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Join the ServerXie Yan couldn’t understand it.
Why would someone send a long, delicate, sentimental message one second, then turn cold and heartless the next?
What, he made sure to comfort his backup before deleting him?
How incredibly thoughtful.
He turned to the person next to him and asked directly, “Did Lin Chuji delete you on WeChat?”
“Why would he delete me?”
Shen Yinan found it absurd.
He checked his contact list and said confidently, “No, he didn’t.”
Xie Yan held back his frustration and looked at the front seat.
“What about you?”
“No,” Shen Yibei said, turning his head.
Then he froze for a second and realized, “You got deleted by him?
Hahahahahahaha!
He’s so awesome!
How is he so brave?
I’m absolutely in awe.”
Xie Yan threatened, “Laugh one more time and I’ll throw you out of the car.”
“Bro, I can see it now.
You’ve got yourself a ‘chasing your wife through crematorium’ scenario,” Shen Yinan said, laughing like a rooster without any psychological burden.
Xie Yan was truly defeated.
He commanded, “You video call him.
I want to ask him directly.”
Shen Yinan waved his phone and teased, “I thought you two were going your separate ways and not bothering each other?”
Xie Yan reached over and dialed for him, saying flatly, “I like to get to the bottom of things.”
The video call went out, showing it was ringing, but no one answered for a long time.
When Lin Chuji saw the incoming video pop up, he was stunned for a few seconds before realizing that Xie Yan was definitely calling to demand an explanation.
Hadn’t he read that guide?
No, even if he had, he might not connect it to the masked person from that night, but he would still think Lin Chuji had intentions toward him, had ulterior motives—and that would be hard to explain.
The video pop-up reminder was still there at the top of the screen.
Answer it, or not?
Couldn’t they just text?
A face-to-face conversation was too intense, too awkward.
Lin Chuji’s mind was spinning chaotically.
His hand slipped, and the phone slid out of his palm, falling with a plop into a nearby sewer drain.
Lin Chuji: …
Perfect.
Heaven has already given me the answer.
Shen Yinan looked at the call notification and held back a laugh.
“He hung up.
He doesn’t want to answer.”
This was within Xie Yan’s expectations.
He scrolled through his phone screen and only now slowly opened the strange guide Lin Chuji had sent him earlier.
He flipped through it casually, and his expression relaxed.
A Social Phobic’s Guide to Dating.
No wonder all those strange actions and tones of voice—he had learned them from here.
Got it.
He was trying to subtly tell him that the substitute journey was over.
Fine, it’s not like he was interested in Lin Chuji anyway.
He hadn’t been hurt at all.
Part on good terms, with a proper ending.
Once he thought it through, it was no big deal.
Xie Yan lowered the car window a little to let the wind in.
The driver very timely switched to a very fitting song: “The one I love is not my lover.
Every inch of his heart belongs to another…” Shen Yibei reached over and turned the dial.
“Driver, driver, change the song!!!”
The driver smiled, looked at him in the rearview mirror, and comforted him, “It’s okay, young man.
We’ve all been through this age.
Getting dumped is very normal.
Say goodbye to the last, the next will be better.”
Xie Yan: “…….”
He turned his head, pressed down on the voice message button on Shen Yinan’s phone, and sent a very casual voice message.
“The mountains remain, the waters flow.”
To complete the second half he hadn’t been able to send earlier.
“Then may we never meet again in this life.”
***
The cruise ship had departed from Mist City, which was probably the hometown of Xie Yan and the Shen brothers, but not Lin Chuji’s.
He still had to take a taxi to the airport.
The phone that fell into the drain couldn’t be retrieved.
Luckily, he had some cash on him, so he wasn’t completely stranded.
By the time he returned to the capital and bought a new phone, it was already late the next night.
When Zhan Wanqiu came in holding that ugly doll, she saw Lin Chuji sitting in the middle of the bed with messy hair, lost in thought.
She explained, “The shop you found yourself was no good.
I found several other shops to redo it.
This doll is too ugly, and the craftsmanship is poor.
Once it’s damaged, it’s hard to fully restore it to its original state.
This is the best I could do.”
Lin Chuji stared at the crooked, misshapen defective product.
“When I was on the cruise ship, I didn’t need to hold this to sleep well.”
“Then did you sleep well last night?”
Zhan Wanqiu asked.
Lin Chuji shook his head.
“Very badly.
I woke up many times.
I kept dreaming.”
Zhan Wanqiu handed him the doll and said calmly, “It’s just the exhaustion from travel.
Drink your milk, go to bed early, and you’ll be fine.”
Lin Chuji hummed in acknowledgment.
He heard her slippered footsteps retreat, and then the door was locked.
He downed the milk in one go, turned off the light, lay down holding the doll that had accompanied him since childhood, and closed his eyes.
He couldn’t sleep.
No matter what, he couldn’t sleep.
He felt terribly anxious, back to those old days when sleep was hard to come by.
Only then did Lin Chuji belatedly realize that on the cruise ship, despite the frequent social embarrassments, he had slept extremely well.
Why was that?
Because of the faint, reassuring scent that seemed to float in the air—a sun-like citrus fragrance—coming from Xie Yan.
“Is it cologne?”
Lin Chuji murmured to himself.
He searched online for keywords and ordered a bunch of citrus-scented colognes, planning to use them as sleep aromatherapy.
But after trying the fifth bottle, he still hadn’t found anything similar—they just smelled bad.
By this point, Lin Chuji had been suffering from insomnia for four consecutive days.
His disordered sleep schedule had left him mentally exhausted and on the verge of collapse.
Another night, Lin Chuji opened his WeChat contact list.
As he scrolled back and forth, he recalled his rash actions and sighed.
“I shouldn’t have deleted him.
Then I could at least ask.”
When he exited the app, he accidentally opened the other, smaller account they had added each other on.
His finger brushed against Xie Yan’s profile picture without noticing, lightly tapping twice.
You patted them. A line of text appeared below.
Lin Chuji: “……”
Help.
Can I recall that?
Why did that product manager invent such a socially devastating feature!
[…]: ?
The other person was not only online but had caught him in the act and sent back a big question mark.
Lin Chuji’s face was about to explode with redness.
He buried his head in his arms for a while, waiting for the embarrassment to pass, then looked up dazedly.
Wait a minute.
Xie Yan didn’t know that the person behind this account was Lin Chuji.
What was he panicking about?
He pressed on the keyboard, deleting and rewriting, carefully choosing his words.
But feeling guilty because he had deleted Xie Yan on WeChat, he hesitated to send.
Five minutes later.
[…]: Are you writing an essay in the chat box?
[.]: No……
[.]: I accidentally touched it.
[…]: Suddenly missing me again?
That question was very ambiguous.
Lin Chuji thought to himself, Xie Yan is gay.
Maybe this is the side of him I haven’t seen—casual, unrestrained, able to flirt with anyone at will.
[.]: I suddenly remembered, last time I was close to you, you had a citrus scent on you.
It was really nice.
[.]: Is it a special custom cologne?
I wanted to buy some to spray on my clothes too.
At that moment, Xie Yan had just finished showering.
His freshly changed pajamas carried a faint citrus fragrance.
He looked at the text Lin Chuji had sent and clicked his tongue softly.
Six days after they parted, on a lonely night, he’s already fishing for backups online.
Using the angle of scent to start a conversation—really high-level.
Just those few lines instantly made Xie Yan recall the moments when Lin Chuji had buried himself in his arms, skin touching skin, breaths intertwined.
Even his own skin grew hot.
He wiped his face and muttered a swear word.
Ten minutes later, Lin Chuji received an image.
[…]: Not cologne.
It’s a local laundry powder from Mist City.
[.]: Thank you.
Goodnight.
Sweet dreams.
Xie Yan thought to himself, He’ll come again tomorrow night, with another excuse.
But the next day, and the day after that…
Lin Chuji didn’t appear again.
***
Lin Chuji and Xie Yan never chatted online again.
He bought the same laundry powder Xie Yan had sent him, washed the sleeping bag he had brought home, and then crawled into it every night.
Surrounded by that scent, he slept extremely well.
A little over a month later, Jing University started its fall semester.
Lin Chuji brought that sleeping bag with him to the dormitory.
Zhan Wanqiu had applied for a two-person room for him, worried that since he had always lived alone, he would feel uncomfortable rooming with others.
It was Lin Chuji’s first time living in a dorm, so he was inevitably more talkative than usual.
He confirmed repeatedly, “You promised me.
Let me try it for one semester.
If it goes well, I won’t live at home anymore.”
“Okay.
But if anything unexpected happens to you, you’ll move back home.
Understand?”
When Zhan Wanqiu spoke to him, it was still as if she were disciplining a little child.
Lin Chuji nodded perfunctorily.
“Got it.
You go back now.
I’ll tidy up.”
After sending her off, Lin Chuji rolled up his sleeves, grabbed a cloth, and started cleaning the room.
The dust had accumulated over the summer, so it was indeed a lot of work.
But Lin Chuji found great joy in it.
With the faint social skills he had developed during that trip, and the thought of meeting new friends and starting a wonderful college life, he felt like humming with happiness.
He stood on his tiptoes, trying to take down a lamp from on top of the wardrobe.
His hand slipped, and the lamp fell straight onto his back.
Lin Chuji frowned and tried to look around.
It felt like it might have broken the skin.
“My mom’s mouth is like it’s been blessed,” Lin Chuji muttered, crouching down to rummage through his suitcase for medical supplies.
Through the window, he vaguely heard a familiar voice—a youthful clarity, with a drawl at the end and a distinctive way of pronouncing words.
It sounded a lot like Xie Yan.
“You’re welcome.
It was no trouble,” the young man said.
Lin Chuji’s heart jumped, his whole body tensing.
He wouldn’t have come all the way here to confront me for deleting him, would he?
The next second, Lin Chuji himself found it ridiculous.
Xie Yan should be at that Seeker of Excellence Men’s Athletic Academy a thousand miles away.
How could he be in the capital?
He was losing his mind.
Down below the window, Xie Yan had just helped a girl carry her suitcase down the stairs.
After helping, he turned and pushed his own suitcase into the nearest dormitory building.
A two-person room—not the type he had applied for online.
Xie Yan called the dormitory manager while striding toward the designated spot.
He stopped in front of room 404.
The exact same room number—it felt like being back on the cruise ship.
“Who’s this?”
The voice on the other end was probably in a noisy place, very quiet.
“Auntie, I’m Xie Yan, a new student in the medical school.
I wanted to ask, has my dormitory assignment been adjusted?
I don’t think I applied for a two-person—” Xie Yan lowered his head to turn on the speakerphone and, as he spoke, pushed open the door.
The light of dusk slanted in through the window.
On the bed near the door, a young man sat with his back to him, his shirt tossed aside, naked from the waist up.
He was holding a cotton swab and iodine.
With his head slightly lowered, his long neck formed a smooth, flowing contour.
His cool, sharp shoulder blades seemed ready to take flight.
On his back, somewhere, there was a red mark from an unknown impact.
Further down was a lean but not scrawny waist.
And on that waist was a faint, crescent-shaped scar.
Xie Yan froze.
It looked so much like Lin Chuji.
He must be seeing things.
Many people in the world look alike, and it was just a back view, after all.
Xie Yan thought about it, but his gaze fell on the waist again.
The scar is exactly the same too…
Had Lin Chuji come looking for him?
Crossing the 743.2 kilometers between Tieling and the capital?
That was absurd.
Xie Yan’s throat bobbed.
He stepped back half a step and said into the phone, “Wait, I’ll ask later—”
“Xie Yan, here’s the thing.
Your roommate Lin Chuji’s mother paid extra to have you switched in.”
“She said their child is shy around strangers and doesn’t want anyone else.
He insisted on having Xie Yan.”
That was the answer he received on the other end of the line, the voice echoing through the room.
Xie Yan’s breathing nearly stopped.
And at that moment, he saw the person turn his head and lock eyes with him.
Lin Chuji looked at him with a mix of shock and shame.
The bottle of iodine slipped from his grip and fell to the floor with a soft plop.
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