Chapter 21

On Wednesday, Qin Weihang finally didn’t skip constitution class. As soon as An Ning saw him walk into the classroom, he straightened his back and waved at him. Qin Weihang saw him, walked around the podium and stopped by his seat.

After Qin Weihang stopped, he felt something was strange. An Ning didn’t call out to him, but waved his hand. Perhaps it was because An Ning haven’t seen him for a few days and simply just wanted to greet his roommate warmly. So why did he stop?

Fortunately, An Ning immediately raised his head and said to him: “Wait a moment!”

It turned out there really was something. Qin Weihang loosened his shoulders a bit, thinking that fortunately, he didn’t need to explain why he was already waiting.

An Ning turned his head and opened the zipper of his backpack. Qin Weihang stood by his seat and waited for a while. He inadvertently glanced over the other’s overly pale neck and looked away. It was obvious that the other person did not follow his suggestion to play more basketball. The whole person was still as pale as pages in a book.

He casually pressed his fingers on the edge of the table, where An Ning’s textbook was placed. When An Ning turned his back to him, Qin Weihang raised a corner of the cover. By coincidence, he saw the top student’s elementary-styled handwriting, and he almost laughed. Fortunately, he was able to hold back, turning it into a harmless nasal sound with a suppressed smile.

An Ning took out the turban from his backpack, turned around and returned it to Qin Weihang.

Qin Weihang took it, rubbed it in his palm, and raised his eyebrows: “Have you washed it?”

An Ning nodded, then saw Qin Weihang subconsciously put the turban into the pocket of his jacket, but he was wearing a denim jacket without a pocket today. After trying for a while without finding the pocket, he lowered his head to look, only to realize why. This action made Qin Weihang inexplicably a little cute. An Ning pressed his lips, calmly retracted his gaze, pretending not to notice.

In the end, Qin Weihang held the turban, glanced at the phone on his desk, and asked: “Is that a new phone?”

An Ning smiled and nodded: “Mhm, I can’t use the previous one.”

Both of them wanted to say something, but at this moment, the teacher came in with a thermos. Qin Weihang didn’t continue the conversation and walked to the last row and sat down.

During class break, An Ning relaxed his eyes and stared in the distance. He occasionally would glance inadvertently at Qin Weihang in the back row. This time Qin Weihang was not playing with his phone. He was leaning back in his chair and looking out the window. An Ning wondered what he was thinking about. The expression was still cold, but the side profile was like a sculptured artwork, making girls’ hearts beat.

An Ning squinted his eyes and pushed his glasses again. Oh, did the degree rise again? It seemed like he can’t see clearly since Qin Weihang’s nose line looked blurry.

Xiao Pang and Liang Shenghan also saw him with a new phone. After class, Xiao Pang came over and played it in his hands and said: “Nice! Aren’t XS expensive?”

An Ning said: “It was given by someone else. How can I afford to buy it?”

Liang Shenghan took the phone from Xiao Pang’s hand and put it back in An Ning’s drawer. He said contemptuously: “Have you never seen the world?”

Xiao Pang pulled the corners of his mouth: “I am a Xiaomi member, so I have never seen the world of Apple!”

An Ning and Liang Shenghan came out of No. 1 cafeteria at noon that day. On the way back, Liang Shenghan suddenly said to him seriously: “An Ning, your phone, it’s best not to let too many people see it.”

An Ning was stunned for a moment. Seeing the deep meaning in Liang Shenghan’s eyes, he finally understood after thinking about it carefully. He couldn’t help but lament at his slowness, “Thank you, I really haven’t thought about this. The phone is actually given to me by the mother of the one I’m tutoring…”

Liang Shenghan said: “I know, but others don’t. You don’t know how talkative some people in this school are.” After saying that, he patted him on the shoulder, “Let’s stop talking about it. Ge, let’s go to the Internet café!”

Originally, An Ning had the phone in his hand. After Liang Shenghan left, he put the phone in his backpack. A phone that was so light suddenly became a bit heavy.

In mid-November, the gym class was about to start testing. An Ning sent a message to Qin Weihang. In the gym class the next day, the gym teacher finally saw the school grass that he only knows by name but never seen before. The boys were being tested on pull-ups, while the girls were free to move around. However, there were still many girls sitting by the field and looking over here, so the boys waiting to be tested felt even more stressed.

When the gym teacher called Qin Weihang’s name, all the boys uttered a meaningful “Oh~~~”, as if they were waiting for him to appear. The gym teacher glared at the rowdy crowd, but their hormonal response was caused by a ‘public enemy’. Moreover, the feeling of collective clamors was also normal among a group of nineteen to twenty-year-old immature boys. Today was the first time he has seen this new school grass. He was different from past school grasses, all of whom have a gentle style. This Qin Weihang was a bit of a ‘male’s enemy’.

Qin Weihang was wearing a light gray pullover sweater. It was the same clover sweater he wore during that rock climbing. When he walked over, he pushed the sleeves above his elbows. The gym teacher was able to look at him more closely and said: “If it’s you, then you should be able to get a full score.”

Qin Weihang put his hands back, loosened the hood of his sweater, and asked: “How many for full score?”

A boy in the crowd shouted: “30.”

One of the girls sitting next to him retorted: ”It’s not that much!”

An Ning thought to himself, how could 30 pull-ups be difficult for him? You don’t know anything about Qin Weihang!

For Qin Weihang, doing pull-ups wasn’t a big deal. After seeing many boys struggling and sweating profusely on that bar, Qin Weihang’s movements were perfect like a textbook example, and even the gym teacher also showed admiring eyes. The male onlookers were even shouting, “Swing up.” Qin Weihang ignored them. He didn’t do anything shocking or cool when doing pull-ups. On the contrary, it made people feel the extraordinary strength of his upper arm muscles. This was what An Ning was thinking while staring at Qin Weihang’s bare arms.

In the end, Qin Weihang completed 28 extremely perfect pull-ups before letting go. Someone was muttering “28, didn’t make it to 30,” and someone next to him replied, “He did 28 with his forehand. How can you even do 28 with your forehand?”

The gym teacher asked Qin Weihang: “Why didn’t you do 30?”

Qin Weihang said: “90 points is enough.”

One sentence made the rowdy boys unable to say anything at all. An Ning wanted to rush forward and tell him, “It’s already over 8 of the full score!” However, although Qin Weihang’s words were not malicious, they were really offensive…

[*TN: I’m assuming 20 pull-ups is the actual requirement for a full mark, so he went over it by doing 8 extra pull-ups.]

After they finish the test, the boys were free to move around, and Qin Weihang walked to the side. An Ning was still waiting to do the test. Xiao Pang and Liang Shenghan were in front of him. To his surprise, when Xiao Pang and Liang Shenghan did their pull-ups, Xiao Pang was actually slightly better. Yet, even then, Qin Weihang still said Xiao Pang was not suitable for rock climbing…

“Next one, An Ning.”

It was his turn. Liang Shenghan said: “Do you want me to help you hold your glasses?”

“No,” An Ning said. Ordinary people don’t know the pain of those with high myopia. If they take off their glasses, they can’t see the world clearly, and they can’t do anything.

When An Ning grabbed the horizontal bar with his backhand, he was really worried that he would fail. He recalled the afternoon when he first talked to Qin Weihang and Qin Weihang said to him, “You can play.” He regretted for a moment that he didn’t listen.

An Ning heard the voices of Xiao Pang and Liang Shenghan cheering for him, so he kept using his full strength again and again, but the feeling of exhaustion came quickly. His arms were numb and sweaty, time was passing by, and his glasses fogged up when he panted for a moment. A figure appeared in his field of vision—Qin Weihang was standing in his ten o’clock direction, his arms wrapped around his chest. He was standing behind class monitor Cao Zheng, staring at him. His sleeves were still folded, the diving watch on the wrist reflected a faint light under the sun.

Being watched by Qin Weihang with that kind of silent scrutiny, it seemed that he would unwillingly be forced to awaken the potential in his body.

As a result, he achieved the best pull-ups in his life that day.

When he got off the bar, he was a little afraid to look at Qin Weihang, feeling as if he had stolen encouragement from the other person without permission.

During gym class, they would put their phones aside. After class, they would go over and take it back. An Ning went around a full circle but still couldn’t find his phone. Then he heard the sound of Chai Meng shouting: “Whose phone is this, it fell off the ground.”

Her hand held a phone, covering it was an Iron Man phone case.

Many people looked in the direction of Chai Meng. An Ning’s response to claim it immediately got stuck in his throat.

Sitting on the sidelines, Qin Weihang, who was tying his shoelaces, raised his head and glanced at Chai Meng who was holding An Ning’s phone. Then he glanced at An Ning who was standing on the side, stunned. He stood up, walked towards Chai Meng, and said: “It’s mine.”

Chai Meng returned the phone to Qin Weihang without any suspicions, and said: “You like Iron Man?” Qin Weihang turned the phone to the back, glanced down at the Iron Man phone case, and said nothing.

An Ning looked at Qin Weihang’s back and saw that he had put his phone in the pocket of the clover sweater. When the crowd dispersed, Qin Weihang turned and walked towards him, took out the phone from his pocket, and gave it to him. “Seems like this is yours.”

“Yes.” An Ning took it gratefully. After Qin Weihang returned it to him, he took his water bottle and left. An Ning’s chest was still thumping.

This thumping exceeded his expectations, and for the first time, he couldn’t fall asleep during his nap time.

After Liang Shenghan’s reminder, An Ning was even more cautious when using the phone. The phone was basically not put on the table. When he checks it, he would hold it underneath the table. During the last gym class, he had lost it because it was deliberately placed to the side.

However, being careful did not ensure that nothing will happen.

When studying in the library that day, Xiao Pang sent him a link with a voice message: “Damn, An Ning-ge, have you seen this yet? What’s wrong with these people!”

Before opening the link, An Ning never expected this to happen. After Xiao Pang and Qian Fei, he also tasted being the protagonist of the campus forum’s gossip. The title of the post was shockingly: A Person Relying on Financial Aid Actually Uses an Apple XS? The main post posted a sad emoji to express that as a working-class student, he suffered 10,000 points of damage. There were a lot of people who followed the post saying, “There are many people like this. On one hand, they say that they are very poor and will strive to get benefits, but the phone they use and the clothes they wear are better than ordinary students like us.”

There was only one post on there that was on his side: Why can’t someone on financial aid use an XS? Did they steal yours or take yours?

With one glance, he knew it was Xiao Pang.

Xiao Pang’s reply immediately became a target of public criticism:

——It’s not like they can’t, but can someone who has an XS be called poor? It’s not like it’s the iPhone 6.

——That’s not necessarily true. If that poor person sold his kidneys, then they can afford it.

——It’s not like the poor aren’t allowed to have an Apple phone, but you shouldn’t use your financial aid money to buy an iPhone, right?

An Ning could no longer pretend and think that the post was about another person. Obviously, none of what was said was true, yet he couldn’t understand why he still felt ashamed when he looked at these words. However, he has never applied for financial aid, because his family situation did not meet the requirements. He only applied for a work-study program.

He shouldn’t read anymore, but An Ning couldn’t help but keep reading until someone replied: Is it the student who sweeps the classroom more seriously than anyone else? Oh my god, I used to have a good impression of him. Turns out he was pretending…

At that moment, An Ning suddenly slammed the phone down. The screen of the phone was pressed on his thigh, and the light from the screen leaked out. He buried his head and felt that the phone suddenly turned into a monster. It seemed like he was being punished by the righteous Iron Man.