MM | Chapter 24

Summer’s End Awakening

Last time, Jiang Tian had taken the initiative to knock on the door, so this time it was Sheng Wang’s turn. Reciprocity is a principle everyone understands.

I’m not being shameless, just polite, Sheng Wang silently repeated to himself, confidently knocking on the door.

Footsteps sounded inside the bedroom, and with a soft creak, Jiang Tian appeared behind the door.

The words Sheng Wang had prepared rolled off his tongue, coming out as, “There’s something wrong with my room’s air conditioner!”

Jiang Tian was taken aback.

…Are you kidding me???

Sheng Wang cursed himself internally.

Why not use a good reason instead of rambling about the air conditioner? Now, if Jiang Tian went to check, it would be obvious he was lying. It was like offering his face for a slap.

Imagining that scenario, Sheng Wang almost wanted to disappear on the spot.

However, his mental resilience was decent. After a brief moment of panic, he regained his composure. He looked at Jiang Tian, thinking, If you really go check, I’ll jump out the second-floor window.

Fortunately, Jiang Tian had both intelligence and empathy.

He glanced at the backpack in Sheng Wang’s hand and, without asking further, stepped aside to let him in.

Sheng Wang quietly sighed in relief and stepped into the room.

As he took the first step, he hesitated slightly. This was his usual reaction when entering someone else’s space, like scanning a room before changing shoes when visiting. Sheng Wang never thought he’d have this reaction in this bedroom.

Teenagers’ emotions come quickly. A single word can spark a fight, and another can resolve it. One moment they might be arguing or fighting, and the next, they could be close again. The catalyst could be anything simple—a note, a can of soda, or a piece of homework.

Not long ago, he had complained to Eight-leg Crab about someone taking over his home, and now he had accepted this room as Jiang Tian’s territory.

The world is truly strange, Sheng Wang thought.

Like Jiang Tian, he didn’t like snooping around in others’ bedrooms. It was partly out of courtesy and partly because it just didn’t look good. But he couldn’t help noticing the simplicity of the room, even without turning his eyes.

This bedroom was adjacent to Sheng Wang’s, with a similar layout and orientation, featuring a desk by the window and a bed in the corner. The shared wall had a wardrobe, but Sheng Wang’s room also had an en-suite bathroom.

Staring at that wall for a while, Sheng Wang suddenly asked, “When I turn on the faucet over there, can you hear it here?”

“Hmm?” Jiang Tian closed the door behind him.

Sheng Wang turned to see Jiang Tian with wireless earbuds in his ears, the white ends lightly pressing against his slender ear bones.

“What did you say? The sound was too low, I didn’t catch it,” Jiang Tian said, removing one earbud.

“I said—” Sheng Wang reconsidered. What if Jiang Tian replied, “I haven’t noticed, but you can test it from the other side”? That would be awkward, especially since the air conditioner was perfectly fine.

“Never mind, it’s not important,” Sheng Wang said, holding his backpack. “Mind if I use your air conditioning for a bit? I have four pages of practice questions left.”

Hearing this, Jiang Tian walked over to the desk to tidy up.

His desk held a stack of test papers, a thin notebook, and a black and red pen, and that was it. It was almost empty compared to Sheng Wang’s cluttered desk.

“Hey? Don’t pack up, I don’t need a chair,” Sheng Wang followed him.

“Where will you sit without a chair, on the desk?” Jiang Tian replied.

Sheng Wang lifted his foot but then sheepishly put it down, looking guilty: “I didn’t say I’d sit on the desk, I can stand.”

Clearly a lie, Jiang Tian glanced at him, capped the pens, and tossed them into the pencil case in his backpack.

“Use the chair, I don’t need it,” he said, putting the test papers in his bag and sitting on the wide windowsill with just the notebook. He leaned against the wall, one leg bent with the notebook on his knee, the other dangling down to the floor.

“You sure you don’t need it?” Sheng Wang asked.

“Already finished.”

“Even the papers Sister Jing gave you?” Sheng Wang was puzzled. “I just saw your papers were blank.”

Jiang Tian lifted the notebook on his knee, showing the answers to the English questions, neatly written in cursive. Even the mistakes weren’t crossed out. Crossing out took two strokes; he just used a red slash.

Next to the slash were his corrections, some just a phrase, others extending several lines. He was reviewing these now.

“Why not write directly on the paper?” Sheng Wang asked.

“Saves time,” Jiang Tian replied.

“Do we have different understandings of saving time?”

Jiang Tian paused, perhaps because no one had questioned his logic before. He flipped a page and resignedly explained, “Yang Jing picks good questions. Her papers are gems, each worth ten regular ones. I do them in the notebook, mark mistakes on the paper. Second round, I only redo the mistakes, no interference from original answers. Two rounds are enough, no need for endless practice.”

He paused, slightly exasperated, “Efficient, saves time. Understand now?”

“Got it.” Sheng Wang raised his left hand, forming a “seven” with three fingers, “This is the longest speech I’ve heard from you, 87 words.”

Jiang Tian: “…”

The windowsill was right next to the desk, and Jiang Tian wasn’t far from Sheng Wang. He could reach out and hit him.

Seeing Jiang Tian straighten up, Sheng Wang quickly covered half his face and moved the chair back a bit. But Jiang Tian, with his long arms, just turned on the desk lamp, expressionless, “Do your homework.”

Sheng Wang said “oh” and was about to speak again when Jiang Tian, already looking at his notebook, said mercilessly, “Don’t talk until you’re done.”

Sheng Wang glanced at him, clicked his tongue, “You’re quite controlling.”

Jiang Tian raised his head with a frosty expression, and Sheng Wang immediately crossed his index fingers in front of his lips, signaling a truce.

Sheng Wang couldn’t sit still while doing problems. A proper posture blocked his thoughts. In his own room, he’d start on the desk, then move to the windowsill, then the bed, and finally the carpet.

Matter is in motion, and so is Sheng Wang when doing problems.

Here, he initially restrained himself. But as he got into it, he placed his feet on the desk’s crossbar, lifting two chair legs off the ground. His long legs bent and stretched, making the chair rock.

After about ten minutes, he suddenly remembered Gao Tianyang’s warning: do anything in front of Jiang Tian, but don’t rock the chair, it annoys him.

Sheng Wang reflexively pulled his legs back. The chair landed on the carpet with no sound. He glanced at Jiang Tian, who raised an eyebrow.

Jiang Tian’s eyes were light under the lamp, like a thin layer of glass, casually glancing over, seemingly unintentionally.

A car passed by at the alley’s end, its headlights sliding from left to right through the window.

Whether startled by the sudden light or something else, Sheng Wang quickly looked away, focusing on the book.

He slowly rolled the page corner with his finger before finally reading the problem. After a while, he started writing the equations.

With unexpected ease, he finished the four pages in an hour. Jiang Tian, surprisingly, spent the same time on his notebook.

Even when Sheng Wang closed his workbook and stretched, Jiang Tian was still flipping pages.

“You’re not done yet?” Sheng Wang asked.

“Almost,” Jiang Tian finally looked up, “Finished your exercises?”

“Yeah,” Sheng Wang checked his phone, “It’s not even 1:30, and I’m done.”

“Any problems?” Jiang Tian asked.

“Nope.” The young master, stretching, hung onto the chair, looking proud.

He had expected problems, which was why he made an excuse to come to Jiang Tian’s room. But his state was so good today, giving him face, that usually tricky problems were surprisingly easy, with a high accuracy rate.

Sheng Wang pondered and concluded, “Your place has good feng shui, boosts brainpower.”

With such a ridiculous reason, he continued using Jiang Tian’s air conditioning for two nights.

Sheng Wang always knocked late at night, just past midnight. Downstairs, Jiang Ou was already asleep, and the house was silent except for the light and occasional voices at their doors.

At first, they didn’t notice anything unusual.

Until Friday, when an unexpected event broke the routine—Sheng Mingyang finally found time amidst his hectic schedule to come home.

Driver Xiao Chen picked him up from the airport, and it was past midnight when they arrived home. Not wanting to disturb anyone’s sleep or study, Sheng Mingyang didn’t notify anyone.

The first monthly exam was on Saturday and Sunday, so Sheng Wang didn’t do more exercises that night. Instead, he marked difficult points in his notes and workbook, planning to discuss them with Jiang Tian.

As he knocked on the door with his books, the downstairs keypad beeped, followed by the soft click of a key in the second door.

Sheng Mingyang smoked often outside, occasionally coughing low. Sheng Wang had heard it for over ten years, too familiar to mistake, even through the door.

When his dad’s cough sounded, Sheng Wang froze. He slipped into the room like a fish, hurriedly closing the door.

Leaning against the door, he listened quietly to the sounds downstairs. When he looked up, he saw Jiang Tian with a towel, holding a glass of water, standing a step away.

Jiang Tian had showered late, his hair half-dry, droplets sliding down his neck, dampening his gray T-shirt’s collar.

He glanced toward the door.

Sheng Wang whispered, “I came in just as my dad got back.”

Jiang Tian withdrew his gaze from the door, looking at Sheng Wang. After a moment of silence, he asked, “Why are you so flustered?”

In the quiet night, a cicada suddenly called from some tree, its long note like an awakening in late summer, reminiscent of early spring.

Sheng Wang’s heart suddenly skipped a beat.