Shen Jie received He Zhao's call at nearly one in the morning.
He sleepily reached for his phone. He fumbled for a while but only found a puddle of saliva by his mouth. He sat up in a bad mood, his head fuzzy. "...It's the middle of the night. Who is it?"
He had been rudely awakened from a sound sleep; anyone would be a little frustrated. But when Shen Jie saw the words "Zhao-ge" on his phone, his mood immediately changed.
"Zhao-ge, what are your instructions?" Shen Jie turned on the light and sat up. "In this quiet night, do you want thirteen spices crayfish or Yang Yuan Road's famous fried buns? Or a chat service?"
"......"
Shen Jie had prepared to go through fire and fury, but his Zhao-ge only said, "I have a question for you."
"Ask! Ask away!"
"Do you think, Xie Yu... that is, the Xie Yu you know." He Zhao wasn't quite sure how to say it. He scratched his head and hesitated, then asked something that left Shen Jie unable to sleep for the entire night. "Do you think he'll let me hug him while I sleep?"
Shen Jie felt a shock go through his entire body. "Hah?"
Shen Jie had not visited Class 3 very much recently. Had he missed something important?
How had things developed in such a strange direction?
Was he dreaming? Maybe he wasn't awake yet?
"Zhao-ge, I think that whether it's the Xie Yu I know or the Xie Yu you know... he won't agree." Shen Jie stammered. "I can't even imagine the number of ways you'll die."
He Zhao: "Is it really that definite?"
Shen Jie: "Definitely. More definite than definitely."
As Shen Jie finished, he felt Zhao-ge hang up with disappointment. It wasn't an ordinary sort of disappointment; it also contained many mysterious emotions that Shen Jie couldn't quite comprehend.
The next day, He Zhao didn't knock on Xie Yu's door to ask him to breakfast.
Before Xie Yu left, he glanced at the room across the hall. The door was closed tightly and there was no movement. After a moment's hesitation, he didn't knock and went straight to class.
"Speaking of which, our school dormitory building is really strange." The moment he walked into class, he heard Wan Da spreading ridiculous news again. "Didn't I say I heard knocking on the second floor a few days ago? Last night, it disappeared. It's really strange. A lot of people heard it, and it's definitely not a hallucination."
Liu Cunhao didn't live at school and wasn't moved by this talk of strangeness. "Don't stand around scaring yourselves. It's nothing of the sort. Believe in science, all right? Say it with me. Believe in science."
Xu Qingqing said, "Know-It-All, saying it once or twice is enough. You don't have to keep repeating it. Why doesn't anything of the sort ever happen in the girls' dorm? If it really came to knock on my door, I'd just open the door and hit its head so hard it cracks."
A boy slowly raised his hand: "I... I heard it too. It's real. Last night, on the third floor, there was knocking."
He Zhao hadn't arrived, but Shen Jie ran very fast towards Class 3.
Shen Jie sat down in He Zhao's seat. "Where's Zhao-ge? Not here yet?"
Xie Yu looked at him and let him savor it.
Shen Jie had savored the look: Xie Yu was calling him rubbish. But he was genuinely curious whether He Zhao had executed his strange and dangerous thought or not. "Last night, how did you sleep?"
