Chapter 45 Part 1

Chen Chao had been home for so many days. Even if he didn't say anything, those who should know, knew.

Ding Wentao came back fuming. He stormed in, looking for Chen Chao. When he found him, Chen Chao was sitting with Xiao Kai, eating watermelon. Xiao Kai was gnawing on a huge slice of watermelon, while Chen Chao held a small fruit plate with watermelon balls, which he ate with a toothpick.

Hearing the noise, Chen Chao looked up and saw Ding Wentao rushing over with a frown.

“Heartless and ungrateful!” Ding Wentao shouted as he threw himself onto Chen Chao.

Fortunately, Chen Chao played basketball regularly and had steady hands, so he didn't end up spilling the watermelon all over the floor from the pounce. Chen Chao propped himself up with his other hand on the ground and said with a cough, “Spare me, brave hero.”

“No mercy!” Ding Wentao's arm was wrapped around Chen Chao's neck. “Why didn't you tell me you were back!”

“Weren't you out having fun?” Chen Chao handed the fruit plate to Xiao Kai, afraid it would spill all over him. “Your dad told my dad.”

“Am I supposed to have fun for a lifetime?!” Ding Wentao had been back for a while. Finding it boring at home, he had stayed at school for two days. He only found out Chen Chao was back when his dad told him that morning.

Ding Wentao was studying logistics management at a private college. His family had thought he wouldn't even make it to university; getting into a vocational college was already considered good. Unexpectedly, he did quite well in the college entrance exams, scoring over three hundred points.

He had seen Chen Chao the last time he came back. He, Chen Chao, and Jiang Xun had a meal together. The three of them were an interesting trio; every pair among them were friends.

“Ding Wentao,” Chen Chao introduced him to Xiao Kai, “the manager of this district.”

Miao Jiayan happened to walk in from outside just then and couldn't help but laugh when he heard this.

Xiao Kai, however, was quick on the uptake and went along with Chen Chao, saying, “Hello, big brother! I'm Zhang Kai, you can just call me Xiao Kai or Kai Kai!”

Having grown up, Ding Wentao was finally no longer so non-mainstream. He said to Chen Chao, “Why are you so good at making fun of me?”

Miao Jiayan walked over, and Chen Chao gestured with his chin for him to greet the person.

Miao Jiayan decisively called out, “Brother Top Dog.”

“...” Ding Wentao turned to look at him and asked, “Can't you learn anything good from them?”

“Isn't this being polite?” Chen Chao picked up the watermelon plate again and stabbed a watermelon ball to eat.

“First you, then Jiang Xun,” Ding Wentao said. “You've both corrupted Miao Jiayan.”

Chen Chao was Ding Wentao's good friend in middle school. When he left, Ding Wentao was depressed for a long time. Later, Jiang Xun filled that role. Jiang Xun and Chen Chao came from the same neighborhood, and they both had a certain similar quality about them that Ding Wentao found very appealing.

It was rare for so many people to be gathered, so Ding Wentao coaxed Jiang Xun to come over too, telling him to come back and liven things up. Jiang Xun was idle at home, and after being coaxed, he said he'd come the next day.

Jiang Xun arrived wearing cargo shorts and carrying a backpack. The most comical thing was that he was also holding an open umbrella.

The group of people stared, stunned, as he entered the small courtyard holding the umbrella. What a delicate person.

“Are you this delicate now?” Ding Wentao asked, stunned.

Jiang Xun closed the umbrella, handed it to Miao Jiayan, and said, “Miao'er's umbrella, he left it at my place.”

“Couldn't you have just carried it over? Did you have to hold it open the whole way?” Ding Wentao asked doubtfully.

“Isn't it sunny?” Jiang Xun said with a smile. “I figured I'd block the sun.”

Miao Jiayan sat to one side folding the umbrella. There was a stone stool next to him, and Jiang Xun sat right down, noticing someone holding a camera and filming him.

“Hey,” Jiang Xun asked in that direction, “what are you filming?”

The other person lowered their camera, chuckled, and said, “Just getting some footage.”

Jiang Xun hadn't been here in a long time, more than two years.

There were too many people to sit together, so they ate in separate groups for dinner. Xiao Kai and his table ate outside, while Jiang Xun, Chen Chao, and the other two ate inside with a fan. The old house still didn't have air conditioning; since Chen Chao didn't live here, there was no need to install it.

Grandma Chen had steamed a lot of seafood for them and also stir-fried several basins of small sea snails and clams for them to snack on. It wasn't that Chen Chao didn't eat any seafood at all; he could eat a few types of less fishy fish. He liked eating the large yellow croaker his grandma steamed, and he would only eat the ones she made, as those made outside didn't taste the same.

After the main meal was finished, Ding Wentao carried the leftovers upstairs to Chen Chao's room. Miao Jiayan mopped the floor, and then took a plastic sheet used for covering autumn vegetables, wiped it clean, and spread it over the mattress.

He went to the bathroom to put away the mop, and when he returned, the three of them were already seated.

Chen Chao and Jiang Xun were sitting at the end near the bed, with Ding Wentao sitting in the middle directly across from them. If Miao Jiayan wanted to sit, he could squeeze in on Ding Wentao's left or right.

To the left was Chen Chao, to the right was Jiang Xun.

Miao Jiayan paused behind Ding Wentao. Just as he was about to move to the left, Ding Wentao glanced up and scooted his butt to the left.

Miao Jiayan silently sat down. Jiang Xun picked up the phone that was there, and Chen Chao shifted over a bit more to his side, making some room for them.

Ding Wentao, wearing gloves, was pinching small clams to eat. He asked Jiang Xun, “How does it feel to be back here?”

Jiang Xun was peeling shrimp. Hearing the question, he lifted his eyelids, scoffed, and said, “No feeling.”

“But this is your place of sorrow.” Ding Wentao couldn't keep his mouth shut. Suddenly remembering that Chen Chao didn't know about this yet, he turned to him and said, “You don't know yet, do you? Your boy Xun got expelled from our high school here.”

Jiang Xun kicked him and asked, “Why are you so annoying?”

Chen Chao was indeed quite surprised; he had never heard about it at all. “What happened?”

Jiang Xun lowered his eyes, looking completely unconcerned. “Young and foolish.”

Ding Wentao gave him and Miao Jiayan a suggestive look. “Brother Xun is a real one, got himself expelled to protect someone.”

Thinking about the foolish things he'd done back then, Jiang Xun shook his head with a smile and said, “When you make a mess, you have to clean it up yourself.”

What Ding Wentao said was true. Jiang Xun indeed hadn't finished high school here; he was expelled during the spring semester of his senior year.

And the whole affair had been quite ugly.

Jiang Xun was never a goody-two-shoes to begin with, unlike Chen Chao. When Chen Chao was here, he was a top student who didn't get into fights, so no one provoked him. Jiang Xun had a scar on his face from playing outside as a child, which made him look like a bad guy, and his personality wasn't as steady as Chen Chao's.

Not long after arriving, Jiang Xun was flagged by the teachers as someone to be closely monitored. Although he got into occasional fights during his freshman and sophomore years, he never caused any major trouble.

Until his senior year, someone heard Jiang Xun “doing dirty things” with another person in the boys' bathroom during the lunch break. They recorded it clearly on a phone; you could hear the other person calling his name, a few clear calls of “Jiang Xun,” and Jiang Xun's voice was also recorded.

“Dirty” wasn't actually that dirty; they hadn't really done anything, but they were panting and talking to each other, and the sounds were very suggestive.

A boy who had fought with Jiang Xun and held a grudge against him quickly spread the recording, and it eventually reached the principal.

This behavior was considered excessively vile. Teachers and the principal took turns asking him who the other person was, but Jiang Xun stubbornly refused to say. In a township middle school like this, the discipline wasn't actually that strict. If it weren't for Jiang Xun's attitude, his family could have probably come, had a nice talk, made a gesture, and he would have gotten away with just a demerit.

But at the time, even after his dad broke his nose, Jiang Xun didn't open his mouth to give a name. All he said was, “Expel me or don't, I'm quitting school anyway.”

This incident was rumored about in school for a long time. Almost everyone said the other person was Miao Jiayan, and that Jiang Xun had gotten expelled to protect him.

Back then, everyone looked at Miao Jiayan with suggestive, probing gazes. After that, Ding Wentao even got into several fights over it, angry at the nasty things people were saying.

Ding Wentao hadn't asked a single question at the time, afraid of hurting the two of them, considering himself an understanding and considerate big brother. It was only now that everyone had grown up, several years had passed, and the two of them were together every day, that he could bring it up as a joke.

“I really didn't want to study anymore back then anyway. My grades weren't that great to begin with,” Jiang Xun said, tossing the peeled shrimp shells into the designated bowl. “There's nothing wrong with getting out into the world a bit earlier.”

“I also thought you were quitting school,” Ding Wentao chimed in. “I didn't even dare to ask you.”

Even if a father was angry enough to want to beat his son to death, he couldn't just abandon him. By pulling connections and spending money, he eventually got Jiang Xun into a school in the city. No school wanted to accept a student who had been expelled from a township high school. For his son's final year, Jiang's dad threw in hundreds of thousands and got him into a rundown school.

“Looking back now, I feel nothing else but sorry for my dad,” Jiang Xun said. “His hair turned white from worry. I was truly foolish back then.”

“If it were now, what would you do,” Ding Wentao asked him, “would you rat out the other one?”

Jiang Xun cursed with a laugh, finally saying, “If it were now, I'd rat you out and make you take the fall with me.”

“Oh god, no,” Ding Wentao said, scooting away in disgust. “Don't gross me out.”

After speaking, he remembered Miao Jiayan was still sitting next to them, felt what he said was inappropriate, and added, “I didn't mean that being homo... you know... is gross. It's just that I personally can't accept it.”

Jiang Xun threw a snail shell at him. “The hell are you explaining for.”

Miao Jiayan hadn't said a word from beginning to end, sitting cross-legged and quietly eating sea snails. Chen Chao glanced at him. Ding Wentao noticed his gaze and said cheekily, “Brother Chao, your little wife has run off with someone else.”

Miao Jiayan didn't react, still busy eating.

Jiang Xun, on the other hand, reacted, but he didn't say anything either, just smiled crookedly at Chen Chao and said, “If you want him, I'll give him back.”

Chen Chao was leaning against the bed and didn't respond to the comment.