AUS Chapter 20: Liu Jiang, You Secretly Got Your Ears Pierced!

For a while after that, I lived like a proper high school student.

I studied diligently within the As-Usual plan and strived to survive outside of it. During this time, Hao Zi’s job near my company stabilized, and he would occasionally come to the office to eat with me, secretly bringing me some soon-to-be-distributed relief supplies.

Our conversations gradually broadened, and we would occasionally talk about Liu Jiang.

Once, I asked him, “Do you remember when Liu Jiang first dyed his hair white?”

He nodded.

Back then, few people had Liu Jiang’s medium-length hair, let alone dyeing it white overnight, which made him famous throughout the school.

Hao Zi commented: “I don’t know how he managed to avoid being forced to dye it back.”

I didn’t say anything, thinking it was probably due to the leniency of a certain student council member.

“But do you remember what he looked like with white hair?” I asked him again. “Wasn’t it a bit strange at first glance?”

Hao Zi was surprised. I could guess what he was thinking; he probably wanted to ask why I was involving him in my business with Liu Jiang.

But he wasn’t as bad as I imagined. He gave a neutral assessment: “It was alright. I think white hair suited him. Most people couldn’t pull it off.”

His compliment didn’t sound like empty flattery. Thinking about it carefully, Liu Jiang’s white hair back then was indeed timelessly attractive.

Why did this version of Liu Jiang feel so inexplicably off?

I replayed the awkwardness under the wig in my mind and decided not to dwell on it.

But since I had already asked something awkward, I might as well go all the way. I asked Hao Zi: “Back then, in the eyes of you students, weren’t we two incredibly annoying?”

Hao Zi laughed: “I wouldn’t say annoying!”

Somehow, it felt like there was more to his words.

Sure enough, Hao Zi continued: “It’s just that you two gave off the vibe that you were always on the verge of dating.”

I was shocked and quickly asked: “Not from the very beginning, right?”

“No, no!” He denied repeatedly. “It was probably around graduation that we got that feeling.”

“What about when I first transferred?” I asked him again.

He pondered for a moment, then replied: “Hard to say, we were so young back then, but there was a different feeling between you two.”

A different feeling between us two.

I carried this thought back into the As-Usual plan. It was a sunny Monday, about a week before the midterms. During this time, I paid more attention in class and finally regained some of the effortless feeling I had towards studying in high school.

But everything comes at a price. The price of studying hard was that I hadn’t been to Liu Jiang’s house in a while.

Saying “a while” wasn’t entirely accurate. It had been almost a month, but for a high school student who suffered through every minute of class, a month felt like a long time.

Thinking of this, I started searching for Liu Jiang from my limited perspective in the classroom. I quickly realized we had changed seats a few weeks ago, and he was now sitting diagonally in front of me.

I shifted my gaze and caught sight of Liu Jiang sleeping soundly, face down on his desk.

It was Chinese class. The Chinese teacher’s voice was so soft it was almost inaudible, perfect for sleeping. I figured Liu Jiang must have been tired from rehearsals these past few days, especially on weekends, when he also went to events to earn money.

To earn back the money he spent on the four-figure price tag shirt he bought me.

I looked down at my chest. I was wearing an ordinary black T-shirt today. The one he gave me had been hanging in my closet since that day. It wasn’t that I was reluctant to wear it, but I didn’t know what emotions to wear it with. Every time I saw it, I felt a mix of emotions, just like now.

I looked away, deciding not to think about him and the shirt he bought me. Think about something else, like the As-Usual plan.

During this time, I had gradually adapted to the new way of communicating with the system, that is, through my phone. It now resided obediently in my phone, and I confirmed everything I needed through text messages.

For example, I could type in the corresponding numbers to stop the simulation or return to the lobby. I hadn’t figured out the purpose of the lobby yet. The system explained that I could review previous chapters, but I hadn’t thought of a specific use for it.

Just as I was wondering if I could use the previous levels to peek at the exam questions, the bell finally rang, putting an end to the Chinese teacher’s dying breaths.

Seeing Liu Jiang sleeping soundly, I didn’t want to disturb him. I stood up, hands in my pockets, and headed to the restroom. I might have drunk too much water in the morning; my bladder was a bit unhappy.

After relieving myself and washing my hands, as I was walking out, I saw a sleepy Liu Jiang swaying into the restroom.

His eyes were half-closed, and when he saw me, the corners of his mouth turned up in a goofy smile, like an orange ready to be squeezed.

I lifted my chin slightly as a response. Just as we passed each other, an unusual glint caught my attention.

I abruptly grabbed his arm. We stood face to face, and I asked him, “Did you get your ears pierced?”

He must have been deliberately covering them with his hair, but I still saw them. After hearing my question, his half-closed eyes suddenly opened wide, and he looked around. Seeing that there weren’t many people gathered at the restroom entrance, he lowered his voice and shushed me.

He said, “Keep your voice down.”

Ignoring his guilty demeanor, my eyes remained fixed on the sparkling rhinestone under his black hair.

It looked exactly like the one I bought him on Christmas Eve.

But according to my memory, he wore a very ordinary round stud when he first got his ears pierced, and he also dyed his hair white that day. Moreover, I was waiting for him under the school wall.

Could my choices really have completely changed the timeline?

I asked: “Did you give up on dyeing your hair?”

He looked different today somehow, paler than before, strangely attractive.

Maybe it was because he had slept well.

He replied: “I don’t think white hair really suits me.”

I stared at his face and asked, “Did it hurt?”

He seemed a little unnerved by my stare and hummed before answering, “It was alright.”

I said, “I want to see.”

This time, he really didn’t understand and looked at me, “Huh?”

I said, “I want to see. I’ve never seen a guy with pierced ears before.”

I wanted him to get closer, to brush his hair aside, so I could see everything clearly, including the povidone-iodine marks.

Now that I knew he had his ears pierced, I wasn’t so fixated on the white hair anymore. Black hair looked good too, at least he still had the piercing, like the original him.

But compared to my firmness, he was a bit hesitant. He looked behind him; people were coming and going at the restroom entrance.

I gave him an out. I asked, “Go to your place after school?”

Lately, no one besides me went to Liu Jiang’s house. In the large old house, with its long corridors, I could find any corner to get a closer look at his ear.

He blinked, touched his nose, then replied: “Okay.”

Back at my desk, I attended the rest of the morning classes as usual. In the afternoon, the sky turned overcast. It was English class, and more than half of the class was asleep. I struggled to decipher the English teacher’s non-standard Mandarin amidst the sounds of slumber when I suddenly remembered something.

Liu Jiang, that kid, might seem simple-minded, but his thoughts weren’t always pure.

Especially when I took the initiative.

Back in college, during winter break, specifically after that Christmas Eve, I went back to my hometown of Liancheng for the New Year. I was quite free in the days leading up to New Year’s Eve, so I asked him to go to the movies with me. The movie was boring, the more I watched, the more my head hurt. Halfway through, he couldn’t take it anymore and asked if I wanted to go to the ice cream shop next door for a large Rum Raisin Brownie Blizzard.

Why did I remember it so clearly? Because the name was strange, especially when what was served was just ice cream in a paper cup, it felt even stranger.

I’ve never been interested in sweets, so I just drank the free instant black coffee they had. The heating on the sixth floor of the mall was broken. Seeing his nose red from the cold, I suddenly wanted to try this so-called Blizzard.

There were no extra spoons, and I was too lazy to go to the counter to get one, so he just scooped a spoonful and fed it to me. I complained that his hand wasn’t steady, so I steadied it with my hand and brought it to my mouth.

I savored the taste. There was a hint of rum, but mostly the cloying sweetness of raisins. I didn’t taste any brownie, nor any blizzard.

Lowering my gaze, I saw him looking at me from across the table, spoon in hand, his eyes clear, as if his mind was empty.

I still had five hours before my family dinner. We got a room at a nearby hourly hotel. That day, we tried some new things for the first time.

I won’t go into details, but let’s just say I was restless at the family dinner that night. It wasn’t physical discomfort, but psychological.

Frankly, it was pretty great.

Later, he told me that all the ideas came to him the moment I got close to him. Beneath his seemingly innocent gaze, his mind was racing.

And his expression at that time was exactly the same as when he said “okay” to me just now.

Wait.

Wait! No, Liu Jiang, what are you thinking? We’re only sixteen! We can’t be thinking about this!

I forcefully corrected my straying thoughts and told myself that the Liu Jiang from twenty minutes ago wasn’t thinking about that either. It took me a while to get my mind back on track. When I came to, my pen was resting on my lower lip. I glanced at Liu Jiang as if casually, and he was actually awake on this sleep-inducing afternoon.

But he clearly wasn’t paying attention in class.

His school uniform was spread on his desk, his hands were under the desk, and his chin rested on the uniform-covered desktop, daydreaming in a way that was extremely bad for his neck.

What was he thinking about?

This wasn’t his usual relaxed, thoughtless state, nor the seemingly clear yet impure look from earlier. When Liu Jiang was expressionless, he looked a bit sadder than usual.

I blinked, and when I opened my eyes again, my gaze returned to the blackboard. I decided to ask him what he was thinking about more often in the future.

School ended at 5 pm. In those years, the Education Bureau was strict, and even first-year high school students weren’t allowed to have evening self-study. Walking in the late May breeze, I figured we were probably the most relaxed high school students in Liancheng in the past ten years.

Liu Jiang walked to my right. He went to buy an ice cream cone, and I refused, not wanting any of that cocoa butter substitute.

Watching him tear the ice cream wrapper in front of the trash can, I felt that he seemed paler than before and taller. His body hadn’t caught up with his rapid growth spurt, making him look thinner than before.

I said to him, out of the blue: “You should eat more in the future.”

He gestured at the ice cream cone with a bite taken out of the chocolate coating and replied: “I am eating!”

I was already familiar with the route from school to Liu Jiang’s house. I don’t know if it was because he had an ice cream cone in his mouth today, but he was unusually quiet along the way. By the time we reached the entrance of his alley, he had finished his ice cream a while ago, but he still hadn’t spoken to me.

Today, Liu Jiang opened the door with his own key. No one came to greet him. Looking past the entrance hall, I seemed to hear a commotion in the living room, like there were guests.

Who?

I was instinctively curious, but Liu Jiang led me towards the stairs in the opposite direction. Still, I glanced back.

Through the glass screen of the entrance hall, I saw a smiling face in profile. The person seemed to have noticed me too. When I looked at him, he immediately turned his head, a lingering smile on his lips.

It was Gu Tongyu.