Chapter 68 You’re Well-Developed

Chapter 68: You’re Developing Well

Shen Shiyan was true to his word—there was indeed an extra bed in the room, with just half an arm’s length between them, which really put Shen Ci at ease.

After sleeping three dreamless, sound nights in Shen Shiyan’s room, plus independently solving the last big question and all its sub-questions on the math test the night before, Shen Ci walked to school with a much lighter step.

“Did you hear?” He was organizing his history notes when Song Qiuchi’s voice came through in a low whisper. Shen Ci got curious about the gossip and pricked up his ears.

Song Qiuchi continued, “Your unlucky cousin got beaten up at the pool hall by a few drunk foreign tourists. They nearly snapped a pool cue in half.”

Shen Ci froze and glanced at Shen Rong’s seat—he was nowhere to be seen. He raised an eyebrow and asked, “How badly did they beat him?”

Song Qiuchi thought back to what Song Xianghan had told her and described it to Shen Ci: “They almost broke his leg. And the pool hall’s surveillance was down for maintenance that day—no evidence left at all. The foreign tourists have apparently already gone back to their country.”

“That brutal?” Shen Ci had been planning to get his revenge himself, but it seemed someone had already done it for him.

History class first thing in the morning always made everyone drowsy. The history teacher walked in and started writing on the board, while Song Qiuchi held back a laugh and started passing notes with Shen Ci under the desk.

“Song Qiuchi: Those foreign tourists are something else. I heard they stripped him naked and left a bunch of welts on his ass with the pool cue.”

“Shen Ci: That’s wild. Where’d you hear that?”

“Song Qiuchi: Sister Zizhu told my aunt. The thing is, a lot of people at the pool hall saw Shen Rong get stripped. Now everyone’s saying the Antu Real Estate heir is underdeveloped. Who knows if it’s true.”

“Shen Ci: Underdeveloped? He’s taller than me—how could he be underdeveloped?”

“Song Qiuchi: . . .”

“Shen Ci: What’s wrong?”

“Song Qiuchi: Don’t you think you’re being a little naive?”

“Shen Ci: I don’t think so.”

“Song Qiuchi: Really? No?”

“Shen Ci: Whatever, it’s still super satisfying. I’m gonna treat myself to an extra half bowl of rice tonight and develop properly, so I don’t get made fun of for being underdeveloped too.”

Juggling notes, class, and passing notes made his handwriting messier. After reading Shen Ci’s super childish thinking and his rice-based self-motivation, Song Qiuchi decided to rip up the note and toss it in the trash bag between their desks.

His mood got even better. After eating that extra half bowl of rice at home, Shen Ci hummed a sad love song while doing homework, but it sounded as cheerful as a New Year’s “wishing you wealth.”

“D-ddy, did you know Shen Rong got beat up?” Shen Ci gave up on the second sub-question of the big problem, lying on his test paper and asking Shen Shiyan, who was typing away.

The keyboard paused for a second. Shen Shiyan nodded. “And?”

Shen Ci grabbed some scratch paper and started doodling. “You set it up, didn’t you, d-ddy.”

The keyboard stopped completely. He turned to look at Shen Ci, who was sketching an ugly turtle on the paper, and said calmly, “No, he brought it on himself.”

“Mm.” Shen Ci glanced at his slightly red earlobes, then looked back and added a small inverted V as the turtle’s tail. “Thanks, d-ddy.”

How could it be such a coincidence? Shen Rong went to the pool hall every Saturday and Sunday, and the foreign tourists just happened to show up at his usual spot at that time, drunk, with no surveillance. If it wasn’t Shen Shiyan’s doing, Shen Ci didn’t believe it for a second.

Shen Shiyan didn’t reply and went back to work.

The wound on Shen Ci’s leg had mostly healed. Now that he was taller, he had to tilt his chair forward on its front legs to swing his legs, but Shen Shiyan always stopped him. Shen Ci felt he’d lost the most obvious way to express his happiness.

He moved his pen to a blank area on the paper, no longer torturing the turtle with its black diamond pattern that looked like a luxury logo stamped on its back. He drew two stick figures of different heights.

The study was quiet, the sounds of working and drawing interwoven. When he finished, Shen Ci reached his hand over to the desktop humidifier, feeling the white mist dampen his palm.

“D-ddy.” Shen Ci pulled his hand back. “How tall do you have to be to not be called underdeveloped? As tall as you?”

Shen Shiyan turned to look at him, then down at his drawing. “Height alone can’t be the standard for judging underdevelopment,” he said calmly.

Shen Ci recounted the rumors about Shen Rong at the pool hall, then said a bit gloomily, “I’m even shorter than Shen Rong.”

When Shen Ci hugged him to sleep, he always clung tightly, sometimes nearly pressing his whole body onto him. He slept soundly himself, but Shen Shiyan often only got three or four hours of sleep a night—especially in the morning, when the feeling was more pronounced.

He looked at Shen Ci, trying hard to make his words sound unambiguous. “You’re developing well.”

It still seemed a bit odd.

But Shen Ci didn’t notice anything off. He drew a small blade of grass on the shorter figure’s head. “Really? Then why do they say Shen Rong’s underdeveloped?”

Shen Shiyan just closed his laptop, crossed his arms, leaned back, and said calmly, “Medically, you can’t judge underdevelopment just by height and weight. You have to look at secondary sexual characteristics and normal physical changes too.”

Secondary sexual characteristics?

Shen Ci remembered the biology class from seventh grade that only covered half the material.

Yunxi didn’t care about that stuff—the middle school only cared about grades, and that one class just skimmed over male and female traits.

This long-forgotten info suddenly popped into Shen Ci’s head, and he suddenly got why Song Qiuchi asked if he was being naive.

“Well...” Shen Ci managed to stammer out one word.

His phone was pretty much just for texting and playing basic offline games. He hadn’t even downloaded any popular short-video apps, so Song Qiuchi often thought Shen Ci was practically a caveman. He only learned swear words from playing basketball with Chen Bufan and the guys, and he rarely used them. The last time he cursed, it was because he felt that word was the only way to describe how he felt.

It wasn’t that he didn’t know—it was that he never thought about it that way.

Shen Ci then remembered Shen Shiyan saying he was developing well. His face went from a little warm to burning red, so hot he wanted to stick his face right on the humidifier.

Shen Shiyan tapped his toes on the floor, swiveled his chair halfway around, a smirk on his face, watching Shen Ci practically run out of the study. At the door, his shirt got caught on the handle, and he fumbled to unhook it before slamming the door.

After splashing cold water on his face three times, Shen Ci finally calmed down a little.

He finally seemed to get why Shen Shiyan didn’t let him cuddle while sleeping, and the mystery of what had been poking him finally made sense.

When it was time to sleep, Shen Ci thought about going back to his own room, but he was afraid that if he went back once, Shen Shiyan would remove the extra bed. In the end, he chose a compromise—sleeping with his back to Shen Shiyan.

One person on the bed breathed steadily, while the other stared at the curtain, thin as moonlight gauze, lost in thought.

He felt that it wasn’t that he didn’t think about those things, but that he simply refused to.

The beggar community was a mixed bag. Shen Ci had seen with his own eyes three beggars rape a woman who had just started begging—right in front of him, laughter, moans, and cries blending together into his ears. He must have been eight then. The impact was too strong; he felt sick for three or four days.

For a while afterward, those images haunted his mind, until he forced himself to forget them all.

That was Shen Ci’s first encounter with sexual knowledge, and also his last. He instinctively rejected these things—things he subconsciously saw as dirty and ugly.

Shen Ci turned over very quietly, catching a glimpse of Shen Shiyan’s profile.

But when Shen Shiyan had explained it to him, his tone was completely normal, not a hint of awkwardness. Shen Ci felt that maybe this kind of physiological knowledge wasn’t such a big deal after all.

He didn’t know how long he watched, but eventually, Shen Ci fell into a deep sleep.