The school doctor went to the pharmacy for medicine and asked Ji Qian’ang to keep watch. Ji Qian’ang returned carrying a cup of warm water.
Tang Yu lay on the bed beside the window, body curled in on itself and right hand pressed tightly over his stomach. His uniform jacket hung over the back of a chair, and the collar of his T-shirt sat crooked.
His lips were pale and fine sweat covered his forehead. A layer of mist veiled eyes that were usually so cold and hard; he had to blink before they could focus.
“You suddenly fainted in the corridor.” Ji Qian’ang held the water out to him.
Tang Yu raised a trembling hand, but the instant his fingertips touched the cup, he pulled them back.
Ji Qian’ang lowered his head and took a sip, then offered the cup again. “It isn’t hot. I tested it.”
“Oh…” Tang Yu accepted it in both hands and drank in tiny sips.
He tucked his face beneath the blanket until only his nose and eyes remained visible. Those eyes held a softness utterly unlike their usual expression.
Before long, Tang Yu fell asleep, long lashes resting beneath his eyes.
Ji Qian’ang sat in the chair and watched him. Asleep, Tang Yu looked much younger than he did awake. The exposed edges and thorns had withdrawn, leaving the fragile shell beneath them completely unguarded.
The school doctor pushed open the door with tablets and a bag of glucose solution in hand. Seeing Tang Yu asleep, he softened his steps.
“Mr. Tang, wake up and take your medicine first,” he called quietly.
Tang Yu’s brows knitted, but he did not wake.
Ji Qian’ang walked to the bedside and lightly brushed Tang Yu’s cheekbone with the back of his fingers. “Tang Yu. Time for your medicine.”
Only then did Tang Yu push himself upright. The blanket slid to his waist, and one tuft of hair stood straight up as he reached for the tablets.
He put them into his mouth and drank some water. His brows pulled tight as he swallowed, as though someone had forced him to drink bitter melon juice.
“Bitter.”
“Medicine is supposed to be bitter,” Ji Qian’ang said.
Tang Yu raised those soft, dazed eyes and muttered in Cantonese, “Give me a piece of candy…”
Ji Qian’ang replied in Cantonese, “I don’t have any.”
“You do.”
“I don’t.”
Ji Qian’ang’s expression turned serious. “Tang Yu, are you lucid right now?”
“So cold…”
Ji Qian’ang fell silent.
Tang Yu was as stubborn as a child. No—right now he truly was only a seventeen-year-old boy.
“Give me a piece of candy…”
“There’s some in your pocket.”
The fever must truly have muddled Tang Yu’s mind. Half-conscious, he remembered that whenever he had been ill and needed medicine, Tang Yifeng had always stayed beside him.
Back then, no matter how bitter the medicine was, Tang Yu had never thought to cover its taste with candy. Sweetness was fleeting, after all, while bitterness lasted forever.
But Tang Yifeng always kept plenty of candy in his pockets. The instant bitterness entered Tang Yu’s stomach, sweetness would be placed in his mouth.
“Good boy. Have some candy.”
Brother. Ji Qian’ang, I’ve called you Brother too. You should be like Tang Yifeng and keep candy in your pockets—any flavor, as long as it is prepared for me alone.
But Ji Qian’ang truly had none. He spread his hands. “Wait for me. Two minutes?”
Tang Yu nodded. Ji Qian’ang shot out of the infirmary like lightning. Tang Yu stared at the clock on the wall.
One minute fifty-nine seconds. Two minutes and one second. Two minutes and three seconds.
A faint gust rose beside him. Tang Yu turned to see Ji Qian’ang holding up a bag of candy and panting as he offered it over. Pride rippled through his eye.
“Close enough.”
Tang Yu’s vision slowly blurred. Ji Qian’ang’s figure overlapped with Tang Yifeng’s image in his mind, wavering into several afterimages.
He forced his eyes to focus until his sight cleared.
They were different. Their features, brows, eyes, expressions, smiles—even the curve at the corner of their mouths.
Tang Yifeng, he really does seem different from you.
Tang Yu peeled away the wrapper and put the mint into his mouth, leaving a small bulge in one cheek.
The candy dissolved. Coolness and bitterness tangled together, sharp enough to sting his nose, but easier to bear than bitterness alone.
“Not bad…” Tang Yu mumbled.
The school doctor came over and took Tang Yu’s temperature. The thermometer read 38.7 degrees Celsius.
“I’ll put him on a glucose drip and observe him for now. If the fever doesn’t come down, he’ll need to go to the hospital.”
Ji Qian’ang nodded.
The doctor hung the bag. When the needle entered the back of Tang Yu’s hand, he frowned.
His hand groped unconsciously through the air and caught Ji Qian’ang’s sleeve.
Taking advantage of Tang Yu’s muddled state, Ji Qian’ang asked, “Do you remember the snow globe that broke in your room?”
Tang Yu thought for a moment and recalled its appearance: a transparent globe with a tiny lighthouse inside and a white base engraved with several English letters.
“Mm.”
Ji Qian’ang went straight to the point. “Who gave it to you? Think carefully.”
But Tang Yu genuinely could not remember. When a person owned so many unremarkable little objects, how could he possibly recall every one?
His head was heavy with fever, and the instant he tried to think deeply, stabbing pain flared through it.
“Why are you asking so much? Auntie Liu already gave me another one exactly like it. It hurts… I’m cold… I don’t want to talk to you.”
“Auntie Liu?” Seeing how badly he was suffering, Ji Qian’ang did not continue.
That day, shards had scattered across the floor. Around the edge of the base had been an impossibly fine seam.
It was invisible unless examined closely. Through it, a tiny red dot inside could see the room beyond.
Who had given Tang Yu that snow globe, and when?
What did that person want from him?
Ji Qian’ang’s expression darkened. He needed to determine as soon as possible how much the hidden device had recorded—and what it had seen.
He walked to the bed. “My phone is in the classroom. I’m using yours.”
Tang Yu nodded.
Tang Yu never locked his phone. Ji Qian’ang picked it up and opened the contacts. The first name he saw was “Dead-Faced Jerk.”
He stared at those words for two seconds. That was his number. When had Tang Yu saved it? The label was certainly insulting, but why had Tang Yu placed him first?
“I’m calling Uncle Chen,” Ji Qian’ang said.
“Mm.”
Ji Qian’ang went into the corridor to make the call. Uncle Chen said the car would arrive shortly.
When he returned to the infirmary, Tang Yu was putting on his shoes.
He swayed so badly that one shoe took several minutes. Ji Qian’ang strode over, crouched, and took Tang Yu’s ankle in hand to help him.
Tang Yu resisted. “I can do it.”
Ji Qian’ang scoffed. “Three minutes for one shoe. What are you trying to prove?”
“You’re so annoying…” Tang Yu pouted in defiance, but on a face dazed and flushed with fever, the expression looked more like a plea for affection.
“I know.”
“Good.”
Ji Qian’ang had never heard Tang Yu act spoiled.
Perhaps Tang Yu simply did not know how. All he ever said was “annoying,” “I hate you,” “go away,” and “stay away from me.”
Yet the person who had lain half-conscious on the bed, clutching his sleeve to keep him from leaving, had made every sentence sound like a plea to be indulged.
Wait. What did Tang Yu’s ability to act spoiled have to do with him?
Ji Qian’ang took two steps toward the infirmary door, and the hem of his uniform was tugged from behind again.
“What now?”
Tang Yu said, “Holding your clothes keeps me steady.”
“I can’t walk properly with you hanging on to them.”
“Then… hold my hand.”
Ji Qian’ang froze in the middle of the corridor with his back to Tang Yu, his uniform hem still trapped in the other boy’s fingers.
“Are you sure?”
The answer came with solemn certainty. “Yes. I’m delirious with fever anyway. Tomorrow… I can say I don’t remember.”
But Ji Qian’ang did not indulge him. If Tang Yu still knew he had a fever and could mumble something like that, there was no chance he would forget this moment.
While Ji Qian’ang hesitated, he stepped forward.
In the next instant, a layer of cool skin closed over his burning wrist.
It was like a fresh mint breeze blowing straight into his face on a summer day—cool, clean, and impossible to pull away from.
Ji Qian’ang’s heartbeat suddenly accelerated. Blood surged beneath his skin, his body growing hotter by the second.
He lowered his eyes. Tang Yu’s slender, sharply jointed hand was clamped around his wrist, its cool palm pressed against the raised bone, creating the illusion that they fit together perfectly.
“Come on.” Tang Yu urged him from beside him, expression calm, as if this were the most ordinary thing in the world. His grip tightened.
The coolness deepened.
Ji Qian’ang, whether Tang Yu remembers tomorrow or not, you will probably never forget this moment.