Chapter 4

My Ge rushed over in half an hour. Once he entered the office he immediately pulled me into the crook of his arm and asked me in a low voice, "Dating early? Do you two like each other? What's your teacher's stance on it?"

I explained to him: dating, my ass. We didn't even think of each other, let alone like each other. The school wanted to take disciplinary action and make me write a self-reflection.

It seemed like he had just ended a meeting, his luxury-brand suit smooth and neat. I took a good look at him. His face was pale and there was still perspiration on his forehead. Every now and then he would put a hand over his abdomen, but he dealt with my form teacher and the parents of the girl who sat in front of me with ease.

There was no reason for him to be so angry, right? His hands were even shaking.

My teacher said if I continued to pay no heed to discipline and wreak havoc on the rules, I would get expelled. I glared at my Ge's mouth as he smiled and apologised to my teacher, giving assurance that I wouldn't do that again. I wanted to shove my dick into his mouth and make him unable to speak.

Some people would start to reminisce two to three days after doing something thrilling. My time as a virtuous person lasted two days when my body started to miss that little waiter's ass. He was called Shi Chen and his hole was really soft. I still wanted to fuck him, this time by the window to let other people see how provocative he was.

But my Ge said he would only allow it that one time. I should be more obedient. After all, to others, he was such a proud and firm person, but for my sake he had lowered his head to my teacher.

When my mind was wandering, my Ge had already used his clear logic to sort out the problem and mislead my teachers to see that this was a complete misunderstanding. However, something had to be done, so I had no choice but to write a thousand word long self-reflection for burning the hair of the person who sat in front of me. The serious disciplinary action was avoided; I just had to stay at home for two days to reflect on myself.

The parents of the person who sat in front of me were dissatisfied with how I was being dealt with, so they insulted my Ge and me, saying that I had no parents to raise me. Their words muddied the atmosphere of the director's office, making my form teacher and year head lose some dignity.

I rolled up my sleeves, ready to get a punishment for fighting when my Ge yanked me behind him and dragged me out as I clenched my teeth and glared at them. The girl who sat in front of me was doing her best to hold her parents back as she cried and apologised to me.

"That's enough, we're going home."

Since Ge said we were going home, I settled down. I didn't have parents, but I had a Ge, so it was okay.

At night, I was in the study searching Baidu for a self-reflection to copy when I suddenly heard a slight groan from the bedroom. I quickly went to take a look and saw my Ge tossing and turning in bed, his entire forehead soaked in sweat.

Stunned, I asked him what was wrong. He said his stomach hurt.

I only learned on this day that my Ge hadn't recovered from his gastric problem. Two years ago, he had fallen sick because he had too many social engagements. But he lied to me and said that he had recovered, and I believed him.

I suddenly thought of how I even let him eat the remains of my ice cream bar. There was a problem with his stomach, was there something wrong with his brain too? When I gave it to him he just ate it. If I gave him my cock, would he just take it then?

I plugged in the electric heating pad and clumsily boiled a flask of hot water. It wasn't that I never did anything at home; rather, I had a healthy stomach, so I usually only drank cold water.

I rubbed my hands together and put them into his shirt to help warm his abdomen up. He curled up like a shrimp and buried his head in my shoulder. He peered at me with one eye, "Have you finished writing your self-reflection?"

To others, my Ge was a successful person who stood by his word. Throughout the nine years since our parents' divorce, he had never made himself look pitiful. I kissed his brow bone and told him to call me Ge; I'd take care of him today.

He laughed as he patted my head, "You're taking advantage of me when I'm in suffering?"

I wasn't as knowledgeable as him, so I just left the hot water out until it cooled to a suitable temperature and fed it to him because I loved him and he was my Ge. I only had this one Ge. In the future, when we grew old, I would also only take care of him.

When he fell asleep, I helped him to smooth out his tightly creased brows. He was so good-looking that I suddenly wanted to abuse him.

When I saw how he was in so much pain that he turned into a little weakling, the left side of my chest suddenly felt very unbearable.

My Ge had attended university in Beijing. It was the kind of Double First Class university[1] that we would boast about when teachers asked us about our dreams as kids. He had a national scholarship that could cover not just his school fees, but also part of his living expenses. He would often work part-time jobs as well. For the first two years after we ran away together, we lived in a basement apartment that only had one room, the kind where the bed was right there once you opened the door. It was close to the middle school I was temporarily studying at, and the monthly rent was 1500 yuan[2]. The bowls we ate out of had ants in them. In the past, I could still study in Beijing without being a registered resident of Beijing, but now that was definitely not possible.

My mum would give him 1500 yuan worth of living expenses every month while my dad didn't care about me at all. I didn't know how my Ge lived when he gave me 2000 yuan[3] worth of allowance every month.

Every weekend after working, he would come home and squeeze in the same small bed as me. In winter, the heating was bad, but if I turned on the electric blanket my throat and head would hurt, so my Ge froze in the cold with me.

In the past, I didn't know that my Ge had a gastric problem. My Ge's tummy was the warmest. I would often bury my hands under his clothes once I got home to warm them. He never avoided it either; he just turned the heater fan around to warm me.

Afterwards, he didn't go on to take a postgraduate course. After he graduated from his undergraduate course, he immediately went to get a job with a monthly salary, then thought of a way to start a business with his friends to get money to raise me. He somehow got lucky and became the boss after a few years and now our residence was in a third-tier city[4] near Beijing. We had a 200 square-meter villa in a school district, and our days were quite comfortable.

At night, my mum called to scold me because the lady who had been on a date with my Ge had left in anger because of me. My mum was fuming as she insulted me, saying that I was a burden on my Ge and that I should screw off.

I hung up and lowered my head as I stared at the phone screen, aimlessly switching between apps. An arm rested on my neck. Ge came over and said 'I love you' to me.

I lowered my eyelids and turned my head to touch the tip of his nose with mine. Separated by a distance that was more intimate than family yet was not quite amorously ambiguous, I said 'I love you too'.

Then we kissed, lips pressed to lips. No tongue, because he didn't do it so I didn't dare to.

We would kiss sometimes. If something at school had made me angry, or if Ge's company had given him some trouble, we would kiss. It wasn't much different from male wolves licking each other's wounds. But we wouldn't kiss deeply. That could only be done between lovers, my Ge said.

At first, I only kissed my Ge because he was always scolding me. My two hands were busy trying to catch his wrists to avoid getting hit, so I could only use my mouth to stop his words and bite him. Later, it became more casual. Sometimes when my head was fuzzy with sleep, I'd kiss him. There wasn't any reason. My Ge loved me so he would let me do whatever I wanted to him.

So I was quite afraid that in the future he would only kiss his wife, and not kiss me anymore.

For him, I stayed up to finish writing my thousand word self-reflection and complete my worksheets. The next day, during the exercise time between classes, I went to the speaker's platform to read my self-reflection with dark eye bags under my eyes (my school's rule was that even students with temporary suspensions had to come back to school to read their self-reflection. Afterwards their parent or guardian would take them home). On the platform, I actually felt very uncomfortable. The only thought in my head was when I could go down.

Muddle-headed, I read out my reflection. When I read to the end, my form teacher personally ran up to the platform and hauled me off.

I realised that at the end of my reflection, I had written 'Duan Rui' one hundred times. Just now my mouth had run on its own and I had accidentally read until the twenty-fourth one.

Footnotes:

[1] - Double First Class: Taken from Wikipedia 'The World First Class University and First Class Academic Discipline Construction, combined and are known as Double First Class, is a tertiary education development initiative designed by the People's Republic of China government, in 2015, which aims to comprehensively develop elite Chinese universities and their individual faculty departments into world-class institutions by the end of 2050.'

[2] - 1500 yuan: Roughly US$232

[3] - 2000 yuan: Roughly US$300

[4] - Third-tier city: China's cities are informally divided into 5 tiers, with tier 1 being the 'best'.