The girl from Class 12 was stunned for a long time after hearing Dou Sheng’s words.

“Has a partner?” Her face was filled with disbelief. “Hanging out with a bunch of guys from morning till night, someone like that has a partner?”

Dou Sheng clicked his tongue. “How can you say ‘a bunch of guys’? It’s just one, only me, thank you. He hangs out with me every day. I have to watch him for his partner.”

The girl frowned and fell silent for a long time, as if weighing the credibility of Dou Sheng’s words. After a while, she asked uncertainly, “Is the partner from another school?”

Dou Sheng didn’t answer again, just looked at her with a smile until she got creeped out and left rather unhappily.

Before leaving, she turned back and said seriously to Xie Lan, “I really think you’re quite handsome. If you want a partner from this school, you can find me. I’m Chen Jixian from Class 12.”

Xie Lan: “…Okay, thank you.”

After she walked far away, confusion slowly surfaced on Xie Lan’s expressionless face.

He asked Dou Sheng in a very small voice, “What is a ‘partner’ (duixiang)?”

“……”

Dou Sheng’s foot slipped, and he collapsed onto Xie Lan’s shoulder, laughing helplessly. “Why didn’t you ask just now? You could have made her question her existence.”

Xie Lan staggered two steps sideways from the push but persisted, “Does it mean boyfriend or girlfriend? You just made up a fake one for me like that?”

“So what?” Dou Sheng straightened up, eyes curving into crescents, casually toying with a leaf hanging down nearby. “Were you actually willing to consider it? Hey, let me ask you, have you ever been in love?”

Xie Lan was stumped by the question. He continued walking slowly forward. A gust of wind blew past; although it was cool, he felt a faint restlessness again.

Dou Sheng didn’t press further, smiling faintly as he walked beside him. Their sleeves rubbed against each other from time to time, making the sound of fabric friction.

After a long time, Xie Lan finally opened his mouth. “No.”

In the first two years of middle school, his heart was full of only the symphony orchestra, and he had no interest in the occasional confessions. Later, when Xiao Langjing fell ill, he was running between the hospital and school, so such things had even less to do with him.

Dou Sheng let out a smiling “Oh.” “Isn’t that a coincidence? Me neither.”

Xie Lan paused and looked back at him in surprise. “You haven’t?”

Even the densest person could feel how popular Dou Sheng was in their grade. Leaving Feng Miao aside, in the month or so since starting school, Xie Lan had heard girls secretly chatting about Dou Sheng in the cafeteria or on the road several times.

Dou Sheng sighed faintly. “Wasn’t I depressed for a year or two in middle school because of my dad’s situation?”

“What about high school?” Xie Lan pressed.

“High school…” Dou Sheng squinted slightly in the wind. “Let’s not talk about high school. Now is high school. Anyway, I have someone I like now.”

Xie Lan paused. A serious topic had been diverted by Dou Sheng again.

He was a bit speechless and sighed. “You should be more realistic. Does that celebrity know you like her?”

“Not for now, I guess. When I’m half sure, I’ll go ‘lane’ against her.” Dou Sheng yawned boredly and stuffed something into Xie Lan’s palm. “Let’s go, class is almost over.”

Xie Lan had intended to stop his ridiculous idea of confessing to a celebrity, but was interrupted by the round, hard sensation in his palm. Looking down, it turned out to be the small round mirror from Dou Sheng’s desk.

Dou Sheng always liked to carry odds and ends, stuffing a little bit into his hand from time to time. Before, he had given sycamore leaves, chocolate beans, coins, and so on.

Xie Lan was a bit speechless, flipped the mirror open to look at himself, and said, “Can you stop always bringing random junk and stuffing it onto me every time?”

“I only give you the good stuff.” Dou Sheng clicked his tongue with a smile. “You don’t know quality goods and you blame me.”

---

Dou Sheng’s Luosifen video wasn’t released until Friday night.

Xie Lan initially thought he was just being slow as usual, but after getting home and clicking on the video, he realized Dou Sheng had added something else.

The video intro was a documentary clip. The image was of a deep mountain bamboo forest, the BGM melodious and leisurely. An unhurried male voice narrated: “From Zhejiang in eastern China, traveling 1500 kilometers southwest, we approach the bamboo forests of Liuzhou in midsummer. A’Dou is from Guangxi. What grows in his bamboo forest is the Big Head Sweet Bamboo Shoot.”

The scene shifted to a shot of a man chopping bamboo shoots. However, Dou Sheng had altered this part; a crude, hand-drawn stick figure covered the original man in the video, hacking at the bamboo shoots stroke by stroke. The dubbing also changed to Dou Sheng’s nondescript dialect—

“From mid-June (Lou Yue) to mid-September (Zou Yue), zis time is ze time for snatching bamboo shoots (Duo Sun), ze most delicate and tender bamboo shoots.”¹

The bullet comments were all question marks. Xie Lan was dumbfounded.

Then the screen suddenly went black. The pitch-black screen reflected Xie Lan’s unfocused expression, and a few lines of text slowly floated across his face—

【That day, late at night, the labor camp youth A’Dou finished his chores dragging his disabled, sick foot. He couldn’t wait to cook a delicious dinner for himself using the bamboo shoots he just snatched.】

• LMAO, Guangxi bamboo shoot farming expert A’Dou.
• What happened to Douzi’s foot?
• A Bite of China sequel: A Bite of Douzi.
• The director’s fist is clenched hard.

The scene changed to a long, narrow corridor blurred on both sides, with a blinding white light at the end. The sound of Dou Sheng’s low panting came through the headphones. He was wearing a dusty white T-shirt, hands in his sweatpants pockets, limping slowly into that light—

With a creak, a door opened, and the BGM instantly became cheerful, splicing back to the night he cooked the noodles.

• Damn, this silly video actually gave me chills with that back view.
• Douzi had something going on just now.
• Crippled? Battle-damaged Dou?
• Why is he crippled? So worried.
• Coming back from the end of the video, I’m dying of laughter.
• This corridor has such a vibe.

Xie Lan was expressionless, even just wanting to sneer.

Did he think Xie Lan couldn’t tell just because the walls on both sides were blurred? That was the dormitory hallway, and the light at the end was the bathroom on the right.

He could only fool the fans.

The whole segment of cooking and eating the noodles didn’t have too many fancy tricks, but it was also Xie Lan’s first time seeing the edited version. Dou Sheng’s cinematic language was very powerful. He captured everything from the initial proficiency and anxiety of cooking the noodles to the silent satisfaction of the boy burying his head to slurp them. The lights in the house were bright, but the person and environment in the lens were too quiet—so quiet that every clink of the bowl and chopsticks was distinct. The atmosphere of a late-night diner was instantly maxed out.

Xie Lan had watched him film this video. That night he was a bit down, so he set up one camera position and held the camera for half the time, but it was done in one take from start to finish. He didn’t reshoot any part to change angles. The whole video could be described in two words: silky smooth.

• Hungry.
• Ordering now.
• I love watching boys eat.
• To the person in front, me too.
• Douzi’s Adam’s apple kills me.
• Opening a Coke with one hand, I’m dead.
• Ahhh, hearing the carbon dioxide rise in his throat, help!

Watching the video, Xie Lan seemed to unconsciously drag the progress bar back a little, temporarily adjusting the bullet comments to quarter-screen mode to reveal Dou Sheng’s Adam’s apple.

Dou Sheng’s Adam’s apple was indeed very good-looking. It was prominent without being overly sharp, full of vitality as it slid under that thin layer of skin.

After adjusting the bullet comments to quarter-screen, a few that he had missed just now appeared.

• TBH, isn’t this bowl of noodles a bit small?
• I think so too, like he didn’t serve it all.
• Did he leave some… wait! For em?!
• Is em not appearing in this video? A little disappointed.
• Coming back from the end, I just want to哈哈哈.

Xie Lan already had a premonition of what the next bullet comments would be like. His scalp tingled, but his hand still itchily switched the bullet comments back to “unlimited” mode.

The moment Dou Sheng put down the Coke can, the lens went black.

Xie Lan’s heart tightened. Here it comes.

Sure enough, the BGM vanished, and the picture suddenly became eerie. In the pitch-black corridor, the camera shook a lot. With a fill light tucked under his arm, a bowl of noodles in one hand, and the camera in the other, Dou Sheng sneakily and tremblingly entered Xie Lan’s room.

The bullet comments exploded with laughter. The four characters “hahahaha” triggered the super bullet comment condition, and a giant “HA” led a swarm of small “ha”s galloping across the screen.

• WTF! So this is what ‘snatching bamboo shoots’ meant! (Note: Duo Sun sounds like Duo Sun/Mean/Sarcastic)
• Late night snack (crossed out) Last meal before execution (check).
• He couldn’t wait to make himself a ‘last meal’ with the bamboo shoots he just snatched.
• Looking at Xie Lan’s figure rolled up in the quilt, he still doesn’t know what’s about to happen.
• Weak, helpless, and a little funny.
• Xie Lan: Damn it, someone is stewing sht by my bed.*
• Xie Lan: As fellow cats, why do you eat sht???*

The bullet comments rolled screen by screen until Xie Lan kicked out. The comments exploded entirely, with all sorts of colorful block characters piling up on the screen so thick no one could recognize anyone else.

Xie Lan’s face was stiff from smiling. He couldn’t bear to look back and hurriedly dragged it to Dou Sheng’s unchanging happy outro.

• Triple combo submitted.
• Coins, coins.
• Brothers, don’t forget the triple combo.
• Seeing this after school makes me so happy, woo woo.
• Happy weekend is starting, I’m going to cook noodles too!
• The happiest late-night Luosifen challenge I’ve ever seen!
• Round two, let’s go.

The stats for this video were indeed rising very fast. The silly content had broader appeal, and looking at the momentum in the first few hours, it even surpassed the character persona video.

Any like or coin would quickly be submerged in the data stream, but Xie Lan still devoutly gave Dou Sheng a one-click triple combo. He exited and reposted the video to his feed with a very simple caption.

@Xie Lan em: Indifferent.

After reposting, Xie Lan put down his phone to take a shower. When he came out, the repost was already flooded with meme stickers.

That frame of him kicking out had been screenshotted and captioned with all sorts of text.

• Eat sht again! Eat sht again!
• Don’t touch me.
• Get close my ass.
• Eat my Great British Kick.

Xie Lan didn’t even bother drying his hair. He laughed while scrolling, saving over a dozen meme stickers in a short while. When he refreshed again, he found that the top meme comments had been pushed down. The trending comments that had just rushed up were all: Lan Zai, go look at the homepage!!

Homepage?

Dou Sheng’s video had made it to the homepage shortly after it was posted; Xie Lan already knew this. But he instinctively felt that everyone probably wasn’t talking about this video, so he exited the feed to take a look.

A large horizontal banner on the homepage. Official Early Summer Submission Call Part 2 — #Heart-Pounding Music#

Xie Lan stared at the image for a while before remembering that a long time ago, the site’s operations staff had reached out to say they wanted to use Dou Sheng and Xie Lan’s images for a submission poster. At the time, Dou Sheng said it was standard treatment for popular creators, so Xie Lan nodded without thinking much about it. No one asked again after that, so he had forgotten about it.

Until he saw the poster now.

Dou Sheng’s image was cut out from the character persona video—the handsome guy nodding slightly, looking at the camera with a decadent and indifferent air. Xie Lan’s image was cut out from the Early Summer Concert video; he held the violin with one hand, the other hand holding the bow resting lightly on the instrument, his brows and eyes gentle and smiling.

This was an animated poster. The two cutouts flashed, and when they flashed, they would enlarge and “bounce” outward. When they bounced up, their hair overlapped. For a split second, his and Dou Sheng’s cheeks seemed to press together. His right hand holding the bow blocked Dou Sheng’s left shoulder, making it look like they were hugging.

The ajar door suddenly knocked twice. Dou Sheng pushed the door open and leaned against the frame, smiling and waving his phone at him.

“See the poster? Operations really put their heart into it this time, it’s very well done.”

Xie Lan gave an “Oh” and said with a flat expression, “The gif is a bit messy. Is this a music submission call?”

“Yeah, you definitely have to join this event, right?” Dou Sheng smiled. “By the way, my mom is coming back later and asked what late-night snack to bring.”

Just having finished watching that video, Xie Lan’s mind was now full of Luosifen.

But after a pause, he only said reservedly, “Rice noodles or rice vermicelli, either is fine.”

“Ah, then I might as well cook two packs of Luosifen myself, without the sour bamboo shoots.” Dou Sheng shuffled out in his slippers, casually pulling Xie Lan’s door shut. “Don’t forget to screenshot the poster for a souvenir, it’ll change in two or three days.”

Xie Lan muttered, “I’m not interested.”

“Okay, okay, okay.” Dou Sheng’s voice came from far away at the stairs. “Then I’ll screenshot it and send it to you.”

Once he was gone, Xie Lan picked up his phone again and clicked into the event page from the poster.

At the top of the event page were several recent popular videos in the music section. Xie Lan’s Early Summer Concert was the main recommendation, suppressing the other top music uploaders. Below that was the submission theme.

The wind is clear, the clouds are light, summer is coming soon.

Share a pair of earphones with the one you love and listen to a happy tune together.

Let the notes record your heartbeats!

Theme for this submission: Heart-Pounding Music. Uploaders just need to post with the tag. Deadline is May 9th. The top ten in total popularity will receive creation traffic support for May, and the top three will get mysterious merchandise~

At the very bottom of the poster were still the dynamic cutouts of Xie Lan and Dou Sheng. Xie Lan watched calmly for a few seconds, pulled down the notification bar, and silently clicked screen record.

Three seconds later, he pressed stop, uploaded the short video to an app, exported it with one click to change the format, and made it into an animated sticker.

He casually opened WeChat and sent it to Dou Sheng.

• Renaissance: GIF is higher class.

Dou Sheng was cooking noodles downstairs and replied instantly with a sticker: two chubby cats squeezing together left and right, clinking beer mugs held in their paws.

• RJJSD: Cheers!

---

Author’s Note:

Two eggs are lying on the sofa watching an egg documentary.

The keyboard-typer passes by the living room, nose twitches, sensing something wrong.

Drinking alcohol?! She is furious: How many times have I said no drinking!

Hearing this, Dou Egg calmly raises his glass, and Lazy Egg happily clinks with him.

Clink!

Keyboard-typer: Are you listening to me!!

Dou Egg yawns: This is eggnog, it’s sweet, doesn’t have much alcohol.

Lazy Egg chimes in softly: Humans are really loud.

1. Dou Sheng is mimicking “Nanpu” (Nanning Putonghua)—a heavily accented version of Mandarin spoken in the Guangxi region that is famous on the Chinese internet for sounding funny, relaxed, and distinct.
   Standard Mandarin: Liù Yuè (June) and Jiǔ Yuè (September).
   The Accent: In this dialect, “Liu” sounds like “Lou” and “Jiu” sounds like “Zou.”
   Standard Mandarin: Zhè (This).
   The Accent: The “Zh” sound (curled tongue) flattens into a “Z” sound. ↩︎