Chapter 50: Sharing One With You Should Be Enough…

Jiang Shi: “…”

Jiang Shi yanked his hand away. “Who-who wants to be in a relationship with you?”

Cheng Ye: “We’ve already gotten off together, and you still don’t want to date?”

“…”

The shameless man. Give him an inch and he’ll take a mile.

---

When Jiang Shi returned home, Jiang Xue was sitting on a low stool by the door, shaking the dirt out of a cloth shoe. Seeing Jiang Shi, she glanced at him. “Why are you back so late? What were you doing?”

Jiang Shi clutched the books in his arms tighter. “I went to catch crabs with Gao Xinhe this afternoon, then we went over our answers at his place for a while.”

Jiang Xue looked at him suspiciously. “You didn’t go see Cheng Ye, did you?”

“No,” Jiang Shi said dryly. “Didn’t you tell me not to see him?”

Jiang Xue’s shoe-shaking paused. “It’s good that you know. Have you had dinner? I’ll go heat up the soup.”

“I won’t be eating at home tonight. I want to go to Gao Xinhe’s place for crabs.”

This time, Jiang Xue didn’t ask anything else. “Fine. It just so happens I recently crocheted two new pairs of slippers. Take a pair with you.”

Jiang Shi put the books back in his room and then grabbed the slippers Jiang Xue mentioned. Since Jiang Shi wasn’t eating at home, Jiang Xue planned to just make herself a simple bowl of sour soup with rice. She had just put the pot on when she turned around to find Jiang Shi standing by the door.

“Mom, can I ask you something?”

“If you have something to say, say it. Why are you, a boy, being so hesitant?”

Jiang Shi said, “Yesterday at noon, you were telling me to be nice to Cheng Ye. How come by evening, you were telling me not to hang out with him anymore?”

Jiang Xue’s movements faltered. “When did I say you couldn’t hang out with him? I just told you not to get too close.”

“Why?”

“Why so many questions? You two aren’t related by blood, after all. Right now, he’s grateful to you for saving him, so he’s completely obedient to you. But what about later? He can’t be obedient to you for a lifetime, can he?”

“Besides, that kid is so quiet, he seems like someone with deep thoughts. Plus, after what he’s been through, who knows what he’s really thinking.”

“I’m not forbidding you from interacting, I’m just saying you should be ordinary friends with him. If he remembers your kindness in the future and is willing to help you out, that’s thoughtful of him. If he doesn’t remember, just consider it a good deed.”

She spoke with great conviction. Jiang Shi, standing at the door, pouted. “In the daytime, you said he was honest and simple-minded. By night, he’s become someone who is sullen and hides things.”

Jiang Xue brandished her spatula as if to hit him. “You brat, what I say goes. And I’m warning you, stop ordering Cheng Ye around. Look at you at noon, making him kneel to apply your medicine. Is that proper?”

Jiang Shi thought to himself that if Cheng Ye knew he wanted him to kneel and apply medicine, he would be overjoyed.

But of course, he wouldn’t dare say that to Jiang Xue.

From the looks of it now, Jiang Xue probably just felt that some of his and Cheng Ye’s actions were unusually intimate. Other than that, she likely hadn’t noticed anything else, let alone that they had almost ended up in bed together.

After the National Day holiday, the city organized a joint exam, with a difficulty level comparable to the college entrance exams.

When the scores were posted, Jiang Shi looked at his score and checked the cutoff scores for previous years.

He was still a few dozen points away from a second-tier university.

Gao Xinhe’s score was about the same as his.

The little cousin and big cousin sat together, sighing with their heads down. Gao Xinhe rested his face on the desk, looking at Jiang Shi with the dead eyes of a fish. “In the novels I read, the protagonists always manage a successful comeback in just a short year, turning from an underachiever into a top student.”

Jiang Shi disdainfully pulled his test paper out from under Gao Xinhe’s head. “You said it yourself, they’re protagonists.”

He pointed at Gao Xinhe’s face. “Look at you. Does a protagonist look like this?”

His intelligence had been crushed, and now his appearance was being ruthlessly attacked by Jiang Shi.

“You’re good-looking, so how come you’re not the protagonist?”

“I’m just good-looking, not born with an extra brain.”

Like a salted fish flipping over, Gao Xinhe sat up from his seat. He picked up the class ranking sheet and looked at Cheng Ye, who was perpetually in first place.

“721… Does Brother Cheng have three brains? Our scores combined are only a little more than half of his. Is this a score a human can get?”

Jiang Shi was also annoyed by this score. “He’s probably an octopus.”

Gao Xinhe: “What do you mean?”

“An octopus has nine brains.”

“…”

That seemed to make a lot of sense.

After a couple of seconds, Gao Xinhe nudged Jiang Shi. “Little cousin… the octopus is behind you.”

Jiang Shi froze, then turned his head. Cheng Ye, who had brought him food, was standing behind him, looking down at him.

Caught talking bad about someone right to their face, Jiang Shi felt guilty for two seconds before becoming defiant again. “What? Am I wrong?”

“You’re right,” Cheng Ye said. “Not only do I have nine brains, but I also have countless tentacles. They’re sticky, and when they suck onto someone, they can’t even move.”

Jiang Shi suspected he was making an innuendo, but looking at his serious expression, he was a little doubtful.

Cheng Ye walked in, lifted Gao Xinhe, who was sitting in his seat, and sat down himself, placing the fried potatoes in front of Jiang Shi.

“What you asked for, less spicy.”

Gao Xinhe squeezed between the two with a shameless grin. “Brother Cheng, little cousin…”

Cheng Ye didn’t speak.

Gao Xinhe continued, “Think about it, for whose sake did I change seats? Now I sit all alone in the front row, eating chalk dust, not even daring to sleep in class…”

Jiang Shi stuffed a piece of potato into his mouth. “Alright, shut up.”

Gao Xinhe happily left with half a bowl of fried potatoes.

Jiang Shi ate for a while, then pulled out a problem he hadn’t understood from his desk and asked Cheng Ye to explain it.

The weather was getting colder, and a chilly wind blew in from the open back door. Jiang Shi zipped up his school uniform.

He tilted his head, listening to Cheng Ye’s explanation, the cap of his pen pressed against his cheek, creating a soft dimple.

“Cheng Ye, do you think… I can get into a second-tier university?”

“You can.”

Jiang Shi straightened up. “You have that much confidence in me?”

Cheng Ye smiled slightly. “I have confidence in myself. I will get you in.”

Jiang Shi nudged him. “You say that like you’re so amazing.”

Cheng Ye’s tone was light. “After all, I have nine brains. Sharing one with you should be enough.”

“…”

The jerk. He actually remembered.

During this time, something unexpected happened.

The game Cheng Ye had invested in was supposed to have failed, but recently, a new software had become popular—a voice-based live-streaming app.

This app was very hot right now. It had many voice streamers, and the barrier to entry was low. As long as you had a nice voice and could talk, you would get a lot of people in your room just by keeping it open daily.

Among them, a streamer named “Shang Cheng” was very popular.

He claimed to be a rich second-generation kid. Every day, he would open a room, give his friends “vests” (alternate accounts), and start by showing off his singing voice. After singing enough, he would put his friends on the mic and start dishing out gossip.

All sorts of gossip about wealthy families.

No one knew if it was true or not, but it was absolutely dramatic and shocking, leaving listeners stunned. Countless people flooded his room just to hear him gossip.

While talking, he mentioned a game.

“Damn! That game is simply toxic. The art style is ridiculously bad, and it lags the moment you enter. It was so laggy I almost smashed my computer.”

“What’s this guy saying? Why am I playing this game? Ha! It’s because I lost a bet to my buddy the other day. He’s a game developer, and since I lost, I had to find the corresponding game in the app store’s rankings based on a number he gave me, and then play it for a week.”

“The number he gave me, I suspected there weren’t even that many games in the store. But I actually found it. It had only a few downloads and zero ratings.”

“Am I the kind of person who can’t afford to lose? Of course not, so I downloaded it. With that game’s art style, I initially thought I’d have to hold my nose to play for a week, but it turned out to be so damn addictive.”

“What? You don’t believe me? Go try it for yourselves and you’ll know. A week has passed, and I’m still a level-ten newbie.”

There were too many people in the room. When he said to try it, many people actually went to try it.

And then…

The game blew up.

It was a weekend. The temperature had started to drop recently. After several overcast days, the weather finally cleared up. Cheng Ye took Jiang Shi’s bedsheets and duvet cover to wash them.

The wound on his forehead from the stone hadn’t fully healed. The scab over the broken skin had fallen off, but a faint bruise still circled it. Afraid Jiang Shi would find it ugly, he found a band-aid to cover the new, light pink skin.

The wound was covered, but with a band-aid on his face, he looked even more like a thug.

Jiang Shi had a new phone, so Cheng Ye was using his old one. He habitually kept it on silent and didn’t like to carry it around.

It wasn’t until he went back inside after hanging the laundry to dry at dusk that he noticed a missed call.

The students developing the game were people he had met online. They were all friends, and initially, Cheng Ye had only approached them to learn.

Gradually, he came to understand their ideas and ambitions. After in-depth discussions with them, Cheng Ye decided it was feasible and chose to take the plunge.

They didn’t know Cheng Ye’s identity. Seeing him casually pull out tens of thousands of yuan and speak in a seasoned, mature manner, they subconsciously assumed Cheng Ye was older than them.

They called him “Brother Cheng,” and Cheng Ye didn’t correct them. After all, to him, being older was an advantage.

The one who called was named Wang Zhuo. He was responsible for the core technology and was also the calmest and most mature of the group.

“Brother Cheng!” His voice was excited, filled with an irrepressible joy. “It’s a hit! The game is a hit! The download numbers have skyrocketed in the past two days. We’re finally going to make it!”

Over these past days, they had gone from initial despair to gradually learning to accept reality. Just when they were about to give up, they found an unexpected way out.

Wang Zhuo followed the vine and found the “melon” that was Shang Cheng.

“It’s this voice streamer named Shang Cheng. He accidentally played our game and mentioned it during his stream, which is why the downloads have surged these past two days.”

“Also, there’s one more thing. A company contacted me. They said they want to buy the game.”

…

Cheng Ye hung up the phone.

Even though he had hidden it well in front of Wang Zhuo, he was still just a teenager. The joy in his eyes was impossible to hide.

Jiang Shi was playing Fruit Ninja on his phone. He looked up at him. “What’s got you so happy?”

Cheng Ye told Jiang Shi what Wang Zhuo had said. He then said, “It’s the weekend. Want to go out to eat?”

Jiang Shi smiled. “What, to celebrate?”

Cheng Ye smiled back. “To celebrate.”

…

Half a year had passed, and several barbecue restaurants had opened up by the river where Jiang Shi and his friends had once had a barbecue.

This time, only Jiang Shi and Cheng Ye came.

Jiang Shi sat on a chair, the river in front of him shimmering with reflected lights. Cheng Ye was behind him, ordering food.

He still showed very little expression, but Jiang Shi could see the lightness in his movements.

Cheng Ye brought the food over and sat down beside him. The evening breeze brushed against his face. Jiang Shi let out a laugh. “Happy now?”

Cheng Ye ran a hand through his hair, looking a little embarrassed, and didn’t speak.

Jiang Shi popped open a can of soda with one hand. “Congratulations to Boss Cheng on taking his business to the next level.”

Cheng Ye clinked his can against his. “You knew?”

Jiang Shi leaned his head back lazily.

“My mom doesn’t have that much power. A few light words wouldn’t make a certain shameless person want to call it quits with me.”