To Burn On Touch - CH 15

Translation checker: Rin

Editor: Junyans

Under Fang Zhao’s combined coercion and cajolery, Yu Ran finally told him the truth. Of course, he didn’t directly say “Chu Mian made a rumor that your cock is detachable”, but held up a piece of Want-Want Ice Pop to demonstrate to him.

“Your part there, is like this.” Yu Ran held the two ends of the ice pop with both hands, and snapped them with a “break”, making Fang Zhao tighten his legs unconsciously.

Fang Zhao looked at Chu Mian in disbelief. Then he tapped Yu Ran on the shoulder with righteous indignation, and reprimanded: “It’s all your fault! The male god was led astray by you!”

“Come on dude, he’s just revealing his true nature.” Yu Ran faced Chu Mian and handed him half of the broken ice pop, only to be met with Chu Mian rolling his eyes in disgust.

Yu Ran simply put both pieces in his mouth and sucked. The ice pop melted into water and slowly flowed down its plastic soft shell. Without thinking, he stretched out the tip of his tongue and licked it clean. Chu Mian caught sight of this scene from his peripheral vision and didn’t mind it. However, when Yu Ran took a few sips of iced water and couldn’t help but let out a refreshed sound, Chu Mian hurriedly accelerated his pace and moved a little away from him.

Yu Ran held the ice pop shell in his mouth and asked, “What exams do we have in the afternoon?”

Fang Zhao: “Politics and History, open-book exam. Don’t worry, the main points were all underlined during class.”

“Āiyā, I didn’t underline.” Yu Ran looked at the two of them. “Let’s hurry back. Lend me your notes to copy.”

The three did not stay outside for too long. When they returned to school and walked into the corridor, they found that their class was abnormally quiet. Yu Ran entered through the back door and didn’t see the teacher keeping an eye on the students during the lunch break, but noticed a strange girl. She wasn’t wearing her school uniform and sitting in the middle of the classroom.

Yu Ran only saw her back. Her long straight black hair was casually draped behind her, her top was also black, and her thin white shoulders were exposed. Her head was cocked and she was speaking to a slender-eyed girl in the class: “You. Didn’t your parents teach you not to touch other people’s things casually, huh? You don’t even know how to clean it up after using it without permission. Are you deliberately giving others a hard time or are you just born wicked?”

Yu Ran had never heard such an aggressive tone among his peers, and her every word was sharp and mean. The one who was being scolded by her was a Class Committee member. It seemed that she had never encountered such a situation before, so she just stood there, dumbfounded for a while.

The class president Xiang Xuehua couldn’t stand it anymore, so she stood up and said, “I’m sorry. You’ve never been to school, that’s why we always use your desk and chair…”

The black-haired girl immediately interrupted her explanation: “Just because I didn’t come to school, do you think you can use my things casually? The desks and chairs are the public property of the school. Except for the teachers who are qualified to sit here for a while, who are you to touch them? You’re the class president, right? Ask everyone who has used my desk and chair to come out and apologize to me one by one, otherwise this matter won’t be over.”

After she finished speaking, she crossed her arms on her chest and leaned back in the chair impatiently. The classroom was silent, and everyone looked at each other without knowing what to do. The atmosphere solidified to the freezing point.

At this moment, a clear male voice was the first to break this stiff atmosphere: “I’m sorry!”

Everyone followed the voice and looked, and saw Yu Ran walking towards the girl, apologizing sincerely: “I have sat here a few times because my desk was too messy and there was no place to sleep.”

“To sleep?” When she heard the boy’s voice, the girl got even more annoyed, “Don’t you know ‘men and women are different’? Even if no one has been here to sit before, do you think it doesn’t matter that this might be a girl’s seat?”

Her brow furrowed as she prepared to unleash a new round of malice. But when she turned around to face Yu Ran and found out that the teenager had such handsome features, she hurriedly swallowed back the harsh words that had come to her mouth.

She smoothed out her furrowed brows, waved her hand indifferently at Yu Ran and said: “It’s okay, since you look handsome, I forgive you.”

— Directly judging people by their appearance was the basic principle of her life.

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Her hostility dissipated without a trace, and her lips trembled as she asked Chu Mian: “Why are you here?”

Chu Mian looked down at the eyeliner that was smeared at the corner of the girl’s eyes, “Have you been drinking? Go out and wash your face.”

The girl’s head was a little dizzy. She didn’t know if it was the effect of alcohol or because she saw Chu Mian. She lowered her head and hurriedly bumped through the crowd to get out of the classroom. She didn’t come back for a long time.

As if witnessing the end of a farce, everyone slowly returned to their original place. The Class Committee member, who had been scolded the most fiercely by the girl just now, finally remembered to get angry, and began to complain endlessly, and then was persuaded by Xiang Xuehua to review.

When the atmosphere of the classroom became lively again, Yu Ran asked, “Who was that?”

“One of our classmates who had never come to the class… Cui He?” Fang Zhao recalled her name and looked at Chu Mian, “Is she okay?”

Chu Mian took out his History book and handed it to Yu Ran, and replied smoothly: “She just likes to ask for trouble, don’t mind her.”

Yu Ran asked, “Did you two attend the same school before?”

“No, but we often participated in competitions since we were young, so we knew each other from early on.”

“She’s so fierce.” Yu Ran lay down on the book and started underlining. “I was shocked just now, I thought she was going to hit me.”

Chu Mian looked askance at him, “You’ve even beaten the vice principal’s nephew before, what are you afraid of her for?”

“She’s a female. A big guy like me raising a hand against such a thin girl, if you were in my shoes, would you be willing to do it?”

The two open-paper exams in the afternoon were very easy, and class notes could be used as answers. Yu Ran motioned to Chu Mian with his eyes to hand in the papers in advance, and the two went to the playground to play badminton.

“Finishing Move — Phoenix Swirling Flame Ball! Look at my move!” Yu Ran tossed the badminton cork up high and swung the racket as hard as he could to hit it towards Chu Mian, but it was perfectly caught by the other party before he hit it back. “Damn it, I can’t believe you actually saw through my feint…”

After the continuous exercise, Chu Mian’s cheeks had become warm, and were doused with a faint layer of pink. After playing for several rounds, both of them were tired, and they put down their rackets and gasped for breath.

Yu Ran raised his eyes and saw a person sitting on the steps outside the school building in the distance, also looking at this side.

He reminded Chu Mian: “Cui He seems to be looking for you. I’ll buy water first and come back later.”

Chu Mian nodded, picked up the racket for Yu Ran, and walked towards Cui He.

Cui He was chewing gum, and her first sentence was the question she had asked before: “Why are you in Chengjun?”

“Got admitted by passing the exam,” Chu Mian sat down and lightly explained, “I overslept during the senior high school entrance examination, so I wasn’t able to solve many questions.”

“I don’t believe it,” Cui He said without a least bit of hesitation, “How could you make this kind of low-level mistake? You must have taken medicine in advance.”

“If you don’t believe me, ask the teacher about my senior high school entrance examination results.” Chu Mian took off his school uniform jacket and put it next to him, and lifted the hair on his forehead with his fingers, which made him feel a little cooler.

Cui He was silent for a moment. She stared straight at Chu Mian’s face, as if trying to find a trace of guilty conscience in the boy’s eyes. But Chu Mian remained stingy in showing any emotion, which left Cui He helpless. She could only ask him tentatively, “Are you trying to avoid them?”

“Who?”

“Just your junior high school teachers and classmates,” Cui He said, “Don’t you hate them very much?”

“You were not in the same school as me, so you don’t understand the situation.” Chu Mian took out wet wipes and wiped his hands slowly. “Avoiding them or not has nothing to do with it. I can’t get into the city’s top three schools, Chengjun is my real level now.”

“Nonsense. What about the recommendation?”

“There was no quota.”

“What?”

“There was no quota for me in No. 1 Middle School’s experimental class, and I gave up the recommendation outside Ronggang because I wanted to study science,” Chu Mian explained quickly, and without waiting for Cui He to ask, he directly turned the topic to her: “Will you come to class after the exam this time?”

“I don’t know… Damn, it’s so annoying. My dad actually called the head teacher the day before yesterday to ask about how I was doing at school.” Cui He felt agitated. She took out a hairband from her pocket, and tied her hair randomly, “Then he knew that I hadn’t been to class for a month, and almost broke my leg after he returned home.”

After saying that, she rolled up her trouser legs and made Chu Mian look at the bruises on her skin.

Chu Mian frowned. “So how did you ask for leave before school started…”

“Got someone to pretend to be my dad.” Cui He sighed. “Forget it, I don’t want to talk about that idiot.”

Chu Mian retracted his gaze and said to her, “Come to class on time from now on.”

“How boring…”

“So is acting like a bad girl interesting?” Chu Mian’s voice was cold, “That look of yours at noon was truly and awfully stupid.”

This familiar disgruntled tone of his voice made Cui He laugh out loud but in the end, just like how extreme joy begets sorrow, she accidentally swallowed her chewing gum. She immediately pinched her throat and tried to dry heave. Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes, but the gum eventually slipped down her throat and into her esophagus.

She let out a long sigh of sorrow.

Then, Cui He remembered another thing: “Who was the handsome guy who played with you just now? Your friend?”

“Yu Ran.” Chu Mian introduced his name to her, and then denied that there was any “friendship” between them. “It’s just that I’m more familiar with him recently, nothing more. We can hardly be counted as…friends. Anyway, after the students are divided into different classes, we’ll probably not have much contact—”

Before he finished speaking, a burst of sleepiness hit him quickly.

Cui He turned her face to find that Chu Mian had closed his eyes and was bowing deeply. She hurriedly grabbed him by the shoulder to prevent him from falling forward and down the steps.

When Yu Ran came back with water, he saw Cui He looking around at a loss. Their eyes met and the girl smiled at him like a natural socializer and beckoned him over to help.

Yu Ran walked over without saying a word, put down the two bottles of Maidong on the ground, and raised his hand to take the sleeping Chu Mian into his arms. This action was so natural that Cui He did not react for a moment. Only after a few seconds did she look at Yu Ran blankly and ask, “Are you going to carry him back to class?”

“Huh? Just let him sleep first,” Yu Ran said matter-of-factly, “Leaning on me is so comfortable, so how can I let him lie on the floor.”

“…” Cui He was rendered speechless, but she laughed soon after that, feeling that Yu Ran was quite novel.

“Are you two friends?” Cui He asked the same question to Yu Ran again, and the other party did not hesitate to give her a positive answer: “Of course.”

Cui He asked again: “At school, do you often take care of him?”

“More or less, yeah. He sleeps every day.”

“Don’t you find it troublesome?”

Yu Ran felt puzzled and asked, “What’s so troublesome about this? My eleven-year-old brother is more troublesome than him.”

When Yu Ran saw the girl laugh, her face looked heroic, gentle and beautiful, just like the heroines of Hong Kong martial arts movies he had seen when he was a child. Cui He stood up, patted the dust behind her trousers, and said, “Okay, then I’ll believe you for now. Don’t bully Chu Mian, or I’ll beat you.”

As she turned around and walked up the steps, she took off her hairband and her hair spread out once again. She took a few steps before stopping, stared back at Yu Ran, and asked again, “Are you really willing to be friends with Chu Mian?”

Yu Ran looked up, just gave a heavy “En”, and didn’t say anything more. But his gaze was sincere enough, so Cui He no longer doubted him and smiled at him before walking away.

Chu Mian slept very deeply this time, and during this period, many students who had finished their exam failed to wake him up when they were leaving school. When the last rays of the sun setting on the horizon dissipated, he slowly regained consciousness. He felt that his face was rubbing against a certain familiar cloth, and realized that it was Yu Ran’s.

His neck was too sore from sleep and he was too lazy to move, so he continued to lean on Yu Ran’s chest and asked, “Where is Cui He?”

“Everyone went home to have a meal after school,” Yu Ran said softly, “I called you a few times, but you didn’t wake up.”

Chu Mian closed his eyes to rest, and his voice was a little hoarse: “What did she say to you?”

“Nothing much, she just asked me if I think of you as a friend.”

Chu Mian suddenly opened his eyes, and he could smell the refreshing scent of laundry detergent on Yu Ran’s school uniform while breathing in. He straightened up, rubbed his tired shoulders, and changed the subject: “Let’s go, let’s not stay out too late.”

When Chu Mian picked up his school bag and lowered his head, he found that Yu Ran was still sitting in the same place and so he urged: “Not leaving yet?

The usual joy in Yu Ran’s voice was absent, and he said in a somewhat strange and low voice: “Chu Mian, I just discovered something.”

“What?”

As the night closed in, their field of vision was dark blue, and they couldn’t see each other’s faces clearly. With the cool breeze blowing, Chu Mian unconsciously curled up his fingers, twisting his fingertips and rubbing his palms.

Then, he heard Yu Ran slowly say: “You were crying in your sleep.”