IOU (IN LARGE, BOLD LETTERS)
[On x year x month x day, Xiao Yan of Class 3, Year Two, helped Luo Zhiyu of Class 3, Year One, complete his homework once. Luo Zhiyu owes Xiao Yan a favor. When necessary, Xiao Yan has the right to collect this debt by reasonable means.]
[Promisor: Luo Zhiyu]
[Supervisor: Xiao Yan]
“Big brother, could you have a little dignity? I’ve only just finished the college entrance exams.” Luo Zhiyu lay sprawled beside the keyboard, refusing to lift a finger no matter what. “You’re collecting your debt already? And you kept this IOU in such good condition, too.”
“I was busy seeing you off for your exams those few days, so I didn’t have time to do my homework. You wrote this IOU yourself back then, so I have the right to collect.” Xiao Yan took a textbook out of his backpack and stuffed it into Luo Zhiyu’s hands with complete justification. “It’s not difficult. All the relevant points are in the textbook. Just look through it and you’ll know the answers.”
“Besides, a certain person who’s just finished the college entrance exams has way too much free time. He’s been playing games and chatting in group chats, and he hasn’t stopped for a single moment since this afternoon.” Xiao Yan took the phone out of Luo Zhiyu’s hands. “I’m jealous.”
The university physiology assignment had to be completed on a computer, so Luo Zhiyu could no longer use his ugly handwriting as an excuse to get out of it. Left with no choice, he obediently sat down in front of the computer and began typing his answers into a document.
“I’m terrible at this subject, you know. You’re really putting a lot of faith in me.” Luo Zhiyu began reading the questions. “Aren’t you worried I’ll fail to earn my coursework marks, top student?”
“Just start writing.” Xiao Yan worked on his other assignments at the desk. “There’s no rush. If you don’t understand something, look it up in the textbook or ask me. You just need to submit the assignment by the end of the semester. Besides, this is a good opportunity for you to study the subject in advance. Everyone has to learn it eventually anyway.”
“Fine.” Luo Zhiyu opened a game on the computer.
“Luo Zhiyu.” Xiao Yan called his name.
Luo Zhiyu: “Present.”
“Get your attitude in order.” Xiao Yan knocked on the desk. “This is debt repayment, not me kindly helping you out. I’ll come over and check every single question later.”
Luo Zhiyu: “……”
His instincts told him that both scenarios—Xiao Yan teaching him because he didn’t know the answers and Xiao Yan teaching him after finding mistakes while checking his work—would lead to the exact same outcome.
After all, Xiao Yan had a history of pulling this sort of thing.
“Daydreaming again?” Xiao Yan looked at him.
“Thinking.” Luo Zhiyu kicked Xiao Yan beside him, only for Xiao Yan to catch him by the ankle and give it a gentle tug. Luo Zhiyu toppled sideways into the computer chair and immediately began complaining. “Being a high school student was better. Now that I’ve finished my exams, I have no status in this household anymore.”
The way he referred to it as this household put Xiao Yan in an excellent mood. He let go of Luo Zhiyu.
[Fence-Sitter]: Five-player team?
[Zhizhi]: Go play by yourself. I’m busy.
[Fence-Sitter]: Busy with what? You’ve just graduated! This is the perfect time to have fun.
[Zhizhi]: Helping my boyfriend with his homework.
[Fence-Sitter]: You’re that dedicated?
[Zhizhi]: Of course. He’s watching me like a hawk from the side.
[Fence-Sitter]: Speaking of which, you went to your boyfriend’s place, didn’t you?
[Fence-Sitter]: I remember you saying you were in a long-distance relationship. So you’re not in the city right now, are you?
Luo Zhiyu: “?”
They had never been long-distance to begin with.
[Fence-Sitter]: Speaking of which, Little Spicy Strip has been fighting with his boyfriend lately and talking about breaking up. He says their academic results are on completely different levels, so once the college entrance examination results come out, they’ll definitely have to do long-distance. Different provinces and all that.
[Fence-Sitter]: I told him that was no big deal. Zhiyu’s in a long-distance relationship, too.
[Zhizhi]: No, no, I’m not a valid example.
[Fence-Sitter]: ?
Luo Zhiyu declined the gaming invitations from Jing Ximing and the others, then opened Xiao Yan’s textbook.
The book was still relatively new, and there was no name written on the title page. Luo Zhiyu picked up a pen and slowly, neatly wrote his boyfriend’s name in slender, elegant shoujin script. He even filled in Xiao Yan’s student ID number.
The short-answer questions were too difficult, so Luo Zhiyu decided to start with the familiar true-or-false questions that required him to evaluate statements.
[True-or-False Questions]
1\. An alpha student says he has a student council activity and doesn’t want to do his physiology homework, so he asks an omega student to do it for him. (√)
Reason: It’s only right. Of course it is.
2\. Pheromones can deepen the bond between an alpha and an omega. (×)
Reason: How shallow!
3\. Pheromone compatibility must be tested using pheromone test strips. (×)
Reason: Premarital medical examinations and genetic testing work, too.
4\. Alphas become very clingy during their rut and need extra care and attention; otherwise, they’ll feel lonely. (×)
Reason: I haven’t noticed any clinginess, and I haven’t noticed any loneliness, either. What I have noticed is their terrible tempers. They also turn into unripe green oranges very easily, and their bites really hurt.
5\. A permanent mark must not be made lightly. Protective measures must be taken, and the decision should not be made rashly. (??)
A permanent mark? Luo Zhiyu wasn’t worried about that. Jing Ximing had told him that such a low pheromone compatibility level made it impossible to establish a permanent mark.
After all, for some inexplicable reason, their pheromones insisted that the two of them were impossible.
And yet the two of them had stubbornly embarked on a rebellious relationship.
Xiao Yan was discussing the possibility of retesting their pheromone compatibility with Qian Shuyu, who seemed to know quite a bit about the subject.
[Qian Shuyu]: Keeping your little boyfriend company after his college entrance exams?
[Orange]: Teaching him some things. Otherwise, he refuses to study.
[Orange]: Taotao is very goal-oriented. He doesn’t like learning things if he can’t see any short-term benefits, and he hasn’t experienced the benefits of this yet.
[Qian Shuyu]: ……As a beta, I’ve eaten so much dog food since getting to know you two.
[Qian Shuyu]: Anyway, back to the point. I think it’s really strange. You two don’t seem like a zero-compatibility pair. People with zero compatibility don’t act like you do.
[Orange]: We’re not the first zero-compatibility pair. Apparently, there was another case over 150 years ago.
[Qian Shuyu]: Wait a moment. I’ll ask a professor.
“Your first four answers are wrong. You’re just making things up. Are you using your feet to answer these questions?”
Xiao Yan had appeared behind Luo Zhiyu at some point. He tapped Luo Zhiyu on the head.
“Zhizhi, are you trying to make me fail this course so I’ll have to retake it next year and attend classes with you?”
Luo Zhiyu: “?”
He had answered the questions sincerely. How could they be wrong? Were the questions themselves too hypocritical?
“Fine. I forgot again. Let me switch to the perspective of an ordinary alpha-omega couple.” Luo Zhiyu deleted several of his answers.
“Want to take a physiology class with your boyfriend?” Xiao Yan’s fingertips paused at the corner of his lips, gently rubbing them twice. “You’ll have your boyfriend’s temporary mark on you, and if there’s anything you don’t understand, I’ll explain it to you after class.”
“No.” Luo Zhiyu refused. “You have ulterior motives.”
The little hooligan had grown up and become more cunning. He could see through a trick at a glance and wasn’t nearly as easy to bully as he used to be.
Xiao Yan, whose grades had always been at the top, genuinely wanted to fail a course for once.
[Qian Shuyu]: I found it! Those two zero-compatibility cases from over 150 years ago are actually documented in our department’s records. They eventually emigrated, so the data might not have been tracked by outside sources. But one of our former department heads stayed in contact with them for years and recorded their data. It was never made public, though.
[Orange]: ? What does that mean? Fairy frowning.jpg
[Qian Shuyu]: They actually had 90% compatibility! Even the blood test back then failed to detect it. And that alpha had orange-scented pheromones! It was the No. 06 orange scent, a high-tier pheromone, different from other orange scents.
[Qian Shuyu]: A premium orange. Better-tasting than ordinary oranges, and it can be sweet or sour.
Xiao Yan: “?”
He remembered that Luo Zhiyu had called him an unripe green orange before. He himself had never noticed anything particularly unusual about his scent.
[Qian Shuyu]: It’s just that nowadays, everyone advocates pheromone equality. More than two hundred years ago, people stopped talking about the pheromone numbers, and hardly anyone pays attention to the number on a test report anymore. Most people think it’s just a number, but there are actually some differences.
[Qian Shuyu]: We have professors here who research this subject. They classify pheromones numbered below 10 as “excellent,” but some people criticize that terminology. Here, it’s purely of academic interest, like calling a mathematical formula “beautiful.” It doesn’t mean anything else. (Please let me live.)
[Orange]: !!!
[Orange]: Mine is 02.
[Qian Shuyu]: That’s so high! You’re exceptionally excellent!
[Qian Shuyu]: The professor says that when two high-tier pheromones meet, the test might fail to detect their compatibility. But this is so rare that the outside world has basically stopped paying attention to it. Don’t do a blood test. I remember you saying your boyfriend is afraid of needles. The test strips will do. Go during your rut.
[Qian Shuyu]: We have the latest test strips, released just this year. Our professor is quite interested in the two of you and has already called to make an appointment for you. When the time comes, you’ll…
[Orange]: I’m going into rut tomorrow, immediately!
[Qian Shuyu]: ……
[Qian Shuyu]: Must be nice being high-tier.
Luo Zhiyu spent the entire night flipping through Xiao Yan’s textbook. He was so sleepy that he could barely keep his eyes open. He washed up in a daze, then occupied the entire bed with his eyes half-closed.
When he woke up early the next morning, the orange beside him had turned into an unripe green one.
Luo Zhiyu: “?”
Luo Zhiyu: “???”
Still in a state of bewilderment, Luo Zhiyu was ushered into a car and driven all the way to the Central Hospital downtown, where they joined the queue for testing.
“Do you remember what number was on your previous pheromone test report?” the green orange asked.
“Huh?” Luo Zhiyu still remembered that. “01. Does that number mean something? Doesn’t everyone have 01 on their test report? I thought it was just the testing machine’s sequence number.”
Xiao Yan: “……”
“You deserve to meet someone as excellent as me.”
The joke they had made to each other at the opening ceremony that year had somehow come true here, too.
“What’s wrong?” Luo Zhiyu asked. “Is something off?”
An alpha in rut needed extra care and attention. That was a point Luo Zhiyu had just reviewed the night before.
He sprayed the green orange a few times with pheromone-blocking spray. It smelled like green tea, which should help mask the aggressive orange scent that came with rut.
Xiao Yan shook his head, swallowing the words that had almost escaped his lips.
Even without pheromones, he still liked Luo Zhiyu, and Luo Zhiyu liked him, too. Those high school years that had just passed could certainly be called a time without regrets.
There was no need to worry about gains and losses.
The retest was simply to get an answer.
Nothing more.
Luo Zhiyu leaned against the railing on the second floor and discussed long-distance relationships with Jing Ximing.
[Jing Ximing]: Good grief! This is too much. Are all long-distance relationships this agonizing?
[Jing Ximing]: Little Spicy Strip has been chattering away at me about it all night.
[Jing Ximing]: My head hurts. I’m going to the hospital to get it checked out. I just arrived at the Central Hospital. I made an appointment online.
[Zhizhi]: Poor Fence-Sitter.
[Jing Ximing]: You said you were at your boyfriend’s place and not in City X, so I didn’t ask you to come with me.
[Zhizhi]: Actually, I…
Jing Ximing, who had just entered the hospital lobby, unexpectedly ran into Luo Zhiyu.
Jing Ximing: “?”
The guy who had supposedly gone to accompany his boyfriend in a long-distance relationship was leaning against Xiao Yan’s shoulder, happily scrolling through his phone.
Luo Zhiyu patted Jing Ximing on the shoulder. “What a coincidence.”
“What are you two doing here?” Seeing these two familiar faces at the hospital made Jing Ximing feel that his head hurt even more. “The college entrance examination results come out tomorrow. Your arts-track exam scores are already high, and the written exam shouldn’t be a problem for you, but could you at least act a little nervous?”
“I was nervous!” Luo Zhiyu said. “I even posted on Moments that I felt I hadn’t performed well. Then everyone called me a grade-grubbing hypocrite.”
Jing Ximing: “……”
“We came with Brother Yan to have some fun and retest our pheromone compatibility.” Luo Zhiyu told him honestly. “We’ve known each other for so many years. We both care about our pride, and neither of us wants to accept a zero.”
“You’re right.” Fence-Sitter clenched his fist. “Feeling confident this time?”
“Yes.” Luo Zhiyu clenched his fist, too.
“How much do you think you’ll score this time—er, what do you think the test will show?” Fence-Sitter clenched his fist.
“My expectations aren’t high. I just want a passing grade.”