Chapter 0071: Zhou Zhexiao VS Liu Suchen

Xia Chiyi stood up and walked over to Zhou Zhexiao. “Hey, you didn’t go to the high-speed rail station and came here instead. This means you’re also interested in Qing University, right?”

Zhou Zhexiao finally took his hands out of his pockets, grabbed the towel draped over Xia Chiyi’s shoulders, and rubbed it roughly over the top of his head.

“An unfilial son is running wild in someone else’s house. As a father, I was worried you’d get ganged up on, so I had to show up at their door.”

“Do you even know what my dad’s height, weight, and waistline are right now? And you want to be my dad…”

The image of his own kind-looking father popped into Xia Chiyi’s mind. Looking at Zhou Zhexiao again, he genuinely felt this guy lacked the natural talent to be a loving father.

“So, did you gain anything?” Zhou Zhexiao asked.

“I did. Liu Suchen is very formidable,” Xia Chiyi leaned close to Zhou Zhexiao and whispered.

Zhou Zhexiao lifted his eyes and looked at Liu Suchen, who was sitting on a chair peeling pistachios.

Meanwhile, Liu Suchen watched them while eating nuts, looking as if he were sitting in the audience of a movie theater. It was truly a pity he didn’t have popcorn and a cola.

The two men just stared at each other like that. Fortunately, there were no sparks flying from their clashing gazes. Zhou Zhexiao’s expression remained calm as always, while Liu Suchen wore a lazy smile; the previous match had been very satisfying, and now he was completely relaxed.

Ling Huanzhen put on his signature smile. Even though it probably wouldn’t work on Li Xiaoran, he still threw an arm around Li Xiaoran’s shoulders like they were close brothers.

“Hey, it’s been years. You’ve maintained your figure pretty well, huh? No bald spot, no big belly—a role model for our generation.”

“It’s been years? I don’t know if you just didn’t have time to see me, or if you were too scared to see me.” Li Xiaoran knocked Ling Huanzhen’s arm off.

Ling Huanzhen’s smile grew wider. “Look at the way you speak, it sounds as if I’m some scumbag who abandoned you after toying with your feelings. But regardless, thank you for entertaining our team’s Little Xia. Tomorrow is Monday, and they have some ‘Fundamentals of Accounting’ class. It sounds hard just hearing the name, so they can’t skip it. I’ll be taking them back now.”

However, Li Xiaoran’s gaze landed on Zhou Zhexiao, who was standing by the edge of the court. “You brought the elite of your team all the way here. Wouldn’t it be a wasted trip if he goes back empty-handed without playing a game?”

Ling Huanzhen was amused. It seemed Xia Chiyi hadn’t embarrassed them here, and Li Xiaoran was highly interested in Ningchang University.

“Then who’s going up on your side?” Ling Huanzhen asked.

As soon as his voice fell, several Qing University players raised their hands to volunteer.

“Coach, let me do it!”
“Coach, I can go!”
“Me, me, me!”

Even Song Boyun, who had just played several rounds of two-on-two, raised his hand: “Coach Li, we’re both freshmen. I should be the one to do it.”

Huo Cheng crossed his arms. He actually really wanted to play a match against Zhou Zhexiao too, but dealing with the combination of Xia Chiyi and Liu Suchen had consumed a lot of his stamina. Knowing Li Xiaoran’s style, he would choose someone full of energy to play one-on-one with Zhou Zhexiao in order to properly reflect Qing University’s level.

Xia Chiyi was stunned and leaned towards Zhou Zhexiao: “Why? So many people are rushing to play basketball with you! When I went on the court, I didn’t get this kind of VIP treatment.”

“Because I was covering you,” Liu Suchen tilted his chin at Xia Chiyi. “Whereas this teammate of yours, one look and you can tell his face is begging for a beating.”

Li Xiaoran’s gaze swept over the players and finally landed on Liu Suchen, who was cracking open pistachios on the sidelines.

“Liu Suchen, you go!”

Suddenly called out, Liu Suchen almost dropped the bag holding the nutshells.

“Coach, I just played basketball for almost forty minutes.”

“Do you know how many calories are in pistachios?” Li Xiaoran raised an eyebrow. “Besides, partnering with Xia Chiyi made your game much easier than usual, didn’t it?”

Liu Suchen stood up and clapped the crumbs off his hands. “I just don’t want to be observed and studied by Xia Chiyi anymore.”

Despite saying so, he still went to wash his hands.

By the time he returned, Zhou Zhexiao had more or less finished his warm-up.

Even more people gathered around the court to watch.

“Am I dreaming today? Coach Li arranging a two-on-two just for Xia Chiyi was one thing, but he’s actually allowing a one-on-one between Liu Suchen and Zhou Zhexiao?”
“Yeah, before this, when Liu Suchen went to other universities to challenge people to one-on-ones, he got punished with running laps when he got back…”
“That’s because he beat Yandu University’s newly recruited, highly-trained freshman into autistic depression!”
“Then how come we get abused by him every day and haven’t become depressed?”
“Because we have big hearts.”

Ling Huanzhen looked at Li Xiaoran, “Play one quarter, ten minutes is enough.”

“Fine, but they have to play full-court.”

“Alright, full-court it is.” Ling Huanzhen knew Li Xiaoran wanted to evaluate Zhou Zhexiao’s transition defense speed and full-court dribbling sprint capabilities.

Xia Chiyi stood on the sidelines, both hands tucked in his pockets, but his expression was very serious.

It was finally here. He could finally watch Zhou Zhexiao go one-on-one against Liu Suchen.

Liu Suchen changed into a new pair of wristbands and tied his bangs back, exposing his forehead, looking just like he did when he played the drums at the bar that day.

Yet what Xia Chiyi felt was the silent clashing of weapons.

Tension spread from the center line of the court, and the surrounding players, who had been chattering earlier, all fell completely silent.

“Guest goes first.” Liu Suchen threw the ball to Zhou Zhexiao.

Zhou Zhexiao lowered his eyes. The rhythm of his first three dribbles was very slow. He didn’t even look up to see where his opponent was, as if he were just getting used to the lighting of Qing University’s basketball court, or simply sorting out his own emotions.

On the fourth dribble, Zhou Zhexiao suddenly accelerated, his aura fully unleashed as he bulldozed across the court.

Everyone’s breathing was seized by an invisible force.

Liu Suchen’s defensive pursuit speed was extremely fast, but even so, he did not expect Zhou Zhexiao to leap into the air for a tomahawk dunk right after passing the free-throw line.

It was like a shooting star stepping across the moon; the entire space seemed to be dragged along by his momentum.

Xia Chiyi raised his head, his eyes widening. That scene possessed an extreme visual impact, overlapping perfectly with the figure of a certain someone in his mind. Time and space rapidly flowed backward, condensing onto Zhou Zhexiao’s body.

Bang— The loud noise reverberated, rendering the entire arena dead silent.

Xia Chiyi stood there in a daze. Zhou Zhexiao possessed many superb techniques, but in this moment, he chose the simplest and most direct one.

Speed and rhythm. Violence and elegance.

Outside the court, Li Xiaoran was stunned. Having battled in the CBA for many years and even on international stages, he had seen all kinds of players. He had thought Liu Suchen was the most explosive seed he had ever seen, but at this moment, Zhou Zhexiao’s skills tore his worldview wide open.

The enclosed court suddenly felt immensely expansive.

Zhou Zhexiao landed and tossed the ball to Liu Suchen.

This was the most heavyweight letter of challenge Liu Suchen had ever received. So…

Bring it on!

Upon receiving the ball, Liu Suchen abruptly launched an attack. His dribbling was like a surging, advancing ocean wave, sweeping up the gazes of everyone present.

Just when everyone thought he would retaliate with a violent dunk of his own, he slammed the brakes without any warning. It was like being propelled by a hurricane, only for the storm to suddenly stop right before the crash. Zhou Zhexiao was swayed by his own inertia, and Liu Suchen nimbly shot the ball to score.

He looked at Zhou Zhexiao with a smile, and Zhou Zhexiao tilted his chin up.

The back-and-forth tempo of their duel was extremely fast. With no so-called team coordination and no need to consider off-ball movement, it was direct to the point of erupting sparks.

They were both ultimate finishers on the offensive end.

Various dribbling footwork connected like phantoms; offense and defense shifted in the blink of an eye, keeping everyone’s heartstrings taut.

Xia Chiyi remained expressionless, his gaze chasing the figures of the two men, his brain operating at high speed, refusing to let go of a single detail.

Their skills and stamina were at the absolute pinnacle for this age group. What truly determined victory and defeat now came down to judgments made in the flash of a spark.

Xia Chiyi saw a Zhou Zhexiao he had never normally seen before.

Perhaps it was because the usual Zhou Zhexiao restrained his sharpness in front of him, acting like a cocoon that appeared tough but was actually incredibly soft inside. His sharp edges were always pointed outward, and only until Xia Chiyi grew his own solid wings would Zhou Zhexiao gradually retract his overlapping layers of protective threads.

Or perhaps because he was too close, even with countless instances of deja vu, he had never truly seen Zhou Zhexiao clearly.

But Liu Suchen was different. He was no ordinary opponent. If the university basketball scene was an independent world, then both he and Zhou Zhexiao were already standing on the roof of this world. Every clash was a collision of glaring sunlight and melting snow.

Amidst Xia Chiyi’s increasingly intense premonition, Zhou Zhexiao dribbled and broke into the paint, and Liu Suchen came charging in like a sharp blade about to pierce his back.

Zhou Zhexiao abruptly leaped, drawing a chorus of gasps from the surroundings.

Liu Suchen decisively leaped to defend. His gaze was resolute, determined to block Zhou Zhexiao’s ball.

In that brief instant, Zhou Zhexiao seemed to break free from gravity. His immensely powerful core strength and hang time allowed him to change his dunk into a double-pump layup mid-air. It was as if the taut space had suddenly turned into a spring. Under Liu Suchen’s astonished gaze, that ball fell into the hoop.

“Oh my god—”
“Did you see that? How did this Zhou Zhexiao do that? He was clearly going for a dunk, how could he suddenly retract it and change to a double-pump layup?”
“Holy crap, even Yang Huaiyu couldn’t do that, right?”
“Forget Yang Huaiyu, how many people even in the CBA could pull that off?”

Li Xiaoran’s breath choked in his throat. His fingers unconsciously dug into his own arms, his heartbeat accelerating involuntarily. “Why… why do I feel like I know him?”

Ten years later, seeing this scene again, Ling Huanzhen’s throat also tightened. “Yeah… it really looks like that Olympic game. He also changed a tomahawk dunk into a double-pump layup just like that…”

Upon landing from that shot, Zhou Zhexiao took a deep breath, glanced at his own right hand, and then turned to look in Xia Chiyi’s direction.

That boy was looking at him with wide, round eyes, just like many, many years ago—a gaze so burning hot it could set him on fire.

Only, in that gaze now, there was an added trace of shock and incomprehension.

The duel only had 8 seconds left.

Liu Suchen’s madness was ignited by that shot. Like a comet hitting the earth, he dribbled at high speed for a layup, absolutely determined to score.

Zhou Zhexiao leaped to defend. The hang time of both players was terrifyingly formidable.

During his hang time, Liu Suchen switched hands mid-air. Just as the switch was about to be completed at the apex, Zhou Zhexiao decisively swatted upward, knocking the ball away.

When he landed, Liu Suchen clenched his trembling fingers. The lingering reverberations of the shock in his heart had not yet dissipated as he lifted his eyes to meet Zhou Zhexiao’s gaze.

At the moment the whistle blew, everyone’s taut nerves at the scene could finally relax.

Simultaneously, a different kind of pressure enveloped the hearts of the Qing University players.

Song Boyun let out a breath and grabbed his head hard. “Are those two playing college basketball?… That’s practically professional level…”

Huo Cheng crossed his arms. “I’m more worried about Zhou Zhexiao’s level. Two people under the basket might not necessarily be able to guard him.”

Li Xiaoran and Ling Huanzhen stood on the sidelines, neither of them speaking a word.

The final score was tallied: a 32 to 32 tie.

Liu Suchen closed his eyes, let out a long breath, and then pulled up the corners of his mouth. “Formidable.”

“It was okay.” There were no ripples on Zhou Zhexiao’s face, but sparks were burning in his eyes.

The two turned around simultaneously. Zhou Zhexiao walked toward Xia Chiyi, while Liu Suchen slowly sauntered toward Li Xiaoran.

“Not satisfying enough.” Liu Suchen pulled the tie out of his bangs at the back of his head. He ruffled his hair haphazardly, leaving it a bit messy. Paired with his sharp facial features, he looked even more rebellious.

“If it wasn’t satisfying enough, go out to the track and run three thousand meters,” Li Xiaoran replied.

Hearing this, Ling Huanzhen almost choked.

At the other end of the diagonal, Zhou Zhexiao was adjusting his breathing. Going all-out in a battle like this consumed a massive amount of stamina. High-speed, burning explosiveness depleted energy at the fastest rate.

He had a towel draped over his shoulders, and Xia Chiyi just stood silently beside him.

Gripping both ends of the towel, Zhou Zhexiao frowned slightly. He suddenly felt unaccustomed to this silence.

He knew Xia Chiyi had a desire to explore and study Liu Suchen, but this wasn’t merely admiring the strong. All of Xia Chiyi’s observations and naturally expressed praises meant he was absorbing everything about the other party.

Just now, Zhou Zhexiao made sure he wasn’t just a peacock spreading its tail. He discarded all flashy, impractical feathers and unsheathed all his sharpest weapons, displaying everything he had, frame by frame.

All he wanted was to drag back the attention Xia Chiyi had completely focused on Liu Suchen.

But right now, Xia Chiyi’s silence and quietness made Zhou Zhexiao feel at a loss.

Xia Chiyi just stood there, his hands hanging by his sides. He wasn’t excitedly clenching his fists, nor did he want to discuss anything with anyone.

Whether it was his thoughts or his attention, they were still lingering in the space Zhou Zhexiao and Liu Suchen had just created.

—Zhou Zhexiao leaped with the ball, contesting Liu Suchen in mid-air. When Liu Suchen was descending, Zhou Zhexiao actually changed directions in the air, using the strength of his wrist to send the ball into the hoop.

His momentum upon leaping was clearly like a rainbow, yet his hand movements could deflect a thousand pounds with four ounces of force.

Simply unsolvable.

The duel between those two had not ended in Xia Chiyi’s mind. His heartbeat was still thumping loudly, like the sound of a basketball striking the floor.

He had watched the game footage of that person countless times. Frame after frame of images rushed toward him like an overwhelming tide, converging into a bolt of lightning that illuminated the silent abyss, allowing him to faintly see the true nature of things.

Zhou Zhexiao’s dominance on the court, his oppressiveness, his crushing power… all of it perfectly overlapped with a certain someone in his memory.

Even though they were the closest people on the whole team, even though the person who practiced basketball the most with Xia Chiyi was Zhou Zhexiao, their inexplicable tacit understanding… that familiar feeling every time Zhou Zhexiao spread his arms to defend in front of him…

It seemed as though there was a completely natural explanation for it all.

“What’s wrong with you?”

In the end, Zhou Zhexiao couldn’t bear the other’s silence and opened his mouth to ask.

That low voice, that tone that wouldn’t waver even if the sky fell, suddenly reminded Xia Chiyi of when he was a kid in the youth basketball training camp. When he had been crying in the bathroom stall, the man who stood outside the door and said the Häagen-Dazs had melted.

“I…” Xia Chiyi opened his mouth. “I just suddenly feel that there seems to be a barrier in the match between you and Liu Suchen. It would be very hard for anyone to break that barrier and enter your world.”

Zhou Zhexiao took the towel off his shoulders, draped it over his own head, and pulled the other side of the towel to cover Xia Chiyi’s head as well.

No one could see their expressions, and no one knew what they were saying.

“But to me, the person closest to me is you.”

Xia Chiyi lowered his eyes, touched the tip of his nose, and laughed.

“So when you dream, you can only dream of playing basketball with me,” Zhou Zhexiao said, turning his face to look at Xia Chiyi.

“Hmm?” Xia Chiyi pondered over this sentence in his mind.

At this time, Ling Huanzhen walked over, hands on his hips, and spread his arms: “Alright, what kind of secret whispers are you two exchanging now?”

Zhou Zhexiao pulled the towel down and stuffed it into his bag. “Nothing. How are we getting back?”

Ling Huanzhen pointed in Li Xiaoran’s direction: “Didn’t Coach Li say so? He’s buying us airplane tickets.”

Li Xiaoran scoffed. “I said I’m buying an airplane ticket for Xia Chiyi.”

Ling Huanzhen added: “Then we’ll take the high-speed rail back. Don’t you even have a station drop-off service here? Qing University, a century-old prestigious school, you should at least have some hospitality, right?”

Li Xiaoran snorted softly and threw his car keys to Liu Suchen. “Take them to the high-speed rail station.”

Liu Suchen scratched his head. “Coach, aren’t you seriously worried I’ll drive your car into the river?”

“The car has insurance. Whether you have insurance or not, I don’t know.”

The airplane tickets never materialized. Ling Huanzhen bought high-speed rail tickets for the three of them, and Liu Suchen drove them to the station.

As Liu Suchen drove, whenever they passed by scenic spots in the capital, he would mimic a tour guide and introduce them: “Respected passengers, please look to your right. This is the mansion of a certain prince, a prime location within the Second Ring Road, and it’s even in a prime school district. Market value is in the tens of billions. It’s said to contain countless gold, silver, jewelry, antiques, and calligraphy…”

“Respected passengers, please look to your left. There’s a broken city wall. Don’t let its dilapidated look fool you, it actually has no history at all; it’s just a man-made landscape!”

Xia Chiyi was thoroughly amused by him, laughing out loud.

When they stopped at an intersection, the light showed they had to wait for over a hundred seconds.

Liu Suchen extended his phone to the back. “Let’s add you guys on WeChat.”

Xia Chiyi took the phone and scanned the QR code.

Then he looked at Zhou Zhexiao. Zhou Zhexiao immediately turned his face to look out the window. This guy’s capriciousness regarding socializing remained the same as always.

“Zhou Zhexiao doesn’t use a smartphone, so you can only add me on WeChat. But if you need him for anything, you can tell me and I’ll pass the message on.”

Xia Chiyi handed Liu Suchen’s phone back.

He thought he would have to explain a bunch to Liu Suchen, but unexpectedly, Liu Suchen accepted it very easily. “Zhou Zhexiao indeed looks like the type of person who wouldn’t use a smartphone.”

“Why?” Xia Chiyi asked curiously.

“He wouldn’t drain his mental energy on social media apps, doesn’t need useless entertainment, and doesn’t care about looking at anyone’s face,” Liu Suchen said with a smile.

Only then did Zhou Zhexiao turn his head and give a very light “Mn”, considered as agreeing with Liu Suchen’s assessment.

He glanced at Xia Chiyi. This was the first time they were clearly sitting in the same row, yet felt so far apart.

Xia Chiyi smiled just like he normally did, and there was nothing wrong with his demeanor when speaking. But Xia Chiyi knew himself that he had an outrageous question in his heart he wanted to ask Zhou Zhexiao. More importantly… even though Zhou Zhexiao said “the person closest to me is you,” his PK with Liu Suchen had a massive long-tail effect, which still loomed heavily over Xia Chiyi’s heart at this moment.

His mind was completely filled with thoughts of how he could secure a place for himself in a dual hegemony of such powerhouses.

Liu Suchen made several sudden brakes and abrupt stops, seemingly applying his basketball crossover skills to driving. Weaving and darting through traffic, Ling Huanzhen subconsciously tightened his seatbelt.

Xia Chiyi, on the contrary, was physically there, but his brain was still tracing every single movement of Zhou Zhexiao and Liu Suchen, completely unresponsive to Liu Suchen’s driving trajectory.

As the car turned a corner, Ling Huanzhen grabbed the handle tight in the passenger seat: “Um, Little Liu, how long have you had your driver’s license? Do you drive on the road often?”

“Driver’s license? I got it during summer break, so about three months. Driving on the road, our coach said, depends on sheer guts.”

Liu Suchen’s answer made Ling Huanzhen nervous. “How about… how about you pull over, and I’ll drive.”

“How can we let Coach Ling drive? You aren’t familiar with the roads in the capital anyway!”

Another turn, and the contents of Ling Huanzhen’s stomach surged to his throat—he knew Li Xiaoran wouldn’t be so kind. Sure enough, he sent Liu Suchen purely to torture him.

Finally, while turning off an overpass, Xia Chiyi completely tumbled onto Zhou Zhexiao’s body.

“S-Sorry.” Just as Xia Chiyi was about to sit back up, Zhou Zhexiao’s arm suddenly wrapped around the back of Xia Chiyi’s neck and clamped down on his shoulder.

He had never forced Xia Chiyi into anything. This was the first time he almost tyrannically pressed Xia Chiyi to his side.

Xia Chiyi looked at him in surprise.

“I’m not used to you being so far from me.”

Ling Huanzhen glanced at the rearview mirror. Even though Jiao Yingfeng frequently said his brain was like a solid iron ball that nothing penetrated, right now he could faintly sense the subtle atmosphere between the two in the back seat.

“You two didn’t have a falling out, did you? Don’t tell me you disagreed on something while discussing under the towel earlier and are now giving each other the cold shoulder?” Ling Huanzhen spoke from personal experience.

When he was young, Jiao Yingfeng was always unilaterally giving him the cold shoulder.

“No disagreement.”

Zhou Zhexiao’s voice lacked any ripples, but the arm holding Xia Chiyi was exerting a lot of force, as if trying to squeeze Xia Chiyi right into his bones.

Xia Chiyi’s heart grew taut following the strength of the other’s fingers and the transmitted body heat.

He could feel Zhou Zhexiao’s stubborn possessiveness in this moment.

Zhou Zhexiao didn’t understand why Xia Chiyi was no longer as flawlessly close as before. In his understanding, when he and Xia Chiyi sat together, they were supposed to be pressed against each other.

Maybe with knees touching, maybe with Xia Chiyi stepping on his instep when being mischievous, maybe with their arms leaning against each other while wearing the same pair of Bluetooth earphones.

Not like this, where Xia Chiyi was clearly sitting right beside him, yet felt so far away.

Zhou Zhexiao didn’t even know what he had done wrong.

Finally, Liu Suchen drove the car onto the highway. A straight line from beginning to end, with no more turns.

Ling Huanzhen also felt like he had come back to life. He looked up at the rearview mirror again. Zhou Zhexiao was staring straight ahead expressionlessly, his hand still clamped on Xia Chiyi’s shoulder.

Meanwhile, Xia Chiyi had his face half-turned, looking out the window.

Ling Huanzhen didn’t know if he should gloat, because the Great Demon King clearly didn’t know how to interact with humans. Just like a kindergartener, when the kid he liked ignored him, what should he do?

Force the other party to play with him.

How childish.

Xia Chiyi raised his hand and gently touched the back of Zhou Zhexiao’s hand clamped on his shoulder. The meaning was: Time to let go.

That hand slowly retracted.

Just as Xia Chiyi was about to shuffle towards the window, Zhou Zhexiao suddenly seized his left hand and pressed it forcefully against the back seat, his fingers threading into the gaps of Xia Chiyi’s fingers. It was an irresistible dominance, and also an insecurity he had never expressed.

Even more so, it was his absolute determination not to allow Xia Chiyi to leave.

Xia Chiyi’s fingers slowly curled, interlocking tightly with the other party. He knew he had an inexplicable psychological knot in his own heart; Zhou Zhexiao hadn’t done anything wrong.

If anything, his dazzling brilliance was simply soul-stirring.

They arrived at the high-speed rail station. Xia Chiyi and Liu Suchen waved goodbye. Ling Huanzhen reminded him, “Kid, drive carefully!”

“Don’t worry.” Liu Suchen looked at Xia Chiyi again. “If I hit you two up to play ball, you’re not allowed to find excuses to run away.”

“I won’t.” Xia Chiyi smiled. “But I will tell your coach, maybe he’ll make you run three thousand meters as punishment?”

“You bad guy.” Liu Suchen looked at Zhou Zhexiao.

The two men didn’t exchange any pleasantries. They nodded to each other, and Liu Suchen drove away.

Once there were no passengers in the car, Liu Suchen drove for a bit, then pulled over to the side of the road.

He leaned on the steering wheel and started laughing.

Zhou Zhexiao really was a highly formidable opponent.

This also made him feel jealous, because this guy was the “partner” Xia Chiyi had spoken of.

Sometimes, being powerful wasn’t such a lucky thing. Masters always tended to fight single-handedly, mostly because very few people could understand them in such intense and high-pressure matches.

Thus, all that was left was loneliness, or even a burst of solitary bravery at critical moments.

But Zhou Zhexiao had Xia Chiyi by his side. So incredibly lucky.

---

Xia Chiyi’s group arrived at the high-speed rail station and went to the automatic ticket machines to retrieve their tickets.

Ling Huanzhen was still nagging: “Keep your tickets safe, you have to hand them in to the school for reimbursement when we get back!”

“Got it, got it.”

Ye Zhaoying, Chen Chuan, and the others had already taken a train an hour earlier, leaving just the few of them.

Xia Chiyi swiped his ID card in the front, and Zhou Zhexiao followed right behind him, gently tugging on the strap of his messenger bag as if worried Xia Chiyi would walk away.

This gave Xia Chiyi both a sense of satisfaction that the other party really needed him, and a kind of heartache he didn’t know how to articulate.

Suddenly, a boy’s surprised voice rang out from behind them: “Zhou Zhexiao? It’s actually you? How could a guy like you be taking the high-speed rail? Could it be that your dad cut off your credit cards just like mine did?”

Zhou Zhexiao gave a faint glance toward the source of the voice. Xia Chiyi had retrieved his ticket and was about to walk away, but Zhou Zhexiao continued to tug his bag strap.

“Hey, someone is calling your name,” Xia Chiyi whispered.

This guy had incredible basketball skills and was super handsome; it couldn’t be ruled out that he had fans in other provinces.

And it was a male fan too. Although Xia Chiyi didn’t understand luxury goods or fashion, he recognized the LV logo on the jacket the boy was wearing.

Zhou Zhexiao pressed his ID card against the machine and replied, “I don’t know him.”

However, the boy walked up to Zhou Zhexiao in a few strides, poked a finger at his shoulder, and tilted his head to reveal a meaningful smile.

“Didn’t I already give you my car to vent your anger? It was your own bad luck, don’t blame it on me. Even when dealing with an ex you broke up with, no one is as ruthless as you.”

Xia Chiyi froze in place. “An ex you broke up with”? This can’t be real… it’s probably just a metaphor, right?

In the past, as long as Zhou Zhexiao put on his “strangers stay away” expression, irrelevant people would automatically withdraw.

But this person was actually completely unfazed, his smile remaining the same. Xia Chiyi had to secretly admire the sheer stickiness of his fan devotion.

Zhou Zhexiao gripped Xia Chiyi’s bag strap tightly and walked past the boy.

“Yo, is this your new boyfriend? Nice figure, looks pretty thrilling. Wanna play together? Three people have the fun of three people.”

Xia Chiyi felt a wave of trepidation. Are all people who return from America this open?

Besides… what are three people supposed to play? Fight the Landlord (card game)?

Ling Huanzhen stood not far away, hands on his hips and frowning. It was obvious that Zhou Zhexiao was impatient with this old acquaintance trying to act chummy.

“What’s going on here? A story of two people suddenly turning into a movie for three, surely one of them has to exit the stage, right?”

Ling Huanzhen yelled: “You two hurry up, dawdling around. Do you think your family owns the high-speed rail?”

Based on Xia Chiyi’s understanding of Zhou Zhexiao, when he said “I don’t know him,” it didn’t mean he was pretending not to know him.

Even if this person had appeared in his past, he had been “wiped clean” by that car crash.

The key point was that this “broken-up” friend, while verbally claiming to look forward to “rekindling their old flame,” was not very polite in his phrasing, faintly carrying annoying, suggestive teasing.

Seeing that Zhou Zhexiao was entirely unyielding, the boy suddenly turned and grabbed Xia Chiyi’s wrist instead. Looking at Xia Chiyi with a half-threatening gaze, he instantly dropped the smiling face he had shown Zhou Zhexiao. Both his eyes and expression reeked of an arrogant superiority.

“Handsome, what school are you guys at now?”

Truly turning his face faster than turning the pages of a book.

Zhou Zhexiao whipped his head around. The force in his gaze was enough to pierce a hole straight through the guy’s heart, freeze him at minus eighteen degrees, and smash him to pieces.

The next second, the boy let out a tragic shriek that drew sidelong glances from everyone around.

His wrist was seized by Zhou Zhexiao, who mercilessly pinched open the webbing between his thumb and forefinger, forcefully making him let go of Xia Chiyi.

This was the first time Xia Chiyi had ever seen Zhou Zhexiao get angry, and he also knew exactly how much finger strength the guy who could palm a basketball for a violent dunk possessed.

“Zhou Zhexiao… are you crazy?” The boy clutched his hand, his face completely flushed red.

“You look like you know me, so you should know that I’m already crazy to begin with.”

Zhou Zhexiao’s expression was icy and rigid, his eyes radiating a “guard against fire and thieves” level of vigilance.

Although the boy was intimidated, he immediately showed a smile again. “I heard you woke up with a mental illness. It looks like it’s true. I’m Dai Qun, do you really not remember?”

“I don’t care who you are—if you follow us again, I will shove a trash can over your head.”

Xia Chiyi’s wrist was grabbed tightly by Zhou Zhexiao. It felt as if Zhou Zhexiao was terrified he would be taken away by a bad guy.

Even while passing through security, Zhou Zhexiao didn’t let go.

They arrived at the waiting hall and sat down on the metal chairs.

The air pressure around Zhou Zhexiao was too low. Xia Chiyi wanted to move slightly further away from him, but being tightly held by Zhou Zhexiao, he could only sit right next to him.

Xia Chiyi looked left and right, searching for traces of Ling Huanzhen, thinking that having the coach around was always a good thing to ease this tense atmosphere.

Who knew that Ling Huanzhen was standing off to the side making a phone call, showing no intention of coming over to sit for a long time.

Xia Chiyi rotated his wrist slightly, but Zhou Zhexiao still held it tightly.

“I don’t know that person,” Zhou Zhexiao suddenly spoke.

“I know.” Xia Chiyi patted the back of Zhou Zhexiao’s hand, but it was useless this time; Zhou Zhexiao didn’t let go.

Zhou Zhexiao continued: “But after I woke up from the car crash, I heard my mom mention the name Dai Qun. He played around with a lot of messed up tricks among the rich second-generation overseas Chinese circle. He’s not a good person.”

He rarely explained anything. If he opened his mouth to do so, it meant he was very serious.

“Before the car crash, Dai Qun took Zhou Zhexiao to a party. It just so happened that the police came to check, so he hid a small bag of pills he prepared inside Zhou Zhexiao’s gym bag. Do you know what that means for someone about to become an athlete?” Zhou Zhexiao turned his face and looked at Xia Chiyi.

Xia Chiyi was stunned for a long time, completely not expecting a plotline out of a TV drama to actually happen to Zhou Zhexiao.

“It means ruining their future as an athlete, leaving a stain… and the psychological trauma of being framed.”

“Yes. But Dai Qun’s brain isn’t sufficient. Dai Qun’s fingerprints were detected on that small bag of pills, and even on the zipper and edges of the gym bag. However, there were absolutely no fingerprints of Zhou Zhexiao on the bag of pills. The police aren’t fools; they easily locked onto the true owner of the pills.”

Hearing this, Xia Chiyi let out a breath. He had seen those foul, messy affairs in TV dramas, but he didn’t expect the person beside him to have actually experienced it.

“Dai Qun was underage, but he was expelled from the school. His family pulled strings to bring him back to the country to study. Before leaving, he even threw a grand ‘going home’ party. Zhou Zhexiao’s parents locked him in the house, forbidding him from having any further interaction with Dai Qun. But Zhou Zhexiao was unwilling to let it go. He jumped out the window, went to the party, and beat Dai Qun up on the spot. Dai Qun had a new model sports car. As revenge, Zhou Zhexiao threatened to smash that car to pieces.”

Xia Chiyi was speechless. He thought Zhou Zhexiao went to get an explanation or still held illusions about Dai Qun as a scumbag friend, but it turned out to just be for revenge.

“Dai Qun’s reasoning was—since you don’t want to be an athlete anymore anyway, aren’t I helping you out? If you want to smash my car, then go ahead and smash it. He threw the keys to Zhou Zhexiao. The people at the party scattered like birds and beasts. Having completely lost face, Dai Qun drove out after him, provoking Zhou Zhexiao on whether he dared to perish together. Zhou Zhexiao accepted the challenge, and then the car crash happened. All of this was what the police told me in my hospital room after I woke up.”

The pre-car-crash Zhou Zhexiao… was truly hard to evaluate. Dai Qun says they should perish together, so he just agrees to perish together? What if Dai Qun challenged him to race to the moon? Would Zhou Zhexiao go be an astronaut?

Dai Qun said Zhou Zhexiao was a madman; the him from back then was probably truly impulsive.

The next second, Zhou Zhexiao took a fierce punch to the chest.

“What kind of nonsense were you spouting just now? You really should have grabbed a trash can and shoved it over Dai Qun’s head!”

“Oh, next time then,” Zhou Zhexiao nodded, indicating he had noted it down.

“You still want a next time?” Xia Chiyi sometimes truly didn’t understand Zhou Zhexiao’s brain circuits.

The more Xia Chiyi thought about it, the angrier he got. “And he had the sheer nerve to talk about being an ‘ex.’ I almost thought you were completely lacking in standards… If you even liked this kind of demonic maniac, your tastes are truly built different.”

“If I could tolerate that kind of person, I would have slept with you eight hundred times already,” Zhou Zhexiao stated.

He said it as if it were an absolute matter of course.

If Xia Chiyi’s heart was a basketball hoop, it had already been obliterated by Zhou Zhexiao’s mid-air dunk.

His palms started sweating again. Right now, he was incomparably glad that what Zhou Zhexiao was grabbing was his wrist…

“Your pulse is so fast,” Zhou Zhexiao suddenly said.

Xia Chiyi almost choked to death on his own saliva. “No duh, being slept with eight hundred times by you… don’t you think that’s terrifying?”

“There are only three hundred and sixty-five days in a year. Eight hundred times wouldn’t even take us to college graduation.”

Xia Chiyi: What you’re saying makes so much sense, it makes me feel like a complete idiot for being falsely sentimental!

“Your Majesty, could you please let go of me? I just want to go to the bathroom.”

And incidentally wash the sweat off my palms.

“I’ll go with you…”

Just as Zhou Zhexiao was about to get up, Xia Chiyi pressed down on his shoulder.

“Stop right there. This isn’t a primary school field trip, why do we need to hold hands to go to the bathroom? You sit here obediently and wait for me. We’re taking the same high-speed rail, sitting in adjacent seats, could I really get abducted by someone?”

After about two seconds, Zhou Zhexiao released Xia Chiyi’s wrist.

Xia Chiyi complained: “Look, you grabbed me so hard my wrist is all red!”

Zhou Zhexiao remained silent.

Xia Chiyi turned around and headed straight for the restroom.

He noticed it. When Zhou Zhexiao brought up the pre-car-crash version of himself, he directly used the name instead of “I”.

To him, that was something that happened to a completely different person.

Perhaps it was a memory fragmentation caused by the amnesia from the car crash, or perhaps—just like during the one-on-one with Liu Suchen—Zhou Zhexiao’s figure was overlapping with an incredibly important person in Xia Chiyi’s memories.

Those previously ignored coincidences were now gradually fusing into an outrageous yet ready-to-burst-out answer.

Calm down, Xia Chiyi.

Take it slow. Regardless of whether everything is a coincidence or an illusion, the promise between me and Zhou Zhexiao is real.

After using the toilet, he rinsed his hands under cold water at the sink. As the sweat on his palms was washed away, it seemed to wash away that dangerous expectation in his heart as well.

Sleep with me eight hundred times… Xia Chiyi lowered his head, cupped some water, and splashed it onto his face.

Damn it, why are you the one sleeping with me? Can’t I be the one sleeping with you?

So what if you’re good at basketball, you think you’re so amazing?

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[The author has something to say]

Zhou Zhexiao: Actually, you always protect me when I need it most.