Bamboo, Wood, Wolf, Horse - Chapter 15

Chapter 15: A New World

To Fu Yijie, Xia Fei was like a walking encyclopedia—someone who seemed to know just about everything under the sun.

Xia Fei started his explanation with how plants bloomed and bore fruit. Then he moved on to how fish gave birth to baby fish. From there, he circled around to talk about how Diudiu, their family dog, fell in love. And finally—gently, without a hint of awkwardness—he explained where people came from.

Fu Yijie had overheard his classmates whisper and giggle about where babies came from. The stories were wild and varied. Some said a crane brought them in its beak. Others insisted they floated downriver in a basket. A few swore they were found in the trash heap by the door or sprouted from a rice grain. Someone even claimed babies fell from armpits.

Everyone knew those were just made-up stories, but none of the kids could say with confidence what the real answer was. Fu Yijie had never participated in those discussions—never asked, never answered. And he especially never posed the question to his parents. After all, he came from an orphanage. Some things, he simply didn’t want to ask.

Fukun, however, had asked before. Their mom once joked that he was born when a jujube fruit fell from the old jujube tree outside their grandmother’s house—and because he landed headfirst, he came out a little slow in the head.

Xia Fei’s explanation, in contrast, was clear and simple. He didn’t use any scary words or complicated concepts, just facts wrapped in patience. By the end, Fu Yijie had a much clearer understanding of the things he’d read in that book. He no longer felt uncomfortable or weird about it all.

“These things,” Xia Fei said gently, placing his pen down and reaching over to ruffle Fu Yijie’s hair, “they’re completely normal. Nothing to be afraid of. Now that you know, you won’t be so shocked if you see or hear something like it again.”

“Xia Fei-ge…” Fu Yijie lay with his cheek against the desk, peeking up at him sideways. “Do you think my brother knows all this?”

“Well, when he was your age, probably not. Back then, he was still a big jujube,” Xia Fei said with a laugh. “But now? Yeah, I’d say he knows. Although…”

“Not as much as I do.” Fu Yijie puffed up a little with pride.

Xia Fei nodded. “That’s right.”

“Then…” Fu Yijie jumped to his feet, bouncing a few times across the room like a frog set free. He turned back with a sly look in his eyes. “Do guys and guys… do it the same way too?”

“Whoa!” Xia Fei had just taken a sip of water and nearly choked. He sputtered and spat half the mouthful back into the cup. Clutching the glass, he hurried out to dump it in the sink. When he came back, he wiped his mouth and said, half-laughing, half-serious, “That’s really not something you need to know right now. Honestly, you could go your whole life without knowing that.”

Meanwhile, across town, Sun Wei was in high spirits. Today marked a personal milestone—his first solo shopping trip, completely free from his mother’s fashion tyranny. He strutted down the street with his pockets bulging with more allowance money than he’d ever held at once, standing tall, chest out, like the whole world had just acknowledged him as a man.

For him, this was more than just a shopping trip—it was a rite of passage.

The moment they walked into the Giordano store, he felt a rush of pride. This wasn’t some roadside stall. This was a branded store. That’s right—middle schoolers didn’t shop like little kids anymore!

…Even though neither of them had technically started middle school yet.

But for Fu Kun, the joy of freedom was short-lived. He quickly realized that Sun Wei’s taste in clothes was even worse than his mom’s.

“What about this one?” Sun Wei held up a T-shirt with visible excitement.

“It’s summer,” Fu Kun stared at the shirt, which looked more like a cape than a piece of clothing. “We’re not trying to go fly kites.”

“I think it looks cool!” Sun Wei protested. “Then how about this one—”

Fu Kun stopped him mid-reach, pressing a hand down on his arm. “Let me ask you this—did you bring me here to help you pick something, or to watch you pick things I’d never let you wear?”

“To help me pick!” Sun Wei said with a pout.

“Then can we please stick to that plan?” Fu Kun turned and walked toward another clothing rack. “Everything you’ve picked so far, I wouldn’t have touched past fourth grade.”

Sun Wei was skinny, and if he wore one of those oversized white T-shirts, he’d look like a flagpole waving a surrender flag. In the end, Fu Kun picked out a checkered shirt for him—something structured, simple, and presentable.

“Stop wearing those track pants already. Why don’t we go buy you a pair of jeans?” Fu Kun suggested as he eyed Sun Wei’s outfit with mild exasperation.

“Jeans?” Sun Wei blinked, caught off guard. He’d always admired how cool jeans looked—especially now that they were blowing up in popularity—but the thought of wearing them himself had never truly crossed his mind. In his mind, jeans were the uniform of the most vain kids in middle and high school—the ones obsessed with fashion. He could still picture those girls strutting down the hallway in stretchy denim, hips swaying like pendulums with every step.

And then there were guys like Fu Kun—tall, lean, and picky about clothes—who could actually pull off jeans and make them look effortlessly good.

“Yeah. What? You don’t want to?” Fu Kun glanced at him, one brow arched.

“My mom says jeans aren’t good for development…” Sun Wei muttered hesitantly.

“Huh?”

“They, uh… rub the balls.” Sun Wei replied with complete seriousness, his face grave as if quoting sacred doctrine.

Fu Kun looked down at his own jeans, clearly amused and mildly baffled. “Then mine must’ve been rubbed clean off by now,” he said, shaking his head. “Come on. Just try a pair.”

The jeans Fu Kun wore were from Apple, a well-known brand. That settled it for Sun Wei—if he was going to buy jeans, they had to be the same ones. Apple was a name brand, after all, and for the first time in his life, he was the master of his wallet. No mom. No vetoes. Of course he had to go with the best.

The moment he slipped into the jeans, something shifted. Sun Wei felt an almost magical transformation take place. There was a newfound confidence buzzing under his skin. Sure, he was still too scrawny to fill out the back of the jeans like Fu Kun could—his bony frame couldn’t quite give the pants that smooth curve—but still, just looking in the mirror made him feel… cool. Grown. Like he could take on the world.

“What do you think?” he asked, twisting his upper body to glance at Fu Kun while still facing the mirror.

“Looks good,” Fu Kun nodded approvingly before smacking the back of his jeans with a grin. “Eat more, will you? You look like a monkey. All the meat must’ve gone to Sun Xiao.”

“Don’t you dare say that to her face,” Sun Wei said quickly, wagging a finger. “She’s been stressing about her weight all semester. If you bring it up, she’ll come at you like a bull.”

“She’s not even that fat.”

“Doesn’t matter. Don’t say it.”

“Alright, alright,” Fu Kun gave him a shove toward the counter. “Now go pay.”

By the time they finished shopping, it was nearly noon. As Fu Kun jogged back upstairs, headphones slung around his neck and music playing in his ears, a sweet, rich aroma hit his nose halfway up the staircase. It wasn’t the usual scent of food—it was sugary, like caramel, warm and nostalgic.

Curious, he poked his head into the kitchen and found Xia Fei standing over the stove, carefully heating sugar in a small saucepan. Right next to him was Fu Yijie, eyes glued to the bubbling mixture, completely entranced.

“What are you guys up to?” Fu Kun called out from the doorway.

“You’re back, ge!” Fu Yijie turned to him with a bright grin. “Xia Fei-ge is making sugar paintings!”

“Perfect timing,” Xia Fei waved him over, the wooden stick in his hand gleaming with golden syrup. “Come on, you do one.”

“It’s scorching outside,” Fu Kun said, stopping three paces short of the stove. “They’ll melt the second you finish them.”

Fu Yijie didn’t say a word. He just looked at him with that particular gaze—one that Fu Kun knew all too well. It was the same look the boy had every time he wanted something badly but didn’t dare ask outright. Whenever Fu Kun saw it, he could almost hear a tiny, fragile voice curling up in a corner, softly whispering “gege,” trembling with hope.

He turned away, unwilling to budge. All he wanted right now was to collapse in front of the fan and let his brain melt into the floor.

Fu Yijie had always had a serious sweet tooth. Every month, most of his pocket money from their mom went straight to snacks—and he especially adored anything sugary. Sugar paintings had been his favorite since he was little. The old street vendors would offer a spin-the-wheel for fifty cents a go, but luck was never on Fu Yijie’s side. He always landed on the smallest designs. Once he won a chicken and acted like he’d hit the jackpot. Still, he refused to spend extra to ask for something big like a dragon. He was stubborn like that.

The spinning wheels were rigged—Fu Kun hadn’t known that back then. But once he found out, he couldn’t forget. He’d even tried, on more than one occasion, to sneak a finger under the edge of the turntable and nudge it discreetly, just to help Fu Yijie win that elusive dragon. Unfortunately, before he could pull it off, the vendor had caught him red-handed and sent him packing with a warning glare.

Now, as he glanced at Fu Yijie, who was watching the boiling sugar with the same intense, unwavering focus he used to fixate on those spinning wheels, Fu Kun felt a familiar pang in his chest. The same softness that always crept in when it came to this kid.

“Alright, alright,” he sighed. “I’ll give it a shot.”

Fu Kun was no stranger to painting with watercolors—he’d done it often and with confidence. But sugar syrup? That was a whole other battlefield. Holding the small pot awkwardly in one hand, he stood over the smooth white porcelain plate, staring blankly for a long while, unsure how to even begin. After a moment, he tilted his head and asked, “Yijie, what do you want me to draw?”

“A dragon, of course,” Fu Yijie answered without hesitation, sweat streaming down his temples as he stood there, waiting with hopeful eyes.

“A dragon?” Fu Kun groaned. “Too complicated. I don’t even know where to start.”

“Then why’d you ask?”

“Fine. I’ll draw you instead,” Fu Kun said after thinking for a moment. “I’ve been sketching your face for years—I’ve got practice.”

“Okay,” Fu Yijie nodded without complaint. He wasn’t picky. Honestly, he wouldn’t have minded if Fu Kun just poured the sugar into a blob and let him gnaw on it like a candy rock.

“But if it’s not cute, I’m not paying,” he added, his voice mock-serious.

“Well, that depends on whether you are cute in the first place,” Fu Kun shot back.

Fu Yijie didn’t reply—he just squinted and broke into a crooked grin. The way his eyes curled into little crescents when he smiled like that—yeah, Fu Kun had to admit—it was kind of adorable.

With a theatrical sigh, Fu Kun dropped into a half squat like an artist preparing for battle. Holding the pot at just the right angle, he slowly began pouring the syrup onto the plate, trying to guide the amber liquid with careful, deliberate movements. He started with the head, then added the hair, the eyes, the body, the arms…

But the sugar had a mind of its own. It moved faster than expected, and he hadn’t quite calculated how much space the plate would allow. By the time he reached the bottom of the figure, he realized—he was out of room. The portrait of Fu Yijie… had no legs.

Not one to accept defeat, Fu Kun grabbed another plate, determined to salvage his dignity. With what was left of the syrup, he drew two standalone legs on the second dish.

“There! That’s close enough!” Fu Kun wiped the sweat from his brow with dramatic flair. “Xia Fei-ge, give him these legs. It’s an exclusive, two-piece limited edition.”

“Sounds good,” Xia Fei chuckled as he pressed a bamboo skewer gently onto the candy figure. “Honestly? It looks pretty decent. Just let it set under a fan in the room for a while—it should hold.”

By the time the final lines of caramel cooled into place, the familiar clatter of pots and chatter signaled the arrival of the kitchen aunties—ready to start prepping lunch. The room, just moments ago filled with the smell of sugar and soft laughter, now braced for the coming wave of sizzling oil, sharp knives, and the rhythm of midday cooking.

Fu Kun picked up his pace, hurrying down the corridor with the kind of practiced urgency that said, I’m busy, don’t stop me. He wasn’t in the mood to get dragged into another round of adult back-patting over how well he’d done on his entrance exams. But just a few steps in, he felt it—that odd shift in the atmosphere, like walking into a room where someone had just finished whispering secrets.

The familiar aunties, the ones who usually couldn’t resist pinching cheeks or making cheeky remarks about growing boys, barely gave him and Fu Yijie a glance today. Instead, they were clustered together like pigeons on a rooftop, voices low, eyes darting, their whispers laced with urgency and disbelief.

“I saw her, no joke. It was really her…”

“God, are you serious? She actually went off and had a baby? She’s barely what—nineteen?”

“Who even knows what went down… All I know is, the baby’s here now, and she’s the one holding it.”

The words floated through the corridor like smoke from a house fire—faint but acrid, impossible to ignore. Fu Kun didn’t quite catch the full picture, but the murmurs curled around him, thick with scandal, until he felt the edges of a story that hadn’t yet reached him.

Later that evening, while the kitchen lights buzzed and the scent of stir-fried leftovers clung to the walls, the mystery unraveled in front of him at the dinner table. It turned out that the source of all that whispering was none other than Cheng Qingqing—Uncle Cheng’s daughter. A girl Fu Kun barely remembered except as someone vaguely older, maybe five or six years above him. She had vanished nearly a year ago, no explanation, no goodbye. And now, out of nowhere, she had returned… cradling a newborn baby.

“Wait—she gave birth to it?” Fu Kun asked, brows lifting. It seemed surreal. Cheng Qingqing had always struck him as the kind of girl who blended into a crowd—quiet, ordinary, forgettable even.

His mother snapped a warning look at him and tapped him lightly on the back of the head. “Watch your mouth. And keep that curiosity inside this house. What happens in other people’s families stays behind their doors, you hear me? We might talk a little among ourselves, but if I catch you gossiping outside—just try me.”

“I wasn’t gonna say anything to anyone,” Fu Kun muttered, retreating to his room and grabbing a fresh sketchbook from the shelf. He hadn’t meant to pry—he was just trying to understand what all the fuss was about.

From the living room, his father’s voice floated in, weighted with confusion and disapproval. “What a shame… such a decent girl, and now this? Vanishes for a year, comes back with a baby in her arms—how the hell did that even happen? Old Cheng’s got a temper. If he finds out—he might just lose it.”

“It happens when fertilization occurs,” said Fu Yijie, calmly, without so much as glancing up from the television.

The entire room froze.

Both parents stared, mouths slightly open. Even Fu Kun peeked out from behind the doorframe, blinking in stunned silence.

“…Sweetie, what did you just say?” Their mother slid over to the couch, sitting beside Yijie with careful calm.

“When the egg is fertilized, a baby grows. Then it comes out,” he said plainly, his tone as casual as if he were listing off ingredients in a recipe.

Her voice faltered. “And… where exactly did you learn that?”

The explanation wasn’t incorrect—medically speaking, it was accurate enough—but hearing it come from her baby, her soft-spoken fourth grader, was… jarring. Disorienting, even.

Yijie didn’t respond. He simply reached for his cup and took a long, slow sip of water, like a man evading questions at a press conference.

“Fu Kun!” their mom barked, snapping her head toward the other room. Her eyes narrowed into tiny, furious slits as they landed on the half-visible silhouette of her older son. “Was this your doing?!”

“What?! Me?!” Fu Kun was so caught off guard he nearly dropped his sketchbook. “Why is it always me, huh? Do I look like someone named Dou E? Should I start calling myself Poor E-E, Falsely Accused?”

His sarcasm only made his mother more exasperated.

She sighed, deeply, her shoulders slumping. Of course, she knew her children would have to learn about these things eventually. Whether they found out at eight or eighteen didn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. But somehow, hearing Fu Yijie say “fertilized egg” so confidently, so casually—it rattled her more than she wanted to admit.

Fu Yijie was nothing like his older brother. Where Fu Kun was all noise and motion, Fu Yijie was quiet to the point of mystery. He rarely spoke unless spoken to, and even then, his answers were often short, soft, and polite. No one really knew what went on inside that head of his. Day after day, he simply went about his routine—school, homework, the occasional jog around the block, or a game of basketball at the neighborhood court. By this semester, the two red stripes on his arm, the mark of student leadership, had become three.

Ask any teacher or any neighbor, and they’d all say the same three words: a good kid.

Which was exactly why his parents were so baffled—how had such a well-behaved, straight-laced child managed to blurt out something as medically precise and socially inappropriate as “fertilization”?

No matter how many times they circled back to it, no matter how gently or sternly they questioned him, Fu Yijie refused to say where he’d picked up the term. That left only two possible sources, at least in the parents’ minds. One was the bookshelf at Xia Fei’s place, a home known for its tower of books and lax censorship. The other—the far more accessible culprit—was Fu Kun’s teetering mountain of manga, which spilled from under his bed and burst from the closet like paper weeds.

Sneaking into someone else’s home to rifle through their books was out of the question. But combing through their own son’s manga? Entirely within their jurisdiction.

And so, Fu Kun came home one afternoon to find the living room transformed into a battlefield of color: every last one of his beloved comic books had been hauled out and laid open across the floor like fallen soldiers. His mother crouched among them like a forensic investigator, flipping through one after the other with unnerving efficiency.

Beads of sweat formed at Fu Kun’s temples.

Because at the very bottom of the last box—beneath the well-loved, well-worn volumes—were a few books he had hidden away. The kind with innocent covers that masked not-so-innocent contents. Nothing explicit on the outside, just bland titles and cutesy art, but inside… if his mother saw what was in those pages, she might just cancel his existence on the spot.

Luckily, sheer quantity saved him. There were simply too many books. After a while, his mother’s energy began to fade. With a sigh, she sat back and tossed one open—“My Daughter Is Blossoming”.

It was subtle, suggestive more than explicit, but still enough to make her eyes narrow like daggers. Without a word, she stood, walked over, and smacked the book squarely against Fu Kun’s head.

Fu Kun gritted his teeth and bore it.

Honestly? He was relieved. In his mom’s eyes, if even Ranma ½ was too racy to watch, then My Daughter Is Blossoming was practically contraband. The fact that she hadn’t dug deep enough to find the real stuff—the ones capable of dismantling limbs and parental trust—was a miracle.

Now that the “culprit” had been located and appropriately punished, the family moved into the phase of guilty introspection.

Fu Yijie, after all, liked to read. He devoured books like snacks, but because the household had long been tailored to a son who couldn’t be bothered to read a street sign, let alone a novel, there simply weren’t many books around. That summer, however, his parents experienced a rare burst of parental motivation. For an entire week, every single day, they made time to take Fu Yijie to the bookstore and let him choose whatever he wanted.

His father even built him a small bookshelf from scratch—six shelves high, sturdy, and varnished with care.

Naturally, Fu Kun tried to get in on the action, slipping a few of his manga into the mix, hoping to claim a bit of real estate on this shiny new shelf. But once all of Fu Yijie’s selections were placed, there was barely room left to breathe, let alone accommodate a stack of comics.

Noticing his brother hovering, Fu Yijie wordlessly removed the top shelf’s contents and transferred them to the desk nearby. “You can put yours here,” he said simply.

Fu Kun tossed a couple of manga sets up there, though he had zero interest in reading whatever thick-spined tomes his brother had picked out. What he did care about, however, was still gnawing at the back of his brain—where the hell had this kid learned a phrase like fertilized egg?

He tried to ask. Again and again. Different approaches, different moods. Fu Yijie stayed silent.

Fu Kun even considered asking, only half-jokingly, “Did you sneak a peek at Sun Wei’s dirty book?” But then he remembered—Sun Wei’s so-called dirty book was basically a script of breathy nonsense: “Ah… oh… you’re so big…” Not a single scientific term to be found.

And so summer wore on. The days grew shorter, and the edge of school season loomed closer. Fu Kun packed his things for military training at No.1 High School, but the mystery lingered—unsolved, unanswered. In his heart, he filed it away next to another long-standing unsolved case: the time someone dropped a string of garlic from the second floor and brained Big Dumb Bear during the winter fair.

Just like that garlic incident, this too became a cold case.

Because when had that quiet kid started having secrets?

Military training in middle school was, to put it generously, a half-hearted affair. It barely lasted three days—and one of those was spent doing a campus-wide deep clean.

There weren’t many familiar faces from elementary school at No. 1 Middle School. Most of the students from Third Primary, like Xu Jiamei, Zhang Kexin, and Sun Wei, had ended up at No. 7 Middle School, thanks to the way school districts were carved up.

Fu Kun had been placed in Class 8 of Grade 7. During the round of self-introductions, he did hear a couple of students mention they were from Third Primary too, but even after scanning the room for a good while, he couldn’t match any faces to names—or even recognize their classes. It was as if he’d never seen them before in his life.

But of course, recognizing him was a much simpler task.

After all, the number of times Fu Kun had been dragged by Teacher Yang to stand on display outside the school gates of Third Primary easily outnumbered the appearances made by the teachers stationed there on duty.

Being surrounded by strangers left Fu Kun feeling a little deflated. When it was his turn to stand and introduce himself, he couldn’t even muster the energy to play along. While everyone else stood up and cheerfully recited, “My name is so-and-so, I’m from such-and-such school, and I enjoy this and that hobby…”

Fu Kun simply rose from his seat, muttered four words—“Fu Kun, Third Primary”—and sat right back down again.

He did it so fast, even the teacher didn’t have time to react.

The girl sitting in front of him turned around and gave him a cheerful smile. “So you’re Fu Kun?”

“Mm,” Fu Kun replied, sparing her a glance. She wasn’t pretty—dark-skinned and plain—and just like that, he lost all interest in talking to her.

“How do you write it?” she asked, holding out a slip of paper and a pen.

Fu Kun didn’t respond. He didn’t feel like talking, let alone writing. But the girl kept her hand outstretched, paper poised and smile steady, as if she had all the time in the world.

They stared at each other in silence for a few seconds. Fu Kun quickly realized he might not outlast her. With a quiet, irritated sigh, he snatched the paper from her hand and stuffed it into his desk drawer. “Don’t know,” he said flatly.

“I’m Chen Li,” the girl said, still smiling as she introduced herself.

Fu Kun didn’t bother remembering her name. Out of the whole class, he only remembered two. One was Hu Wenwu, because he couldn’t decide if the kid’s parents had been too ambitious or just wildly contradictory when they named him. The other was Gou Sheng—hard to forget a name like that.

After trudging through military training, cleaning duties, and an overlong welcome ceremony, the moment Fu Kun had been truly waiting for finally arrived, and he practically tiptoed there with excitement.

It was time to receive their uniforms.

The homeroom teacher called on a few boys, Fu Kun among them, to help carry the stacks of uniforms. When a heavy pile landed in his arms, he peeled back the edge of the plastic wrap for a sneak peek—and sure enough, there it was: a black, mandarin-collared school blazer, paired with a crisp shirt.

Ha! Ha! Ha!

Waking up at the crack of dawn, running drills under the sun, and sweating buckets all week—finally, it had paid off!

The moment the uniforms were handed out, students began trying them on right then and there, never mind the scorching weather or the risk of sweating straight through the jacket and breaking out in heat rash.

But Fu Kun didn’t rush. A quick glance at his classmates told him the jackets ran large. No way he was wearing this without a little tailoring—he’d need his mom to work her magic. He inspected the shirt next. It was white, but upon closer look, faint gray diagonal stripes whispered through the fabric. A tie was included too.

It didn’t quite have the gravitas of the blazer, but in a sea of other schools where uniforms meant track suits and identical white T-shirts, even that little pull-on tie was enough to make a kid throw his head back and laugh at the sky in triumph.

When he got home, Fu Kun handed the uniform to his mom and asked her to help with the alterations. As he stood still while she took measurements, dressed in the full set, his mom couldn’t help but click her tongue again and again in exasperated awe.

“Aiyo, would you look at that…” His mother circled him with the tape measure in hand, eyeing him from head to toe like an appraiser inspecting a priceless antique. “Clothes really do make the man.”

“You saying I usually look terrible?” Fu Kun raised an eyebrow in protest, visibly disgruntled. Aside from drawing, the one thing he cared most about was his appearance.

“It’s not the same,” his mother waved off his complaint, still studying the way the blazer fit his shoulders. “This outfit gives off a different feeling entirely.” She struggled to find the right words, so she turned toward his father for help. “Old Fu, how would you describe it?”

“Manly,” his father replied, glancing up from behind his newspaper with the same deadpan certainty he used to comment on weather forecasts and lottery numbers.

“Yes! That’s it exactly!” She clapped her hands in agreement, as if he’d just solved a riddle.

“Pretty sharp, huh?” Fu Kun smirked and turned to solicit a second opinion from his younger brother, Fu Yijie—only to find the boy frozen in place, staring at him like he’d seen a UFO.

“Hey,” Fu Kun called, frowning. “What are you spacing out for?”

Fu Yijie didn’t answer. He was holding a box of Medengao ice cream, which had completely melted in his hand, the carton tilted just enough for the syrupy goo to drip down his wrist unnoticed.

It wasn’t until Fu Kun snapped his fingers and called again that Fu Yijie jolted back to reality, blinking as if waking from a dream. He hurriedly looked down, guzzled what was left of the melted ice cream in a few swift gulps, then licked his sticky fingers clean before finally turning his gaze back to Fu Kun. “Hmm?”

“You sleepwalking or something?” Fu Kun waved a hand in front of his brother’s face. “I asked if I looked good.”

“You look good,” Fu Yijie replied with a quick nod. Who wouldn’t forget their snack watching a sight like that?

In Fu Yijie’s eyes, Fu Kun looked good in anything. Even shirtless in a pair of old boxer shorts, his brother could still turn heads. But today—today was something else entirely.

That school uniform?

It wasn’t just clothes. It was discovery. A revelation. Like stumbling upon a new continent, one that demanded to be explored with awe-struck eyes and a racing heart.