Lu Ping kept his eyes straight ahead, slowly passing through the group of Timons.
He settled onto his throne (the butt cushion). Turning his head, he met Shen Yuze’s gaze.
Lu Ping: “…Hi?”
Shen Yuze said impassively: “Where did you go?”
Lu Ping was quite straightforward: “Oh, Meng Xuejie came looking for me just now.”
Shen Yuze: “What did she want with you?”
“You know, ‘that thing.'” Lu Ping winked at him. “She said she wanted to thank me and invite me to a meal.”
Shen Yuze’s fingers on his knee tightened slightly: “You agreed?”
“No, no! It was just a small favor; how could I accept?”
Only then did Shen Yuze relax.
That made sense—with Lu Ping’s personality, he wasn’t the type to exploit a favor.
Unexpectedly, Lu Ping continued: “But there is one thing I need to trouble Xuejie with…”
With that, he smugly unzipped his school jacket and sneakily pulled out two pink notebooks from inside.
“The seniors in Year 3 are reviewing and filling gaps this semester, sorting through Year 2 knowledge points, so Xuejie happened to have Year 2 notes!” Lu Ping said delightedly. “I can make up for the notes I missed last week!”
Meng Xin had good grades and neat notes. Flipping open the pink notebook, all the knowledge points were clearly organized, marked with different colored highlighters.
If not for Lu Ping “sacrificing” his butt, he absolutely couldn’t have borrowed such comprehensive notes!
“…” Shen Yuze looked at Lu Ping’s smug little expression and asked, “If you needed Friday’s notes, why didn’t you borrow mine?”
“Huh?”
Under Lu Ping’s surprised gaze, Shen Yuze opened his bag and took out a notebook.
He flipped it open.
There were four main subjects on Friday, from first to eighth period, all the notes neatly laid out. Written with iron brushstrokes like silver hooks, every stroke serious—the familiar handwriting was unmistakably Shen Yuze’s.
Lu Ping was so shocked his mouth hung open: “You took them?”
Shen Yuze replied stiffly: “No, the dog did.”
“……Do you know that you’re cursing yourself?”
“……”
Shen Yuze huffed. “Are you going to copy it or not?”
Lu Ping immediately wavered. Meng Xin’s notes were rare and hard to come by, but Shen Yuze’s were even more impossible to obtain. If he had to choose one…
Lu Ping: “I’ll still choose—”
Before he could say his answer, Shen Yuze casually reminded him, “By the way, have you thought about what the other classmates might wonder if they found out Meng Xin lent you her notes?”
Lu Ping did a complete one-eighty and exclaimed in an exaggerated singsong tone, “—definitely you! My good desk mate!”
Shen Yuze was icy cold. “Why did you hesitate just now?”
“……” Lu Ping buried his head in copying the notes, pretending to be deaf and blind. He absolutely couldn’t let Shen Yuze see his guilt!
……
Because Lu Ping’s butt was injured, he couldn’t go to the cafeteria during lunch break. The cafeteria was at the other end of the campus, and walking there and back was too torturous.
To take care of him, Lu Mom had gotten up early that morning to prepare meals for her son, packing them tightly into an insulated box. When Lu Ping took them out, the food was still hot, though the vegetables had wilted a bit from being kept in there too long.
What he didn’t expect was that Shen Yuze was also eating lunch at school that day. The driver had delivered it to the school gate, and then a teacher from the logistics department brought it over.
This was the privilege of the wealthy!
Lu Ping had already experienced the Shen Family chef’s excellent skills firsthand. When the three-layer food box was opened, the steaming aroma of the dishes instantly overwhelmed all his senses.
Shen Yuze proactively pushed his lunch toward the middle between them and even picked up some meat for him.
Lu Ping covered his own lunch box. “No need, no need. Look, my mom made me preserved vegetable rice.”
Shen Yuze: “Perfect then. I didn’t get enough of Auntie’s preserved vegetable rice last time. Give me some of yours, and I’ll give you some of mine.”
Lu Ping wasn’t stupid. How could he take advantage of Shen Yuze when he knew full well it was just pity?
Seeing him stand firm, Shen Yuze changed his approach. “The chef brought so much; I can’t finish it and will have to throw it away.”
This hook was too straightforward. Lu Ping knew it was bait, but he still scratched his head anxiously.
“No, no, no, I’ll eat it!” He had no choice—who made Lu Ping the son of hardworking and frugal working people? He’d grown up reciting “Till the mid-day’s scorching heat,” and waste was the greatest crime. He definitely couldn’t watch Shen Yuze dump such expensive meat and vegetables into the trash!
And so, Lu Ping happily ate until his belly was round. Not a single grain of rice went to waste.
He packed up his lunch box and, as he stood up, hooked his finger to quickly hide something in his pants pocket.
“Where are you going?” Shen Yuze asked.
“To the toilet.”
Shen Yuze raised an eyebrow. “I’ll go too.”
Lu Ping: “……Are you in elementary school? Do you need to hold hands and go to the toilet together?”
Unexpectedly, Shen Yuze really extended his hand toward him with a challenging expression that said, “I dare you to take it.”
Lu Ping……of course didn’t have skin that thick.
The two walked to the toilet one after the other.
All the classmates were in the cafeteria now, so the Teaching Building was empty. Only the echo of their footsteps resounded in the spacious hallway.
The boys’ toilet was at the end of the corridor, divided into an outer washing area and an inner toilet area. The inner area had a row of urinals and a row of stall cubicles.
The moment Lu Ping stepped into the toilet, he suddenly bolted toward a stall as if springs were under his feet.
He dashed into the innermost stall and reached back to close the door, but before it could shut, Shen Yuze’s foot wedged it open.
Lu Ping struck first. “Shen Yuze, what are you doing?”
“I should be asking you that,” Shen Yuze said. “Sneaking around just to use the toilet.”
“Where’s the sneaking?” Lu Ping feigned composure. “Get out; I need to drop a load.”
“Really?”
“What’s real or fake about that?”
Shen Yuze raised his hand and shook the tube of ointment in it. “Then what’s this?”
The ointment had the name printed on it—the very trauma salve prescribed by the hospital specifically for promoting the healing of Lu Ping’s fractured bone.
Lu Ping felt his pocket—empty as expected……
The doctor had told him to apply it three times a day: morning and evening at home, and noon by himself in a toilet stall. He hadn’t expected Shen Yuze’s eyes to be so sharp as to notice this.
Lu Ping tried to snatch back his medicine, but Shen Yuze reacted quickly. He pushed Lu Ping’s chest, making him stumble back a step. Seizing the moment, Shen Yuze decisively slipped into the stall.
Then.
The door shut and locked.
The cramped stall was meant for one person, but now it held two nearly adult boys, their shoulders pressed together, barely able to turn around.
Lu Ping: “!!!” He flushed with embarrassment. “What are you doing in here?”
“Helping you apply the medicine,” Shen Yuze said calmly. “It’s inconvenient for you alone.”
“I’m fine on my own.” Lu Ping recalled that day when Shen Yuze had helped him apply it, how he’d hidden under the blanket, blushing until he was short of oxygen…… Was he going to let Shen Yuze “help” him again? “I can walk now; applying medicine is no problem.”
“Really no problem?”
Lu Ping got annoyed. “How do you want me to prove it?”
“Hmm……” Shen Yuze thought seriously for a moment. “How about you apply it to yourself right in front of me?”
Lu Ping: “……”
Lu Ping: “…………”
Lu Ping exclaimed in shock: “…………..Shen Yuze, you’re such a pervert!”
Shen Yuze: “……”
Lu Ping didn’t even notice Shen Yuze’s probing. To him, Shen Yuze was just making that kind of edgy joke between guy friends—nothing to take to heart.
Actually, Lu Ping was pretty happy about it. Before, he hadn’t had a single friend in class; the other boys wouldn’t even talk to him or lend him their notes. Now he had Shen Yuze as a good friend who not only took special notes for him and ate lunch with him but even joked around like this! This was the pure male high school friendship he’d always dreamed of.
Sometimes Shen Yuze suspected that what Lu Ping had injured wasn’t his tailbone, but his head.
“……Forget it.” Shen Yuze decided to retreat for now. “Since you’re fine, I’ll go.”
He turned away from Lu Ping to pull open the stall door.
But—it wouldn’t open.
He twisted the handle again—still wouldn’t open.
He tried a third time—still stuck.
Seeing Shen Yuze fiddling with the door for ages without success, Lu Ping thought he was just trying to scare him and muttered impatiently, “Stop pretending.”
With that, Lu Ping reached out to pull the door too.
This time, Lu Ping successfully pulled it open—but not the door; he pulled off the door handle.
Shen Yuze: “……”
Lu Ping, holding the lone door handle: “……”
“……Lu Ping, do you have your phone?”
“……No.”
“……Neither do I.”
“So we’re trapped in the toilet?”
“Looks like it.”
Lunch break wouldn’t end for another hour, meaning they’d have to stay crammed in this tiny stall for an hour until other classmates came to the toilet, then call for help.
The question was—how were they going to explain to everyone why the two of them were stuck in the same stall?
