Scumbag

Lu Lin was stunned for a moment, his fingertips gently caressing the familiar scar.

His greatest mistake was leaving Su Yan’s side.

Otherwise, he would have never suffered through this.

After placing Su Yan on the bed, he went to the adjacent balcony, took a cigarette from the bedside table, and lit it.

He took two deep drags, smoke spilling from between his lips.

Lu Lin was currently weighed down by various matters, such as the sudden reappearance of Shen Yichen after his long disappearance, and the reason for his drastic change in personality.

He rather resembled an old acquaintance.

He knew he had significant personality flaws and was indeed a madman, but there was someone who was even madder than him.

At this thought, he took out his phone, pulled a certain person out of his blacklist, and dialed the number.

The phone rang for a full minute before it was answered, and an impatient voice quickly came through.

Only one person dared to speak to Lu Lin in such a manner.

“What is it?”

“So you do know how to ask for help after all. “

Lu Lin ignored the sarcastic tone, flicked the cigarette ash away, and said through his disgust, “Help me take care of that Shen Yichen from the Shen family. “

“Is that your attitude when you speak to me?”

Lu Ang’s tone remained unchanged.

“I’ll agree to whatever you want for a month, on the condition that you get rid of Shen Yichen,” Lu Lin said, his body slumping against the wall and sliding to the floor as if all his strength had left him.

Hearing this, Lu Ang was silent for a moment.

Then, Lu Lin heard a soft chuckle from the receiver.

“Lu Lin, you really have some backbone, don’t you?”

“Fine. “

Lu Lin no longer cared how much sarcasm was packed into that sentence.

It felt like eating a mouthful of chocolate-flavored shit—unpleasant yet joyful.

The joy was purely because Su Yan was by his side, accompanying him.

Although he didn’t know what the future held, at least tonight was his.

The cigarette between his fingers burned down to the end.

It was only when Su Yan ran over from the next room that he saw the new scar on Lu Lin’s hand, one made from a cigarette burn.

“What are you doing…?”

Su Yan was barefoot, his feet stepping onto the cold floor.

He was still dizzy but had subconsciously searched for Lu Lin’s figure.

Su Yan gently held Lu Lin’s fingers, examining them closely.

“You can’t just hurt yourself because you don’t feel pain, you know. “

“I can’t stand people like you the most. “

The words “people like you” seemed to burn his tongue.

Su Yan’s speech was slurred, but fearing it would make Lu Lin uncomfortable, he quietly corrected himself.

“I can’t stand you, Lu Lin, the most. “

Lu Lin wasn’t an idiot who would deliberately self-harm to get Su Yan’s attention.

He had just been lost in thought and truly hadn’t noticed the burn, a buff granted by his analgesia.

“You’re awake?”

When Lu Lin spoke, his voice was tinged with a youthful hoarseness, perhaps from the distress he felt.

In the end, he received no answer, because Su Yan pressed his lips together and said nothing, leading him away to treat the wound.

Lu Lin thought Su Yan had sobered up, but upon closer inspection, he saw that the flush on Su Yan’s face had not yet faded, and his hands were unsteady as he applied ointment to the wound.

Su Yan lay back on the bed and quickly fell asleep.

A shadow fell over his body as Lu Lin slowly leaned in closer.

After looking at him for a moment, he pulled back and whispered softly, “When will you remember me, you idiot?”

The whisper was extremely quiet, barely perceptible.

The plum rain season in Haishi ended, and the entire city felt like it was covered by a glass dome, stuffy and hot, the last wave of summer heat.

And on the other side of the city.

Shen Yichen was steaming after his shower.

The room lights had long been turned off, and he was now staring intently at his computer screen.

The content on it made him want to vomit blood.

The wonderful image he had built for himself after transferring schools had completely vanished!

Now, on the A University forum, the consensus on Shen Yichen was: just a rich, stinky loser.

Shen Yichen’s fantasy: On a beautiful, sunny morning, Shen Yichen opens his closet, and his eyes are met with a dazzling array of luxury clothes.

His eyes are almost blinded, but being rich, he is already used to it.

He simply gives a wicked smile.

He casually picks a piece of clothing with a logo that costs only a few tens of thousands.

Low-key enough, right?

When he gets out of his sports car, he might see his many adoring fans coming to greet him, and he would only need to raise his hand slightly to be met with a wave of screams.

So why was his title now “stinky loser“?!

How was he supposed to get by in the future?

He sat in his gaming chair, hugging his knees, his back still aching from time to time.

Lu Lin’s kick had been truly vicious.

He tapped away on his computer, and a new post appeared out of thin air on the forum.

[Hello everyone, I am the new transfer student, Shen Yichen. I apologize for taking up public resources. I would like to clarify that on the day of the incident, someone impersonated me and made inappropriate remarks. ]

[WishInTheCandlelight: Bro, you forgot to switch accounts again. ]

[KuribohBall: Can someone throw this psycho out? Every day I want to see some fresh gossip, and the hot search is all: Stinky Loser Arrives at A University, A Certain Rich Young Master Picks His Feet in Private, Stinky Loser Claims to Be the Most Handsome Man at A University……]

[YaoyaoListens: To the person above, you’re the one who truly understands the stinky loser. ]

[MyCPisForeverHappy: Haven’t you all seen that exposé post?]

[JiuMu: Claims to have maxed out literary cultivation, but in reality, his dorm bookshelf is full of trashy books like ‘Self-Cultivation for Smart Men’. This guy is all embarrassing gossip with no real attack power, but when you think about it, it has the aftertaste of shit. ]

[ChaChen: (quietly raises hand) I found his underwear… Do you guys want to see a picture?]

???

A series of question marks is omitted here.

[ChaChen: Uh, what’s with the question marks? It’s not like I sniffed them. ]

This time, there were no ellipses, but a hundred replies of: You wanted to sniff them?

After posting his carefully crafted message, Shen Yichen fell into a deep sleep, dreaming that after his clarification, he continued to radiate light to those around him.

In reality, the hot search was: [CrazyPPT: Stinky Loser Clarification Post, Loser Young Master Enters A University. ]

[Host, you have accumulated enough points. Do you wish to open the points mall?]

Hearing the voice, Shen Yichen slowly opened his eyes, all traces of sleepiness gone.

His voice was cold.

“I’ll consider it for two days. “

****

When Su Yan woke up, he was greeted by an unfamiliar scene.

The clothes he was wearing were ones he had never seen before.

A hint of nervousness appeared on his face, and his head throbbed with the pain of a hangover.

All that nervousness vanished the moment he saw Lu Lin outside the door.

He examined the room’s decor and found that Lu Lin seemed to only favor this simple black-and-white style.

Lu Lin plated the reheated toast and even thoughtfully warmed up some milk.

The look he gave Su Yan was uncharacteristically gentle.

“Time to eat. Your favorite strawberry jam toast and sixty-five-degree warm milk,” Lu Lin said, pulling out a chair.

“Thanks,” Su Yan said, unable to help but wonder, how did Lu Lin know him so well?

He even knew the exact temperature he liked his milk.

Besides, only he himself knew about this habit.

At home, he would be too embarrassed to trouble Wang Ma with it.

But in the end, he didn’t ask, instead taking the initiative to bring up last night.

“I didn’t do anything last night, did I? “

“My memory of it is all fragmented. “

Lu Lin asked, “What parts do you still remember?”

He had a bad feeling about this.

“I remember getting drunk… falling into a flowerbed, then finding your place from memory and trying to pick the lock. “

“After you opened the door, you cooked me a bowl of noodles and told me to go take a shower by myself. “

“I didn’t remember wrong, did I? “

“Sorry for the trouble,” Su Yan said, lowering his gaze to the evenly spread jam on his toast.

He only looked up when he felt an intense stare on him.

What a talent.

He remembered everything except for the part where he forced a kiss on someone.

“You really didn’t do it on purpose?”

Lu Lin put down his milk and gave him a smile.

“Huh? “

“On purpose what…?”

Su Yan tilted his head, a little confused.

The strawberry jam toast didn’t seem as fragrant anymore.

Lu Lin also felt that the blueberry jam toast in front of him had lost its appeal.

But looking at Su Yan’s bright eyes, which seemed to hold not a single trace of a lie, he couldn’t be sure.

“Scumbag,” Lu Lin slowly spat out the two words, causing Su Yan’s pupils to widen slightly.

“Lu Lin, you’re so out of character. “

“What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing. “

“But I think you’re quite something,” Lu Lin said, his smile freezing.

The mask of the person who loved to pretend shattered on the spot, but in front of Su Yan, he controlled himself, not daring to lash out.

“Oh well, I’m not that great. “

“It’s just that you see me through rose-colored glasses, hahaha,” Su Yan said, a little embarrassed, taking a small sip of milk.

Lu Lin raised an eyebrow, staring at Su Yan as if trying to bore a hole through him.

Finally, he stood up and said to him faintly, “It’s fine. “

“I’m not feeling well. “

“You can leave on your own after you finish eating. “

Was he not feeling well emotionally?

Bang—

The sound of the door being slammed shut.

Su Yan didn’t notice Lu Lin’s abnormality.

After all, in the past, Lu Lin would have just gone crazy and started making all sorts of threats.

He couldn’t have imagined that Lu Lin had actually changed.

The world-class cold war had officially begun.