Chapter 19: Chapter Nineteen: Where Is Yizhen

After getting the towel, Yizhen kept scrubbing away. The black grime on his body wasn't sticky to the touch — apart from turning the towel black, it came off fairly well, and he didn't need to scrub too hard. It was like layer upon layer of outer clothing, quietly waiting to be peeled away. When the skin underneath was revealed, it could be described as fair and luminous — probably the most perfect neutral complexion, perhaps even more wonderful than that.

Because of the feel of it in his hand — tsk tsk — he even suspected this was the kind of skin women would envy and want to possess.

Although he hadn't touched a woman's hand many times, he knew well enough that this kind of complexion was truly one of a kind.

Setting aside these trivial little matters — if you're going to wash, wash to your heart's content. He happened to be in a good mood. The only pity was that he'd heard too little music and hadn't stored any, so even after racking his brain a few times, he couldn't recall many cheerful songs. Not singing while happily bathing — that was a regret no matter how you looked at it. Fortunately, he still had folk songs on hand, so he simply sang a cappella and washed quickly.

He didn't really want to make too much of a commotion either. The main reason was that he hadn't yet reached the level of a social butterfly — you could only say he had social anxiety to spare, but not enough social boldness. Sigh, that's just how it was.

……

While he was in high spirits scrubbing away over here, Zhenlin, who had no idea where he'd gone off to, also came back. But he stopped at the doorway — after all, the smell hadn't dispersed yet. Even with the floral-scented water covering it, the effect was very limited; that strange odor still lingered stubbornly in the air, even more intense than the stink bombs they used to play with as kids. Calling it a biochemical weapon was putting it mildly. For the time being, he didn't dare come in.

But then again, with no phone in hand and no seat to sit on, just standing around outside was really boring — not even anyone to chat with. As for going next door, it was obvious he chickened out again. Otherwise, the neighbors would have at least mentioned he'd come by, but the result was he never went in at all. Wandering aimlessly, though — that was certainly his share.

"Ugh~ damn, that's rough. Hey, whoever — where did Yizhen go?"

Zhenlin, pinching his nose and trying to get a bit closer, was ultimately stopped by the smell again. Leaning against the wall, he dry-heaved a few times, but couldn't bring anything up. Grumbling unhappily to himself, he happened to look up and noticed something different — Yizhen was gone. Inside the dorm, he could only see Mingyang alone.

He had wanted to call out the name, but stopped himself in time. He'd just promised Yizhen he wouldn't bother him — would he honestly still call out his name like a fool? That would be stupid. So, as usual, he used the most common form of address and just waited to see if the other guy would give him face. If not? Hmph, old rules — cold war it is, what else can you do? He wasn't going to back down on this one.

"The washroom."

Although he really wanted to snark at Zhenlin, Mingyang also knew that if he wanted to ease the relationship, he at least had to show some attitude on his side. If the other guy pushed his luck, then that would be the real moment of falling out. As for Yizhen, that was more or less settled. As for Zhenlin — this idiot was a bit slow-witted. If they really couldn't become close friends, he'd just keep things at the simplest level: stop at just enough.

"Oh! Huh? Isn't he weak all over? He can actually wash himself? That's weird — was he faking it?"

Zhenlin gave a simple reply at first, but quickly picked up on something off in Mingyang's brief words. Ah, this — wasn't Yizhen looking all weak and feeble? How could he have gotten up so fast and gone to wash? Was he faking it, or had some supernatural event happened that he didn't know about?

"Not sure."

Mingyang kept maintaining his newly emerged personality — that of being tight-lipped. Apart from taking action, it was better not to say too much, and to avoid being called a sissy again. His poor little heart had been hurt.

"Tch, help me grab the phone,

and we'll call it even for what happened before."

Zhenlin felt it was a bit boring — was this going to be the rhythm of answering everything with "I don't know"? So he simply couldn't be bothered to keep asking. Asking him for help was his real purpose this time. He didn't care about the CF match he was in the middle of playing — AFK was usually fine, at worst he'd get vote-kicked. Besides, his computer needed to stay plugged in or it would shut down; otherwise, taking it out to play wouldn't matter. Sigh, looks like he'd have to find a chance to get a new computer someday. A machine with this kind of specs could probably be called half-obsolete.

"Sure."

Mingyang replied quickly this time, because he had been quietly waiting for an opportunity — a chance to ease things. If Zhenlin asked for help with something within his ability, of course he could help normally. As for the smell — it might have been hard to take earlier, but now he was gradually adapting to it himself. It wasn't like he had as much resistance to it as Zhenlin did.

Still, the bed that was the source of the smell couldn't be used anymore — no point letting the smell linger on and on. It was honestly unsettling.

He'd just have to wait and see how Yizhen planned to handle it. He also wondered how Zhenlin would react when he found out. Maybe he'd get to watch some good drama — that would count as payback for the lecturing he'd gotten earlier.

Fine, he was just the type to hold a grudge — if not now, then later. When the time came, he'd be the one laughing out loud. Cough!

His persona still had to be maintained. He was just inarticulate (chattering on and on), helpful (sarcastic and mocking), and a special sort of person not far from a good person — switching freely between the good cop and bad cop roles, all depending on his mood.

"Hey, that's more like it. We're still good brothers from now on. Quick, quick, bring it over. So bored just standing here, no fun at all. The lights out front are about to go off — if we don't play on the phone or at least have some light, people will think it's haunted."

Zhenlin, hearing him agree, immediately tossed Yizhen's words to the back of his mind. They were all in the same dorm — no point making things so stiff. And the guy had already shown goodwill; keeping a sour face would be a bit unreasonable. So he hurriedly started urging him on, though he still didn't dare approach the door — the smell was still that strong, unbearable. Better to take it from Mingyang's hand — less effort, less hassle.

The phone was quickly handed to Zhenlin as wished. He was so happy — he shook Mingyang's hand, then decisively let go. He was still a little afraid of getting the smell on him. He sniffed carefully. Hmm… how to put it — anyway, same old saying, it's hard to describe in words. Guard against everything, and damn it, the smell still came along with it.

Although it was faint — faint enough to be selectively ignored — once he thought back to the earlier toxic-gas incident, it was hard to look away and convince himself there was no smell. Ugh? Damn!

Zhenlin, his face full of disgust, took the phone in one hand and walked off. He was going to take it downstairs to let the breeze blow the smell away. If it really didn't work, there was nothing for it but to give up.

Anyway, he didn't really want to keep using a phone with this weird smell. What if one day he was really into a game and kissed it — tsk tsk, just imagining that scene was enough to make him nauseous. Luckily he'd eaten little tonight, couldn't even throw anything up. Otherwise, the dorm supervisor on the next floor would have had him cleaning the whole long corridor.

"Left in a hurry."

Watching Zhenlin head toward the elevator, Mingyang muttered to himself, then let it go. Although he really wanted to see him and Yizhen's love-hate bickering, since the guy wanted to leave, he couldn't stop him. After all, they'd just made up — if he kept running his mouth, he'd only annoy people and gain nothing.

Out of habit, he walked a few steps and glanced at the next-door situation. The window was half-covered, but he could see a small table in the middle, with four bottles of beer neatly lined up, a pair of chopsticks, and a box of food — he didn't know what it was, but it looked somewhat appetizing. Based on what he'd overheard earlier, it checked out — there was drink and meat. If it weren't for his personality not getting along with the neighbors, he would have naturally knocked and gone in by now.

Forget it, he's gone. Speaking of which, what did Yizhen do to make Yunhen's bed look so black and smell so awful? He had no idea what was going on with him — he was a little curious, but didn't know if he could get anything out of asking. Hmm, he'd just wait slowly. There was still enough time tonight.