fei, lowering his voice, "What the fuck?"

"Cheng'er?" Gu Fei also lowered his voice.

"Damn you Gu Fei are you even five years old yet?" Jiang Cheng continued in a low voice.

"Nope," Gu Fei said.

Jiang Cheng couldn't keep a straight face and almost snorted out snot from suppressing laughter.

"Fuck," he rubbed his nose.

After the group sat down at the fried rice cake shop, the two girls went to check out the area and came back with a bunch of chicken wings, skewers, and drinks.

Gu Fei sat at the table playing on his phone. He didn't have much in common with Jiang Cheng's classmates. Just like Jiang Cheng, they were very clean-cut, and even if the conversation was about who was dating whom, it still sounded innocent and naive.

Just like Li Yan said, even your peers have a generation gap with you, looking at your schoolmates is like looking at your sons.

But Jiang Cheng was different. Jiang Cheng was clearly more mature than Pan Zhi and the others, so there was no gap between them, and if there was, it wasn't this kind of gap.

Jiang Cheng still didn't talk much, just sitting against his chair watching his classmates talk for the most part. Gu Fei looked at him with that innate contemptuous expression, this was the original Jiang Cheng.

If he didn't get to see this side of Jiang Cheng again, he would've almost forgot that Jiang Cheng was sent back to the orphanage because of irreparable conflicts with his adoptive family.  

Gu Fei stretched his leg under the table and gently stepped on Jiang Cheng's shoes.

Jiang Cheng turned his head to look at him, eyes curving slightly, then turned his face back to watch the chatting and laughing classmates.

This was the current Jiang Cheng, no, this was the Jiang Cheng when he was with him.

"Niu Xiaoyang is really awesome now, full of sunshine," Pan Zhi said while eating chicken wings, "After Jiang Cheng left, he finally squeezed into the top three. That face, it's like a light bulb now, gleaming all day."

"Who cares," Li Song said, "It's not like you get to gleam even if he doesn't gleam, why bother."

"That's different," Pan Zhi said, "Just you wait, when I get back I gotta tell him to write Jiang Cheng a thank you letter, a really sincere one, with a horsewhip attached."

"Who do you copy off of for exams now?" Jiang Cheng laughed and took out a cigarette to light up.

"I'm self-reliant now," Pan Zhi sighed, "After the midterm results came out, my dad beat me up so bad even my mom didn't recognize me."

Everyone laughed and the conversation shifted to focus on the recent midterm exam.

Jiang Cheng remained silent as usual. He was also like this in the past, only talking a little more when with Pan Zhi, and although he got along fine with other classmates, they didn't have much to say either.

Now when he heard these conversations surrounding exams and rankings, it felt somewhat melancholy.  

In the past half year, such atmospheres fixated on exams were already unfamiliar to him. The only exam related discussions at his new school were about cheating.

Listening for a while, Jiang Cheng suddenly felt a little panicked.

He had only finished two sets of the practice papers Old Xu gave him, and probably wouldn't have time to do more during this break, he could only wait until Pan Zhi and the others went back...

After another two hours of excited chatting on the ride here, the group was finally tired. Pan Zhi went to settle the bill and called out that he wanted to go back and sleep.

"We probably can't get up too early tomorrow," Pan Zhi checked his phone and asked Gu Fei again, "Getting up before 10 to go out and play should be fine right?"

Gu Fei glanced at him, wanting to say it'd be best if you get up and leave by 3 AM.  

"Around that time, depends where we go, a bit late if hiking," Gu Fei said.

"Let's go to the haunted house first," Li Yuqing said, "I've always wanted to try the haunted house."

"We'll have time for the haunted house," Gu Fei said, "We can also play around the park, there's some old tower... we went there every semester in elementary school for field trips then wrote essays about it."

"Sounds good," Pan Zhi laughed, "just in time for my weekly journal..."

After leaving the store, Gu Fei was still slowly pedaling the bike forward.  

The intersection was just 50 meters ahead, taking a left turn there then another 50 meters would lead him onto the road home.

Tsk.

He looked at Jiang Cheng, and Jiang Cheng was also looking his way. Their eyes met and Jiang Cheng walked over next to him, "Send me a message when you get home later."

"You send it to me," Gu Fei said.

"Okay," Jiang Cheng agreed, "but you still have to send one too."

"Mm," Gu Fei looked at his few classmates, "So you're going home with Pan Zhi later huh?"

"How should I answer that?" Jiang Cheng glanced at him.

Gu Fei laughed, "He's on the sofa, don't forget."

"I remember," Jiang Cheng said, "No frivolously adding WeChat contacts, don't forget."

"Got it," Gu Fei rang the bell on the handlebar, making everyone look over. He waved and pointed to the intersection up ahead, "I'm going that way."

"See you tomorrow then!" Pan Zhi said, "We'll call a car to come get you tomorrow."

"Okay," Gu Fei responded and said softly again, "Good night."

"Good night," Jiang Cheng said softly.

Pan Zhi had brought a change of clothes so went straight to the rental with Jiang Cheng, while the others went back to their hotel after confirming tomorrow's plans.

“Can your friend go tomorrow?” Pan Zhi asked as they walked. “With his leg like that, making him accompany us out, isn't it a bit much?”

“His leg's fine once he leaves this area,” Jiang Cheng said.  

“Huh?” Pan Zhi was confused.

Jiang Cheng's phone dinged with a message from Gu Fei.

- Chengcheng boldly march onward, march on don't look back

WTF?

Taking the chance when Pan Zhi turned to adjust his shoulder bag, Jiang Cheng quickly glanced back. Under the distant streetlight he could vaguely make out Gu Fei straddling his bike supporting himself on one leg. He recognized it instantly.

He replied to Gu Fei.

- Muah

Gu Fei sent another message quickly.

- Want hug  

- Hug

- Want kiss

- Kissed already

- Oh yeah

Jiang Cheng held in his laugh and put his phone away.

“That Gu Fei,” Pan Zhi asked again after fixing his straps. “Did he get into some trouble?”

“Not really, more like resolving trouble,” Jiang Cheng said. Although he often called Pan Zhi a dumbass, he wasn't actually stupid, picking up on the subtext immediately.

“Cheng'er,” Pan Zhi hesitated. “Watch out for yourself, don't get dragged in.”

“I know my limits,” Jiang Cheng said.

“I don't mean anything about your friend...” Pan Zhi tried to explain.

“Enough,” Jiang Cheng cut him off, patting his shoulder. “I know what you mean.”

“I have one more thing to say,” Pan Zhi said.

“So adamant,” Jiang Cheng sighed. “Go on.”

“We're buds,” Pan Zhi said. “Always have been, don't forget about me.”

“Won't,” Jiang Cheng looked at him. “You'll always be my grandson.”

“On second thought, I'm taking back what I said earlier,” Pan Zhi said.

Jiang Cheng laughed. “Dumbass.”

Pan Zhi didn't have any suspicions about being arranged to sleep on the sofa with a towel as a blanket despite there being a perfectly good double bed. This was one of the most important reasons Jiang Cheng and Pan Zhi had such a good relationship. Pan Zhi was carefree and lazy. For things like this he wouldn't even think to ask, much less want to ask.

Jiang Cheng didn't close the bedroom door. After they both laid down, he messaged with Gu Fei while chatting with Pan Zhi from the room for over half an hour.

Mainly discussing Li Yuqing, the female classmate who had written Pan Zhi four love letters in one month.

"Are you gonna accept her?" Jiang Cheng asked.

"Nah, gonna stay just normal friends for now," Pan Zhi said, "I don't like her mushroom cut hairstyle, maybe after she grows it out longer I'll reconsider."  

"So you just look at hairstyles?" Jiang Cheng laughed.

"It's not only about hairstyles," Pan Zhi explained seriously, "Also face and figure. At our age, this kind of shallowness is the norm. She's looking at me the same way, we're all like this."

Jiang Cheng didn't respond. He thought about Gu Fei.

To be honest, what first attracted him to Gu Fei was also... his face. And legs.

After joking with Pan Zhi for a bit, Pan Zhi fell silent and seemed to have fallen asleep. He put down his phone and took Old Yuan's letter out from his jacket.

Dear student Jiang Cheng, hello.

He almost burst out laughing just from the first sentence.

It's already been almost half a year since we've seen each other, Teacher has missed you.

He laughed out at the second sentence.

After composing himself again, he continued reading.

Old Yuan's letter wasn't very long, still speaking words of comfort and encouragement like his usual tone, but halfway through, Jiang Cheng suddenly felt a little like crying for some reason.

"The saying that the gold will always shine is actually quite useless, but it is true that those who are like gold will always shine, so now this saying is half useful for you, don't bury yourself away..."

"You need to improve your temper, learn to control it. In this aspect I feel that the change of environment has been good for you, at least your temper is no longer arrogance without consequence, 'unfamiliarity' will teach you to restrain and control yourself..."

"Pan Zhi showed me the practice papers you did, I feel you haven't regressed at all, this surprises me happily, it shows you have extraordinary adaptability and self-control (calling it extraordinary may be praising you too much), indeed like a gold nugget..."

"Don't think that you've been abandoned by someone, only when you abandon yourself are you truly abandoned, if you hold on tight yourself, then nothing has changed..."

It was signed, Your forever teacher, Old Yuan.

Jiang Cheng smiled as he folded the letter back into the envelope, then placed it under his pillow and closed his eyes to sleep.

In the morning Jiang Cheng was woken up by the sound of Pan Zhi's phone call. He picked up his phone to check the time, not even 9 AM yet, still a bit early from their meeting time of 10.

"Downstairs then to the right?" Pan Zhi was saying in the living room, "That's the direction we came from your shop right?"

Jiang Cheng was still groggy but immediately jolted awake hearing this. Was he talking to Gu Fei on the phone?

"Then I got it," Pan Zhi said, "Why don't you come over and eat with us? Jiang Cheng's not up yet... I don't dare wake him, this guy can kill with just his waking temper, I've suffered it once before, don't want to try ever again in my life..."

Gu Fei said something on the other end that made Pan Zhi laugh very cheerfully as he continued chatting.  

Jiang Cheng lay in bed listening for a bit before getting up out of bed. No matter what, Pan Zhi's innate friendliness was simply unparalleled under heaven, no one could compare.

"Oh? He's up," Pan Zhi looked up and saw him, "Oh...alright, Cheng'er, Gu Fei wants to talk to you."

Jiang Cheng took the phone Pan Zhi handed over and walked into the bathroom, "Hello?"

"Your buddy sure can talk huh," Gu Fei's first reaction was to sigh, "I didn't even know how to end the conversation..."

"You called him?" Jiang Cheng laughed, "He doesn't usually talk this much, just excited to be out playing."

"He probably got up early with nothing to do and asked if I was up and where to eat breakfast, then he couldn't understand me so asked for my number to call," Gu Fei said, "Ended up chatting for over ten minutes."

"Don't eat breakfast," Jiang Cheng said with a smile, "we can go eat together in a bit."

"Okay," Gu Fei responded.

The few staying at the hotel were probably up all night chatting. They had finished their breakfasts early and waited at the breakfast stall for twenty minutes before the others finally wandered over, yawning.

"Smells so good," Xu Meng said. "I didn't really feel hungry before, but now the aroma makes me feel like I'm starving."

"Hurry up and eat so we can head out," Pan Zhi said. "If we're late there will definitely be a lot of people and we'll have to wait in line."

The group sat down at the table. When Xu Meng sat down next to Gu Fei, Jiang Cheng instantly regretted sitting between Gu Fei and Pan Zhi.

"It's still pretty cool here in the mornings," Xu Meng awkwardly made small talk with Gu Fei.

"Well, it's already May," Gu Fei replied.

Xu Meng smiled embarrassedly, covering her mouth.

Gu Fei took out his phone and started playing with it, head lowered.

After the group finally finished eating and said they should head out, Gu Fei immediately stood up first, even forgetting to pretend to limp. Jiang Cheng poked his leg and he quickly grabbed onto the tree next to him.

Taxis were scarce here, but they finally managed to call over two. Gu Fei got into one of the cars with the agility of an old man rushing to get a seat on the bus, sitting in the passenger seat up front.

Jiang Cheng got in the back, holding in laughter. Pan Zhi and Li Yuqing sat on either side of him, while Xu Meng, Hu Feng, and Li Song got in the other taxi.

As soon as the car started moving, Li Yuqing laughed and said, "Did Xu Meng startle you, Gu Fei?"

"No," Gu Fei told the driver where to go, then went back to looking at his phone.

"She's a nice girl, just a bit silly, but very cute," Li Yuqing said with another laugh.

"Mm," Gu Fei murmured in agreement.

"You're not interested in her at all?" Li Yuqing asked.

"Why don't you go get a mole," Pan Zhi suddenly said.

"Huh?" Li Yuqing looked over at him.

"Right here," Pan Zhi pointed at the corner of his mouth. "Right here."

It took Li Yuqing a while to understand. "Hey! You're the matchmaker!"*

*T/N: Stereotype of a matchmaker is that they have a big mole at the corner of their mouths.

Everyone laughed, even the driver chuckled for a while.

Jiang Cheng turned his head to look out the window. When Li Yuqing was aggressively promoting Xu Meng, he didn't feel jealous at all, just a bit nervous.

It was contradictory.

He was afraid Gu Fei would get annoyed by the questions and say something careless.

Although Gu Fei definitely wouldn't mention having a boyfriend, he still didn't want to hear him say he had a girlfriend...but he also felt upset if Gu Fei didn't say anything.

"She's not my type," Gu Fei said while playing on his phone. "Really not my type, not even close."

"Oh really?" Li Yuqing sighed, then quietly added, "Sorry about that."

"It's fine," Gu Fei turned his head and smiled at her.

When he turned back, he glanced over at Jiang Cheng.

Jiang Cheng's mouth quirked up slightly, but with Pan Zhi sitting right next to him, he didn't dare make any obvious moves.

Even though Pan Zhi knew about him, he had never actually been with another guy before, and didn't want Pan Zhi to know about it now.

Gu Fei's response put him at ease, but also left him with some indescribable feelings. He was afraid Gu Fei would see the apprehension in his heart.

He had been the one to take the first step, and the second step. Every step was from him, but the fear was also from him, the panic was the same.

He suddenly remembered what Gu Fei had asked before - do you want to date me, or do you want to be in a relationship with me?

Jiang Cheng's brows furrowed. His mind, muddled by the idea of "boyfriend", was only just now realizing that he hadn't even figured out what Gu Fei meant by that question.

Author's note: Taking a break tomorrow, will continue on Monday \o/.

Kowtow.