A Certain Someone ( The On1y One ) Chapter 084 – False Alarm

“I’m So Happy That My Legs Turned Jelly.”

To the students whose lives solely revolved around the three locations of the dormitory, the cafeteria, and the classroom, there wasn’t any particular festivity that was worth paying attention to — the school holiday was the only thing of any significance.
Fuzhong students relied on weekly/monthly exams and major school activities to keep track of the days; they knew it was November when they saw the sports festival, and they knew the year was about to end upon the arrival of the cultural festival.

Sheng Wang had yet to form this particular conditioned reflex.
He unabashedly slept away on Jiang Tian’s bed, until the sun shone on his face and he grabbed his phone blearily. He discovered that a huge December 31st was displayed on the screen.

“Are you getting up?” Jiang Tian asked.
“Nope,” Sheng Wang tossed his phone aside. This bed was ridiculously narrow, having to host two large boys made it even more cramped. Sheng Wang went through all the effort to cling onto Jiang Tian with his arms and legs like he was hugging a bolster, drawling, “I can’t believe it’s the new year tomorrow.”

He was half buried in the quilt, eyes lidded. Perhaps he simply did not feel like moving, or it was also possible that he planned to continue his sleep. Jiang Tian—resigned to fate—acted as his bolster. His left hand was actually going a little numb, but since it was already numb, he did not plan to say anything of it.
“What about the new year?” he asked.

It seemed that Sheng Wang had fallen asleep again. He only answered a while later, “Nothing much, was just feeling things. Felt like these six months lasted especially long, longer than the 10+ years I’ve lived before.”
“Did it?” Jiang Tian closed his eyes too. He was initially quite awake, but the voice of the person talking beside him was starting to make him feel a little drowsy too.
Sheng Wang said, “Maybe I simply had a bad memory.”
He always forgot the very next moment what he did, who he met, all the everyday little things. The seasons changed in the blink of an eye, like with doing a few papers here and there, nap for a bit between classes, zone out a little more, and time zoomed past just like that.

“It’s different now. I remember every stupid little thing so clearly.”
“Why?”

Because he wanted to remember more — how they met, how he fell for him, how they ended up together……he did not know why he wanted to keep remembering these things either. He only felt that he was like a money grubber, hugging heaps of gold and silver to his chest. He wanted even the taels, and losing a single copper coin was out of the question. A single gram lighter and it felt like he was making a giant loss.
Before, he never understood those people who insisted on taking pictures of everything for keepsake, ranging from eating and drinking and sleeping to going to the toilet. He felt that it was too mushy, too melodramatic. But now he understood a little better.

Still, these words were somewhat pretentious, he wouldn’t be able to bring himself to speak them even if he had 10 more faces to lose. Therefore, he answered Jiang Tian, “Dunno. Maybe it’s the second growth spurt during puberty, the brain got better, my ability to keep memories got stronger.”
Jiang Tian was probably cringing too much from what he said, and wasn’t unable to not react despite holding himself back for ages. He snorted, brief and harsh sounding.

“You’re laughing at me?” Sheng Wang looked up from beneath the blankets; he was a little warm from the heat, his tousled hair was threatening to poke his eyes as he stared his Ge down.
The other person did not open his eyes — he silently played dead, hoping to resolve it like that.

Sheng Wang stared at him for a while, and the hand below the quilt sneakily travelled down, and then dove inside the other person’s pants as though he was launching a sneak attack.

Jiang Tian curled inwards; he grabbed his wrist, and opened his eyes, staring expressionlessly at him. “……”
Sheng Wang succeeded in his prank, and basically scrambled out of the bed after he withdrew his hand, zooming to the basin. His laugh was especially scoundrelly as he supported himself against the wall, “I was just saying hi. Good morning, Jiang Tian Junior!”
Precisely because of this rascally greeting, the skin of the bottom of his lips was broken when he went out.

*
Fuzhong’s school holidays had always been off the wall, anything goes, up to fate etc etc, they would simply start their breaks on whatever day they could. All the other schools in the city started their breaks on the 1st, but Fuzhong insisted on putting said break on the 31st.
There was barely anyone in school, filled with the desolation that came after festivities. The wind indistinctly rustled in the wintry chill. Xi Le Convenience Store did not open for business for once, even the mobile street food carts at the school entrance lessened by more than half.

Jiang Tian had something going on and needed to head to the north gate. The two took several twists and turns in the street and alleys, and entered a shop called “Jiu Lao Tai” for breakfast. A small stall like this might not even be found on food apps.

“You can even find a place like this?” Sheng Wang found a spot and sat down, flipping through the crudely made breakfast menu.
“The old man used to come by rather often to buy peanuts for his alcohol,” Jiang Tian said.
“He went from the west gate to the north gate for peanuts?” Sheng Wang wowed, “The old man sure has good stamina, does the boss make especially good stir-fried peanuts or?”
Jiang Tian shook his head. “Attractive, that’s why.”

Sheng Wang stilled before he turned around, and saw a tiny old lady pushing the curtains aside, walking in. She set down two cups of hot tea, and was grinning as she asked, “Here for vermicelli soup?”
Sheng Wang also smiled, nodding, “Yep, two bowls please.”
“Anything you don’t want?”
“Don’t make his share spicy,” Jiang Tian said.
“Hold on,” the tiny old lady wiped her hands, and went behind the curtains again.

Sheng Wang withdrew his gaze and took a sip of tea. He whispered, “She’s probably a beauty when she’s young. Why didn’t the old man come these days?”
Jiang Tian said, “He wasn’t competitive enough.”
“Hm?” It was rare for Sheng Wang to hear gossip coming from Jiang Tian’s mouth for once, and this experience was rather novel to him. He continued asking, “What do you mean by ‘not competitive enough’?”
“Stubborn temper, loud voice, fierce looks.” Jiang Tian summed up Old Man Ding”s characteristics in simple terms. “He lost to a retired teacher.”
“Then the old man had to be sad for a while?”
Jiang Tian replied with an “mn”, and continued, “He got angry enough to give up on alcohol.”
Sheng Wang: “……”
His temper was honestly somewhat bad.

The old lady had nimble hands, and soon she brought out two bowls of vermicelli soup. The two boys did not have the heart to let her walk any further, and got up to retrieve the bowls.

The winter in this city was rather extreme — it would be as warm as spring as long as the sun was out, the indoors would instead be gloomy and cold, with the kind of chill that seeps through the bones.
Sheng Wang did not like to layer up, he came out with merely a black denim jacket on top of his sweatshirt. He was so cold that his knuckles turned pale, and after downing two mouthfuls of hot soup, he was thoroughly warmed at last.

He busied himself with eating for a whole, and then tried to act casual as he asked, “Isn’t the old man quite the worrisome type? I keep hearing how he would lose sleep over worrying about something.”
Jiang Tian stopped, and his eyes turned up to look at him.
Sheng Wang could feel the other person’s gaze, but he did not look up either. He focused solely on picking at the tofu and egg in the soup, as though the question was really something that randomly occurred to him.

“That was how he put it.” Jiang Tian had already withdrawn his gaze, and said mildly, “He would fall asleep for three-four hours while watching TV in the afternoon, of course he couldn’t fall asleep at night.”
Sheng Wang said an “oh”, and was animated again. He kept feeling like Jiang Tian’s spicy food smelled even better, and took quite a few chopsticks full of noodles despite Jiang Tian trying to stop him. That’s how he died a heroic martyr’s death on the table while covering the cut on his lips.

The old lady was startled when she came out, and asked Jiang Tian, “He ate himself too full?”
“It’s tears from the heat.” Jiang Tian stood up from the table, exasperated, and picked out a bottle of milk from the counter. He lightly nudged it against someone’s face.

The chime by the door suddenly rang — it was a new customer. Sheng Wang received the milk and abruptly shot up like a dead body that was revived, and discovered that said new customer was someone he knew.

“Xi-ge?” Sheng Wang greeted.
Zhao Xi had already spotted them the moment he entered. He inhaled the smoke, and smushed the lit cigarette — previously between his lips — on the dustbin by the side. A pale cloud of smoke spreaded before his face.
His eyes narrowed in the smoke, and greeted them before saying, “Not sleeping in now that there’s a holiday? You’re seriously here for breakfast?”
“He had something to do at the north gate.” Sheng Wang pointed at Jiang Tian, “So we’re getting breakfast along the way.”
“Yeah. We’ll be going to Chu-ge’s later,” Jiang Tian said.
“Oh, yeah, right.” Zhao Xi nodded, “It will be finals soon.”

The north gate was full of masters in disguise. There was a special express class hidden away in the residential block, never short of customers and business was constantly blooming. Zhao Xi, as the school tyrant slash street tyrant in the early days, knew a lot of people. At the start, he introduced Jiang Tian to help his friend’s educational organisation code supplementary software for math, physics and chemistry, the kind that was meant to be used for further enrichment classes. To a top student like Jiang Tian, not only did this barely take up any time, it even earned him a lot of money.

When Sheng Wang just met Jiang Tian, he would go over to the north gate to do so, and would only go home after he was done, in order to prevent Jiang Ou from worrying too much if she ever finds out. Later on, school officially started, so he notified the other person and thus this thing was put on hold.
It was nearing finals, meaning that winter vacation would arrive soon, and so would another peak wave of supplementary enrollment.

Zhao Xi asked for two bowls of rice vermicelli soup for takeout, and chatted with the two of them as he waited. At the end, he asked Jiang Tian as though he just recalled something, “Is your birthday before Chinese New Year?”
“Mn, why?”
“Then there’s still time.” Zhao Xi said, “Lin-zi and I will treat you two to a meal.”
Sheng Wang and Jiang Tian met each other’s eyes, and sensed that there was something more to what Zhao Xi said. “What do you mean ‘there’s still time’?”
“By there’s still time, I mean we’re about to leave soon,” Zhao Xi said, “Lin-zi and I will be heading to Beijing.”
“Vacation?”
“Work.”
“Then the barbeque shop……”
Zhao Xi laughed. “We aren’t chefs in the first place anyway, this place will remain open even if we leave. Rock and the rest are already quite familiar with you guys, you will still get the discount you ought to receive whenever you feel like eating skewers.”

Sheng Wang let out a very, very soft “ah”, feeling a light sense of loss.
The old lady soon finished preparing the two takeaways, and added a lot of chili into Zhao Xi’s automatically, so much that it made Sheng Wang’s mouth hurt just from looking at it.

The three walked towards the residential block together. Chu-ge’s supplementary class was in the block near the north gate, Jiang Tian went upstairs to retrieve the range and material required for the winter vacation’s courseware.
Sheng Wang basked in the sun as he waited downstairs, Zhao Xi stopped in his steps too. He lightheartedly teased Sheng Wang, “What trouble did you get up to, why are your lips so swollen?”
“From the spiciness,” Sheng Wang chugged the milk, meant for getting rid of the heat, and appeared to be quite the embarrassment.
“Oh.” Zhao Xi took out yet another stick of cigarettes, and lit it up with his back against the wind. Perhaps it was the veil of smoke, but he appeared to be a little tired.

“Xi-ge, were you not getting a good sleep lately?” Sheng Wang asked.
“Are my eyebags that obvious?” Zhao Xi rubbed his eyes, and said, “Old comrade Zhao’s health isn’t quite good lately, Lin-zi and I kept attending to him, so we got less sleep. When we go to Beijing later, the two old ones will follow along too. Xi Le will probably be taken care of by other people, if you want to buy anything hurry up and buy it before the new year. After the new year, you might not get that friendly discount.”

Seeing that he could still joke, Sheng Wang felt a little more relieved.
Zhao Xi did not stay for long, he received a call, snuffed out the cigarette and was going to leave. Only, right before he left, his eyes swept across Sheng Wang’s neck. He tsked, and removed his scarf. “I’m probably getting old, but I feel cold already just from seeing the way your neck isn’t covered up in the winter. Cover up, I’m leaving.”

Sheng Wang was completely baffled as he stood there, a scarf in hand. Zhao Xi had already turned around the corner, in the far distance.
Even if the young master was just putting on a scarf, he was particular about whether he looked good in it, he wouldn’t just wrap it around his neck haphazardly. The windows on the first floor were basically gleaming from how thoroughly they were wiped, so he used them as a mirror. And that was how he saw a small mark on the side of the neck — who knew if it was from last night or it came from this morning, left by his Ge.

That was where Zhao Xi’s gaze landed on just now.
Sheng Wang, still holding the scarf, froze on the spot. His heart sank to his stomach with a thump.

When Jiang Tian went downstairs, Sheng Wang had already wrapped himself up in the scarf. The dark grey cashmere material covered his chin, highlighting the snow-white colour of his face.
“Where did the scarf come from?” Jiang Tian asked.
“Xi-ge forced it on me.” Sheng Wang’s voice was slightly muffled beneath the scarf, “He said he’s cold from looking at me alone.”

They delivered the material back to the dorm, and proceeded to the nearby cinema on foot.
All the major blockbusters were left to air during the Chinese New Year season, there was nothing interesting in the ones that recently aired too. The two randomly picked one, but their film ended up being too boring due to an unlucky pick. As such, Sheng Wang wasn’t quite paying attention after he barely entered the theater.

There weren’t many people watching movies in the morning, the two simply wanted to find a place and chill together. Therefore, when Sheng Wang picked seats, he looked for the theater with the least number of people, and picked the last row where nobody else would pick.

Jiang Tian honestly wasn’t into films like this, and had dozed off halfway through the movie, his finger hooking onto his, head propped on his hand. Sheng Wang did not wake him up. He dug his phone out, changed the brightness to the dimmest, and scrolled through his Moments. He ended up spotting two video clips, shared by Sheng Mingyang, with no caption except for two thumbs up.

Sheng Wang could already tell from the thumbnail: it was the footage of his and Jiang Tian’s performance during the cultural festival.
He was briefly stunned before he messaged Sheng Mingyang in a hurry.
You Say That Again: you came to school yesterday?
Encyclopedia for Healthy Living: No. I did mention to you before, officer Ju invited me for dinner, daddy had already delayed his invitation twice, this time round I really couldn’t get away anymore.
You Say That Again: oh. it’s just that I suddenly saw the two videos you shared, so I thought you went over with Auntie Ou to watch
Encyclopedia for Healthy Living: It’s the Moments posted by your Dean Xu, I especially asked for them from him
Encyclopedia for Healthy Living: Had to make up for our regrets for not being able to make it, your Auntie Jiang said very handsome
You Say That Again: ofc, since when is your son not handsome

Sheng Wang let out a sigh of relief, thinking, thank god it’s just a false alarm.
The sigh was barely let out before Sheng Mingyang came up with a: Why am I seeing Xiao-Tian in your shirt?

Sheng Wang nearly tossed his phone away. He caught his phone, and snuck a glance at Jiang Tian. Seeing that he simply frowned, he relaxed, and replied word by word, biting the tip of his tongue: ink got onto my shirt, not very good for the class choir, so I borrowed his. he’s performing as a duo after all, their costumes didn’t need to be that uniform.
Encyclopedia for Healthy Living: No wonder. I saw his shirt wasn’t tucked in properly, he only stuffed it in on one side. Your Auntie Jiang said that she wanted to stuff in the other half the more she watched too.

Sheng Wang couldn’t help but chuckle. An ineffable feeling washed over him after his laughter quotes.
A moment of silence. He replied his dad: my Ge calls that cool
Encyclopedia for Healthy Living: Okay, us old comrades aren’t used to this. Tell Xiao-Tian that his guitar playing is great.
Sheng Wang replied “okay”, and no longer continued.

Perhaps it was the vacation, WeChat was especially lively that day. Barely a while passed before his phone lit up more than 10 times. Sheng Wang initially thought it was Sheng Mingyang, only when he tapped in then he realised that it was a group chat that was causing the commotion.

It was a preparation group formed for the festival. Jiang Tian used to be in it too, but he left the moment the festival ended last night. Sheng Wang had not left yet.
Gao Tianyang and the rest were extremely bored, and were sharing their lunches on this day of vacation, attempting to torture each other. However, Little Chili suddenly popped out and said: have you guys heard? someone lost something in the hall last night?
Unassuming Gao Tianyang: huh?
Da-Song: classmate chili, I appreciate your gossiping spirit, but to tag everyone for something like this……you might get hella roasted by Tian-ge and Sheng-ge

Just after he said that, Little Chili was suddenly quiet.
It was Carp who added on: didn’t Jiang Tian already leave the group chat?
Da-Song: oh yeah, i forgot
Carp: I’ll leave this group soon, I’m eating porridge at home, and watching your battle of food pics is honestly too painful

They chatted about everything and nothing for quite a while before Little Chili appeared again, replying: accidentally tagged everyone oops

Unassuming Gao Tianyang: bruh. Chili sis, are you here to joke around?
Little Chili sent a meme that indicated she was shutting the world out.
Unassuming Gao Tianyang: so what was up with someone losing something in the hall?
This time round, Little Chili replied very promptly: there were a lot of people yesterday, it was probably very chaotic. quite a number of students lost their items, and apparently our class’ english rep lost his bag.
You Say That Again: Qi Jiahao?

Ever since Qi Jiahao sabotaged Sheng Wang at the start, it was as though this person no longer existed in Class A. He basically did not participate in any activity, major or minor, like he had his heart entirely set on studying. In other words, he was inconspicuously alienated.
Other people no longer counted him in on their own accord, he also chose to stay away from other people. This sort of alienation that was neither here nor there wasn’t anything minor to any student, so despite looking like he was very hardworking, his grades were steadily dropping. He thus became even more at the edge of the social circles. Sheng Wang barely saw him ever since he transferred to Class B, if it wasn’t for Little Chili suddenly bringing this up, he was this close to forgetting about that person.

Who knew if Chili was busy or if the internet was slow, but after Sheng Wang sent a message, she was gone again.
After quite a while later, she finally popped out to say: yeah.
And then she immediately added: apparently he went to the administration office to check the security footage in the hall today.
Sheng Wang was already prepared to turn off the screen, but when these words suddenly appeared before him, he stopped breathing entirely — it was like someone had just pumped his blood out, an icy feeling exploded in his chest.
Security footage? The footage for which time? Will they end up looking through the one on the 4th floor?

Perhaps the way he froze up was too obvious, Jiang Tian woke up. He pinched the centre of his brows, and aroused himself from the drowsiness before whispering, “What happened?”
Sheng Wang switched the screen off on instinct.

He rubbed his thumb forcefully, feeling the temperature coming back to the tips of his limbs before he finally spoke, “Nothing, just the group chat from the cultural festival. Little Chili had shaky hands and accidentally tagged everyone twice. I thought there was something, but I ended up seeing all their hotpot and barbeque pics.

The truth was, the checking of security footage meant that it was possible the things he did with Jiang Tian on the fourth floor would be seen, planning a counter strategy to this with Jiang Tian in advance would likely be the wiser choice.
His instincts did not want him to bring this up though — like the mark Zhao Xi saw this morning, including the footage Sheng Mingyang posted.

He kept feeling like once he brought it up to Jiang Tian, it meant that they had no other choice but to bring up the troubles they were bound to run into in reality, and dissect them apart out in the open. The result of that probably wouldn’t bring too much joy to them.

We wouldn’t be seen.
He said it to himself.

Rationally speaking, there wasn’t an exit on the fourth floor, if there was really a student with sticky fingers who stole a wallet, they would only walk outside the hall, and not bother heading upstairs.
Besides, as long as they checked the footage in the hall, they would already know who the bag ended up with. There was no need for them to really look through every area earnestly, that would waste too much time.
They definitely……wouldn’t be seen.

He figured that he was too full of himself, too beside himself with joy for the past few days, that the heavens decided to hit him a few times, asking him to keep it down. It was just that he was unfortunate enough to get hit all on the same day, creating a combo hit, causing him to be unable to put up any defences.
The other things were still fine, it was just that Qi Jiahao and the security footage was a sword that hoovered on top of his head, he did not know when it would fall. As such, he was a little out of it for the next few days. The moment Jiang Tian wasn’t next to him, he would zone out for a long, long time with abandon.

That state continued until a morning on a certain day one week later. Small Mouth Xu went downstairs to Class B during the inter-class break, and summoned Sheng Wang at the entrance to the classroom, saying, “Go to the administration office, the Dean is looking for you.”
Sheng Wang blanked out; seeing Jiang Tian, who also followed him downstairs, his brain instantly exploded into static.

He licked his lips, and asked stiffly, “The two of us?”
Small Mouth Xu nodded, “Yeah.”
“Did he say anything?” Sheng Wang asked.
“No?” Small Mouth Xu shook his head, “He just got me to pass on the message, he didn’t really say anything.”

Sheng Wang could not recall any bit of how he went to the administration office, nor did he remember a single bit of what he and Jiang Tian said to each other along the way. He could only feel himself splitting into half, with one half smiling and talking to Jiang Tian, the other half utterly quiet, frozen in ice.
In the end, when they entered the administration office, he did not see Qi Jiahao, but Yang Jing instead. Big Mouth Xu had two finely made certificate booklets with covers made of velvet, and his smile was so wide the corner of his mouth reached his ears, looking like a baboon.

“Good! Very good!” Big Mouth Xu opened up the booklet, waved it before the two of them, and gave Sheng Wang and Jiang Tian’s shoulders a good hearty clap. “The results of the English Olympiad are out now, my mouth is nearly broken from smiling. Two first prizes! National level! I’ve been holding this all back all morning just so I can give you two and Xiao-Yang a surprise! How was it! Are you happy?”
“……”

What the……
Sheng Wang was dumbfounded for ten seconds straight before he let an expletive explode in his mind.

Things are already like this, if they really did find something, there was no way Big Mouth Xu wouldn’t not bring it up at all, therefore they should be alright. The sword that had been hovering over him for an entire week suddenly plunged to the ground, striking his head enough to see golden light. That moment, he held onto Jiang Tian’s shoulder for support, his mouth was saying “what a huge surprise, I was nearly shocked to death”, and his entire body weight was supported by Jiang Tian instead.

When they left the office, this young master was still very much a “corpse”, he was basically dragged along by Jiang Tian.
“We will be going downstairs later, you sure you still want to hang on like this?” Jiang Tian side-eyed him.
Sheng Wang: “I’m so happy that my legs turned jelly.”
Jiang Tian: “……”

Big Mouth Xu hummed with his head held high as he walked in front of them, two photographs in hand. He led Jiang Tian — who had received so many awards until he was completely indifferent — and Sheng Wang — who was suddenly paralysed down from his neck — to the Wall of Honour, and pasted the two’s photos side by side solemnly. He then pasted a newly cut red piece of paper —
Middle-High School English Olympiad (Comprehensive)First Class Award in the Nation
Jiang Tian Sheng Wang

TO BE CONTINUED.