Finally Being Snatched Away at My Wedding by My Ex-Boyfriend - Chapter 9

Chapter 9: Intrusion on a Rainy Day

Pei Xing rarely chatted with his students. Even during water breaks, he would walk out to the balcony to avoid potential small talk. However, over the past few days, Qi Xiaoxi had clearly grown bolder.

“Teacher Pei, you’ve changed! Not only did you take a leave of absence, but now you’re even drinking carbonated sodas!”

Pei Xing ignored her. He wiped the finished aluminum can clean and tucked it into his backpack. Walking over, he picked up an English exercise book and began grading.

“The completion rate is good this time,” Pei Xing said, flipping through the pages. “Accuracy has improved as well.”

Qi Xiaoxi pulled that same book from the shelf again, sighing deeply. “Yesterday, you finally gave me a day off, and I wanted to find Su Yuan-gege at his sketching spot to hang out, but he wasn’t there either! So, I had no choice but to go home and do homework.”

Pei Xing twirled the pen between his fingertips.

“It’s so strange,” Qi Xiaoxi continued. “Neither of you was around yesterday. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you two had made plans.”

Pei Xing gave a light cough and tapped the table with the end of his pen. “Read any more and I’ll confiscate it.”

Qi Xiaoxi’s eyes widened. She hugged the book tight, saying indignantly, “Teacher Pei, I know you really want to read it. I already told you I’d lend it to you when I’m done. Why are you using that old ‘homeroom teacher’ trick on me?”

Pei Xing looked up. “Who said I wanted to read it?”

“I did,” Qi Xiaoxi hid the book away, acting mysterious. “Every time I take it out, you sneak several glances at it.”

Pei Xing fell silent. He set the exercise book on the desk and looked at Qi Xiaoxi with a stern face.

Knowing when to quit, Qi Xiaoxi quietly raised her exercise book. “Su Yuan-gege has so many books in his room. Teacher Pei, if you want to read something, just go borrow from him.”

Pei Xing’s brow furrowed, his tone becoming sharp. “How do you know there are books in his room?”

“He posted them on his Moments!” Qi Xiaoxi cried out, feeling wronged. “I only ever run into him by chance. If I send more than two messages, Su Yuan-gege just tells me to go study; he doesn’t actually take me out to play.”

Pei Xing’s brow relaxed slightly. He tapped the desk with his fist. “Fix your mistakes.”

He had never asked how Su Yuan and Qi Xiaoxi met; he didn’t want Su Yuan to know he had learned so much about him through her.

Well, it wasn’t exactly prying, Qi Xiaoxi had volunteered all of it.

…

Back in his room, Pei Xing began processing the cans one by one.

After soaking them in soapy water, he used a small toothbrush to scrub them clean inside and out. As he set them upside down to dry, he noticed several scratches on the back of his hand.

The dark red scratches weren’t very obvious on his skin, but… Pei Xing wiped the pull-rings dry and wrapped them in masking tape.

Su Yuan’s hands get rubbed red just by holding handlebars.

After showering, Pei Xing subconsciously glanced toward the balcony through the square window.

The easel was still there, but the balcony was empty.

Su Yuan seemed to have a very regular schedule; he dimmed the lights every night at 8:00 PM.

Pei Xing sat at his desk, opened a file for last year’s freshman Linear Algebra final exam from Huaihai University’s Computer Science department, took out a scratchpad, set his phone timer, and began.

At Huaihai University, the top 10% of each department received varying tiers of scholarships every academic year.

A Gaokao score was only the first step of screening; titles and halos were fleeting. In a top national institution like Huaihai, he wouldn’t be the standout one. Everyone would be at the same starting line; he had to start over.

When he finished the paper, Pei Xing checked the time. He had only finished twenty minutes early, merely satisfactory. He checked his answers; his accuracy was 97%, which also failed to fully satisfy him.

Pei Xing pulled up Discrete Mathematics, intending to continue, but the words he had heard that morning suddenly flashed through his mind.

The fingers gripping the pen squeezed and finally let go. He picked up his phone, turned off the timer, and opened his messaging app.

Not long after he enabled the “allow add as friend” setting, messages started popping up. He glanced at them; for some reason, just by looking at the avatars, he was certain none of them were Su Yuan.

Pei Xing reopened the exam paper and restarted the timer.

Midway through the problems, he realized he was distracted. It seemed that as soon as his pen stopped calculating, he would reach for his phone again. Pei Xing increased the pressure of his writing, almost forcing himself to maintain the focus and the habit of not stopping once a problem was started.

He turned off the light.

Pei Xing forced himself to wait another ten minutes.

This was something he was both good and bad at: he was good at waiting, yet he had never encountered anything that made him feel this sense of urgent anticipation.

In the app, there was a string of friend requests. Pei Xing scrolled past them expressionlessly before placing the phone face-down on his chest.

Suddenly, he remembered Su Yuan saying he could be added via phone number.

Pei Xing clicked the plus sign in the upper right corner and entered the number.

The next second, a fluffy white Long-tailed Tit avatar appeared on the screen.

Pei Xing sat up in bed, clicking on that little bird. The bright white light hit the upward curve of his lips.

It wasn’t until he had placed the cans at Su Yuan’s door that he finally found a suitable opening line and pressed the button to add him.

Pei Xing: Did you receive the cans?

Su Yuan: Received! Thank you for washing them so clean. I didn’t scratch my hands at all.

Su Yuan: Pei Xing, you’re so thoughtful.

That chubby little white bird didn’t look like Su Yuan at all. But it was very cute.

Pei Xing: Why are you collecting these cans?

Su Yuan: Do you know that the wind has a shape?

Pei Xing glanced out the window and happened to catch sight of Su Yuan sitting on the balcony, his silhouette with hair fluttering in the wind. Like the jasmine flowers on the windowsill.

Pei Xing: I think I do.

Su Yuan: The wind doesn’t just have a shape; it has colors and scents, too. Once, I was standing under an osmanthus tree…

Qi Xiaoxi was right; chatting with Su Yuan was fun. He always had whimsical ideas, and Pei Xing’s own replies felt like a transparent kite string, keeping Su Yuan from floating away into outer space.

Su Yuan: The wind that blows on everyone is different.

Pei Xing: Mm. So what is the wind blowing on you like?

After hitting send, Pei Xing felt a twinge of regret.

The long silence in the chat box only deepened that feeling.

He had never known that waiting for a reply could be such an agonizing thing. Pei Xing exited the app and tried to do other things to distract himself.

When he snapped out of it, the screen showed information about that Crested Ibis Su Yuan had mentioned.

Congenital pigment deficiency, congenital scoliosis, congenital left-wing contracture… why would he give this ibis his own name?

He switched back to the chat. Su Yuan still hadn’t replied.

There was no one on the balcony; the lights were all extinguished.

22:37. He must be asleep. Pei Xing hoped so.

…

In the latter half of the night, it began to rain in Fuxian. The torrential summer rain lasted until a morning where Su Yuan still hadn’t replied.

Pei Xing’s movements while grading exercises were somewhat hesitant. He looked up at the transparent, steady rain outside, inexplicably thinking of Su Yuan’s face turning even paler from the cold while eating shaved ice.

He set down his pen, grabbed his bag, and explained the situation to the parent. He ended the class ten minutes early, promising to make it up with a free extra session, and boarded the bus back to the courtyard.

The door was tightly shut. The breakfast was untouched.

“Su Yuan?” Rainwater dripped from the hair on Pei Xing’s forehead. “Su Yuan, are you okay?”

He ran downstairs. The curtains on the inner side of the balcony were soaked and hung motionless in the wind.

Pei Xing jumped onto the balcony from the brick railing. The painting on the easel had been blurred by the rain; large patches of various greens looked like bruises on a body.

His hand hanging at his side tightened for an instant. He brushed aside the curtain. Su Yuan was lying with his eyes closed on an adjustable bed, half his face buried in the pillow.

Baby-blue fluffy bedding cocooned Su Yuan. The head of the bed was raised, and the pillow was high. The collar of his cream-colored silk pajamas was a bit messy from sleep, revealing a cold-white chest and the red mole on his collarbone. Next to his hand on the pillow was an eye mask he hadn’t had time to put on, and a phone with its screen still lit.

Pei Xing grabbed a tissue to wipe the water off his hands, ran to the bedside, and reached for Su Yuan’s forehead.

No fever.

“Su Yuan?”

Small pink soundproof earplugs were tucked into Su Yuan’s ears. There had been a few stray dogs outside the yard last night; it had been a bit noisy.

He pinched his own fingertips as if loathing the pen-calluses on his index finger, then reached out and gently removed the earplugs.

His fingertips inevitably brushed against Su Yuan’s earlobe, cool and soft.

“Su Yuan?” He lowered his voice, just as he did when watching the ibises, fearing he would startle him.

The person on the bed had long eyelashes; with his eyes closed, they were like small fans or unfurled wings, casting shadows on the pale, translucent skin beneath his eyes. Pei Xing gripped his arm and gave a very light squeeze.

Su Yuan woke up.

Su Yuan slowly opened his eyes. His light-colored pupils stared at Pei Xing, looking a bit dazed. He blinked, then suddenly smiled. It was the unconscious smile a newborn gives upon seeing a familiar face.

“It’s the scent of Pei Xing being soaked by rain,” Su Yuan lifted a fingertip and touched a water droplet on the bridge of Pei Xing’s nose. “The wind is blowing on me right now.” His fingertip was soft, sliding across Pei Xing’s face like a stream of water.

Flustered, Pei Xing caught that wrist. It was cool and thin, making him subconsciously tighten his grip.

“You’re hurting me…” Su Yuan said in a small voice.

Being so close, the voice was like a breeze that made the rims of Pei Xing’s ears start to burn. He let go. “Is your body uncomfortable anywhere?”

“No,” Su Yuan hugged his pillow, the red mark on his wrist clearly visible. “I stayed up too late chatting with you last night. Who told you not to come find me sooner?”

Pei Xing’s heart was still thudding. He quickly stood up and backed away, putting distance between them.

“Sorry. I thought you might be sick, so I broke in.”

The corners of Su Yuan’s mouth turned up like a clever fox. “It’s okay. You care about me, and that makes me happy.”

The damp air made Pei Xing feel as if he were surrounded by a lake. The moisture spread between them, slowly seeping into Pei Xing’s body, making his departing steps slow and heavy.

“I’ll go bring your breakfast in.”

“Okay.” The tone still had that habitual upward tilt, like a pout.

…

Su Yuan sat at the dining table, taking small sips of porridge with one leg curled up on the chair. His Achilles tendon was narrow, and the bone of his ankle was a rounded protrusion under a thin layer of skin that seemed to glow.

Seeing that he was no longer eating, Pei Xing, who had finished tidying the room, turned toward the door. “I’ll set out lunch for you; it shouldn’t get cold. Message me if you feel unwell.”

“Pei Xing,” Su Yuan spoke from behind him. “I’m very happy you came to see me. Thank you for taking care of me.”

Pei Xing didn’t look back as he gently closed the door.

In the afternoon, the weather cleared. The humidity quickly evaporated, and the streets grew crowded again.

Pei Xing messaged the parent of his next lesson, pushing it back by fifteen minutes. He returned to Su Yuan’s door, saw that the lunchbox had been taken, and without lingering, hurried to his class.

Su Yuan: (Image)

Su Yuan: Finished it all. It was delicious.

At night, he led away the stray dogs gathering outside the yard so they wouldn’t make noise. After his shower, there was a knock on his door.

The first thing to drift in was a wave of fresh jasmine fragrance.

Su Yuan stood outside the door, his clean face wearing a smile. “Pei Xing, do you want to come to my room?”