MW CH3

Chapter 3: A Label Called “Other”

The realization that I only liked men came to me in high school, and the process was as simple as it was blunt—I found myself more drawn to the soccer boys sprinting across the field than to the girls in short skirts doing calisthenics.

In that moment, I knew I was gay.

Accepting my own difference was easy. The hard part was getting others to accept it too.

In my sophomore year, a girl confessed to me. I’d always turned them down outright before, but that time, I suddenly felt fed up.

Pretending to be someone else, hiding who I was—it was exhausting.

“I like men,” I said, laying my orientation bare for once and for all.

The news spread through the school like wildfire, even reaching the principal. He summoned Bai Qifeng, my father, and with an apologetic smile suggested I might be spouting nonsense to get attention—typical rebellious teenage behavior at sixteen or seventeen. He hoped Bai Qifeng could take me home, talk it out, and listen to what was really on my mind.

Back then, Bai Qifeng wasn’t as high-ranking as he is now, but he was still a semi-big shot in Haicheng. Having his son shamelessly proclaim himself gay and getting called into school over it was a humiliation he couldn’t bear. He didn’t even wait until we were alone—right there in the office, his face darkened, and he slapped me hard across the face.

He was genuinely furious, holding nothing back. My head jerked to the side, ears ringing, cheek burning. My lip split against my teeth, drawing blood.

“Disgraceful little wretch!” He jabbed a finger at me. “What the hell did your mother teach you? Huh? Did she just dump you on your grandma to go shave her head and worship Buddha?”

I wiped the blood from my lip and listened to him rant in silence.

“If I’d known you’d turn out like this, I never would’ve let your mother have you!”

The principal jumped in, flustered. “Calm down, Director Bai, calm down. Let’s talk this out. He’s just a kid—doesn’t know better. No need to get physical.”

I stared at Bai Qifeng across from me, my voice steady and cutting. “I might’ve been young when you and Mom divorced, but I’m not amnesiac. You never fought for custody—don’t talk about ‘letting’ her have me. And who drove Mom to become a nun? You did.”

The story of Jiang Xuehan and Bai Qifeng—I lived through the second half and heard the first from my grandma.

It’s a cliché tale of a rich girl and a scheming nobody.

The rich girl fell hard, defying her family to marry a penniless man. At first, when the nobody needed his in-laws’ help, everything was fine—he doted on his wife. But once he made it big and climbed onto a higher branch, he kicked the rich girl to the curb.

She begged him to stay, to no avail. When she learned he’d not only latched onto someone new but had become a kept man—and that his new “branch” was pregnant—she gave up. Heartbroken, she left her young child with her aging mother and renounced the world to become a nun.

In my grandma’s words, Bai Qifeng only married my mom for her family’s status. He never loved her—just used her.

“You’ve got the nerve to talk back? Who’s the disgrace now? What’s between me and your mom is none of your business!” Bai Qifeng, humiliated in front of an outsider, grew even angrier, lunging past the principal to hit me again.

“No, no, don’t hit him! Everyone, calm down!” The principal wedged himself between us, sweat beading on his balding forehead.

I tugged at the corner of my mouth, smirking coldly. “Fine, I’ll go with you now. Take me home.”

Bai Qifeng froze, a flicker of embarrassment in his eyes—he’d been seen through. We both knew he couldn’t take me home. His wife wouldn’t allow it, and her father would object even more.

After a tense moment, he lowered his hand, straightened his collar, and looked away first.

“You say that like it’s easy. If I took you home, what about your grandma, all alone?” Even now, he clung to his pride, acting like he wanted to take me but couldn’t bear leaving my grandma lonely.

Say what you will, he was a master at painting himself as the innocent party.

That day, Bai Qifeng drove me home in silence. When we reached the apartment complex, I opened the door to get out, but he suddenly called after me from behind.

He asked if I’d done this because I hated him, if it was revenge to make sure he had no heir.

He and his second wife had a daughter, but she didn’t take his surname.

Men like Bai Qifeng have this bizarre obsession with kids carrying their family name. If they don’t, even with his blood in their veins, they’re “someone else’s child” in his eyes.

This guy—my grandma said my mom fell for his refined, gentlemanly charm back in the day. What a joke.

“No, I’m not trying to spite you…” I stepped out but didn’t close the door right away. One hand on the door, the other on the roof, I leaned down to look at the man inside, smiling. “Your line ending here is just your karma.”

His face, which had just started to soften, turned black as coal, the muscles at his temples twitching. “You—”

I slammed the door shut before he could finish and bolted.

When it came to coming out, I’d inherited Bai Qifeng’s knack for “as long as I’m happy, screw everyone else.” The Yan family, my grandma, even Jiang Xuehan cloistered in Jizhu Temple—I told them all, no exceptions.

Yan Chuwen’s mom, Chen Wan—whom I called Aunt Wan—was my mom’s lifelong best friend. When Jiang Xuehan was betrayed and left broken, retreating to a nunnery, Aunt Wan tried to talk her out of it, scolded her, but nothing worked. She took pity on me, a kid abandoned by both parents, and often invited me to family events, offering the maternal care I lacked.

Aunt Wan was always lenient with me, her half-son. So while my coming out shook their household a bit, she kept things under control, and they accepted it well enough.

My grandma came from a prominent family and had a Western education in her youth. Her only regret was raising my mom into a lovesick fool. She was open-minded but still startled by my revelation. She didn’t yell, though—just blamed the adults, cried her eyes out, cursed Bai Qifeng and Jiang Xuehan in turn, gave me the silent treatment for a week, then gradually came around.

Jiang Xuehan stayed behind closed temple doors, focused on her practice. I don’t even know if she got my message.

After coming out, my life didn’t change much. The people I cared about didn’t mind my orientation, and the ones who did, I didn’t care about. If I didn’t care, they couldn’t hurt me. Plus, with the pressure of junior year ramping up, I threw myself into studying for exams and had no time for anything else. The cold stares and pain from coming out slipped by me unnoticed.

Winter turned to summer, and Yan Chuwen and I got into the same university—him in the law school, me in the art school. Our dorms weren’t in the same building, but they weren’t far—just across a street.

I remember it was the second week of freshman year. Things were settling into routine, and I hadn’t seen Yan Chuwen in a while, so I texted him and headed to his dorm for lunch.

We’d been childhood friends, always close, though senior year’s grind had kept us out of touch for a bit.

The hallway was dim, and their dorm door was ajar. It was quiet inside—no sound at all.

Yan Chuwen had mentioned he’d been assigned a double with just one roommate, someone who wasn’t chatty. I’d assumed it’d be another Yan Chuwen—glasses, skinny, bookish, always muttering about research.

Never imagined he’d be nothing like that—no glasses, not frail, and… not a nerd at all.

It was September. The worst of the heat had faded, the sun dipping west, but the capital still clung to some of summer’s restless humidity. A pale-skinned少年 with ink-black hair and striking, vivid features wore a white shirt buttoned to the top. With a face that screamed troublemaker, he somehow gave off an aloof, ascetic vibe.

Dressed so tightly—wasn’t he hot?

Just as I thought that, he heard me, set down the book he’d been holding, and looked up.

“…Who’re you looking for?” As he turned, I noticed a lapis lazuli stud in his left earlobe.

“I’m here for Yan Chuwen. I’m his friend.” Scanning the room and not seeing him, I stepped inside and flashed the少年 a friendly smile. “And you are?”

Hearing I was Yan Chuwen’s friend, his guarded expression eased. “He’s getting water. I’m his roommate…” He paused. “You can call me Mochuan.”

I later learned his wariness came from mistaking me for one of those law school types who’d pester him with flimsy excuses.

No wall is airtight. Though he never brought it up, word got out that he was the next Yan Guan of the Cenglu. With his looks on top of that, since the semester started, people kept knocking on their door—asking for his number, treating him like a life coach, or even wanting to study him like a specimen.

I don’t know if it bugged him, but it sure annoyed Yan Chuwen. Little Yan took it straight to the department head, complaining that his rest was disrupted and his minority classmate’s privacy was at risk, demanding a solution.

The department head took it seriously, held a meeting with the class advisors that day, and only then did they get some peace.

“I’m Bai Yin.” I extended my hand, asking the question most people probably did when they first saw him. “Are you mixed?”

Say what you will, that perfect T-zone brow ridge wasn’t something a typical Xia person could claim.

He stared at my hand for a long moment, not answering or moving.

Following his gaze, I realized and flipped my palm up. “Oh, this isn’t a cut. It’s a scar from when I fell as a kid.”

My right hand has a vivid red scar running from the base to the center of my palm. I don’t remember exactly, but it was probably from a tumble when I was four or five. Once it healed, it looked like a fresh wound at a glance.

“No, I’m Cenglu,” he said, reaching out. His cool fingers brushed mine briefly before letting go.

I nodded. “That explains it.”

After that, I straddled Yan Chuwen’s chair to wait, while Mochuan sat back down to read. The room fell quiet again.

Yan Chuwen was right—his roommate really didn’t talk much.

Bored, I fiddled with my phone, occasionally glancing at the少年’s back.

Cenglu… the ones from Shannan, right? I think I went there with Yan Chuwen’s family once. Remote, backward, pretty savage, if I recall—and yet, they produced a college student…

A pair of pained, fierce eyes flashed in my mind. Years had passed, and I’d forgotten what that少年 from back then looked like, only that it was a beautiful face. Staring at Mochuan’s broad shoulders and the pale nape exposed as he bent over his book, I thought, Maybe as beautiful as this one.

Suddenly, my phone buzzed, the ringtone yanking me back to reality.

“Hello?”

A cute male voice came through. “Where are you? I’m done with class—wanna grab lunch together?”

“I’m at my friend’s dorm. I already said I’d eat with him later.” I glanced at Mochuan, still engrossed in his book, unbothered, so I didn’t bother lowering my voice.

“Which friend? From our school?”

I hummed a quiet “yeah.”

“Can I come too?” he asked tentatively.

I didn’t mind, but I had to check with Yan Chuwen first. “I’ll ask and let you know.”

“Sweet!” He dropped his voice, making a “muah” sound. “Love you~”

Honestly, I’d long forgotten his name or face—just that he had a baby face. We met during freshman orientation; he’d boldly approached, asking if I was single and wanted to date.

Back then, Bai Qifeng was driving me up the wall, and in a fit of defiance, I said yes. But it didn’t last—barely three months before we split. He broke it off, saying I couldn’t give him security.

After hanging up, the room was silent except for the soft rustle of pages turning.

On a whim, I leaned over the chair back and blurted, “Mochuan, wanna join us for lunch?”

One more or two more—what’s the difference?

The page-turning stopped. Mochuan turned slightly, a flicker of surprise on his face. But it vanished quickly, replaced by a polite, distant smile.

“Thanks, but no. You guys go ahead.”

Worried he thought I was just being courteous, I pressed. “Come on, it’s just a casual meal.”

“Really, no need.”

Seeing he genuinely didn’t want to, I gave up. “Alright, next time then.”

Just then, Yan Chuwen walked in with a kettle.

“You’re here early? I was about to call you,” he said, setting the kettle under the windowsill. “Let’s eat across from the west gate—that place has good twice-cooked pork.”

I stood. “Mind if someone else joins us later?”

“Who?”

“My boyfriend.”

Yan Chuwen’s jaw dropped. “It’s only been two weeks since school started, and you’ve got a boyfriend?”

I raised an eyebrow. “What’s wrong? Does our school ban freshmen from dating?”

“Not exactly, but you’re moving fast,” he said, flustered. “I’m not prepared… You could’ve told me a day earlier—I’d have gotten a welcome gift or something.”

I stepped over, hooked an arm around his neck, and laughed. “It’s just lunch, you dork. A gift? Should I send you a formal invite next time?”

He adjusted his crooked glasses. “That’d be ideal.”

We headed out, chatting and laughing. Near the door, Yan Chuwen paused, as if remembering something.

“Mochuan, wanna come eat with us?”

“I—” I started to say I’d already asked, but my eyes flicked sideways and met Mochuan’s cool gaze.

Our eyes locked unexpectedly—less than a second before he looked away—but I caught something familiar in his expression.

It wasn’t the casual once-over from before. This was a subtle scrutiny, measured by some strict, personal standard known only to him. In an instant, he sorted me out, slapped a label on me.

“No thanks,” he said to Yan Chuwen with a smile. “It wouldn’t be right.”

That label was called “other.”