LATDA CH 2.1: The Reason

Translator: Deyonna

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The Reason

When Li Chishu received Shen Baoshan's friend request, he had just finished showering. He had dried his hair and was about to hang up the laundry when his phone vibrated.

He had been bombarded with too many unnecessary friend requests lately. However, with the semester having just begun, there were also countless official announcements in the class group chat. Every time a notification popped up, Li Chishu had no choice but to check his phone as soon as possible in case he missed something important.

He finished hanging up the clothes in his hands, wiped his hands dry, and only then picked up the phone, pressing the screen to wake it.

The phone was an old, heavily secondhand device he had bought for around two hundred yuan at a secondhand shop the day he received his university acceptance letter. There were two faint cracks across the screen. Li Chishu’s sharp eyes had caught them that day, using them to haggle the shop owner down by several dozen more yuan.

He swiped open the lagging notification bar; as expected, it was another friend request.

Expressionless, Li Chishu tapped on the avatar icon. Just as his finger was about to press "Decline," the note attached to the request suddenly caught his eye: Shen Baoshan, School of Architecture.

His gaze froze. Without a trace of hesitation, his finger moved toward the other button, accepting the friend request within half a second.

He set the phone down and waited in front of the lit-up screen for a moment.

Aside from the automated greetings generated between newly added contacts, no further messages came through.

The two thin cracks stood out starkly against the phone’s glow. Li Chishu turned around and walked back out to the balcony to resume hanging up the laundry.

By the time he finished and returned, Shen Baoshan’s first message had finally arrived. Unexpectedly, it was a dinner invitation.

Where, what to eat, what time. Not a single extra detail was provided.

Li Chishu knitted his brows at the message, suspecting that Shen Baoshan had sent it to the wrong person.

Yet as soon as he replied, Shen Baoshan’s second message arrived in short order. This time, it included the location and all the necessary details; it truly was an invitation for dinner.

Moreover, the venue looked familiar to him. Just two days prior, a classmate named Feng Zilian had also extended an invitation to him for the very same place.

He stared at the screen in contemplation for a few seconds, instinctively tilting his head to sniff his body. In the end, he turned right back around and went into the bathroom to take another shower.

Gate 3 was very close to the restaurant, but it was quite a distance from Li Chishu’s dormitory. Fifteen minutes later, dressed in a set of clean clothes with his slightly ruffled hair not yet fully blown dry, he headed toward the campus bus stop.

Jian University spanned a vast area, equipped with its own campus buses that charged the same rate as the city transit, one yuan per ride.

Li Chishu had never taken one before. Part of the reason was to save money, but the other part was that he never made trips without a plan.

Whenever he needed to go somewhere, he would plan his departure time well in advance to ensure he could reliably arrive on time by walking.

Yet occasionally, life would throw in an unexpected variable by the name of Shen Baoshan.

The bus was indeed much faster than walking. When Li Chishu arrived at Gate 3, twenty-three minutes had passed since Shen Baoshan’s last message.

It was almost dark.

Following the navigation, he walked briskly toward the location Shen Baoshan had sent. As he passed a patch of ground reflecting the streetlights, he abruptly heard the sharp, urgent blast of a car horn from behind.

Unable to dodge in time, Li Chishu could only raise an arm to shield his eyes, failing to avoid the massive spray of water churned up by the car's wheels.

His freshly changed jacket, one side of his jeans, and the hair that had just dried in the evening breeze were all drenched by the roadside puddle.

The car that had splashed the water had already sped away. Half-soaked, Li Chishu stood blankly by the road.

His hair was somewhat long; the damp strands across his forehead pricked at his eyelids. Soon, two droplets trickled down the ends of his hair, hanging from his eyelashes.

Li Chishu did not let himself stand there for long.

At the twenty-sixth minute after Shen Baoshan’s message had arrived, the night wind blew the droplets from the tips of his hair. He took off his jacket, clutched it in his hand, and continued forward.

When he arrived at the private dining room, everyone inside was somewhat surprised. Shen Baoshan was the first to react, rising to pull out a chair and smoothly arranging for Li Chishu to sit beside him, smiling as he said, "You're here, Top of the Class."

Though the title sounded like a joke, there wasn't the slightest hint of mockery in Shen Baoshan's tone.

Due to certain family circumstances, Shen Baoshan had held an inquisitive, respectful attitude toward those who studied conscientiously and worked diligently to consistently earn that top spot—after all, his own father had been just such a poor boy, winning over his scatterbrained mother through an impeccably earnest approach to learning.

As for those who harbored resentment toward Li Chishu or couldn't stand his cold demeanor, like Feng Zilian, Shen Baoshan’s welcoming stance made it awkward for them to voice any taunts.

Guiding Li Chishu into the seat beside him, Shen Baoshan turned to see him still clutching the jacket in his hand. Just as he reached out to take the jacket and hang it on the rack, Li Chishu dodged away.

Li Chishu's movements were faster than his thoughts. It was only when he realized what he had just done that he looked up, glanced at Shen Baoshan, and said softly, "It's wet... I'll put it away myself."

Shen Baoshan withdrew his hand, his lips curving into a polite smile before pulling a few tissues and handing them to Li Chishu. "Your hair is wet. Is it raining outside?"

Li Chishu paused as he hung his jacket over the back of the chair, then nodded.

Shen Baoshan realized that this person truly had no interest in humoring others.

Feng Zilian might hold some prejudice against Li Chishu, but he hadn't misjudged him.

Shen Baoshan mused to himself that it was only thanks to his own thick skin and sense of responsibility that he kept up the effort. After all, he was the one who had invited Li Chishu. Anyone else would have walked away after being snubbed three sentences in.

Li Chishu spoke very little, far too little, in fact. Throughout the meal, he only responded when someone addressed him, and his answers were terse: either a nod or a shake of the head, just as sparing with words as he had been on WeChat.

Halfway through the meal, almost no one tried to strike up a conversation with Li Chishu anymore. Those who had harbored such thoughts, having seen the others hit a brick wall, merely sat in their seats and shot furtive glances in their direction.

Shen Baoshan, on the other hand, adapted with ease. Regardless of what he thought inwardly, he was impeccably hospitable on the surface, asking only questions Li Chishu could easily answer: whether he wanted food, if he had any dietary restrictions, what flavors he preferred. He avoided every extraneous inquiry that others were eager to pry into.

Partway through, Li Chishu finished his water, his empty glass resting just to Shen Baoshan's left. Noticing it, Shen Baoshan casually refilled the glass in the middle of a conversation.

Li Chishu, who was eating, fell silent for a moment upon seeing the refilled glass, then quietly drank it dry without a word.

Shen Baoshan refilled it again.

Li Chishu silently drank it all again.

Shen Baoshan continued to pour.

Li Chishu kept on drinking.

Shen Baoshan kept on refilling.

Li Chishu drank a great deal of water over the course of that meal.

When it was time to leave and the gathering dispersed, Li Chishu stared at the glass that Shen Baoshan had refilled so many times. He gazed at it for a long while before clenching his fists and walking out of the restaurant.

He was the last to leave. Stepping outside, he discovered that while they were eating, it really had rained.

Shen Baoshan had also left at some point.

The hot pot restaurant was nearing closing time. Clutching his half-dry jacket, Li Chishu walked slowly down to the ground floor of the commercial plaza, suddenly feeling that attending this dinner had been a complete mistake.

An awkward start, a dull progression, a desolate conclusion.

From the moment the roadside puddle had soaked him, he should have stopped walking toward Shen Baoshan.

Beside the bustling street, Li Chishu stood in the corner beneath an outdoor escalator. As the mall lights around him shut off one by one, he was swallowed almost entirely by the shadows.

This was precisely the scene Shen Baoshan saw as he drove out of the parking lot.

He saw Li Chishu standing alone facing the wall, head bowed in quiet, deep contemplation.

In the dim light, Li Chishu's expression was indistinct; Shen Baoshan could only see the slight furrow of his brows. His free hand, clenched into a fist, suddenly shot up to pound the wall, as if regretting something. As if regretting something.

Shen Baoshan slowed the car, turning on the headlights only when he pulled up beside Li Chishu.

The sudden glare of peripheral light forced Li Chishu to lift his head, his gaze shifting almost horizontally toward the car window.

The moment the window rolled down, a subtle ripple stirred Li Chishu’s expression, though it quickly returned to calm the instant Shen Baoshan looked at him.

Resting his hands on the steering wheel, Shen Baoshan gestured toward the passenger seat. "Get in. I'll drive you back to the dorm."

Li Chishu swept a glance at the passenger seat, then lowered his lashes. After a moment, he shook his head, declining the offer.

"Sorry, I still have things to do."

Shen Baoshan didn't believe him.

Yet he had no intention of begging anyone to grace his car. Receiving Li Chishu’s answer, he simply nodded, rolled up the window, and hit the gas, speeding away.

In the minute that followed, Shen Baoshan checked his side mirror several times. In the reflection, Li Chishu remained frozen in the exact same spot, quietly watching the direction in which he had driven off.

The creeping darkness of the commercial plaza loomed behind Li Chishu, yet he did not take a single step forward to signal for him to stop and wait.

Just who is he being so stubborn with?

Shen Baoshan thought as he caught his last glimpse of Li Chishu in the rearview mirror.

In the end, he didn't actually leave. Reaching the end of the road, he swung the steering wheel to one side, intending to loop around the commercial district. If he saw Li Chishu still standing there, he would be a little more forceful and make him get in.

He couldn't quite figure out this person's temperament. Someone so distant was entirely foreign to the popular Shen Baoshan, so foreign that even after the meal ended, Shen Baoshan still couldn't understand why Li Chishu had come just because of a single message from him.

Therefore, he couldn't be sure whether Li Chishu would truly stand there the entire night if left alone.

If something happened, he would bear some responsibility.

Besides, he was genuinely curious whether Li Chishu would stay there the whole time.

As Shen Baoshan took the turn, he couldn't help thinking how bizarre his thoughts were.

Having thought that, he accelerated through the curve.

Autumn evenings fell early in Hechuan. Though most of the mall's storefronts had closed, certain areas outside were still bustling.

Shen Baoshan drove onto a street showcasing creative cultural products, where shops on both sides were adorned with decorations celebrating National Day. Most of the people strolling here were young—university students around his age or tourists—moving through the area in groups of two or three.

Before completing the loop, he ran into Li Chishu again.

He was standing outside a niche fragrance boutique near a bus stop.

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