Chapter 9

CW: Sexual harassment

I had indeed been frightened when I had my first wet dream. Back then, nobody had told me that this would happen, and after it happened, nobody told me why it happened or how I should deal with it either. Nobody even told me what it signified.

Perhaps I was part of the group that hit puberty earlier, but when it happened, I was only twelve; a year before I joined the Yan family.

It happened after I was forced to watch pornographic videos.

Back then, I was still living in that filthy neighbourhood. Aside from the older residents, there were also some little hooligans. Of course, these hooligans also formed a part of the older residents. They were born here, and this was where they grew up too. I once wondered: had I not been taken away, would I have turned out like these people too, idling on the streets every day and doing shady business? Maybe one day, when I was stealing something or getting into a fight with someone, I would be caught and thrown into prison.

Given all this, my current state could still be considered quite fortunate.

Right?

Back to wet dreams.

That day, I had just been intending to go out to get something to eat. My mum had had a crazy fit again and broken all the bowls and plates in the kitchen. I was unbearably hungry, so I left the house.

Outside, I encountered the hooligans that lived here. They were quite young, about sixteen to seventeen years old, and held a CD case in their hands. Like I was a little chick, they snatched me up, saying they were going to show me something good.

I didn't care what we were going to watch. I just asked them if they had any food they could give me.

They actually did give me something to eat.

We went to one of their houses. They pulled me to sit in front of the television and shoved a piece of bread into my hands.

I stared at the screen as I ate. A girl showed up, wearing nothing but her underwear, twirling her hair seductively. A few of them sitting beside me started making weird noises.

Like this, they masturbated to the pornography on the screen. At the time, I was clueless and just felt disgusted. I simply wanted to leave. I couldn't even finish my bread.

They didn't let me go, forcing me to stay and watch. They said I had to watch this to become a real man.

Whether I was a 'real man' or not, I didn't really care. I just felt like what was being acted out on the screen was seriously unbearable to watch. A man had pinned the woman on the bed and started thrusting into her almost abusively, and the woman sounded like she was in pain, desperately pleading for help.

But these little hooligans just had to be so enraptured by it. I watched them fish out that thing that was usually used for peeing and start stroking it. The sight filled me with panic.

I only managed to get home by means of escape. But even after I got home, I couldn't shake the images out of my head. The more I thought about it, the more disgusted I felt. I ran to the toilet and puked until my snot ran.

It was exactly on that night that I dreamt of myself entangled with the naked body of another person. The person's face was blurry, but it was likely pure and pleasant.

It was pure and pleasant in my dream, but when I opened my eyes, the world before me was still unspeakably filthy.

That day, I dirtied my underwear and thought that I had wet the bed. I only learnt what it really was a long time later.

In this way, Yan Yang was more fortunate than me. He didn't have to face this alone.

He was fifteen when it happened. To my knowledge, that was considered quite late for a first wet dream.

On Saturday mornings, we high schoolers still had class to attend. When I woke up, I found him washing his underwear.

Yan Yang never washed his own clothes – including his socks and underwear – so when I opened the bathroom door and saw him standing there with his brows furrowed, furiously scrubbing his underwear, I could already tell what had happened.

This was something very normal, so I couldn't even be bothered to ask about it. I just urged him to hurry up; I had to wash up before leaving for school.

But before I could walk out of the bathroom, he stopped me. Secretively, he closed the door and told me, "Ge, I had a wet dream."

He already knew what it was, so his classmates had probably talked about it before.

Boys and their unfiltered mouths.

I had wanted to mock him. What was so earth-shattering about a wet dream? Come and tell me when you've lost your virginity instead.

But since I was a 'good Gege', I ruffled his hair and said, "Congrats, you're all grown up."

Yan Yang flushed red. He looked at me and hesitantly said, "I find it very weird."

"There's nothing weird about it," I assured him, "It's perfectly normal. At your age, it'd be weirder if you didn't have wet dreams."

I really meant what I had said. He was already fifteen. If he continued not having wet dreams, I would have started suspecting that he might be asexual.

But what I didn't expect was that after he had finished washing his underwear in silence, he didn't leave. He stayed with me as I washed up and got ready. When we went back to our bedroom, he anxiously sat on my bed and bowed his head like he had done something wrong as he asked me, "But Ge, I dreamt that I was kissing a boy. Is that still normal?"