Bite Your Fingertips

27th -【Are you hungry】

When Chu Yu entered the classroom, even Li Hua hadn’t arrived yet and most of the seats were still empty.

Zhang Yueshan was memorizing classical Chinese and inadvertently saw Chu Yu coming through the classroom door. He rubbed his eyes and thought out loud, “Holy shit, did I do so many questions last night that I’m hallucinating this early in the morning?”

Chu Yu slept late last night, but he was still in good spirits. He spread his five fingers and waved his hand in front of Zhang Yueshan’s eyes. “Three, two, one— and Class Rep’s soul is back!”

Zhang Yueshan played along and feigned falling backwards, then he turned around and watched Chu Yu place his heavy school bag on his desk. “Weird, how strange. School Flower, why are you so early today?”

“Because, starting from today, I’m going to be a studious student!”

With that said, Chu Yu first took out some wet wipes with which he wiped the desk all the way through, and once finished, he wiped it again with tissues. Next, he took out a handful of brand-new pens sporting various colors from his school bag and arranged them in order from longest to shortest.

His backpack was like a treasure chest. Successively, Chu Yu pulled out a set square, an eraser, pencils, a pencil sharpener, highlighters, printed scratch papers, notebooks, post-it notes, and even binoculars from it!

Zhang Yueshan pointed to the pile of stationery. “What are these?”

“Preparations for an efficient study! Neat, right? This draft paper alone took me 20 minutes to pick! There’s a sentence commonly quoted in essays, isn’t it that opportunities only favor those who are prepared? Now that I’m this well prepared, opportunities will definitely favor me!”

Thinking it was reasonable, Zhang Yueshan moved his finger and pointed to the binoculars. “Then… this is?”

“Aren’t I sitting at the back? What if I can’t see the small prints on the teacher’s ppt? I absolutely can’t miss any details or chances of gaining knowledge, so I prepared these binoculars!”

Zhang Yueshan’s mind tasted these foreign words and thought it made sense!

But who the hell uses binoculars in class; are you having class in a sports field?

Or, do you actually want to see the mole under the corner of Old Ye’s eye?

School Flower has some amazing ideas!

What kind of skill is this!

Lu Shi came late today. Chu Yu waited left and right before he arrived.

Taking out a blue Doraemon-printed thermos cup, Chu Yu handed it to Lu Shi. “Today’s chicken soup!”

The top three buttons of Lu Shi’s white uniform shirt weren’t fastened, faintly revealing the lines of his collarbone. His face was cold and the area between his brows was pressed down a bit in irritation. He didn’t speak.

After taking the thermos cup that was handed over, he put down his black school bag hanging off his shoulder, lay down on the desk, and closed his eyes to sleep.

Seeing Lu Shi’s slightly tensed brows, Chu Yu was worried. “Lu Shi, you… didn’t sleep well?”

Zhang Yueshan let out a tentative gasp while watching the scene in front of him in horror.

Previously in the branch school, almost everyone knew that Lu Shi didn’t like waking up in the morning. His temper throughout the day was directly correlated with whether he slept well or not.

During the first semester of high school, Lu Shi had slept on his desk in between classes to make up for lost sleep.

A tall, robust delinquent student ‘Ge’ had heard that Lu Shi was publicly known as the school grass but wasn’t convinced. Thus, he’d brought several little brothers along to provoke him.

The boy had walked down the aisle and slapped Lu Shi’s desk. He’d slapped with a series of ‘bang bang’ noises while telling Lu Shi to raise his head to show everyone if he really deserved the title of school grass.

Lu Shi hadn’t raised his head at that time, instead he’d accurately grasped that student’s wrist. No one saw exactly what had happened but they’d heard a pained cry, and the 1.8 meter tall boy who was covered in muscles had been thrown straight into the cleaning supplies at the back of the classroom by Lu Shi. His dislocated wrist dangled as he lay amongst the brooms and mops with surprise and fear etched on his face. He couldn’t get up for a long time.

According to the many people who were at that scene, Lu Shi’s expression back then was awfully terrifying.

It was such that over those next few days, as long as they’d see Lu Shi sleeping, most would rather take a detour instead of passing by his desk, fearing they’d also be sent to the cleaning supplies corner to lie down.

While Zhang Yueshan was brimming with worry, he heard Chu Yu concernedly questioning again, “Are you still unwell somewhere? Lu Shi, are you feeling anemic? Are you dizzy?”

Zhang Yueshan was too late. The situation was already out of hand and he could only hurriedly prepare to retreat with School Flower.

Then he saw Lu Shi, who was lying on his stomach, sit up with his eyelids half-drooping as he looked at Chu Yu. “Mn, I couldn’t sleep last night. I’m sleepy. It’s not anemia.”

His voice sounded more hoarse and tired than usual.

Chu Yu heaved a sigh of relief. “That’s good. Then you lie there some more, I’ll tell you when the teacher comes.”

“Mm.”

The breeze was still and the waves were quiet.

Zhang Yueshan felt as if his eyes were fake.

It wasn’t until the third class’ interval that Lu Shi finally sat up and didn’t sleep anymore.

After drinking half a cup of black-boned chicken soup, Lu Shi pulled out a notebook with a light blue cover from the stack he had on hand and passed it to Chu Yu. “Here.”

Confusedly, Chu Yu took it and opened it. The more he looked, the wider his eyes got.

After quickly turning over a dozen pages, he suddenly turned to Lu Shi. “This is—”

“Didn’t you say you wanted to try?”

“Last night, did you—”

Lu Shi’s expression was indifferent. “Couldn’t sleep. I was bored, so I found something to do.”

Chu Yu was speechless for a while.

In the notebook were more than 20 pages of review material, each word handwritten.

The points were divided into categories and clearly organized. There were also examples of all the question types below each point, as well as specific solutions, things to pay attention to, and even the graph functions next to them were drawn extremely meticulously.

The handwriting on the paper was neat, containing a sharp sense of beauty.

He didn’t know how long it must’ve taken Lu Shi to sort out all these pointers and question types, or how much mental and physical effort it took.

Last night appeared in his mind once more. On the highway, in the evening’s wee hours, Lu Shi had stopped the motorcycle, turned to look at him and said, “I’ll help you, but no matter what the result is, you’re not allowed to cry.”

Lu Shi spun the pencil in his hand. “Look at it first. If there’s anything you don’t understand, just ask me.”

Hearing these words felt as if hot blood was bursting within him, and Chu Yu was immediately full of confidence. “Okay!”

But reality would always knock people down a peg.

After spending most of the morning, Chu Yu finally read through the 20-odd pages of pointers.

He turned around and told the desk behind him, “I’m finished.”

Lu Shi closed his collection of schoolwork exercises and asked him, “Anything you don’t understand?”

Chu Yu pointed to the first page. “Here.”

Flipped over two pages. “Here and here.”

Then turned another six pages. “Here.”

Finally, he went to the second to the last page. “And here.”

“You don’t understand these?”

“No,” Chu Yu was very honest, “I don’t understand anything else except for these.”

Even Chu Yu himself felt that he was a lost cause, but Lu Shi wasn’t surprised at all.

He just tapped on the desk with his pencil and told Chu Yu, “Come to my room tonight and I’ll give you a make-up lesson.”

That night.

After taking a quick shower, Chu Yu put on his pajamas, picked out a few of his best-looking pens, several of his fancy printed draft paper and a notebook, then rushed to Lu Shi’s room.

Two chairs were side by side in front of the single desk. Chu Yu consciously moved over to the right, sitting perfectly straight and well-behaved. His light-colored eyes watched Lu Shi, the amber light of the desk lamp overhead seemingly swaying as if to overflow from his irises.

Lu Shi asked him, “You’re this happy for make-up lessons?”

“Yes!”

Chu Yu took out a glass bottle from his pocket in which he inserted a straw and held it to Lu Shi’s mouth. “Today’s third blood supplement.”

Lu Shi held his hand, lowered his head, bit the straw, and drank it all.

Chu Yu was already used to this. He waited until Lu Shi finished drinking and threw the empty bottle into the trash.

The two of them sat shoulder to shoulder and started the supplementary lesson.

It didn’t take long for Chu Yu to discover that he could understand most of Lu Shi’s lectures.

Fuck, is this the study god’s formidable power?

Or, am I actually an extremely smart, possessing both brain and beauty youth who was only being held back before?

He had trouble concentrating for long and after listening for a while, he just stared at Lu Shi’s hand that held his pen in a daze.

“Chu Yu.”

“Huh?”

Seeing that he was distracted, Lu Shi stopped explaining the new content. He took out a book of exercises, opened it, picked up a pen, and highlighted 20 questions. “Finish these.”

“Okay.”

Seeing Lu Shi stand up, Chu Yu quickly asked, “What about you?”

“I’ll sleep for a while, wake me up when you’re done.”

The bedroom quieted down until there was only the sound of pen rubbing against paper.

Chu Yu was able to solve three questions in one go; his sense of accomplishment was teeming.

When he did math in the past, he’d always write the answer first before reviewing the problem, and had never shown his solution for any of them.

Or sometimes, after his math tests, while other students were discussing whether they should’ve chosen B or C for a certain question;

Chu Yu instead would fall deep into thought— did I see this question earlier? Was it really there? Did I not get the same test as you guys?

But at this very moment, he suddenly felt that he’d ascended to another higher realm— he not only knew the words, but also understood their meaning when they were put together!

Chu Yu, you’re amazing!

More than an hour passed before Chu Yu earnestly completed the 20 questions Lu Shi had noted.

Chu Yu lazily stretched, put his pen aside, and turned to look at Lu Shi.

On the bed, a thin, light gray quilt was spread out with Lu Shi laying sideways on it, facing the desk, eyes shut.

The desk lamp was the only light on in the bedroom, and the range it illuminated was limited. In the dim light, he could barely make out Lu Shi’s profile.

His skin was cold white and his forehead showed faint blue-green blood vessels. His closed eyes had long, narrow tails and thick, dense eyelashes drooping down, all encompassed with a high nose bridge and sharp facial features.

He didn’t sleep well the night before, so there was still a slight shadow under his eyes. Chu Yu didn’t know if he was dreaming, but his eyebrows were furrowed and he appeared unhappy.

When Lu Shi was asleep, the indifference and sharpness he displayed during the day ceased to exist.

He even seemed mild and harmless.

Chu Yu squatted by the bed, staring at Lu Shi in a trance.

Then he began hesitating as to whether he should follow Lu Shi’s words and wake him up now that he’d finished the questions.

Chu Yu somewhat didn’t have the heart to do it.

He always felt that Lu Shi seemed as if he was carrying something very heavy in his heart which hindered him from being happy, even if he wanted to. Only in his sleep could he relieve this heavy pressure and obtain a short respite.

Forget it.

Chu Yu decided to not wake Lu Shi up and just let him sleep well. He’d first return to his room.

As for his blood-thirst hunger and the low-grade fever, he could simply endure it.

Standing up, Chu Yu bent down, softly and quietly pulling the quilt up for Lu Shi.

Just as he was about to remove his hand, his wrist was suddenly caught.

A great force pulled him down and, unable to resist, Chu Yu lost his balance in an instant, unsteadily falling on the bed. His head rubbed against Lu Shi’s shoulder and smashed onto the pillow.

Lu Shi’s voice carried drowsiness and exhaustion as his lips pressed against Chu Yu’s ear to ask, “Done?”

The warm breath brushed against his sensitive skin, making it numb and itchy.

Chu Yu shivered instinctively.

Without waiting for his answer, Lu Shi half-closed his eyelids and his dark pupils gazed at Chu Yu. “Are you hungry?”

After that, Chu Yu felt Lu Shi’s slightly cool fingertip press against his lips. In turn, he unconsciously rubbed it against his lips.

Quite tickly.

Chu Yu held his breath.

“Hm?”

Lu Shi’s hum was tired, seemingly impatient and urging him.

Chu Yu came to his senses, subconsciously opened his lips somewhat, and bit Lu Shi’s fingertip.