He Xiangxi had already gone far away, and even if Chen Ling broke free from Jiang Yu's shackles, he could not catch up with him.
He relaxed and looked back at the person behind him: "What's wrong with you?"
There was a heavy gloom between Jiang Yu's brows, which made people feel depressed for no reason.
"Nothing." His expression quickly returned to normal, and he waved the newly issued meal card in his hand, "I'll buy you something to eat."
Before Chen Ling could agree, he was taken away.
There was no food in the cafeteria at this time, but there was a long queue outside the dessert shop next to the cafeteria. There were girlfriends holding hands and couples holding hands.
Noticing the young man's gaze, Jiang Yu lowered his head slightly, his breath spraying on his cheek: "Envy? Want to fall in love?"
"No." Chen Ling looked down at his hands, inexplicably feeling that something was missing.
He took a deep breath and moved forward with the team. Before he could stand still, the young couple in front of him suddenly started fighting and the girl took two steps back.
Chen Ling foresaw that his foot was about to be injured, and subconsciously closed his eyes. However, his body suddenly felt lighter, and he was picked up by someone holding him under the arms.
Chen Ling opened his eyes and looked at the girl in front of him. Both of them looked a little confused.
Jiang Yu calmly put the man back on the ground, stretched out his hand and pulled him, easily exchanging positions with the young man. He was very tall, standing upright on the ground like an indestructible wall, able to block all the wind and frost from the outside world.
Chen Ling looked at his toes and thought, am I so much shorter than him
He raised his head and glanced at the back of the other person's hair.
The fine black hair is neatly attached to the depression where the back of the head meets the neck, making the back of the neck look white and slender, very sexy.
Chen Ling raised a finger, looked up, and silently drew a straight line between the two of them.
The straight line is straight, but the angle is tilted all the way.
Chen Ling was happy, since they were the same height. He suddenly felt that the embarrassment of being suddenly picked up was not so embarrassing.
There is wind flowing behind.
He turned around and found that the person who was standing behind him was backing away.
Perhaps she noticed that he was looking at her, the girl looked up, nervously hugged her schoolbag in her arms, gave him a stiff smile, and did not move.
She looked like she was afraid that I would do something to her.
Chen Ling frowned and wanted to ask the girl if she had any grudge against him in the past, but he quickly gave up the idea because he saw that the girl showed a look of fear and horror when he opened his mouth.
Beneath that expression, there was a hint of obvious disgust.
Chen Ling suddenly didn't want to say anything. He lowered his head and looked at his toes again. He felt strange. Everything was strange, including his new exchange student roommate.
It seemed like everyone was hiding something very important from him.
Chen Ling wanted to dig this matter out, but he also had a vague feeling that when that matter was exposed from the black mud, his world would change.
The milk tea in this dessert shop is very unique and can be mixed at will. Chen Ling ordered a cup of original classic tea and asked, looking at Jiang Yu's profile, "What do you want to drink?"
Jiang Yu asked for one at random according to the order card.
After they ordered, they stood aside to allow the next person to move forward.
Chen Ling noticed that the girl who had been standing behind him seemed to be very concerned about his presence, and when she stepped forward she deliberately took a big step, just past the place where he had been standing.
Jiang Yu's hand gently rested on his shoulder, and his warm palm wrapped around his shoulder, making him not feel hot, but just a little more warm.
Chen Ling shifted his gaze away from the girl and returned it to Jiang Yu: "Your body temperature seems to be lower than mine."
"Really?" Jiang Yu replied softly, his voice gently teasing, "Do you like it?"
Chen Ling stared at him in a daze, and suddenly recalled the scene outside the campus card center office. At that time, Jiang Yu's face was as dark as water, and his eyes, which were clearly light-colored, gave people the illusion of being deep.
He is completely different from now.
"Why are you asking me if I like it?" Chen Ling whispered, "That's your own business."
Jiang Yu smiled without saying anything, his eyes still fixed on the young man's face. Soon, that face turned red because of his gaze.
"Number 136." Someone shouted from the window.
Chen Ling handed over the receipt: "It's ours."
The staff member took the receipt, pushed the two cups of milk tea forward, and kept looking at Chen Ling's face, as if he was recognizing something.
Then, the girl who had been standing behind Chen Ling came over and whispered to the staff who had not yet left: "Don't look at him, it's him. It's really unlucky."
Jiang Yu did not take the milk tea handed to him by the young man, but covered his ears with his hands.
"Let's go." The deep male voice carried some kind of magic. Chen Ling had almost no way to resist it. He nodded obediently and followed him out of this place.
Since there were no classes in the evening and he didn't want to go to the classroom to study, Chen Ling wanted to go home and return to school early the next morning.
Jiang Yu saw him busying around as soon as he got back to the dormitory, stuffing clothes into his travel bag, leaning against the door frame, and asked, "Are you going home?"
"Yeah." Chen Ling didn't even raise his head, his tone mixed with grievance and anger that he himself didn't even notice, "Go back to see Mom and Dad. Oh, my home is in the suburbs, not far away."
Jiang Yu took out a bunch of car keys from somewhere and said, "I'll take you there."
"No need." Chen Ling tried to make his tone lighter. "Reverse the car twice and we'll be there soon."
In fact, not only that, the large planting area of the Chen family is privately contracted, there are no shuttle buses or public buses, let alone subways.
After getting off the public transportation, he had to carry his bag and walk a long way to get there.
In the past, when he went home, his father or mother would drive to pick him up.
But today he didn't want anyone to pick him up, he just wanted to go home alone quietly, as if this could release the boredom and frustration accumulated during the day.
Jiang Yu didn't seem to want to leave him alone: "I'm going back too. My home is in the direction of Xiushui City."
Chen Ling was stunned. "My home is also in that direction."
Jiang Yu curled his lips and twirled the key ring with his fingertips, "Let's go, I'll wait for you downstairs."
Not until the cold and tall figure disappeared did Chen Ling come to his senses. He hurriedly stuffed the last few things into his bag and ran downstairs.
The car Jiang Yu was driving was a black sedan, which looked low-key but was actually a very high-profile model.
Chen Ling hesitated at the back door, thinking it was impolite to sit in the back. After stuffing his things in, he closed the door, stepped forward and opened the passenger door.
He fastened his seat belt obediently: "Okay."
Jiang Yu sighed and suddenly stretched out his hand.
Chen Ling's heart trembled for no reason when he caught a glimpse of the other person's slender white fingertips. He subconsciously became nervous and opened his mouth, "What, what happened?"
As soon as he finished speaking, he felt soft fingertips touching his forehead.
Jiang Yu carefully brushed away the hair stuck to his forehead by sweat, and then took out a piece of paper and stuffed it into the young man's hand: "Wipe the sweat off."
Chen Ling uttered an "oh" and quickly crumpled the white tissue into a ball due to his force. He wiped it a few times randomly and secretly glanced at the person who was driving.
Because he started school at a relatively young age, he was only 19 years old in his third year of college, and he was not yet full.
In comparison, Jiang Yu's profile looks much more mature, no, more mature than most students in school. This maturity is not reflected in the appearance, but in the eyes and temperament.
Looking at people sideways was too tiring, and before he knew it, Chen Ling had leaned back in his chair, turned his head and stared at the person intently.
Jiang Yu seemed unaware of the obvious gaze, and only a very subtle curve appeared at the corner of his lips.
Chen Ling's eyes flashed, stayed on the corner of the other person's lips for two seconds, and then moved to the other person's Adam's apple. As the Adam's apple moved up and down, he couldn't help swallowing a few times.
The smile on Jiang Yu's lips widened, but he still looked straight ahead. He just opened the box and took out a bottle of mineral water and handed it to the young man: "Are you thirsty? Have some water."
Chen Ling stared at the glass bottle that was shining brightly in the light, blinked a few times, sat up straight suddenly, and then realized what he had been doing.
He quickly took the bottle, unscrewed it, tilted his head toward the window and took a sip. Knowing that his face was getting hot and red, he didn't dare turn his head. He held the bottle of water in his arms in an awkward position, his heart in turmoil.
Is there something wrong with me? Chen Ling thought carefully. Ever since the arrival of his new roommate, he has become more and more weird. He is nervous and at a loss. Now he has one more thing: shyness.
Neither of them spoke any more along the way, and they arrived home quietly.
Chen Ling stood on the roadside and felt that the newly built villa next to his house was ridiculous.
In his memory, the small white-walled villa did not exist at all.
Jiang Yu didn't say goodbye. He closed the car window, restarted the car, and parked it outside the new villa under the young man's astonished gaze.
When I entered the room, Dad and Mom were watching TV in the living room, and Aunt Shu was preparing dinner in the kitchen.
Hearing the sound of the door opening outside the entrance, Chen's parents stood up from the living room, and Aunt Shu also poked her head out from the kitchen. The three of them looked at the door in surprise.
The first to react was Father Chen. He spoke in a stern tone, took the bag from his son's hand with one hand, and pulled him inside with the other hand, "Why are you back at this time? The sun is about to set."
Chen Ling said blankly: "I just suddenly want to go home and take a look."
Mother Chen came to her senses and pushed her husband away. She touched her son's face and pinched his arm, as if to make sure that her son was intact.
Chen Ling called out to her mother in a coquettish manner, "What are you doing? You're pinching me so hard that my whole body is itchy."
Mother Chen seemed to be relieved and said with a smile: "It's you. Every time you call, you say you are fine. How can I know if you only report good news and not bad news?"
In order to show that he was really healthy and had no missing limbs, Chen Ling jumped twice on the spot.
Mother Chen smiled and rubbed her son's head. "Alright, stop playing tricks. Go upstairs and take a shower first. You look so hot."
When his mother's hand brushed across Chen Ling's forehead, he remembered the hand that had stroked his sweaty hair.
Chen Ling asked: "Mom, when was the villa next to ours built? I have no impression of it."
Mother Chen was stunned for a moment, her expression confused: "Hasn't it always been there? It has been there for a long time."
Father Chen urged, "Hurry up and take a shower. You're almost twenty, why are you still dawdling?"
His father was always silent and stern. Chen Ling pursed his lips, picked up the luggage bag that his father had placed on the ground, and ran upstairs.
There is a small garden outside his room, and not far from the outside of the garden is a natural forest. Every time he came home, he would open the floor-to-ceiling window to take a look outside first.
Today, Chen Ling hesitated.
He thought of the villa where Jiang Yu parked his car. If he was not mistaken, there was a room on the second floor of the villa that seemed to be right next to his room.
If he pushed the window open, would he be able to see another person
Chen Ling was curious, but couldn't help wanting to retreat. He had already discovered his abnormal attention to Jiang Yu.
He put away his hand that was about to open the window, turned around and walked to the closet. Just as he was about to open it, his fingertips were suddenly pricked by static electricity. At that moment, his heart began to beat wildly.
A strong feeling of rejection told him not to open it.
Don't open the closet door.
Chen Ling suppressed the inexplicable fear in his heart, took a deep breath, and suddenly pulled open the two closed cabinet doors.
The clothes were neatly stacked according to the season and classified into different categories. Apart from that, there was nothing else inside.
Chen Ling seemed to be exhausted. He leaned his hands on the wardrobe to relax. After his heartbeat calmed down, he took a set of home clothes from the wardrobe and went into the bathroom.
Taking a shower at school is always a rush and I can’t really enjoy it.
Chen Ling planned to relax and filled a tub of hot water for himself.
He took off his clothes and lay down, closing his eyes and enjoying the comfort of the hot water soaking his body.
Maybe it was because I was in an inexplicable mood the whole day. Under the fumigation of hot water, my eyelids became heavier and heavier, and finally my upper and lower eyelids were pressed tightly together.
In Chen Ling's memory, falling asleep while taking a bath has happened many times before, and each time it was not until the water temperature dropped to a certain level that he woke up on his own.
But not this time.
Halfway through his sleep, Chen Ling suddenly shuddered and sat up from the bathtub.
He quickly reached for his neck with both hands and pressed it back and forth several times, as if to make sure there was no injury there.
Before he realized how strange his behavior was, he had already risen naked from the bathtub and walked to the mirror.
The skin in the mirror was covered with water droplets, and when the light shone on it, the water droplets glowed with crystal light.
Chen Ling was stunned for a long time. When he came to his senses, he frowned hard and touched his neck completely sober this time, because he thought that at that moment, a hand should have strangled him.
What's even more absurd is that he even thought that the scene in the bath just now should have happened, but in that situation, he was attacked.
Chen Ling felt his mind was in a mess. He slowly squatted down and hugged his head tightly.
He felt that the world he was in was so unreal, yet it was actually running.
"Is it because I haven't slept well recently that I have these messy thoughts?" Chen Ling squatted on the ground until his legs were numb, then he stood up muttering to himself. He didn't even bother to wipe the water off his body. He hurriedly put on a short-sleeved shirt and shorts and left the bathroom straight away.
He went to the bed, shook out the thin quilt, and was about to get into bed when he suddenly heard a noise outside.
The sound came from outside the window, from the house next door that did not exist in his memory.
After thinking about it, he couldn't suppress his curiosity, so he put on his slippers and faced the window.
The French window was open, and outside was an open balcony with a few pots of flowers and a lounge chair. Opposite this balcony was another small balcony. Jiang Yu seemed to have just taken a shower, his hair was slightly wet, and he was wearing a V-neck T-shirt and light-colored linen trousers.
He was sitting at a small round table, drinking water from a cup in his hand.
As if he had expected Chen Ling to appear, he tapped his fingertips on the small round table twice and asked, "Would you like some water?"
Only then did Chen Ling notice that there was a steaming cup opposite him.
"Aren't you an exchange student? How come you have a house here?" he asked bluntly. "My mother said that this house you live in has been here for a long time."
Jiang Yu put down the cup, stood up, picked up another cup, stretched out his arm, and handed it to Chen Ling.
Chen Ling lowered his eyes and looked inside. There was a cup of light tea.
The other party held the cup in front of him, almost feeding him with his own hands. It would be very impolite not to take it. Chen Ling took it with pursed lips, and said thank you in a muffled voice as if he was angry.
Jiang Yu leaned his hands on the balcony railing. The warm light of the setting sun shone on his handsome face, softening his cold outline.
He looked into the young man's eyes and said word by word, "I will be wherever you want me to be. It can be a thousand miles away, or just a stone's throw away from you."
Chen Ling: “…”
It’s not that he has a problem with his brain, it’s that Jiang Yu is indeed very ambiguous towards him!
Chen Ling felt that he couldn't get anything out of him today, so he turned and went into the room, closing the floor-to-ceiling windows and curtains tightly.
He sat down at the desk and put the cup down with a bang. The tea inside sloshed out and a little hot water fell on the back of his hand.
Chen Ling stared at the drop of water in annoyance. He was angry and didn't know why he was so panicked. He even forgot to return the cup to Jiang Yu before entering the door.
He was quite sure that he had never seen that person before today.
Then what about Jiang Yu's familiarity and ambiguity with him
Chen Ling fell silent. He knew that there was a kind of person in this world called Poseidon, who cast his net everywhere and was affectionate towards every prey.
The more he thought about it, the angrier he got. He pushed the cup away with all his strength, as if out of sight would really put his mind at peace.
The Chen family had a rich meal tonight. Chen Ling's mouth was full of oil and her stomach was bloated. Mother Chen wanted to take her out for a walk to digest the food, but her face changed when she remembered something and she pulled her son back from the entrance.
She said gently, "Don't you have to go back to school early tomorrow morning? Don't go out. Stay at home and watch TV with your parents."
So the family watched Mom's drama on the news broadcast, and in the blink of an eye it was ten o'clock.
Chen Ling yawned and said, "I'm going upstairs to sleep first."
Mother Chen shouted, "Go up the stairs slowly. If you have a nightmare at night, call us. By the way, we stuffed something in your pillow. It might be a little uncomfortable. Just bear with it when you sleep and don't take it out."
Chen Ling entered the room and immediately hugged the pillow and rubbed it. He really felt a hard triangle inside.
He frowned, "What?"
Putting down the pillow and squatting beside the bed to study it carefully for a while, Chen Ling finally confirmed that the thing was sewn inside the pillow core. If he wanted to take it out and observe it, he had to first completely disassemble the pillow from the inside out.
It’s the middle of the night, so let’s not bother.
Chen Ling lay down on the bed dejectedly and pulled up the quilt. He was only slightly sleepy, but not to the point where he could fall into a deep sleep all at once.
After closing his eyes for a while out of boredom, he opened them again and stared at the dark ceiling in a daze.
Perhaps because he had been staring at one place for too long, there was a deviation between what he saw and reality. He felt that the dark ceiling seemed to have a bulge.
Chen Ling shuddered, grabbed the quilt tightly and wanted to cover his head but suddenly stopped - he was afraid that when he really hid in the enclosed space of the quilt, he would be completely trapped with something else.
But what is the other thing
He couldn't figure it out.
It was as if someone had forced a barrier into my brain, making everything seem vague and unclear.
He pushed the half-pulled quilt back to his chest and quickly reached out to turn on the light.
With a snap, the wall lamp lit up for a moment and then went out.
How could I be so unlucky! Chen Ling was dumbfounded. He quickly got out of bed, stepped on the carpet with his bare feet, and reached out to touch the light switch at the bedside.
The white light filled the entire space, making people feel relieved.
Chen Ling lay back on the bed, and soon his eyelids began to twitch. As soon as he turned over, he suddenly woke up and touched his back with his back hand. His subconscious mind told him not to turn over, because if he did, something would stick to his back.
Chen Ling: “…”
He was screaming in his heart and felt like he was going crazy. What was wrong with him? Was he suffering from hallucinations
After all, he had seen horror movies before, so he finally knew what he had been afraid of.
He is afraid of ghosts.
And his mother said that the thing hidden in the pillow, his intuition told him that it was most likely related to superstition.
Chen Ling found a pair of scissors, hesitated for a few seconds, gritted his teeth and cut open the pillowcase, then took out the pillow core and opened it, and soon found a yellow talisman folded into a triangle.
The yellow talisman was opened, and he saw some red cinnabar inside.
Chen Ling's doubts reached their peak at this moment. He put down the pillow, opened the door and wanted to find his parents to ask them why they put this in his heart.
But when he stood at the door and saw the dark corridor, he hesitated.
Dad, Mom, and Aunt Shu were all asleep, and the entire building, except for his room, was plunged into quiet darkness.
Chen Ling went back to his room and couldn't fall asleep anymore. It wasn't that he didn't want to sleep, but he didn't dare to sleep.
The yellow talisman in his hand kept reminding him that his parents were on guard against something, and even he himself was uncontrollably imagining that there was something terrible hidden in the room.
The night was getting darker, but Chen Ling didn't dare to sleep. There were no outsiders here, so he could be fearful and unrestrained without worrying about being embarrassed.
But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't resist the invasion of fatigue. He squatted at the foot of the bed with his knees hugged. After a while, his head began to nod up and down rhythmically. The yellow talisman was wrinkled by his sweaty hands and was almost rotten.
Suddenly there was a cat's meow. The person at the foot of the bed immediately looked up and let out an uncontrollable "ah".
Soon, a thudding sound came from the direction of the French window.
Chen Ling's whole body was tense. He peered under the bed to make sure that nothing would suddenly reach out and grab his ankles. Then he ran over barefoot and opened the curtains.
Seeing the people on the balcony outside the window, he breathed a sigh of relief, but immediately straightened his back again and asked, "How did you get here?"
"I flipped it over." Jiang Yu remained calm and didn't think there was anything wrong with climbing over someone else's window in the middle of the night.
Chen Ling held onto the curtain without moving, and asked again, "Why are you here?"
"I'm here to keep you company." Jiang Yu curled his fingers and knocked on the French window again. "Are you welcome?"