Chen Huanyi slowly raised his head. After looking at Lin Kai for a while, he stood up.
Lin Kai turned to leave. Hugging his backpack, Chen Huanyi followed him.
After they exited the academic affairs building, Lin Kai didn’t walk toward the main biology building—instead, he led them off campus. Chen Huanyi followed silently without asking questions. Lin Kai hailed a cab. After he got in, Chen Huanyi did as well.
Lin Kai gave an address to the driver and then spoke no further. Chen Huanyi also said nothing.
After they reached their destination in silence, Lin Kai paid, and they got out of the cab. Lin Kai again walked in front, with Chen Huanyi bringing up the rear. Lin Kai swiped his key card, held the building door open for Chen Huanyi, and then shut the door behind him. He called the elevator; they rode it upstairs. Finally, Lin Kai unlocked his door and again held it for Chen Huanyi.
After taking off his shoes, Chen Huanyi stood barefoot in the entryway without moving. Lin Kai patted him on the head and bent down to get a pair of slippers for him. As he followed Lin Kai’s movements with his eyes, miserable tears began to roll down Chen Huanyi’s face.
During the proposal defense, each student first turned in their report and then presented their slides. The professors usually read the reports while listening to the presentation and asked questions at the very end. Afterward, the presentations, reports, and responses to questions all factored into their grades.
Liu Bowei had presented before Chen Huanyi. Even though their topics were very similar, their reasoning was distinct. Besides, Lin Kai had revised Chen Huanyi’s report and slides. Thus, Chen Huanyi took the floor with full confidence. He finished his concise, streamlined presentation in precisely seven and a half minutes out of the allotted eight. Then he waited for the faculty’s questions. After a while, the professors were still talking amongst themselves without asking him anything. Chen Huanyi assumed the professors were still coming to a consensus, so he simply stood there, waiting quietly.
Some time later, one of the teachers said, “Chen Huanyi, come here and take a look at your report.”
Chen Huanyi had walked over without thinking anything of it. The teacher took out another proposal and said, “See—many sections of your literature overview are duplicates of Liu Bowei’s. It’s not just a matter of citing the same papers—these were clearly copied and pasted…”
Of course, they wouldn’t dump the chamber pot straight onto Chen Huanyi’s head, so to speak. If it weren’t for the simple fact that Liu Bowei had presented first and Chen Huanyi second, then the latter certainly wouldn’t be the one accused of plagiarizing. Both students needed to explain themselves.
Once the reports were brought out at the defense, they didn’t only belong to the students—they also represented their advisors’ stamp of approval. Liu Bowei was Professor Shen’s student, and since Professor Shen was present, he had no choice but to speak up.
Professor Shen pulled up a report from the launch of the cancer bioinformatics project. “This project was approved back in the beginning of March. From the initial research to the project launch, Liu Bowei has been involved all along. The literature overview of this proposal report was written before March. My email correspondence with Liu Bowei can prove this.”
Chen Huanyi also had email correspondence with Professor Shen—in fact, his emails probably preceded Liu Bowei’s and were more frequent to boot. He had already opened his laptop and logged into his email, ready to call out Professor Shen to his face.
“I’m not stupid enough to plagiarize a thesis proposal from a classmate in the same group as me.” Chen Huanyi let out a laugh without looking at anyone as he spoke.
Speaking in such a tone was quite inappropriate given the circumstances. Disapproval was written plainly on several teachers’ faces.
Chen Huanyi had never been a confrontational person. He was always considerate and good-natured, and he rarely criticized others, especially in situations like these. But this time, he was truly furious. There were two kinds of people Chen Huanyi despised more than anything: idiots and cheats. And the culprit today was clearly both an idiot and a cheat.
Chen Huanyi’s fingers flew over the keyboard as he searched up all of his correspondence with Professor Shen. However, the sheer number of emails wasn’t enough—he needed to find evidence pertaining to the literature overview. He felt confident because he remembered giving Professor Shen several dozen papers on cancer bioinformatics, along with a summary he had written. But try as he might, he couldn’t find that damn email in his inbox.
Slowly, his movements stilled. The gazes all around him were like knives gradually pressing closer, waiting for his reaction.
He felt like a traitor in an anti-Japanese war drama [1] whose death flags had been planted everywhere, surrounded at gunpoint by righteous heroes gravely reciting an account of his heinous crimes. A second ago, he had been shouting at the top of his lungs about his love for his country and peerless loyalty; now, the fearless and wily protagonist had thrown the evidence in his face.
He felt like he could barely breathe.
He quickly went over the entire sequence of events in his mind. He even wondered if Professor Shen had hired someone to hack his email.
Then… he remembered that he had brought a USB drive to Professor Shen’s office and directly copied a zip folder over to his computer.
He had done so many tasks for Professor Shen, yet he never thought that such a day would ever come. Ah, Chen Huanyi, Chen Huanyi—record-keeping is of paramount importance in academia, how could you just—
There was simply no way for him to defend himself.
He closed his laptop. “I can’t find it. But I really didn’t plagiarize.” As he spoke, he thought he saw Professor Shen breathe a sigh of relief out of the corner of his eye, but it could’ve been his imagination.
Their school’s faculty would have been able to cover up this matter if it weren’t for the unfortunate coincidence that a teacher from the academic affairs office just so happened to be sitting in on the defenses that day. The defenses were no different from ordinary exams—if a student was found to be cheating on an exam and one of the school’s own faculty was proctoring, as long as there were no private conflicts involved, the professor would simply fail them and ask them to sit a make-up exam or retake the course. But if a teacher from academic affairs caught someone cheating when they were making their rounds, the student would be disciplined that day and have their bachelor’s degree revoked.
Afterward, Chen Huanyi didn’t offer any more explanations. He followed someone to the academic affairs office and sat down in a corner, hugging his backpack. Several different people came over to speak to him, but he had no reaction whatsoever, as though he couldn’t even hear them.
Until Lin Kai arrived.
Lin Kai wasn’t immaculately put together as usual. Two of the buttons of his shirt were undone, under which his collarbone and a sliver of his pecs were visible. His tie was in his hand, and his forehead was covered in a fine sheen of sweat.
Chen Huanyi had heard him say, “Come with me.”
Like a god swooping down from the heavens.
Now, Chen Huanyi’s grip went slack, his backpack falling to the floor with a thunk. He reached for Lin Kai’s waist; Lin Kai didn’t push him away.
He ran his hand over the taut line of Lin Kai’s back. He felt a bit cold, so his hand subconsciously shifted lower. His fingers reached the edge of the belt holding up Lin Kai’s dress pants, seeking out a warmer place.
Lin Kai caught his ice-cold hand.
Then he picked up the remote for the heater and said lightly, “Something similar happened to me when I was your age.
“I was a very good math student in high school,” Lin Kai continued. “I won a gold medal in the national olympiad and was accepted into the top-ranked undergraduate computer science program in the country. During a competition in my third year, my code was plagiarized. Computer programs can’t be patented, you know—if the code is copied and edited here and there, it becomes something completely new. Afterward… some other things happened, and I decided to do my master’s overseas and stop studying computer science. After some consideration, I decided to switch to biology. I completed the undergraduate coursework in a year, passed the review standards, took the German proficiency exam, and went to Germany.”
Chen Huanyi opened his mouth. Even after a long while, he only managed to say, “That must have been very hard.”
“Looking back now, it was alright,” Lin Kai replied.
Chen Huanyi fell silent for a while before he asked, “What happened afterward?”
“Hm?”
“You said some other things happened after your code was plagiarized, and then you decided to do your master’s overseas…”
“…I found out that my boyfriend at the time was the one who copied my code. We broke up. I was outed.”
Lin Kai was usually very composed, but the moment he spoke these words out loud, even he was a bit startled. With his personality, he was more likely to end the conversation with a “none of your business.” If he were simply advising a student, finishing the plagiarism anecdote was sufficient; he should’ve stopped there.
Chen Huanyi’s mouth fell open with a gasp. “…How melodramatic.”
Lin Kai chuckled. “Isn’t it.”
Neither of them spoke for a while; only silence remained in the air.
Suddenly, Chen Huanyi broke into a grin, although it looked a bit like a grimace. He started changing the topic. “So, Lin-laoshi is gay then?”
Lin Kai blinked.
Chen Huanyi continued to change the topic. “In that case, can I pursue you?”
Dumbfounded, Lin Kai stared at Chen Huanyi. “So you’re not nervous at all about being charged with plagiarism?”
“Ah,” Chen Huanyi replied, “but you believe me. You told me something like this also happened to you. Just like me, you were plagiarized.”
“Yeah. But you still need to prove it,” said Lin Kai.
“Lin-laoshi, I’ve got a fantasy.”
Once again, Lin Kai didn’t know what to say.
Chen Huanyi continued. “If I’m charged with plagiarism and get kicked out of school, then I won’t be a student anymore, and you won’t be my teacher. So we could finally be together, right?”
Lin Kai was truly rendered speechless. This was nothing like how Chen Huanyi usually behaved, but it was probably a stress reaction brought on by major disappointment. Yes—this was completely understandable.
Chen Huanyi was still babbling about his fantasy to Lin Kai.
Usually, he wasn’t very talkative, nor was he especially humorous or witty. But today, he continued to chatter a mile a minute in a jocular tone. He repeated the same points several times, talking himself in circles without any apparent organization or logic.
Lin Kai listened patiently from beginning to end. He cared after all, Lin Kai thought—he really cared a lot. That was why he was so anxious to cover it up, trying to feign flippancy. But his eyes were still brimming with tears as they darted around, not daring to look directly at Lin Kai for fear of being discovered.
Chen Huanyi abruptly fell silent. His shoulders drooped.
“…Lin-laoshi.”
“Mm.”
“…Lin-laoshi.”
“Mm.”
Chen Huanyi wondered if Lin Kai would keep on answering if he continued calling him like this.
He felt like he had gone back to that first night, to his prior relationship with this man. Lin Kai had controlled all his senses and dealt out his pain, but each and every detail showed just how gentle this man actually was.
Gentler than anyone.
Chen Huanyi had sensed this all along; otherwise, he wouldn’t have dared to carelessly joke around to Lin Kai’s face, to even brazenly tease and provoke him. It was like he was destined to be indulged and cherished from the very beginning.
Only when this gentle man was acting solely as his professor did the cool and stern side of his personality come out. But even then, Chen Huanyi could tell that there was care hidden beneath the calmness of his voice.
Right now, he didn’t seem like a buttoned-up scientist, nor like a whip-brandishing disciplinarian.
“Can I ask you something?” Chen Huanyi ventured.
Lin Kai looked at him, indicating that he could continue.
“Why are you so good to me, yet you still won’t take me back?”
“Those are two different things,” Lin Kai responded mildly.
Chen Huanyi’s gaze didn’t falter as he waited for him to answer.
“Do you know what a failed S is like?” Lin Kai said. “It has nothing to do with the proficiency of their rope technique or the attractiveness of their lash marks.
“An S’s biggest failure is a shortcoming of trust.
“Regardless of whether you’re an S or an M, you should understand that BDSM isn’t the entirety of our lives—it’s just one tiny part of who we are. When you kneel at my feet, you’re my slave, and I’m in control of all your senses and emotions. But when you stand up, we’re equals—neither of us is any more or less worthy than the other.
“If you want to go back to how we used to be, you should also think about why you decided to leave in the first place.”
Lin Kai’s words sent a jolt through Chen Huanyi.
“…Because you’re a teacher at our school,” Chen Huanyi said haltingly.
“So?” Lin Kai shook his head. “You didn’t answer my question.”
“A teacher and a student are… If people found out, it would be ugly…” Chen Huanyi peeled back his shell with difficulty, revealing his true thoughts. “I think that… the more our social circles overlap, the more dangerous it is.”
Lin Kai plucked out two key points from Chen Huanyi’s disjointed words. “So your reasons for leaving were that you thought the overlap in our social circles was dangerous, and that you wouldn’t be able to accept the consequences of being discovered.”
Chen Huanyi didn’t voice any objection.
“This proves that in your eyes, I’m not qualified.”
“How could that be—” Chen Huanyi protested.
“It’s a shortcoming of trust. You didn’t have confidence that I could manage the situation, protect your privacy, and keep you out of harm’s way. Chen Huanyi, skills can be learned, but trust cannot. And—”
Chen Huanyi huffed out a cheerless laugh. “So you were testing me?”
“No,” Lin Kai replied softly. “I was only giving you the chance to make a choice.”
“Such precious chances only ever come around once, right?” Chen Huanyi asked meekly.
“Perhaps there will be many more,” Lin Kai said.
Chen Huanyi’s eyes brightened hopefully. “Then will you give me a chance to correct my mistake?”
“But how do you know that was a mistake?” Lin Kai replied. “Chen Huanyi, I have my own reasons, but you ought to have yours as well. Think about what you’ve been striving for all along, and what you’ve given up. Perhaps you saw one thing as a mistake in the past, but now, you’re seeing something else as the actual mistake—someday in the future, is it possible that you’ll see the original thing as the real mistake?”
Chen Huanyi hurriedly tried to explain. “But I can tell that—”
Lin Kai patted him on the shoulder reassuringly. “Don’t be in such a rush to answer. A person might not believe their own feelings, but they must always believe in their convictions. Plenty of people spend their entire lives without knowing what it is they actually want. I hope you can find out what you want and pursue it, living a life with no regrets.”
“You’re not a fish,” Chen Huanyi stubbornly retorted.
Lin Kai laughed. “And you’re not me.” [2]
“That’s not fair at all,” said Chen Huanyi. “It’s a paradox. Because I can’t live my entire life right now to prove that it’s a ‘life with no regrets,’ you won’t give me a chance to prove anything at all. I won’t be able to prove it for as long as I live.”
“That’s right,” Lin Kai replied lightly. “It really isn’t fair.”
[1] Kitschy over-the-top propaganda pieces that are pretty much exactly what they sound like.
[2] Quotes from Zhuangzi about the unknowability of another being’s subjective experience: “Two philosophers, Zhuangzi and Huizi, were walking on a bridge over a river. Zhuangzi said, ‘Look at the fish swimming around. Such is the happiness of fish.’ Huizi said, ‘You are not a fish, so how would you know about the happiness of fish?’ Zhuangzi said, ‘You are not me, so how would you know whether I know about the happiness of fish?’”