Chapter 61 – A Few Tricks In Love (For Real)

The atmosphere seemed to have returned to what it was like before.

But Xu Xiran knew that there was already a difference in his mentality. He couldn’t keep down his excited emotions, nor could he control his strong desire to express himself. In addition, he had become a little timid, afraid that something embarrassing might happen if he wasn’t careful enough.

He consciously wanted to make himself look better in front of Fang Mo and act more likable.

In the end, the only result was that his words increased.

Fortunately, he and Fang Mo have always been agreeable, and he could talk about any boring topic for a long time, without being afraid of being left alone.

Xu Xiran was in a good mood because of this, until Fang Mo suddenly asked him what the post in his Moments meant.

His heart skipped a beat on the spot.

The boy who slayed the dragon had finally turned into a dragon, of course he was talking about himself. He clearly agreed to protect Fang Mo, but he fell in love with him just like those harassers. Xu Xiran struggled with this every night, and on a whim, posted it on his Moments.

He thought he would be able to say those words to Fang Mo one day. Either when he felt that Fang Mo would nod his head if he said it, or when he realized that there would be no conclusion. His confession would be a new beginning or a final destination.

But now was not the time. That would give himself away and completely scare Fang Mo off.

He didn’t say a word. Then Fang Mo asked again.

“Did you suddenly have some life insights in the middle of the night?”

Xu Xiran was not good at lying, so he felt silly when he heard himself squeeze out these excuses: “I couldn’t sleep, and this phrase popped in my mind all of a sudden. I thought it sounded very touching, so I just jotted it down.”

Fang Mo was dazed for a few seconds and looked like he was looking at a fool.

Xu Xiran felt a little depressed. This was not good, the image of himself in Fang Mo’s mind was no longer handsome. How could he quickly redeem himself?

~

On the way back to the dormitory together, Xu Xiran was still thinking about this question.

Halfway through the walk, they passed by the school’s basketball court. Several boys in sportswear were on the court covered in sweat, and the atmosphere was lively.

One of the boys went past the two of them with the ball and then made a jump. The technique was perfect, but unfortunately, the ball hit the rim of the basket and flung off.

Seeing the basketball bouncing on the ground and getting closer and closer to him, Xu Xiran’s heart brightened. He walked over quickly, bent down, and picked up the basketball.

The boys chasing the ball had just said “thank you classmate” when Xu Xiran suddenly slapped the ball to the ground. He bent down, and during the few seconds when the others were stiff because of this unexpected move, he took the ball and turned around them nimbly, then dribbled the ball and ran forward a few steps quickly, and stopped at the place where the boy had missed his shot and jumped up.

The basketball made a perfect parabola in the air, hit the backboard, and flung off.

The ball bounced a few times on the ground, rolled forward, and finally stopped at Fang Mo’s feet. Fang Mo quietly bent down to pick up the ball and handed it back to those bewildered basketball boys.

~

“It’s been too long since I’ve played so my hands feel rusty. Otherwise, I’d definitely be able to get it in,” Xu Xiran emphasized with his face turning red as he walked, “I’ve practiced before, and I’m usually quite accurate.”

Fang Mo looked at the ground, seemingly holding back a laugh, and nodded: “Mn, mn, mn, I can see that your technique looks very good.”

“That’s for sure,” Xu Xiran ran forward a few steps immediately after speaking, jumped up, and threw a nonexistent basketball into the air, “Three points!”

“Mn, mn, mn, mn, mn,” Fang Mo continued to nod, “I’m sure you’ll get it in like that.”

Xu Xiran felt shy: “Probably.”

He felt a little excited and couldn’t calm down, and was bouncing the whole way.

“Ai, that’s right,” Fang Mo asked him suddenly, “Has your class signed up for the school’s basketball game?”

Xu Xiran thought for a while: “I think I’ve heard… they came to me before. I was busy with club stuff at that time, so I turned it down. I don’t know if the team is full by now.”

“Ah, what a pity,” Fang Mo said, “Seeing that you like it so much, I thought you would go to participate.”

~

After he casually said this, immediately after returning to the dormitory, Xu Xiran called the sports committee member of his class.

The result surprised both parties. The deadline was the day after tomorrow, and it seemed that there was only one spot left to sign up and that they were trying hard to fill that last spot. They didn’t expect that Xu Xiran would deliver himself to their door on his own.

After confirming with the sports committee, Xu Xiran immediately called Fang Mo and asked him if he would come to see it.

“I’ll come,” Fang Mo agreed, “When is the official game?”

Xu Xiran thought to himself, God knows. He rushed over to take credit before asking anything.

It would be better if they started a little later. He hadn’t played for several months, and felt rusty so he needed to practice more.

~

Fang Mo himself didn’t like playing basketball that much. He always felt awkward wearing a big tank top and being with a group of sweaty men jostling for the ball in a small court.

But he loved to watch. In middle school, when he had a vague understanding of his own orientation, he liked to sit with the girls in his class by the basketball court and watch the boys play.

There would always be one or two handsome ones on the court, or those who were not good-looking but had a good figure and a good shooting technique when he couldn’t see their faces from far away.

When they weren’t dripping with sweat, they would occasionally look very charming. Some seemingly ordinary-looking boys would look very attractive when they were focused on the basketball court. Although Xu Xiran’s operation today made a person suffocate, Fang Mo still couldn’t help but feel a little excited when he thought of his focused basketball-playing appearance.

He sent another message to Xu Xiran that night, asking if he would practice before the official game and if he could watch.

He unexpectedly suffered a rejection. Regardless of Fang Mo’s coercion, he was unmoved.

Fang Mo had no choice but to let it go.

He didn’t feel defeated in his heart, and on the contrary, he felt a little happy. What Zou Shun said was right. You will easily worry about gains and losses if you cared too much, and you will always blindly think about it. From today’s appearance, Xu Xiran clearly had no intention of avoiding suspicion with him at all.

Xu Xiran was not a person with cunning plots, he was very simple. Seeing him like this now, he was still safe.

Fang Mo was secretly glad that he hadn’t been exposed, but also felt tired from being on this long journey with no end in sight.

He was having mixed feelings of joy and sorrow, when less than three meters away, Liu Xiaochang, who was supposed to be in a good relationship, was talking on the phone with someone. His voice was very quiet, but when he pricked up his ears, he was still about to hear it somewhat clearly.

Fang Mo complained in his heart, but couldn’t help but carefully listen in.

“No, it’s not that I don’t want to go, it’s just that I feel like this kind of exhibit is not that interesting. If you want to go then I’ll go with you. Ah? Didn’t you say you wanted to go? If you want to go then go. Then what do you want now, do you want to go or not? …It really doesn’t seem that interesting, it looks like it’s a scam. No, didn’t I say that if you wanted to go then I’ll accompany you, what are you doing? Ah? Really? Are you sure you don’t want to go? …Are you mad? No? Are you really not mad? Hehe then that’s good. Since you’re not going, why don’t we… ai? Something suddenly came up? …What is it? If something is not convenient then tell me… okay, okay, you’re busy. But it’s so early? It’s not even that late. Okay fine, then rest well, goodnight.”

Fang Mo was shocked.

How did this gay guy live just like a straight guy? Even if he couldn’t hear the voice from the other side, Fang Mo could already imagine how angry Yang Lin must be.

Liu Xiaochang hung up the phone and stared blankly for a while. When he looked up, he met with Fang Mo’s eyes.

Both of them showed awkward yet polite smiles, and then turned their heads away as if nothing had happened.

Fang Mo was a little anxious. Although he still didn’t have that good of an impression of Yang Lin, and had been cursing people these days who have been spreading dog food everywhere1 with their PDA, he truly saw the potential crisis in his relationship, and still couldn’t help but want to warn him. 

Just as he was thinking of how to start, Liu Xiaochang suddenly asked, “Are you free now?”

“What is it?” Fang Mo responded immediately.

He turned around and found that Liu Xiaochang was smiling at him.

“Let’s talk,” Liu Xiaochang said, pulling the chair and moving it to his bedside. “Since they happen to not be here right now, it’s convenient for us to talk.”

Fang Mo sat up: “What’s wrong? Do you have more emotional troubles now?”

Liu Xiaochang forced a smile and slowly sighed: “A little bit. I want some advice from a senior with experience.”

The senior with zero experience nodded his head: “Do tell?”

“When you and Xu Xiran are usually together, what do you usually do?”

Fang Mo recalled what they did today. He watched an anime full of jiggling breasts and thighs, listened to Xu Xiran’s long rants, racked his brains trying to think of nonsense to praise, had a meal together, talked about many topics with no nutritional value, watched him embarrass himself on the basketball court, and then watched him fake dribble through the air the whole way to get to his winning pose.

“…Not much,” Fang Mo said, “Just… things that everyone does.”

Liu Xiaochang nodded, with a look of emotion on his face: “Then do you ever feel that other than going to bed together, there’s nothing else to do, and that it feels awkward when getting along with each other when you don’t have a common language?”

Fang Mo looked away.

It was true they didn’t have much of a common language, and Xu Xiran was extremely good at creating embarrassment.

To make matters worse was that they didn’t even have a bed to go on together.

Seeing that he was silent, Liu Xiaochang thought that he was tacitly agreeing, so he confidently expressed his distress: “Every time we meet, we always get a room, that’s not too good is it?”

Fang Mo was on the verge of crying with envy.

He and Xu Xiran didn’t have many common topics to talk about, but for some reason, they were always able to chat endlessly. He was willing to swap with Liu Xiaochang.

Compared with meaningless verbal communication, physical communication was what he desperately desired at this moment.

“But you and Xu Xiran seem to have a very good relationship,” Liu Xiaochang asked earnestly, “How do you maintain it? Can you impart some experience?”

What experience did Fang Mo have? He and Xu Xiran simply got along very well naturally. He  helplessly shook his head and then brought back the topic from the phone call a moment ago: “Did he invite you to see an exhibit?”

“Mn,” Liu Xiaochang said, “but I don’t know why he didn’t want to go all of a sudden.”

“So are you willing to accompany him?” Fang Mo asked again.

“Yeah, I’m willing,” Liu Xiaochang said, “I really want to do other things with him, otherwise it will feel like we’re just friends with benefits.”

Fang Mo frowned: “Then why did you tell him that the exhibit doesn’t seem interesting and feels like a scam?”

“Because it really doesn’t look interesting, it looks just like a scam,” Liu Xiaochang opened his hands, “Those post-modern artists, I looked online and found no credible information on them, and all their publicity photos look like they’re full of rags and bricks with a filter. They bully the literary youth who want to be artists.”

“……”

“I can’t say that can I?” Liu Xiaochang woke up from his dream.

Fang Mo shook his head with emotion: “I’m really convinced. How did you pretend to be so sophisticated before?”

Liu Xiaochang looked away in embarrassment: “Look, I look like this, so I can only work hard to maintain my temperament in other places, right…”

“……”

“Let’s not talk about that first,” Liu Xiaochang waved his hand, “So, can’t I say what’s on my mind?”

“Use your brain, who wants to hear this?” Fang Mo felt that he finally had some experience that he could pass on. “When I’m with Xu Xiran, no matter how much of a dumbass he is, and how unreliable his words are, if it’s something he likes, then I’ll just pick good things to say. Then he’s happy, I’m happy, everyone’s happy. Isn’t that good?”

Liu Xiaochang frowned: “So you can’t even say what’s on your mind? Wouldn’t that make getting along with each other tiring? If you want to have a long-term relationship, I think you have to be more honest with each other, right?”

Fang Mo looked at this rotten wood, and felt powerless and still a little bit uneasy.

This kind of person has already left the single crowd and lived a colorful sex life.

God is blind.

“If you have to express yourself honestly, then you can say it from another angle,” he guided Liu Xiaochang, “If you like this exhibit, of course I’ll accompany you, not because I am interested in this exhibit, but because I want to accompany you to do the things that you like, and ultimately because I like you. If I’m with you, I’ll be happy wherever we go, and I’m willing to do whatever you want with you. Isn’t this good!”

Liu Xiaochang was surprised for a while, and blushed: “…how am I able to say that out loud.”

Author’s note:

There is one thing to say, although our Momo is still single so far, he still has a bit of say in this aspect! If you don’t believe me, look at that infatuated otaku.

Liu Xiaochang: There is 1.2

Yin: *dies of second-hand embarrassment*

Being annoyingly lovey-dovey in public

Wordplay on the first two words mentioned in the author’s note