A Reaction He Didn’t Expect

Jian Yixun stood frozen at the doorway, staring at him without saying a word.

This wasn’t the first time he had seen Xu Shuche’s body.

But the feeling now was completely different from the previous times.

The first time was in the dormitory shower room.

Back then he had only thought that Xu Shuche’s skin was very pale, different from most guys.

The second time was in the basketball team’s locker room.

He had been squeezed next to Xu Shuche, brushed against him, and felt a sudden rush of heat.

But once that momentary impulse passed, the feeling disappeared.

Jian Yixun had seen plenty of his friends’ bodies before.

Some with good physiques, some without.

Everyone changed clothes and showered in the same locker room.

Looking at each other was normal, and after looking once, you usually forgot about it.

But even though he thought he had already forgotten what Xu Shuche looked like…

Seeing him again now made those previous scenes suddenly vivid in his mind.

Jian Yixun felt that something was wrong.

For no reason, he remembered the question he had asked Xu Shuche in the car.

Do you like me?

Xu Shuche had denied it.

Logically, he should have been happy.

Being liked by a male friend would definitely be troublesome.

But when he heard the denial, he had felt strangely dissatisfied instead.

As for why he felt that dissatisfaction, he couldn’t figure it out.

“Jian Yixun… I’m cold.”

Seeing him stand there without moving for so long, Xu Shuche spoke softly.

“Can you help me adjust the water temperature?”

Jian Yixun suddenly snapped out of his daze.

Even his speech became clumsy.

“Y-yeah. Sure.”

He quickly walked toward the showerhead.

Halfway there he stepped on a puddle of water and slipped forward slightly, almost falling.

Xu Shuche instinctively reached out to help him.

But Jian Yixun braced himself against the wall and steadied himself.

“Stand a little farther away,” he said quietly.

“Don’t bump into me.”

Perhaps his voice was too deep and commanding.

Xu Shuche paused, then tightened the towel around himself again and softly responded,

“Okay.”

Jian Yixun avoided the still-running showerhead and squinted at the faucet.

After studying it for a moment, he straightened up and twisted one of the knobs.

The showerhead that had been spraying cold water made a low humming sound.

Soon, warm steam visibly began to fill the bathroom.

“Someone must’ve turned off the hot water valve,” Jian Yixun muttered.

It sounded like he was explaining the situation to Xu Shuche, but in truth he was just trying to distract himself.

“In the middle of winter too… why would anyone shut off the hot water valve? Are they trying to freeze someone to death?”

“Thank you.”

Xu Shuche said softly.

“But your clothes are all wet now. Won’t you catch a cold going out like that?”

Jian Yixun wiped his wet hair and looked straight toward the door instead of at him.

“It’s not that easy to catch a cold. Do you think I’m also a princess and the pea?”

After saying that, he continued without looking at him.

“The shampoo and body wash are on the rack. If you need them, just use them. If there’s nothing else, I’ll go out first.”

Xu Shuche moved his lips as if wanting to say something.

But seeing Jian Yixun look like he wanted to escape immediately, he swallowed his words.

Jian Yixun escaped from the bathroom with almost unbelievable self-control.

He collapsed onto the bed and let out a long breath.

Staring blankly at the ceiling, he silently cursed himself.

Wasn’t he supposed to be homophobic?

Then why was he acting like this—

Saying he disliked gay people while secretly staring at his senior’s body?

You’re clearly lusting after your senior’s body.

Otherwise why did you get excited the moment he took off his clothes?

What the hell are you excited about?!

Jian Yixun wished he could slap himself twice just to calm his overheated brain.

But the lingering heat in his body constantly reminded him of what had just happened.

He sighed deeply, rolled over, grabbed his phone, and opened a browser.

With a sense of resignation, he searched:

What should I do if I react to my friend’s body?

The first search result said that having reactions at any time was normal and nothing to worry about.

The second result, however, was completely different.

It said that if a straight man reacted to his male friend’s body, then he probably wasn’t straight anymore.

What nonsense.

He had just rejected a gay man tonight.

Based on his previous observations, Song Jiatang was probably considered quite popular among gay men.

And yet he had rejected him without hesitation.

The conclusion was obvious.

Jian Yixun definitely would not like men.

“Seriously…”

He clicked the dislike button on the second answer.

Just after guiltily searching those strange questions, the bathroom door opened.

Xu Shuche walked out wearing casual home clothes, wiping water from his face with a towel.

Perhaps the bathroom heater had been too strong, or the water temperature too high.

His originally pale skin was flushed pink from the steam.

Even his earlobes were red, like polished jade.

Jian Yixun had only just finished reassuring himself.

The moment he saw him, he froze again.

Xu Shuche looked down at him.

“Are you feeling unwell?”

Jian Yixun suddenly jumped off the bed.

In two quick steps he grabbed his clothes.

“I—I’m going to take a shower!”

Xu Shuche watched his retreating figure and sighed helplessly.

Jian Yixun was actually quite easy to get along with.

But for some reason, whenever he was around him, he often did very strange things.

At first Xu Shuche thought the problem was himself.

Maybe he had somehow offended Jian Yixun.

Eventually he stopped thinking about it.

The sound of running water soon came from the bathroom.

It was loud, as if the person inside was washing very vigorously.

Xu Shuche sat cross-legged on the sofa beside the bed and took his laptop out of his bag.

Perhaps because it was vacation, his advisor rarely gave him any tasks.

After answering a few questions from younger students, he opened the game Jianghu Dream to complete his daily tasks.

Every update of the game claimed to reduce the burden on players.

But no matter how they “reduced” things, nothing actually changed.

The tedious daily assignments were still there.

Instead, they removed the rookie dungeon that gave players copper coins once a day.

The official account on Weibo was flooded with angry comments saying the dying game would collapse sooner or later.

But despite the complaints, the number of players never decreased.

The game had already survived five years.

Xu Shuche logged in.

He completed the teahouse quiz, ran the trading tasks three times, and finished his assignments.

Twenty minutes passed.

Jian Yixun still hadn’t come out of the bathroom.

What was he doing in there?

If it weren’t for the constant sound of water, Xu Shuche would’ve thought Jian Yixun had fallen down the drain while showering.

He opened the world chat channel.

Ever since the “double-click bubble +1” function appeared, the world chat was full of spam messages repeating nonsense.

The rest were just people recruiting for dungeons.

The messages scrolled quickly.

But Xu Shuche’s sharp eyes caught a familiar username.

[OrangeDuck]: Three Snow AFK reward slot group missing two players, hurry up! Cold Iron drops split profit!

OrangeDuck had been shouting for players for a while.

But the team was still missing one person.

It was already quite late, and there probably weren’t many people running the dungeon.

Xu Shuche had nothing to do anyway.

So he switched to his alternate account and applied to join the team.

Only after joining did he notice something.

The small healer named Chachuan, who had kept causing wipes in the Wuwang Valley dungeon before, was also in the group.

Xu Shuche raised his eyebrows slightly in surprise.

“Three Snow,” short for Snow Ridge Maze, was a popular raid dungeon in Jianghu Dream.

It required ten players to start.

The difficulty wasn’t high.

Players with about twenty thousand cultivation could defeat all three bosses.

Because the dungeon was easy and the rewards were good, some high-level players would form small groups and fill the remaining spots with alternate accounts just to divide the rewards among fewer people.

But Chachuan had more than thirty thousand cultivation points as a healer.

She could easily join a normal team.

Why was she here as a reward slot?

OrangeDuck didn’t recognize Xu Shuche’s alternate account.

Seeing the last reward slot finally filled, she immediately started the dungeon before he could leave.

Xu Shuche’s alternate character was a female swordsman from the Qingfeng class.

She wore a silver-blue school uniform and had the default high ponytail hairstyle.

Standing in the snowy mountain winds, she looked tall and elegant.

“Is the Wind Sister named ‘Lucky Goose’ in Team 2 here?”

As soon as they entered the dungeon, OrangeDuck turned on voice chat.

“You might need to help take the sword during the third boss.”

Xu Shuche opened the team list.

Not seeing OrangeDuck’s partner, he typed a simple “Okay.” in the chat.

At that moment, Chachuan also spoke in the chat.

“Senior sister, what does ‘taking the sword’ mean?”

Although most players here were using alternate accounts, their main accounts were experienced players who knew the mechanics well.

After hearing that question, the team suddenly fell silent.

Only OrangeDuck patiently explained.

“When fighting the third boss, players using swords need to stand in the red circle and clash weapons with the boss. While that happens, the other players focus on attacking the boss.”

“Oh, I see.”

Chachuan replied.

“My master never told me that before. He only carried me through the dungeon alone and never taught me these mechanics.”

Her words were quite skillful.

First she showed off that she had a master.

Then she bragged that her master carried her through dungeons alone.

A perfect double display.

Xu Shuche thought for a moment before vaguely realizing that the master she mentioned might actually be his own in-game partner, Little Bear Cheese.

For a master to organize an eight-person reward team just to help a student get full rewards was quite difficult.

Did Little Bear Cheese value this student that much?

Xu Shuche raised his eyebrows slightly, feeling surprised.

“Thanks to my master I can even play this dungeon,” Chachuan continued.

“Otherwise I can’t do shield jumps, and many teams won’t accept me.”

It had been almost a month already, and she still couldn’t do shield jumps?

Xu Shuche frowned slightly.

Something about her words felt unpleasant.

His fingers hovered over the keyboard as he hesitated whether to respond.

At that moment, the sound of water in the bathroom finally stopped.

Jian Yixun walked back into the room wearing shorts and a T-shirt, moving slowly.

The moment he saw Xu Shuche’s computer screen, he froze.

“Senior… you…”

He seemed to swallow whatever he originally wanted to say.

Instead he forced out a different question.

“What game are you playing?”