To Burn On Touch - CH 14

Translation checker: Rin

Editor: Junyans

Chu Heng called “Miēmiē” a few times but there was no answer, so she thought he had fallen asleep again. She went over and found that Chu Mian was wearing headphones and writing with his head down.

“Are you writing in your ‘Death Note‘ again?” Chu Heng put a plate of fruits on the table. The movement attracted the teenager’s attention, and he immediately put his arms across the notebook and quietly moved it into his arms to keep Chu Heng from prying.

Chu Heng had accidentally seen the contents of the notebook before, but she hadn’t expected that her nephew had a habit of recording things he disliked, and there were quite a few things related to her. Seeing that Chu Mian hadn’t given up this habit since the start of school, Chu Heng said solemnly: “You should also change the approach and write down the things you like the best. This way, wouldn’t your mood get better when you flip through the notebook?”

“I can remember the things I like without having to write them down.” Chu Mian didn’t bother to look at her. “But the things one hates have to have a reason. If I encounter them again in the future, I can remind myself to avoid them.”

Chu Heng spread out her palms at him, “Then show me what you have just written, why were there so many? You wrote bad things about me again, didn’t you?”

Chu Mian clutched the notebook and denied, “No, I was just filling in what I had forgotten to write recently.”

As the monthly exam was approaching, the homework load was getting heavier. So as soon as he reached home, he would directly go to bed after reviewing to ensure that he was full of energy. Moreover, he had been in a relatively good mood at school recently, as he often didn’t encounter the things he disliked.

“Oh… I had originally prepared a surprise for someone,” Chu Heng deliberately raised her voice sharply, “but since he isn’t telling me the truth, I’ll keep the good thing for myself.”

This made Chu Mian hesitate a little, and he looked up to see that his aunt’s hands were really hidden behind her back, holding something. He pursed his lips, let go of the notebook that was in his arms, threw it on the table, and muttered, “Do you want to give it or not?”

Chu Heng snorted, and reluctantly handed him the prepared box, which was a brand new iPhone 5. The mainland China version hadn’t been released yet, so she had asked a friend to send two sets from the United States, one of which was for Chu Mian.

For Chu Mian, this was indeed an unexpected surprise, but he did not show any happy reaction. With a long face, he just took the box in his hand, and swept two glances at it before putting it aside, as if the new phone was not as attractive as English words.

“I see, you still think that the mung bean soup I cook isn’t delicious, but I don’t think you have drunk any less… thirty-nine… forty… Who is this Yu Ran?” Chu Heng was curious about the “new word” written on the notebook. “Is he your classmate?”

“Hmm.”

“Why do you call him a ‘Muggle’?”

“He’s stupid.” Chu Mian’s words were brief and concise.

When they had first met, he had thought that Yu Ran was stupid and annoying, but now he thought that the other party was stupid to a point that it was outrageous.

Especially in the past few days, Yu Ran had learned a strange behavior from who knew where, always pestering and begging him to “twist his arms”, saying that his lower arms would feel a burning sensation, as if an electric current was passing by, making him feel particularly comfortable. So as soon as class was over, Yu Ran would sit sideways and stretch out his arms, one to Fang Zhao and the other to Chu Mian, letting them twist his arms together.

What a weirdo… Chu Mian felt a burst of shame just by recalling the feeling of being stared at by his classmates with weird gazes. He even felt that Yu Ran might really have some special fetish.

What made him even more angry was Yu Ran’s “loose tongue” problem. In the self-study class, they would often play “tic-tac-toe” on paper, one person drawing a circle and the other a cross. Every time Yu Ran wanted to play, he would turn around and ask loudly, “Chu Mian, let’s OOXX”; if someone was looking for him for something, he would loudly refuse: “No time, Chu Mian and I are in the middle of OOXX”.

It was quite normal for 15 or 16 year-old teenage girls and boys going through puberty to have their imagination roam wild hearing such ambiguous words. Anything related to “sex” would make them smile secretly in a tacit mutual understanding. Yu Ran always talked without thinking, but it was Chu Mian who suffered, having to bear the strange and ambiguous gazes of others.

“You go out please, I want to sleep,” Chu Mian urged Chu Heng.

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Since the beginning of autumn, the weather had been stuck in the lingering summer heat, and it was not until the end of September that there was a hint of cooling.

There were many junior high school students who fantasized about a beautiful senior high school life just like in manhua, but just after a month into school, everyone had gradually come to realize that their everyday life was actually still filled with homework and exams, and fantasies were just fantasies.

— Only Yu Ran still firmly believed that there was a magic power in his body that was about to awaken.

“My eyelids keep twitching, this seems to be some kind of omen.” Yu Ran frowned slightly, the space between his eyebrows filled with a touch of sorrow. He stood in front of the window and looked up at the sky, and said melancholically, “Maybe in a while during the exam, I’ll awaken my ‘Heaven’s Eye‘ and know the answer to everything…”

“Only in your dreams.” Chu Mian mercilessly shattered his wish.

“You—” Yu Ran immediately gritted his teeth and glared at him, “I’ll show you now!”

After Yu Ran said that, he turned both his hands into the shape of binoculars and brought them in front of his eyes, looked at Chu Mian through the hollow in the middle, and yelled in a rough voice: “Aha! I saw it! I saw the dark secret in your mind! Truly dirty and evil! Filthy and nasty! Ha—”

Chu Mian gripped Yu Ran’s wrist and forcibly took apart his “binoculars”, then pinched hard both of his cheeks and pulled them outwards. Yu Ran felt like crying without tears and he conceded and shouted “I was wrong”, but once Chu Mian let go, he played his same old tricks again to provoke the other party.

Two invigilators entered the classroom, patted the lecture desk so that everyone would sit quietly and wait for the exam papers to be distributed.

This first exam was conducted with randomly arranged seats. Chu Mian and Yu Ran happened to be in two adjacent rows in the same exam room, and they could see each other as soon as they turned their heads.

Chu Mian took advantage of the fact that he was not sleepy and had a clear mind, and finished his composition first, and then slowly did the questions at the front. When he was engrossed in analyzing and reading, a few sniffling sounds came to his ears, as if someone was quietly sobbing.

Curious, he turned his head, just in time to see a crystal clear teardrop streaking across Yu Ran’s cheek.

Chu Mian was stunned. He didn’t know what had happened to Yu Ran during the exam who was normal before the exam. He put away his doubts for the time being, and threw over a pack of tissue papers he was carrying while the invigilator was not paying attention.

Yu Ran naturally picked it up, and continued to write in his exam paper while wiping his face. It was difficult for his abnormal state to go unnoticed, and Chu Mian couldn’t help but turn his head to confirm whether the other party had recovered properly.

Just as the bell rang signaling the end of the exam, Chu Mian heard Yu Ran talking to himself while choking with sobs as he passed the exam papers from back to front: “Hey, I wrote my composition so well, especially touching. I’m sure I can get full marks…”

Chu Mian was speechless, the concerns in his heart suddenly disappeared, and he almost crushed the pen in his hand.

In the second subject which was mathematics, Yu Ran hadn’t brought scratch paper, so he coaxed and pestered Chu Mian to give him one. Chu Mian thought that Yu Ran would solve questions seriously, but the result was that in the middle of the exam, he heard Yu Ran deliberately cough several times, obviously trying to attract his attention.

Chu Mian cast a sidelong glance at him and found that Yu Ran was really not writing the answer. The scratch paper he had given the other party was full of drawings of strange and weird things.

— Look!

Yu Ran moved the paper under the table, and motioned Chu Mian with his mouth.

Chu Mian frowned, as if asking him “what is it”.

— The Avengers!

Yu Ran was bursting with good spirits.

Chu Mian knew that it was a new movie released this year, but he hadn’t seen it yet, so naturally he didn’t know the characters Yu Ran had drawn. It was just that, based on the drawing technique, he thought that Yu Ran’s drawing looked quite impressive.

— I don’t recognize.

Chu Mian shook his head.

— This, Iron Man.

Yu Ran pointed, then took a pen and wrote “Iron Man” on the character’s armor.

— This, Thor.

Yu Ran continued to introduce the characters to Chu Mian.

Chu Mian was not interested in knowing who they were, but he had already finished writing all the answers, and now that he was bored and not at all sleepy, he might as well accompany Yu Ran to relieve his boredom.

But just after the two of them had started to interact quietly, Language Teacher Wang slowly walked from the invigilator seat at the back of the classroom to behind Yu Ran, silently staring at Yu Ran who was making small moves.

Chu Mian had been half-lying on the table all along, holding his chin in his hand, so it didn’t look like he was communicating with others. When Teacher Wang walked over, he didn’t warn Yu Ran, and with a smile at the corner of his mouth, he waited for the upcoming good show.

Finally, Teacher Wang’s voice rang out above Yu Ran’s head: “What are you doing?”

Uttering “Oh my!”, Yu Ran bounced up from his chair like a frightened bird, covering his heart pounding inside his chest.

Chu Mian could not hold back his laughter, so he hurriedly plopped down and hid his face in the crook of his arms.

“After you finished writing, you started to find trouble again, didn’t you? Huh? I wasn’t the one who invigilated the Language exam just now, how was your exam? Huh? Yu Ran, I’ll look for you after I finish checking your paper, you just wait and see.” Teacher Wang pointed to the drawing in his hand, “What’s this? The drawing is quite good. Are you still going to answer the questions? After checking your answers once, hand in the papers, go out and stay there, so as to save yourself from fidgeting here.”

When Yu Ran heard that he could hand in the papers in advance, he immediately handed his exam papers to Teacher Wang, got up and prepared to leave the classroom.

After receiving Yu Ran’s paper, Teacher Wang turned to look at Chu Mian and asked, “Chu Mian, will you also hand your papers in?”

Chu Mian was caught off guard because he was called, “Huh?”

“Didn’t you have a good time exchanging glances with him just now? If you’ve already finished checking, just hand in your paper. You two can go out and accompany each other.”

Chu Mian just wanted to say “No”, but Yu Ran reacted faster. He strode forward to grab his two exam papers, respectfully handed them to Teacher Wang and said, “Thank you, Teacher, for helping us out.”

Once they left the classroom, Chu Mian pushed Yu Ran into the corner of the hallway and pressed him against the wall to prevent him from moving. Chu Mian stopped only when Yu Ran said with difficulty that he could hardly breathe. Yu Ran immediately recovered his spirits, and pulled Chu Mian to sit on the windowsill together.

“Did you know the answers to all of the questions?” asked Yu Ran.

“They’re all questions taught during class. Even the final math questions were the same questions from our homework.”

“What?!” Yu Ran was shocked. “Holy shit, then I’m finished, I’ve not even written my own homework.”

“In that case, serves you right,” Chu Mian sneered.

“Well, I don’t care about the points given to me for free.”

Yu Ran moved his neck a few times, “It’s so boring. Chu Mian, let’s compete in cooking up rumors.”

Chu Mian turned to look at him, “How do we compete?”

“By seeing who cooks up the fakest rumor. I’ll start.” Yu Ran bit his lower lip and fell into thought. “Well… Fang Zhao’s penis is two meters long and usually coiled around his waist.”

“You’re disgusting.”

“That’s what he bragged about himself! He said he could grow up to twenty centimeters. I didn’t believe it, so I just said two meters.” Yu Ran’s elbow touched Chu Mian, “Well, it’s your turn.”

Chu Mian pondered for a while, and after a few seconds, he whispered to Yu Ran a rumor he had cooked up.

“Fuck…” Yu Ran was speechless, and at the same time, laughed wildly. “I’m going to tell Fang Zhao that you actually think that his cock is detachable, it’s too much.”

Chu Mian was a little annoyed: “Didn’t you say we compete by making the fakest rumor? You can’t tell him.”

The two sat on the windowsill until the end of the exam, and when Fang Zhao finished turning in his papers, they left school together to have dinner. Halfway through, Fang Zhao always felt that the two of them were whispering while he was not paying attention but when he turned around, they acted as if nothing had happened, which was very suspicious.

Fang Zhao asked directly: “What are you two plotting?”

“Nothing.” Yu Ran shrugged his shoulders, his expression innocent, while Chu Mian stared ahead, remaining silent.

“Looking at the two of you, it’s just like that 4399’s game…” Fang Zhao said, “where you’ve to kiss when the boss isn’t paying attention. You can’t be discovered by him. What is it called? ‘Office Affair‘?”

He suddenly stopped in his tracks and hesitantly asked Chu Mian and Yu Ran: “You two just now didn’t—”

The two of them said in unison: “No!”

Standing under the sun, Chu Mian’s ears began to turn red, and he later regretted why on earth he was in cahoots with Yu Ran.

— Sure enough, Yu Ran’s stupidity was contagious.