Xie Lan completely shut himself off.

He walked the whole way listening to the buzzing in his ears.

Yinghua High (Yingzhong) only sent two student representatives to hear the exam syllabus, whereas schools like No. 3 High, No. 9 High, and Fuzhong (The Affiliated High School) sent over twenty people each. Xie Lan kept his head down, went in, and sat in the back row. Dou Sheng sat next to him. Under the desk, Dou Sheng unzipped both their backpacks and transferred the uniform from Xie Lan’s bag into his own.

He whispered, “I have reasonable grounds to suspect you were planning to secretly throw it away. Good thing I discovered it in time; that’s two thousand yuan right there.”

Xie Lan didn’t make a sound.

He knew Dou Sheng was trying to comfort him, but his brain’s language center had short-circuited from the intense “autism” of the moment, selectively losing the ability to speak Chinese.

Just let me perish.

The presenting teacher distributed materials to every student attending the lecture: one sheet introducing the provincial training camp, and another with this year’s exam syllabus.

Xie Lan couldn’t process a word the teacher was saying. He just lowered his head and unconsciously sketched wutong (sycamore) leaves on the paper to relieve stress.

The simple sketch of the wutong leaf was something Xie Lan learned when Xiao Langjing was hospitalized, drawn to relieve her boredom.

Human psychology is a hard thing to explain. When he first started middle school, he loved sports, was active in the school basketball and tennis teams, and later joined the school symphony orchestra, becoming the concertmaster (first violin) within six months. He got along well with everyone, with book clubs and parties one after another on weekends.

But ever since Xiao Langjing suddenly fell ill, his life abruptly turned into a gray line connecting two points: school and the hospital. Perhaps because the hospital was too quiet, he gradually became introverted and cautious. He didn’t like to talk much and didn’t want attention from others. It was as if he carried a protective shell wherever he went; even when he became a YouTuber to entertain Xiao Langjing, he refused to show his face on camera.

If this were back in his childhood, a mix-up like today’s might have just been laughed off. But now, Xie Lan felt it was a catastrophic disaster.

As Xie Lan remained in his shut-down state, a strangely shaped object suddenly intruded into his field of vision.

It was folded from paper, looking like a frog. When you pressed its butt, it actually hopped forward.

Xie Lan was startled. “What are you doing?”

Dou Sheng whispered, “Letting the little jumping frog watch your ‘social death’ scene on my behalf.”

“What is social death?”

“Check your phone.”

Dou Sheng quickly disassembled the little frog and wrote the two characters for “Social Death” on the crumpled paper.

[She Si / Social Death]: Abbreviation for Social Death. One has lost so much face that they cannot face others. The flesh is still alive, but the spirit has already died.

Xie Lan nodded expressionlessly. “Oh. I have socially died.”

“Pfft.” Dou Sheng couldn’t hold back his laughter right then and there. “Why are you so funny?”

“You in the back row, which school are you from?”

The teacher’s stern voice suddenly rang out.

Dou Sheng stood up. “Sorry, teacher. I didn’t wake up properly this morning, so I’m a bit delirious.”

The students in the front rows turned around, looking at Dou Sheng’s hair and outfit with shocked expressions. Some whispered among themselves.

The teacher frowned too. “I asked which school you are from.”

“Yingzhong.”

“Why are you dressed like that?” The teacher furrowed his brow. “Isn’t your disciplinary director Mr. Hu?”

Dou Sheng crisply spat out two words: “It’s her.” (Ms. Hu).

The teacher was choked into silence.

Logically, after “It’s her,” there should have been follow-up questions, like How did she allow you to come dressed like this? or What kind of student are you exactly?

But the teacher from the City Education Bureau was relatively mild-mannered. After frowning for a long time, he simply said, “Sit down and listen carefully.”

Dou Sheng nodded. “My sincere apologies.”

The lecture was divided into two sessions. The first introduced the provincial training arrangements, and the second explained this year’s syllabus—belonging to the “I’m telling you what’s on the test, but you still won’t be able to solve it when you get the paper” series.

During the break, Xie Lan lay on the desk poking at his phone.

A group from Fuzhong was organizing a trip to the small campus store to buy snacks; Guo Ruize was among them.

“I’m going to the store too.” Dou Sheng stood up. “What do you want to eat?”

Xie Lan rested his chin on the back of his left hand, poking the screen with his right. “Not hungry.”

“You’ve been ‘socially dead’ for forty minutes, haven’t resurrected yet?” Dou Sheng clicked his tongue, reaching out to ruffle the back of Xie Lan’s head. “So young, yet you set so many rules and boundaries for yourself. I’ll just buy whatever for you then.”

Xie Lan weakly turned his head to dodge. “I’m annoyed. Don’t touch me.”

He couldn’t blame anyone for reaching this point today; he could only hate himself.

People really are mentally ill in the middle of the night. If he wasn’t idle and bored, why did he steal a glance at someone else’s uniform?

Xie Lan let out a long sigh and shredded the syllabus with the tip of his pen.

After a while, he got up to go to the bathroom. On his way back, he bumped into Dou Sheng and Guo Ruize. Guo Ruize wasn’t with his schoolmates; instead, he was walking behind Dou Sheng, his eyes looking a bit unfocused.

Dou Sheng had one hand in his pocket and the other carrying a bag of snacks. His cold expression, combined with his delinquent outfit, radiated the aura of a thug ready to snap at any moment.

Xie Lan guessed Guo Ruize had been terrified by him. After all, someone who could say “I’m number one in my school” immediately upon meeting must be incredibly innocent and had never seen a live “delinquent youth.”

Xie Lan stopped to wait for Dou Sheng. Guo Ruize brushed past the two of them. As he passed Xie Lan, a trace of sympathy suddenly welled up in those unfocused eyes.

Before Xie Lan could react, Guo Ruize squeezed into the Fuzhong crowd, talking and laughing.

Xie Lan hesitated for a moment before whispering, “Do you think Guo Ruize will tell people what he saw?”

Dou Sheng seemed to hook his lips into a smile. “I think it’s very likely. He talks a lot. I heard him chattering non-stop with people from his school in the store just now.”

Xie Lan suffocated.

He walked back in his shut-down mode, with Dou Sheng following behind.

“It’s just a uniform,” Dou Sheng said from behind. “Why do you care if he talks about it?”

Xie Lan turned to look at him. “What did you mean by ‘rules and boundaries’ earlier?”

Dou Sheng thought for a moment. “‘Rules and boundaries’ means a person constantly suggests to themselves: What should I be like? What must I absolutely not be like? If I do this, I’m finished. It’s like building a cage for yourself and then swallowing the key. Why bother?”

Xie Lan paused for a moment.

He had heard similar philosophies many times, but this was the first time he had heard this specific metaphor.

Dou Sheng suddenly reached out and hooked his arm around Xie Lan’s shoulders, smiling narrowly as he flashed his signature peace sign.

“What are you doing?” Xie Lan suspected he wanted to take another photo—something like Big Cat and Socially Dead Second Cat.

But Dou Sheng didn’t take out his phone. He just waggled his two fingers and said, “Since things have come to this, there are two paths before you.”

Xie Lan looked at him silently. Dou Sheng smiled. “First, treat this as shock therapy. Go straight to the peak of social death. Use the powerful force of shame to shatter the cage around you. From then on, the sky is high for birds to fly, the ocean is wide for fish to leap. Open the door to a new world and master the true meaning of happiness.”

Xie Lan gave him a side-eye. “Speak human.”

Dou Sheng said, “Since we’ve been discovered anyway, we might as well be happy in JK together.”

“…”

The greatest self-control Xie Lan exerted in his entire life was used in this moment to not punch Dou Sheng.

He slumped his face and walked back quickly. Dou Sheng chased after him, laughing, and involuntarily hooked his arm around Xie Lan’s neck again.

“What are you doing?” Xie Lan struggled desperately.

“I haven’t finished speaking; there’s a second path.” Dou Sheng raised an eyebrow. “This second path is more pragmatic. We can do something else to suppress Guo Ruize and make him forget your incident.”

Xie Lan paused in his steps. “What do you mean?”

Dou Sheng smiled. “Quickly give him a second, larger shock. Use fear to suppress fear, use magic to defeat magic.”

Xie Lan seemed to understand.

“You mean I should prepare well for the placement test, shock him academically, and get a perfect score?”

Dou Sheng’s expression vanished instantly. After a moment of silence, he couldn’t help but say, “Enterprise-level understanding.”

Xie Lan: “What?”

Dou Sheng sighed. “Actually, what I meant was, we could show Guo Ruize something more direct. For example, what I just…”

“Got it.” Xie Lan nodded seriously and made an OK gesture.

Dou Sheng was confused. “What did you get? I haven’t finished.”

The teacher tapped the podium. Xie Lan quickly returned to his seat, flipped the lecture materials to the second page, and tried hard to clear his mind and listen.

Dou Sheng muttered next to him, “I feel like you didn’t get it, but if you didn’t, forget it, it’s not important. I sincerely recommend you lighten up. Really, JK uniforms aren’t what brings happiness; what brings happiness is trying something the whole world thinks is crazy, simply because you are curious or decided to do it on a whim. That feeling of having no taboos is just incredible.”

Xie Lan could no longer hear him.

Use magic to defeat magic. He had heard this phrase before and deeply agreed with it.

---

During the second session on the syllabus, Xie Lan listened earnestly. He wrote down the English translations for all the math theories in the outline, checking the Chinese-English correspondence several times.

Dou Sheng wanted to speak several times but ultimately shut his mouth silently.

Back at school, the classroom was in an explosive state inside and out.

Dou Sheng’s “One Million Followers Welfare” video, successfully uploaded in the early morning, not only made the homepage but also set the school on fire. Both the front and back doors of Class 4 were blocked during breaks. Everyone was a little regretful that the grade’s number-one big shot hadn’t worn the uniform directly to school.

When Xie Lan squeezed through the crowd back to his seat, he heard a girl sincerely lamenting, “Douzi wore women’s clothing, yet I still think he’s handsome. Am I hopeless?”

Another said, “Sister, I sink with you!”

Xie Lan couldn’t stand hearing the words “women’s clothing” right now. He slumped back at his desk, pulled out the math competition problems, and planned to immerse himself in the ocean of knowledge, letting the abundance of human wisdom sweep away the gloom in his heart.

This book of competition problems was given to him by Old Ma. Since he couldn’t attend the weekend competition training class, Old Ma split the semester’s material into one lecture guide and two exercise books for him to self-study.

He had skimmed the lecture guide before; there was only one small part he didn’t quite know. This time, he frantically made up for that part, then opened the exercise book and started grinding like crazy.

Che Ziming, who had taken the morning off to care for his grandmother, sprinted to his seat as soon as he returned, staring at Dou Sheng. “Are you crazy? I saw the video and was so scared I almost swung my grandma around.”

“What kind of nonsense is that?” Dou Sheng raised an eyebrow nonchalantly. “You think you can swing your grandma?”

Wang Gou added from the side, “Have some self-awareness.”

Che Ziming choked. “It was just a metaphor! No, wait, what were you thinking? I follow so many UPs who promise cross-dressing at a million followers, but very few actually do it honestly.”

Wang Gou shook his head. “None! At! All!”

Dou Sheng showed no expression. “A sudden whim. I wanted to wear it, so I wore it. What’s the big deal?”

As he spoke, he glanced at Xie Lan and said indifferently, “The human brain is a black box. You can’t control when some weird idea might drill its way out.”

Unfortunately, Xie Lan couldn’t hear him anymore. He was sinking into the ocean of learning, finally finding a bit of transcendent peace amidst the massive amount of calculations.

---

In the days before the exam, Xie Lan’s method of forgetting the “social death” incident through studying was miraculously effective.

Wang Gou evaluated him as “entering the realm of perfection,” while Che Ziming said he had “gone into Qi deviation (obsessive madness).”

Actually, it wasn’t that exaggerated. Xie Lan just read Old Ma’s lecture notes from beginning to end to ensure he recognized every Chinese character. Then he brushed through the two competition books twice. The first time using one method, the second time finding another. Any math principle mentioned in the syllabus, anything that could be used to solve problems, he found a way to use at least once.

“You call this not exaggerated?”

On the school bus to the exam site, Che Ziming frantically flipped through the exercise book Xie Lan had filled. He was dumbfounded.

“Are you not actually the 18th generation descendant of Gauss? Mama mia, I’m panicked to death.” He looked at the dense formulas in shock. “I can’t understand some of these solutions at all?”

Hearing this, Dou Sheng leaned over to scan the notebook, smiled, and sat back.

Che Ziming glared at him. “Can you understand it?”

Dou Sheng hummed. “Basically.”

“‘Basically’?” Che Ziming pointed at Dou Sheng and roared at Xie Lan, “You actually made this man say the word ‘basically’?!”

So noisy. It vibrates the eardrums.

Xie Lan muffled himself by leaning back against the seat.

He had indeed studied a bit maniacally these past few days.

Grinding competition problems took up almost all self-study periods and evening breaks. In the mornings, he had to get up to memorize ancient poetry and organic chemistry, which led to a bit of cerebral hypoxia (lack of oxygen to the brain) now.

But the benefit was that the scene of social death was basically cleared from his mind. Perhaps feeling shame is a relatively high-level brain activity; when the human brain is working at high intensity, it pauses such activities.

Moreover, Che Ziming had several good friends at Fuzhong. Over the past few days, Xie Lan had indirectly probed through Che Ziming.

There were no rumors circulating at Fuzhong about “a boy from Yingzhong bringing a high school girl’s uniform to school.” In contrast, Dou Sheng’s persona at Fuzhong had spread and become quite fleshed out—First in the city for the high school entrance exam, always first in the grade in high school, I dye my hair, I have diamonds on my ears, I have shoe prints on my clothes, my pants have one-meter holes, but I am a solid good student.

There were 250 participants in the city-wide placement test, divided into six exam halls. The seating arrangement deliberately separated students from the same school as much as possible, so Dou Sheng and Xie Lan were not in the same room.

Dou Sheng walked Xie Lan to the door of his exam room and raised an eyebrow at him. “Test well, young hero. Get into the top thirty, and let’s go to provincial training together.”

Xie Lan hummed an agreement.

As soon as he entered this building of the City Education Bureau, he felt psychological trauma—he even had trauma regarding his own backpack. He hesitated for a moment, took out his pencil case, and left the backpack on the windowsill in the hallway to fend for itself.

The exam duration was four hours, total score 360.

The first part, covering high school basics, had an astonishing volume of questions. The questions weren’t hard, but the calculation load was insane. By the last question, Xie Lan felt his wrist aching. He shook it for a good while before continuing to the competition section.

Xie Lan didn’t feel much difference between the “Competition Standard” and “Competition Advanced” sections.

The AMC (American Mathematics Competitions) system he studied leaned more toward abstract mathematical principles, which weren’t common in domestic competitions. Therefore, these appeared more often in the so-called “Competition Advanced” section. This resulted in his train of thought becoming clearer the further he went.

The massive amount of training over the past two days was indeed effective. reading the questions and writing proofs in Chinese went very smoothly. Solving problems was simply exhilarating; for the first time since returning to the country, he felt the long-lost joy of taking an exam.

In the last hour of the exam, Xie Lan could clearly feel that half the people in the room had slumped over. The pens scratching on the papers became weak; it wasn’t just difficulty, their physical stamina was exhausted too.

But he felt okay. With fifteen minutes left before the exam ended, he reordered the twelve sheets of math paper from 1 to 12, checked each one to ensure his name was written, and then capped his pen.

Click. A crisp sound.

Guo Ruize, sitting to his right, shuddered. He turned his head and stared at Xie Lan in disbelief.

The proctor just happened to turn away. Guo Ruize kept his butt on the stool but twisted his upper body into the aisle between the two rows, almost resting his chin directly on Xie Lan’s desk.

“What?” Xie Lan’s tone was a bit guarded.

He had psychological trauma regarding this person, even though the previous accident couldn’t be blamed on him.

Guo Ruize whispered, “My brain is stuck so hard my own mother wouldn’t recognize it, and you actually finished everything?”

“Oh.” Xie Lan breathed a sigh of relief and casually flipped through the last few pages. “Yeah, finished.”

Guo Ruize’s eyes went straight.

Xie Lan glanced at his paper—the one spread on top was sheet number 12. It had five major questions. Guo Ruize seemed to have written about three, left one blank, and filled one up but crossed it out with a big X.

Xie Lan was a little surprised. “Are there ones you don’t know?”

Guo Ruize: “?”

The proctor turned back and frowned. “No talking!”

Guo Ruize’s survival instinct was extremely strong. He immediately shrank back and raised both hands. “No talking, just me being unilaterally humiliated.”

The room full of top students laughed. They didn’t know what happened, but they just wanted to laugh.

The proctor glared at him. Guo Ruize added, “Forget it, I’m handing it in. Math is just that kind of thing; if you don’t know it, you don’t know it. Struggling on death’s door is useless.”

Saying this, he stood up with righteous dignity, smoothed out his papers, slammed them onto the podium, and left dashingly with the dignity of Fuzhong’s number one.

The proctor looked at Xie Lan.

Xie Lan had no choice but to stand up silently and hand in his paper too.

Guo Ruize was the only one in the hallway, leaning against the windowsill texting on his phone.

Seeing him come out, Guo Ruize sighed with emotion. “Great God (Da Shen), and you told me you were ranked over 400 in your grade? Are you kidding me? With this IQ, you must get like 290 in the comprehensive science exam even with your eyes closed, right?”

Xie Lan paused. “I got 64 in comprehensive science.”

“I knew it…” Guo Ruize laughed. “Your comprehensive science must at least be… how much?”

His face stiffened as if struck by lightning. “Six… ty… four??”

Xie Lan thought for a moment. “I didn’t answer Chemistry and Biology. Physics alone was 64. Does that sound better?”

Guo Ruize: “…No, thanks.”

“Great God, let’s add each other on WeChat.” Guo Ruize sidled up again. “Although we’re from different schools, we’ll probably meet in the provincial training camp. Let’s get familiar beforehand.”

Xie Lan wasn’t very willing to add strangers, but he suddenly remembered that Guo Ruize was the keeper of his shameful little secret, so he had to take out his phone.

“I’ll scan you. Don’t forget to accept me.” Guo Ruize smiled. “Leaving first, Great God. See you at provincial training.”

Xie Lan looked at his back and felt this person was quite confident.

Out of two hundred and fifty people, only the top thirty were taken. He left at least two major questions blank, yet he dared to say “See you at provincial training.”

Whether it was because seeing Guo Ruize for the second time didn’t bring up the JK uniform incident at all, or simply because the exam was finally over, Xie Lan’s mood instantly lightened on the way back. He was so relaxed that he fell asleep directly on the bus.

After arriving home, it was Dou Sheng who shook him awake. He walked into the house groggily and collapsed straight onto the bed to continue lying down.

The orange cat, unseen for a week, actively jumped up, lay down by the pillow, and began to purr with satisfaction.

Dou Sheng stood at the door and laughed. “Feeling lighter?”

“I wasn’t heavy to begin with,” Xie Lan mumbled. “Just a lousy little exam.”

“The exam isn’t hard. I’m just shocked that a certain someone was troubled for so many days over a little skirt.”

Xie Lan sighed. “Do you need something?”

Dou Sheng smiled. “Nothing. Ms. Zhao Wenying isn’t home. I just wanted to tell you that today is the last day for me to record the ‘persona’ video, and I’m still missing quite a bit of storyboard plot. I plan to go get some footage. I might be back very late tonight, so order takeout yourself.”

“Oh.” Xie Lan nodded dazedly. “Got it. You remember to eat too.”

He returned from the exam at 3:00 PM. Xie Lan fell onto the bed and slept like the dead. When he opened his eyes, the whole house was dark.

The moment he got up, he felt a bit panicked; it was too dark. Just as he was reaching for his phone, the sound of a kitten purring came from the bedside.

It had slept beside him all afternoon and evening, keeping him company from daylight to dark.

Seeing him wake up, the orange cat rolled over to expose its belly, stretched, and gave a meow.

“Big Cat. No, Wutong¹.” Xie Lan smiled and stroked its belly.

The cat was very well-behaved and let him pet it.

22:30.

The house was silent. Dou Sheng still hadn’t returned.

Xie Lan sat up, exercised his shoulders which were numb from sleeping, and opened a food delivery app, planning to solve the dinner issue.

There was one unread message on WeChat, from two hours ago.

Guo Ruize-ze: Big Boss, I can’t figure out the third question in the competition section, the one about proving the ant turns left and right an equal number of times. I get confused as soon as spatial geometry is involved.

Xie Lan had a deep impression of that question because it was the one on the whole paper that required writing the most Chinese characters.

He replied concisely: Make all vertices into a set. Count the number of edges and faces for each turning direction at every point. You need to use Euler’s Theorem.

Actually, it was very simple. There were plenty of questions harder than this one; Guo Ruize probably just wasn’t good at this type.

Xie Lan thought the other party wouldn’t reply immediately, but before he could close WeChat, he received a reply.

Guo Ruize-ze: Holy crap, you said exactly the same thing as my teacher. I couldn’t resist asking the teacher this afternoon, hehe.

Guo Ruize-ze: Terrifyingly skilled. With you here, I don’t need to think about the guaranteed admission quota for this year’s competition.

Guo Ruize-ze: But Great God, I’m more curious about that Dou Sheng from your school.

Xie Lan paused.

Renaissance: What about him?

Guo Ruize-ze: Just purely curious, exactly what kind of person is he?

Guo Ruize simply sent a voice message. “I don’t mean to discriminate against cross-dressing. Everyone has the freedom to dress how they want. It’s just that I can’t figure it out—what kind of spirit does it take to stuff a little skirt into a backpack and take it to the City Education Bureau to listen to a lecture? Especially since he’s a top student taking the exam with us. Ah, heavens, I really want to gossip with him face-to-face, but I don’t really dare. He looks so fierce in person.”

Xie Lan froze for a long while, listening to the recording several times.

Did this Guo Ruize misunderstand? That backpack was clearly his. The situation that day was very clear: the little skirt appeared in his backpack, and Dou Sheng covered for him.

Guo Ruize-ze: Don’t think I’m talking behind people’s backs; mostly I was just too deeply traumatized. Did you know, not only did he bring the little skirt to the lecture, but he also wore that outfit to record a video! During the break at the last lecture, he even stopped me, super proudly showed me that video, and asked if I had any thoughts?!

Guo Ruize-ze: Holy crap, I had nightmares for four days straight. Dou Sheng was in every dream. Anyone who didn’t know better would think I fell in love with him.

Xie Lan was completely stunned.

Guo Ruize sent a string of “shocked to death” stickers, but Xie Lan didn’t reply.

He sat in the quiet room, the orange cat lying beside him, breathing softly.

No wonder Guo Ruize went out with the Fuzhong crowd last time but came back alone following Dou Sheng.

Xie Lan completely hadn’t expected that when Dou Sheng said “give Guo Ruize a bigger shock,” he meant this—taking ownership of the uniform directly onto himself and secretly settling the matter for Xie Lan.

And after settling it, he didn’t say anything. He just let Xie Lan shut down and grind math like a maniac for a week while he watched cheerfully from the sidelines.

His feelings were a bit complicated.

Suddenly, the musical sound of the door lock opening came from downstairs. Not long after, Dou Sheng clattered up the stairs, walked to his door, and knocked tuk-tuk.

Xie Lan snapped back to reality and let out an “Ah.”

Dou Sheng pushed the door open, stared at the darkness for two seconds, and click—turned on the light.

“Are you a god? You slept all afternoon?”

Xie Lan squinted in the light. “How did your recording go?”

“All done.” Dou Sheng smiled. “I’m dyeing my hair back tonight and donating the clothes to a Hope Primary School² in the mountains. Sweeping away negative energy, returning to being myself.”

Xie Lan nodded, then couldn’t help but wonder: Would the children at the Hope Primary School really be willing to accept pants with a one-meter hole in them?

When Dou Sheng was home, he turned on every light he passed. In a short while, all the lights upstairs and downstairs were on, shrouding the whole house in illumination. When Zhao Wenying was home, she would scold him for wasting electricity, but right now, Xie Lan felt the brightness was very good.

He got up from the bed and watched Dou Sheng pack up the pile of lenses and batteries on the small cart.

“Dou Sheng.”

Xie Lan called him.

Dou Sheng turned around. “What’s up?”

Xie Lan didn’t speak, not knowing what to say.

After a moment, he suddenly remembered something. He ran back to his room and felt around in his pencil case for a long time.

This thing was given to him by the auntie in the small cafeteria; she had accidentally swiped two yuan extra that day, so she gave him change.

Dou Sheng straightened up and looked back at Xie Lan, seeing him run over with a head of messy soft hair from sleeping.

“My Bilibili wallet is empty again, so I’ll ‘credit’ you two of these for now. Is it pronounced ‘she’ (credit/owe)? Anyway, when I have coins, you bring these to me and I’ll make it up to you,” Xie Lan said. “Thanks for using magic to defeat magic for me with Guo Ruize.”

As he spoke, he fished out two steel coins from his pajama pocket and placed them, one by one, on Dou Sheng’s desk.

Clink.

Dou Sheng froze.

---

Author’s Note:

Bean Egg sits by the keyboard whistling.

The keyboard typist is annoyed and pokes him over with a finger.

What are you doing?

Bean Egg smiles profoundly: Showing you the small token of friendship Lazy Egg gave me.

Hearing this, the keyboard typist gets curious: What is it? Rwkk (Let me look).

Bean Egg digs in his small cloth pocket for a long time and cherishingly holds out two round things.

They are diamonds. He strokes them admiringly. Representing the everlasting affection of nest-mate eggs.

The keyboard typist falls silent.

After a long time, she pinches the two shiny things with her fingertips.

Greatly shocked: I was wondering why my hair clip was missing rhinestones. Has Lazy Egg never been beaten up?

---

NOTES:

1. The Chinese Parasol Tree (Wutong) is culturally significant, often associated with loneliness or waiting. ↩︎
2. “Project Hope” builds schools in poverty-stricken rural areas of China. ↩︎