Lin Jingming hadn’t seen Shen Hui for three years. The troublemaker who once gave his father a headache was now a faint memory for him. The only thing he remembered vividly was Shen Hui crying and clinging to his pants leg. He wasn’t sure if it was real or fake tears.
His attention was drawn back to Shen Hui completely by accident. The website where Shen Hui cross-dressed for live streaming was recently being promoted. Without Shen Hui’s consent, they used him as a selling point and wrote a few soft articles, which were pushed to various major browser pages.
Lin Jingming happened to come across it and was attracted by the familiar face in the live stream room. Three years later, Shen Hui had changed a lot. His features were more defined and stunning, and he had applied a bunch of makeup on his face and even used a voice changer… Lin Jingming wasn’t entirely sure if it was him.
Well, they could find out by meeting up.
Shen Hui had two different personas online, never agreeing to meet people in person or accepting money. Lin Jingming coincidentally guessed right about Shen Hui’s suspicion that he was underage and managed to arrange a meeting with him.
Lin Jingming didn’t understand the current trend of cross-dressing online celebrities. He just felt like the little white cabbage he had finally straightened out was now crooked again, like a cabbage he had to remind himself to water every now and then.
After completing his PhD, Lin Jingming was hired as a professor at the school next to Shen Hui’s. Handsome and wealthy, he appeared aloof and unapproachable, exuding a refined demeanor with every move.
He wore a suit and carried a briefcase for class, and passersby looked at him with surprise, as if they were seeing a knowledgeable gentleman or a young master from the Republican era walking out of a painting.
The only person who couldn’t appreciate this was Shen Hui.
He saw Lin Jingming rolling up the sleeves of his shirt, revealing a bit of wrist, and passersby thought it was the hand of a literati holding a brush to write about the Spring and Autumn Period. Shen Hui, on the other hand, immediately thought of the time when, in the dead of night with a strong wind blowing, Lin Jingming effortlessly pulled him off the back of a motorbike like a little chicken.
One moment he was skipping class because the old man Lin was sick and there was no one to supervise the evening self-study session, the next Lin Jingming gave him a look that made the guy with dyed hair abandon Shen Hui and never ask him to be his fake girlfriend again.
Shen Hui couldn’t wake up for early self-study sessions. He confidently stayed in bed to sleep in, while Lin Jingming hired a market auntie to start yelling through a loudspeaker at 5:30 in the morning, announcing “Cucumbers are five cents a pound, eggplants are sixty-two cents a pound” outside his door.
Although Shen Hui was a professional at skipping class, he didn’t know how to climb over walls. He secretly made a key from the security guard while he was napping and slipped out the door while he was asleep. No one knew about this, but the next day Lin Jingming replaced the lock with a fingerprint lock.
Shen Hui wasn’t unwilling to study; he just wanted to make money… He couldn’t break the rules in front of Lin Jingming either; otherwise, he wouldn’t be able to face him. Three years had passed, and this Lin Jingming guy had come up with even more tricks!
Shen Hui bolted, nervously looking back as he ran, only to see Lin Jingming calmly putting down his coffee cup and paying. He glanced at Shen Hui, as if to say: “You can run for another thirty-nine meters.”
Shen Hui: “…”
Am I an idiot?
Shen Hui questioned his soul.
“Why are you running?” Lin Jingming asked, reaching out towards Shen Hui’s face. Shen Hui closed his eyes in fear. Was he about to get punched?
Strangely, Lin Jingming had never actually hit Shen Hui. At most, he had bent an iron rod in front of him with his bare hands because Shen Hui accidentally got into trouble with a nasty thug who came looking for trouble. The iron rod was brought by the thug and confiscated by Lin Jingming, who also warned the thug.
But Shen Hui always felt like Lin Jingming would beat him, with a hanger, broom, ruler, or anything else he could grab. Whenever he made a mistake or lied to Lin Jingming, this premonition became particularly strong.
If Shen Hui had the privilege of experiencing a normal family life, he would understand that this was a stage many children go through, like being afraid of being beaten by their father when they watched one more episode of cartoons without doing their homework.
He lived carefree until high school, where he met Lin Lao, and only then did he begin to vaguely understand this feeling. When Lin Jingming showed up, it magnified this feeling by a hundredfold. No one else would come to his house to wake him up for class because he slept in.
Shen Hui didn’t understand, so he just guessed. Perhaps in his previous life, he stole Lin Jingming’s wife, so now he was scared whenever he saw him.
“Don’t hit me!” Shen Hui begged, “…Huh?”
Shen Hui felt a slight tug on his eyelashes and squinted his eyes to see Lin Jingming’s jade-like fingers pulling off a few… uh, false eyelashes.
In high school, Shen Hui was a novice at cross-dressing. Now, he was like a character in an RPG game who had all his equipment stripped off by a whale-sized player. Lin Jingming paused for a moment, then removed the false eyelashes and wig from Shen Hui’s other side, with actions that couldn’t be described as gentle. He even took out an unused wet wipe from his briefcase, which he had prepared after writing on the chalkboard.
Shen Hui closed his eyes, allowing Lin Jingming to remove his makeup in the middle of the street, feeling like this experience could be submitted to “Things Your Boyfriend Does That Make You Want to Kill Him”.
…Wait, not boyfriend.
Lin Jingming found it quite interesting, as if he were wiping away the layers to reveal a precious antique, waiting for Shen Hui’s true face to be revealed beneath the makeup.
“Don’t move,” Lin Jingming instructed, holding Shen Hui’s hand.
Summoning his courage, Shen Hui took out his bank card from his bag. It contained the fifty thousand yuan Lin Jingming had given him as a reward. “We have our own lives to live separately…”
Lin Jingming chuckled, his lips curling slightly, his smile dazzling. “Who was it that said they couldn’t bear to part with me before?”
“…It was me,” Shen Hui admitted, looking down.
“Who said they wanted me to be their guiding light for life, their mentor in knowledge?”
“Also me.” Shen Hui didn’t mean for you to come back, you know?
“Who swore that if I cross-dressed again to make money, he’d be my little puppy?”
Shen Hui: “Woof.”
“No… wasn’t it about not spending money on school? If you’re broke, you have to earn, right? I have no other skills, I can only sell my looks.” Shen Hui played the pity card.
Lin Jingming narrowed his eyes. “Didn’t I give you living expenses?”
Shen Hui hesitated to admit that the money was from Lin Jingming. He’d been sneaking money into Lin’s house every year, avoiding contacting him directly.
“I’m studying financial law, you know how expensive textbooks are…” Shen Hui tried to justify.
Lin Jingming pulled out a book titled “International Private Law” from his briefcase. “I know,” he said.
Shen Hui’s eyes twitched, and he shuffled his feet uncomfortably on the marble floor, unable to continue the charade.
He seemed reluctant to look at the book Lin Jingming was holding, avoiding the topic by saying, “Well, are you going to beat me up? Just so you know, you can’t hit my face. I have a live broadcast scheduled for tonight.”
Lin Jingming chuckled at his logic. “We’re both adults now. Why would I hit you? And even if you skip class now, I can’t just go to your dorm to drag you out.”
“You’re not going to control me anymore?” Shen Hui raised his neck a bit. “I have to do the broadcast anyway.”
Lin Jingming adjusted his expression. “Shen Hui, back then, I didn’t want you to make money because of your studies. Now… I hear from the audience in your live stream that you failed two courses last semester?”
Lin Jingming had been squatting in the live stream room for two hours, quietly watching as the audience, who seemed familiar with Shen Hui, chatted and revealed secrets about him, even mentioning how he claimed to have squeezed time to broadcast, compressed his study time into all-nighters, and ended up failing two courses.
Shen Hui’s cheeks burned. “That was an accident!”
“It’s almost the end of the semester. No more live streaming until you’ve finished all your exams,” Lin Jingming said sternly. “If you can do it, I’ll let you go. Otherwise, you know what I’m capable of.”
Lin Jingming reached out and removed the shiny earring from Shen Hui’s earlobe, pinching it into a piece of scrap metal.
Shen Hui quickly nodded. “Yes, yes, I promise to graduate smoothly.”
“Good.” Lin Jingming wrote down a string of letters. “Send your grades to my email.”
Shen Hui was almost a senior now, and Lin Jingming wouldn’t oppress him like he did in high school. After three years of reunion, respect was more effective than oppression.
Lin Jingming glanced at the time. “Well, that’s it. I have other things to attend to. Make sure to visit Mr. Lin when you have time. He’s been thinking about you.”
Mr. Lin would always mention Shen Hui whenever he saw Lin Jingming. Shen Hui was the only student he had taught who had no relatives and had grown up like a weed, prompting Mr. Lin to pay a bit more attention.
Every time Mr. Lin mentioned it, Lin Jingming would be at a loss. The kid was avoiding him, so where could he find out about his recent situation?
Leaning against a pillar, Shen Hui watched as Lin Jingming walked towards the underground parking lot. The makeup on his face had been completely removed, and it didn’t match the women’s top he was wearing.
Lin Jingming left him a jacket, and Shen Hui stared at it blankly for a moment. After patting his pockets and not finding anything important, he walked past a trash can and tossed it in.
As Lin Jingming drove away, he looked around but didn’t see Shen Hui’s shadow. Instead, he saw a piece of expensive fabric struggling to emerge from a green trash can.
He chuckled and shook his head. Shen Hui was still so childish.
…
Back in the dormitory, the first thing Shen Hui did was open his live stream and inform his fans that he wouldn’t be broadcasting during exams.
The fans teased him, asking when he had ever been afraid of failing.
Shen Hui thought, I’m not afraid of failing, but I’m afraid of Lin Jingming.
“This year is different. If I fail, I’ll get beaten,” he paused, “and there’s someone who wants my transcript.”
The fans didn’t know he didn’t have parents, so they laughed in the chat.
“Hahaha, the old man is really strict!”
“Hahaha, who said you’d be free once you’re in college? I don’t sympathize at all!”
“Streaming is fun for a moment, but failing exams is a crematorium. Come on, stream your study session.”
“Is Dad here? Dad, are you here? I want to report your son for failing two courses last semester and having to retake one in the previous semester.”
But soon, the laughter in the chat was drowned out by another type of message.
“The main task of youth is to study. We should devote our limited energy to the infinite pursuit of knowledge. Do the right thing at the right time…”
The eighteen maxims and aphorisms scrolled endlessly, written in a special font reserved for premium members.
It was obvious that some professor who had spent fifty thousand yuan to become a premium member was here.
Famous quotes filled the screen, interspersed with ordinary people’s doubts and speculations.
“Is this the dad who spent the money?”
“I think we’re getting to the bottom of this.”
Shen Hui sighed, feeling like he was once again trapped in the palm of Lin Jingming’s hand.
Shen Hui’s nerves tightened, and he closed the live stream room, obediently opening his books to start studying. He suspected that if he continued streaming, those fans who couldn’t keep their mouths shut might even reveal the incident of him skipping classes in his freshman year and getting punished for it.
…
Shen Hui calmed down for a day, but on the second day, he couldn’t sit still anymore. With five days left until the exam, he just wanted to pass. It was too early to start studying so diligently.
Due to his personality, he felt insecure if he didn’t earn money for a day. Since he couldn’t livestream, Shen Hui thought about finding another part-time job recently.
Coincidentally, he mentioned this idea to a senior sister, who immediately said she needed someone to help her.
The senior sister was the daughter of the chairman of a company. She had secretly dated a poor boyfriend without her family’s knowledge. Her family insisted on her breaking up with him and going on blind dates to find a suitable match. She lied to her family that she had already broken up, but in reality, she was still with her poor boyfriend. To avoid her boyfriend getting jealous of her going on blind dates in person, she planned to find someone to pretend to be her.
The pay was five hundred yuan per hour.
Where else could he find such a good opportunity? Shen Hui immediately agreed, promising not to reveal any flaws and ensuring that the other party couldn’t find any fault, but also subtly indicating that he didn’t want to continue.
The next day at three in the afternoon, Shen Hui dressed up in women’s clothing and went to the appointment. He took a taxi to the private restaurant, which looked extremely expensive and was located in a remote location.
He arrived at the private room and quickly snapped a photo of the pre-meal dessert on the table, sending it to his employer in real-time so she could report back to her family.
This awkward behavior attracted a few more glances from the waiters.
At the same time, Lin Jingming, who had been single for thirty years and was forced by his old man to go on blind dates, arrived at the destination in his Bentley, just after Shen Hui.
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