Chapter 1#
The Train#
On the day the college entrance exam scores were released, Ye Sheng received many phone calls. From classmates, the principal, the education bureau, admissions offices of various universities, and also from his mother, Ms. Huang.
Ms. Huang, who had abandoned her young son to marry into a wealthy family, was now proud and glorious. Mimicking a strange Huaicheng accent, she pinched her throat and said to him: “Sheng Sheng, I heard you plan to come to Huaicheng for university. That’s great, Mom is in Huaicheng. You should move in and live with Mom. I’ll ask the butler to pick you up when you arrive at the station.”
“Come over and treat this as your new home. Your stepfather saw your photo and kept praising how obedient you look. You also have a few siblings; they will all like you very much.”
“Don’t be in a rush after you arrive. Mom will take you to buy a few sets of clothes first, to get familiar with the new environment. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be good if you look rustic and make a joke of yourself at home.”
“Hello? Sheng Sheng, Sheng Sheng are you listening?”
Ye Sheng took off his earphones, looked out the window, and ignored her.
The bus drove from the countryside to the county town. Mountains and rivers receded along the way, and the window reflected the young man’s handsome face.
Ye Sheng had a cold and sharp appearance, with deep, cold almond eyes and pale red lips. Slightly long, jet-black bangs covered his glass-like eyes. His washed-out black T-shirt outlined his lean figure. He didn’t have much of the vigor of a young person; world-weariness and impatience blended strangely in him, making him look like a withdrawn and unapproachable eccentric.
At least on the outside.
Anyway, no one wanted to understand his inner self.
After arriving at the county station, Ye Sheng dragged a suitcase half the height of a person and walked towards the train station.
He looked down at the ticket in his hand. This train started from Yinshan and ended in Huaicheng. Rubbing the words “Huaicheng” with his fingers, Ye Sheng pulled the corner of his lips. His eyes were dark, and he expressionlessly thought of the scene when his mother brought his younger brother back to their hometown in glory.
Yinshan was one of the poorest places in China. Back then, the arrival of a million-dollar black luxury car attracted everyone to watch at the village entrance. The glamorous woman pinched her nose and walked up to him, holding a pampered child in her hand, and said to him, “Come, Sheng Sheng, this is your younger brother.”
He carefully handed a cup of water to his young brother, but the brother pushed the hot water away, splashing it directly onto his face.
The brother shouted: “Go away! Stay away from me! You’re so dirty!”
That time, his mother didn’t come to pick him up; she came to show off to others. After leaving him thirty thousand yuan, she stepped on the gas and left.
The old man with shifty eyes gave him ideas, inciting him to go to Huaicheng and shamelessly acknowledge his mother.
The old man said that kind of wealthy family cares about face and would definitely give a huge sum of dismissal fees.
Ye Sheng refused without lifting his head.
In this life, he didn’t want to have anything to do with his mother.
So when he received this call, Ye Sheng’s head was full of doubts—was Huang Yiyue possessed by a ghost?
You have to know that back then, in order not to let him, a drag, disturb her superior wealthy life, his mother almost knelt down in tears in front of him. To the eight-year-old him, she pleaded earnestly.
“Sheng Sheng, your father died when Mom was only in her twenties. Do I have to guard you in the deep mountains for my whole life?”
“I am a woman first, and then your mother. If you love Mom, you will definitely understand Mom. Right?”
Ye Sheng blocked this number and walked into the train station without looking back.
*
Meanwhile, inside a private villa in Huaicheng. The noblewoman sitting on the sofa discovered that Ye Sheng had blocked her, and her face instantly turned iron blue with anger, cursing: “This ingrate!”
Sitting next to her was a young man about seventeen or eighteen years old, with delicate features and a slender figure. He was the son of her husband and his ex-wife.
Xie Wenci, who was usually perverse in nature, was now holding her hand nervously and anxiously, asking urgently: “Mom, how is it? Did he agree?”
Huang Yiyue hesitated: “He hung up the phone.”
“What?! He hung up the phone!” Xie Wenci roared instantly: “Didn’t you say he listens to everything you say? If he doesn’t come, are they really going to send me to that fifty-year-old old man to bring luck?!”
Huang Yiyue hurriedly comforted: “No, Wenci, Mom will definitely not let you jump into this fire pit, no.”
Xie Wenci ground his teeth in anger.
He had always detested this mistress who climbed the social ladder, but now he had to be patient and beg her humbly, with red eyes: “Mom, I don’t want to marry over there. I’m only seventeen. I haven’t even attended university yet; my life has just begun. Do I have to be tied to a perverted old man at such a young age? My dad doesn’t dare to offend the Qin family. Now only you can help me. The Qin family specified they want a boy from our Xie family born in the yin month and yin day. Ye Sheng is the same as me. You go bring Ye Sheng back, bring him through the door, and he will count as a member of our Xie family—let him marry in my place. Please, boo hoo hoo Mom, I beg you.”
Huang Yiyue had always received sarcasm and ridicule from Xie Wenci, so now she was somewhat flattered. Huang Yiyue gritted her teeth and said: “Okay, Wenci, Mom will definitely help you.” If she wanted to gain a firm foothold in the Xie family in the future, she had to get the approval of the original wife’s children.
Xie Wenci rested his chin on her shoulder, sniffed, and said worriedly: “Mom, what if Ye Sheng doesn’t agree?”
Huang Yiyue said heavily: “He won’t disagree.”
*
[Dear passengers, the train 1444 from Yinshan to Huaicheng is about to begin ticket checking. Passengers taking train 1444, please organize your luggage and prepare for ticket checking at the gate.]
Yinshan was backward and poor. Even now, there were no planes or high-speed trains directly connecting here. There were only two green slow trains, long abandoned by the times, running north and south.
Security on the train was poor. Thieves and perverts ran rampant, and incidents of murder and robbery often appeared in newspapers.
When Ye Sheng passed the ticket gate and walked towards the platform carrying his suitcase, he smelled some strange odors.
In the height of summer, human body odors are infinitely magnified, such as sweat, body odor, and the smell of poultry like chickens, ducks, and geese. But what Ye Sheng noticed was none of these. He smelled a strange scent with a hint of blood. Pungent, unpleasant, like pickled vegetables rotting in a jar.
While climbing the stairs, Ye Sheng saw a middle-aged man struggling to climb with a snakeskin bag.
The man had dark skin and a thin build. He was carrying a sleeping baby in a swaddle on his back. He hunched his waist, exerting all his strength to slightly lift the bag in his hand, sweating profusely and panting heavily.
Seeing this, Ye Sheng asked politely: “Do you need help?”
Unexpectedly, when the man heard his voice, he looked up abruptly, like a bird startled by a bow. He trembled all over, his pupils full of fear, and shook his head vigilantly at him.
Ye Sheng nodded and said nothing more, carrying his suitcase up to the platform himself. Ye Sheng didn’t take this episode to heart. While waiting for the train, he began to plan where to find a part-time job in Huaicheng.
Now his dad was dead, his mom remarried, and the old man who only saw money had also left him and flown far away. Ye Sheng was alone, with only a few clothes and two hundred yuan in his suitcase, which was his entire fortune.
He gave up the universities in the capital and chose Huaian University. A big reason was that the conditions offered to him by Huaian University were very good.
Not only were tuition and miscellaneous fees waived, but he was also given the privilege of moving into the dormitory early in June.
With a place to live, everything else would be easy to handle.
Ye Sheng would not go to find Huang Yiyue.
He didn’t lack motherly love, nor did he yearn for that stuff.
When he was a child, not pressing the head of that brother who splashed water on him into the river was already giving enough face to this plastic mother-son relationship.
It would be best if they never met again in this life.
The order on the Yinshan train was chaotic. The carriage was full of people, and one had to constantly squeeze inside to find a seat. In the process of squeezing, Ye Sheng didn’t know how many people had probed his pockets or grabbed his suitcase. He calmly stepped hard on a thief’s foot, and then broke the hand that the person had placed on his suitcase. The thief cried out in pain, daring to be angry but not speaking out, glared at him, and left.
The carriage was very noisy, with various dialects mixed together.
Ye Sheng looked indifferent. Just as he was about to reach his seat.
Suddenly, a pair of hands touched his shoulder. Ye Sheng thought it was another reckless thief. Unexpectedly, these hands had ulterior motives; they actually lingered ambiguously on his shoulder and back for a while, and even patted gently.
“?”
Ye Sheng froze. He had never left Yinshan since he was a child, and had never encountered homosexuality in his life. So at first, there was only one sentence in Ye Sheng’s mind: What is this doing?
That groping hand seemed to want to go further down. Before Ye Sheng could turn around in astonishment, someone had already solved it for him.
A young, smiling voice rang in his ear: “Excuse me, make way.”
Immediately afterwards, a pale, slender hand pressed down on the thin young man behind Ye Sheng, grabbed his shoulder, and pushed him away with irresistible force.
“Ah!” The young man’s arm was twisted, he staggered a few steps, and suddenly let out a scream. But having a guilty conscience, he glared at them viciously, then quickly bent his waist and disappeared into the crowd to leave.
Ye Sheng turned around and saw a young man standing in the carriage whose appearance and temperament were out of place here. Ye Sheng himself was 1.8 meters tall, but this young man was obviously a bit taller than him.
His legs were straight and sharp, standing in the crowded carriage like a crane among chickens. The young man put down his hand; his fingers were cold and fair, looking like someone who lived a pampered life. The cuffs of his white shirt were rolled up to reveal his wrist bone, on which he wore a dark Spatholobus stem bracelet.
Apart from height, his appearance was equally outstanding.
Ye Sheng looked over and first saw a pair of naturally romantic peach blossom eyes. While he was sizing up this person, this person was also unabashedly sizing him up, with a smile on his lips and an inexplicable meaning.
Ye Sheng rarely received such wanton and frank gazes.
He paused, feeling that what happened just now was too outrageous, and guessed that the other party might just simply dislike blocking the way, so he didn’t say anything. He turned around, put his suitcase away, and sat down with his ticket.
Unexpectedly, the young man looked down at his ticket.
He actually chuckled lightly and sat down next to him calmly.
“…”
So coincidental?
Ye Sheng was stunned.
This slow train would take at least three days and three nights from Yinshan to Huaicheng. He would rather sit next to an old man who “knew astronomy and geography and was well-versed in ancient and modern times” than such a peer whose presence was so strong that it could not be ignored.
He started looking out the window, but after the young man next to him sat down, he looked at him unblinkingly with smiling eyes. The gaze wasn’t very offensive, but Ye Sheng still felt uncomfortable.
He turned his head expressionlessly.
Seeing him turn around, the young man instantly became interested, his pupils clear, and curved his lips: “Can we get to know each other?”
Ye Sheng never thought he would have a romantic encounter on a train, and with a guy at that.
The young man held the ticket between his fingers and handed it to Ye Sheng, like handing over a business card. His peach blossom eyes were smiling, and his voice was as clear as spring water: “Hello, my name is Ning Weichen.”
Ye Sheng looked down at the name on the ticket, was silent for a while, and still spoke: “My name is Ye Sheng. The Sheng in Shengge (song and dance).”
Ning Weichen said apologetically: “Did I scare you just now?”
Ye Sheng: “What?” The topic changed too fast for him to react for a moment.
Ning Weichen explained: “I didn’t mean to hurt that person. It was just that as soon as I got on the train, I saw that he seemed to be doing something bad to you, so I couldn’t help pushing him away.”
Ye Sheng: “…”
For a straight man like him who feared homosexuality, “being groped by a man” was mental torture to mention, especially when said by Ning Weichen, a man, with such concern.
Besides embarrassment, Ye Sheng also felt a bit of annoyance—after all, he could have solved it himself without Ning Weichen. But he wouldn’t really take his anger out on someone who kindly helped him. After a few seconds of blank expression.
Ye Sheng hid his discomfort, turned his head away, and nodded vaguely: “No, thank you for just now.” He averted his gaze, turned his head, stared blankly out the car window, and stopped talking.
Ning Weichen was stunned. Seeing that he didn’t want to pay attention to him, he pursed his lips tightly. He rested his chin on his hand and tilted his head, looked at Ye Sheng carefully for a while, and suddenly whispered: “Do you really not want to chat with me?” There was actually a bit of sadness in that tone.
To be fair, with Ning Weichen’s face, if he just showed a random smile, the whole carriage would rush to chat with him.
Ye Sheng didn’t hate him, it was just awkward.
However, it’s good to have a companion to chat with on a long journey, especially since this person just helped him.
Ye Sheng took a deep breath and turned his head, “No, I’m just a little sleepy now. I got up too early today.”
“When did you get up?”
“Five in the morning. It takes three hours by car from my home to the train station.”
Ning Weichen’s eyes revealed just the right amount of concern: “Are you going to Huaicheng?”
“En.”
“It takes at least three days from here to Huaicheng. Why didn’t you book a sleeper?”
Ye Sheng said: “Sleepers are too expensive.”
“Is that so.” Ning Weichen’s clothing and appearance all indicated that he was definitely from a wealthy family. Hearing this embarrassed answer, his expression showed no emotion. He asked: “Are you going to sleep?”
Ye Sheng wasn’t sleepy at all, but he had to round off the lie he told, so he nodded seriously.
Ning Weichen propped his chin and smiled suddenly.
“Then you sleep. There are many bad people on this train, but I can watch your things for you, don’t worry.”
Ning Weichen had deep features, but those smiling peach blossom eyes blurred his aggressiveness, making him look particularly sincere and earnest when looking at people.
On such a chaotic train, meeting a good companion was indeed a lucky thing.
Ye Sheng’s favorability towards him rose a few points. He gave an “En”, leaned against the car window, and closed his eyes.
Sunlight poured down.
The skin on Ye Sheng’s neck was very thin. Now against the light, that area appeared particularly fragile. He closed his eyes, his eyelashes casting a faint shadow.
Ning Weichen’s gaze finally took a deep look at his neck and straightened up. Leaning against the seat, he played with his fingers in boredom. The young man’s upper body was a delicately textured white shirt, which looked expensive at a glance. No one noticed that under the slightly rolled-up cuffs, the black Spatholobus stem bracelet was covered with undried blood, scarlet, cold, and vicious.
Ye Sheng originally intended to take a nap, but later he actually fell asleep. When he woke up, it was already dark outside.
As soon as he opened his eyes, he heard a pleasant voice next to him, “Do you want some water?”
Ye Sheng turned his head and met those peach blossom eyes that were always smiling and gentle.
Ning Weichen held a plastic paper cup with hot water in his hand and held it up to him: “The dining car just passed by. I didn’t know you would wake up at this time, otherwise I would have bought you something. Are you hungry?”
When he said the last three words, he lowered his voice.
Ye Sheng: “…”
If Ning Weichen wasn’t so good-looking, such thoughtfulness would make people suspicious. But the young man next to him looked so sincere that Ye Sheng began to doubt himself?
——Could it be that in the world outside Yinshan, everyone is so harmonious, friendly, kind, and considerate?
He blamed himself and reflected: Is my heart too dark?
While drinking water, they formally began to talk.
Although mostly it was Ning Weichen asking, and Ye Sheng answering concisely.
Knowing that Ye Sheng was going to study at Huaian University, Ning Weichen smiled: “Huaian University is an excellent century-old famous school, congratulations.”
Ye Sheng: “Thank you.”
Ning Weichen said seemingly casually: “Just starting university, are you seventeen this year? Which month?”
“February.”
Ning Weichen hooked the corner of his lips: “Then you are older than me, brother. I’m October.”
Ye Sheng automatically ignored the “brother” part and asked out of courtesy: “What are you going to Huaicheng for?”
Ning Weichen said indifferently: “To attend a distant relative’s wedding.”
In the subsequent chat, Ye Sheng also learned that Ning Weichen was indeed not from Yinshan. He was from the capital and got on the train at Yinshan only because he had gone on a deep forest adventure alone here before.
Ye Sheng, who lived in the deep mountains, completely didn’t know what was so adventurous about this.
Ning Weichen was a very good listener and also very good at finding topics. When he looked at people, he was always affectionate and earnest, causing Ye Sheng, a person who usually couldn’t say a word, to say a few more sentences involuntarily.
As they chatted, the dining car came over again. Ning Weichen ordered a box of fruit, a portion of sushi, and also took a bottle of hot milk.
Ye Sheng had slept for so long that he was past hunger and had no appetite at all. Not eating could also save some money. Fortunately, Ning Weichen didn’t turn his head to ask him what to eat, otherwise he would have to reveal the poverty of the world to this noble son again.
Unexpectedly, Ning Weichen turned around and placed those three things in front of Ye Sheng.
“Brother, for you.”
“…”
Ye Sheng was glad he wasn’t drinking water, otherwise he would really have sprayed it out.
Ye Sheng waved his hand: “No need, thank you.”
Ning Weichen’s slender fingers tapped the table, and his voice said with a smile: “Don’t refuse me. I really want to make friends with you, and I really want to be nice to you.”
Ye Sheng said stiffly: “Thank you, but I’m really not hungry.”
Ning Weichen said with some disappointment: “Alright.”
He put the things on the table and didn’t move them again.
Ning Weichen turned his head, looked at Ye Sheng seriously for a while, saw the slight green under Ye Sheng’s eyes, and spoke again with concern: “This train might be delayed. There are still nearly fifty hours. Do you really not want to change to a sleeper?”
Ye Sheng hesitated a bit. He had just slept sitting on the train and deeply experienced what backache meant, and started to regret it.
Ning Weichen said: “I can pay for you first.” He took out a pen from his pocket, wrote a string of beautiful numbers fluently on the train ticket, handed it to Ye Sheng and smiled: “This is my phone number. After you arrive in Huaicheng, you can pay me back.”
Ye Sheng finally raised his head, raised his eyebrows, and looked into Ning Weichen’s dark eyes. Before, his attitude towards Ning Weichen was perfunctory, but now it was a real scrutiny.
——This overly intimate “friendliness”, he felt something was wrong from beginning to end.
And Ning Weichen’s smile didn’t change at all. He even propped his chin and leaned forward slightly, lowering his voice as if acting coquettishly: “I’m not comfortable sitting here at all. I want to change to a sleeper, but I can’t bear to part with a person to chat with. If you don’t mind, you can squeeze in one bed with me.”
He leaned very close, his breath seemed to fall on Ye Sheng’s face. His peach blossom eyes carried a black vortex that could suck people in, and he whispered with a bit of pity: “This way we can also save a sum of money. But I know, you definitely won’t agree.”
His attitude was natural and calm, making Ye Sheng stunned, once again reflecting on whether his thoughts were too dark. He took the ticket with the contact information written on it, lowered his eyes and said: “Let’s change. But I still have some money in my phone, no need to trouble you.”
“Okay!”
Bright light lit up in Ning Weichen’s eyes, and he got up to actively help Ye Sheng with his luggage.
Both were outstanding-looking young men. Standing together in the carriage, they garnered the gazes of countless people.
Ye Sheng frowned, unaccustomed to such gazes, and strode forward with his long legs.
The conductor changed them to carriage 44.
Ye Sheng walked into the carriage and found that there was already a person inside.
Coincidentally, it was the man with the baby he had met on the stairs before. At the same time, he smelled that rotten, slightly sour smell again.
The man put the baby aside, curled up and slept on the outside of the bed. The big green bag was stuffed by him into the innermost part under the bed.
While Ye Sheng was observing for this moment.
Ning Weichen had already actively put the luggage away, and at the same time brought the quilt and pillow over. He asked with a smile: “Do you like sleeping on the upper bunk or the lower bunk?”
“I’m fine with either.”
Ye Sheng withdrew his gaze and took the quilt.
Under the light, Ning Weichen looked at him thoughtfully for a while, then smiled brightly: “Then I’ll sleep on the upper bunk. I put the sushi and milk I just bought on the table. If you get hungry at night, you can take them to eat directly.”
Ye Sheng was stunned, not very skilled at accepting others’ kindness.
“Thank you.”