Gu Shiying wasn’t used to having his hand held by Fu Huan. The posture was too intimate, just too strange.
Fu Huan thought he was hurting him and made his movements even gentler. “Painful?”
Gu Shiying wrinkled his nose. “A little.”
Fu Huan: “Pain is good. Learn your lesson. You always stick your nose into everything.”
His application of the medicine was very swift. Immediately after, he naturally let go of Gu Shiying’s hand.
Gu Shiying stared at the red blotch on the back of his hand, feeling prickly all over, as if he’d grown thorns. He offered a makeshift defense. “We were just having barbecue, no one expected it to turn out like that. Who knew that guy would suddenly start swinging at someone.”
Fu Huan said nothing. Someone who would even help find a lost cat couldn’t just ignore a classmate in trouble. He couldn’t exactly accuse Gu Shiying of being a busybody. He just put a bit more force than necessary into tossing the iodine swab into the trash, the swab nearly bouncing back out.
Gu Shiying hesitated for a moment, then said, “But still, thanks. You helped me out again today.”
Fu Huan nodded. “Mm. So you owe me another meal.”
Gu Shiying: “How about I treat you to a meal tomorrow?” The sooner I settle the meal debt, the sooner this ill-fated entanglement ends.
Before Fu Huan could decide, a howl of pain came from inside the room. Yang Shuheng seemed to have recovered slightly.
Yang Shuheng: “Yingying! Do you have any medicated oil or dit da jow? It hurts so much!”
“I think I do. Let me find it for you.” Gu Shiying turned and went back inside, escaping the suffocating atmosphere of standing with Fu Huan.
Fu Huan pulled a cigarette from his pocket and lit it. He stared at the flickering ember, his expression obscure and unreadable.
Gu Shiying found the dit da jow for Yang Shuheng, who had taken several punches. But his right hand was sore and he couldn’t use much force, and his left hand had just been treated. The difficult task of applying the ointment was left to Guan Yu, who had been watching the excitement for a while.
Yang Shuheng was not one to keep things bottled up. He told Guan Yu everything that happened tonight.
Now, the entire dorm knew that Yang Shuheng had likely been played by his bandmates.
Guan Yu looked at him in shock. “You’re only just realizing they needed your money, not you?”
Yang Shuheng: “But they were my brothers! Between brothers, you shouldn’t be so calculating. Besides, I never felt that spending that money on meals was a big deal.”
Guan Yu applied pressure right on the spot where he’d been hit. “I really want to hate you for being rich right now.”
Gu Shiying wanted to hate him for it too.
No wonder Yang Shuheng could study music. This was a major an ordinary family couldn’t afford.
Tonight, Yang Shuheng was not only injured but also emotionally wounded. Everyone stayed up chatting with him until 1 a.m. Gu Shiying really couldn’t hold on anymore. He was crying non-stop from yawning so hard.
Fu Huan also hadn’t slept. He leaned against his pillow, playing on his phone, and saw Gu Shiying on the opposite bed, desperate to sleep but still trying to be considerate of Yang Shuheng’s feelings, his eyelids heavy.
“Everyone, let’s sleep first. We can talk about things tomorrow.”
Gu Shiying immediately seized the opportunity to step down. “Yeah, A-Heng, tomorrow our entire dorm will back you up. Those guys aren’t worthy of being called your brothers!”
Yang Shuheng was deeply moved. “You’re the best, Ying’er. Can I sleep with you tonight?”
Fu Huan’s phone slapped against his bed with enough noise to be heard by everyone else. But nobody paid any attention.
Thankfully, Gu Shiying wasn’t the type to share a bed. He refused immediately. “Too hot. No way.”
Yang Shuheng said dejectedly, “Fine.”
The next day.
Gu Shiying slept until he woke up naturally.
He thought he’d gotten up early, but when he got out of bed, he found everyone else was already up. He was the latest one awake. Checking the time, it was only ten in the morning.
After washing up, he came out and found breakfast already on his desk. He glanced around, not sure who’d bought it.
Yang Shuheng told him, “Hurry up and eat, my treat.”
Gu Shiying: “Thanks.”
Gu Shiying’s brain hadn’t started spinning yet since he’d just woken up. He took the initiative to transfer the breakfast money to Yang Shuheng, but Yang Shuheng didn’t accept it.
Yang Shuheng said in a cooing voice, “Babe, I’m treating you to breakfast. No need to pay me.”
Gu Shiying: “One thing’s one thing, the other’s another.”
Yang Shuheng knew he wasn’t the same as his former bandmates and didn’t say anything more. He made a mental note to buy them gifts once his situation was resolved.
Liang Qi arrived just as Gu Shiying finished breakfast.
He usually came to find Fu Huan. Everyone knew who he was, but they hadn’t interacted much.
The first thing he said upon entering dropped a bombshell. “Little Hengheng, your situation has blown up.”
“Who’s Little Hengheng? Call me A-Heng, thanks.” Yang Shuheng’s face immediately crumpled as he looked at the others. “What do I do? They’ve really kicked me out of the band.”
Guan Yu: “Life is unpredictable. Just last week they were calling you brother. Why so sudden?”
Gu Shiying had been mentally prepared, but even he hadn’t expected things to progress so quickly.
“What did I miss?”
Yang Shuheng shared their chat logs. After reading through them, Gu Shiying realized these people had planned this long ago. But why hadn’t he been able to read any malice from the other three towards Yang Shuheng? Was it that at the time he tried to read their thoughts, their malice towards Yang Shuheng wasn’t strong enough?
Yang Shuheng said, utterly despondent, “A video of our fight yesterday was uploaded online. The fans in the group chat started making a fuss. Brother Si De directly posted a video saying he was expelling me from the band.”
Gu Shiying clicked his tongue internally. Tch. This gave Brother Stone the perfect excuse to push Yang Shuheng out.
Guan Yu was relatively calm. “A-Heng, what’s your desired outcome?”
Yang Shuheng was a walking, talking bitter melon right now. For the first time in his smooth-sailing life, he’d encountered scheming and betrayal. His so-called “brothers,” all for petty gain, had turned around and backstabbed him. But his mind was still fairly clear.
Yang Shuheng gritted his teeth. “Of course, I’ll settle accounts with them. I want them to cough up all the money they spent of mine, all the performance fees they owe me!”
He could treat friends to meals and hangouts, but he couldn’t just let this slide.
Guan Yu summoned the gravitas of a law student, opening his laptop. “Then let’s gather evidence. We’ll pull up all your food and drink receipts, list all the performances, the amounts you received each time. And check your chat histories, see if there’s any clear mention of how profits were split.”
Gu Shiying: “They saw you’re a student who hasn’t faced the world’s harshness. They played mind games, thinking you’re easy to bully. In that case, we either stay silent, or we make a resounding impact.”
Yang Shuheng: “Okay, thanks, Ying’er, Old Guan, and Brother Huan, Brother Liang. Without you guys, I wouldn’t even know what to do.”
Liang Qi put away his usual easy smile. “Wait until this is handled before you thank us. For now, let’s start gathering evidence.”
This band had some minor fame in the scene. According to Yang Shuheng, Brother Stone was already in talks with a management company and preparing to release an album, breaking into the entertainment industry. It was very clear: his bandmates, for one reason or another, had no intention of bringing Yang Shuheng along for the ride.
Through this ordeal, Gu Shiying realized his mind-reading ability seemed to capture a person’s strongest wish in that moment. Otherwise, why wouldn’t he have heard the others’ hidden malice towards Yang Shuheng? Perhaps at that time, those thoughts simply weren’t at the forefront.
The task of gathering evidence was still primarily Yang Shuheng’s own responsibility. Guan Yu helped him organize it and guided him on how to structure it. With this evidence, they could face the current situation.
As for the fight video, Gu Shiying saved a copy of it himself before reporting it.
The surveillance footage from the barbecue shop was blurry and didn’t show faces clearly. Gu Shiying, Yang Shuheng, and the others were barely identifiable. But the footage actually caught a clear shot of Brother Stone’s face. It was obvious he must have planned this; maybe he’d even gone back to ask the owner for the footage. He’d likely returned to the shop after they’d left.
It was just a pity Gu Shiying still couldn’t tell Yang Shuheng that the mastermind behind all this was most likely Brother Stone. There was simply no way to explain it.
The process of finding evidence wasn’t smooth. Yang Shuheng had switched phones twice in between. He had to dig out his old phones to check chat logs.
His things weren’t sorted neatly either; they were a complete mess. Gu Shiying had to search alongside him.
Yang Shuheng’s stuff was stored in two boxes. He rummaged through one, Gu Shiying through the other.
The moment Gu Shiying opened the box, dust billowed out. He covered his nose and sneezed. “You really have a lot of stuff.”
Although they shared a dorm, he’d never realized he’d bought so much: all sorts of music discs, anime merchandise, unopened blind boxes, clothes, etc.
Yang Shuheng: “This is nothing. I shipped two boxes home last winter.”
Liang Qi stood to the side. “You didn’t ship the phones home, did you?”
Yang Shuheng: “No way. If my mom found my phones, I’d be dead.”
Liang Qi: “What’s on your phones?”
Yang Shuheng: “Can’t tell you that.”
At that moment, Gu Shiying fished out a plushie so dirty it was impossible to tell its original color and set it aside. Looking up, a pair of sneakers appeared in his line of sight.
Fu Huan crouched down on the other side of the cardboard box. “I’ll help look. It’ll be faster.”
“Mm.” Gu Shiying had no reason to refuse. The young master Yang had bought far too many bits and bobs.
“Wear a mask.” Fu Huan opened a fresh mask and handed it to Gu Shiying.
Gu Shiying glanced at his own dirty hands.
Fu Huan: “Never mind, let me.”
He had long arms. He didn’t even need Gu Shiying to lean in. He just extended his hand and hooked the two straps behind Gu Shiying’s ears.
“It’s fi—” Gu Shiying wanted to dodge but couldn’t.
His heart sank with despair. Here come Fu Huan’s inner thoughts again.
【Lips that just drank soy milk. Wonder what they taste like.】
“…” Startled, Gu Shiying jerked backward and plopped straight onto the floor.
Now he was angry, frustrated, and feeling utterly helpless.
Fu Huan, you’re really going too far!
Fu Huan, assuming his legs had gone numb from crouching too long, calmly pulled over Gu Shiying’s chair. “Are you uncoordinated or something? Sit on the chair and search.”
Gu Shiying bit his lip. “You’re the one who’s uncoordinated.” What he really wanted to do was smack Fu Huan in the face with the notebook in his hand.
If his mind weren’t full of such messy thoughts, would he have been scared right onto the floor?
He briefly considered swapping with Liang Qi, but everyone was busy with their tasks. In the end, he had to endure it.
Gu Shiying just sped up his search for the phone, not daring to look up at Fu Huan the entire time. The mask might as well have been welded to his face!
Finally, he found a phone.
Fu Huan’s hand and Gu Shiying’s hand reached for it simultaneously. Inevitably, their hands touched.
He looked up at Fu Huan and quickly let go, but it was too late.
【Gu Shiying’s eyes, like they’re hiding stars. Want to kiss.】
Gu Shiying: “…”
I’ll gouge my own eyes out right this instant.
