Bite Your Fingertips

19th –【Win an inch, want a mile】

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The two days of the weekend passed by in the blink of an eye.

Early Monday morning, Chu Yu brought his school bag full of manga to the classroom and found everyone quietly sitting in their seats and studying hard.

He asked Zhang Yueshan in a low voice, “Rep, is something happening today? Is there an inspection?”

Zhang Yueshan, who was writing at a tremendous speed, took some time to raise his head and answered Chu Yu’s question, “We’re all doing homework.
As usual, everyone slacked off at the start of school!”

“No one did their homework?”

“Nope, I didn’t finish my homework on Sunday night so it piled up until this morning!”

Zhang Yueshan looked at the Chinese assignment in front of him and lamented, “Ai, I never expected that I’d also be reduced to this!”

Chu Yu put down his bag and felt that he should also blend into the atmosphere, so he pulled out a brand new worksheet from his desk compartment.

But the question was, from whom should he copy?

He didn’t know anyone in class.
Yesterday, he met Dream-Ge because of the basketball game, but Dream-Ge was also busy— the 6’1 tall man was leaning over his narrow desk and gritting his teeth as he wrote down answers, his pen seemed as if it were flying.

Upon such a rare sighting, Chu Yu recited an ancient poem suitable for the occasion in his heart, and then he looked around at a loss with a pen in his hand.

From the classroom’s door, Lu Shi entered with a black bag over his shoulder.

Chu Yu’s eyes lit up as if he’d just seen the dawn of a new life!

When Lu Shi placed his school bag on his desk, Chu Yu turned around and put both of his hands on the back of his chair, eyes sparkling.
“Lu Shi, can I borrow your homework?”

Zhang Yueshan at the front desk heard this and wanted to stop him, but it was already too late— since the first week of school, the whole class knew that they shouldn’t ask to copy Lu-Shen’s homework.
Not only would he refuse, one would also suffer the study god’s expression attack.
It would make students’ feelings float into a — ‘What a shame it is to copy homework!’; ‘If I don’t study well and just plagiarize, how can I be a successor of socialism?!’ — kind of barrage.1 

He felt some pity for the School Flower as he wasn’t sure if the School Flower’s soul could take such damage.

Just as he was thinking of how to comfort School Flower, Zhang Yueshan heard Lu Shi’s characteristically light and husky voice.
“Sure, which subject?”

Holy shit!

Zhang Yueshan was so shocked the tip of his pen drew a diagonal slash across his paper.

He then heard Chu Yu cheerfully reply, “Thank you benefactor for saving me from water and fire! As to which subject, um… all of them!”

Lu Shi opened his bag, took out all his homework, and handed them to Chu Yu.

Chu Yu turned back around with the homework sheets and saw Zhang Yueshan looking at him with a profoundly inscrutable face.

He was puzzled.
“You want to copy too?”

“No no no, I won’t copy.” Zhang Yueshan quickly waved his hands to refuse.

The study god’s homework, how could common folk like them befoul it?

He just wanted to pay respect to the appearance of the mortal who could copy the work of a god!

Lu Shi’s penmanship had been praised numerously by the homeroom teacher, Old Ye.
When Chu Yu looked through the papers, he found that it indeed warmed the heart and delighted the eye.
Observing his own—

Forget it, I have self-confidence and don’t need to compare.

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For the science homework, the paper was even neater.
On the big questions, he basically wrote only two or three lines, wasting no ink.

The math teacher understood Lu Shi’s degree of seriousness; he’d write down key steps to score during tests, but for homework he wouldn’t bother.

Chu Yu quite liked Lu Shi’s method of completing questions because it saved ink and allowed him to copy quickly.

After copying just two subjects, Li Hua hurried into the classroom with a sandwich in his mouth and a milk carton in his hand.

Seeing that Chu Yu was copying homework, he hastily asked, “School Flower, can I copy once you’re done?”

Zhang Yueshan gave Li Hua a meaningful glance.

Yet Li Hua was confused.
“Have your eyes cramped?”

“…”

Zhang Yueshan despaired at the lack of tacit understanding between his deskmate and him.
He said it straight, “It’s Lu-Shen’s homework.”

Li Hua sucked in a breath and stated three words, “I won’t copy.”

Sitting down, Li Hua held his school bag, swallowed the sandwich in a few mouthfuls, and asked Zhang Yueshan in a low voice, “Rep, what’s this situation, Lu-Shen let School Flower copy his homework? Lu-Shen broke the oath?”2

Zhang Yueshan’s tone was very philosophical as he replied, “Perhaps this is societal discrimination at play.”

Li Hua: “Huh?”

Zhang Yueshan pointed behind him.
“School Flower— beautiful.”

Li Hua nodded.

Zhang Yueshan pointed to Li Hua and himself.
“You, me— ugly.”

Li Hua: “…”

It seemed reasonable?

Even when Chu Yu finished copying, the preparation bell still had to ring.

The school committee member Fang Ziqi was urging everyone to hand in their homework.

Chu Yu handed in the assignments for each subject and clicked the cap onto his pen; like sheathing a bloody sword into its scabbard.

Thinking of something, he fumbled in his pocket and turned to look at Lu Shi.

Lu Shi was holding a pencil and answering questions.
The hair on his forehead freshly fell, naturally lining his dense brows.

Chu Yu appreciated it for two seconds, then said, “Lu Shi.”

“Hm?”

Lu Shi’s hum was very light.

It inexplicably reminded Chu Yu of yesterday afternoon in the locker room, when he bit Lu Shi’s shoulder as he leaned in his ear and softly asked him, “Had enough?”

Shaking his head to fling away the messy picture in his mind, Chu Yu got down to business.
“Stretch out your hand.”

Lu Shi complied.

Palm up, knuckles slightly bent.

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Yi, this guy’s palm was actually bigger than his!

Chu Yu lifted his fisted hand and placed it on top of Lu Shi’s palm before releasing his fingers.

It was a fruit candy.

The wrapper was light pink with a picture of a rabbit wearing a bow tie on it.

Chu Yu introduced, “This candy is delicious and very sweet, but not cloying.”

He remembered the state Lu Shi was in yesterday and added, “You’ll feel quite good after eating it.”

Fearing that Lu Shi wouldn’t want it, he fluttered his eyes.
“Please, please, I can’t taste it at all anymore if I eat it, help me eat it, okay?”

Lu Shi’s expression was sparsely cold as he gazed at Chu Yu’s nervous and expectant appearance.

“Okay.”

He finally answered.

Seeing that Lu Shi had accepted it, Chu Yu took out a small tin box from his backpack, opened it, and handed it to Lu Shi.

Lu Shi glanced at him.
“Red dates?”

“Yeah, for your blood.”

Putting the tiny tin box on Lu Shi’s desk, Chu Yu fished out another finger-long glass bottle from his bag.

He then carefully inserted a straw and placed it in front of Lu Shi.
“Iron-replenishing drink!”

Lu Shi was calm and unruffled amidst the chaos.
He leaned back in his chair to see what else Chu Yu would bring out.

Soon, there was also a thermos mug in front of him.

“Longan3, peanut, and this black bean chicken soup, I asked the chef in the school cafeteria to help make it.
It should be delicious after being boiled all night.”

Chu Yu personally demonstrated the meaning of win an inch, want a mile.

His eyes were full of anticipation.
“You’ve already taken all of my sweets, these,” he pointed to the other three, “you ought not to refuse them too, right?”

Having said that, he was still inwardly a little anxious.

The reason Chu Yu dared try this out was because he was keenly aware that for some reason, Lu Shi seemed to indulge him a tiny bit.

But he wasn’t sure where the boundary of this tiny indulgence Lu Shi had lay.

Chu Yu spurned himself in his heart. Certainly, if you give me a bit of dye, I’ll open a high-end, professional dye workshop.4

Lu Shi moved his eyes from the tin box containing red dates, to the tonic with a straw inserted, and finally to the thermos mug.

“Change the thermos next time, the pink hello kitty is too ugly.”

“Okay, I’ll bring the blue Doraemon one tomorrow!”

Chu Yu was a little happy.
“So… you’ll eat it all, right?”

The pencil spun a circle on his finger and Lu Shi nodded.
“Hm.”

Chu Yu exhaled a breath.

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Alright, there definitely wouldn’t be such a thing as the study god dying of anemia.
He felt relieved and at ease.

Chu Yu was in a good mood and his body likewise wasn’t unwell today.
He sat upright and seriously listened to the Chinese5 lesson.

Old Ye was very pleased to see that he not only was listening carefully, but was also taking down notes while focusing.
He specially stepped down from the podium to walk towards Chu Yu’s desk.

Truly, studying so seriously that even as I approach, his attention isn’t diverted at all.

What laudable dedication!

Old Ye lowered his head, wanting to see the notes Chu Yu had written.

Then he discovered that Chu Yu was, in fact, drawing a small cartoon in his notebook.

Two words were written at the top: ‘self-portrait’.

Eyelashes that could poke the sky; giant eyes which covered more than one-third of the whole face; an awl-like chin— was it really a self-portrait?

Student Chu Yu, what strange misunderstandings do you have about yourself?

Before Old Ye could leave, he saw Chu Yu writing a poem beside the self-portrait.

The poem was pretty good, it was Li Bai’s.

‘From out the water comes a lotus, naturally decorated’.6

??

He chose to leave.

After class, Chu Yu stretched, then randomly stacked his notebooks and textbooks.
Taking his phone out of his bag, he started playing a game with his head lowered.

It was a strategic, multiplayer shooting game, popular for all ages.
Chu Yu had only started playing a few days ago.
He wasn’t heavily addicted, only that his hands would itch to play from time to time.

Luo Jiaxuan came by looking for Zhang Yueshan, and as he passed by Chu Yu’s seat, his gaze was instantly attracted.

“School Flower, you also play《Uphold Peace》?”

Chu Yu had been called as School Flower since the beginning of first year.
Everyone was used to saying it, and he’d gotten used to hearing it.
He replied, “Yeah.
Fuck, my teammates are trash!”

While talking, Chu Yu directly sent a [?] in the chat.

He typed again.
[I could sprinkle rice on the keyboard and have chickens play better than you. Condemn!]

Luo Jiaxuan laughed.
“You maxed your taunting skills!”

Zhang Yueshan and Li Hua heard this and turned around.
“Damn, come come come, if only I had known earlier that you played this too.
The four of us are just right, let’s multi-up!”

Chu Yu was very self-aware.
“You guys are probably better than me, I’m very weak.”

Zhang Yueshan liked Chu Yu’s type.
Even if he was weak, at least he knew he was weak.
“Don’t worry, it’s like studying, we can progress together! Come, us three great gods will teach you.
Are you worried we can’t?”

Chu Yu was happy to be able to play games with everyone.
“You’ll really teach me? If I pit you, you can’t flame me!”

Zhang Yueshan had already begun to look forward to a beautiful four-person multiplayer match.
“Okay!”

“Chu Yu.”

“Huh?” After two seconds, Chu Yu realized that it was the person from the desk behind him who called him.

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He turned around.
“Are we disturbing your study?”

Lu Shi put down the pencil in his hand and reached out.
“Phone.”

“Oh, here.” Chu Yu handed his phone over.

Lu Shi held the phone and continued Chu Yu’s recently started game.

Luo Jiaxuan was a bit surprised and whispered, “Lu-Shen also plays this game?”

Zhang Yueshan looked at him, then whispered back, “Hell, plays my ass.
Lu-Shen is just learning it!”

At first, it looked like Lu Shi didn’t know where the skill buttons were, but then he agilely switched to a sniper rifle and destroyed an enemy hiding behind a bunker with one shot.

Luo Jiaxuan touched the back of his head, not knowing what to say for a while.
After a long time, he could only choke out one sentence.
“Your Lu-Shen is still your Lu-Shen, so fucking awesome!”

Lu Shi returned the phone to Chu Yu after the second round.

Chu Yu scrolled through his achievement board.

Damn, where exactly did this kingly boss touch his phone?

Seeing the awe in Chu Yu’s eyes, Lu Shi leaned back in his chair in a relaxed manner and casually inserted his hands in his pockets.

“Want to learn? Follow me, I’ll teach you.”7

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1

2

破戒: violation of a religious precept/discipline/practice in buddhism.
It’s so funny how they have something like a cult in here hahaha.
And Zhang Yueshan’s switches to formal language in his monologue, oh gosh XD.

3

I was wronggggg it wasn’t lanzones, a reader pointed it out (thank you).
It turns out it’s similar to lychee.

4

给你点颜色你就开染坊: the original idiom was, give you some dye and you’ll open a dye workshop.
Chu Yu’s extravagance was reflected in his gifts.

5

I was previously translating this as Literature and language, but it’s basically literature and language pertaining to chinese so imma change it to Chinese.

6

清水出芙蓉，天然去雕饰: OKay my brain kenat, I’ll just explain.
it means like a lotus coming out of the water, he’s pure and simple, natural and fresh.
Idk if naturally decorated is the term, the word can also mean ‘carved’ – naturally carved.

7

fufufufuf this could’ve been “Marry me, I’ll teach you.” if the context was right hahahha