Chapter 109: Side Story 9

Five o’clock. The bell rang for the end of class.

The professor finished writing the last line on the blackboard, walked to the podium, and clicked the mouse to project the final slide—homework.

A collective gasp rose from the students.

He waited for the gasping to stop, smiled, and clicked the mouse again.

There was a second page of homework.

“…”

“I’m numb.”

The boy sitting in front of Xie Lan, Wei Dongkuo, was frantically flipping through his notes. Showing none of the grace expected of a top-ten provincial science student, he spoke with a peculiar accent: “Are we really ji-er doing two whole chapters in one afternoon? My paws are trembling.”

Xie Lan was still scribbling the last of his notes on his iPad, the stylus moving so fast it left afterimages.

He had noticed that Wei Dongkuo loved using the phrase “ji-er” (dick/heck) to add emphasis, much like how Che Ziming had taught him to use “just ni-ma” (f*cking) back in the day. However, this term’s pronunciation was more difficult, having an elegant, rounded flow that made one want to learn it.

Thus, he whispered to himself in imitation: “Are we really ji-er doing two whole chapters in one afternoon…”

Unexpectedly, Wei Dongkuo heard him and whipped around. “God Lan, are you copying me? Are you interested in my hometown dialect? Come chat with me more when you’re free!”

Xie Lan looked up helplessly. “Can you call me by my name?”

The other guy chuckled. “My conscience won’t allow me to insult a deity.”

“…”

“God Lan.” He didn’t know who started the nickname, but only two weeks into the semester, it had spread through the entire Math Department.

To make matters worse, several boys in the department couldn’t distinguish between ‘l’ and ‘n’ sounds. A boisterous shout of “Male God!” (Nánshén) instead of “God Lan” (Lánshén) made Xie Lan wish he could vanish into the earth on the spot.

Xie Lan wordlessly lowered his head to finish his notes. Wei Dongkuo leaned in, muttering, “Let me see what God Lan’s notes look like… Holy crap!”

The person beside him also turned around. “Let me see too!”

The screen was filled with fluid English, interspersed with mathematical symbols, looking stylish and sweeping. Ordinary people couldn’t easily read cursive English; Wei Dongkuo took a long time to process it. “I thought you were taking notes in Arabic. This is Ing-ge-li-shi?”

Xie Lan hummed. “The professor speaks too fast. I… I really can’t keep up writing Chinese characters.”

It was actually quite shameful. Throughout his two years of high school, he had taken notes in Chinese. Although he wrote slower than others, he had persevered. He hadn’t expected to meet his match before the “demon professors” of T-University.

“Worship!” The boy next to Wei Dongkuo remarked, swaying his head. “Even if I can’t read it, this handwriting is intimidating. Truly a god-tier vibe.”

“Right?” Wei Dongkuo added quickly. “God Lan, you teach me English calligraphy, and I’ll teach you how to say ji-er, how about it? Your ‘r’ sound just now wasn’t oily enough. This word isn’t actually from my hometown; I learned it from someone else for a long time. I can pass it on to you.”

Xie Lan rejected him heartlessly. “No thanks. I already know how. Ji-er.”

Wei Dongkuo laughed so hard he nearly flipped over, and even the row of girls in front were giggling. Xie Lan felt a bit embarrassed, so he quickly packed his things and grabbed his backpack to leave.

Wei Dongkuo was one of his originally assigned roommates. Although Xie Lan rarely returned to the dorm since military training ended, he remained on good terms with this over-familiar roommate.

Dou Sheng had class tonight, so Xie Lan dropped his boyfriend off and went to the library to work on the math homework.

His phone was on silent, but the screen kept lighting up with incoming messages. After solving two problems, he picked it up to scan the notifications. The group chat was flying with photos of notes, mixed with desperate cries for help.

• Where’s Math Rings Q4?
• /photo
• Damn, the top of yours was erased.
• By the time I realized I wouldn’t finish writing and tried to take a photo, it was too late.
• This professor’s blackboard-erasing skills are a masterclass.
• Going bald. The teachers in our department really love the blackboard…
• As we all know, PPTs are only used to assign homework.
• Did anyone actually record the mysterious Q4??
• Guo-zi has the top half, Brother Kuo has the bottom half, but there are lines missing in between.

Xie Lan tapped his iPad, took a screenshot of that section, and sent it to the group. The chat exploded again.

• GOD LAN!! (Deep voice!)
• A wild God Lan appears!
• Congratulations, you have caught the attention of God Lan.
• And successfully unlocked God Lan’s assistance.
• I’m so moved. A whole screen of mysterious language I can’t read, yet the only two lines of math I can understand are exactly the ones I need. Does anyone understand this destined connection?? I am locked in with God Lan.
• Law School Warning.
• Law School Warning.
• Law School Warning.

The library was brightly lit, with long tables full of students studying intensely. This group chat, which was a bubbling cauldron of chaos, seemed particularly irreverent compared to the surroundings.

Xie Lan wordlessly put his phone down to continue his homework. But the group kept popping up; in the narrow space, the messages continued to clamor in his peripheral vision.

• Does Big God Xie Lan have the notes for Q6?
• Requesting the same.
• I want Q7 too.
• I have Q7. Anyone have Number Fields Q3?
• Frantically @-ing the Great God. Help! @XieLan_em

Are these people serious…?

Xie Lan had no choice but to export his notes and send them to the group. Actually, the beginning was in Chinese; he had only broken down and switched to English at the very end when he couldn’t keep up. The problems they were asking about all had Chinese versions.

However, the Chinese versions…

• ??
• This handwriting??
• I’m dumbfounded. Q6 line 4, what does $px+q$ have? Ancient heel? (古艮)
• It looks like ‘tongue-root’? (舌艮)
• Pardon me, but what is a ‘tongue-root’…?

It was endless.

Xie Lan put down his pen, picked up his phone, and replied: “It has a multiple root (chónggēn).”

• ?
• ?
• …
• I find it hard to imagine…
• Me too…

Xie Lan explained patiently: “I couldn’t finish copying, so I used shorthand. That ‘tongue’ ($舌$) is just the simplified version of ‘multiple’ ($重$). I omitted a few tiny details.”

• ???
• …Is that so?
• A ‘billion’ tiny details.
• I’m flying from laughter, damn.
• Pinching my thigh in the study room to stop from laughing. Life is hard.
• Redefining “Simplified Characters.”

Xie Lan felt a bit weak watching the screen scroll by. He decided to answer a few more illegible parts.

• What is “Sun # Or” (日#或)?
• Complex Field (复数域).
• And “Big Style Knife Angle” (大式刀角)?
• Factorization (因式分解).
• What about “Many Work Work” (多工工)?
• …Let me think.
  Xie Lan paused for a few seconds and replied: “Polynomial (Duōxiàngshì).”
• Laughing my head off.
• I finally laughed out loud in the study room.
• Man, if I didn’t know better, I’d think this was a Japanese math textbook.
• Japanese isn’t like that either LOL.
• Is this the world of an IMO champion?
• I just remembered… doesn’t the IMO distribute papers in the language of the student’s nationality? God Lan took the Chinese version, right?
• Maybe he would have performed better with the English version…
• He couldn’t have performed better. He got all six IMO problems right. Record-breaking.
• Not a record, several seniors have had perfect scores before, but it’s still badass.

Here we go again. Xie Lan felt his head aching, so he flipped his phone over and focused on his work. The problems assigned were tricky; by the time he was halfway through, his brain was tired. He planned to finish the rest after his morning run and spent some time “fixing” his shorthand notes.

Before he could look up, a melodic tune began to play. The boys around him started packing their bags. Xie Lan groggily checked the time.

22:45. Fifteen minutes until closing. This was the music signaling everyone to leave.

Crap, he got so busy he forgot about Dou Sheng!

He opened WeChat. Sure enough, Dou Sheng had sent a string of messages.

[20:35] Where are you?

[20:42] Still in the library? Usual spot? Did you study so hard you forgot me?

[21:06] Reporting to Master: your boyfriend is seated at your five o’clock direction.

…

[22:38] Reporting again: I’m hungry… you study too much.

[22:42] Pizza for a late snack? Signature Devil Cheese?

Xie Lan clutched his phone and turned around. Dou Sheng was sitting in a reading sofa diagonally behind him, his closed laptop on his lap, looking at him with great anticipation.

The moment Xie Lan turned, Dou Sheng perked up. He snapped his fingers in the air and mouthed: Ready to go—?

Xie Lan nodded and packed his things. The closing music played for three minutes. The entire library was full of late-night studiers; as everyone stood up to pack, the quiet building finally gained a lively atmosphere.

Xie Lan walked out of the reading room with Dou Sheng. Upon reaching the lobby, a girl smiled and said, “Er… Xie Lan and Douzi came to self-study too?”

Xie Lan nodded, but he didn’t recognize the girl—likely not from his department.

“A viewer, probably,” Dou Sheng muttered once they were outside. “She started with ‘Er’, she probably instinctively wanted to call you Er-Mao.”

Xie Lan nearly stumbled. “Don’t.”

That was a nickname only Dou Sheng used occasionally in private. Fans using it in the chat was fine, but hearing it in person was too much. It reminded him of that day during military training. During a rare ten-minute camp break, a girl from another company ran across half the field and shouted excitedly: “Lan-zai!”

…No thank you, he nearly died right there.

Seeing Xie Lan’s “socially withdrawn” face, Dou Sheng couldn’t stop laughing. As they walked under the trees of the avenue, he put his arm around Xie Lan’s shoulder. “You have to get used to it. You’re a big UP with ten million followers now. How many are there on the whole site? And how many college students today do you think don’t watch Bilibili?”

Xie Lan said coldly, “Oh. I feel so comforted.”

Dou Sheng laughed even harder. Xie Lan gripped his backpack strap and sighed. It was true. And it wasn’t just him—Dou Sheng had even more followers. With the two of them tied together, how could they be low-key?

“It’s so ji-er speechless,” he muttered casually.

Beside him, the laughing Dou Sheng suddenly choked.

“Cough, cough, cough! What?? What was that?” Dou Sheng was shocked. “It’s so what speechless?”

Xie Lan glanced at him calmly. “So ji-er speechless. Is it good? I learned the filler word from Wei Dongkuo today. Is the pronunciation standard? Ji-er? Ji-er? Ji…“

Dou Sheng clamped a hand over his mouth.

A bicycle passed by. Xie Lan, struggling in Dou Sheng’s palm, caught a glimpse—it was a girl from his department. She was riding downhill and was so shocked she stopped looking at the road to stare at him.

“It’s over, your persona has collapsed,” Dou Sheng said, letting go and rubbing the bridge of his nose. “The people in your dorm have no class. Don’t learn junk from them!”

Xie Lan’s Adam’s apple bobbed. “Does it have a cursing connotation too?”

“It’s not exactly a curse… and… sigh, it’s not quite a swear word either.” Dou Sheng ruffled his hair. “But it… it just doesn’t suit your vibe, you know?”

Xie Lan gave a disappointed “oh” and adjusted his bag. “Next summer break I want to go to S-Province. I want to challenge the hotpot that makes people cry, learn the S-Province dialect, and see the giant pandas.”

“Sure.” Dou Sheng’s eyebrows shot up. He gripped Xie Lan’s shoulders to speed up, then used his wrists to shove Xie Lan forward after a short jog.

Xie Lan was annoyed by the antics but couldn’t stop the corners of his mouth from curling up. He ran forward ten meters with the momentum before stopping and looking back at Dou Sheng.

Dou Sheng jogged up. “I’ll arrange it immediately! October National Day holiday—trip is on!”

It was late. They hadn’t ridden bikes today, so they walked home chatting and laughing. Dou Sheng had a new video to post and needed to check the subtitles and info bar one last time. Xie Lan went to do his own thing in the living room.

Two weeks after military training, the home was starting to look proper. Under the comfortable L-shaped sofa was an irregular-shaped plush rug. Beside the sofa was a soft beanbag chair and a floor lamp. It was more of a “pole” than a lamp, as it had no visible bulb—just a straight upward pole with a ring of LEDs at the top that provided soft, even light.

Xie Lan liked curling up in the beanbag at night to compose, with his recent books on music arrangement scattered nearby.

After a while, Dou Sheng shouted from the room, “Video is up!”

“Okay.”

Xie Lan put down his book and picked up his phone. He politely sent a “one-click triple” (like, coin, collect) before forwarding his boyfriend’s hard work to his own feed. He shamelessly typed: “A VLOG of this week’s new home soft-furnishing. Finally produced something.”

Then he exited Bilibili to clear his notifications across all apps. DMs, Weibo, WeChat…

Huh?

QQ was showing a red “999+”.

He rarely used QQ. Clicking the list, he found the massive T-University freshman group was spamming the chat. He jumped to the top and scrolled down rapidly, his brow furrowing.

They were discussing something called the “Freshman Confession Wall.”

There were too many people in the QQ group, and the variety of avatars and fonts was a headache. Xie Lan crawled through hundreds of messages before he understood. T-University had an official account specifically for anonymous or public confessions, also known as an “Emotional Tree Hollow.” Every year during military training, the team would compile a list of freshmen who received the most confessions. This year’s report had just come out—the “Ten Most Confessed Freshmen.”

Xie Lan wasn’t very interested, but he noticed several IDs with the “Applied Math” prefix were very excited. A bad premonition blossomed. He scrolled further and found the screenshot of the report.

Title: 《The Wind Whispers, the Night Rain Clamors, You Arrive》

Barf. It was that specific type of “literary” barf.

Xie Lan expressionlessly skipped the long “introductory message” and looked straight at the list. Each name had a corresponding photo, mostly candid life shots taken from social media, blurry secret photos, or military training pictures. But the top of the list was different…

No. 1 — Law School, Law International Class, Dou Sheng.

The accompanying image was actually Dou Sheng’s Bilibili avatar—a single bean on a pink background.

An unnamed irritation rose in Xie Lan, but then his eyes swept down.

No. 2 — Math School, Mathematics and Applied Mathematics, Xie Lan.

The image… was also f*cking Dou Sheng’s Bilibili avatar? The exact same one?!

No. Xie Lan frowned and zoomed in. The second avatar had a filter that made the color look fake, and next to the bean was a Photoshopped, tipped-over little liquor bottle…

“Who are they insulting?” Xie Lan was fired up. “Dou Sheng!”

There was a clang from the inner room as Dou Sheng flipped over in his chair, laughing so hard he sounded like he was dying. “I saw it! They’re playing the ‘I am Douzi’ meme! Hahahaha, I’m dying!!”

Xie Lan: “…” This was too much.

The report also featured selected confessions for each of the top ten. Xie Lan didn’t dare look at his own. He closed the image and continued reading the chat. As expected, the group was full of people @-ing the “winners,” mostly @-ing him and Dou Sheng.

• LOL at you two.
• Man, these people are so bold.
• Pretending they don’t know the two of them are… cough.
• The result of playing dumb is that they pushed the two of them together on the list. I feel bad for the people actually confessing.
• Look at this one Xie Lan received. It’s actually a ‘cheesy pick-up line’: ‘Xie Lan, aren’t you tired after military training? You’ve already run N rounds of orienteering in my heart.’ LOL, can he even understand that?
• LOL.
• LOL.
• @XieLan, come out!!

Xie Lan felt like he had died. He expressionlessly watched the group as they dug up all the confessions for him and Dou Sheng.

• Douzi, this isn’t a confession for a relationship. I just want to say I watched your videos for all three years of high school, and I studied hard to get into T-U because of you. Hello there, Alumnus Dou! (If you want to date me, that’s fine too).

The hell it’s fine.

Xie Lan kept scrolling with a grumpy face, picking out the ones for Dou Sheng.

• Douzi, we’re in the same class cough. I love the way you look smiling under the sun. I don’t want to play the ‘fake boyfriend’ meme with them; I hope to stand by your side one day. (Clue: I don’t wear glasses).

Doesn’t wear glasses? Xie Lan’s brow knitted as he started a mental search. Dou Sheng’s class… half of them were girls, and the few he had seen didn’t wear glasses…

Xie Lan was going numb. He closed the poster.

Just as he was feeling annoyed, Dou Sheng shuffled out in his slippers, frowning. “What the hell? ‘No resistance against people with beautiful hands’? This person sounds so disgusting. Why are they observing your hands?”

“Hmm?” Xie Lan blinked. Looking at Dou Sheng’s phone, he saw the confession—it was for himself.

Dou Sheng scrolled down, scowling. “And this one? Daring to say ‘Dou-whatshisname move aside, Lan-zai belongs to me’? Is this a viewer or a passerby? Truly shameless…”

Dou Sheng plopped down next to Xie Lan, squeezing into the beanbag with him, cursing at every line he read.

“This person is toxic. ‘Secretly sitting behind you during self-study, unable to stop admiring your focused expression’? That’s too creepy!”

Xie Lan: “…Actually, when you were in the library earlier…”

Dou Sheng interrupted him. “And this one, ‘orienteering in my heart.’ I was already over cheesy pick-up lines by junior year, okay?”

Xie Lan: “…That’s not something to brag about, thank you.”

Dou Sheng muttered to himself for a moment and suddenly started typing.

“What are you doing?” Xie Lan was startled. “Are you going to post…”

Before he could finish, a whoosh sounded. Dou Sheng’s message was sent.

@Law-Dou Sheng: Break it up, stop teasing my Er-Mao.

The group immediately became even more turbulent.

• THE REAL PERSON APPEARED!
• Group photo in the front row.
• …I’m so excited. After Bilibili, I’m catching the sugar in my own school’s group chat.
• ‘My Er-Mao.’ How is this different from a declaration of ownership?
• @Law-Dou Sheng, Douzi is definitely marking his territory!
• Aren’t they fake boyfriends?

Messages kept popping up. Xie Lan sighed. He wordlessly clutched his large notebook and looked at Dou Sheng gloomily.

“Let’s see how you clean this up.”

Dou Sheng said dismissively, “I’ll clean it up however I need to. I’m open and upright.”

As he spoke, he sent one last message.

@Law-Dou Sheng: Regardless of whether we’re ‘fake’ or not, a fake boyfriend has to mark his territory too.

---

Author’s Note:

On the voice call, Lan-Egg (Xie Lan) is reporting seriously to the Keyboard-Thumper.

“Mm… eating well, sleeping well, and the Egg-classes are going well…”

“Yes, very popular with other Eggs. My Egg-social circle is quite good.”

Keyboard-Thumper breathes a sigh of relief. “What about Dou-Egg? Let him say something.”

Dou-Egg is clicking away at the keyboard off-camera: “I’m busy! Writing an announcement!”

“Writing what?”

“The forest is large and full of all kinds of Eggs. There are always ‘treacherous Eggs’ trying to bother Lan-Egg.”

Dou-Egg says indignantly: “I’m writing ‘Lan-Egg has an owner; anyone who approaches gets cracked!'”