The two-day Sports Meet had wrapped up, but Shang Xi was still relishing the excitement.
The sight of a flock of snakes and birds flopping awkwardly through the swimming events was utterly fantastical, but the atmosphere on site had been electric, absolutely lit.
And then there was the Flight Speed Race… It had him itching to leap into the air and zip around wildly himself.
The two professors soon received their preliminary data reports and were visibly surprised.
They reported the findings to the leadership and reached out together to the neighboring regular high school, aiming to broaden the scope of their experiments.
That friendly school next door happened to be hosting an arts festival, complete with a school anniversary gala performance. Shang Xi would blend into the lineup and sing a song.
Little Nightingale himself was feeling a touch nervous.
He’d arrived early, running through rehearsals and practicing over and over, fretting that he might not perform well enough.
Professor Rong made a special trip to accompany him on the piano, keeping things relaxed.
“Just pretend you’re belting it out at karaoke. It’s not about nailing every note perfectly—it’s about enjoying the process and letting the joy sink in.”
“Got it! I’ll give it my all!”
Fu Congxiao stirred from a deep sleep, slithering lazily back from the tree trunk into his blanket to shift back into human form. He found the dorm quiet once more.
There was a new message waiting on WeChat.
[Xi]: Senior Brother, headed to the school next door for a performance! Back tonight!
Fu Congxiao checked the time.
It was 7:30 in the morning.
He washed up and changed on his own, easing into the new day.
But it meant breakfast alone, classes alone, a whole day to himself.
Usually, these hours came with a hyper little shadow bouncing around him, chattering nonstop.
9:10 a.m.
[Short Xiao]: Where’s Shang Xi performing? Got a friend who wants to check it out.
[An Ming]: ?
[An Ming]: How’d you shrink?
[Short Xiao]: ?
[An Ming]: Neighboring Experimental Middle School, but showtime’s at 4 p.m.
[An Ming]: Gate curfew’s still on this early. Tell your friend to pipe down and hit the books.
[An Ming]: Craving that rush? Down a Red Bull—same vibe.
[Short Xiao]: Roger.
The morning dragged on with back-to-back integrated science classes.
Fu Congxiao half-listened, twirling his pen what felt like eight hundred times.
Drifting off, he reflected that Shang Xi had always been the clingy one.
Tagging along everywhere, doom-scrolling Weibo and short videos, hauling over every trivial tidbit with eager babble.
Shang Xi’s clinginess had once made Fu Congxiao wonder if, being the first person this dummy saw after transforming, some kind of imprint had formed between them.
Fed up, he’d asked point-blank.
Shang Xi had blinked. “Oh, the imprint? My parents loved how attached I got to them.”
“Once it’s there, family bonds go into overdrive. I call them all the time.”
Fu Congxiao: “…? You’re the one glued to me.”
Shang Xi: “You ain’t seen clingy till you’ve seen me.”
Fu Congxiao: “Then what’s our story?”
Shang Xi had laughed. “Purely me being a motormouth who slacks off in class.”
The guy had gone quiet for ages after that.
These days, Fu Congxiao felt like he’d been the one conditioned with all these extra habits.
The teen shrugged it off and stashed his clothes and blanket in the wall cavity ahead of time.
At three in the afternoon, Fu Congxiao slipped into the Ecological Zone right on schedule. Moments later, dodging infrared sensors and panoramic cameras with ease, he reached a surveillance blind spot.
Little Snake snatched up the clothes, shifted to human form, vaulted the wall in fluid strides, and landed nimbly beyond the school grounds.
The taxi driver was idling at a red light when he caught a glimpse of a young man launching from the two-meter wall next door. With impossible agility, the kid flipped midair, tapped off the wall, and stuck the landing smooth as silk.
The driver nearly stomped the gas.
Kids skipping school went this hard these days?! Scaling a wall that high raw?!
The young man locked eyes on him and strode right over to hail the cab.
“San Zhong.”
The driver gawked, then peeled out toward the destination.
He held his tongue at first, but curiosity won out.
“You… ditching class?”
“Yep.”
“Ditching to crash classes next door?”
The teen lounged against the window, musing for a beat. “To hear the guy I like sing.”
The driver let out a nervous chuckle. “She must be a knockout. If I were your age, I’d pull the same stunt.”
“Boy.” The teen drawled lazily. “Talks in his sleep at midnight, nods off in class, chatty as a sparrow.”
The driver choked on spit, hacking away.
Should’ve kept my trap shut! Professionalism? What professionalism?!
At drop-off, one forgot the fare, the other forgot to collect—and they rolled on.
Fu Congxiao, in street clothes, stuck out as no San Zhong kid.
He looped half the perimeter, scoped a quiet stretch, and flipped inside.
Ever since awakening, most security setups might as well not exist for him.
His heat nest sensing allowed him to gauge the number of people and their threat levels through walls, and his stamina and explosive power were more than enough to handle a group brawl.
San Zhong was hosting its arts festival.
Some students were laughing and chatting as they set up stalls along the street, while faint strains of singing drifted over from the sports field in the distance.
Fu Congxiao had a lousy sense of direction and no clue where Shang Xi might be.
He wove through the sea of people, yet went completely unnoticed, as if he’d erased his presence entirely.
He chuckled to himself as he walked.
Skipping class—not to hit the internet, but to trek all this way just for one song. What an idiot.
The crowd surged north, but he pushed south, trailing a faint, almost undetectable pheromone scent toward an unfamiliar auditorium.
It wasn’t time yet. The auditorium lay in dim shadow, lit only by a pool of light in one corner of the stage.
Professor Rong sat at the piano, tapping the rhythm as she accompanied the young man in song.
He smiled brightly, still tinged with shy nervousness, but his voice flowed like a mountain spring in spring—each word crystalline and enchanting.
“When you see me, your gaze drifting past sunset and streams, when the breeze tugs at the second button of your school uniform.”
“Spring daylight shimmering in fizzy water, migratory birds wheeling through the clouds—”
Fu Congxiao watched from the dress rehearsal straight through to the end of Shang Xi’s performance, then slipped away without a sound.
Since awakening, his eyesight had been poor, and he’d picked a seat far back in the rows.
The figure on stage was a hazy, slender silhouette. At 176 centimeters, diminished by distance and shadows, he looked like a little cookie.
Fu Congxiao simply watched him with a smile, his mind blissfully blank.
Shang Xi rarely ventured off campus. After the show, he grabbed hotpot with a bunch of professors, then headed back to the dorm clutching a caramel pudding, the sweet aroma of tomato broth clinging to his clothes.
“Senior Brother! I was gone all day, and you didn’t even text me!”
Fu Congxiao was working on homework. After a moment, he replied, “Busy with experiments.”
“Did you miss me?” Little Nightingale set the pudding by his hand, beaming. “I had a blast performing today. Hope everyone nails their exams tomorrow.”
Fu Congxiao stifled a laugh. “The school next door sure knows how to sweeten the deal—arts festival today, pop quiz tomorrow?”
Shang Xi shrugged. “A little sugar before the slap.”
That said, when the scores came in, every class averaged five to ten points higher than expected.
The surprise exam was a joint test across eight Hangzhou schools. With tougher papers than usual, the other schools’ averages dipped slightly, but San Zhong bucked the trend with actual gains.
The experiment had plenty of confounding variables—Shang Xi’s singing wasn’t some magic elixir—but it was enough to validate and refine their research direction.
Emboldened, Little Nightingale breezed through finals prep.
Shang Xi had weak spots across the board—not just physics and chemistry to cram, but flight training too.
Fu Congxiao spent most days holed up in the Laboratory Building. One afternoon, something jogged his memory, and he showed up after class with a crepe in hand.
Little Nightingale rubbed his sore shoulders as he emerged from the training field. Spotting Fu Congxiao amid a cluster of Feather Descendant students, he hurried over.
“Senior Brother—”
He snatched the crepe and took a huge bite.
“Kiwi, and it’s not even sour. This is yummy too.”
They strolled back to the dorm together. Fu Congxiao said, “Summer break’s just a week away.”
“Yeah, it’s been forever since I went home,” Shang Xi replied. “I planned to head back this weekend, but my parents are worried my Transformation isn’t stable yet. They keep pushing me to stick around campus.”
Fu Congxiao added quietly, “Guess we won’t see each other for two months, then.”
“Who knows?” Shang Xi said airily. “I haven’t checked out Hangzhou Downtown yet. I could come visit you over break.”
Moments ago, the boy had seemed a touch glum; now he finally met his eyes.
“Though I kinda want to hit Sanya too,” Little Nightingale perked up. “I’ll bug my parents about taking some vacation time. I wanna devour some massive crabs!”
Fu Congxiao merely watched him, methodically quashing every stray thought that bubbled up.
“Speaking of,” Shang Xi said, waving his half-eaten crepe with a grin, “you actually came to walk me back—and it’s totally out of your way.”
“Had a meeting in the building next door.”
“Oh, so the office building sells these now.” Shang Xi nodded. “I was gonna suggest we grab dinner together on finals day before splitting up. But you seem pretty comfy solo, Senior Brother. I won’t cramp your style.”
Fu Congxiao regarded him in silence.
“What?” Shang Xi prompted. “I’m dense, okay? No clue what you’re trying to say.”
Fu Congxiao turned his head and kept walking.
Little Nightingale pulled out his phone to check high-speed rail tickets home.
They traversed the entire 109th Street before Fu Congxiao finally spoke. “What’re we having for dinner on finals day?”
Shang Xi didn’t look up. “Too late. Tickets are booked—I’m heading straight home after.”
Fu Congxiao fell quiet once more.
Instead, the youth was feeling a bit mischievous. He gazed at him with a soft smile.
“I’m so unhappy. After the exam, I’ll have to eat alone.”
Fu Congxiao reached out and hooked an arm around Shang Xi’s neck, pulling him straight into his embrace.
Shang Xi: !!!
He was a head shorter than his senior brother and now found himself completely trapped in the hug, like a snake’s tail coiled around him, with no way to escape.
“Hey! If you’ve got something to say, just say it!”
“What if I decide to act shameless?” Fu Congxiao drawled leisurely. “Don’t you like playing dumb? Well, I like it too.”
“Isn’t it just that you want me to buy you dinner?” Shang Xi tried to play off his bristling reaction. “Can’t you be a little gentler and more straightforward? Say something like, ‘My smart, cute, and sensible little junior brother, summer break is almost here—let’s grab a meal together.'”
“Oh.”
Fu Congxiao didn’t take the bait or loosen his hold. He just kept walking toward the dorm building, arm still around him.
It looked like the usual roughhousing between students—nothing a teacher would bat an eye at. In reality, though, that single arm had him pinned close, their breaths brushing each other’s ears.
Shang Xi had never been held like this before. He struggled a couple of times, then went limp.
“Senior Brother, I won’t joke around anymore…”
“And?”
“After finals are over, let’s eat together…”
“Then?”
“I’ll treat you… to whatever you want…”
Fu Congxiao halted mid-step. When he looked down, the tip of his nose nearly brushed Shang Xi’s cheek.
“Say, ‘Thank you, Senior Brother, for taking care of me.'”
Shang Xi thought, Is this what you call taking care of me? Who drags someone along like this? Anyone who doesn’t know us would think we’re about to kiss!
He was still inwardly griping when the embrace tightened just a fraction more.
Fine, Fu Congxiao, you win. You’re just like a snake—if you’re not happy, you love tying me up like this, arm acting like a tail, you bastard.
Outwardly, though, he nodded obediently, his voice coming out sweet and compliant.
“I like Senior Brother the most! Thank you, Senior Brother, for taking care of me!”
Fu Congxiao knew exactly what was running through his head. He simply released his arm and said, “Alright, you’re free.”
Shang Xi stood there quietly for two seconds.
Actually, being held like that was pretty warm.
