The Long Night - Chapter 10

So it was probably just a hallucination.

Tang Shaocheng didn’t realize what he had said, and Yan Liao was too shy to ask.

If he didn’t ask, he could pretend he “might have misheard” instead of “actually misheard.” Yan Liao thought about it for a while, and when he looked up again, he saw that the person across from him had already fallen asleep with his arm as a pillow.

Yan Liao moved the papers in his hand to the side and lay his head on the desk, looking at Tang Shaocheng’s peaceful face as he slept. He looked at the faint blue veins on his eyelids, his dense eyelashes. The lines of his facial features had softened, and his gentle breathing was like a small boat bobbing up and down on the river.

Yan Liao quietly changed the direction of the fan on the desk to blow on Tang Shaocheng, but he was worried he would catch a cold, so he turned the fan speed to the lowest setting.

The weather had been fluctuating between hot and cold for a while. When the sun was high in the sky, the ground was so hot it seemed to be steaming. Just as they changed into short sleeves, it started to pour, and the temperature dropped suddenly, forcing them to shiver and take their folded jackets out of the closet again.

It was like switching back and forth between a microwave and a refrigerator.

When Yan Liao ran out the door, his mom’s voice was still chasing after him. “I told you to wear a jacket! Did you hear me? There’s going to be a thunderstorm tonight! You little brat, do you want to freeze to death?!”

It felt like the entire building had heard it. Yan Liao’s vision went black. He ran back and put on the unbelievably ugly yellow hoodie, muttering a few complaints, which his mom saw through and pinched his ear.

When he ran out again, you could tell from his footsteps that he was very angry.

And just twelve flights of stairs above, the apartment was quiet from morning to night, as if no one lived there. The only sounds were the opening and closing of the door late at night and early in the morning.

Tang Shaocheng looked at the weather forecast and found a jacket to wear for going out.

The washing machine was rumbling, the floor he had mopped was sparkling, and the green plants on the balcony were thriving.

He methodically finished his chores, and after turning off the last timer alarm, he left on time. He seemed to carry a stable magnetic field, a sense of order that was hard to break, separating him from the chaotic outside world.

Even though the owner of the body was still eighteen, he could take good care of himself.

Tang Shaocheng didn’t have many memories of his adolescence. To outsiders, his life seemed glorious, but only he knew that he hated those years. Living with his mother was like living under someone else’s roof and being controlled by them. He had heard “you must do everything well, you must do everything the best to be worthy of your dead father” countless times since he was a child. When he was young, Tang Shaocheng would retort in his heart, “I didn’t kill him.”

But many years later, when he heard these words again, he would only accept them calmly.

When the campus broadcast rang out, telling all the teachers and students to go downstairs immediately, Yan Liao slowly opened his eyes on the desk, a little dazed, as if he hadn’t fully woken up.

May was the school’s anniversary. The leaders took it more seriously than any other festival. They specially set up a stage in front of the library, and only the school leaders had two rows of chairs and tables at the bottom.

All the senior students were asked to come out. Standing in the sun was even framed as a way for the students to relax and relieve their academic pressure.

Yan Liao had been doing problems all morning. His eyes were sleepy, and his back ached. He rubbed his shoulders as he went downstairs, unceremoniously making a rebellious statement. “They’re not even giving us a day off. Who cares about their anniversary?”

The students around him didn’t respond. Yan Liao didn’t care about his precarious popularity, and he was too slow to even think of the word “isolated.” He really agreed with his own words.

Ge Dong-lin had taken another long leave after the exam. This time he didn’t use the excuse of being sick. He just said he wanted to study at home. With only a few dozen days left, the teacher knew the situation and approved his leave without any trouble.

So, Yan Liao, who was already distant from his classmates because he was often away for training, now had no friends he could talk to. But he had never cared about this. In his opinion, it was enough to have a close relationship with just one person.

The sunlight was unsparing. After standing for a while, Yan Liao felt uncomfortable, as if insects were crawling all over him. Their homeroom teacher happened to be at the front of the line talking to the leaders. He avoided the teachers patrolling behind and slipped to the back of the line.

He originally wanted to go back to the classroom, but as soon as he got out, his legs seemed to have a mind of their own and he secretly ran to the end of Tang Shaocheng’s class. He saw the person standing upright and tall at a glance. He was so tall and had such outstanding facial features that he stood out in the crowd.

The other person also turned his head and saw him. His eyebrows raised in surprise, but his eyes instantly became just as bright.

“I can’t believe you can listen to something so boring.”

The sunlight flowed over the creases of his school uniform. Yan Liao sidled up to Tang Shaocheng, putting his hands in his pockets lazily. He was very disdainful of Tang Shaocheng’s good student ways. “It’s better to be in the classroom doing problems.”

…For those words to come out of his mouth was like he was possessed.

Tang Shaocheng laughed and used the same rhetoric as the teachers. “Just think of it as a chance to relax.” He was met with an unsparing snort. He skillfully raised his hand to straighten Yan Liao’s crooked collar and shifted his posture to block the scorching sun from the front.

Yan Liao didn’t notice his small movements. It was much more comfortable standing in the shade. His squinted eyes were now completely open, his thick, black eyelashes like two small waving fans.

He glanced at the second-year student giving a speech on the podium and bumped Tang Shaocheng’s arm. “You were up there last year.”

“Was I?”

Tang Shaocheng didn’t remember it much, but he was indeed the one who went on stage for all the important speeches. He would always give the speech without a script, whether he was asked to or not. Almost all the teachers in the school knew him. He was relieved of the heavy responsibility after he got busy in his senior year, and the speeches were all given to the next class.

“Yeah, I remember. You were wearing a black suit that day. From a distance, you looked pretty good, but up close, I could see that your nose was all sweaty.” Yan Liao’s eyes curved as he laughed. “I don’t know what the teachers were thinking, making you wear something like that.”

Tang Shaocheng listened quietly and attentively. His heart suddenly stirred.

It was then that he belatedly realized something. His memory of “not being close to Yan Liao and having little contact with him in high school” was only one-sided.

Perhaps Yan Liao had been secretly paying attention to him from an earlier time, in places he didn’t even know about.

“…How much longer do we have to stand here?”

Yan Liao was out of patience with the boring speeches. He turned and righteously gestured, “When I give the order, we’ll sneak back from the second-to-last row.”

He gave the order before Tang Shaocheng could even agree. He was a natural-born leader.

They took advantage of the teachers’ lack of attention and ran quickly through the crowd, as if they were riding the wind and waves. The few seconds in the blank space between the different classes were the most tense. They were afraid that a voice would suddenly yell at them to stop.

Tang Shaocheng was used to being a well-behaved student who followed the rules. This was the first time he had blatantly snuck away, and it was in front of the entire school. His heart inexplicably started to beat faster.