Chapter 20

Xi Siyan lifted Jing Miao’s hand and kissed it.
“No, Miaomiao. You’re what I like most. Above everything.”
Jing Miao had no more worries. He listened to whatever Xi Siyan said anyway.
With the Xi family handling it, the paperwork was easy.
After three years, Jing Miao became once again a second-year student in Huada’s Mathematics Department. He had never officially withdrawn; he had simply taken a leave of absence that lasted three years. It was a special case, and the school agreed—people had simply stopped talking about it later.
Even if Jing Miao couldn’t return to campus before, his student status had remained.
In the days before classes resumed, Jing Miao acted strangely: whenever he had time, he would hook an arm around Xi Siyan and try to pull him back to bed.
Xi Siyan had almost no resistance in front of him. Jing Miao only had to spark him a little, and Xi Siyan would burn to ash.
“Why are you so desperate these two days, baby?” Xi Siyan asked at night. “Scared of going back to school?”
Jing Miao started crying again and clung to him tightly.
“TV says school is exhausting, from seven in the morning until midnight. That means I have less than seven hours with gege. I’m scared we won’t have time for anything…”
Xi Siyan froze, then laughed so hard his abs hurt—until, inevitably, he ended up coaxing Jing Miao again.
“Miaomiao is going to university, not the kind of high school on TV. It’s not that exhausting. I promise—you’ll have plenty of time with me.”
On Jing Miao’s first day back, Xi Siyan went with him.
Xi Siyan had finished his PhD defense, but he wasn’t fully graduated yet. He had simply entered a longer break.
Not graduated meant he was still “of” Huada—and still Huada’s campus idol.
Most of Jing Miao’s old classmates had either graduated or gone on to grad school. Almost no one on campus recognized Jing Miao anymore.
Yet the moment the two of them sat together in a classroom, the news spread across the university within ten minutes.
Huada’s current heartthrob accompanying an unfamiliar, pretty boy to a math class—no extra plot was needed. It was already sensational. Students flooded toward the math building.
Jing Miao grew nervous, but Xi Siyan had already communicated with all the math department teachers about Jing Miao’s situation, asking them to treat him transparently. Teachers who had taught Jing Miao before pretended they didn’t know him.
So aside from the constant staring, Jing Miao could accept it.
He listened carefully and took notes.
Beside him, Xi Siyan reviewed project materials—after nearly a month away, he was afraid he’d do poorly.
“Gege, I’m a little thirsty,” Jing Miao whispered while the teacher adjusted the projector.
Xi Siyan put down his pen, took out a thermos from his backpack, flipped open the straw, and brought it to Jing Miao’s lips. Jing Miao lowered his head and drank.
“Enough?” Xi Siyan asked.
“Enough, gege.”
Xi Siyan put the bottle away. They returned to their work—one listening, one reading.
The entire class stared in disbelief. The group chat was filled with screaming text and meme spam—confirming all the outrageous rumors.
Xi Siyan likes men.
Xi Siyan is raising a man.
All true!
The excitement of young students drowned out malice.
Just watching the two of them sit together made people feel bubbly with happiness. They barely interacted, yet it was still sweet.
After the morning classes, Xi Siyan rode his bicycle and took Jing Miao back to the apartment near campus. They ate together, napped in each other’s arms, and after waking, Xi Siyan brought him back for afternoon classes.
They lived like that for two weeks.
During that time, Xi Siyan taught him how to face school life alone in the future: how to refuse classmates’ questions he didn’t want to answer; how to ask for help when he needed it; how not to mention his age; how not to call people gege and jiejie.
As for everything else, Xi Siyan prepared it all: water for class, fruit, snacks.
No eating outside.
No buying junk food.
Only stationery and tissues from the supermarket.
After class, call Xi Siyan and wait obediently for him—or for his parents—to pick him up.
No wandering alone.
Bit by bit, the more Xi Siyan taught, the more anxious he became.
Sometimes he thought, in self-sabotaging despair: maybe he should just keep following Jing Miao to class until he graduates. Do nothing else.
At first Jing Miao was also tense and afraid, wanting to memorize every line Xi Siyan said ten times over. They practiced many scenarios before he slowly relaxed.
More often, watching Jing Miao struggle so hard made Xi Siyan’s heart ache. More than once he asked if Jing Miao wanted to stop going to school and just go home.
Every time Xi Siyan asked that, Jing Miao wanted to cry.
“I miss you so much, gege. You’re sitting right beside me, but I can’t hug you or kiss you. It’s so hard.”
“But I don’t want to hold you back. I want to be an excellent adult like you.”
Xi Siyan’s heart broke.
They were both abnormal—bound together by almost two years of sickly closeness that made separation impossible.
He knew it wasn’t right. He knew it was frightening.
If Jing Miao hadn’t said that second sentence, Xi Siyan would have dragged him back home without hesitation, lived the original life again, and Jing Miao would probably have stayed trapped at fourteen for a very, very long time.
He pulled Jing Miao into an empty classroom, not even checking the camera blind spots, and kissed him against the door.
“Baby… baby, be good. Don’t cry. Gege misses you too. Gege loves you too.”
If he hadn’t kissed him, it would’ve been better.
Once he did, Jing Miao cried even harder.
He missed Xi Siyan so much that even with Xi Siyan right beside him, his heart hurt. He couldn’t stand being soothed like this—couldn’t stand hearing “love”—and the grievance only swelled.
“I love gege. I love gege,” he cried back.
They kissed for a long time in that empty classroom. Jing Miao’s lips were swollen and red; his eyes were wet.
There were still students outside. Xi Siyan was ashamed of his loss of control.
He could only put a cap on Jing Miao, make him keep his head down, and rush him home.
Later, during the days Xi Siyan trained Jing Miao to attend classes alone, Jing Miao became familiar with a particular route:
from the Mathematics teaching building to the Materials Science institute building.
He even counted the steps and time.