Zhu Shoucheng is staring at a ‘lesson plan’ on his computer.

Yesterday’s dream was so real, so real that when he thinks about it now, goose bumps still rise up between his legs.

The pain, the screams, the sweat, were all incredibly real. The half of yesterday’s undigested sugar still seems to cling to the walls of his stomach, sinking heavier and heavier, crashing through a hole in his stomach.

”…… teacher?”

Nowadays, when Zhu Shoucheng sees Chi Xiaochi, not only does he lose his desire to eat, his mouth becomes bitter, but he also feels the urge to run away for no reason.

If he were to tell the public that he was genuinely afraid of an underage child whose head reached his chest because of a dream that had no end, he would be laughed out of the room.

…… but only he knows that his own fears are not unwarranted.

”Teacher!”

Zhu Shoucheng suddenly woke up and felt his forehead, a hand full of sweat.

Chi Xiaochi was looking at him from across the table, smiling as if she could see through all his wretched thoughts, but her tone was hypocritically naive: “Teacher Zhu, how do I solve this problem?”

Zhu Shoucheng can’t take it anymore.

He felt that he was hallucinating from that strange dream, that he was suffering from a heart attack, that he was so desperate that even Chi Xiaochi’s expression seemed to have a creepy ring to it.

He waited until late afternoon for Chi Xiaochi’s parents to return from work, and then approached them, saying politely that he had not been feeling very well recently and might not be able to continue tutoring Xiaochi.

Chi Xiaochi’s father didn’t say a word, but Chi’s mother, who was standing by, did not.

She said grimly, “Teacher Zhu, we can understand that you are not well. It’s not like we’re unreasonable people, but you’re taking a whole summer off?”

Zhu Shoucheng opens his mouth.

Mr. Zhu, our Xiaochi is at a critical point in his life, and you promised to tutor him. But you can’t promise and then not keep your word. The remaining ones are so expensive that one lesson costs us half a month’s salary, so where can we send our child now that you’ve left him alone?”

Zhu Shoucheng, who is usually careful to maintain his personal image, has never even had a red face in his relationship with his neighbours, and if he hadn’t been so confused this time, he wouldn’t have reneged on his contract if he hadn’t been so upset by the sight of Chi Xiaochi’s face.

However, Zhu Shoucheng, who has been a gold medal teacher for many years and is used to parents nodding to him and asking him to take care of them, was suddenly and unreasonably pointed at his nose and blamed, he made a big red face and argued dryly: “No ……”

”Are you blaming us for not paying for your tuition?” Chi’s mother’s expression was uncomfortable, “If you think so, just say so and we’ll pay for your tuition, don’t beat around the bush and torment us as parents, okay?”

Zhu Shoucheng’s heart burned when he heard these words, which were very unkind.

He used to give tuition to the children without charging for it, because there was something else to gain, so he never counted on gaining or losing in terms of money.

Zhu Shoucheng never imagined that he would be accustomed to people who take begging for granted!

However, he still has to live here and with his son out of the country, he cannot tear himself away from his neighbours and affect his future life here.

Zhu Shoucheng exhaled a heavy breath to calm his mind and then put on a humble face, “I’m sorry, sister-in-law, it’s because I’m not feeling well, I’ll take a week’s leave first. I’ll take a week off first, and then I’ll continue my tuition for Xiaochi in a week’s time, do you think that’s okay?”

Seeing that his wife had achieved her goal, Chi’s father, who had kept his mouth shut for a long time, came forward and first scolded his wife in a seemingly uncalled-for manner, and then smiled fawningly at Zhu Shoucheng and said, “Teacher Zhu, then we have a deal.

Zhu Shoucheng replied, “Sure, sure”, but in his heart he was so angry that he leaned back.

What kind of family is this?

But Chi Xiaochi is a terrible family, and Zhu Shoucheng has chosen it carefully for himself.

He walked out of Chi Family’s door with a sigh of relief, thinking, “Let’s take a week off.

When he gets over the aftermath of this dream, he’ll have to recoup his losses at Chi Xiaochi anyway!

In the evening, when he slipped on his slippers and went out to take out the rubbish, he overheard his mother gossiping about him with her partner in the silo.

”We invited Mr Zhu to a nice meal at first, and it was he who promised to give our Xiaochi a tutorial, without taking any money. Do you think he’s like that?”

Someone half-joking, half-seriously said, “It’s not that your boy is too skinny to carry, is it?”

Ji’s mother spat, “Don’t be so naive, my Xiaochi has been making a lot of money lately. Every day he comes back and tells us good things about Mr. Zhu, and if he doesn’t understand something, he even plays the recordings from the tutorials. He says he wants to concentrate on his exams for First High School, so he’ll have to go out in the future.”

After a period of false admiration from the women, Chi’s mother commented for Zhu Shoucheng: “In this world, what teacher or not, in the end it’s all about money.”

In addition to hearing chest congestion, Zhu Shoucheng broke out in an extra cold sweat and brought back the rubbish he had intended to throw away and left it at the door in a daze.

Make up lessons at …… recordings?

Chi Xiaochi has a recording? How could he not have noticed it at all?

Zhu Shoucheng remembers testing Chi Xiaochi’s boundaries and finding him quite innocent, not quite understanding most of the adult jokes he slipped into his conversations, and not very sensitive to manly sentimentality.

At the time, Zhu Shoucheng was excited by this discovery.

He was too fond of such untarnished little boys.

But if one’s confidential words to him were overheard ……

Zhu Shoucheng absentmindedly fishes his keys out of his trouser pocket and is about to open the door when he is unexpectedly hit by a hand on the shoulder from behind.

When he turned his head and saw the unmistakable face of Chi Xiaochi, his legs shivered and he almost lost his grip on the keys.

Chi Xiaochi, carrying the rubbish bag in his left hand, pointed to the bag at Zhu Shoucheng’s feet: “Teacher, shall I throw it away for you?”

Zhu Shoucheng grabbed the door panel, gave a hurried hint, turned inside and closed the screen door, isolating him from himself, before he could say “thank you” to him.

Chi Xiaochi stood outside the screen door, looking over Zhu Shoucheng’s shoulder at the three cards he had taped to himself, and made a gesture of ‘goodbye’: “Rest well, teacher.”

Zhu Shoucheng was so furred by his laughter that he failed to control the force of his hands and closed the door with a bang.

Chi Xiaochi kicked his rubbish down on his doorstep and saw a dirty soup of food waste snaking inside and seeping through his doorway before he lifted the bag of fallen loose rubbish and casually tidied it up before slowly walking downstairs.

That night, Zhu Shoucheng had another nightmare similar to the one he had before.

The protagonist is still Chi Xiaochi and he himself is still weak, like a patient who has been injected with an anaesthetic.

He enters an operating theatre of sorts, surrounded by nothing but gloomy whites and blues. He lies on the operating table while Chi Xiaochi paces around him, preparing instruments.

The sound of Chi Xiaochi slowly and methodically putting on his rubber gloves is like a tug on Zhu Shoucheng’s nerves.

He then took out an injection and gently pulled the spigot at the end, and a mist of water with a medicinal smell was sprayed onto Zhu Shoucheng’s face.

Zhu Shoucheng shudders with nausea at the mix of alcohol and medicine.

He inquired in a shaky voice, ” Chi Xiaochi , what are you doing? …… What is this?”

Chi Xiaochi lowered his head, the watery glow of the needle reflecting off his eyes, “Teacher, you ask about this? It’s called a testosterone inhibitor, it’s perfect for you, it’ll cure you.”

Zhu Shoucheng’s face went white: “I’m not sick …… you let go of me!!!”

The change in his surroundings made him think for a moment that it was a dream, but in Zhu Shoucheng’s perception, dreams don’t have such real, blindingly cold light from shadowless lamps or such a strong, nose-choking smell of medicine.

”Where’s the hit.” Chi Xiaochi ignored his feeble protests and mused.

His fingertips slowly brushed over Zhu Shoucheng’s scalp, injecting a tube of medicine into a random part of his head.

Even if Zhu Shoucheng doesn’t know much about medicine, he knows that there are few needles in the world that are inserted through the temple.

The sensation of the skin being pierced by the tip of a needle makes Zhu Shoucheng stand still for a few seconds before he swings his head around like a shrimp on fire, curling back and forth, but unable to escape the confines of the operating table.

Chi Xiaochi picks up a second syringe and sends the bubbling tip of the needle into his scalp.

Without looking for a vein and without sterilisation, Zhu Shoucheng’s hair is slick with sweat, which flows into the tiny holes that have been poked out, triggering another burst of stinging pain.

Compared to the last time, when the pain was so intense that it penetrated to the bone, this tiny burst of pain left Zhu Shoucheng with only the strength to whimper “ahhh”, his jaws sore and numb, and sour saliva pouring out of the corners of his mouth.

After a few stitches, Zhu Shoucheng suspects that his head has turned into a balloon full of potion with a lot of holes, and that at some point it will leak out or burst with a poof.

”This medicine, which doesn’t work all at once, can only lower the level of hormones in your body.” Chi Xiaochi leaned close to Zhu Shoucheng’s ear and whispered, “It will take 15 years to completely eliminate those yellow wastes of yours. What I’m injecting for you now is the part that I didn’t have time to inject before; after that, I’ll come and inject you every so often as long as you’re not well.”

Zhu Shoucheng was choking on the sickening stench of fermented food waste when he rolled over and sat up in the late afternoon of the second day.

He got up shakily and made his way to the foyer.

Zhu Shoucheng, clutching his hair, paces the hut like a trapped animal, his eyes scarlet.

He had a nest of lice fried in his hair that stung and scratched as if the pinholes were still lurking in his hair, but no matter how much he looked in the mirror, all he saw was oily hair.

Nope, the eye of the needle must be at ……

Otherwise his hair couldn’t be so itchy ……

Zhu Shoucheng gasped, picked up the pusher and frantically pushed off his hair, even though he had cut two pieces of scalp and seen blood, he gritted his teeth fiercely until he had shaved one head to the point of shining.

He picked up the mirror and faltered as he aimed it at his head.

The head is bright and clean, not a single pin scar.

The knot eased a little and his stomach began to stir again.

Zhu Shoucheng practically flung himself into the public washroom and vomited jet-like into the toilet.

He made quite a commotion this time, and a little boy of seven or eight poked his head curiously outside the toilet, covering his nose and calling out in a milky voice, “Teacher Zhu?”

Zhu Shoucheng’s ears instantly rang with Chi Xiaochi’s voice: “As long as you are not well, I will come and inject you every now and then.”

This was followed by the thin sound of a scalp being punctured by a syringe that rang as if it was close at hand.

Zhu Shoucheng’s windpipe contracted violently and a hiss erupted from his throat, which was burning with acid: “Don’t come over! Don’t you come any closer!”

The little boy was startled by such a strange Zhu Shoucheng and ran away.

Zhu Shoucheng’s muffled shouts also reached down the silo.

Lou Ying is checking the tyres on his bike and looks up for a moment at the sound, then drops his head and pretends not to hear.

Chi Xiaochi didn’t even look up, standing to the side and snapping away at his phone.

Lou Ying asked him, “Did you sleep well last night.”

Chi Xiaochi put the phone down, “Hmm.”

Lou Ying loved Chi Xiaochi on both days.

No matter what he was busy with, whenever he joined him in conversation, he would drop what he was holding and look at himself intently.

”Promise yes, I’ll make up for your summer vacation.” Lou Ying straddled his bike, “Now we have seven days. Where do you want to go?”

Now at this time of the year they have a million places to go, video game parlours, candy shops, mini-malls, bookstores, basketball courts and, if they want, a movie in the next town over.

Chi Xiaochi jumped on the back of the bike, tugged on the hem of his shirt and said with a straight face, “Go to the future with Lou.”

Lou Ying looked down and couldn’t help but laugh, “That’s far away.”

”The further the better.”

”Then it’s up to me to decide where to go.” Lou Ying rattled the car bell with a crisp, pleasant chime, “We’re off now then.”