“Second Cat, teach me.”

Xie Lan felt like someone was setting off explosions inside his brain.

Fingers unconsciously rubbing the strap of his backpack, he wanted to flee this bombing zone immediately, but he couldn’t—because the bomb was currently hanging off his back.

He said anxiously, “Get up. Do you not have bones?”

As the words fell, the weight on his shoulder lifted. Dou Sheng straightened up.

Just as Xie Lan was about to let out a sigh of relief, the guy changed angles and pressed his forehead against Xie Lan’s shoulder instead.

His voice was muffled against Xie Lan’s shoulder. “My throne in math has been usurped. My heart aches so much. Can’t you tell?”

Xie Lan paused for a moment. “No, I can’t.”

“Sigh.”

A certain someone buried himself against him and sighed deeply. “Douzi is down. Douzi is deflated.”

In front of them, Dai You turned around, looking like he’d been struck by lightning. “Can you tone down the flirtiness? You’re acting like this just because someone scored higher than you?”

Che Ziming joined the criticism. “It is intolerable by heaven’s standards! Absolutely shameful!”

“Agreed.” Wang Gou nodded solemnly. “Benefactor, we can’t be like this.”

Resting his head on Xie Lan, Dou Sheng scoffed. “This is a transaction between the city’s first and second place rankers. Mediocrities, do not disturb.”

The three of them went blank for a moment, fell silent for two seconds, and then simultaneously rolled their eyes at Xie Lan’s back.

Truly, a world-class painting.

A group of girls walked quickly past them, giggling and frequently looking back.

Every pore on Xie Lan’s body exploded. He walked forward stiffly. “Get up. Hurry up.”

Dou Sheng sighed faintly. “But when you were down, you collapsed on me, and I didn’t abandon you.”

Xie Lan froze. “When was that?”

“Just last night. You got drunk, slumped over me, and babbled on and on, lecturing me earnestly on behalf of your friend with three million followers.” Dou Sheng shifted on his shoulder and whispered, “People should be fair, right? I didn’t run, so you can’t run either.”

Xie Lan shut down.

Dou Sheng was the spokesperson for absurdity. Usually, he looked cold, indifferent, and casual, but once you got close to him, he could be shameless to this extent.

Xie Lan’s mind was in chaos. One moment he was thinking about Dou Sheng, the next he couldn’t help but worry if he had let anything slip last night.

But judging by Dou Sheng’s current reaction, he probably hadn’t heard anything he shouldn’t have.

The few minutes’ walk from the school building to the dormitory felt like ten thousand years. Back in the dorm, a certain someone finally walked independently, sighing faintly, “No one to explain the questions to me. I’m so pitiful, having to work hard to correct my mistakes all by myself.”

As he spoke, he glanced at Xie Lan and sighed long and hard again. “So the anguish of a poor student is this heavy. It’s quite hard to adapt to.”

Dai You’s eyes had rolled back so far they wouldn’t come down. Wang Gou was about the same. The two of them walked out with their washbasins like a pair of zombies hitting the streets.

Xie Lan sat expressionlessly at his desk writing his essay. After writing a few lines, he couldn’t help but sneak a peek to the side.

Dou Sheng probably realized which theorem he had proved wrong. He grabbed a piece of paper, wrote down the original problem from memory, sketched out the geometric figure in a few quick strokes, and started looking for auxiliary lines again.

Jokes aside, the moment he stopped smiling, he could get straight into studying. He didn’t sit properly like others when he studied; instead, he sat sideways, one foot resting on the guardrail between the two beds, the paper resting on his leg, twirling his pen for a while before writing down a line of formulas, repeating the cycle.

Not long after, Dou Sheng slapped the scratch paper onto the desk, scribbled down the final few lines, crumpled the paper into a ball, and threw it into the trash can.

Xie Lan was surprised. “You gave up?”

“Am I the kind of person who gives up? I solved it.” Dou Sheng beamed. “I connected the auxiliary lines wrong before. This time it’s definitely right.”

Saying this, he leaned back in his chair and stretched with all his might. His white shirt pulled up, revealing taut, lean skin.

“I can go back to browsing Bilibili now. Yay.”

Xie Lan was speechless as he wrote his essay.

The meaning of Dou Sheng’s existence seemed to be browsing Bilibili.

A moment later, a certain someone’s long legs extended over again, kicking the crossbar of his stool.

“Hey, hey.”

Xie Lan didn’t look up. “What now?”

Dou Sheng held up his phone. “The heat from the persona video has passed. You gained two hundred thousand followers in one wave. Er Mao, as expected of you.”

Xie Lan had just finished the last sentence of his essay, reaching the eight hundred word count, and seriously drew a small, round period.

“Most of them are your fans supporting me,” he said, tapping open his Bilibili homepage as well.

His private messages had exploded. It was similar to the messages he received when he updated on YouTube: some praise, some using him as a confessional tree hollow, a few sarcastic remarks, and advertising invitations.

Xie Lan’s fingertips scrolled quickly through the list, suddenly freezing at a certain spot.

“Food-Loving MR. X” had sent a DM. And he had sent three in a row.

– Hi~~

– Look what good thing I discovered! The rising new star of the music section has actually been following me all along!

– Looking at your list order, I’m the first UP you followed. Oh! My! God!

Xie Lan stared at the screen filled with gushing enthusiasm and confidence, silent for a full minute.

Then he lifted his finger and gently tapped ‘Back’.

Hah. A guy in cahoots with a certain someone.

Xie Lan scrolled down for a while. Many UPs from the music section had come to say hello. The big UPs were direct and wanted to communicate, while the small UPs would generally send a paragraph of praise first, then carefully leave a link asking for a follow back.

Xie Lan politely sent thanks, then gave them all a courtesy follow.

Dou Sheng walked past him from behind holding his toiletries. “Hurry up and think about what to do for the next issue.”

Xie Lan said, “I want to plan a lawn concert with the theme of ‘Early Summer Sycamores’ and invite classmates to perform together.”

“Outdoors?” Dou Sheng’s eyes lit up. “That works. Make the program list a bit longer. Livestream first, then edit a video.”

Xie Lan nodded. “That’s what I planned too, but I have to wait for Liu Yixuan to feel a bit better. There are quite a few classmates who play instruments. I’ll poke them one by one in the next couple of days to ask.”

Dou Sheng smiled, his eyes curving. “My two months of piano skills probably won’t cut it, so I’ll be responsible for decorating the frame.”

Hearing this, Xie Lan turned back and said faintly, “You can be responsible for performing the ‘Human Incarnation of Handsomeness’ part.”

Dou Sheng snapped his fingers crisply in front of Xie Lan’s eyes. “A soulmate!”

Xie Lan: “…”

Before leaving the room, Dou Sheng added casually, “But you should try to keep this wave of fans. Livestream a bit recently to show some presence.”

“Forget it.” Xie Lan shook his head subconsciously. “My violin isn’t at school. What’s there to watch in a livestream?”

From the corridor came Dou Sheng’s lazy reply, “Just you sitting in the camera frame is good enough to watch.”

Xie Lan continued scrolling through his DMs, tapping a few at random. The fans were almost all clamoring for him to livestream his daily life.

It was reasonable to suspect that Dou Sheng’s brain circuits were integrated with Bilibili’s backend database.

His WeChat suddenly vibrated.

Guo Ruize sent a full screen of exclamation marks—

– My God, 354!!

– Are you even human??

– You blew up our class. Our teacher is part of the grading group, and now the entire affiliated high school knows that you rely on your talent to be arrogant and dared to clamor directly on the exam paper.

Xie Lan copied “rely on talent to be arrogant” (shì cái ào wù) into the dictionary to look it up.

[shì cái ào wù]: To be proud and conceited because of one’s own talent.

He paused, then copied “clamor” (jiào xiāo) into the dictionary: [jiào xiāo]: To shout arrogantly.

Confused, Xie Lan replied: I didn’t clamor. I really couldn’t understand the question.

– Bullshit, right? That cliff measurement question was in the first section. How could you not understand it? You were obviously dissatisfied that the math problem was too wordy. Honestly, we find that kind of question annoying too, but you directly calling out the question-setting group is too wild.

Xie Lan hesitated at the screen.

At first, he was very resistant to directly saying his Chinese wasn’t good because he was afraid of being questioned. But after embarrassing himself so many times, and seeing that the people around him were very kind, he gradually felt like it didn’t matter anymore.

Xie Lan:

– I was just expressing my true feelings.

– I am a not-very-qualified Chinese person. Sometimes I can’t understand Chinese.

Guo Ruize:

– ……Keep lying!

– I want to show these words to my teacher right now.

– If I can make him faint from anger, he won’t be able to roast us for testing poorly.

Xie Lan felt numb.

He patiently typed word by word: No, what I mean is, my Chinese level is really bad. I came back from abroad. I’ve been back in the country for less than a month.

The other party went silent for a long time before replying—

– Oh, is that so… Then I know now. Sorry, sorry.

– But that sentence just now has already been spread to the whole class. They currently refuse to listen to your excuses. Nod nod nod.

Xie Lan: ??

What kind of people were these?

Life is hard; the handsome guy is speechless.

---

Returning this week, Xie Lan clearly felt that he had become “famous.”

When they went to the cafeteria for lunch together, people in line ahead would turn back to look at him. Some would whisper to each other, and a very few would even come over to strike up a conversation.

“Big shot, I usually get like ten points in math. I want to ask, what did you grow up eating?”

“Xie Lan, I play the violin too. Want to play together sometime?”

…

And Dou Sheng was like a diligent antivirus software. Every time Xie Lan felt awkward, he would intervene with a cold face before Xie Lan could react.

“Ten points in math? You don’t worry about math, but instead worry about people who test well in math? Then I can only say it’s fortunate high school doesn’t test logic.”

“We study math, physics, and chemistry together too. You want to bring me along to play? You dare say yes? Damn, your face is made of thicker material than mine. I admire you, I admire you.”

…

The Human Incarnation of Handsomeness, Dou, had a cold face and a poisonous tongue. He roasted people as soon as he opened his mouth, never stopping until their eyes went unfocused.

Although Xie Lan felt a bit bad, out of fear of excessive attention, he chose to stand behind him and play dead.

But he truly felt a bit unsettled.

Before PE class in the afternoon, he had just announced that he would livestream doing homework on Wednesday at noon, when Dong Shuijing came over with a deliberately stern face and said, “If you’re staying in the classroom the day after tomorrow at noon, you need to apply for a permit from me in advance!”

Xie Lan immediately nodded. “Okay, I’ll remember.”

Dong Shuijing couldn’t hold it back and started laughing. “You’re so popular lately. In the last two days, several girls from other classes asked me for your WeChat. Being handsome attracts girls, being good at math does too, having talent does too—you have it all!”

Beside him, Dou Sheng immediately said, “Please guard his WeChat ID well and don’t let it leak. Protecting the class mascot is everyone’s responsibility.”

Dong Shuijing nodded. “Well, of course I know that. Is the number of people asking me for your ID small? When have I ever given it out?”

Dou Sheng smiled. “Thanks.”

After Dong Shuijing left, Xie Lan sighed deeply and spread out the essay paper that had just been returned.

He had spent a lot of effort writing the essay Pursuit. The result was okay; he got 24 out of 60. Although there was definitely some emotional charity from Old Qin, it was certainly an improvement compared to before.

Old Qin had also written a long string of comments for him: “The emotion in this article is sincere, and the theme is on track, but half of the arguments don’t fit the main idea, and the other half are too grounded. For example, a UP host pursuing ‘like, coin, and share’ absolutely should not appear in a Gaokao essay. Teacher found out you opened an account on Bilibili too. Playing around with Dou Sheng is fine, but definitely don’t delay your studies, especially Chinese. Sigh.”

A capitalized “SIGH” revealed a trace of the teacher’s exhaustion.

“What’s wrong?”

Dou Sheng leaned over, lifted Xie Lan’s finger blocking the score, and tutted. “Twenty-something? Isn’t this a huge improvement? I’m even starting to fantasize about you breaking fifty or sixty in Chinese for the midterm exam.”

Xie Lan said in a muffled voice, “It’s not entirely because of the essay. I just feel like I’m attracting too much attention lately. Math is one thing, but the teachers and classmates all know about the UP host thing.”

He had indeed been a chosen one of heaven before, but having been ‘indifferent’ for two years, he was a bit unaccustomed to it.

Xie Lan lowered his head, preparing to look at the inappropriate arguments Old Qin had circled, but Dou Sheng raised a hand to cover his forehead and tilted his head back, smiling. “Do you know what this is called?”

Xie Lan slapped his hand away. “Called what?”

“It’s called ‘gold will always shine’.” Dou Sheng playfully fingered a coin, beaming. “Young hero, you’re already looking forward. Don’t hide your light anymore. Paper can’t wrap fire, gauze can’t block light. Even if not for yourself, for your mom, you have to burn.”

Xie Lan digested this for a moment. “Burn how?”

Dou Sheng smiled and said, “Do whatever you want to do. Do it as well as you can. Who cares if others are watching or not?”

---

During PE class, the weather was sunny, making one feel very comfortable.

Che Ziming couldn’t get on the court due to his foot injury. The people from Class 12 waited with the ball on the sidelines for a long time, but still couldn’t find anyone to replace him.

Sweating profusely, Wen Zisen shouted, “This won’t work. If Herring’s foot heals slowly, we won’t be able to scrape together a team for the official match next month either?”

Dong Shuijing sighed. “More girls than boys. There weren’t many boys to begin with.”

Wen Zisen looked around anxiously. Suddenly catching sight of Chen Ge dribbling on the sidelines, his eyes lit up, and he shouted to Class 12, “How about you give Chen Ge back to us for the basketball game first?”

Chen Ge paused in his movements and looked back at him without emotion.

Brother Cao, chewing on a piece of grass, laughed. “You bunch of good students are too f*cking useless. You can’t even get enough people to play ball? You have to borrow people from the rival class for a practice match?”

As his voice fell, a scattering of laughter came from the Class 12 side.

Xie Lan looked around. Yu Fei’s expression was very ugly, and the few team members about to go on court all had furrowed brows.

Only Dou Sheng maintained his usual indifferent appearance. He patted the ball idly, his expression detached. He even stared blankly into the air while the two classes were clamoring, and a moment later, opened his mouth to let out a long yawn.

“Are we playing or not?” He asked, with a tone that could annoy people to death. “If we don’t have enough people, I’m going to buy an ice cream and play on my phone.”

Wen Zisen: “…”

Without thinking too much, Xie Lan stepped forward and said plainly, “I’ll play.”

The crowd fell silent for a moment.

Dou Sheng’s nonchalant expression also paused. He looked back at him, slightly dazed.

Wang Gou’s eyes widened. “You can play ball?”

Xie Lan gave a hum of affirmation, took off his jacket and threw it to Yu Fei, wearing only a pure white T-shirt.

The boy was thin to the point of frailty, but under the bright sunlight, his expression was calm. He casually caught the warm-up ball thrown by the PE teacher and dribbled it twice. The image was surprisingly harmonious.

Xie Lan’s physical endurance wasn’t great, but his explosive power was good. Previously, he would go on court during match points to play a wave of fast breaks.

He explained to Wen Zisen, “I haven’t played in a long time, but I can definitely play. I played in school matches in the UK.”

Wen Zisen’s jaw dropped on the spot.

The afternoon wind was lazy and gentle, blowing the bright sunlight apart layer by layer, sweeping across everyone’s cheeks.

Xie Lan saw Dou Sheng standing not far away smiling at him, silent and bright. It made him suddenly recall that soft sentence from the classroom just now: “Don’t hide yourself anymore.”

“Let’s go.” Xie Lan gently rotated his wrists. “I can take Yu Fei’s position directly and feed balls to Dou Sheng.”

This PE class was a bit magical.

The PE teacher squatting on the sidelines blowing the whistle discovered that this Class 4 lineup, scraped together with difficulty, played unexpectedly well. Dou Sheng was in a completely different state from the last practice match. It was as if he had shed a layer of laziness; he ran like the wind across the court, even his flying hair carrying a sense of youthful vigor. Xie Lan, playing for the first time, had a steady rhythm in ball control and strong observational skills. Several times, he dribbled alone around double-teams straight to the inside, jumped and passed back—Dou Sheng jumped at the perimeter and elegantly sent the ball into the basket.

Xie Lan and Dou Sheng’s fast-break line didn’t look like a first-time collaboration at all; their tacit understanding was unbreakable. Twenty minutes in, Class 4 was already leading by six baskets.

Class 12 got anxious. Brother Cao quickly called a timeout to discuss. They changed strategy: two people would mark Xie Lan to death, Chen Ge would roam, and they absolutely had to sever the fast-break line between Xie Lan and Dou Sheng.

However, Xie Lan played basketball seriously, like he was solving math problems. When offensive opportunities were blocked, he focused on rebounds, not giving up a single chance. The basketball spun in his eyes, and those arcs seemed to have coordinates, allowing him to accurately predict whether it would hit the rim and bounce back, letting him run into position to intercept in advance.

“Dou Sheng!” Xie Lan grabbed a rebound and, amidst the pursuit of two people behind him, hurriedly passed the ball, shouting.

Dou Sheng responded, “Heard!” In the distance, he shook off Chen Ge’s interception, leaped forward to hook the ball into his hand, used a spin to balance his center of gravity, staggered two steps to stand firm, turned, and ran to the perimeter.

“Three-pointer!” Wen Zisen screamed from the sidelines. “Douzi! Three-pointer!!”

Dou Sheng was as light as a swallow. He jumped lightly on his toes outside the line, his wrist gently releasing the ball, yet the ball entered with incredible dominance. The sound of it flushing through the net echoed across the small playground.

Under the basket, Xie Lan rested his hands on his knees, panting lightly.

Having not played for too long, he heard his heart pounding wildly in his chest thump-thump-thump. His whole body was terribly hot. That heat rushed all the way to his cheeks—restless, yet exhilarating.

Five minutes left until the end of the practice match.

Dou Sheng held up a finger in the air. Without waiting for Xie Lan to feed him the ball, he started to actively set the tempo.

The two guards swapped roles.

“Xie Lan, catch!” Dou Sheng grabbed a rebound.

Xie Lan caught the ball. Chen Ge and the Class 12 center quickly wrapped him up. The center, over 1.9 meters tall, almost completely walled him in. He tried to break through several times but was blocked, so he could only turn his back to protect the dribble. A moment later, his left foot moved slightly, but he twisted his waist and broke out to the right with the ball. The center was fooled by his fake move, but Chen Ge still bit onto him tightly.

Chen Ge didn’t play hard, but he had a lot of technique. He struck decisively and stole accurately; he was an opponent that couldn’t be ignored.

Facing Chen Ge head-on, those sharp, cold eyes were even more startling.

Xie Lan subconsciously felt he should say something, but meeting those eyes, he didn’t know what to say. Just as he hesitated, he saw Chen Ge instantly strike to cut the ball from his hands!

In a flash of lightning, his body reacted before his brain. Xie Lan hooked the ball with his fingertips and turned his back to barely dodge. Chen Ge’s hand swiped past the basketball. Then Xie Lan took the ball and sprinted directly for the line, running fast under the pursuit of several people behind him, barely making the layup.

Clang!

Score.

Huff, huff, huff—Xie Lan ran back to his own side’s interior, panting even harder.

It had been too long since he played; it was really tiring. Physical strength depleted rapidly, and he turned into waste. Sure enough, quiet activities like violin and math suited a handsome guy better.

He raised his wrist to wipe away some sweat and glanced at the time off-court. Last half-minute. The lead was large.

However, Wang Gou got the ball again. He hesitated between Dou Sheng and Xie Lan, and finally chose to throw the ball to Xie Lan, who was unguarded nearby.

Thump.

Xie Lan instinctively caught the ball, then went blank for a second.

Again?

Just let it go. What does it matter if we let it go?

But the sideline seemed to erupt into a climax because of this last ball. Cheers were ceaseless. The girls of Class 4 dropped their reserve one by one, stretching their necks to shout his name.

“Xie Lan!! Xie Lan!!!”

Che Ziming roared until his eyeballs were about to pop out. “Lan, charge for Grandpa!!”

Xie Lan’s brain was blank from lack of oxygen. Looking at the people constantly running toward him from the opposite side, listening to the deafening cheers on both sides, the words from that essay Rainy Alley suddenly floated before his eyes.

Chì chù (To walk slowly, to hesitate).

He dribbled the ball, half-real, half-acting, and barely ran a few steps forward.

Chen Ge led the 1.9-meter center from Class 12 to surround him again.

Xie Lan felt a wave of suffocation. While dribbling under the double-team, he counted the seconds in his heart, hoping for that liberating whistle.

“Xie Lan, break defense!!” Far away, Wang Gou couldn’t help, so he could only roar hoarsely, “Break the defense!!”

Xie Lan’s ears were about to go deaf from the vibration. His heart beat like thunder. Two mountains in front of him pressed him down to death.

Countdown: ten seconds. If the ball wasn’t released, the whistle would blow.

Chen Ge seized this critical moment of Xie Lan’s tension and struck decisively to steal the ball. The center disrupted his line of sight. Just as Xie Lan was about to give up weakly, he suddenly heard a familiar set of footsteps approaching from behind.

No, rather than hearing, it was more like sensing.

He sensed that Dou Sheng had come.

A slender hand reached into the chaotic battle, hooked the ball away from under his hand, and as it left, the pinky finger lightly scratched his palm.

“Leave it to me,” Dou Sheng whispered in his ear as he brushed past.

A breeze suddenly rose in the campus, blowing from all directions. The sycamore trees on the shaded path nearby rustled.

Dou Sheng dribbled with one hand, dodged defenders with two consecutive back turns, and broke into the opponent’s basket area like moving clouds and flowing water. He jumped lightly.

That fluffy black hair swayed, shining in the sunlight. Swish—the basketball flushed through the net to score. The orange arc spun constantly within the net, like a brisk waltz.

Dou Sheng landed a step before the basketball, jogged two steps toward the sideline, panting.

The boy’s chest heaved gently. The sycamore trees sheltering the small playground dropped a leaf in the wind, spinning above his head. As if sensing it, Dou Sheng raised his hand to intercept it from the air, spreading the leaf flat in his palm.

He turned to find Xie Lan’s direction, smiling nonchalantly, then carefully lifted the leaf in his palm to his lips and blew it gently toward Xie Lan.

Whoosh—