Bite Your Fingertips

73rd -【I will pull you through】

When Chu Yu and Lu Shi exited the washroom, Dream-Ge and Zhang Yueshan were holding chopsticks as microphones, stepping on their stool with one foot, and performing love song duets.

Seeing them come out, Dream-Ge waved his hand. “Fan friends at the back, raise your hands! Let me see you!”

Chu Yu raised his hand cooperatively and waved. “Dream-Ge, your line was really stupid!”

Dream-Ge laughed. “Really? It was obviously very handsome!”

Possessing good eyesight, he found something strange. “School Flower, have you eaten too much chili, your mouth is so red hahaha! Wait, we didn’t seem to have ordered very spicy dishes, could it be… the soup was too hot?”

The place went eerily silent.

Li Hua answered calmly, “The soup was boiled, drink it only after it cools down or else it’ll burn your mouth.”

Chu Yu, who was sitting in his seat again, looked at Li Hua while having the nagging feeling that his young love seemed like it’d been exposed.

After thinking about it, he took out his cellphone and sent a [!] to Li Hua.

Li Hua replied very quickly, [?]

Chu Yu: [!!]

This time, Li Hua returned: [.]

Chu Yu was confused.

What does this period mean?

Just as he was struggling with how to reply, Li Hua sent another message. [I know.]

It revealed a mysteriously profound sense of ‘I’ve seen through your little secret’.

Chu Yu typed carefully. [Know what?]

[You and Lu-Shen come and go together every day, look at each other affectionately after class, hold hands all the time in class, and you both put your mouth to the other’s ear when saying something. When you lie on the table during or after class to sleep, you have to hold Lu-Shen’s fingers under the table. Lu Shen even coaxes you if your sleep isn’t stable. I also want to know nothing, but I really can’t be as blind as Dream-Ge.]

Chu Yu licked his lips that were a little sore.

He couldn’t help but retort, [We weren’t looking at each other affectionately! That’s too lovey-dovey!]

Li Hua raised his eyebrows and texted, [Are you misunderstanding your relationship with Lu-Shen? When aren’t you lovey-dovey?]

After reading this sentence, Chu Yu reflected deeply— is this really the case?

After dinner, no one wanted to go home.

Dream-Ge delivered an affectionate speech. “The thought of opening my eyes tomorrow and being faced with cram school life smothering the entire duration of winter break pains my heart greatly! My heart keeps telling me that I can’t just return like this today! I’m not reconciled! I want to dance in the wavesCould be literal, but he could also be saying he wants to revel in the happiness life can bring.! I want to fly!”

Li Hua flipped through his phone and droned, “Billiards, bowling, singing, multiplayer at an Internet cafe, movies, or taking a walk to aid digestion, choose.”

Dream-Ge probed, “How about… playing basketball together?”

No one responded.

Dream-Ge felt aggrieved and made a compromise. “Can’t play basketball, then what about singing? I want to sing the NBA’s promotional song super passionately! Do you want to hear it?”

The group quickly turned to KTV.

On this winter night, everyone exuded fiery passion and an eagerness to sing their throats out.

Zhang Yueshan boasted, “Back in junior high school, I won second place in the campus singing contest!”

Dream-Ge wasn’t about to be outdone and fabricated his story. “I won first place!”

Chu Yu walked at the end of the crowd beside Lu Shi.

While waiting for the elevator, Lu Shi stretched his arms, put them loosely on Chu Yu’s shoulders, and approached to speak to him.

“I should’ve drank more.”

Chu Yu didn’t understand. “Why?”

“So I could’ve used dizziness as an excuse to hug you.”

A dozen or so people had joined so they rented a big box where there was enough space to jump around. As soon as Dream-Ge entered, he seized the jukebox and inputted several NBA promotional songs in a row.

Zhang Yueshan locked the teen’s neck and dragged him backwards. “Dream-Ge, are you a rabbit? Jumping so fast!”

Chu Yu laughed. “There’s no rabbit as strong as Dream-Ge!”

Li Hua concluded, “Kangaroo.”

After everyone sat down, the lights in the room dimmed.

Chu Yu grabbed an apple slice and took a small bite to have a taste. He thought it wasn’t bad and fed some to Lu Shi’s mouth in passing.

Dream-Ge picked up the microphone and began singing.

They usually heard Dream-Ge sing a lot, but with the buff given by a microphone and speakers, coupled with Dream-Ge’s full anger, Chu Yu was shocked by the voice, causing his hands to shake.

He looked at Dream-Ge’s stalwart back standing in front of the microphone stand, then turned to look at Zhang Yueshan, Li Hua, and the others who were covering their ears together, furious. “How unkind of you guys! Why didn’t you tell me to cover my ears as well?”

Before he finished speaking, Lu Shi had leaned over and covered his ears with both hands from behind.

The deafening singing was cut off, and Chu Yu wanted to turn back subconsciously.

Lu Shi’s strength was neither light nor heavy as he restrained his movements. “Be good, don’t move.”

It wasn’t until Dream-Ge finished singing three songs passionately that Lu Shi released the hands covering Chu Yu’s ears.

Chu Yu turned his head.

Lu Shi was sitting lazily on the sofa. His long legs were spread apart as the colored lights in the box flitted over his face and fell into his eyes before dimming again.

Chu Yu couldn’t stop himself from stealing a second glance.

After he was done staring, he couldn’t help but want to express his feelings.

Chu Yu sat closer, leaned into Lu Shi’s ear, and spoke in an airy voice. “My boyfriend’s so good-looking.”

The lights in the box were very dark. Lu Shi’s hand, which lay stuck to the back of the sofa, wrapped around Chu Yu’s waist and drew him into his embrace. “Don’t scratch me.”

Chu Yu shook his finger. “This cauldron from the sky isn’t mine to bearCauldron/pot also means blame., when did I scratch you?”

Lu Shi’s tone was cold with a bit of a smile mixed in, making one’s ears go numb.

He replied, “You did scratch, my heart’s itchy.”

The group quarreled quite badly as they fought over the microphone for a few rounds. Then snacks and refreshments arrived, which vanished in the blink of an eye. Chu Yu thought his hands and feet were nimble, but after all was said and done, he only managed to grab one french fry, which was bitten in half by Zhang Yueshan in the end.

Lu Shi was holding a can of cold beer and drinking it slowly. Chu Yu was tired from playing and sat back next to Lu Shi to rest.

Suddenly noticing something vibrating, Chu Yu reacted after a few seconds and nudged Lu Shi with his elbow. “Cellphone cellphone, cellphone’s vibrating, there’s a phone call!”

Having said that, he straightforwardly reached and took out the phone from Lu Shi’s coat pocket.

There was only a string of numbers displayed on the screen and no name.

Someone was adjusting the box’s lighting so the ceiling lights brightened for a few seconds. Just then, Chu Yu caught sight of Lu Shi’s expression turning somewhat cold.

Thinking of something, his heart rose and he hesitated as he asked, “Could there be… news over there?”

After staring at the screen for a while, Lu Shi answered the phone. Soon after, the phone call ended and Lu Shi said to Chu Yu, “We’re going to A City now.”

The noise was thrown behind the door as they exited the KTV’s doors. Chu Yu stood on the flight of steps and sucked in a big mouthful of cold air.

He followed Lu Shi to the side of the road, a string tightening in his heart. “Is there news from there that there’s movement?”

“Mn, the person keeping an eye on Fang Weishan reported that one of his confidants contacted a professional salvage team.”

Chu Yu clenched his fingers then released them.

He was a little scared.

Not only was he afraid that this trip would show no results, but also that there would be results. Lu Shi would be devastated.

It was too late, and there were already no tickets left. Chu Yu made a few calls and successfully landed a private plane that was about to fly to A City.

Finally, they both arrived at A City after two in the morning.

The night was too dark to see even half a star in the sky. There were sparse neon lights and few cars passing by on the road.

The two waited by the roadside.

Not long after, an ordinary black Audi stopped on the wayside. Lu Shi opened the door and let Chu Yu enter the car first.

There was a faint smell of air freshener in the car, which wasn’t pungent. The driver was a man with thin cheeks in his thirties with a bit of stubble, whose appearance was very ordinary; the type who one wouldn’t notice if mixed in a crowd.

“Hello, students, my surname is Zhao, you can call me Old Zhao.”

He guessed that this should be the detective Lu Shi hired. Chu Yu didn’t ask anything else and simply politely greeted, “Hello.”

The yellow light went out, the green light came on, and the Audi started again.

Old Zhao held the steering wheel as he told Lu Shi, “I’m here to pick you up while Old Yang tails them. He’ll pass it on if there’s any news, so don’t worry. The current situation is that Fang Weishan personally took the people from the salvage team with him and set out in the middle of the night. They stealthily went to the outskirts of the city and spent a lot of money looking for a master of many methods to follow them.”

His voice was rough and contained obvious ridicule. “Commiting such a grave deed as murder and thinking that if they performed two rituals, they can live the rest of their lives with peace of mind? Think again.”

Lu Shi didn’t answer, but rather asked, “Where’s the old man of the Lu family?”

“According to your arrangement, he went abroad three days ago to hunt. The hunting area is far away and remote, so there’s often no signal and he’ll probably be uncontactable for a short time. How about Lu Shaochu, will he come out and step in at this critical moment?”

Lu Shi’s eyes were a deep black. Only the lights from the streetlights flit across them occasionally, leaving no trace.

“Iris has coaxed Lu Shaochu to travel abroad temporarily. At present, their private plane has already taken off towards a 19-hour flight.”

Old Zhao glanced at Lu Shi in the rearview mirror and assessed, “Pretty good, no one is in the way.”

The further they were out of the city, the less light there was in their field of vision. The leaves of the trees on both sides of the road had already fallen, and when looking further back, there was only darkness.

Chu Yu watched the constantly passing streetlights outside the window and suddenly remembered how the first time he was brought by Lu Shi to race the track, it was the same. All the lights retreated rapidly, leaving only afterimages on the retina.

Chu Yu’s phone vibrated. He took it out and found that it was an email from Yang Yuchan. The first project they invested in had made new progress.

He crammed on it for a while and could basically understand simple file reports.

Simply replying to the message, Chu Yu put the phone back in his pocket.

No one spoke again along the way. It was silent with only the wind whistling outside the window.

It wasn’t known how long it took, but the speed of the car gradually slowed down until it finally stopped in a dark place beside the road.

After sitting for a while, Chu Yu quietly asked Lu Shi, “Are we going to wait here?”

“Mn, we’ll wait for the police to do their job.”

Seeing Chu Yu’s eyes widen slightly, looking somewhat surprised, Lu Shi raised his hand and softly pinched his face. “Do you know why?”

Chu Yu nodded. “I know.”

He lowered his voice. “If you want revenge, you need to do it honorably and out in the open.”

He’d always known that Lu Shi didn’t want to regard human life so lightly like those people.

Old Yang, who was tailing, kept reporting back updates on the situation.

Chu Yu listened in silence. He learned that the accompanying master lit joss sticks and candles by the river, and went through a lot of procedures which took more than half an hour to finish.

The salvage team Fang Weishan hired then dived into the water, and only emerged after a long time, gesturing to the people on shore.

Two more people went into the water with tools.

……

…

The sound was noisy, carrying over a ‘zizi’ humming of electric current. Listening carefully, one would feel an inexplicable irritability surging in their heart.

Chu Yu was so nervous that he couldn’t even breathe smoothly. He had this constant feeling of something pressing on his trachea, causing him to suffocate and panic.

He grasped Lu Shi’s hand, only to find that Lu Shi’s fingertips were as if dipped in snow, for a slight chill had seeped in.

Old Yang’s tone suddenly became hurried. “Come up! Something was dragged up from under the bridge!”

At the same time, Chu Yu sensed how Lu Shi’s hand tightly clasped his own hand, so hard that his fingertips trembled.

It hurt a lot, but Chu Yu didn’t utter a word. He placed his free left hand on the back of Lu Shi’s hand and didn’t move it away.

After another two minutes, Old Yang’s voice relaxed. “Whew, fortunately, nothing went wrong. I saw from here how the police charged to the riverside and immediately arrested the person. There was someone dressed differently who should be the assisting forensic doctor.”

Old Yang was keeping close watch of the scene, saying that there was nothing wrong for the time being and everything was going smoothly.

Old Zhao had an urge to smoke, so he told Lu Shi, got out of the car, and walked away to smoke. In the distance, only an orange spark could be faintly seen.

Chu Yu felt stuffy inside the car, so he opened the door and got out.

The wind on the outskirts of the city was very strong, bringing with it the cold air of winter and moisture.

Under a bridge not far away, there were cluttered lights and clamor. He listened carefully, but couldn’t hear it clearly.

Lu Shi’s eyes were fixed in that direction, not moving even half an inch.

His face was pale and his eyebrows frowned slightly, as if he was suppressing something with great difficulty.

In the end, he couldn’t hold back and retched while clutching his contracting stomach, but spit out nothing.

Winter nights were desolate and still, void of the liveliness of summer.

Through the headlights, Chu Yu observed Lu Shi’s face. Once sure that the other had eased up, he took a breath of cold air to calm himself down.

He held Lu Shi’s fingertips in his palm to warm them up and asked him, “What’s next?”

“Intentional homicide, aggravated crime; the death penalty will be imposed.”

“Then,” Chu Yu wanted to ask, what about Lu Shaochu? But seeing Lu Shi’s eyes akin to a deep pit, he suddenly felt that there was no need to ask.

Lu Shi spoke first, “Are you worried I’ll do something irreversible?”

“It’s not like that.”

Looking up, Chu Yu placed a light kiss on the corner of Lu Shi’s cold lips before smiling at him.

“Do what you want, go for it. I’ll be around to pull you through and won’t let go.”

At that moment, Lu Shi’s heart trembled.

The more he struggled in that abyssal mire, the more he sank.

He loathed himself for being so dirty.

But Chu Yu jumped down.

Not only did he jump down, but he also told him, I will be with you, I will pull you through, and will not let you sink deeper.

The author has something to say: Here’s a heart composed of blue crystals~

• 1Could be literal, but he could also be saying he wants to revel in the happiness life can bring.
• 2Cauldron/pot also means blame.