Eat Less Fish in the Future - Chapter 11

“Gossip yourself to death, why don’t you,” Zheng Yimian pushed her. “Stop bouncing around and go take a shower. Go to bed early after you’re done. I’m exhausted.”

Li Min gathered her clothes and went to take a shower. As soon as the door closed, the sound of the shower continued for a while, then they heard her wail from inside. “There’s no hot water?!”

Zheng Yimian stood up. “Are you sure there isn’t any? I’ll go ask the auntie.”

The auntie in charge of the sketching base explained. “Everyone’s showering now, so the water pressure is low and the water isn’t hot. You’ll have to wait a while.”

Li Min finished her shower and came out. They waited for another half hour, but still no hot water came.

Zheng Yimian didn’t want to take a cold shower, so she went to find the auntie again. The auntie thought for a moment and said, “There’s a bathroom at the end of the upstairs hallway. That one should have hot water. Why don’t you go upstairs to shower?”

Zheng Yimian went upstairs to check.

Everyone was in their rooms playing at this time, so there weren’t many people outside. Plus, there were girls staying in the second-floor rooms, so it should be fine.

She tried the bathroom, and the water was quite hot.

Li Min complained beside her. “What water pressure issue? It’s clearly a problem with the room. Mianmian, just shower upstairs. It’s pretty safe.”

After all, this was a sketching base, so the living conditions were certainly not comparable to a hotel.

Zheng Yimian gathered her clothes and shower supplies and headed upstairs.

After repeatedly confirming that the bathroom was not see-through anywhere and that the door could be locked properly, she prepared to take a quick hot shower.

While applying body wash, she heard laughter from outside. It was then that she vaguely remembered there was a small lounge next door where people could play cards and board games.

In the lounge outside, Zhao Yuan was chatting animatedly with his roommate. As they talked, the conversation turned to Liang Yu.

The roommate asked him. “I heard he was quite a troublemaker before. Even a teacher said he was like the ‘king of hooligans’. But now, I don’t think he’s particularly wild?”

Zhao Yuan sighed. “Before was before. You just haven’t seen what he was like back then. There was this one time that was especially badass. I still remember it clearly.”

“Tell me about it.”

Zhao Yuan said, “That day, he finally didn’t stay up all night at the internet cafe and went to school to rest a bit. Our previous homeroom teacher had just been driven away by him, and the new homeroom teacher came to teach the first class. He was reading a comic book in the back, not even looking up at all.”

“The new homeroom teacher was called Old Wang, a man who was like the previous instructor. Seeing that Liang Yu was difficult to manage, he wanted to try controlling him. He called on Brother Yu to answer a question, but of course, Brother Yu ignored him. The whole class was as quiet as mice, and we didn’t hear a single word from Brother Yu for ten minutes. Then, Brother Yu finally spoke.”

“Oh? What did he say?”

“He said: ‘Can you turn off the lights in the back? I want to sleep.'”

The roommate burst out laughing. “Pfft hahaha! The homeroom teacher must have been furious!”

“Of course he was furious. He pointed at him on the spot, his hand shaking, and said: ‘Get out of here!'”

“I thought he wouldn’t move, but to everyone’s surprise, he actually stood up. We were all shocked, thinking he was really going to leave. But then he stood up, put his hand on the desk–”

At that time, Liang Yu had his hand on the desk, leaning slightly forward, casually turning another page of his comic.

He was lazy and relaxed, nodding to the teacher on the podium with a smile.

“I won’t,” he had said.

“Damn,” Zhao Yuan recounted the scene. “You know what a death moment is? Everyone was scared out of their minds, afraid that in the next second, Old Wang would pull out a grenade and blow up our class, shouting ‘Let’s die together!’ It was that kind of feeling.”

“Did you all die together?” the roommate asked.

“No,” Zhao Yuan said. “The next day, Old Wang resigned.”

The roommate laughed so hard he was shaking.

Zhao Yuan looked up and said, “You really haven’t seen what Liang Yu was like before.”

When he fought, he was as fierce as if he didn’t care about his life, fearing nothing and caring about nothing.

There was a private room in the internet cafe that was their permanent spot, filled with swirling smoke and the smell of alcohol, storing these world-weary youths all day long.

Negative and world-weary, they only seemed alive when fighting; the rest of the time, they were no different from the dead.

The roommate asked, “So what method did the later homeroom teacher use to tame him, to make him get into our W University?”

The roommate was a typical good boy, wearing black-framed glasses, who had rarely even been late from childhood, and had steadily made his way into this desired school.

“Homeroom teacher? What does the homeroom teacher have to do with it?” Zhao Yuan sneered. “He just stopped going to school, and studied one-on-one at home every day to prepare for the exams.”

“Prepare for exams? Why did he suddenly decide to study hard?”

Zhao Yuan looked at his roommate as if he was looking at an idiot. “What else could it be? For someone, of course.”

“But, if he came here for that person, when is he planning to confess…” the roommate mumbled.

“Why are you in such a hurry? He knows when to say it,” Zhao Yuan glanced at him. “He’s been secretly in love for so many years, how could he confess right away? Does that fit your Brother Yu’s character? Haste makes waste, you know nothing.”

“Where’s Brother Yu? Where’s Brother Yu?” The roommate was itching with curiosity about this completely different life. “I want to ask him how he fell for sister-in-law!”

Zhao Yuan lifted his chin. “He’s outside smoking.”

Halfway through his cigarette, Liang Yu leaned on the railing and looked down.

The lights were still on…

There was a soft click, feeling movement behind him as if a door had opened somewhere. Liang Yu frowned and looked back.

A large cloud of white mist surged out from the room. At first, he could only see the pale fingers gripping the doorknob, the fingertips slightly pink.

Then, someone walked out from inside.

The ends of her hair were wet, water dripping down drop by drop, forming streams.

Her cheeks were flushed a soft red, her eyes filled with a lingering mist, as soft as if they had been dipped in water.

Ripples moved slightly, starlight gradually flickered.

A water droplet rolled down her cheek, hurrying eagerly to its next destination, pooling into a small puddle in the hollow of her collarbone.

Liang Yu’s fingers twitched, his Adam’s apple burning hot.

This was… just after a shower?

The person inside lowered her head, stepping on the water beneath her feet on the soft mat.

After stepping through the water, she was about to walk forward. As soon as she raised her head, her step halted halfway, and she froze.

Her bewildered gaze happened to fix on his eyes. Her pupils were pitch black, those downturned eyes now looking even more harmless as they blinked once.

In the instant their eyes met, the air seemed to solidify.

The corridor was unnaturally quiet, with a bright moon hanging in the sky.

Zheng Yimian unconsciously rubbed her fingers on the doorknob.

Although she was now dressed in proper pajamas, and the pajamas even had built-in padding, suddenly opening the door and coming face to face with Liang Yu still made her feel…

… a bit too intimate…

As they both stood frozen in place, someone walked out of the lounge next door, calling out loudly. “I’m saying, Brother Yu…”

Zhao Yuan had only walked halfway, not even crossing the threshold, when Liang Yu reacted quickly and kicked Zhao Yuan’s leg back in.

“Get back inside.”

Zhao Yuan was confused. “Why go back in? I came out to find you…”

“Just stand here, don’t come out.” Liang Yu stepped back two paces, affirming.

Zhao Yuan tried to peek out. “What’s outside that’s so precious you won’t let me see…”

Liang Yu glared at him. “Try coming out and see what happens.”

Zhao Yuan was completely bewildered, feeling Liang Yu’s vigilant gaze full of warning. He pointed at himself, hurt. “What did I do wrong???”

Zheng Yimian watched as Liang Yu walked over, took the jacket off the railing, and draped it over her from the front.

She looked up.

She heard him say in a deep voice. “It’s cold at night. Don’t catch a chill.”

She responded hurriedly a couple of times, only now feeling something, her ears quickly burning up.

“Then I’ll, I’ll go down first.”

“Go on down,” he said, his eyes dark and unreadable. “Be careful.”

The wooden suspended corridor had a unique charm. Zheng Yimian took a couple of steps, sometimes deep, sometimes shallow.

The old wooden boards let out long, ambiguous, and hoarse sounds under Zheng Yimian’s feet, adding another layer of romance to the night scene and situation.

She was a bit embarrassed and hurried down the stairs.

She didn’t know if Liang Yu was watching her.

With this thought in mind as she went downstairs, at the corner, she took a quick glance upwards with her peripheral vision.

A figure stood in place, as if seeing her off the whole time.

When Li Min came out of the bathroom, she found Zheng Yimian sitting on the bed.

She was holding a hair dryer, but seemed to have completely forgotten to dry her hair, lost in thought.

The nozzle of the hair dryer was pointing at a pack of tissues, and the tissue peeking out of the pack looked like a pitiful blade of grass, trembling in a night of howling wind and rain.

The tissues were rustling loudly in the wind.

Li Min’s legs almost went weak at the sight. “Mianmian, what are you doing?”

Zheng Yimian turned her face, her expression complex. “I just finished showering and opened the door. Guess who I saw?”

“Who could you have met?” Li Min said casually, smiling as she scrolled on her phone. “It’s not like you could have run into Liang Yu, right?”

Zheng Yimian looked at her. “I really did run into Liang Yu.”

Li Min’s phone fell to the floor with a “thud.”

After a while, Li Min picked up her phone and said shakily. “Good thing it wasn’t you seeing him just out of the shower, otherwise it would be even more embar… No, wait, what’s there to be embarrassed about…” Li Min’s eyes lit up as she savored the thought. “Thinking about it, I find it quite thrilling. You see, dark night, beauty after bath, bathroom temptation, not an inch of thread…”

Zheng Yimian pointed the hair dryer at her. “Not only did I have an inch of thread, I was wearing panda pajamas.”

After a while, the hair dryer speed increased by two levels, and Zheng Yimian gritted her teeth. “I finally understand, rumors are spread by people like you who love to embellish stories…”

Before she could finish speaking, Li Min was holding her phone.

“Oh my god, someone else is asking me!”

Zheng Yimian: ?

Li Min: “‘I heard Liang Yu pinned Zheng Yimian against the second-floor doorway and did this and that, is it true?!'”

Zheng Yimian: “…”

Late at night, Zheng Yimian dried her hair and got into bed. She played on her phone for a while before going to sleep.

The night here was more peaceful and quiet than in the city, with the wind rustling through the trees.

The lights in the upstairs bedroom were off, but phone screens were still lit.

Liang Yu turned over, hearing someone ask. “Brother Yu, how did you manage to get into our school after studying for just one year?”

It seemed like a legend.

Zhao Yuan snorted. “How did he get in? Do you know how hard he worked?”

The roommate asked. “How?”

Zhao Yuan: “At that time, I didn’t want to go to university, but I was closest to him. With him gone, there was no one to hang out with. What could I do? I had to grit my teeth and study, wanting to go to the same school as him.”

“That night, I was working on this damn math problem until my brain was about to explode. I sent him the question asking if he knew how to solve it. After sending it, I saw it was already 2:30 in the morning. I thought he was asleep and wouldn’t reply.”

“Ten minutes later, he sent back the solution.”

“He was always smart, able to beat opponents to a pulp in games after just a few rounds. At that time, he was studying like his life depended on it, sleeping only two or three hours, with one-on-one tutoring every day. It’s no wonder he got into W University.”

The roommate was shocked. “Just two hours of sleep? Wasn’t he afraid of dying?”

Liang Yu paused, then said. “No.”

In the past, he wasn’t afraid of death because he had nothing to care about. At that time, he wasn’t afraid of death because he had a desire.

He had someone he wanted to protect, someone he wanted to stay beside.

“Speaking of which,” the roommate clearly got excited, “you got into W University because of Zheng Yimian, right? Why do you like her so much?”