Dou Xun fled back to the house, not feeling well.

He touched his waist aimlessly through his shirt, as if trying to wipe off the fingerprints left by Xu Xilin on his body. At the same time, the video that Xu Xilin had accidentally clicked just now kept echoing in his ears and eyes. The impact was infinitely amplified on the basis of "the right time, the right place and the right people". The effects of multiple senses came together. He tossed and turned in bed for half the night, unable to sleep, and soiled the sheets the next day.

Dou Xun got up early and dealt with the evidence of his crime secretly. He didn't dare to hang it out. After washing part of it, he used a hair dryer to dry it. Then, while Xu Xilin was still asleep, he found an excuse and went back to school.

He instinctively felt that he should calm down for a day.

The school is very quiet and deserted during the winter vacation. The library is open until the 27th day of the twelfth lunar month and has not closed these two days.

Dou Xun sat in the library for a while. He couldn't concentrate on reading serious books, so he was in a daze for a while. Suddenly, he stood up and went to the sociology bookshelf. He picked out all the studies related to "homosexuality" and read them quickly.

He sat there for the entire day, and only in the evening, when the library was about to kick people out, did Dou Xun pack up the few books he had not finished reading and borrow them.

He was filled with a lot of psychology, ethics and sociology theories from all over the place, but he was unable to figure out the root of his own problem.

Dou Xun put his hands in his pockets and walked out blankly, asking himself: "So am I a homosexual?"

At that time, the gay culture on the Internet and television had not yet become popular. Everyone still believed in pure friendship between men. It had only been a few years since sexual orientation was removed from the category of "disease" in medicine. The silly science boys were not familiar with literature and history, and words like "Duanxiu" and "Longyang" were just obscure noun annotations.

The word "homosexuality" is so serious that it makes one's heart bleed.

Dou Xun was a little scared, but not to a deep degree. After all, it was not the first day that he was an outlier. He was a bachelor with no parents or brothers, and he had no education or connections. There was really nothing to be afraid of... He was more confused.

For his future life which has no reference, and for his wishes which become clearer day by day.

You can decide how many points you get in the exam, but if you like someone, it depends on whether the other person is willing to cooperate.

Dou Xun didn't know how Xu Xilin would view this matter, but he instinctively felt that the result might not be satisfactory.

Suddenly, someone called him: "Dou Xun?"

Dou Xun was totally distracted, he looked back with a blank face, and after looking for a long time he finally recognized the person as their second brother in the dormitory - there was no other way, it was not easy for him to get along with others, and after living in the school for only a few days he started to "go to school" again, and his second brother took advantage of the twelfth lunar month to shave his head, so he almost didn't recognize him.

The second brother's family lived in another city, and his parents went on a trip during the Spring Festival without him, so he stayed at school to look after the library and earn some pocket money. He waved at Dou Xun and asked, "Why did you think of going to school?"

Dou Xun hesitated and answered casually.

He was almost writing "distracted" on his face, and his second brother didn't ask him any more questions seeing him like this. After a few simple greetings, he was about to leave. But Dou Xun suddenly remembered that this man had boasted that he was a "love doctoral supervisor", and he suddenly had a brain attack and called him.

"I want to ask you something." Dou Xun tried to organize his words, and asked haltingly, "That...the childhood sweetheart you mentioned last time, there is such a person, but I don't quite know what to do..."

The second brother was confused and stared at Dou Xun for a while. He reached out and rubbed his head, which was almost bald, in distress: "Dou Xun, can you translate the meaning of that paragraph into human language?"

Fifteen minutes later, Dou Xun helped his second brother clean up the reading room.

The second brother finally understood his life doubts with a smile and tears. Of course, Dou Xun was not too stupid and he omitted the key issue of the gender of his childhood sweetheart.

"You, you...what can I say to you?" The second brother locked the reading room. "It's not against the law to like someone. We are not uglier than each other. Even if she doesn't have that kind of interest in you, it's impossible for her to have a prejudice against you just because you like her, right? If everyone thinks as much as you do, humans would have become extinct long ago. Just listen to me. Go after the person first. If that doesn't work, pester her. If that still doesn't work, find someone else. 'There are fish in water everywhere. There's fish on the hill next door, too.'"

Dou Xun shut up, feeling that asking him was a mistake, because instead of flaunting himself as a "love doctoral supervisor", this guy was more like the "shameless" major next door.

"If you're worried about being embarrassed when you meet her in the future, you can try a few times to see what her attitude is," the second brother became very excited when talking about this kind of thing, and said to Dou Xun in a very instructive way, "If she doesn't avoid it, it means she acquiesces. Go back and try it. If there's a chance, come back to me and I'll teach you the next step."

Dou Xun, who had learned basic communication skills, said, "Oh, OK, thank you."

I thought: "Bullshit, idiot."

Dou Xun spent the day doing nothing at school, and only gained a few theoretical books and a bad idea.

And just as he was tossing and turning and spending more time every day spying on Xu Xilin, the New Year arrived.

After Xu Xilin finished his study tasks for the day, he was sent by Aunt Du to the supermarket to buy New Year's goods. Dou Xun followed him out consciously without being ordered around.

As soon as he went out, Xu Xilin's relaxed and happy feeling at home disappeared.

This was not the first time Xu Jin did not go home for the New Year, but it was the first time she would never go home again.

He has accepted this reality, and knows that no matter how heartbreaking the wound is, it will eventually disappear in the ordinary days. However, at this moment, the wound is still exposed to blood and flesh, and he knows that it has not healed yet, so he can only avoid it carefully by being busy.

You can avoid it at ordinary times, but you can't avoid it during the holidays when you miss your family, and you have to put on a smile at home - because Aunt Du and Grandma Xu do the same.

He didn't say anything, and Dou Xun didn't make small talk. They just accompanied him silently all the way. On the way there, Xu Xilin put his hands in his pockets, and on the way back, he carried so many things that his fingers were frozen red in a short while.

Dou Xun took off one of his gloves and threw it over: "One for each of you."

Xu Xilin didn't bother to be polite. He took it and put it on, then poured the plastic bag into one of his gloved hands. He freed the other hand and was about to put it in his pocket when Dou Xun grabbed it.

Dou Xun wrapped his fingers with his still warm hands that had just taken off the gloves. The warmth of one hand served two purposes, distributing the heat from inside and outside to Xu Xilin's two hands.

Xu Xilin struggled reluctantly: "Oh my god, this is too stupid, did our kindergarten class just finish school?"

Dou Xun held him tightly to prevent him from pulling out. The two struggled awkwardly for a while, their palms were sweaty. Finally, Xu Xilin was too lazy to argue and gave up. Dou Xun exhaled lightly, and the flower in his heart quietly bloomed halfway.

He suddenly felt that although his second brother's idea was bad, it did make sense.

But Dou Xun doesn’t have the carefreeness to have backup plans all over the world. He only recognizes one person on each hill and one grass, so he has to be more cautious.

That night, Dou Xun went back home with his great initiative and stayed up all night, looking up information and adding his own thoughts to make a seamless time schedule. His short-term strategic goal was to confess his love smoothly after Xu Xilin finished the college entrance examination in the summer, based on the preliminary preparations.

The table was very precise, even including assumptions about each of his attempts and Xu Xilin's possible reactions.

This was the first time in Dou Xun's life that he took the initiative in interpersonal relationships, instead of passively enduring other people's good or bad treatment of him. He was a little nervous at first, but once this plan came out, he seemed to have a strong theoretical support, and all the subtle and unpredictable things between people seemed to have definite rules and traces to follow!

Unfortunately, Dou Xun's plan was purely theoretical.

When he started to implement this absurd schedule with dark circles under his eyes and full of energy on the first day, Xu Xilin suspected that Dou Xun had taken the wrong medicine.

When Xu Xilin got up in the morning, he was still not fully conscious. He did the cloze test in a daze. He almost fell asleep while sitting before he finished reading the questions. After checking the answers, he found that he got fourteen out of twenty wrong.

Teacher Dou took a look and the expression on his face clearly showed that he wanted to splash the water in the cup on Xu Xilin's face.

Teacher Dou lived up to everyone's expectations and really reached for the cup. But when he raised his hand, he suddenly remembered something and his expression twisted for a long time. He actually lowered his head and drank the water. Then he forced himself to suppress his temper, showing a twisted smile with gritted teeth, and took the pen from Xu Xilin's hand: "I'll tell you from the beginning."

Xu Xilin didn't throw cold water on him, he was awakened by his bitter and vengeful smile.

During this winter vacation, Dou Xun seemed increasingly abnormal in Xu Xilin's eyes - his understanding of "keeping calm" and his actual behavior were probably not the same thing.

Dou Xun spent more and more time with Xu Xilin, from waking him up in the morning to closing the door before going to bed, and even followed him to the toilet. Xu Xilin was almost going crazy, but he didn't realize it at all. Dou Xun also sat next to Xu Xilin every day with a book upright, pretending to read it attentively, but in fact he didn't turn a page for a long time, and his eyes would wander for a while, and he would secretly glance at Xu Xilin.

After Xu Xilin found out, he didn't say anything. He was puzzled in his heart - he didn't know whether he had a terminal illness and would not live long, or if he had a queen of flowers growing on his face.

So one day, when Dou Xun went downstairs to pick up a package, Xu Xilin finally couldn't help but secretly opened the "CET-6 Listening Analysis" that Dou Xun had been reading for more than a month.

The “Level 6 Listening Comprehension Analysis” was just a fake cover, and inside it was an old book with yellowed pages - “Our Lady of the Flowers”, written by Jean Genet.

The ignorant Xu Xilin had never heard of it and didn't know what made Dou Xun so secretive. The computer next to him happened to be on, so he quickly searched on Baidu.

…Then his expression was blank for a moment, and he put the book back as it was.