Chapter 32: Brother-in-Law, Let Me Help You

On the upper bunk, it was already past 11 p.m. when he finished chatting with Kele. The night was deep, and the dorm was dark with the lights out.

After playing with the cat for a while, just as Qin Liang was about to get into bed, he suddenly slapped his forehead, his brows furrowing slightly.

He had forgotten. He should have also invited Kele’s sister, Baishi, out.

‘Should I contact her now?’

‘Hmm… it’s too late.’

‘Next time.’

Thinking this, Qin Liang pulled up the covers and went to sleep. Falling asleep was simple. The only worry was not waking up again.

Dazed and confused.

It was as if he were in an endless chaos, where time and space had completely lost their meaning. After an unknown amount of time, a pair of beautiful legs wrapped in black stockings appeared faintly in the darkness.

The long, straight lines were like elegant arcs, and a faint scent of lemon lingered at the tip of his nose, but he couldn’t see the face of the owner of the legs.

In a daze, he felt himself leaning back in a chair, with the owner of the beautiful legs sitting across from him, a table between them.

Just as Qin Liang was about to ask a question, his body suddenly tensed up like a string, and a muffled groan escaped his throat.

Softness and delicacy washed over him like a tide, that sensation…

In the end, he seemed to turn into a waterfall, and with a long, booming sound, he passed out in a state of bliss.

The next morning, Qin Liang woke up very early. When he woke up, he seemed to notice something, his face stiffened, he supported his forehead with one hand, his expression a mixture of complexity and embarrassment. Then, he took some clothes from the closet and went into the restroom.

Daily life at the university was uneventful. Today, it was dorm room 812’s turn to clean the classroom. At the university, there was a different classroom for each class.

There was no such thing as staying in one classroom for several years like in elementary and high school. And cleaning was even simpler. These weren’t classrooms that were lived in for a long time. There wasn’t much trash after one class. At most, it was just sweeping the floor and sprinkling some water, which could be done in half an hour.

“I heard the whole school is suspending classes next week!” Lin Haiyu leaned on his mop, his eyebrows dancing as he dropped a bombshell. “The school has spent a fortune to hire a professor to give a week-long series of lectures.”

“Lectures? What kind? Do we get extra credit?”

“It’s a cutting-edge topic related to time. It’s very mysterious! But we can just play on our phones and slack off then. He’ll give his lectures, and we’ll do our own thing.”

“What’s the professor’s name? To make our school spend so much money? Didn’t you say our principal is the mayor’s brother-in-law? Who in Nanchang City would dare not give him face?”

“I think his surname is Zhou. I forgot his specific name, but I heard he’s very handsome, the kind that could make it in the entertainment industry.”

Outside the corridor, Lin Haiyu was bragging, recounting the information he had gathered while surfing Tieba. Tang Yunle and Li Wei were listening with pricked ears. Cleaning the classroom wasn’t very difficult, and now that they were gathered together, chatting more would make it easier to strengthen their roommate bonds.

As the three of them were joking around, Li Wei suddenly got excited. “Anyway, we don’t have classes in the afternoon or evening. How about we go out for a meal tonight? That beef hot pot place from last time, their sesame paste is amazing.”

“Let’s go!”

“I’m fine with anything.”

After deciding on their dinner plans, leaving the other two to mop the corridor, Tang Yunle grabbed a broom and walked into the classroom.

The spring sunlight slanted in through the window, casting diamond-shaped patches of light on the floor.

He had expected to see Qin Liang busy working, but instead, he saw him standing by the window, his ice-blue eyes reflecting the sky, his eyelashes casting fine shadows below, as if he had kneaded all his thoughts into that clear blue.

‘I actually had a wet dream?’

‘Is my body really about to give out?’

‘Didn’t they say I had at most ten years left?’

Qin Liang thought.

He suffered from a very complex disease, related to organ failure.

Wet dreams, morning wood, nocturnal emissions—these physiological reactions, which were perfectly normal for people his age, had become a heavy burden for him.

It was like making a 70 or 80-year-old man run a marathon. Every “normal” physiological fluctuation was overdrawing his already fragile body.

He had heard that when people are close to death, their bodies, driven by the reproductive impulse engraved in their genes, will experience morning wood. Could his current situation be a similar sign?

Was his time almost up?

But…

His ice-blue pupils narrowed slightly. Fragments of last night’s dream flooded his mind, and his body couldn’t help but tremble.

That feeling was really… so comfortable, so addictive.

“Ah Liang, what are you spacing out about?” Tang Yunle’s voice came from behind, greeting him.

He was extremely concerned about this sugar daddy, especially after knowing that he had undergone a heart transplant and was not in good health. He had tried to take on heavy tasks like carrying water for him.

He couldn’t help it. If something happened to Qin Liang, what would he do for his living expenses and tuition for the next four years of college?

“It’s nothing, I was just thinking about something,” Qin Liang came back to his senses and casually adjusted his collar.

“Oh, how about we go for beef hot pot tonight? Old Lin, Li Wei, and I have already made plans,” Tang Yunle said with a smile, nudging him with his elbow.

“Okay,” Qin Liang nodded and looked up at the sky outside the window.

The sunlight shone on his face through the clouds. He raised the corners of his mouth and smiled.

‘I have to smile, I have to be happy, I have to be a happy person.’

‘Even if I have to face death in the next second, I have to smile now.’

After half an hour of cleaning the classroom, they returned to their dorm and played on their phones for a while. As it was getting close to dinner time, they went to the beef hot pot restaurant.

The red soup base bubbled with a spicy wave, while the sweet and sour aroma of tomatoes wafted from the clear soup base. The group of them chatted and laughed, raising their chopsticks and clinking their glasses.

Complaining about the school, talking about girls, discussing their teachers… the atmosphere was very cheerful, until Tang Yunle’s phone rang. After he went out to answer the call and came back, his whole mood changed.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s nothing, just a family conflict,” Tang Yunle sighed lightly, picked up a few slices of beef, mixed them with sesame paste, and stuffed them into his mouth while chugging down a large mouthful of alcohol.

Seeing this, the others knew that every family has its own problems and didn’t ask any further questions.

They just drank with Tang Yunle, one cup after another.

Perhaps wanting to drown his sorrows in alcohol, Tang Yunle’s drinking capacity was exceptionally high tonight. He finished ten bottles by himself, making Qin Liang and the others’ eyelids twitch. They quickly tried to stop him, afraid that something bad would happen.

After the beef hot pot ended, Lin Haiyu and Li Wei decided to go for a walk outside to digest their food, while Qin Liang looked at the big boy who was drunk as a skunk and, thinking of all the care he had shown him, decided to take him back.

The taxi slowly stopped at the school gate. The campus, in the twilight, was unexpectedly dark. Only the streetlights outside the school cast a dim yellow halo on the empty road. Inside the school, it was pitch black.

He helped him out of the car. The young man, his eyes red from drinking, leaned on his shoulder, making Qin Liang stagger a little.

‘He’s quite heavy.’

The young man with ice-blue pupils thought to himself.

“Of course boys are heavy, brother-in-law. Let me help you.”