Chapter 15

Chapter 15

The rice ball Qi Yanyu bought was barely the size of a fist. He only took two small bites, leaving most of it uneaten. Dragging his feet, he carried the rice ball toward the lab building for class. Since food wasn’t permitted in the lab, he lingered at the entrance, eating slowly until it was almost time for class before heading in.

If there were two back-to-back lectures in the afternoon, they usually ran from 2 PM to 6 PM. If there were evening classes, dinner was either skipped or pre-ordered and delivered to the classroom starting at 6:30 PM.

The students in the lab had already changed into their white lab coats—bought separately at the start of the semester. Gu Jinglan arrived punctual as ever, already wearing his lab coat. Tall, the hem of his coat only reached just above his knees, and as he walked, the fabric swayed slightly, accentuating his long, straight legs. He looked every bit graceful and poised.

As soon as Qi Yuanhan saw him, he asked, “Eaten?” Gu Jinglan hadn’t joined them in the cafeteria.

“Yeah,” Gu Jinglan replied, slipping on latex gloves. His expression was cool and detached, as if intently listening to the teacher’s instructions for the experiment—tonight’s task was frog heart perfusion.

Seeing Gu Jinglan enter the lab, Qi Yanyu couldn’t help but recall the scene of this man being slapped by a woman.

The live specimen bulged with a plump, pale belly in Qi Yanyu’s gloved hands, its limbs stretching as if struggling. Holding the specimen absentmindedly, he mused that he should’ve mocked the guy who got hit a bit more—let him call him a spoiled rich kid.

The teacher first demonstrated the procedure, then called on students to replicate it. Finally, the students could begin repeated practice on their own.

Since this was an experiment in human anatomy, it required working in pairs. Typically, roommates took turns—one as the primary operator, the other assisting, then switching roles. Each pair usually prepared two specimens, though sometimes specimens died prematurely.

Qi Yuanhan, unwilling to partner with Young Master Qi, had already teamed up with Huang Shaoze. The sight of amphibians made him nauseous.

The teacher had long noticed Gu Jinglan and Qi Yanyu’s pairing but was surprised when Qi Yanyu volunteered to go first.

In his white lab coat, Qi Yanyu looked somewhat like a gentle, refined medical student.

Only the guys from several dorms knew what he was really like. Everyone gathered to watch him perform the procedure.

Holding the specimen in his left hand, Qi Yanyu picked up a metal probe with his right. Without hesitation, he inserted the slender tube into the frog’s brain, twisting it left and right until the specimen’s brain and spinal cord were completely destroyed. The onlookers gasped, adding another “ruthless” impression to his reputation.

Emotionlessly, he checked the specimen’s limp limbs to ensure no movement remained, then pinned all four legs to the dissection tray. With surgical scissors, he cut open the chest skin, then the pectoral muscles and sternum, finally slicing through the pericardium to expose the beating heart.

Using forceps, he threaded two silk sutures under the left aorta—one tied in a slip knot, the other ligating the artery. Inserting a frog heart cannula filled with Ringer's solution into the heart, Qi Yanyu lifted the cannula and heart, saying to Gu Jinglan, “Help me cut this.”

Gu Jinglan swiftly severed the vessels and tissues connecting the heart. Qi Yanyu lifted the heart with forceps, isolating it. After repeatedly rinsing the blood from the heart, he attached the frog heart clip to the BL-420 system. A clear waveform soon appeared on the screen.

“The waveform’s stable—clean tracing, solid data. No procedural delays, the isolated heart is still beating, no leaks. Smooth and skilled throughout,” the teacher commented.

Qi Yanyu performed the entire procedure without a single frown, hesitation, or uncertainty. Gu Jinglan didn’t scrutinize his steps but observed the person instead. During the experiment, Qi Yanyu’s face was focused and cool, his eyelids lowered—perhaps due to his dark lashes, lending him an air of clinical detachment. Nothing like the guy who’d laughed at him under the wutong trees.

Gu Jinglan noticed Qi Yanyu’s neatly trimmed hair, shaved short at the nape. His lab coat was brand new, still bearing creases. Once the experiment was done, his expression relaxed, the intensity gone.

He suddenly realized Qi Yanyu was looking at him. Gu Jinglan wondered—what was he staring at? Just then, the teacher called his name. Oh, right—his turn to operate. He’d mistaken it for something else.

Gu Jinglan demonstrated the procedure with equal ease and fluidity, no hiccups, producing excellent data and waveforms.

Qi Yuanhan, watching how effortlessly the two performed, assumed it was simple. Yet his specimen’s heart repeatedly flatlined. Though revived a few times, it stopped completely upon cannulation. After switching to another specimen, it leaked.

“How do you cannulate without arresting it?” Qi Yuanhan glanced around—all the students were busy in their groups. Where was his dear “Gu-ge”? He wasn’t even in the lab.

Gu Jinglan might’ve stepped out to the restroom or been called by the teacher to assist another lab section.

Then he spotted Qi Yanyu, lounging lazily against a workstation. Probably left behind by the teacher to guide the class. But when others came begging for pointers, he barely moved, offering only a few words before they returned to their experiments.

“Ask Young Master Qi why this frog keeps flatlining. Did I cut its aorta?” Qi Yuanhan, on the verge of giving up, remembered he could rope his roommate into it.

Huang Shaoze, still fuming after being denied leave for a part-time job during Marxist Theory lecture, wasn’t having it. “You go. Why always me?”

“What’s eating you? Asking him won’t kill you.”

*"Why don’t *you* go?"*

The moment Qi Yuanhan caught sight of Qi Yanyu's face from afar, he felt like burying himself in the scientific endeavor right there at the lab bench. Tonight, no one could convince him to move a muscle or utter a word.

Later, the intubation was successful, but the waveform that appeared was weird—obviously not right. Qi Yuanhan scanned the room frantically. The teacher wasn’t there, and Gu Jinglan was still missing. But where was Qi Yanyu? Where had he gone???

Gu Jinglan was assisting in the neighboring class. Stepping out to use the restroom, he heard heavy breathing coming from one of the stalls.

Immediately, his mind jumped to conclusions—two people hooking up in a stall? Or maybe just someone jerking off.

But the panting didn’t sound like normal heavy breathing; it was more urgent. He also noticed cigarette smoke drifting above the stall.

How’s that even possible?

Then he realized—the gasping sounded like a hospital patient fighting for air.

Without hesitation, he knocked on the door. The heavy breathing inside paused slightly. Gu Jinglan normally wouldn’t meddle, but dressed in his white coat, he was at least a med student. "Need help?"

The locks in the lab building’s restrooms weren’t great—a light push and the door gave way.

Inside, he found someone slouched in the cramped gap between the stall wall and divider, a cigarette fallen to the floor, still smoldering.

Bent slightly forward, his hair fell over his eyes. He was also wearing a knee-length white coat.

Gu Jinglan grabbed his shoulder for support while the other hand fished through his pockets for medication. "Seizure? Heart attack? Asthma?"

The person’s head hung low, but even through the disheveled hair, his face was visibly twisted with effort to breathe.

It was Qi Yanyu.

Instinctively, Gu Jinglan checked for blue lips. "Asthma," he concluded. "Do you have your meds?"

Silence. He couldn’t find any meds on Qi Yanyu either.

Immediately, he yanked Qi Yanyu out of the stall and had him drop into a kneeling crouch, pressing his waist forward to ease his breathing.

Then he started searching the floor for any dropped medication. "Where’s your inhaler?" he asked, glancing back to monitor Qi Yanyu’s condition.

Qi Yanyu wasn’t holding steady, listing sideways like a sinking ship. Gu Jinglan rushed back to steady him, catching a thick reek of cigarettes on him.

Asthma and you *smoke*? Was he trying to meet the Grim Reaper early?

Qi Yanyu’s head drooped further, his breaths shallow and ineffective. Gu Jinglan grabbed his jaw and ordered, "Stay put. I’ll get your meds." He noticed Qi Yanyu trying to say something, but the asthma attack rendered him speechless.

Gu Jinglan read his lips—even struggling to breathe, he was worried about losing face?

Returning to his class, Qi Yuanhan immediately pounced on him like a savior. "Bro, check out my waveform—something’s off..."

"Ask the teacher."

Rejected, Qi Yuanhan stared in disbelief as Gu Jinglan briskly walked over to a female classmate, exchanged a few words, and then left the lab again.

So that’s how it is, Gu Jinglan. Ditching me for a girl?

Gu Jinglan returned to the men’s restroom with a salbutamol inhaler snagged from a classmate.

Tonight, only their two classes were using this floor of the lab building, so the restroom was empty. Qi Yanyu was still kneeling, but his forehead almost touched his knees. From the side, his face had gone ghostly.