Chapter 17 Because I’ve Always Been Watching You

Chapter 17: Because I've Been Watching You This Whole Time

The hospital corridor was filled with the smell of disinfectant, and the wind blowing through felt a few degrees colder than outside.

Li Wangyue gripped his phone, his fingers flying across the screen, breathing hard.

He wanted to know who was on the other end—if it wasn't Qin You, then who, why were they doing this, and what did they want?

He scrolled through all the old texts, each one from a different number. When he got to a certain part, he froze.

"Can't sleep without me again, huh?"

"Want me to come over tonight and hold you while you sleep?"

...

"If you really can't sleep, just think of me and jerk off."

...

"Looking at my face might get you more in the mood."

"I want to cum on your face."

...

A cold sweat broke out on Li Wangyue's back. How had he missed it? This wasn't Qin You's voice.

Qin You was vulgar and scummy, but his moods were all over the place—he didn't have the patience to tease him like this, so calm but with that nasty, threatening edge.

Qin You wasn't that clever.

These texts were mixed in with Qin You's, so he'd jumped to the wrong conclusion and thought they were from the same guy.

Ya Ya

Li Wangyue suddenly remembered how Qin You had blurted out, "Don't pin this on me!" when he confronted him earlier. If Qin You wasn't just talking tough, then someone else had sent that sexy lingerie...

His phone buzzed. Li Wangyue quickly checked it.

"Because it's fun."

Same attitude, same exact words.

"Baby, watching you try to figure it out is so fun."

"Watching you not be able to shake me is so fun."

"Watching you scared shitless and totally helpless is so fun."

Li Wangyue stopped breathing. Filled with doubt and burning with anger, he dialed the number.

The other end actually picked up.

Li Wangyue froze for a second, then demanded, "Who are you? Why are you doing this? Did I do something to you? You sent that package, didn't you?"

There was nothing from the other end.

Just a faint, impossible-to-ignore breathing sound.

The breathing had a teasing rhythm, stopping and starting, like... laughing.

He was actually laughing. Li Wangyue couldn't believe it—how twisted and sick did you have to be to laugh at someone's anger?

"I'm calling the police," Li Wangyue warned coldly.

The other end still didn't say a word.

A second later, the call dropped.

Li Wangyue thought the guy had hung up out of fear, but when he checked, it said "out of service area." When he tried again, it wouldn't connect.

A new text came in right on cue.

"You won't call the cops."

"You've got no idea who I am, but I know everything about you."

"Baby, you're probably wondering how I know."

"Because I've been watching you this whole time."

Several lines of black text swam in Li Wangyue's eyes. He couldn't tell if it was the hospital's cold or if he was dizzy, but the screen went blurry.

When his vision cleared, he looked again—the number was gone.

Sender: blank. Number: blank.

Like it had appeared out of nowhere and vanished into thin air, like a ghost.

Li Wangyue wanted to trace the number's owner but had no leads. He remembered the gift—there might have been info on it—but he'd thrown it out in anger, and now he could only kick himself.

He didn't know who this person was, what they wanted, or why they'd pretended to be Qin You to mess with him.

Li Wangyue tried everything he could to investigate, but came up empty.

He thought his life would be full of fear and torment again, but weirdly, after that day, the guy vanished without a trace and never came back.

Li Wangyue didn't get it and didn't buy it, but maybe the truth was exactly what he'd said: because it was fun.

Because it was fun, until the day the fun wore off. When this sick game of watching wasn't fun anymore, he'd toss aside Li Wangyue, this boring prey.

Li Wangyue would sometimes tap on that blank number.

The chat logs were all perfectly saved. He'd deleted all of Qin You's other numbers and kept only these.

He didn't know why he kept them. Maybe he had a feeling this harassment would come back one day.

·

Lately, there'd been a ton of random tasks at the academy. Some of the full-time teachers, too lazy to do their own work, would dump them on Li Wangyue.

They were polite about it and handed over the work nicely, but Li Wangyue knew they were just offloading their crap. He didn't mind, though—his own work wasn't that much anyway. He usually just helped the professor with teaching, and since the professor was in good shape, Li Wangyue had it easy.

So he'd leave early and come back late, spending more time at school than at home.

He didn't think it was a bad thing. After all, Ting Zhenxi had barely been home lately either. It looked like Ting Huayi had sent him to the capital on business again. Li Wangyue heard this from the housekeeper—for a whole week, he'd been the only one at the dinner table.

Being busy was good; at least he wouldn't have idle time to miss him and feel empty.

The only downside was that he'd suffer from insomnia again at night—whenever Ting Zhenxi wasn't by his side, he could never sleep.

So he even took on more work voluntarily, hoping to wear himself out so he'd pass out the second his head hit the pillow.

When Meng Chi came looking for him, Li Wangyue was napping at his desk. He'd probably had too many carbs at lunch and felt a little dizzy, so he'd put his head down for a quick nap.

Meng Chi walked in and saw him sleeping, tiptoed over to the desk, sat down, and started messing with his phone while waiting for him to wake up.

When Li Wangyue opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was Meng Chi's phone aimed at him.

Catching the camera's lens, Li Wangyue suddenly felt a jolt of unease. He instinctively reached out to push it away, frowning slightly.

"Ah, sorry, did I wake you?" Meng Chi was startled too, quickly apologizing and handing him the phone. "I was just taking a random picture. Look, just one. If you don't like it, you can delete it. Sorry..."

The album indeed only had one photo: Li Wangyue with his head on his arm, eyes closed, in the afternoon light coming through the curtains.

Seeing how freaked out Meng Chi looked, Li Wangyue realized he'd overreacted.

He'd been half-asleep, and when he saw a camera aimed at him, a wave of bad memories came rushing back—that feeling of being watched washed over him before he was even fully awake, and his instinct was to resist.

Li Wangyue pulled himself together and rubbed his temples. "It's nothing. I just woke up, still out of it."

Meng Chi had come to talk about the Southeast China Industry Forum thing.

This year's forum was being held in the capital, bigger than ever, with all the big shots from the industry showing up.

Li Wangyue had almost forgotten about it with everything going on. He also had a chance to head to the capital for the trip. Though the forum itself was only three days, Meng Chi wanted to drag him along to hang out a few extra days and check out the capital.

He could be in the same city as Ting Zhenxi. Just thinking about it made his heart race.

Since class wasn't starting yet, Meng Chi suggested they go out for coffee somewhere.

The elevator was taking forever, and Meng Chi, being impatient, just dragged him down the stairs.

As they got to the bottom of the teaching building, they suddenly heard someone crying softly on the first-floor stairwell landing.

Li Wangyue followed the sound, but Meng Chi had already stepped ahead and said in surprise, "What are you doing here?"

The student on a little stool jumped, looked up with teary eyes, and frantically wiped them. "Professor Meng, Professor Li... Sorry, I'm gonna go now."

Li Wangyue recognized her. She'd been on the last project too, acting as the group leader. Logically, she should be going to the capital for the industry forum too.

But since she was a girl, she definitely wouldn't be going with Li Wangyue and Meng Chi—she'd probably be paired with another woman teacher. So Li Wangyue hadn't really paid attention to the later arrangements.

"What's wrong? Why are you crying here? Did something happen?" Li Wangyue didn't stop her, just asked gently.

She was clutching a textbook, with a jacket and water bottle in one hand and a folding stool in the other. Her head was down, her lips moving, but nothing came out.

Li Wangyue took out his phone. "Who's your homeroom teacher? I'll call her."

"No!" She finally snapped out of it. "No, please don't call her."

"Then tell us what's going on. We can't just ignore a student crying here," Meng Chi said, scratching his head and exchanging a glance with Li Wangyue, who nodded slightly in agreement.

She gripped her jacket, hesitated, and then finally spoke. "That last project—I got kicked off. They replaced me with someone new. I can't go to the capital, and I won't get the money either..."

"What happened?" Li Wangyue frowned. "We didn't hear anything about this."

"When the project was submitted, they didn't say anything. I thought it'd be fine. But during the evaluation, they suddenly said I'd already participated last academic year, so this opportunity had to go to a student who needed it more. So they put someone else's name on it—he just came back from studying abroad..." The girl's eyes were red, seeming to feel hopeless and embarrassed. She bit her lip and wiped her tears. "But last year, I only did some clerical work. I didn't take up a slot."

Li Wangyue got her frustration. She'd worked so hard, balancing her studies and the project, only to have someone else's name attached and get nothing—not even the chance she'd earned.

"Who's your supervising teacher? Didn't she help you with this?" Li Wangyue asked.

The girl shook her head. "She went to the administration, but it didn't help." She dried her tears, hugged her things tighter, and gave them a slight bow. "Thank you, professors. I'll head back to the dorm now."

Outside, the wind had picked up, rustling the leaves. As she stepped out of the building, her hair was blown into a mess.

No wonder she'd hidden in that little corner to study—it was so cold out there.

Li Wangyue watched her retreating figure and sighed.

Meng Chi was full of regret. "I heard about it. That returnee is the son of some alumni association bigwig. He's not even a student at our school. We were guessing privately if they'd set up a separate project for him, but I didn't think they'd just steal her spot. I bet her teacher really couldn't do anything—if she pushed too hard, she might not even keep her own position..."

Li Wangyue held his phone, which now displayed the contact numbers he'd just pulled up—each class's homeroom teacher for every department. He stared at them for a moment, then put it away.

"Still up for coffee?" he asked.

Meng Chi shivered as soon as they stepped out, shoving his hands into his pockets.

"Suddenly, I don't feel like it. It's too cold," he said. "Let's go get some soup instead—something warm."

"Alright." Li Wangyue nodded.

He followed Meng Chi out and shivered in the wind too.

It was cold.

He thought of that jacket of Ting Zhenxi's—it was warm.

Then he thought of the weather in the capital. Was it colder there than here?