What's Wrong with This Alpha? - Chapter 48

Chapter 48 – Date

---

“Why am I not good enough?”

That was Duan Yi’s first thought when he heard those words.

To his surprise, Sheng Yunze seemed a bit angry and turned away, ignoring him.

It was like when a girlfriend gets mad for no reason. Duan Yi hadn’t even finished being jealous himself—how could Sheng Yunze suddenly be the one in control?

Just then, the bell rang, signaling the end of the ten-minute break. Duan Yi couldn’t keep bothering Sheng Yunze with questions, so he slumped back to his seat, feeling defeated.

“I can’t even ask. It’s not like I’m trying to cause trouble for his first love.”

Duan Yi grumbled to himself.

Sheng Yunze glanced at him, thinking Duan Yi looked like a sad puppy with his head on the desk.

The Space Compatibility Test had confirmed that Duan Yi was his match. It was three years ago, around the time of their middle school entrance exams, when Sheng Yunze first saw Duan Yi.

They attended different middle schools in Hang City—Duan Yi at Caihe, and Sheng Yunze at Attached Middle School. Their exam center was the same building, with Duan Yi on the floor above. Sheng Yunze only saw him that one time.

That day, the northwest wind blew at force four, the air was 29 degrees Celsius, and the sun was perfect. The flowering trees beside the school building were full of leaves and blossoms. The wind shook the branches, sending petals drifting onto Duan Yi’s cheek, making him look like a boy blessed by the gods.

Quite the artist.

If Duan Yi had spoken then, Sheng Yunze might not have been so hung up on him.

Or, if he’d gotten closer, he might have heard “artistic youth” Duan Yi discussing popular internet slang like “Zu’an’s big stage—bring your mom!” or “Mind your own business or hide your mom.” That might have stopped Sheng Yunze from dwelling on it.

At the time, Duan Yi was dating Nan Yi, but Sheng Yunze wasn’t sure if it was true. He felt confused and a little annoyed.

The Caihe Middle School forum had a thread about Duan Yi and Nan Yi. Sheng Yunze found Duan Yi’s forum ID—probably created years ago. Forum IDs can’t be changed, so his was super cringey: “Crimson Flame That Slices the Sky,” with some Japanese characters mixed in.

Sheng Yunze was also a bit of a dork back then, but his dorkiness was totally different from Duan Yi’s.

Duan Yi was all about Japanese anime and manga, while Sheng Yunze went for the “young genius” route: drinking super bitter black coffee and reading the complete works of Shakespeare in English. Even though he understood the English, there was no real reason to drink such bitter coffee—it tasted just like Chinese medicine.

To keep up this act, he was enduring way too much pain for someone his age.

In short, the British noble-style “big shot” and the Japanese anime “big shot” looked down on each other. Sheng Yunze especially looked down on Duan Yi, so he let out a “Tch.”

Disgust.

Sheng Yunze scrolled through all of Duan Yi’s posts.

Duan Yi didn’t care about his privacy online, so none of his posts were locked.

Most of them were about games: “How do I change my name in LoL?” “How do I use XX hero’s skills most effectively?” “Who does Xayah end up marrying?” “Does Xayah like XX or XXX?” He was like a busybody aunt, worrying about the love lives of game characters.

A small part of the comments were requests for resources, with messages like “Good people live long and prosper,” “Brother, I want this too,” “Thanks, OP!” and “My Koukou email is xxxxxxxxxx.”

The resources included a high-definition desktop wallpaper pack of Lelouch, a compressed Baidu Cloud file of the complete Aria the Scarlet Ammo series, and 26 private selfies of Sweet Little Rabbit—Duan Yi’s favorite streamer from middle school. Despite her name, Sweet Little Rabbit cultivated a “High Mountain Flower” persona, maintaining a cool and distant demeanor during her streams that Duan Yi found utterly captivating.

And she even wore bunny ears!

Could she be any cuter?!

Sheng Yunze extracted Duan Yi’s Koukou ID from the email address he had left behind.

When he checked Duan Yi’s Space, he discovered it wasn’t locked.

The page had a high number of visitors, with over 80,000 likes and rows of fully lit icons.

Back then, it was trendy to “raise” your Space by lighting up icons, only to later try to dim them all again.

Later, trends shifted to “befriending Q friends” and “expanding connections,” along with a bunch of abbreviations Sheng Yunze didn’t understand.

Duan Yi’s Space was filled with his usual posts, almost always starting with “Damn!” and ending with “Speechless!”

Sometimes, he’d try to be a little poetic, like when he copied a sentence from Zhihu at thirteen—something he didn’t even understand but thought the words looked pretty together.

He loved posting trendy poetic lines like “The Scorching Star River, you are my ideal in this world.” Below, someone named Wild Bee Dance would always comment, “What about me?”

Duan Yi would get annoyed and reply, “You’re an idiot.”

Occasionally, he’d post selfies.

His selfies weren’t the typical straight-guy kind, nor were they posed or forced. Almost all his photos were natural. In one, he stood in front of the camera drinking milk tea, smiling sweetly with his teeth slightly showing as he bit the straw. He had that clean, gentle beauty like the Milk Tea Girl, with a small mole on his nose that peeked out, making him look oddly cute.

The comments were all “Duan-ge’s handsome,” “Duan-ge’s cool,” “Damn!” “Caihe’s Jun Ji-hyun [thumbs up],” and “Dude, Duan, you really look like Jun Ji-hyun in this photo.”

Sheng Yunze thought strangely, “Who is Jun Ji-hyun?”

He searched for pictures of Jun Ji-hyun on Baidu and found that she did resemble Duan Yi a bit.

Especially during her My Sassy Girl days, her face practically overflowed with collagen.

That night, Sheng Yunze skipped his homework and scrolled all the way to the bottom of Duan Yi’s Space.

There, he discovered a shocking revelation.

The last post was a photo of Duan Yi and Nan Yi taken at Caihe Middle School. In the classroom, fourteen-year-old Duan Yi looked even younger than he did now, his baby fat more pronounced, his hair soft and fluffy. Dressed in Caihe’s gray uniform, he was playing a boring pencil-balancing game with Nan Yi.

The photo itself showed nothing suspicious, but the comments below all said, “Wish you 99.”

Duan Yi even replied to one friend in a cocky tone, “Yeah, call him ‘sister-in-law.'”

Middle schooler Sheng Yunze stared in disbelief.

The crystal-fragile heart of a fourteen-year-old boy shattered into pieces too small to ever put back together.

Sheng Yunze still remembered the scorching summer day when his heart turned utterly cold.

It felt like finding a beautiful, unique flower by the roadside, wanting to pick it and take it home, only to realize it was growing in someone else’s yard.

In short, Sheng Yunze was in a terrible mood, feeling utterly dejected.

He thought to himself, after seeing so many posts and updates, he could even tolerate the boy he met during the high school entrance exam being an Alpha—a late-stage chuunibyou Alpha, an Alpha with no taste who liked Sweet Little Rabbit, an Alpha who would drag his friends to see Small Times in the cinema, cry his heart out, and dramatically hug them, shouting, “We’ll be brothers forever!” (Duan Yi didn’t even know Tchaikovsky was a musician, yet claimed on Space to have finished reading Tchaikovsky’s Les Misérables.)

He could even tolerate Duan Yi posting nonsense like “The Scorching Star River, you are my ideal in this world” on Space. (Actually, Sheng Yunze himself had posted similar chuunibyou updates in sixth grade, like “We all come from dead stars. When we look at the Galaxy, we’re looking at our undead companions.” But he refused to admit it now, stubbornly insisting he never did.)

Tell him now. Whether you can stand it or not doesn’t matter. He already has a boyfriend.

Ugh…

So annoying.

So annoying.

So annoying.

So annoying.

Even now, Sheng Yunze was still annoyed by it.

After two straight physics classes with Bei-ge, Duan Yi had already passed out face-down on his desk.

If there were two sounds in the world most likely to make Duan Yi fall asleep, one would be his math teacher’s droning voice, and the other would be Brother Bei’s lectures.

Duan Yi woke up hungry.

That morning, he’d eaten a jianbing guozi, a yogurt, an apple, and a banana. Then, he’d snuck several of Sheng Yunze’s xiaolongbao from his bowl, and secretly finished the cookies he’d left over from yesterday during Chinese class. Duan Yi was a master at sneaking food in class—teachers almost never caught him.

But by 11:15, his stomach was growling on schedule.

Duan Yi had a metabolism that let him eat endlessly without gaining weight. As Xiaoduan Mom put it, “A seventeen-year-old boy is no different from a pig. Raising you is like raising a pig—you eat from a basin and lick it clean to the bottom!”

Duan Yi’s body was like a bottomless pit; no one knew where all the food went.

When Duan Yi woke up, his goldfish brain, capable of only seven seconds of memory, had already forgotten his earlier sulk with Sheng Yunze before physics class.

He pulled out his meal card, tore off a small piece of paper, and tossed it to Sheng Yunze.

What should we eat for lunch?

Sheng Yunze opened the note, read the question, and glanced sideways.

Duan Yi’s eyes sparkled like a puppy’s, his ears and tail perked up. If you looked closely, you could almost see his tail wagging so fast it left a blurry afterimage.

Sheng Yunze was unexpectedly charmed by his boyfriend’s cuteness, and his anger suddenly vanished.

The cafeteria.

Duan Yi replied, Which one? Second High School has four cafeterias.

One was the teachers’ cafeteria, located by the basketball court. The food was different from the students’—though equally good.

However, Second High School students insisted that teachers received special treatment and ate better food, purely because it smelled better from across the room. In reality, the teachers often envied the students’ cafeteria meals!

Another was the Western restaurant in the southeast corner of the sports field, serving fast food like burgers, fries, pork cutlet rice, and soda.

Students could pack their meals to eat in the classroom. The food was slightly better than the cafeteria’s but much more expensive, making the Western restaurant popular among students eager to show off their uniqueness—and take photos for social media.

The remaining two cafeterias were student cafeterias, divided into three floors.

The bottom floor was for junior high students, the middle floor for first and second-year high school students, and the top floor was reserved for third-year high school students.

The nutrition in the third-year students’ meals was slightly better than that of the first and second-year students.

After deciding where to eat, Duan Yi didn’t stop bothering Sheng Yunze.

He was simply too bored—and the Student Union Disciplinary Committee had confiscated his phone the previous night.

Duan Yi had already had four phones confiscated this semester, averaging one per month.

Fortunately, he had the superpower of being “super rich.” He’d just buy another one. By the end of each term, when the phones were returned, Duan Yi’s desk looked like a street vendor’s stall, with over a dozen phones piled on it.

Without his phone, Duan Yi had no choice but to pass notes to Sheng Yunze to chat.

The paper balls kept flying across the classroom, landing on Sheng Yunze’s desk. Whenever Bei-ge stepped down from the podium, Duan Yi, sensing danger, quickly tossed the paper balls near Sheng Yunze’s feet.

Sheng Yunze glanced at him and silently stepped on the paper balls.

Damn, this guy’s a pro! Duan Yi thought, giving him a mental thumbs-up. He must have picked up a lot of money before!

Their paper-tossing game went unnoticed by Bei-ge, but Headmaster He, patrolling the fourth floor, caught them red-handed.

“What are you throwing?” Headmaster He’s short but imposing figure appeared at the window, silencing the entire class.

Duan Yi looked around and realized Headmaster He was staring right at him.

“You! What are you looking at, Duan Yi? Yes, you! Not paying attention in class and messing around?”

Bei-ge stood in the hallway, watching Duan Yi with a smug expression.

Duan Yi covered his face. Crap… Bad luck!

Old He dragged another teacher in and tried to pick up the paper balls from Duan Yi’s desk.

Duan Yi didn’t mind getting caught himself, but the notes were full of his private jokes with Sheng Yunze. If Old He found out he was bothering Sheng Yunze—the top student in the grade, the pride of Hangzhou Second High School, the future Science Top Scholar of Zhejiang Province, Sheng Yunze, the model student, Old He’s favorite…

The note contained some ambiguous words that clearly hinted at an inappropriate relationship between classmates.

Old He would either kill him or separate his seat from Sheng Yunze’s.

Duan Yi, who had finally managed to sit so close to Sheng Yunze, refused to move!

He crumpled the note into a ball, threw it out the window, and quickly pretended to be dead.

As a result, Duan Yi missed lunch.

Old He dragged him to the Political Education Office and made him sort the third-year students’ weekly test papers for Teacher Qian, the third-year group leader.

All the papers were sealed. Duan Yi didn’t finish until almost afternoon.

His stomach growled loudly, but he didn’t ask Jiang Wangshu to bring him food. Duan Yi planned to skip afternoon classes, climb over the wall, and get some claypot rice. As he turned the corner, he ran into Sheng Yunze—who was holding a lunchbox.

Tears welled up in Duan Yi’s eyes. “Gege! You look three meters tall today! I’m so hungry, I want to eat!”

He tried to snatch the lunchbox from Sheng Yunze, but Sheng Yunze raised an eyebrow. “Just want to eat?” Duan Yi immediately replied, “Of course I want you more! I want you, I want you, I want you!”

After eating, Duan Yi returned to find several lunchboxes piled on his desk, brought by different people.

Jiang Wangshu sighed, “It’s like a giant pig farm here, buddy.”

Duan Yi: ……

The weekly test was on Friday, with six subjects from morning till night.

When Duan Yi left the classroom, his brain felt completely empty.

Jiang Wangshu was still in the mood to compare answers, probably because they’d get Saturday off. Even after a day of intense testing, the atmosphere in the classroom remained relaxed.

But with the National College Entrance Examination approaching, their two-day weekend had been shortened to one and a half days. In reality, it was just one day.

They had to return by noon on Sunday for afternoon tutoring.

The Competition Class had to come back even earlier for English listening practice, so they didn’t get any Sunday at all.

“Did you guys solve the last physics problem? I checked with three people, and we all got √3. I think that’s probably the right answer.”

Getting √3, 1/2, 1, or 5 as the answer made it more likely to be correct.

In the past, when calculating distances, whole numbers were usually the right answers.

The physics teachers at Second High School had all gone crazy in the past two years. The glorious era of “when in doubt, pick the longest answer, and if that doesn’t work, choose C” was long gone.

Now, even if you calculated a whole number for the distance, you couldn’t be sure it was right.

And on the big physics problem, everyone in the class got √3 except for two people who had the same answer: Duan Yi and Sheng Yunze.

This was tricky.

If President Duan’s answer was different from everyone else’s, it meant he was wrong.

If Secretary Sheng’s answer was different from everyone else’s, it meant he was right.

Now that their answers canceled each other out, the students in Class One were really worried…

Jiang Wangshu: “Let’s make a bet!”

He waved his hand, calling out to the students checking their answers, “Let’s see if Secretary Sheng finally taught Xiaoduan properly, or if Xiaoduan finally lowered Secretary Sheng’s IQ.”

Duan Yi: “What the hell! Can’t I just have gotten the question right myself?”

Jiang Wangshu: “That’s a bit hard to believe. Why don’t you explain how you solved it?”

Duan Yi paused. “I just used the formula…”

Jiang Wangshu blinked. “The formula? What formula?”

Duan Yi named a formula.

He knew this question—Sheng Yunze had told him about it.

Duan Yi would often go to Sheng Yunze’s room, calling it “studying together.”

But really, he just wanted to bother Sheng Yunze.

Still, when Sheng Yunze did his homework, Duan Yi would try to do the same.

It took Sheng Yunze ten minutes to solve a hard physics problem. Duan Yi needed ten hours—and after all that time, he’d only written “Solution:”.

Sheng Yunze had mentioned the last problem on the weekly physics test the night before last.

The problem had caught Sheng Yunze’s attention. It wasn’t really a National College Entrance Examination question; it was more like a Competition problem—the kind that loves to trick you.

It had four hidden conditions and two red herrings to confuse you.

The key was finding the right formula. After that, the solution was easy.

But not everyone could find that formula.

That night, Duan Yi memorized the formula and the answer. Today, he copied Sheng Yunze’s solution from memory.

“Holy crap? A formula?” Jiang Wangshu stood frozen for a full fifteen seconds, his mind racing to reconstruct the problem. Then, a look of sudden realization dawned on his face, as if he’d just had a divine revelation.

“Damn it!” Jiang Wangshu exclaimed. “I messed up. I used the wrong formula.”

He pounded his chest in frustration, then glared enviously at Duan Yi. “Must be nice having a boyfriend who can predict exam questions…”

Duan Yi crossed his arms. “Ew, you’re disgusting! Stop staring at me with that creepy look!”

Jiang Wangshu packed his bag and changed the subject. “Have you figured out how to ask Sheng Yunze out yet?”

Duan Yi looked a little nervous. “Not yet.”

“I gave you so many ideas last night. Didn’t you use any of them?” Jiang Wangshu asked.

Duan Yi gritted his teeth in anger. “What kind of trash ideas were those?! I’m only seventeen—a minor! I could use the Minor Protection Act to have you locked up and executed! Why can’t we have a normal date? Why jump straight to the R-rated stuff?!”

Jiang Wangshu: “Duan-bao, get a grip! Asking a man who’s never been in love for relationship advice is just inhumane!”

“Love? Who’s in love? What love?” Hao Shanshan chimed in.

Jiang Wangshu patted Hao Shanshan’s head gently. “Good girl. This is none of your business. Daddy and Mommy are discussing giving you a little brother.”

Hao Shanshan gently touched Jiang Wangshu’s stomach, feeling his eight-pack abs. “Mommy, everyone will call you a hero! You’re carrying octuplets!”

Duan Yi: “I can’t understand either of you anymore! I want a divorce!”

Jiang Wangshu and Hao Shanshan huddled together, pretending to cry, and angrily called Duan Yi a heartless jerk for abandoning his wife and child.

Duan Yi ignored their drama. He packed his bag and headed straight for his destination: the dorm.

“Hey, handsome.”

Duan Yi leaned against the door of room 306.

Sheng Yunze paused, his expression unchanging. “Do you believe I’ll throw you on the ground?”

Duan Yi: =口=!

Sheng Yunze: “Stop talking so weirdly.”

Duan Yi grumbled, “Aren’t you the one who’s always being so weird?”

Sheng Yunze was pleased to see Duan Yi come to him. “What’s up?”

Duan Yi straightened up, rubbed his nose, and cut to the chase, “Um, are you free tomorrow?”

Sheng Yunze’s back stiffened slightly. He had a feeling he knew what was coming, but he couldn’t be sure until Duan Yi actually said it.

So he replied casually, “Sure, whatever.”

Vague, baiting, and seizing the upper hand!

Sheng Yunze mentally gave himself a “yes!” That’s how it’s done!

Duan Yi: “I want to ask you out…”

Hundreds of thoughts flashed through Sheng Yunze’s mind like a tsunami crashing over his brain.

Go where?

Ask me what?

A hotel? A room? A couples’ motel?

No way.

Duan Yi’s not even an adult yet! Wait, Duan Yi’s not an adult?! How does he have so many dirty thoughts already?

Sheng Yunze was shocked. Is Duan Yi really this impatient?

What if he actually asks me for something… inappropriate?

Should I say yes or no?

What if he doesn’t agree? How will I handle his pouting?

No, this is a matter of principle.

But I could kiss him. Kissing before adulthood isn’t a big deal, right? It won’t cause any problems…

Doing that would probably mean going to a hotel, right?

Sheng Yunze started thinking about the most famous couples’ hotels and five-star hotels in Hang City.

Would he want something special, like going back to the hotel where I first marked him?

Sheng Yunze still remembered the hotel’s location, right next to Hangzhou Second High School.

He also remembered the thrill of marking Duan Yi—it was amazing. Too bad I didn’t pin him down and kiss him back then. Sheng Yunze regretted it now: I was too young and scared. Now I just regret it.

But then another problem came up.

Sheng Yunze thought: What if we run into someone we know near the school?

If they ask about Duan Yi and me, I’d have to tell the truth.

After all, Second High School’s rules say “no lying.” I can’t break the rules.

—Then the school beauty completely forgot the “no early romance” rule in the Second High School student handbook.

But that hotel is owned by Duan Yi’s family.

Sheng Yunze remembered another problem.

Tsk.

What if Duan Yi’s parents find out if we go there? Would we have to tell everyone?

What would be a good gift to bring when I visit Uncle and Auntie…?

Sheng Yunze’s mind was racing.

He’d probably already imagined choosing between a white or black tuxedo for the wedding, deciding whether to get married in Bali or Scandinavia, debating whether to buy a school district home in West Lake or Gongshu District, and wondering if it’s better to have two babies or just one.

After fidgeting for a while, Duan Yi finally spoke, “I was thinking of asking you to the library to do homework.”

The moment Duan Yi opened his mouth, Sheng Yunze instinctively replied, “Do you think two babies are better, or just one?”

Duan Yi: ?

Sheng Yunze: …?

His expression suddenly became indescribable, and he muttered through gritted teeth, “The library?”

Duan Yi: “Y-yes.”

Sheng Yunze, still gritting his teeth, “Homework?”

Duan Yi’s nervous expression spiraled out of control: “A-ah, y-yes, that’s right…”

Why does Sheng Yunze seem angry?

After a moment of silence, Sheng Yunze hesitantly asked, “Not a hotel?”

Duan Yi: “Do you want to do homework at a hotel? That’s fine too, I just thought the library would be quieter…”

Their eyes met in the air for a few seconds.

Duan Yi’s mind went completely blank. Everything he had been about to say vanished in an instant.

.

Sheng Yunze: “Why are you looking at me? Watch where you’re going.”

Duan Yi suddenly regretted holding the milk tea more than anything else he had done today.

Sheng Yunze: “Not walking anymore?”

Duan Yi shook his head.

Sheng Yunze chuckled, as if he could read Duan Yi’s mind. He tilted his head slightly and gestured with his chin, “Your hand.”

Duan Yi’s heart skipped a beat. “Huh?”

He suddenly realized what Sheng Yunze was about to do.

Sheng Yunze raised an eyebrow. “Are you playing dumb with me?”

A blush crept up Duan Yi’s pale neck as he switched the milk tea to his other hand.

Sheng Yunze took his hand. Duan Yi felt every cell in his body rush to the point where their palms touched. His cells were celebrating, a tingling sensation spreading through his heart. They screamed as if they were at a concert.

It was just holding hands, but Duan Yi felt completely stiff.

“Is this… okay?” he asked nervously.

Sheng Yunze: “Is it illegal for you to hold my hand?”

Duan Yi thought carefully. “I don’t think so.”

They reached the cinema entrance.

Duan Yi blurted out, “Then kissing you wouldn’t be illegal either, right?”

Sheng Yunze paused, turning his head slightly to show Duan Yi his profile.

Duan Yi: =口=!

“Forget I said anything!”

Sheng Yunze: …

“We could kiss during the movie.”

He tried to sound calm as he revealed his long-planned scheme. “We have plenty of time.”

He checked the movie ticket: Avengers: Endgame.

Duration: Three and a half hours.

---

Author’s Note: So much time!

The school beauty is already a pro at this.

As expected of you, the one who plans everything—you’re always more skilled than Xiaoduan!

The school beauty is the kind of boy who wakes up four hours early to do his make-up before going out with Xiaoduan. He spends those four hours creating a flawless “no-makeup” look that’s so subtle, you can’t even tell he’s wearing makeup.

When he meets Xiaoduan, he pretends to be casual, “I rushed out and just washed my face. You didn’t have to wait long, did you?”

Xiaoduan: My husband is so handsome even without makeup!! TAT