Your Distance

1- 287 kilometers?

After everything happened, Ting Shuang was like a dried fish(1) that had been left out too long, or like a sponge bra left on the balcony in the rainy season, unable to dry.

His phone lay on the ground, vibrating for a bit while a notification popped up on the screen.

“Ge(2) please take a few days of leave and come over. If the same thing happened to one of my friends here, they would all go on holiday, to enjoy a diversion.”

Ting Shuang, having drunk too much, was sleeping, and did not hear the phone vibrate.

When he woke up the next afternoon and picked his phone up from the ground, there were already countless notifications on the screen, the latest one being a message from his classmate Song Xin: “Ting Shuang are you dead? Today’s the first day of school, Monday, the first lesson of Robotik. You dare to skip even this? Hurry, send an email to the professor to explain the situation, maybe the situation can still be salvaged.”

Ting Shuang clutched his throbbing head, moving to call Song Xin.

“Hello…” Ting Shuang felt as if his throat was on fire, “I had some private matters, so I didn’t go in the morning.”

Song Xin said, “Quickly call the doctor, get a medical certificate to present to the professor.”

Ting Shuang said, “Okay. Were any important things discussed during the lesson? Send me the password for the courseware, I’ll download it later.”

“There’s no courseware.” Song Xin explained the situation all in one breath, almost like a complaint, “This professor’s super perverted. Firstly, he doesn’t upload the courseware. You have to listen in class to know what he talked about. Secondly, he expects a 100% show-up rate, but even if you attend all his lessons there isn’t any result to show for it, you just earn the rights to take the final examination – the final examination’s grades are this course’s final grades. Thirdly, the final examination is an oral examination. Examinees go in one by one to be tested by him. I’ll send you pictures of my notes today, but I feel like I didn’t take down everything.”

Ting Shuang pressed on his temples, “Why are germans so annoying.”

Song Xin was quiet for a few seconds. “No, this Prof. Bai is a Chinese professor. Okay admittedly I don’t really know his nationality, but judging by the face and the name, he’s Chinese.”

Ting Shuang said, “…Okay.”

He did not have the ability to care about this professor’s background. Hanging up, he first contacted the family doctor to issue a medical certificate before taking a shower to wash off the smell of beer. Then he poured a cup of coffee for himself to completely sober up.

The coffee machine needed twelve seconds to start up and preheat.

Twelve seconds were enough for him to recall who bought the coffee machine in his house.

“Ting Shuang can you stop chugging coffee, the moment you can’t fall asleep you come to torment(3) me. I still have an experiment to do tomorrow morning.” Liang Zhengxuan held back Ting Shuang, who had pounced on him.

“Heh, weren’t you the one who bought the coffee machine?” Ting Shuang reached a hand into Liang Zhengxuan’s pants, giving it a hard squeeze.

“Fuck.” Liang Zhengxuan cursed, a word with two meanings. “Do you or do you not know how to write ‘abstinence’?”

Ting Shuang felt for the condom in the nightstand, tossing it onto Liang Zhengxuan’s face. “Are you fucking me or not?”

Liang Zhengxuan surrendered. “Yes yes yes.”