Chapter 28 - The Coward’s Confession and the Ripening Fruit
Having finished his outburst, Jiang Tong let out a long, shuddering breath and tossed his phone onto the bed.
It was over. Everything was finished. This, he told himself, would be the final intersection of his life with Xiao Fengtai’s.
Xiao Fengtai remained silent on the other end. In fact, Jiang Tong suspected the boy had already hung up in a fit of pique. Their relationship—if it could even be called that—had finally reached the point of open hostility, the veneer of teacher and student stripped away to reveal something raw and ugly. Strangely, Jiang Tong felt a sense of liberation. He thought with a reckless, "sink or swim" defiance that if Xiao Fengtai wanted to demand back the final payment he had so charitably provided, Jiang Tong wouldn't give him a single cent.
However, he was mistaken. After a brief, heavy silence, Xiao Fengtai’s voice drifted from the phone once more. Because the receiver was face-down on the mattress, the voice sounded muffled and thin, yet in the oppressive stillness of the room, it was agonizingly clear—far clearer than Jiang Tong wished it to be.
"I won't let you have your way," the boy said, his voice laced with a savage bitterness. "Jiang Tong, you’re a coward."
Only then did the line go dead.
Driven by a lingering instinct, Jiang Tong waited, half-expecting the phone to ring again. He forced himself to stay awake, guarding the device like a sentry, but Xiao Fengtai never reached out again.
The following morning, Jiang Tong rose on schedule for his classes, his head throbbing with the dull ache of a hangover. Everything that had transpired the night before felt like a fever dream, a hallucination born of exhaustion and suppressed desire. The more he dwelled on it, the more surreal it became. Convincing himself that Xiao Fengtai’s late-night call was a mere phantom of his imagination didn't make him feel any better. *Dreams are but the reflections of the heart's desires,* he thought with a self-deprecating smirk. It was farcical that he missed Xiao Fengtai so desperately that he would chase him into his dreams just to confess.
But as he approached the entrance of the experimental laboratory building, the reality of the situation crashed down upon him. Xiao Fengtai was there, very much alive and real, sitting on the concrete steps. Upon spotting Jiang Tong, the boy braced himself with one hand and vaulted up from the stairs.
"You shouldn't be here," Jiang Tong snapped, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. He kept his face stern, a mask to hide the visceral twitching in his stomach. "Go back to class immediately, or I’m calling your butler."
His authority, however, had lost its sting. Xiao Fengtai descended the steps with an air of triumphant certainty that sent a chill of panic through Jiang Tong. He was so preoccupied with suppressing the urge to retreat that he allowed Xiao Fengtai to close the distance and seize him firmly by the wrist.
"Let’s talk somewhere else," Xiao Fengtai murmured. In his state of shock, Jiang Tong forgot to struggle, allowing himself to be led toward the narrow path winding behind the laboratory building.
The lab was situated on the periphery of the campus, a place seldom visited by anyone outside the department. Behind the building lay a neglected clearing filled with discarded equipment and recyclable scrap. Thickets of wild shrubs grew unchecked, and weeds pushed through the cracks in the weathered cement. A few sparrows hopped about in the pale morning light, startled by their intrusion, and took to the sky with a frantic fluttering of wings.
"What do you think you're doing!" Jiang Tong finally wrenched his hand free. His anger was a defensive wall built from guilt. "I’m calling—"
He never finished the sentence. Xiao Fengtai lunged forward and captured his lips in a kiss.
Jiang Tong stumbled back involuntarily, but Xiao Fengtai pressed his entire weight against him, refusing to break the contact. It was as if they were trapped in a vacuum, and Jiang Tong was the boy’s only source of oxygen. Faced with the teenager’s uncoordinated, fierce assault, Jiang Tong’s defenses crumbled. He felt lightheaded, his limbs numbing as he allowed the boy to clumsily explore the contours of his mouth. For a moment, he forgot he was the adult, the one who should have been in control.
A heady scent—a mixture of lemon, fresh grass, and sweet peaches—enveloped him. Xiao Fengtai’s eyes were squeezed shut, his thick, dark lashes trembling with agitation. Jiang Tong found he couldn't look away. As if under a spell, he reached up and threaded his fingers through Xiao Fengtai’s hair. The short, jet-black strands felt like cool silk slipping through his fingertips, a sharp contrast to the boy's burning lips. Or perhaps the heat was his own; he could no longer tell where his own fire ended and the boy's began. Jiang Tong tightened his arms, pulling the boy’s lithe, supple back into a crushing embrace.
Xiao Fengtai was like a piece of fruit that had been meticulously tended and cultivated—sweet, plump, and bursting with juice. He was a masterpiece of both nature and nurture, yet by some mysterious stroke of fate, he had detached from the branch at the moment of ripening and fallen directly into Jiang Tong’s palm. No man could resist such a gift. Jiang Tong knew, with a sinking certainty, that he would eventually pay a steep price for this indulgence. But Xiao Fengtai was so sweet—sweet enough to dilute the bitterness of Jiang Tong’s past. It gave rise to a delusional hope that he might actually be entitled to this sweetness, that he might possess it forever.
"Let’s give it a try," Xiao Fengtai whispered breathlessly when they finally pulled apart.
Jiang Tong remained silent, his gaze fixed on the boy’s lips, which were flushed and swollen from the intensity of the kiss.
"Why do you always have to think so much? Why make it so complicated?" Xiao Fengtai was practically pleading now. "I like you, and you like me. We’re happy when we’re together. Isn't that enough?"
"You’ll regret this," Jiang Tong said, his voice low and raspy.
"That’s a problem for the future," Xiao Fengtai replied, meeting his gaze with fearless eyes. "I don't live in the future. I live in the now."
This was the very scene Jiang Tong had fantasized about during countless weary nights. He cupped the boy’s face in his hands and leaned down to kiss him again, deeper this time.
***
When Pei Jing entered the lab ten minutes early, as was his custom, he was surprised to find that Jiang Tong hadn't arrived yet.
Professor Gu’s paper was nearly complete. Considering Jiang Tong’s contributions, Pei Jing had suggested placing his name at the end of the author list. Jiang Tong had been immensely grateful, and Pei Jing had expected him to redouble his efforts. He hadn't expected that Jiang Tong, usually so diligent and humble, would succumb to the common vice of complacency after such a minor achievement.
As the old Chinese proverb goes: *Jade must be carved to become a vessel.* Undergraduates were, after all, fickle in temperament and required a firm hand.
"You're late." When Jiang Tong finally pushed the door open thirty minutes later, Pei Jing looked up with piercing eyes, prepared to deliver a stern lecture.
"I didn't expect—" Pei Jing paused, looking Jiang Tong up and down. "What happened to you?"
Jiang Tong’s cheeks were flushed, a thin sheen of sweat glistened on his forehead, and his lips were an unnaturally vivid red. His shirt, usually neat, was a disaster—wrinkled and distorted like a dried cabbage leaf. The top two buttons were undone, revealing a glimpse of his firm chest. In Pei Jing’s estimation, it was highly unseemly.
"Huh?" Jiang Tong looked at Pei Jing as if waking from a trance, then instinctively touched his own lips. *Why is he touching his mouth?* Pei Jing wondered.
"I’m fine." Jiang Tong’s expression gradually cleared, though his blush deepened. Despite his strange appearance, his mood was visibly buoyant. Pei Jing watched with a cold eye as Jiang Tong walked toward the sink with a light, almost dancing step. He half-expected the boy to start twirling a flask in a celebratory jig.
*I’ll let it slide for today,* Pei Jing thought irritably. Jiang Tong was acting bizarrely, and a certain instinct told Pei Jing that he didn't want to know the source of that abnormality.
As long as he could still do the work, it didn't matter. Pei Jing turned his attention back to his computer screen. Thinking of the mountain of data analysis awaiting him today, a small smile touched his lips.
Ah, another beautiful day in the lab.
