When the high school exam results were distributed, as expected, Lin Feiran’s and Gu Kaifeng’s scores differed by only ten points, so it was not an issue at all for them to get into the same university. They both aimed to get into S University, and because their interests and career aspirations were very similar, they even applied to the same department. In the future, their lives would still be as they were in high school, being able to study and live together.

S University was in a different city, not far from where they currently lived, and was about two hours away by high-speed rail. It was among the top 10 universities in the country, and not long after the cutoff grade was announced, Lin Feiran and Gu Kaifeng both received an acceptance letter from S University.

“We can go to class together, and write our theses together, and take exams together.” Lin Feiran kept picking up and putting down his acceptance letter, looking at it. “How nice.”

“Little sticky cake.” Gu Kaifeng pinched Lin Feiran’s satisfied face. “You just want to stick to your husband, right?”

“Right,” Lin Feiran answered honestly. He turned and pounced onto Gu Kaifeng like a koala, as if executing a move. “Sticking!”

So the soft and delicious little sticky cake was pushed down onto the floor and his sticky juice squeezed out!

How pitiful!

Wang Zhuo and He Hao did quite well in the exams, too. They were accepted to different faculties in the same university. Unlike Gu Kaifeng and Lin Feiran, who practically wanted to grow on each other, Wang Zhuo, who had studied his heart out under He Hao’s pressure for more than a year now, went weak-kneed at the prospect of going to class, taking exams, and writing his thesis with He Hao. One of the reasons he had picked his concentration was to spend less time with He Hao, so He Hao would not be able to monitor his studies.

“I’m free from now on!” Wang Zhuo happily tapped the acceptance letter in his hand and said to He Hao, “You won’t understand all my class lectures from now on. You won’t be able to chase after me and explain questions to me.”

He Hao said coolly, “There’s still the English classes.”

Wang Zhuo: “......”

During the post-high-school-exams vacation, the most relaxing vacation of their life, Gu Kaifeng and Lin Feiran spent half their time traveling, and the other half going out to eat and play together. Because they had so much leisure time, by the end, even going out to play was not very exciting any more. But they were still very interested in each other, so in the few days before school started again they just did that without restraint. Really, it cannot be described.

At the beginning of September, they went to S University for registration. They were put in different classes in the same concentration, but in university, even different classes attended lectures together, so it did not make much difference. They were not put in the same dorm room, but they had decided to rent an apartment outside afterwards, so it did not matter. The military service was to begin shortly after registration. S University’s military service was famous for being harsh. In the past, the new students would be sent to a military training camp, and this year was no exception.

Military training lasted two weeks. Fourteen people shared a dorm room and Gu Kaifeng was assigned the room next to Lin Feiran’s.

Military training was quite harsh, and these students who had lived comfortable lives so far were now dazed by the 30C weather outside. There was no air-conditioning and no fans inside the room, and the weather was hot and stuffy with no hint of a breeze. There were also many mosquitoes in the mountains, so big they might have been a different species. When they did not move, they were like large spiders, and when they started flying, their wings made a breeze and a buzzing sound. The most terrible thing was that there were no proper showers in the boys’ dorm. The more well-equipped dorms were reserved for the girls, and the guys could only take cold water showers in the water room.

Lin Feiran put his things away, then pulled two paper fans out. He ran to the next dorm room to give Gu Kaifeng one, then returned to his own dorm room and fanned hard. The other students crowded round to get some air too.

The military had distributed uniforms to the students. Green full pants, a short-sleeved camouflage shirt, and a cap.

After resting a while and changing, the students went to the training grounds to assemble. In the corridor, Lin Feiran caught sight of Gu Kaifeng at a glance. Gu Kaifeng went to the gym regularly and had developed all the right muscles, and hence wore these clothes well. His well-muscled chest and the defined lines of his arms beneath the short sleeves were very pleasing to look at. He leaned against the wall in the corridor, back straight, waiting for Lin Feiran, a valiant look.

Lin Feiran took several quick steps, stuck to Gu Kaifeng, and they walked out side by side. Lin Feiran was worried someone would hear, and looked up, whispering, “You look good in camo.”

Gu Kaifeng had an impulse. He looked left and right, then intimately leaned close to Lin Feiran’s ear and said, “What you’re wearing...”

Lin Feiran darkly cut him off. “You’re not to say it’s lewd.”

He was familiar with these conversation patterns! Clearly he was told this a lot in daily life!

“I wasn’t going to say that,” Gu Kaifeng said, then started his ritual compliments. “Was going to say you look very handsome in this. Very radiant, quite different from usual.”

Lin Feiran rubbed his nose, looking down to smile to himself. Then he pretended not to care. “Am I? I thought it was quite ordinary.”

His false humility was for the sake of getting even more praise!

Gu Kaifeng was very obliging. “How are you ordinary? How can my RanRan be ordinary, no matter what he wears? You’re beautiful even when naked...”

Lin Feiran glanced left and right, worried someone might hear.

Gu Kaifeng: “No, more accurately you’re even more beautiful when you’re naked.”

“Hey!” Lin Feiran hurriedly lifted a hand to cover his mouth!

Military service began.

Gu Kaifeng obediently opened his mouth. Lin Feiran moved swiftly and tossed two chocolate beans into his mouth.

Gu Kaifeng was stunned and immediately stopped talking.

The sweet, rich taste of chocolate spread in his mouth. Gu Kaifeng made a weak fist in one hand, hiding his lips, but his slightly curved eyes betrayed his feelings.

Lin Feiran had secretly eaten two pieces of chocolate, too, and when he was done he glanced sideways at Gu Kaifeng and kicked him lightly. Red-faced, he murmured, “What are you laughing about? Replenishing your energy.”

The chocolate had melted in his mouth. Gu Kaifeng savored the lingering taste and felt the sweetness had passed into every cell in his body, so sweet it dredged up strange thoughts. Gu Kaifeng rubbed his face vigorously to calm himself down and said unhappily, “Don’t tease me like this in a public space. I can’t kiss you. I can’t take it.”

Lin Feiran was quiet for a moment, then asked, “... Shall we ask for leave to go to the toilet?”

Gu Kaifeng said, “Let’s not, baby. Even if the instructor lets us go, he’ll make us crawl there.”

On such a hot day, they would be thoroughly cooked even if they escaped to do this and that.

Lin Feiran laughed out loud.

After a day’s training, the trainees who had had their fill of torture finally headed to the cafeteria to eat.

All the food came out of big pots here. Although it was filling, it was mostly vegetables and staples, but very little meat. The trainees sat by the tables, the dishes already laid out, and everyone stared with yearning at a plate of cabbage-fried meat, which was the only meat dish on the table. When the trainees had just arrived, they still acted like gentlemen in front of their new classmates and didn’t fight over the food, but after several days of soup and rice none of them cared about keeping a good demeanor any more. The dinner table was like a battlefield.

Gu Kaifeng’s sharp gaze swept over the plate of cabbage-fried meat, and memorized all the positions of both the fully visible meat pieces and the ones partially covered by the cabbage. When the instructor gave the whistle, young master Gu’s chopsticks moved like the wind. He snatched several pieces of meat and tossed them into Lin Feiran’s bowl. By the time he was done, the rest had already been snatched by their classmates. Someone still had not given up and poked through the plate with his chopsticks. Seeing there was really no meat left, he picked up a piece of cabbage, disappointed.

Lin Feiran was quite embarrassed and didn’t dare look at anyone else. Although he was a carnivorous animal, he liked to save face, and would rather not eat meat than put down his cultured demeanor to fight over the meat with others. If not for Gu Kaifeng, who was willing to shed his face at any time, taking care of him, he probably wouldn’t get a single bite of meat for the entire half a month of military training.

Gu Kaifeng had given him five pieces of meat. Lin Feiran wanted to give him some back, but Gu Kaifeng blocked his chopsticks, smiled, and whispered, “Eat it. When we go back, treat me to a good meal, and that’ll do.”

Lin Feiran shook his head and insisted on putting two pieces back on Gu Kaifeng’s plate. Then he bit the extra piece in half and gave the remaining half to Gu Kaifeng, too.

Two and a half pieces of meat each. Very fair!

Seeing that Lin Feiran insisted, Gu Kaifeng no longer refused it. He picked up the half that still had Lin Feiran’s tooth marks in it and laughed so hard his shoulders shook.

Lin Feiran thought his own meticulous behavior laughable, too. His face went slightly red, and he buried his face in his food.

They had never been in such circumstances. If they wanted something, or did not have enough of something, they could just buy it; there was no need to compromise on who got what. But somehow it made Lin Feiran feel happy, as if he was sharing weal and woe with Gu Kaifeng.

After the day’s training ended, they returned to the dormitory.

Gu Kaifeng rested for a few minutes, then went to Lin Feiran’s dorm room to ask him to go shower. The guys had to fill basins with water from the toilet or the water room to take simple showers, and on a hot day like this, there should not have been any issue with having a cold water bath. But the water here was well-water, and even on a 30-degree hot day, the water from the tap was still chilly, and showering in it would make one go numb from the cold. There was no way to heat it, either.

But it was good enough that they got to shower. When Gu Kaifeng got to the water room, there were already two lines of people in front of him, all shivering as they showered in the cold water, cursing the cold. Gu Kaifeng filled his basin with water, then found a stall and splashed water over the dirty floor. When Lin Feiran got there, he waved at him. “RanRan, come over.”

Lin Feiran was carrying two 4-litre buckets of water, his smile showing clean white teeth. As if fishing for praise, he said, “Touch it.”

Gu Kaifeng held out a hand to touch the water. It was warm.

Lin Feiran said proudly, “I put the cold water out in the morning for the sun to warm. Just brought it back. We can shower with this. One bucket for each of us. It’ll be enough.

“How is my RanRan so smart?” Gu Kaifeng was happy. He took a pail and said, “You go in first. Give me your clothes.”

Lin Feiran went into the stall and shut the door, taking his clothing off piece by piece then passing them over the top of the door to Gu Kaifeng. Gu Kaifeng took them and tossed them with his own clothes into a basin, then took a shower with the warm water. He was incredibly pleased.

After showering, Gu Kaifeng washed his and Lin Feiran’s clothes and put them up to dry. They put on a different set of camouflage-colored clothes, then returned to their dorms to sleep as much as they could.

The night before, they had had emergency assembly three times during the night, and neither of them had slept well. They probably would not get to sleep soundly tonight, either. Lin Feiran did not even dare take off his belt. He carefully pushed the blanket Gu Kaifeng had folded for him to one side, then curled up on the side of the bed to sleep.

It was very hot, and even though the sun had already set, the breeze that blew through the dorm rooms was still muggy and warm. Lin Feiran was hot and bothered, and after lying in bed for more than half an hour he still could not sleep, so he got out and paced the corridor. Perhaps because there was a lot of Yang energy in the barracks, it had very few ghosts. Basically none were passing through, and only a few were staying here long-term. After looking here and there, Lin Feiran caught hold of one who didn’t look scary and asked the ghost to sit on the side of his bed. When he could not take the heat any more, he would touch him.

A rare gust of chill wind in the unbearably hot summer!

The ghost looked very confused, as if he had lost his way in his ghostly life. “......”

Even if you’re not afraid of me, can you not do this? If word gets out, how do I keep being a ghost in the future!

In the middle of the night, the emergency alarm sounded. Lin Feiran jumped up, grabbed his cap from the table, put on his shoes, picked up his backpack and ran out. This time, everyone assembled in time, so none of them had to be punished. After running two laps around the training grounds, they were allowed to go back to their dorm to sleep.

Lin Feiran was both sleepy and exhausted, and stumbled after the group on the way back. The dormitory corridors were very dark, and as he walked, someone pulled on his arm. Lin Feiran knew it was Gu Kaifeng and did not struggle at all, letting him pull him into his embrace and then slip behind the door of an empty dorm room.

“I grabbed you and you came with me without even looking.” Gu Kaifeng bit Lin Feiran’s earlobe, as if in punishment. “What if it wasn’t me?”

Lin Feiran shrank back from the bite. Then he thought about it and said innocently, “It’s you... you’re different from other people. I can feel it.”

Gu Kaifeng had not been prepared for it and was overcome with sweetness. He pressed himself against Lin Feiran and whispered, “I miss you. I miss you so much I can’t sleep. I haven’t kissed you properly in quite a few days.”

Lin Feiran looked over Gu Kaifeng’s shoulder and out of the little window. He was excited, but was also afraid of being found out. “Let’s not, not here. Everyone will be back in a while...”

“It’s fine. This is the dorm for the communications faculty.” Gu Kaifeng pressed him against the door, licked his lips, then said hurriedly, “When we came in here they still hadn’t finished their push-ups.”

Lin Feiran immediately hooked an arm around Gu Kaifeng’s neck and enthusiastically responded, whispering, “I miss you too. I really miss you...”

Five minutes later, they were both like little wild animals who had not yet eaten their fill but had to stop eating, and reluctantly left the dorm room, unsatisfied, and went back to their respective dorm rooms.

The fortnight of hellish torture had ended. After they completed their assessment demonstration, the students got on the bus back to school. The students who had been complaining about wanting to go home now seemed to have gotten Stockholm syndrome and wiped away tears as they bid the instructors farewell, as if they wanted to be trained for another eight hundred years. Lin Feiran was a little reluctant to go, too, but thinking of how he could be as intimate with Gu Kaifeng as he wanted now that training had ended, that reluctance vanished without a trace.

After returning to school, the two only experienced a few days of communal living before Gu Kaifeng ran off in a hurry to look at houses, and rented one that same day.

“Wouldn’t it be better for us to live at school for a while longer?” Lin Feiran hesitated. “I want to get to know our classmates better.”

Gu Kaifeng’s expression darkened. “No, not better.”

Lin Feiran: “......”

Gu Kaifeng grit his teeth, his expression stormy. “When I think of you living in a dorm room with other guys, I can’t even sleep well.”

Lin Feiran put a hand to his forehead. “They’re all straight. You don’t have to be jealous of them.”

Gu Kaifeng found this funny. “You thought I was straight at first, too, right?”

Lin Feiran had no rejoinder!

The house Gu Kaifeng had rented was in a residential area opposite the university. A supermarket was five minutes walk away, so going to class and running errands were both very convenient. If nothing out of the ordinary happened, they would live here for the next four years. After getting approval from the landlord, Gu Kaifeng hired someone to clean up the place and clean out one of the rooms, then put a big desk and a bookshelf in it to use as a study.

On the study desk were a set of writing materials for handwriting practice. A fountain pen, ink, a copybook, an exercise book... aside from these, there were also a set of calligraphy brushes that were mostly there to look nice.

Lin Feiran had prepared all this for himself. He had a lot of free time outside of classes, so he had resolved to focus and practice his handwriting.

On a certain Saturday afternoon, Lin Feiran was working in the study. Gu Kaifeng, who had tormented him into the early hours of the morning yesterday, had happily caught up on sleep with an afternoon nap. He wore only a pair of pants, eyes still hazy with sleep. He stumbled into the study and gave Lin Feiran a bear hug.

“Baby is practicing handwriting? It looks nice. You’ve improved,” Gu Kaifeng ignored his conscience and gave him praise.

It was very difficult to see improvements to handwriting in a short period of time, but encouraging him would only be a good thing.

“I think it looks better than before, too.” Lin Feiran comfortably accepted the praise. Then he wrote down the words ‘Gu Kaifeng,’ his little tail raised up high as he said proudly, “Look!”

Gu Kaifeng’s heart was moved.

Lin Feiran wrote the words ‘Gu Kaifeng’ differently than his usual handwriting. The strokes were precise and proper, almost identical to those in the copybook. Clearly, he had practiced writing these three words a lot.

“I write these three words well because I practice them a lot.” Lin Feiran turned to look at Gu Kaifeng. Maybe because he was turned into the sunlight, his fine-featured face seemed especially pale and bright, and his sincere and slightly shy smile seemed to glow.

A wicked fire rose in Gu Kaifeng’s heart. He cleared his throat, and asked, as if planning something, “Shall your husband practice calligraphy with you for a while?”

Lin Feiran nodded naively. “All right.”

Ten minutes later, Lin Feiran understood that the ‘calligraphy’ Gu Kaifeng was referring to was Gu Kaifeng taking a brush, dipping it in water, and writing on his body.

“Enough...” Lin Feiran was pressed against the desk, his chest wet. He lifted a hand to shield his eyes, too embarrassed to look at Gu Kaifeng.

The soft brush, damp with water, traced an audacious path over his body. The tickling feeling on his skin penetrated straight down to his bones, so ticklish he could not bear it. But Gu Kaifeng still said wickedly, “What word is this?”