My Deskmate Chapter 20 (Part 2)
Translated by Q the Panda (ko-fi)
Chapter 20.2
When Wen Xiao woke up, he was momentarily disoriented. With a blurred vision, his first thought was that he was at home. But a voice deep inside told him that the home he remembered no longer existed, and the people who had once been there were gone.
As his memory slowly came back, it finally settled on the moment when he had washed the dishes and came out, only to find that Chi Ye wasn’t there. Feeling dizzy, he had sat down on the sofa.
And then, he passed out.
His body felt sore and weak, his eyes burning. Wen Xiao realized something was wrong. He reached up to touch his forehead, but his hand met something unfamiliar.
"Don't move," Chi Ye said when he saw that Wen Xiao was awake. "Those are fever patches."
Wen Xiao’s voice was hoarse, and in the stillness of the early morning, it carried a gritty, gravelly sound. "Are there some on my neck, too?"
Chi Ye’s gaze fell on the signature he had written earlier. "Yeah. Do you feel it?"
"It’s itchy." Wen Xiao shifted uncomfortably, then belatedly realized his throat was terribly sore. It must have been swollen.
Chi Ye handed him a cup of warm water. As he removed the fever patches from Wen Xiao’s forehead, he said, "I really have to hand it to you. With a fever this high, you still drank a can of ice-cold beer with me."
Wen Xiao took the water cup and sipped it slowly. The warm water trickled down his throat, soothing its soreness.
He had just felt uncomfortable earlier, unaware that he was running a fever. Struggling to sit up, Wen Xiao asked in a hoarse voice, "What time is it now?"
Chi Ye glanced at the time. "It's a little past two. I was planning to call 120 and take you to the hospital if you didn’t wake up."
Although he knew which building Wen Xiao lived in, he wasn’t sure which unit. At this hour, he couldn’t possibly go door-to-door asking, "Is there a high school student named Wen Xiao here?"
Wen Xiao pinched the bridge of his nose, muttering a thank you, and stood up.
Chi Ye noticed that despite Wen Xiao’s pale face, he still managed to stand steady. "Are you heading home?"
"Yeah," Wen Xiao nodded. "I’m going back."
Chi Ye frowned, still uneasy. "The streetlights around here are out in most places. You still have a fever, what if you stumble and fall after walking a few steps? I'll walk you home." He grabbed his keys from the nearby counter. "Let’s go."
Wen Xiao didn’t insist on being stubborn.
He walked Wen Xiao all the way to his door. As Wen Xiao opened it, Chi Ye took a step back. Lowering his voice to avoid disturbing anyone inside, he said, "Go on in. I’ll be going now."
The next day, when Wen Xiao woke up, his throat was nearly completely hoarse. Drinking water hurt. His grandmother, seeing that he could hardly speak, quickly put on her reading glasses, pulled out the medicine box, and began rummaging for something. Muttering to herself, she said, "Did you sleep at the table last night? Weren’t you dressed warmly enough? Didn’t you close the window?"
Wen Xiao stretched out his hand, taking the pills his grandmother handed him, one by one.
He had indeed forgotten to close the window last night, but the severity of his condition wasn’t just because of that. Apart from going out in the middle of the night without a jacket, that can of cold beer he drank yesterday played a big part.
But this was something he could never tell his grandmother.
His grandmother, feeling sorry for him, didn't ask any more questions. She found a small, transparent plastic bottle and asked him to take the medicine with him, saying he had to take it once at noon and once at night at school.
Wen Xiao put the medicine in his backpack, changed his shoes, and was about to leave when his grandmother shoved a thermos flask into his hand, filled to the brim with hot water.
On the way to school, Wen Xiao didn’t feel well at all. He had forgotten his bus card, accidentally inserted too much change, and almost missed his stop.
When he arrived at school, most of the class was already filled, and the noise in the room was deafening.
Zhao Yiyang was going over answers with Shangguan Yu. Whenever they couldn’t agree on an answer and couldn’t convince the other, they’d pull someone else into the discussion — usually Xu Rui.
Xu Rui, who had stayed up late last night doing practice questions, was yawning and wrinkling his nose. "Who had fried chicken for breakfast this early? Aren’t you afraid it’s too greasy and will make you gain weight?"
"I see you’re jealous, academic officer. You’re still so young, yet already worrying about mid-life crises?" Zhao Yiyang changed the answer to a question, circled the question number, and marked it with an upside-down triangle while still having time to tease Xu Rui.
Xu Rui replied weakly, "It’s not jealousy. I’ve been breaking out lately, so I went to the dermatologist. The doctor told me to avoid fried food."
Zhao Yiyang took a good look at the few pimples on Xu Rui’s face. "I think if you stopped studying late at night and got some proper sleep, those pimples would disappear in no time." Just then, he heard some movement and turned around. Sure enough, Wen Xiao had arrived. His eyes lit up. "Come, come, let's borrow your test paper! We have several questions that we all three have different answers for. It's like we've been cursed."
Wen Xiao didn’t say anything. He unzipped his backpack, pulled out a stack of homework, and handed it to Zhao Yiyang, letting him pick whatever he wanted.
Zhao Yiyang quickly pulled out the math test. "This question, damn, seriously, it’s like we’re cursed! The three of us all picked ABC, but you actually chose D!"
Wen Xiao glanced at it, grabbed a pen, and casually wrote out the solution on a piece of scrap paper.
It was then that Zhao Yiyang noticed something was off. "What happened to your voice?"
Wen Xiao’s voice was hoarse, barely more than a whisper. "Cold."
After he answered, both Shangguan Yu and Xu Rui looked at him with concern. Xu Rui scratched his head. "Should we go to the school clinic and get you some medicine? Your voice is really bad, it looks like your cold is pretty serious."
Wen Xiao put his pen down and didn’t feel like moving. He shook his head, propping his chin on his hand, too tired to listen to more questions. He pulled the medicine bottle from his bag and placed it on the table, signaling that he had already brought medicine.
Zhao Yiyang and the others exchanged a look and didn’t press him further. When they got stuck on a problem, they simply referred to Wen Xiao’s answers and worked it out on their own.
After putting the medicine bottle back in his bag, Wen Xiao paused for a moment, then realized that his phone wasn’t in his backpack.
After thinking for a moment, he confirmed that he had forgotten it at home. It must have been left behind. The dull, throbbing headache returned, but Wen Xiao didn’t dwell on it further.
Having checked the answers, Zhao Yiyang returned the test papers, only to see Wen Xiao pulling up the hood of the sweatshirt under his school uniform. His brows and eyes were hidden in shadow, leaving only the outline of his face visible. His pale lips were pressed tightly together, giving off a clear "stay away" vibe.
Zhao Yiyang placed the test papers down, not daring to say a word more.
The first class on Monday was Chinese. Yu Hongyan entered the classroom with her textbook and teaching materials, only to find the class still in disarray as they hurriedly collected the homework. There had been a lot of assignments over the weekend, with every subject giving plenty of work. The subject representative was going around urging everyone to turn in their work, and by the time the bell rang, he still hadn't finished collecting everything. Yu Hongyan, with her good temper, stood by the podium and waited, watching the subject representative's tug-of-war over collecting the homework.
Seeing Wen Xiao hunched over on his desk, she walked over and asked Zhao Yiyang, "What’s wrong with Wen Xiao?"
Zhao Yiyang quickly answered, "He’s sick. He has a bad cold. When he came this morning, he couldn't even speak, and he looked like he was about to collapse." When a teacher asked about something, it was always better to exaggerate the symptoms.
Yu Hongyan nodded. "Let him sleep for a while then. If it gets worse, remember to take him to the school clinic."
Zhao Yiyang nodded eagerly. "Okay, no problem, Sister Yan. You’re such a good person!"
Yu Hongyan laughed and shot him a glare. "Is this what makes me a good person? Flattery costs nothing, right?"
Wen Xiao slept through the entire class, only lifting his head when the bell rang, signaling the end of the lesson. The classroom erupted into noise, but he remained sluggish for a moment before fully waking.
Because he had been lying face down, his forehead had a red mark from the horizontal stripes on his school uniform. And because he had just woken up, his eyes were still blurry.
This was the sight Chi Ye walked into when he entered the classroom.
His deskmate, looking sickly, was wrapped in a loose school uniform with a hoodie underneath. The cuffs of the sleeves were scrunched up, revealing a pale, slender wrist.
What stood out most was the faint red mark on his forehead.
As Chi Ye approached, Wen Xiao sluggishly mumbled, "You're here."
His voice was hoarse, the sound carrying a unique quality that stood out amidst the clamor of the classroom.
Chi Ye placed his bag on the chair, then pulled out his phone from inside and handed it to him. "Here, your phone. You left it at my place last night."
Zhao Yiyang, who had turned to greet Chi Ye, froze in his seat. What the f*ck? Out of character and context, what the hell kind of outrageous words were these?