Chapter 1
At 3 a.m., Meng Xin was still wide awake.
He mindlessly scrolled through funny short videos, his headphones blaring with noise, yet he felt like he was in another world, completely detached from the sound.
After spacing out at the screen for a while, something crossed his mind. He suddenly yanked off his headphones and sat up straight in bed.
He picked a few people from his contacts and sent a group message: [Are you awake?]
Ten minutes later, someone finally replied.
Huang Wenjie: [Just finished a game, about to sleep. What’s up? Need me to do something?]
Huang Wenjie: [Fine, I’ll spoil you this once. Send it over.]
Meng Xin: [No, I just wanted to ask you something.]
He’d been holding this question in all day. Now that he finally caught someone awake, he couldn’t resist blurting it out. He typed quickly and hit send.
Meng Xin: [Don’t you think Bian Ting has been acting weird lately?]
Huang Wenjie: [Weird? No, not really.]
Meng Xin: [He has!]
Meng Xin: [Think carefully.]
Huang Wenjie thought hard and finally came up with something: [He hasn’t gone to the library in days.]
Meng Xin: [Oh, that’s not it.]
Meng Xin: [He’s been helping out in the lab these days. He told me.]
Huang Wenjie racked his brain and thought of something else: [He’s been eating the same rice noodle dish every day, bringing back two bowls like he’s possessed.]
Meng Xin bristled at the word “possessed”: [That rice noodle dish is cheap and delicious, okay?]
Meng Xin: [He liked my recommendation and just grabs me an extra serving. He told me.]
Running out of ideas, Huang Wenjie went silent for five minutes before replying: [I saw him walking with someone I didn’t recognize yesterday.]
Meng Xin: [Zhang Yiming, right? I know.]
Meng Xin: [They were high school classmates. He told me.]
The other side went quiet for a long time.
Just as Meng Xin was about to ask, “Hey, why aren’t you saying anything?” Huang Wenjie sent a line of ellipses.
Huang Wenjie: [Dude, don’t you already know everything?]
Huang Wenjie: [Seriously, he tells you everything. Why are you asking me?]
Huang Wenjie: [I’m sleeping. Goodnight. [/smile]]
Meng Xin: [Don’t sleep, man! Let’s talk a bit more.]
The only response was a screenshot showing that his phone had entered Do Not Disturb mode.
Meng Xin sighed, mourning the loss of his late-night chat buddy.
He flopped back onto his bed, staring at the ceiling.
His phone screen lit up. In the chatbox, there was one unsent message:
Meng Xin: [Why do I feel like Bian Ting might be… annoyed with me lately?]
—
Meng Xin lived in a four-person dorm.
Four straight guys, yet they’d managed to create the most convoluted web of relationships.
Each person had three honorary fathers, three honorary sons, three honorary brothers, and three honorary little brothers — a rotating cast of twelve dorm-relative roles, shifting dynamically based on the situation.
But after a year of living together, their relationships had settled down.
Bian Ting, with his disciplined routine and impeccable self-control, naturally became the dorm’s permanent “father figure.”
The other three — Huang Wenjie, Gao Yinghang, and Meng Xin — became the dorm’s resident “sons.”
But Bian Ting didn’t spoil all his honorary sons equally.
In the dorm, he was closest to Meng Xin.
How close?
According to Huang Wenjie, when he and Gao Yinghang asked Bian Ting to bring back food, they’d send paragraphs of polite, honorific-laden requests: “Honored Father, may I humbly ask if you would be so kind as to spare a moment to bring me a meal? I would be eternally grateful.”
Meanwhile, Meng Xin just sent a few numbers.
Their chat history for three straight days looked like this:
Meng Xin: [1123]
Bian Ting: [1]
Translation:
Meng Xin: [Can you bring back a meal? I’ll be back at 12. Thanks.]
Bian Ting: [Okay.]
Sometimes, the sequence changed.
Like this day:
Meng Xin: [1133]
Bian Ting: [13?]
Meng Xin: [1]
Bian Ting: [1]
Translation:
Meng Xin: [Can you bring back a meal? I’ll be back at 1. Thanks.]
Bian Ting: [You’re coming back at 1 today?]
Meng Xin: [Yeah.]
Bian Ting: [Okay.]
One time, Huang Wenjie accidentally saw their chat log and wailed, “He doesn’t even ask what you want to eat?”
Meng Xin was puzzled: “I just rotate between my top three choices.”
Huang Wenjie chuckled bitterly: “I don’t even know what your top three are.”
Gao Yinghang, equally bitter: “I don’t even know what ‘top three’ means.”
—
It was precisely because they were so close that Meng Xin keenly sensed something was off with Bian Ting lately.
The most obvious sign? Bian Ting sighed more often when he was around.
Which is why Meng Xin couldn’t stop wondering if Bian Ting was secretly annoyed with him.
Thinking back carefully, this shift seemed to start after their most recent late-night dorm chat.
The topic? Love.
All four of them were straight guys who had never dated. The closest they’d ever gotten to romance was during that chat, when Huang Wenjie lay in bed and muttered, “Man, I really want a girlfriend.”
Gao Yinghang asked, “Has anyone here ever dated?”
Huang Wenjie sighed: “Not even once.”
Meng Xin, honest as ever: “Same here.”
All eyes turned to Bian Ting.
Without hesitation, Bian Ting said, “No.”
Meng Xin wasn’t all that interested in the topic, so after chatting briefly, he abruptly and without any transition switched gears: “Who wants to critique my god-tier play from yesterday’s game?”
Just like that, the conversation jumped from romance to gaming, two topics that couldn’t be further apart. The four of them dove into an in-depth analysis, calculating combat effectiveness down to decimal points. They even pulled out scratch paper, treating it with the same meticulous dedication they usually reserved for advanced calculus. Any lingering melancholy had long been forgotten.
“All I can say is, the fact that I didn’t become a pro gamer is truly a loss to the nation. —Hey, Meng Xin, why haven’t you ever dated anyone?”
Two hours later, after a full lap around the topic spectrum, they circled right back to square one.
It wasn’t an unreasonable question. After all, Meng Xin was the most likely candidate in the dorm to have been in a relationship.
And their logic was sound.
Meng Xin’s good looks were universally acknowledged. In his freshman year, he dominated the campus confession board, with people posting his photos every other day. It got so overwhelming that the admins pinned a post at the top of the page: “No need to ask — this handsome guy is Meng Xin, currently single.”
On top of that, he had an easygoing personality and could get along with anyone. No exaggeration, half the people in their department considered themselves his buddy.
Bian Ting, on the other hand, while equally handsome, didn’t give off the same approachable vibe. Especially with strangers, his expressionless face exuded an intimidating coldness, creating an impenetrable wall of distance. Striking up a conversation with him felt out of the question.
So, when ranking the dorm members by relationship probability, Bian Ting naturally landed at the very bottom.
Meng Xin, still eager to discuss the game’s new top-tier spear, was caught off guard when the conversation swerved back to dating.
“Huh? I just haven’t met a girl I like,” Meng Xin paused, then added, “Honestly, I don’t think dating sounds all that fun.”
Under the stunned gazes of his friends, Meng Xin calmly explained his reasoning: “Dating seems like such a hassle. You have to stick together all the time, say good morning and good night, check in for every meal. How can you talk about boring stuff like that every single day? If you go out, you have to report your whereabouts — who you’re with, what you’re doing. You’ve got to remember anniversaries, birthdays, and periods, and learn how to make brown sugar ginger tea. Plus, girls are such delicate creatures. You’d have to spoil them, right? I can’t even keep a goldfish alive. How could I possibly handle a relationship?”
Meng Xin concluded, “Too much trouble. I’d rather use that time and energy to play a few extra rounds of games with you guys.”
The dorm fell silent for a full thirty seconds.
Until someone let out a soft sigh.
Huang Wenjie: “…I think I get it now.”
Gao Yinghang: “…Yeah, me too.”
Bian Ting, who had opened his mouth several times but ultimately stayed quiet, finally said, “Let’s just talk about the new spear.”
Meng Xin shot him an approving look.
See? Chatting with your bros was way more fun than dating a girl.
—
Meng Xin tossed and turned all night, unable to make sense of it.
He barely got any sleep, and the next day, he had to drag himself to an 8 a.m. class. To make matters worse, he was roped into attending an afternoon school event as an audience member.
By the time he finally escaped the event, he was running on fumes.
He trudged back toward the dorm, too exhausted to even think about food. All he wanted was to collapse in bed and catch up on sleep.
As he walked, he suddenly spotted a familiar figure up ahead.
The person was wearing a simple T-shirt, strolling leisurely. The setting sun bathed his shoulders in golden light, accentuating his broad frame and tall, upright posture like a lone pine standing tall against the sky.
There was someone walking beside him, chatting away. Bian Ting listened, occasionally turning his head slightly. The sunlight traced his sharp features, highlighting the bridge of his nose and his striking profile.
Who else could it be but Bian Ting?
Meng Xin instantly perked up.
He didn’t recognize the person next to Bian Ting, but he had a pretty good guess.
Bian Ting had mentioned him before — a high school classmate named Zhang Yiming.
Meng Xin glanced at his phone to double-check their chat from that morning.
Meng Xin: [Are you alone?]
And now, he had his answer.
Bian Ting: [With Zhang Yiming.]
Bian Ting: [Are you coming? I’m at the south gate right now.]
Meng Xin: [No, I have to be an audience member today. Wuwuwu.]
Meng Xin sent a sticker of someone collapsing in tears, with the caption: Please comfort me.
Bian Ting’s comfort was always practical: [Want me to bring you milk tea?]
Meng Xin: [111]
Meng Xin: [You’re the best!!!]
That was where their chat ended that morning.
Meng Xin put away his phone and looked up at the familiar figure ahead — sure enough, he was holding an unopened cup of milk tea.
Fate, huh? Meng Xin thought, picking up his pace.
When he was almost behind Bian Ting, he happily reached out, planning to give Bian Ting a surprise pat on the back.
But before his hand could touch Bian Ting, he heard him sigh.
“Meng Xin,” Bian Ting said, “is the kind of person who can only be a friend, not a boyfriend.”
