Jiang Ruotang led him to his bedroom, where a framed painting leaned against the wall next to the desk. Jiang Ruotang lifted his chin towards it.

Lu Guifan looked at Jiang Ruotang suspiciously. “Why would you put an exhibition painting in your bedroom?”

Shouldn’t it be in the studio, or wrapped up like the paintings he just sent?

But Lu Guifan still walked in. It turned out the painting was of his back. Without needing any further explanation from Jiang Ruotang, he recognized it: it was his back as Jiang Ruotang watched him leave the Shengda University gate that day, peering through the car window during their farewell.

Lu Guifan’s throat moved. “Actually, I’ve always been worried.”

“Worried?” Jiang Ruotang came to his side. “Worried about what?”

“What if I’m often stuck in the lab, and we don’t have enough contact… For instance, when you’re painting alone, when you want someone to watch a movie with, when you’re too nervous to sleep because of something and want someone to talk to, and I’m not there. You’ll gradually be disappointed in me.”

Jiang Ruotang looked at Lu Guifan’s profile and suddenly realized this guy might have mulled over such worries many times.

“Do I look like such a boring person?” Jiang Ruotang put his hands on his hips and tilted his head, looking at him.

“Hm?”

“Isn’t it easier to focus when painting alone? If I get lonely, I can have David, Venus de Milo, or the Boy with a Goose to keep me company. Which of their artistic achievements aren’t higher than yours? I have money, I can get a room full of models to accompany me, only two hundred yuan each.”

Lu Guifan looked over, letting out a rare cold laugh.

Surprisingly, Jiang Ruotang quite liked hearing him laugh coldly.

“I’m so popular, people who want to watch movies with me could queue up at the school window! Sister Sha, Cai Cai, my dad, or even Sister Juan and Xiao Gao, which one can’t I ask?”

Lu Guifan looked at him, saying nothing.

“If I’m too nervous to sleep, I’ll get up and paint. Specifically, I’ll paint you without clothes, hehe.”

Jiang Ruotang once again showed that slightly mischievous, yet particularly alluring smile.

“How do I not remember you ever seeing me without clothes?” Lu Guifan asked back with amusement.

“I can imagine it! You’re so boring. Even when we sleep, you button your pajamas all the way up here, as if you’re afraid I’ll attack you at night!”

Jiang Ruotang said, gesturing to the area around his neck.

Lu Guifan raised his hand, cupped Jiang Ruotang’s head, pressed it into his embrace, and then hugged him tightly. He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. How incredible, he could now hold him without any restraint.

“Maybe I just wanted to hide myself.”

“Huh?” Jiang Ruotang didn’t understand, lifting his head from the other’s embrace.

Lu Guifan smiled. “Never mind, these worries of mine seem to be self-inflicted anyway. You’re someone who’s so good at finding fun in life.”

“That’s not finding fun. It’s that I really enjoy waiting for you.”

Just like in his previous life, he would lean back in the hospital room, painting, but always listening to the sounds in the corridor. Every time your footsteps sounded, he felt like a rebirth.

So Lu Guifan, you don’t have to worry about me getting bored while waiting for you, because every time I get your surprise, it’s an irreplaceable joy.

Lu Guifan lowered his eyes, his nose brushing against the crown of Jiang Ruotang’s head. He knew Jiang Ruotang was optimistic and very good at coaxing people.

“Lu Guifan, how about… you show me!” Jiang Ruotang suddenly looked up, as if he’d thought of something big.

“Show you what?”

“Your body!”

“Cough…” Lu Guifan was startled by the other’s bright eyes, ignited by a new world of enthusiasm.

At this moment, Jiang Ruotang in his arms began to squirm, even reaching out to pull at the hem of Lu Guifan’s T-shirt.

“Hey, Jiang Ruotang, what are you doing? You’re being… a pervert…”

“I’m looking at my boyfriend; I’m not being a pervert.”

Jiang Ruotang’s eager look was like a little devil. As he was pulled and touched by him, Lu Guifan’s neck first turned red, then his ear tips heated up. His strength was much greater than Jiang Ruotang’s, so Jiang Ruotang naturally couldn’t pull his shirt up. Instead, he got tired and started sweating on his back.

Jiang Ruotang stepped back, taking a deep breath. “I’m exhausted. Do you have to be so stingy? I saw your abs when you spiked the shuttlecock during badminton!”

Lu Guifan didn’t know why he wouldn’t let the other person see, but his instinct told him that Jiang Ruotang might cause trouble. And if Jiang Ruotang did, Lu Guifan, who had endured for so long, might just break, like a flood bursting its dam.

“If you won’t show me, then what if I show you?” Jiang Ruotang smiled, his eyes curving.

Actually, Lu Guifan had seen them before. Both Jiang Ruotang’s dimples of Venus and his little belly were often exposed when he slept, and Lu Guifan would pull the blanket over him to cover him up.

“Alright, stop messing around,” Lu Guifan said helplessly.

Jiang Ruotang, however, tugged at the hem of his own T-shirt, lifting it little by little. “I have a tiny bit of abs now. I do crunches every day before showering.”

Lu Guifan wanted to say he wasn’t going to fool around with Jiang Ruotang, but his gaze couldn’t help but dart over. The lines of his waist and abdomen had indeed tightened, and his navel was a little cute. Just as he was about to lift it higher, Jiang Ruotang suddenly dropped it and lunged forward, accurately grabbing his shirt.

“Wow! You really do have abs!” Jiang Ruotang’s voice was filled with unrestrained delight.

Lu Guifan simply used his own T-shirt to cover Jiang Ruotang’s head. This rascal!

“You like to look so much, then look to your heart’s content.”

“Mm… mm…” Jiang Ruotang was so muffled he could barely breathe, his nose almost flattened. “Lu… Lu Guifan… if you don’t let go… I’m going to bite… bite you!”

Lu Guifan sucked in a breath. He remembered where Jiang Ruotang had bitten him last time.

As soon as he let go, Jiang Ruotang popped out, his hair messy like a bird’s nest, but his eyes were remarkably bright. Lu Guifan’s heart pounded fast. He realized he couldn’t roughhouse with Jiang Ruotang like this; he liked him too much, and even a tiny spark could set him ablaze.

Just then, there was a knock on the bedroom door, and Zhao Yunshu’s voice came through: “Tangtang, are you in there?”

Jiang Ruotang was about to answer when Lu Guifan’s hand quickly reached out and smoothed his messy hair.

“Yes, Mom, come in.”

Zhao Yunshu smiled when she saw Lu Guifan. “Xiao Lu is here too.”

“Hello, Auntie Zhao,” Lu Guifan said politely.

Zhao Yunshu nodded. Her sixth sense told her something was a little off with these two kids, but she couldn’t quite pinpoint what.

“Tangtang, did you talk to Shasha about the copyright collaboration for Mysterious Stories of the West Window?”

Jiang Ruotang paused. He had been so focused on Lu Guifan that he’d forgotten about it. “I… I’ll tell her in a bit.” Jiang Ruotang put on a serious face. “Didn’t I get the class monitor to come along and talk to her with me? Haha.”

“Oh, good then. You two… you two talk. Let me know when you have a result.”

“Mhm.” Jiang Ruotang nodded obediently.

---

After Zhao Yunshu left, Jiang Ruotang invited Jian Sha out for milk tea, but to his surprise, Jian Sha flat-out refused, giving a simple reason: “I’m overflowing with inspiration, no time to have tea with Beauty Jiang.”

Jiang Ruotang: …

Well, he was the one asking for a favor, so he could only wait.

However, Jiang Ruotang wasn’t entirely idle. He now had a hundred ideas in his head to tease Lu Guifan. People just shouldn’t have too high of moral integrity, otherwise, they’d end up like Lu Guifan, blushing and having red ears every day, and getting “bullied.”

After only a few days of happiness, the day for the college entrance exam results arrived. That morning, Jiang Ruotang sat in front of the computer, taking a deep breath. Behind him were Jiang Huaiyuan and Zhao Yunshu, and even Zhao Changfeng, who was always out and about, was in his room.

Jiang Ruotang took a deep breath and pushed Zhao Changfeng, but he didn’t budge. “What are you doing in my room? Go back to your own place to check your scores!”

“You’re the family’s main focus right now. If you studied so hard and still didn’t do well, then I’m even more screwed!”

Zhao Changfeng said this, but even his throat was trembling. This guy was clearly overly nervous.

“The results are there, neither more nor less!”

Jiang Ruotang steeled himself, clicked open the page, and entered the relevant information. He originally thought that with so many people checking, the internet speed would definitely be slow, and it might even not open. But to his surprise, everything went smoothly to a startling degree. It didn’t even give Jiang Ruotang a chance to react before the transcript appeared before his eyes!

Chinese: 109

Mathematics: 99

Comprehensive Science: 195

English: 110

Total Cultural Score: 513

Jiang Ruotang rubbed his eyes hard. Did he really get over five hundred points on his college entrance exam? With this score, even if he didn’t study art, he could still get into a pretty good university!

“Ruotang! Is this score enough? Is it enough for the Central Academy of Fine Arts?” Jiang Huaiyuan excitedly shook his son’s shoulders.

“I remember they said before that four hundred and eighty points would be enough, right? Now you have over thirty more points… Are you definitely in?” Zhao Yunshu also asked.

Jiang Ruotang sat still in place, then suddenly felt a sharp pain in his thigh. He couldn’t help but shout, realizing Zhao Changfeng had pinched his leg.

“Ow—” Jiang Ruotang’s tears almost burst out. “What the hell are you doing—”

“I was afraid you’d think you were dreaming, so I pinched you! Does it hurt? If it hurts, it’s real…”

Before Zhao Changfeng could finish, Zhao Yunshu grabbed him by the ear and dragged him towards his own room. “You still have the nerve to pinch your brother? Go look at what a mess you made of your own exam! Go—check your scores!”

Under the entire family’s watchful eyes, Zhao Changfeng entered the wrong information three times in a row. Jiang Ruotang couldn’t stand it anymore, stripped him of keyboard control, and entered the information. The scores appeared quickly.

Zhao Changfeng held his breath, feeling like he was being executed. Jiang Huaiyuan and Zhao Yunshu’s heads crowded in front of the screen, completely blocking Zhao Changfeng’s view. The prolonged silence in the room made Zhao Changfeng’s heart pound, so nervous that his cheeks ached.

“How is it, how is it? How did I do? Why is no one saying anything, what’s wrong?”

Zhao Changfeng stood up, and over the three heads, he finally used his height advantage to see his own score clearly.

“Holy cow? Four hundred and fifty-five! That high? This will definitely get me into Capital University of Physical Education!” Jiang Ruotang retaliated by punching Zhao Changfeng lightly on the chest.

It took him a while to come to his senses. “Really four hundred and fifty-five? So Capital University of Science and Technology might also be possible?”

“I’m going to set up a longevity tablet for your class monitor at the temple!” Zhao Yunshu exclaimed from the bottom of her heart.

Zhao Changfeng, however, was displeased. “Mom! This is the result of my tireless studying…”

“This is the result of Lu Guifan tirelessly predicting questions for you! You only seriously studied for less than three months in total!”

Jiang Ruotang also teased from the side, “Yeah, from three hundred and eighty to four hundred and fifty-five points, it’s practically an IQ leap! Changfeng, your brain developed a second time!”

Zhao Changfeng forcefully pushed Jiang Ruotang’s head down: “What nonsense are you talking about? Whose brain developed a second time? Didn’t yours develop?”

Although the cutoff scores hadn’t been released yet, Jiang Huaiyuan was already wiping his eyes, looking incredibly moved.

“Dad, don’t be like that. We just did alright on the college entrance exam, we’re not… we’re not the top scorers in the province!”

“Dad is just too happy, really. I was prepared for you to stay by my side forever… to live off me, but I never expected you to leave and go to university in the capital…”

Jiang Ruotang laughed, then a wave of melancholy washed over him. In his previous life, how much pain and helplessness must his father have felt to choose to end his life, not even waiting for his college entrance exam? Jiang Ruotang took a deep breath and hugged him tightly. “Dad, no matter where I go, you’ll always be my dad. So, whether I succeed or fail in the future, I’ll come back to you.”

Jiang Huaiyuan listened to his son’s words, his heart warmed.

“We don’t have to worry about the class monitor, but I wonder how Shasha and Cai Cai did,” Zhao Changfeng said.

Yeah, the thing is, it’s awkward to ask.

Their estimated scores before were good, but what if there was some mistake, for instance, if Cai Ji, the king of uneven performance, wrote an off-topic essay? But Zhao Changfeng was too restless. He couldn’t help but send a message in the group chat: [My brother and I… did okay. How about you guys?]