I Can’t Be This Protagonist

Yan Shuang followed behind Ji Yao, clutching at his collar with both hands. Ji Yao walked very fast. Yan Shuang had to jog along to keep up with him, his neck strangled by the overly high collar that made it difficult to catch his breath.

Despite the gasps coming from behind him, Ji Yao kept walking until he reached the east back gate of the campus. 

“W-where are we going?”

A timid question came. As they had already covered some distance, Ji Yao stopped walking.

A flushed Yan Shuang stood not far behind him. He loosened his grip on the collar in favour of clutching his knees and panting/coughing up a store. Sweat dripped down from his hair down his neck. He was obviously nearing the limits of his stamina.

Ji Yao’s gaze swept over the haggard Yan Shuang without emotion. “Keep up.” 

Actually, Yan Shuang wasn’t tired at all. He was just acting in order to match what Yan Shuang’s current physical and mental conditions should be after being fucked all night by a man and caught red handed by his roommate. A poor little lamb who was mentally and physically exhausted, basically.

Various shops like convenience stores, AYCE barbecues, KTVs and…cheap chain hotels surrounded the university campus.

“A room.”

Ji Yao turned around, and demanded of the frightened Yan Shuang. “ID card.”

“I, I didn’t bring it.”

Yan Shuang stepped back quietly.

“Stop.”

A cold voice came, pinning his feet attempting to leave to the ground. 

The front desk took Ji Yao’s ID card and booked a room for him. He handed the room card to Ji Yao, glancing at the shivering Yan Shuang before secretly chuckling to himself.

University students these days.

“Keep up.”

Ji Yao ordered again. 

Yan Shuang looked up, his eyes behind his lenses already red. He faintly shook his head. “I don’t want to.”

Ji Yao frowned as if he saw something dirty.

“What nonsense are you thinking about?”

His cold tone almost radiated distaste. 

Then his slender figure turned to the elevator and pressed the button. He didn’t even need to look to know that Yan Shuang would follow.

He was more cowardly than anyone he had ever met.

Sure enough, when the elevator had gone down to the third floor, Yan Shuang had already hurried over. He clutched at his collar again, like he was guarding his last line of defense.

A student couple walked out of the elevator, their hands tightly clasped together. The girl was dazzled by Ji Yao, her lips parting slightly. Her eyes kept trailing back even as her boyfriend dragged her away. 

“That’s Ji Yao…”

“Be quiet,” the boy said helplessly, “you’re being too loud.”

The girl stuck her tongue out and hugged the boy’s arm. She looked back, eager to catch wind of gossip. A thin figure brushed past her and squeezed in just before the elevator doors closed.

“Who was that?” The girl stood on tiptoe and looked around. 

“Leave it be.” The boy swayed her arm. “Respect other people’s privacy.”

“I was just curious.”

Just what was this genius nearly everyone knew at school to be cold and aloof doing at this chain hotel?”

Yan Shuang silently leaned against one side of the elevator. 

The elevator stopped on the seventh floor, where Ji Yao walked out of the elevator. He didn’t even bother to speak this time, and Yan Shuang still followed close behind.

The room’s door opened with a swipe of the card.

Ji Yao stood at the door but didn’t go in. He looked back at Yan Shuang who was hiding by the side. “Go in.”

We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.

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Yan Shuang, who had been humiliated and had everything stripped away from him, would do anything to avoid the strange gazes of other people. Of course he would interpret Ji Yao’s proposal as a gesture of goodwill.

Yet hiding inside his shivering shell, Yan Shuang could acutely pick up Ji Yao’s disgust, impatience and contempt.

Ji Yao must think he’s dirty. 

“T-thank you.” Yan Shaung stammered his thanks, but his feet remained motionless. “It’s too…expensive here…”

“I’ll take care of it.”

Yan Shuang: Fuck you man, you say that like you’re hot shit. Can’t you get me a room at a better hotel?? 

Another miser.  

Blech. 

Seeing as Yan Shuang continued to drag his feet, Ji Yao had no choice but to turn around and grab Yan Shuang’s arm. The world became a blur before his eyes as Ji Yao shoved him forcefully into the room.

“Come back again when you’re clean.”

With that, Ji Yao turned to leave. 

“Wait—” Yan Shuang tried to grab Ji Yao’s arm anxiously.

Before Yan Shuang could even make contact, Ji Yao reflexively repelled his hand.

“Ah–”

Yan Shuang pretended to fall to the ground. 

Being thrown to the ground by two scum gongs in the same day.

Must be a new record.

The dark hair of the youth who had fallen to the ground haggardly covered the upper half of his face. The visible lower portion was bloodless.

And his lips…were littered with wounds. 

“Are you okay?” Ji Yao asked with a frown. He had no intention to help, though.

Yan Shuang lay on the ground, spending three seconds thinking about whether pretending to be injured and scamming money was considered a violation of the rules.

Hmm, he wasn’t sure. It wouldn’t hurt to try.

“I…I don’t think I can get up.” 

His legs tried hard to bend, his thin figure like a piece of paper soaked with water. The boy on the ground clutched at his collar, his eyes brimming with tears when he looked up again. “Ji Yao, I can’t get up anymore.”

His trembling voice was on the verge of collapse.

The boy seemed to have reached his limits. He began to wail.

He was still restrained even when crying, the only signs being his shirt, which was gradually soaked through with tears, and his glasses, which silently fogged up on his scrunched face. 

The doorway marked the boundary between two worlds.

Ji Yao stood outside the door, watching Yan Shuang crying uncontrollably. He felt as if he should do something, so he condescendingly touched the door handle of the cheap hotel, and then–

Closed the door.

Yan Shuang, who was inside: “…” Wow, that was fucking ruthless!  

Is this something you can do at 10% relationship line progress?! 

Even that miserly beast Qin Yubai would, in the face of his tears, at least…er. Fuck him?

Yan Shuang immediately stopped crying and took off his fogged up glasses. He wiped at the lenses forcefully with a corner of Ji Yao’s shirt, his beautiful face full of displeasure.

Well, looks like pretending to be pitiful didn’t work.  

Wait a minute, wasn’t Ji Yao supposed to be weak to this tactic? 

Could it be that Yan Shuang had misjudged the situation? How strange.

“Have you finished crying?”

Ji Yao’s voice came from outside the door. 

Yan Shuang’s ears perked up. Oh-ho? So you didn’t leave.

He knew his judgment of Ji Yao couldn’t be wrong.

Ji Yao, ma. He loved Qin Qing and by association Yan Shuang. No matter what, he couldn’t bear to see Yan Shuang so miserable because it made him think of Qin Qing.

Qin Qing was an orphan. He only became a young master when he was adopted by the Qin family. 

If Qin Qing hadn’t been taken in by the Qin family, would he be living a miserable life adrift in the dredges of society?

Yan Shuang showed what Qin Qing’s life could’ve been.

And Ji Yao would never let this come to pass. That’s why he kept on helping Yan Shuang.

Yan Shuang leisurely wiped his lense while uttering sounds from his throat to make it seem like he was crying uncontrollably. 

He’s really, really good at acting. He even got full marks for it on the Transmigration Bureau entrance exam!

After fake crying for a while, he finished cleaning his lenses. Yan Shuang breathed on the lenses before putting them on again.

The door was gently pulled open.

Ji Yao stood at the door and glanced at Yan Shuang’s still foggy glasses. “What did you want to say earlier?” His tone had eased slightly. 

“I, I wanted to ask you to help me get my backpack…” Yan Shuang glanced lightning quick up at Ji Yao before jerking his head down again. “Please…”

“I’ll bring you the literature class books.” Yan Shuang said patiently. “Anything else?”

Yan Shuang shook his head.

Ji Yao turned to leave, but paused. He said to Yan Shuang, “It’s useless to cry. You can only stand up on your own.” 

Yan Shuang raised his eyebrows in secret, thinking that this was the dialogue that should happen at 10% relationship line progress.

About ten minutes after Ji Yao left, when Yan Shuang was sure he should’ve left the hotel, he hurried downstairs to the front desk.

The front desk saw him coming from a distance. Yan Shuang made quite an impression on him because he came to get a room with a very handsome boy whose ID was still being used as a deposit. According to the ID, the boy was named Ji Yao, and his home was actually a well-known mansion in the city.

Since a rich, handsome boy came to get a room with an ordinary-looking, crying boy and left in less than ten minutes, the front desk thought their relationship wasn’t like that. 

Yan Shuang walked over to the front desk. The person there greeted him first. “Hello, do you need anything?”

Yan Shuang: “Hello, I have a question about the room that person just opened for me. Does it include breakfast?”

The front desk: “…”

The front desk: “Yes, it does. You can go eat in the diner at 9 in the morning.” 

“Thank you.”

Yan Shuang was pleased to be able to save on another meal.

With air-conditioning and breakfast, he was in heaven.

The literature class was in the fourth period in the morning. Yan Shuang borrowed pen and paper from the front desk and did online learning in his room. 

The hour before Qin Yubai arrived yesterday wasn’t enough time to look through all the material he had missed after arriving late and being called away early. This teacher assigned way too many readings.

Since there was still one more period before literature class, Yan Shuang should have enough time to finish if he kept an eye on the time. The homework assigned in the forum also needed to be done.

In the original novel, although the teacher didn’t say anything outright, he secretly docked Yan Shuang’s attendance marks.

This time, however, Yan Shuang believed that he should’ve gotten a bit into the teacher’s good graces, but it was still not enough. 

Only an excellent homework assignment could completely reverse the teacher’s bad impression of him.

Yan Shuang made good use of the time. He finished posting his homework on the forum before the alarm he had set for himself went off.

Looking at the words ‘succesfully posted’ that popped up on his phone screen, Yan Shuang breathed a sigh of relief, stretched and went to class.

This period’s literature class was about European literature. It was also quite a big class. Yan Shuang arrived early in the classroom empty handed and still managed to snag a center seat, right beside the middle corridor. 

“Is there someone here?”

Someone came to ask Yan Shuang about the seat beside him.

Yan Shuang hesitated. “Yes, there is.”

The classroom gradually filled with arriving students. At least seven or eight of them came up to Yan Shuang to ask about the seat beside him, and Yan Shuang always apologetically said it was occupied. 

There was no sign of Ji Yao even as class was about to start.

The huge lecture hall was almost completely full.

The professor came in with his briefcase. Scanning the classroom, he immediately noticed something was off.

In the almost full classroom, there was an empty seat near the very centre of the room. The professor pointed in its direction. “Whose seat is that?” 

There was silence in the classroom.

“It’s almost time for class.” The professor turned on his computer and connected the projector. He said half-jokingly, “Quickly tell him to come back.” Naturally, he assumed the vacant seat was occupied, its owner having left temporarily.

Those who knew that wasn’t the case had already begun whispering among themselves. Their gazed all turned to that thin and literally could not be more hunched over back.

“Who’s that? Do you know him?” 

”

Nope, no impression.”

“He didn’t bring any textbooks, ah. Maybe he’s from another school and here to bum a class off of us?”

“Would you sit in such a conspicuous spot if you were here to bum a class?” 

“Well he came early and he’s sitting right there.”

“One person taking two seats? He doesn’t look that fat to me, ah.”

Laughter suddenly broke out in a small area.

The professor on the podium looked up and smiled too. “What are you laughing at? Tell teacher so I can laugh too.” 

The students in the audience covered their mouths and waved their hands, continuing to chuckled but quieter.

The person sitting beside Yan Shuang was concerned about him. “Hey, who are you saving a seat for?”

Yan Shuang kept his head down and didn’t say a word.

“Okay, it’s time to quiet down. We’re going to talk about European literature’s…oh. Ji Yao’s here.” The professor knew this ‘big celebrity’. He laughed at the sight of the backpack in Ji Yao’s hand. “You’re sure giving me a lot of face.” 

Ji Yao nodded at and greeted the professor. His eyes swept over the classroom.

In the center of the classroom, a person looked up and waved to him slightly. There was a bright look on his face, and his eyes curving behind his lenses, brimming with pure and unconcealed expectations.

“Ji Yao, here.”

He mouthed silently. 

Almost everyone, including the professor, watched as Ji Yao slowly moved towards that empty seat.

He stopped by Yan Shuang’s side. Yan Shuang said quietly, “I thought you weren’t coming…” There was a hint of joy in his voice.

The backpack dropped unceremoniously from mid-air onto Yan Shuang’s lap. The impact wasn’t too hard, but it was enough to cut off whatever Yan Shuang was going to say next.

The hands that had helped bring his bag quickly retracted back into pockets. 

Ji Yao passed by him without saying a word– towards the back of the classroom.