Qing Kuang Chapter 107

Published at 10th of May 2023 01:16:57 PM

Huo Ran saw on Kou Chen’s phone that he had Lin Wuyu added as a friend, and it’s not like he was jealous of that. Although they’ve never even talked.

Huo Ran glanced at the triumphant-looking Kou Chen, then took a sip of his drink. 

Whatever makes him happy. Childish.

After Kou Chen at the remaining half of Huo Ran’s chicken wing, he turned back around towards Lin Wuyu: “Huh?”

“What?” Huo Ran didn’t want to turn around, so he only looked at Kou Chen.

“He’s gone,” Kou Chen whispered. 

“Probably finished eating.” Huo Ran was very thankful for that. As long as Lin Wuyu sat there, Kou Chen wouldn’t give him a break.

“No way,” Kou Chen said. “He had a huge plate, I don’t even know how he got everything on there. He finished all that so fast?”

“Maybe he eats fast.” Huo Ran bit into his chicken.

“I bet he packed it all up and left,” Kou Chen tsked. He stared at Huo Ran. “He couldn’t take it anymore, I bet he’s…”

“That’s normal.” Huo Ran was still munching on the chicken. “Is he supposed to just sit there and watch you come all over me?”

Kou Chen snorted: “What did I say?”

“…Good for you,” Huo Ran deadpanned.

“I think so too,” Kou Chen laughed. 

Everyone else had started discussing Kou Chen’s birthday, so the two of them paused their own talk about who’s jealous of who and joined in the conversation.

“Don’t plan anything too big,” Kou Chen said. “It’ll get in the way of my studies.”

They all went quiet and collectively turned to him in disbelief. 

“If I don’t pass all of my exams, I might have to go abroad!” Kou Chen hissed and smacked the table. “Guys! My friends! We might never see each other again!”

“Isn’t your relationship with your dad better now?” Xu Chuan said. “Even if you don’t pass, he’s not gonna force you to go abroad after seeing that you tried your best, will he?”

“It’s a matter of pride, Chuan-ge.” Kou Chen frowned. “I said I was gonna do it, so how am I ever gonna show my face again if I fail? He already laughed at me for setting my goal too low. Knowing my dad, I’ll never live it down if I actually fail.”

“Just one day, then.” Xu Zhifan said. “We want to do it on a weekend, have a cookout or barbeque or something.” 

“Barbeque is good,” Kou Chen said. “Forget about a cookout. Do you guys know what a cookoutis? You have to start your own fire and make your own food. To cook. We’d barely make anything edible.”

Huo Ran laughed as he ate.

“Barbeque, then.” Xu Chuan said. “Spend your actual birthday with your family. You’re turning eighteen it’s important, and your dad will want you home too. We’ll celebrate the next day.”

“What about the two of them alone?” Jiang Lei asked. “One day with his family, and one day with us. That’s the whole weekend.” 

“Then…” Wei Chaoren thought about it. “Why don’t you… make a sacrifice this time?”

“Huh?” Huo Ran looked at him.

“It’s not like you guys will miss this one weekend,” Wei Chaoren said. “Didn’t you spend last weekend at his house anyways?”

“I didn’t…” Huo Ran quickly tried to explain. 

But nobody listened. They all moved on to the next topic of conversation.

Kou Chen couldn’t stop laughing.

Back in their dorms, it was already pretty late. They said their goodbyes and went to their own rooms. 

“Huo Ran.” Kou Chen reached out for the door and said softly.

“Hm?” As the last to go inside, Huo Ran was about to close the door, but he stopped and turned around.

“Goodnight, Ranran.” Kou Chen’s voice was so quiet he could barely hear it.

“Goodnight, Chenchen.” Huo Ran’s said, just as quietly. 

“Me?” Huo Ran paused. “What plans would I have?”

“I mean,” Jiang Lei said down beside him. “You don’t have any surprises planned for Kou Chen’s birthday?”

“A surprise?” Huo Ran looked at him. 

“Kou Chen spent a lot of time on your birthday present. Even though he didn’t say it, he was probably you know, already.” Jiang Lei said. “So we thought you might have something special planned since you two are together now.”

Something special?

Yeah.

In bed. 

“I… haven’t thought about it,” Huo Ran said. “I wanted to make two bracelets with some old bike chains.”

“Damn, master craftsman,” Jiang Lei said. “Is it hard?”

“In theory… no,” Huo Ran said. “Just cut them up and put a clasp on it.”

“Do you have to polish the chains?” Hu Yi said. “Or get rid of the grease or something?” 

Huo Ran looked at Hu Yi, and a moment later he said: “Do you know how to do it?”

“No,” Hu Yi answered. “I just wanted to remind you. Why don’t you just use new chains, so you don’t have to polish them? There were these black ones you said looked really cool before, right?”

“Mhm,” Huo Ran thought about it. “I still want to use old ones. I have them in black too.”

“Why?” Jiang Lei said. “Are you broke, I can give you some money.” 

“No,” Huo Ran hesitated, a little embarrassed. “The old bike chains… have been with me to many different places, so I guess… they’re meaningful.”

“Old ones it is then, you can figure it out.” Xu Zhifan flicked his bed and said, “Let’s talk about the surprise first. If you don’t have any ideas, we can come up with one, yeah?”

Huo Ran looked at the people in front of him, unable to squeeze out a word.

“Touched?” Jiang Lei said. 

“Mhm,” Huo Ran nodded. “You guys didn’t care this much about my birthday.”

“That’s different,” Hu Yi said. “This is the first birthday since you guys got together, you have to make some memories.”

“What ideas do you have then?” Huo Ran asked.

“Chuan-ge said he went to a barbeque spot with someone before, there’s practically no people there. It’s by a hill, and the scenery’s nice,” Xu Zhifan said. “And then we’ll dig a few holes…” 

“And push me into it?” Huo Ran jumped up. “No, no, no, nope, no way!”

“Let him finish!” Jiang Lei said.

“We’re not gonna push you in, we’ll die if we have to dig that big of a hole. We’ll put in a few shiny balloons or something, with words written on them,” Xu Zhifan said. “Think about what you wanna write. And then when we wish him a happy birthday, the balloons will suddenly fly out. How about it?”

“That’s such a… straight dude idea.” Huo Ran said. 

“Okay, okay, okay, you’re the gay one, you come up with something.” Jiang Lei said.

Huo Ran looked at him: “Aren’t you eager today, Leilei?”

“Is it good or not?” Jiang Lei said.

“It’s good,” Huo Ran nodded. “But how are we gonna do it? It sounds annoying. Chuan-ge has to go take a look first? And then we have to go and set it all up?” 

“It’s fine,” Xu Zhifan said. “Not a problem.”

“What if the balloons fly away in the wrong order?” Huo Ran asked.

“We’ll tie the balloons to a rock, and cover the hole with something,” Hu Yi said. “Tie a rope to the cover, and then we all pull them at the same time.”

“Nice!” Huo Ran gave him a thumbs up. 

Kou Chen was completely unaware that the rest of them were secretly preparing for his birthday. Apart from studying, all he did was ask Huo Ran about the love letter.

“Did you finish the love letter?” He whispered. 

“Nope,” Huo Ran said.

“There’s only a few days left,” Kou Chen said. “Finals are right after my birthday, you better put some work into it, in case it affects my performance.”

“Mhm,” Huo Ran nodded.

He was currently writing something. 

Hello, Kou Chen.

The weather’s great today.

Huo Ran paused and looked out the window. It was pouring outside.

But that’s fine, it’ll clear up sooner or later. 

“How many words?” Kou Chen said. “Eight hundred?”

“Dunno, it depends.” Huo Ran said as he wrote. “It might not be very long.”

“Then…” Kou Chen suddenly stop up and went towards the classroom door. “Mr. Yu!”

Huo Ran turned around and saw their English teacher walk out of the room across from theirs, heading to his office. 

Mr. Yu’s face twisted up when he saw Kou Chen. “You again? Your class isn’t studying English today.”

“I know,” Kou Chen took out a worksheet from his back pocket. “But there’s something I don’t understand.”

“Come to my office,” Mr. Yu sighed. “It’s good that you’re working hard, but why do I feel like you don’t understand anything…”

“That’s true,” Kou Chen said happily. “I don’t understand anything.” 

“No don’t you sound proud about that?” Mr. Yu kept sighing. “Come on then, my office.”

After Kou Chen left, Xu Zhifan sat down beside him and threw a stack of papers onto the table. “Let me see your work.”

“Why?” Huo Ran looked at him in surprise. 

“Kou Chen asked me to,” Xu Zhifan said. “I’ll explain it to your first, and then we can all study together later.”

“Damn,” Huo Ran was shocked. “He’s serious?”

“I think so,” Xu Zhifan said. “I find that Kou Chen is very serious about things once he puts his mind to it. Even if it’s for his pride, he has to do it. And this time he’s dragging all of us with him too.”

Huo Ran glanced at the “love letter” he was writing. He gritted his teeth and closed the notebook. “Okay, help me with the math test from last week, I only got one of the big questions right.” 

What a nice environment this is.

Usually, during evening self-study, they would all be copying homework or chatting. Apart from Xu Zhifan who would read sometimes, they all acted like it was a party.

Today was different. Starting today, their seven-person study group will begin operations under Kou Chen’s demand. 

They put their desks together to make a circle.

First they listened to Xu Zhifan quietly explain the day’s homework. The ones who already finished looked them over, and if they didn’t understand something, they had Mr. Xu to explain.

“Fuck…” Wei Chaoren looked pained. “So annoying.”

“Bear with it.” Kou Chen stared at his paper. He hasn’t written a single thing for the problem in five minutes. 

“It’s not like my dad will send me abroad if I fail everything,” Wei Chaoren grumbled. “It’s not that big of a deal even if I do go abroad, Zhou Ning’s not interested at the moment, and I’ll think about you guys every day…”

“You like Zhou Ning, right?” Kou Chen continued staring at the problem. “She has university entrance exams this year, and then she’s leaving. You have to get into a school in the same city at least, or else you two will never see each other again, and the three stitches on my head will fucking be for nothing.”

Hearing that, Wei Chaoren was defeated by his guilt, so he forced himself to pick up the pen.

“Am I stupid?” Kou Chen stared at the problem for a few more minutes, and he suddenly exploded with a throw of his pen. “Am I stupid?” 

The classroom was filled with quiet murmurs, but at that, everyone went silent. It was like they all started holding their breaths too.

Nobody dared to answer that question.

“I don’t think so,” Huo Ran looked at him. “Why are you suddenly… asking that?”

“Xu Zhifan explained the same kind of problem three times already, I remember that clearly.” Kou Chen lowered his voice but there was still fire in his eyes. “But I still can’t fucking do it. My IQ probably isn’t even 80.” 

“Can you not insult me?” Huo Ran replied.

“…Fuck?” Kou Chen looked at him.

“Mr. Xu, can you explain it to him again?” Xu Chuan said.

“Okay,” Xu Zhifan nodded. He poked Kou Chen’s hand with his pen. “I’m telling you, you’re not stupid. You’re probably doing high school problems with a middle schooler’s mentality. It’s normal that you can’t do it.” 

“The problem is I was doing middle school problems with an elementary schooler’s mentality,” Kou Chen said.

“Is that even more normal? Little kid,” Xu Zhifan said.

“Ah,” Kou Chen thought about it. “Fuck, explain it again.”

You had to admit that forcing himself to study to death was effective for Kou Chen. He actually passed this week’s tests, and for most of the classes too. Although he was two marks off for English, but Mr. Yu just gave it to him.

Written after his mark was the reason he gave extra marks: “An impressive attitude towards learning”.

Huo Ran thinks that Mr. Yu might be scared that Kou Chen would charge into his office and ask a million whys if he failed him.

To be honest, the weekly tests didn’t mean much, since it was only for a small amount of content, but at least it proved that Kou Chen didn’t harass the teachers and Mr. Xu Zhifan for no reason. 

On the way to the cafeteria, Huo Ran got a call from Kou Chen’s dad.

Before he could say anything, Kou Chen’s dad spoke first: “Huo Ran, if Kou Chen’s beside you, don’t let him hear this.”

“Mhm, he’s walking ahead of me, Huo Ran whispered. “What is it, Uncle Kou?” 

“Your Old Yuan reported that Kou Chen did pretty well on his tests this week?” Kou Chen’s dad asked.

“Yeah,” Huo Ran said. “He… passed them all.”

His dad clicked his tongue: “I thought he got full marks.”

“I think that’s a bit too far-fetched?” Huo Ran said. 

“Okay, I’ll give him a call.” Kou Chen’s dad hung up.

Then, Huo Ran saw Kou Chen pick up his phone, probably from his dad.

The call was very short, Kou Chen only said a “hello?” and nothing else before it ended.

“Fuck!” He moved the phone in front of his face. “Is he insane?” 

“What is it?” Huo Ran asked.

The rest of them all leaned in.

“My dad called, he only said one thing,” Kou Chen said.

“What?” Huo Ran asked. 

“All of my marks added together is dozens of points more than yours, hahahaha,” Kou Chen said.

They all paused. After a while of silence, Xu Chuan said: “Your dad… damn.”

Chapter end