Chapter 73: —

Just after he said that, a loud croak rang out from the bathroom.

Wen Fu's stomach growled.

Fei Bolin looked at Wen Fu.

Wen Fu looked up at Fei Bolin.

Fei Bolin rubbed Wen Fu's flat, skinny belly.

'Hungry?' he asked.

Wen Fu nodded, then thought about it and shook his head: 'If Bo-ge isn't hungry, I'm not hungry.'

It was four in the morning. Fei Bolin wasn't happy today. If he had to make Fei Bolin cook for him at four a.m. while he was already feeling bad, Wen Fu couldn't eat anyway.

Fei Bolin quickly rinsed off his hair and body, wrapped him up in a towel: 'Get dressed and go boil some water in the kitchen. I'll eat a bit too.'

At four-thirty, the two of them hunched over the small dining table in the living room, eating wontons.

The wontons were made by Fei Bolin the night before — beef filling, Wen Fu's favorite. Fei Bolin had planned to cook them at home after the exam and have them waiting for Wen Fu, but the meal didn't happen until the wee hours of the next day.

Some twenty wontons, and Wen Fu had them all slurped down in a few minutes — not even a drop of soup left.

After eating, he sat quietly at the table, watching Fei Bolin eat slowly.

Fei Bolin ate for a while, then suddenly said: 'You're not gonna ask me what happened today?'

Wen Fu said: 'Nope.'

If he asked, Fei Bolin would have to tell it all again, and telling it again meant getting hurt again. He didn't want Fei Bolin to hurt.

When Fei Bolin was ready to talk, that meant the wound had scabbed over — peeling it off wouldn't even hurt.

He and Fei Bolin had so much time ahead, so many more dinners to share. No need to know everything at this one meal.

Fei Bolin set down his spoon, spoke slowly: 'We might not be able to go to the same university.'

Wen Fu froze.

His first thought was that Fei Bolin had done too well, that his own score couldn't catch up. But Wen Fu figured he'd done pretty well himself. Apart from English, where he'd been too anxious to fully focus, even the hardest subject — Chinese — he'd held steady at his usual 110 to 120. Even if Fei Bolin was going to Beijing, to Tsinghua, based on Wen Fu's own estimate, as long as it wasn't the most competitive major, scraping the admission cutoff, he had a pretty good shot.

The gap between him and Fei Bolin was only that ten-odd points in Chinese. Fei Bolin wasn't dead-set on Tsinghua; they could both compromise. Ten points wasn't nearly enough to split them between two schools.

Unless...

'Did Bo-ge not do well?' Wen Fu asked. 'Really not well?'

Fei Bolin dipped his head, scooped up a spoonful of wonton without eating it, nodded: 'Around 550.'

Wen Fu said: 'I'll go to your school.'

'No.' Fei Bolin, like he'd already known Wen Fu would make that call, set down his bowl and spoon completely. 'I'm telling you this so you don't settle down for me. Xiao Fu, you deserve the best. Don't waste a single point.'

Wen Fu tried to fight it: 'I can pick the best major—'

'No major makes up for a hundred-plus points.' Fei Bolin cut him off, leaving no room to negotiate. 'Xiao Fu, you have to do right by your own effort first. Everyone else comes second.'

Wen Fu couldn't win against him.

Two seconds of silence, then he had to push back: 'Bo-ge isn't everyone else.'

Fei Bolin pretended not to hear: 'Pick the best school within your range. Even if we can't be together, I'll choose the place closest to you.'

'No—' Fei Bolin thought about it, then immediately overruled himself, 'we'll be together.'

Wen Fu was quiet for a moment, then asked: 'Bo-ge isn't going to retake the exam?'

Fei Bolin shook his head: 'It's just the gaokao.'

—'Just the gaokao.'

The day scores came out, Fei Bolin, who'd missed the English exam, had a total of 558 — thirty points above the first-tier cutoff. Wen Fu's English had also underperformed: 106 on that one subject, 661 total, 133 points above the cutoff.

Once the scores dropped, the entire teaching group and the school forum blew up.

Especially the forum — almost all the fire was aimed at Fei Bolin.

Basically people dug up old posts mocking him for refusing the transfer to Hanyang Class and mocked him again, or busybodies opened new threads using Fei Bolin's own words to twist them into sarcasm.

Like:

[Passerbys come in and laugh first

[Fei Bolin walked into the forum, and everyone looked at him and laughed. Someone called out: 'Fei Bolin, you flunked the gaokao again!' He didn't answer, just said to the counter: 'Heat up two score sheets, I want a copy of the Five-Three.' Then he laid out his four subject scores. They deliberately shouted even louder: 'You definitely stole someone's first place again!' Fei Bolin's eyes went wide: 'How can you slander me out of thin air...' 'Slander? I saw with my own eyes two days ago you scored 558 and got beat up for it.' Fei Bolin's face went red, the veins on his forehead popping out as he argued: '558 doesn't count as stealing... 558!... A scholar's business — can that be called stealing?' Then came some incomprehensible stuff about 'I can still be first in the grade without Hanyang Class,' which made everyone laugh, the whole thread inside and out filled with happy air.]

1L: OP has talent / smirk

2L: OP has talent / smirk

3L: Without Hanyang Class, I can still be first~

4L: 3L's boomerang hurts the most hahahahahaha

5L: Did OP know the character 'one' has four ways to write it / smirk

6L: 5L should ask Fei Bolin, he'd definitely know

7L: First place in his dreams hahahaha you can't even find him in the top hundred

8L: LOL isn't this the genius Fei Bolin who coldly refused Hanyang Class back then? Why doesn't the grade's first place have the surname Fei?

9L: Anyone gonna go ask Fei Bolin why he didn't~ get~ first~ place~ huh~

Or another post:

[Rumor about that first-in-the-grade guy.

My friend at No.3 High School was in the same exam room as him, sat right behind him. Heard he just didn't show up for the last subject, English.]

1L: What? So he got zero on English?

2L: That counts as missing the exam, right

3L: No way, OP bring proof

4L [OP]: [image] This is my friend's exam number. Thirty people per room, he happened to be number thirty, just one off from that guy.

5L: Damn, so he really just skipped it? Did he go to the other subjects?

6L [OP]: He went, only missed English.

7L: Don't tell me he tanked on purpose so other schools would invite him to retake and give him a scholarship

8L: Possible, a few years back Mianyang had a top scorer who did exactly that — got into Peking U but didn't go, retook on purpose, got over a hundred thousand in scholarship

9L: Retake a few more years and he can buy a house outright

10L: No need to give up Tsinghua/Peking for a hundred grand... once you graduate you can earn way more than that. Is he that broke?

11L: His family situation does seem pretty rough, he's been on the aid list every year

12L: The way he refused Hanyang Class didn't sound like his family couldn't back him up

13L: What do you know, money's gotta be earned, face has gotta be kept, you gotta apply for the aid list every single year

14L: 13L's going too far. If he hadn't missed English, he'd actually be first. This year's top scorer is only 689, there's no way he couldn't score 130 on English

15L: Who's to say, Wen Fu who also refused Hanyang Class only got just over a hundred on English, why would he definitely get 130?

16L: Stop hyping him up as top scorer here, isn't 558 embarrassing enough? If I were him I'd rip my own face off and stuff it in my pocket, never show it again

17L: Hey everyone upstairs, before you mock him for his score, look at your own. The guy missed English and still scored thirty above the cutoff. Can any of you get into Tsinghua or Peking? Show us your score sheets @13L @15L @16L

18L: How come the second I ask for scores everyone goes quiet? Don't just shoot your mouth off, bros @13L @15L @16L

19L: Bet you can't even match his score with English missing @13L @15L @16L

Xie Yining, phone in hand, fired off three questions in a row and shut everyone in the thread up. Then she opened other posts and fought everyone, and when she got tired she'd poke Su Haoran to take over, while she opened QQ to message Fei Bolin.

[@ShiYiBuShiLing: Class president, you missed English?

@Lin: Yeah, something came up that day

@ShiYiBuShiLing: Something came up? You call that something? What could possibly make you miss the gaokao, dude

@Lin: It's fine

@ShiYiBuShiLing: It's fine?

@ShiYiBuShiLing: ...

@ShiYiBuShiLing: You don't wanna talk about it, fine. So what's your plan now?

@ShiYiBuShiLing: I mean your score is fine for a good school, but it just feels like a waste

@ShiYiBuShiLing: You retaking?

@Lin: Not retaking

@ShiYiBuShiLing: You sure?

@Lin: Just the gaokao]

These past few days Fei Bolin had taken countless calls from teachers, year-level groups, and recruiters from other schools. To every single person who questioned him about not retaking, Fei Bolin gave the same answer: 'Just the gaokao.'

Life's just one mountain after another. At eighteen, Fei Bolin took a tumble on the gaokao mountain. As long as his legs weren't broken, he'd dust off his knees and keep going.

He didn't deny the failure, but he absolutely wouldn't dwell on it.

A small mountain. He had decades ahead to turn it around.

When it came time to fill out their college applications, Fei Bolin and Wen Fu huddled together and researched for a long time. Before graduation, No.1 High School had given every senior a college application reference book, listing the lowest admission scores from the past three years and that year's cutoff lines for every legitimate university in the country.

In the end, Fei Bolin watched over Wen Fu as he filled in Chuan Da University's finance department, while he himself, after weighing everything, picked the internet law major at Sichuan Normal University — the one geographically closest to Wen Fu's program.

To stop Wen Fu from secretly changing his choices, on the very last day before the deadline, Fei Bolin went over Wen Fu's application form one more time.

Before that, he'd asked Wen Fu if he wanted to apply for a music-related major at Chuan Yin College of Popular Music. Wen Fu shook his head and refused.

One, as a science student, lots of majors at Chuan Yin had restrictions. Two, studying anything arts-related cost serious money.

He loved music — no question. Music was his dream — no question. But dreams don't pay the bills. Between the most basic survival needs and the highest level of self-actualization, there was still a long, long gap he had to cross slowly. Right now, the most important thing was for him and Fei Bolin to live without worrying about food and shelter.

Then Fei Bolin started tallying up their savings.

Tuition for both of them for one year came to 9,200 yuan. Add in the usual course materials, handouts, and study expenses after enrollment, and conservatively that was 12,000 a year for school stuff. Living expenses for the two of them together — food and daily necessities — at minimum 2,000 a month, times eight months a school year, came to 16,000. Then travel between cities for school and a buffer for illness or other random stuff, call it 2,000. So at least 30,000 a year for school.

Living with Wen Fu these past two years, pinching every penny, he'd paid off the debt the year before last and now had 40,000 saved up.

Fei Bolin was doing the math and suddenly sighed: 'We're amazing.'

Raising himself and raising Wen Fu, he'd not only paid back the hundred thousand for Lin Yuanyi's medical bills before she died, but also saved a full forty thousand — though a big part of that was Aunt Wu's extra care and help, which kept Lin's Convenience Store running.

Plus Wen Fu was right there with him. On holidays, rain or shine, blazing sun, because he ran fast, he basically took every single delivery order for the store without fail — holiday revenue had doubled compared to before.

Fei Bolin was still muttering to himself when Wen Fu's sleepy head leaned against his arm.

It was hot. Wen Fu had just eaten, and Fei Bolin wouldn't let him drink cold water right away. He sulked, deliberately keeping his distance — at least an arm's length away. But before long he was dozing off against the wall by the fan, and as he dozed he forgot he was mad at Fei Bolin, and sleepily, silently, drifted closer.

Fei Bolin watched his eyelids droop, half-closed, and reached over to pat his head: 'You're amazing too.'

Wen Fu caught only bits and pieces, dragging his voice lazily: 'What's amazing?'

'Not drinking cold water is the most amazing.' Fei Bolin said. 'Meimei's the one who drinks the least cold water I've ever seen. Meimei is the number one non-cold-water drinker in the Residential Complex.'

Wen Fu glanced at Fei Bolin and let out a soft hmph: 'I don't buy it.'

After saying that he slowly sat up, sitting up straight, while thinking to himself that no matter what, today he wouldn't drink a single sip of cold water.

After coaxing Wen Fu, Fei Bolin went back to looking at apartments online.

Tuition and living expenses were sorted out — those were the small stuff. Rent for him and Wen Fu was the real big ticket.

Other expenses could be figured out month by month, but nobody rents month by month. Either half a year, minimum three months, usually with a deposit on top.

Wen Fu had spent years without a stable home. Fei Bolin didn't want them moving around. He decided to find a place and rent for at least a year — ideally the whole four years of college.

Which meant he had to set aside at least a year's rent upfront.

And right now, even adding in two months of summer revenue, their savings could only support a place with rent of at most 1,300 a month.

Their two schools were twenty minutes apart by subway. The cheapest rentals around there were apartments, but apartments had bad soundproofing. Fei Bolin wanted Wen Fu to have a place where he could freely compose and practice piano once he started college.

After looking around, Fei Bolin found an older Residential Complex building. One bedroom, but the agent promised the soundproofing and security were both solid. It was close to the subway entrance, sat right between his and Wen Fu's schools — convenient for both of them. Best of all, it was sixty square meters, and the rent was only 1,100.

Too bad — the second week after he'd talked to the agent about holding it, someone else rented the place.

Fei Bolin had no choice. He'd have to wait until a few days before school started and look at places in Jin City. Any apartment he liked in Rongzhou could be snatched up at any moment.

A month before school started, Fei Bolin opened the store earlier and closed later every day, wishing he had twenty-five hours in a day to run the shop, desperate to earn more.

Once he started college, he couldn't run the store anymore. He'd have to transfer it — either let Aunt Wu take it over completely, or rent the space out to someone else for something different. He'd get at most 2,000 a month in rent.

There was no way he could come back during winter and summer break — peak traffic — to run the store himself, then hand it off when school started. Everyone wanted those holiday months to cash in. No way he'd get all the best of it.

Which meant while studying at college, he needed to find a part-time job. Otherwise, living off the 2,000 a month from renting out the store, the two of them would barely scrape by on food. If anything came up, there'd be no emergency money.

Tutoring? No good. The market was huge — anyone with options wouldn't pick a gaokao scorer of 550-something as a tutor.

The summer wasn't exactly long. Wen Fu wrote a lot of songs at home, bit by bit. But without systematic training, relying only on the occasional flash of inspiration, his songs never came together — they couldn't become complete tracks. Wen Fu was playful and impatient, and Fei Bolin spoiled him, so he'd write two lines of lyrics for one song, then a few lines for another. After a whole summer of creating, there were tons of songs — and not a single complete one.

And Fei Bolin, day after day, amid all this hoping and worrying and calculating, took Wen Fu a week before school started and got on the bus to Jin City.

The bus was long, full of passengers, the road to Jin City was far — five hours sitting.

Wen Fu didn't like being uprooted, didn't like moving around, and especially didn't like taking the bus.

Back when he was with his foster father, Wen Fu was always on buses. From town to county, then county to another county. His foster father always tried to get him to ride without a ticket. If he couldn't get away with it, the foster father would curse Wen Fu out in front of the conductor and the whole bus, as if he were deliberately using Wen Fu as a way to embarrass the conductor. After the cursing, the foster father would reluctantly buy tickets — a seat for himself, a standing ticket for Wen Fu.

A seat ticket was eleven yuan. A standing ticket was only six.

Wen Fu, a few years old or in his early teens, would grip the back of his foster father's seat, his calves pinned in place by the countless bags and bundles in the aisle, standing woodenly the whole way through the noise of chatter and the layered smells of smoke, alcohol, and sweat.

After a two-hour bus ride, his shoes were crushed out of shape, his legs numb, and once he got off he had to take another round of beating and kicking from his foster father.

So before he turned seventeen, Wen Fu hated traveling more than anything.

In 2015, Rongzhou didn't have high-speed rail to Jin City yet. They still had to take the bus.

The day they left for Jin City, Fei Bolin carried the backpack stuffed with Wen Fu's favorite Jule Milk, chocolate, and cookies. He first stowed their luggage on the bus, then, following the seat numbers on the tickets, led Wen Fu to their seats. He wiped down the seats with tissues before letting Wen Fu sit by the window on the inside, and took the outside seat himself, blocking Wen Fu from the crowded aisle.

Then Fei Bolin adjusted the little Air Conditioner above Wen Fu so he'd stay cool without the AC blowing directly on his head.

Finally he taught Wen Fu how to buckle the seatbelt.

Wen Fu was seventeen years old, and that was the first day he ever learned how to buckle a seatbelt on a bus.

Once everything was set, Fei Bolin took out earphones and let Wen Fu lean quietly against him, watching Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix he'd downloaded at home.

This was Wen Fu's favorite movie since he learned to watch videos on his phone. All summer he'd watch the movie, then borrow the book from the city library, then rewatch the movie after finishing the book.

Fei Bolin asked if he really liked it that much. Wen Fu said yes. Fei Bolin asked if he wanted to buy the book set.

Wen Fu thought about it, said buying books wasn't worth it — he wouldn't always be home in college, and even if he bought them, he couldn't read them often. If he put them in the rental, the books would have to be uprooted too.

So Wen Fu and Fei Bolin agreed: once they had a new home of their own, they'd buy a Harry Potter set and keep it there. Read whenever they wanted, no worrying about moving.

The long-distance bus passengers were all quiet. Wen Fu pressed against Fei Bolin, the window curtains drawn tight, the blazing sun couldn't reach him, other people's smells couldn't reach him. Wen Fu fell asleep watching the movie on his phone, and Fei Bolin quietly took off his earphones and let him lean on his shoulder.

When Wen Fu woke up, Fei Bolin put the opened water bottle to his lips.

After drinking, Wen Fu could have cookies and chocolate, and after eating, lean on Fei Bolin and sleep some more.

When he woke up, they were in Jin City.

Wen Fu rubbed his eyes, seeming reluctant to get up from his seat: 'We're there already?'

Fei Bolin packed up the backpack and asked: 'You wanna sit longer?'

Wen Fu nodded: 'Yeah.'

If only he could just keep traveling with Fei Bolin forever.

Fei Bolin figured he wasn't fully awake yet, and replied half-heartedly: 'Why?'

No one would actually want to keep sitting on a bus, want to stay in this long, dull bus forever.

Wen Fu only said: 'I like traveling with Bo-ge.'

Fei Bolin laughed: 'Even the bus?'

Wen Fu thought for a moment.

He hadn't been on any other long-distance transport yet, but if Fei Bolin was there—

'I'd like anything.'