Chapter 25: TMS
During Ji Mian's college entrance exam days, almost everyone familiar to him showed up.
Duan Zhuang's friends and brothers took turns visiting, but before they could even enter the door, Duan Zhuang kicked them out, claiming they would "affect the candidate’s mental state."
Only Sun Qi was allowed to stay on the second floor.
The night before the exam, Ji Mian had trouble sleeping, but surprisingly, he felt quite alert the next morning.
During the two days of his exams, the system remained silent, which was exactly what Ji Mian had hoped for.
After four exams, Ji Mian only found the last question of the math section difficult, while the rest of the subjects went smoothly. Even his weakest subject, science, was unexpectedly manageable.
His two months of intense study had not gone to waste.
At 5 p.m. on the 8th, Ji Mian walked out of the exam hall.
The weather wasn’t good that day, and even at 5 p.m., the sun was still scorching.
Ji Mian walked quickly, following the crowd.
As soon as he stepped out of the school gates, he heard someone calling from the shade on the right: "Ji Mian!"
"Ji Mian!"
It was Sun Qi's voice.
Ji Mian looked over and saw two striking figures under the shade of a tree. One had bright red hair and a thin scar across his face, while the other exuded a calm demeanor and was incredibly handsome. His presence stood out, even in a crowd.
Ji Mian quickened his pace, almost breaking into a run.
"Brother Sun Qi." He greeted Sun Qi first, then turned his gaze to Duan Zhuang. The latter had a faint smile on his lips, watching him the entire time with an inexplicable gentleness in his expression.
A warm and strong hand rested on Ji Mian's head, gently ruffling his soft hair as usual.
Ji Mian lowered his head, letting the other person mess with his hair, his heart inexplicably beating faster.
After a while, he whispered, “Brother, that’s enough.”
Only then did Duan Zhuang let go and turn to Sun Qi. “Give me the bag.”
“Oh, right!” Sun Qi didn’t hand over the bag immediately. Instead, he pulled out a sun umbrella from his own bag and handed it to Ji Mian.
For as long as he could remember, every time Duan Zhuang went out with Ji Mian, he would always carry an umbrella.
Ji Mian obediently took the umbrella and asked, “Brother, why do you always make me carry an umbrella?”
“You don’t understand?” Sun Qi laughed, “You’re fair-skinned. Fair-skinned people should carry umbrellas.”
“...”
Ji Mian didn’t know how to respond to Sun Qi's twisted logic.
“And besides, girls these days like fair and clean-looking guys. Ah, their tastes are really off.”
“...”
Sun Qi looked at Ji Mian’s fair and handsome face and raised his eyebrows suggestively. “You don’t know how lucky you are. When you get to college, you’ll see. With a face like yours, getting a girlfriend will be easier than it is for others.”
As soon as he said that, the other two’s faces changed simultaneously. Duan Zhuang, in particular, shot him a look that nearly made Sun Qi jump.
“Why are you talking so much nonsense?” Duan Zhuang said coldly.
Ji Mian also looked serious: "I only like Sister Yu Man. I won’t be chasing any other girls."
Hearing this, Duan Zhuang glanced at him, then quietly looked down. It was hard to tell what he was thinking.
Sun Qi: ...
So he’s the odd one out here, huh?
The crowd around them gradually dispersed, each taking their children who had just finished their high school years back home.
Duan Zhuang also raised his hand and lightly pushed the back of Ji Mian’s neck. “Let’s go home.”
“Okay.”
Later in June, when the college entrance exam results were released, Ji Mian was holding Duan Zhuang’s phone, while Sun Qi was helping him check the results on his own smartphone.
When they tried to log into the results page, the blue progress bar on Ji Mian’s browser stalled at the very last bit, refusing to load.
“Huh?” Sun Qi suddenly spoke, squinting at the screen, which had finally loaded some text. He carefully looked at the “total score” column and blurted out a number: “640?”
“Is that really 640?” He raised the phone to show the two of them.
Ji Mian’s fingers froze, and it felt like his heart had stopped.
Even Duan Zhuang was momentarily stunned. He stepped forward, took Sun Qi's phone, and checked the results page carefully, confirming that the score was indeed 640.
“640? Is that high or low?” Sun Qi muttered to himself, then added, “It should be pretty high, right? My friend’s younger brother only got 250 last year.”
Duan Zhuang tapped the screen and simply replied, “Very high.”
“Six... Six hundred forty?” Ji Mian finally snapped out of his daze, stammering, “I scored… six hundred forty?”
The next moment, the phone’s results page was held up in front of him, and Duan Zhuang’s amused voice sounded in his ear: “See for yourself.”
【At least 50 points of that are thanks to me.】The system said proudly.
640 points—part of it was Ji Mian’s extraordinary performance, but most of it was due to his effective two months of review.
Ji Mian held the phone, his whole face flushed.
“Brother!!” He jumped up excitedly and hugged Duan Zhuang tightly around the neck, giving him an enthusiastic embrace.
He had made it into college!!
The person being hugged froze for a second, his arms about to tighten and hug Ji Mian back. But Ji Mian had already let go and turned to Sun Qi, giving him the same excited hug.
Truly a master of balancing relationships.
Duan Zhuang: ...
He pressed his tongue against his molars, feeling a bit displeased.
Sun Qi, on the other hand, pushed Ji Mian away in disgust. Who wants to hug a guy? He had a girlfriend, after all!
Brushing Ji Mian’s hands away, Sun Qi enviously asked, “Bro, do you think I could take the college entrance exams at 25?”
These days, it was so hard to find a job. Although Sun Qi ran his own business, he wasn’t planning to stay an entrepreneur forever. He was just waiting to make enough money to settle into a stable job for retirement.
If he’d gotten a college degree back then, he would have definitely applied to be a civil servant by now.
“…Hah.”
Duan Zhuang responded with a cold laugh.
After the brief excitement, the next dilemma was choosing the right school.
Ji Mian's score was very high, but in his province, it put him in an awkward position. The local key universities had a serious gap. The best one required a minimum score of 660 or above, while the other two required around 600.
Ji Mian's score was stuck right in the middle—not enough for the best school, but it seemed too much of a pity to go to the other two.
He agonized over which provincial school to choose, but couldn't make a decision.
Duan Zhuang smoked a cigarette by the window and finally made the call.
"Let's look at schools outside the province."
When the college application process ended, Ji Mian's form was successfully filled out. His first choice was the best school in the province, and the next two were schools outside the province that his score could likely get him into. He listed the remaining two local schools as backups.
As expected, Ji Mian's luck wasn’t good enough to get him into his first choice. He was admitted to his second choice, a school over a thousand kilometers away.
On the day the admission letter arrived, the sun was shining brightly outside.
Duan Zhuang was resting on a reclining chair with his eyes closed, while Ji Mian sat on his small stool beside him, both hiding in the shade.
After the exam, Ji Mian went back to his old hobby, working diligently in the wood carving shop. His skills had almost been forgotten over the past two years, and his hands were clumsy with the carving knife.
Ji Mian was upset for days because of it.
Recently, Duan Zhuang had just cleared his orders, and the wood carving shop had little business. Ji Mian stayed in the shop, carving a rough-looking horse. In the end, he was so embarrassed by his ugly creation that he abandoned his knife and joined Duan Zhuang outside to enjoy the warm breeze.
Though summer was hot, sitting still in the shade brought a unique sense of comfort.
Ji Mian was still sitting on his small stool, with Duan Zhuang's recliner beside him.
He thought for a moment and moved his stool a little farther away, so as not to crowd his brother and make him hot. Ji Mian could tolerate heat well, so it didn't bother him either way.
Duan Zhuang glanced at him lightly without saying anything.
But Ji Mian felt as though his brother's look was suggesting he should sit closer. He hesitated, unsure if it was just his imagination.
In the end, he didn't move closer, holding his ugly horse carving with a sense of sadness.
"Skills like these aren't so easily forgotten. Once learned, you can always pick them up again, no matter how much time passes," Duan Zhuang comforted him.
He rarely spoke kindly to anyone. This past year, he'd probably said more nice things than in his entire life.
The aloof attitude Duan Zhuang once had seemed to have disappeared whenever he was around Ji Mian.
He took the horse carving from Ji Mian's hands and turned it over in his palm. It was indeed ugly.
With a smile, Duan Zhuang said, "You've improved a lot. At least it's not a potato this time."
Ji Mian: "..."
"Why do you both like to hang around outside during the summer?" a gentle female voice called from a short distance away.
Duan Zhuang looked up at the approaching figure and greeted, "Sister."
Ji Mian's lively voice chimed in at the same time, "Sister Yu Man, why are you here?"
Behind Mu Yu Man was a deliveryman holding a special courier envelope. She said, "I was downstairs when this guy asked me for directions. The address is your building."
Smiling, she added, "I thought it might be Ji Mian's admission letter, so I came up with him."
Ji Mian immediately straightened up.
The deliveryman handed him the envelope, congratulating him with a smile, "Please sign here."
Ji Mian quickly signed, returned the pen and receipt, and tore open the envelope.
Inside was a thick, dark blue paper, double-layered, with the words "Admission Letter" stamped in gold on the cover.
Ji Mian’s first instinct was to show it to Duan Zhuang, but Mu Yu Man spoke at the same time: "Wow, it's so beautiful!"
His movement paused, and he ended up handing the letter to her first.
Mu Yu Man took it and examined it as if she were as happy as she was when she had gotten into college herself, turning it over again and again.
Looking at Ji Mian's name printed in large characters, she suddenly felt nostalgic.
Several years ago, one night, her door was knocked on by Duan Zhuang. That was the first time she met Ji Mian.
When she opened the door, she first saw her brother's cold face, his brows furrowed. Behind him was a dirty, scruffy-looking boy with his head hanging down, unconscious.
The boy’s face was almost pressed against Duan Zhuang's neck. Duan Zhuang, clearly disgusted, tried to avoid him, but the way he was carrying him made it impossible, so he had to let the soft face brush against his chin and neck.
Mu Yu Man was startled and quickly asked, "What happened?"
"This kid stole something, got beaten up by Sun Qi, and passed out in the back of my car," Duan Zhuang grumbled as he walked inside, "Put something on the bed. The kid's filthy."
At the time, Ji Mian didn't smell good either—he was a genuine troublemaker.
But Mu Yu Man didn’t follow his request. She quickly moved the blanket aside and signaled for Duan Zhuang to lay the boy on the sheet. "Just put him down. I'll wash everything later."
"Thanks, sis. If it doesn't work out, I'll take him to the hospital."
Mu Yu Man had just graduated and was working as an intern at a hospital. Though she wasn’t in orthopedics, she could handle minor injuries like these.
"Let me take a look..."
The boy on the bed had several bruises on his face and was covered in dirt. It was clear he was still very young.
Looking back now, Mu Yu Man couldn’t even associate that rebellious boy with the well-behaved young man who had just received his college admission letter.
She felt a surge of emotions and quietly sniffled.
"Yu Man-jie?"
"I'm fine." Mu Yu Man bent down and gently hugged Ji Mian.
"Congratulations."
Ji Mian, caught off guard by the hug, froze in place. The faint scent of her clothes and hair enveloped him, her soft and unfamiliar embrace making him blush.
His cheeks immediately flushed. Being hugged by a woman for the first time, Ji Mian instinctively felt shy.
Duan Zhuang glanced at Ji Mian's reddening ears for a couple of seconds before suddenly standing up and carrying his recliner back inside.
Mu Yu Man paused, releasing Ji Mian from her purely affectionate hug.
"Brother?" Ji Mian also turned around, "Aren't you going to stay in the anymore?"
The sound of the recliner being dragged across the floor was his only response.
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