Chapter 7

Xing Yan’s sentence immediately shocked Qin Fang so much that he didn’t know how to reply. Initially, he didn’t really grasp what he was saying, so he added, “I was talking about the one you were talking with at the entrance.”

As they walked out the elevator, Xing Yan said in a low voice, “I was talking about him too.”

Qing Fang watched Xing Yan, walking in front of him, while trying to recall that person he saw. Their black hair was to their shoulders, their face small and pretty, and quite tall. Although they weren’t wearing a dress, it seemed obvious that they were a girl.

And then Xing Yan told him that that person was a guy.

Even though Qin Fang wracked his memory, he still couldn’t relate their image to “male” together, so he smiled and shook his head, “Quite magical.”

Xing Yan still had that faint smiling expression on his face, turning back to look at Qin Fang when he heard that.

They found a spot and naturally sat together, across from each other. It was Wednesday morning, so there weren’t many people in the library yet.

Qin Fang had finished A Brief History of a World, so he found a copy of Chinese History, deciding to try and finish it today. However, he was only around ten pages in when his phone started vibrating like crazy in his pocket.

Qin Fang got his phone out and took a glance at it; all of the notifications were from a text group, which were filled with his close friends from high school. They would usually just text a few words to each other at night when they were possibly setting up a gaming group or something, so it was unusual for it to be active on a weekday morning.

There were two people sending him @s like crazy, notifying them that they were at Qin Fang’s school, and calling for Qin Fang to take them out to lunch.

It had been a while since they all met, so if they came, Qin Fang would of course go meet them. He asked, [Why are you guys here?]

Someone replied, [Competition, our school against your school.]

[Qin Fang: Afternoon?]

The other replied, [Yes, we were just going to find you. @MountHuasHandsomeEmpresstree 1 stop playing dead, you’ve gotta come as well.]

[MountHuasHandsomeEmpresstree: @QinFangFangGe please make them shut up, I’m in class right now and they are so noisy.]

Qin Fang smiled as he replied, [Just DM me instead, let him study and do his thing]

[Why is he studying hard right now, he isn’t like this usually. @MountHuasHandsomeEmpresstree @MountHuasHandsomeEmpresstree stop pretending]

Those two in the chat wouldn’t stop, and they would be coming soon, so Qin Fang did have to go and meet them. However, his roommate would get to the library earliest at 10:30 am, so there was a little bit of a time issue.

Qin Fang raised his head and looked over to the person across from him, reading an English magazine, so he called softly, “Mr. Handsome.”

Xing Yan looked over, ever so slightly raising his eyebrow.

Qin Fang wanted to speak, but he caught the eye of someone glancing at him. It was nearly silent in the library, so it was a little obvious when he was speaking out loud. Qin Fang thought about it before fishing out a notebook from his bag and flipping to a new page, writing, “When are you leaving” before pushing it to Xing Yan across from him.

Xing Yan looked at the line of words before stealing a glance at Qin Fang. He then slowly picked up the pen and then wrote something that Qin Fang couldn’t discern on the paper, before pushing the notebook back to Qin Fang.

Qin Fang looked down to see a single question mark on the paper. He smiled, thinking, this guy is so cold.

Qin Fang picked up the pen to write, “I need to go, can you save this seat for me? My roommate comes at around 10:30.”

After he finished, he pushed it back. Xing Yan looked at it before grabbing the pen and writing an “OK”.

Qin Fang then wrote, “Thanks.”

The other simply drew a diagonal line over everything, and, using the momentum from the line, flicked his wrist and the whole notebook was flicked back towards Qin Fang.

Qin Fang caught the notebook, internally recalling the flow of that entire move. It was full of strength, with some undertones of wanting to show off, but it was quite handsome, as well. While Qin Fang was a handsome lad himself, he sometimes also would admire how the person in front of him was quite handsome.

When he stood up, he smiled towards Xing Yan, picked up his bag and left.

When he thought about it, he found it quite interesting. He actually asked Xing Yan to save a seat for him.

The two that were coming were two well off friends, so they came in a sports car. Qin Fang made the park quite far away from the gates of the school. He was humble and not showy himself, since he never thought that he was a master of any sort, neither was he one.

“Your guys’ school is so big,” one of the friends, Feng Zhe, complained, as he had a terrible sense of direction. “I became dizzy from that.”

"

"

“Well, learn some life skills,” Qin Fang drawled as he threw a bottle of water to the other, “Otherwise, how are you going to survive outside of the country.”

“Well, I live day by day,” Feng Zhe replied cheekily. By himself, Feng Zhe was also quite the cold, handsome guy, but with Qin Fang and friends, the guy would smile like a child, “I won’t die out there.”

“If your mouth rests for even a bit it feels lonely, I swear,” the other friend, Fan Linyi said. He was the one preparing for a sports competition in the afternoon, and compared to Feng Zhe, he was much more mature, “Even if you say one sentence less you feel wronged, your tongue hurts.”

“I was just saying that as a joke,” Feng Zhe scratched the back of his ear, smiling cheekily still.

Qin Fang hadn’t met them in quite some time, although in their freshmen year, they would go out to eat and to bars quite often. However, since Qin Fang didn’t like alcohol, and thus bars, he slowly started skipping these outings. His close social circle slowly shrunk until only Hua Tong was really left, and Hua Tong was also kind of an outsider in that circle, so without Qin Fang going, everyone was left peacefully.

“You aren’t hanging out with us anymore,” Fang Zhe scooted closer to Qin Fang, softly telling him, “Xiao Hua still misses you, and every time we go out she tells us about her 8 year crush on you.”

“Shut up,” Qin Fang hit back, not enthusiastic to hear stupid stuff.

“Fuck you, this was real, you can ask him,” Feng Zhe pointed at Fan Linyi, “You know, Xiao Hua is like, dead set on marrying you.”

Qin Fang didn’t ask about it more, as he didn’t want to hear it. This thing could count as something that bothered him for a bit. He knew Xiao Hua since middle school, and they were good friends for a while, but in high school, Xiao Hua started pursuing him like crazy, so much so that Qin Fang had a little internal shadow from it. It just was that he didn’t like her in that way, even though she is a great girl. Later, after realizing Qin Fang didn’t like her, she changed her status to “crush”.

But it wasn’t like it was a real “crush”, since everyone knew about it.

Qin Fang shook his head, saying, “When can she grow up, she doesn’t like me.”

“Scum guys are just that calm, eh,” Feng Zhe sighed as he said, “She said she likes you, you say she hasn’t grown up.”

Qin Fang smiled but did not continue the topic. He did not like using these types of topics as conversation subjects, and just didn’t want to think about it anymore.He did think that this type of supposed love was from stubbornness, since kids really weren’t that loyal to anything for that long. Not to mention kids, adults might not even have that type of devotion. Qin Fang was never that stubborn on relationship things, since he believed that instead of the prolonged liking of someone one thought they had, it was more likely that this person was just reminiscing about the time they felt like they liked someone.

Fan Linyi had a basketball game, while Feng Zhe did not; he was too scrawny to play basketball anyway, and was just there for fun. Qin Fang originally had class in the afternoon, but he just found someone to listen for him.

Hua Tong came, a bag of sports drinks in hand. Originally, those were for Fan Linyi, but it wasn’t until Hua Tong got there did he realize that something was wrong. He was a student of the home team school, but his drinks were for the visiting school players. What was wrong with him.

Feng Zhe laughed and told him, “Just relax, no one knows or recognizes you.”

“You’re right,” Hua Tong laughed, “Maybe we can have Qin Fang try and give out these drinks to the visiting team.”

“I’m not going, you bought these when you were bored. P;us, they are here for a game, you think they don’t have water?” Qin Fang buried his head down low on the visiting team bleachers, feeling some people throw their gazes at him. He did perform at the school banquet celebration, after all.”

“I guess I was really bored.” Hua Tong chuckled.

It was the first time Qin Fang had been to a school basketball game. Yes, he did like sports, but, to be honest, he wasn’t the biggest fan of basketball, so he didn’t really pay attention to any news regarding it. He liked single player sports more, since Qin Fang didn’t like the feeling of unpolished teamwork and sharing a court with anyone.

As the two teams ran onto the court, Qin Fang was talking with Feng Zhe when Hua Tong touched his arm and said, “Fang, look.”

Qin Fang glanced at him, “Look at what?”

Hua Tong lifted his chin towards the court, “That seems to be Zhou Siming.”

Qin Fang perked an eyebrow up as he looked over, and then nodded, “It is him.”

“Who is it?” Feng Zhe asked.

“No one,” Qin Fang said, “It’s just that we fought once.”

“Fuck,” Feng Zhe raised an eyebrow and let a brash expression take over his face as he looked over, “Which one again?”

Qin Fang pushed his head away, muttering, “It doesn’t matter since it’s in the past.”

Feng Zhe asked, “Did you lose or something? If you did, we can go get it back for you.”

Qin Fang replied, “No, just stop.”

Feng Zhe continued asking like an idiot, “Why did you guys even fight?”

Qin Fang said without an expression, “Stop asking, if you keep on asking I will kill you.”

Thanks for reading~

Footnotes

From Hua Tong’s name. The name of the mountain is the same character as his surname, while the second character, Tong, is the character for the empress tree, also known as the foxglove tree