Chen Chao went to school during the day, so Miao Jiayan would happily stay at home to escape the summer heat. He ate watermelon and enjoyed the fan, unafraid of getting a tan.

Boys grow fast in middle school. Miao Jiayan seemed to have grown a lot this year. Chen Chao was now around 176 cm, and the top of Miao Jiayan's head reached his nose.

He wasn't considered tall for a boy, but from behind, he looked like a very pretty and delicate girl.

This sense of gender confusion also started to occasionally bring him some trouble.

For example, when walking on the road, he would get hit on by male high school dropouts from behind.

Miao Jiayan was wearing that skirt of his, walking home from the flower shed. The sun was strong, so he had put on a large straw hat. The straw hat was actually something villagers wore for work, but paired with his long hair and skirt, it looked like a sun hat a girl would wear in the summer.

Someone behind him whistled and called out, "Hey, girlie."

Miao Jiayan walked on blankly, not realizing they were calling him. It wasn't until someone suddenly grabbed his arm that Miao Jiayan jumped in fright and whipped his head around.

"What are you doing?" Miao Jiayan frowned, trying to pull his arm away.

He tugged once but couldn't get free.

"Why don't you answer when big bro calls you?" The boy's smile was repulsive. He held Miao Jiayan's arm tightly, not letting go, his sweaty hand smearing all over Miao Jiayan's arm.

Miao Jiayan felt disgusted being held by the clammy hand, but he couldn't break free. He could only ask again, "What do you want?"

The other person said suggestively, "Let's be friends, little sister."

Miao Jiayan looked at him and stopped struggling. He just tilted his head up slightly to let the other person see his neck.

The boy had started puberty and already had a small Adam's apple.

Miao Jiayan pointed to his own neck and said, "I'm not a 'little sister'."

The boy was clearly stunned. For a moment, he couldn't tell if it was true or not, wondering if Miao Jiayan was bluffing.

Miao Jiayan asked again, "Can't you tell from my voice?"

His voice hadn't even finished breaking yet, so it really didn't sound like a girl's. The other person was dumbfounded and quickly flung his hand away.

"Fuck..." The boy also felt a bit creeped out. "For real?"

The arm he had grabbed was still sticky. Miao Jiayan was also incredibly annoyed, his gaze flicking up impatiently. "Well, you want me to take it off and show you?"

Having spent so much time with Chen Chao, his expression was eighty percent similar to Chen Chao's. When Chen Chao was annoyed, his gaze was just like that—cold and dismissive.

The one most creeped out now was definitely not Miao Jiayan. The boy kept wiping his hand on his pants, as if touching Miao Jiayan just now had been filthy.

"Then why the fuck are you dressed like this?" The boy simply couldn't accept it. "Are you a sissy?"

"Because I want to," Miao Jiayan's gaze grew even colder than before. "I'll wear whatever I like."

The boy spat on the ground and walked away, cursing as he went.

When Miao Jiayan got home, he first took a shower. Afterwards, he changed into a tank top, sat cross-legged on his bed, and it was clear from his face that he was in low spirits.

In truth, he wasn't as tough as he appeared. Although spending every day with Chen Chao meant he couldn't help but pick up some of Chen Chao's attitude when speaking, in reality, he could never be as truly nonchalant as Chen Chao.

Chen Chao was the kind of person who, even when everyone at school pointed and stared at them, could still walk around with his arm slung around Miao Jiayan's neck, completely unfazed.

The changes in his physique from growing taller and losing his childishness caused the frequency of these unsettling, troublesome incidents to increase.

Chen Chao didn't know about this. He had never encountered it, and these things never happened when Miao Jiayan was walking with him.

Carrying his schoolbag, Chen Chao returned from school. He reached his own doorstep but didn't go in. Instead, he leaned back to peek into the Miao Family courtyard and saw Miao Jiayan sitting on a small stool, spacing out.

Chen Chao clicked his tongue. Miao Jiayan looked over, and upon seeing Chen Chao was back, he smiled. "Brother Chao, you're back."

"What are you up to?" Chen Chao asked him.

"Nothing much," Miao Jiayan stood up and walked over. He picked up a dark, lumpy thing held in a corn husk from the ground, walked over, and offered it to Chen Chao. "Here."

Chen Chao recoiled in disgust and didn't take it.

"It's a roasted pigeon. You've had it before." Miao Jiayan knew he would be disgusted and didn't mind. He followed Chen Chao back to the Chen Family home, carrying the corn husk.

Chen Chao didn't remember ever eating it. There was no way he would have eaten something so dark and mushy.

The first thing he did when he got home in the summer was take a quick shower. After a whole day in the classroom, he would have gone through several rounds of sweating. Chen Chao was particular about some things, but in other ways, he was a typical boy who couldn't care less.

After showering, he often came out wearing just his boxer briefs. Ding Wentao was the same when he stayed the night. Both of them would just wear shorts; boys weren't so fussy with each other.

Although Miao Jiayan never dressed like that in front of Chen Chao, he was used to seeing Chen Chao this way and didn't think anything of it.

"How'd your back get bruised," Miao Jiayan looked at Chen Chao's shoulder in surprise. "Did you get in a fight?"

Chen Chao turned his head back to look but couldn't see it. "Bumped into the window."

Miao Jiayan had already prepared the pigeon. He had peeled off the outermost layer of burnt, dark feathers, torn the breast meat into strips and set it aside, pulled off the two legs, and thrown away the remaining carcass and black ash.

It looked much more appetizing like this. Miao Jiayan's hands were pitch-black. He held them out for Chen Chao to see and said with a smile, "If I touched you right now, you'd go crazy."

"You can try," Chen Chao raised his eyebrows and flicked Miao Jiayan on the forehead. "And see what the consequences are."

"I won't," Miao Jiayan obediently went to wash his hands. As he walked, he said, "I'm afraid you'll get mad."

Chen Chao said sarcastically, "Oh, I'd get so mad."

Miao Jiayan thought to himself, 'Uh-huh, uh-huh', but kept his mouth tightly shut, just smiling.

After the summer remedial classes ended and the third year of middle school officially began, two evening self-study sessions were added, so school let out two hours later than before.

Miao Jiayan could no longer go home with Chen Chao and had to walk home by himself every day. He had long since stopped taking the school bus; the people on it always ostracized him and said nasty things in a passive-aggressive way.

Before, the three of them always walked together. Chen Chao was known throughout the school as a top student, and Ding Wentao was a troublemaker that all the students recognized. No one dared to bother them on their way. Now that Miao Jiayan was alone again, there were always a few bored people who would use him for entertainment on the way home from school.

Miao Jiayan had learned some of Chen Chao's aura. No matter who spoke, he wouldn't respond. Before, Miao Jiayan would walk quickly with his head down; now, he looked straight ahead as if nothing was happening, pretending not to hear what others were saying.

Chen Chao didn't let him lower his head. Usually, if Miao Jiayan was walking with his head down, Chen Chao would pull on his collar and ask if he couldn't remember to look up.

"Are you a boy or a girl, anyway?" someone next to him, like a buzzing fly, asked Miao Jiayan. "Can you even tell yourself?"

"Hey, have you grown boobs?" the annoying boy continued to ask.

"Why the hell do you have to be such a pervert? Are you mentally ill?"

Miao Jiayan didn't even spare them a glance the entire way. He kept walking with his hands in his pockets, and if someone deliberately blocked his path, he would walk around them expressionlessly.

He had been hearing these things since he was a child. The little kids had learned it from adults. In elementary school, although his classmates didn't like to play with him and treated him with some distance and hostility, they were young after all and not that malicious.

The malice he received after starting middle school was indeed much greater than before. Children received different upbringings; some grew to be more tolerant, while others gradually grew into demons.

In a small town that was more closed-off and backward compared to the city, tolerance wasn't going to be very high.

When Chen Chao got back at night, it was already dark. After showering, he sat at his desk about to study when he looked up and saw Miao Jiayan across the way, leaning on his windowsill and looking outside.

So Chen Chao walked to his window and asked through the screen, "What are you doing?"

"Waiting for you," Miao Jiayan replied.

"Something wrong?" Chen Chao asked.

"No," Miao Jiayan leaned there, his chin resting on his arms, and said quietly, "Brother Chao."

The village was dark at night. The only light was the moon in the sky. If it was an overcast day and the moon was hidden by thick clouds, it would be completely pitch-black. Other than the light from their two rooms, there was no other light to be seen. Their grandparents were already asleep.

The two windows were like two small light sources, drawing two bright circles in the pitch-black night. The mosquitoes and insects all sought out the rare light. Small flying bugs "thwacked" against the window screens, and you could even hear the fluttering of moths' wings.

"What are you doing, acting like a little fool," Chen Chao tapped the window screen with the back of his hand, afraid the small insects might slip through the mesh. "Who upset you?"

Miao Jiayan wouldn't tell Chen Chao about those trivial matters, so he just stayed leaning there and said, "No one upset me. I just wanted to see you."

Chen Chao felt that Miao Jiayan was a bit down that night and asked him, "Did your dad come back?"

"No, no," Miao Jiayan got nervous just hearing the words "your dad" and shook his head with a laugh. "Don't scare me."

Chen Chao frowned. "What's really wrong? When I ask, you should just tell me."

Miao Jiayan didn't dare to make him unhappy, but he also didn't want to bother him with trivial problems. As he spoke, his chin rested on his arms, his head bobbing, like a puppet from a cartoon he watched as a child. "Sometimes I don't understand why I'm different from other people."

After hearing him out, Chen Chao let out a sigh of relief. "I thought it was something serious, the way you're leaning here so late instead of sleeping."

"What's there to be the same or different about? No one is the same as anyone else." Chen Chao was completely dismissive of the issue. "Am I the same as Ding Wentao?"

Miao Jiayan quickly shook his head. They were definitely not the same.

Chen Chao wasn't like anyone else. Chen Chao was just Chen Chao.

"There you have it, then. Go to sleep. Stop mulling over useless things." Chen Chao shooed him away. "I'm going to study."

Miao Jiayan then stood up and agreed, "Okay."

"If you're bored, bring a pillow over and make a bed on the floor here," Chen Chao said. "If you're not coming, then hurry up and go to sleep."

Whenever he was being lectured, Miao Jiayan would instinctively tense up. He quickly said, "I'm going to sleep now!"

"Walk with me tomorrow morning. Get ready and come over to wait for me," Chen Chao gave the order, then asked, "Are you washing your hair tomorrow morning?"

"Not tomorrow morning," Miao Jiayan replied.

"Good that you're not. Washing your hair means I have to wait another ten minutes for you." Chen Chao sat down and took out a workbook. "Go to sleep."