The Nth Day of Being Able to Read Minds

Tao Ran and Wu Hao walked all the way to the entrance of the hall together before going separate ways. He shivered as the cold, sharp wind hit him in the face, so he immediately picked up his pace and ran to the dormitory.

Standing at the entrance of the dormitory, he dug into his trouser pocket while panting, only to freeze up when he realized something. He stuffed his hand into his pocket again with vigor.

The key that should have stayed in his pocket obediently, had disappeared.

He froze in place, a little dumfounded.

After a few seconds, Tao Ran searched through all the compartments in his clothes and laptop bag and after a while, finally gave up and crouched down in resignation.

He felt like today was really unlucky for him. First, he was forced to listen to Jiang Yu Heng’s speech for two hours, then now he had lost his key.

The living environment at Beijing University was known notoriously for being great. With four people sleeping in a room with their private bathroom and a table each. When they assigned the rooms, two lucky students could stay in a four-people room too.

He was one of the two. But before he could applaud and celebrate, he was told that Jiang Yu Heng was the other lucky person.

In other words, he had to either wait for Jiang Yu Heng to come back and open the door for him or face a series of harsh scolding from the fierce dorm manager to borrow a key.

While he was racking his little brain over this and ultimately decided to choose the fierce dorm manager, a pair of limited edition sneakers appeared in his sight. The owner of those shoes stood in front of him right then.

Unfortunately, he knew that pair of shoes.

Tao Ran looked up stiffly, meeting the gaze of Jiang Yu Heng who looked at him from high above.

Jiang Yu Heng was expressionless and silent as he glanced up and down at Tao Ran who was crouching on the ground. He remained still with his hands in his pockets too.

After a long time, he decided to speak first, “You…”

Only then did Tao Ran snap back to his senses and reacted. He stood up immediately and glared at him, “What are you looking at! I was just squatting for a while cause my legs are sore, can’t I do that!”

Jiang Yu Heng raised an eyebrow, turning around and opening the door with his keys. “No one said you can’t do that. Go ahead and continue squatting then.”

The “gentle and easy-going” Jiang Yu Heng’s nature wasn’t concealed at all in front of Tao Ran. He could clearly tell from that little upturned smirk from him that he didn’t mean well at all.

Tao Ran was so embarrassed that he wanted to find a hole in the ground and bury himself in it. Fortunately, Jiang Yu Heng wasn’t shitty enough to close the door right in his face at least.

He wasn’t shameless enough to go in right away either. He paced around outside for ten minutes or so, until even Wu Hao came back from a walk to the cafeteria.

Wu Hao bumped into him and was really surprised. He handed him the pack of wontons and said, “Are you out of your mind? Do you want to catch a cold from standing outside with all the cold wind blowing at you?”

As he said that, he peeked into the little crack that the room door left opened.

Tao Ran took over the wontons and pushed him inside, “Go in first. I’ll be back soon.”

Wu Hao was forced into the room somehow, still not understanding what was going on.

Tao Ran took several deep breaths and adjusted his state before pushing open the door and go in, as if he was marching towards death.

Tao Ran swept his gaze across the room but couldn’t find Jiang Yu Heng’s shadow anywhere. But there was some water splashing sounds coming from the bathroom.

Jiang Yu Heng was taking a shower.

After realizing that fact, he instantly relaxed a lot.

Tao Ran quickly walked past the bathroom and after changing into his pajamas, climbed up to the top bunk in lightning speed, opening his laptop and getting ready to code.

In addition to his identity as a sophomore student in university, Tao Ran was also an avid writer of online stories.

It was purely a hobby to him but after half a year of not having any readers, the pain from that made him extremely frustrated.

Tao Ran sat in front of his laptop screen for a while before starting to code a few dozens of words. The look that Jiang Yu Heng gave him earlier really refused to leave his mind.

He pinched the area between his eyebrows and finally gave up his decision to code.

While chomping down on his wontons, he skillfully switched to his Weibo’s side account to look at today’s viral news.

This new account was created just this year by Tao Ran. All the content he posted and shared was blocks of words to rant and release his emotions. Many liked watching the drama so they followed him. His followers only just broke into 10,000.

[An ass peach: Fuck, why is the new story’s data so trashy]

[An ass peach: After coding like crazy for a day, there’s only 5,000? Speechless.]

…

Such boring, uneventful posts like those weren’t enough to attract that many fans. There was a special use to his side account – to shit on Jiang Yu Heng.

[An ass peach: Ran into my roommate chatting with a cute senior this afternoon. His expression stiffened when he saw me. He must’ve been afraid that I would reveal his true nature and prevent him from flirting with girls.]

[An ass peach: I accidentally tripped today. My idiot dormmate ran over from 800 meters away just to laugh at me. Will he die without laughing at my suffering??]

[An ass peach: For fuck’s sake. My roommate refused to let me turn on the AC. Why is he acting like such a model student? It was only 26 degrees, not even that cold. I can even hear him kicking his blanket at night. How pretentious.]

[An ass peach:  When I was washing up this morning, I saw my roommate staring at my toothpaste. Wearing limited edition shoes that cost over 20,000, yet he’s trying to steal my cheap toothpaste from the supermarket.]

…

And so on and so forth.

Tao Ran got mad again from reading through his old posts, frustration rising in his heart.

He bit on his fingertips for a bit before typing out a new post. [Roommate gave a speech today and I had to endure it for two hours. Now I’m not in the mood or have the time to code anymore. Truly speechless.]

After clicking share, replies flooded in right after.

[1: First!! Peachy finally updated! Seeing peachy curse at people is truly my motivation to wake up every day hahahaha!]

[2: No need to force yourself if you don’t feel like it. Peachy, how about you share your main account instead, I’ll follow you there as well]

[3: Agreed]

How could Tao Ran possibly expose himself. He still wanted to survive in society.

[4: Peachy, on another note, you and your roommate are so sweet~]

[An ass peach replied: …?]

[5: You can consider writing BL. Start with real life stories around you, write about your love affair with your roommate~]

[6: Yes, yes, yes. Great idea! Peachy, hurry and switch to BL!!!]

[7: Peachy, I may not have much of a fortune, but I can share some websites for you to conduct research on~]

The following replies got more and more overboard. Coincidentally, the bathroom door opened suddenly, which caused Tao Ran to choke on a wonton out of shock and started coughing nonstop.

Jiang Yu Heng was only wearing a pair of shorts, his upper body fully naked. A few drops of water slid down on his solid and well-defined abs. His bath towel hung loosely around his neck. He glanced at Tao Ran faintly before looking away.

Tao Ran felt guilty for some reason. He let out a soft ‘hmph’, then quickly pulled the curtains closed.

His heart was beating a little fast. Slapping his cheeks lightly, he tried to drive out those weird thoughts out of his mind.

Tao Ran felt that he must have been led astray by the netizens’ replies. Otherwise, why would he somehow feel that…Jiang Yu Heng really was a little…seductive?!

He didn’t dare to look at the comments anymore, instead went on to a certain website to look at his data.

A whole 60,000 words, yet he only gained a mere 4 bookmarks. Two of which was his main and side accounts.

Tao Ran suddenly felt that netizen’s comments weren’t entirely wrong, perhaps. Maybe he really should change the subject he writes about.

But…he’s a straight man. Writing about two men in love, is that appropriate?

Even if he managed to get over that hurdle in his heart, he doesn’t quite understand what they meant either. Do they want him to make up stories?

He really didn’t have such ability. He was used to writing stories with clear, smooth plots. Even if he knew the writing wasn’t that great, but changing to a totally different topic was equivalent to studying for a science exam or something.

But the only thing Tao Ran knew was that if he continued to write like this, he will go crazy sooner or later for real.

Tao Ran looked up at the ceiling and let out a long sigh. The hanging curtain was suddenly pulled open, with a small slit exposed and a big, bony hand holding on the railing.

“What the fuck!”

Tao Ran was stunned. He pulled the curtains opened entirely and glared at Jiang Yu Heng, who was standing at the bottom, “What are you doing?”

Jiang Yu Heng looked calm as he replied, “You didn’t bring your keys today. Did you lose them?”

Tao Ran froze, then snorted at him, “What’s it to you? I don’t need your fake kindness.”

The two of them had long since become openly hostile with each other. With the kind of relationship they had, this seemingly normal question felt like fake concern and really provoking mockery.

Jiang Yu Heng didn’t show much of a reaction, “I’m only reminding you. You won’t be able to get it done tomorrow since it’s Friday. So find the dorm manager before it’s too late.”

It was that emotionless tone of his that angered Tao Ran even further.

Even though they clearly hated each other and he constantly got angered to the point of stomping his feet, Jiang Yu Heng still appeared so calm and unbothered, as if not taking him seriously at all.

Tao Ran gave the curtain a hard pull and closed them. “Oh, the great school God, Jiang, just mind your own business.”

That big hand that stubbornly stayed on the railing for a few seconds took a while before it got retracted.

[Ah…so cute. He’s so cute even when he’s angry.]

Tao Ran yanked the curtains open again, puzzled, “What did you just say?”

Jiang Yu Heng looked back at him with a confused expression as well, “What’s wrong?”

Tao Ran: “……”

The curtains were let down once again.

He definitely heard a voice exactly the same as Jiang Yu Heng just now. But even if you killed him now, he still refused to believe he would say such disgusting words. Not to mention, his expression looked completely unlike what he would’ve said.

Tao Ran attributed this to the fact that today’s unlucky incidents had baffled him to the point where he misheard things.

He cursed inn his heart and after a quick wash up, he didn’t care what Jiang Yu Heng was doing and went to bed with the lights off.

Just as Tao Ran was about to fall asleep in a daze, he heard that voice again.

[He’s sleeping quite early today.]

[Good night.]

Tao Ran: “?”

That immediately chased away Tao Ran’s sleepiness. He opened his eyes and secretly lifted the curtain a little.

After observing for a while, he realized Jiang Yu Heng across the room hadn’t moved at all. As if he had long been asleep, but instead, he was the only one still in a state of shock.

Tao Ran felt that he was not far from a mental breakdown. And these hallucinations were the first of the many signs.