Your Distance

Ting Shuang waited for an answer from the other side of the line, his heart beating faster than usual.

It took a few seconds before he heard Cycle say: “I’ve been busy recently.”

Ting Shuang: “Then, tell me when you are free.”

Cycle: “I’ll see.”

Ting Shuang: “I’m fine with eating breakfast too.”

Cycle: “Mm.”

Ting Shuang: “Well… tell me a day in advance, I’ll tidy myself up.”

He seemed to hear a little smile in Cycle’s voice: “Mm.”

Ting Shuang: “Then I won’t disturb you while you’re working anymore. I’m going to the library.”

From that day on, Ting Shuang would remind Cycle from time to time in a roundabout fashion that they had a meal to eat. For example, when he was in school in the afternoon, he would ask Cycle: Have you had lunch? Or when he left school in the evening, he would also send a message to Cycle: Have you gotten off work? I haven’t had dinner yet.

Cycle’s reply was either that he had already eaten or that he had something else to do, and Ting Shuang realised that he was not at school every weekday. Sometimes Distance showed that the distance between them was several hundred meters, and sometimes it was a little more than ten kilometres.

When Sunday came, Zhu Wenjia had already left, and Ting Shuang was alone at home. Seeing that the current distance between him and Cycle was 4.8 kilometres, he sent a message asking: You didn’t go out today?

Seeing that Cycle didn’t reply, Ting Shuang took another picture of the dish had he made himself and sent it over, tempting Cycle: I made mushroom grilled fish, do you want to come over and eat?

It was a long time before Cycle replied: I made sweet and sour pork ribs.

Ting Shuang replied: Send a picture?

Cycle: [Picture]

Ting Shuang sent a voice call request and said, “Why not I packet grilled fish to your house.”

“I’m already eating.”

“Are you afraid of meeting up? I don’t dislike that you’re… cough, old.”

Cycle smiled and said, “Why the rush?”

Ting Shuang said, “I want to see you. Why don’t… we do a video call?”

Cycle said, “No.”

Ting Shuang said, “You always reject me like this, watch out for when I camp outside the door of your LRM department.”

“You can try.”

“Forget it, I’m scared I’ll run into your boss. And I don’t know what you look like.”

“Aren’t you taking his class?”

“Seeing him twice a week is the limit. Now that I’m thinking about how I have to see him tomorrow, I feel like I’m going to get nightmares tonight. Hey let’s not talk about him anymore. When can I invite this old man out for a meal? “

“I’ve been slightly busier recently.”

“Busy making sweet and sour pork ribs at home.”

This time, Cycle really did smile a little, saying, “That’s some strong resentment.(1)“

Resentment?

Strong?

Ting Shuang did not admit it, and replied, “I’m telling the truth.”

Cycle said, “Mm, the truth.”

Somehow Ting Shuang felt like he was being pampered a little from those mere three words. He suddenly noticed that from the beginning of the call, there were no sounds of eating coming from Cycle’s side. Cycle had been talking to him and hadn’t eaten yet.

“Go ahead and eat…” Ting Shuang lowered his voice. “I won’t bother you anymore.”

""

After hanging up, Ting Shuang was still recalling Cycle’s voice. Recalling the conversation…

You always reject me like this, watch out for when I camp outside the door of your LRM department.

— You can try.

Try…

Is it unethical to go to the LRM department’s website to look up the photos of the researchers?

— You can try.

To hell with morals.

Ting Shuang opened his laptop, looked for the LRM department’s website from the school website, found the page of the department staff, and clicked on it.

The first thing he caught a glance of was the photos, but he did not dare to look too thoroughly at them, so he quickly scrolled down.

Chinese…

Male…

Researcher…

Ting Shuang found two male researchers who seemed to be Chinese from their names. One of them didn’t have a photo. The other had one, but the person in the photo… It wasn’t that Ting Shuang was judging his face, but he just felt that that face did not match Cycle’s voice and temperament.

Could he be the one that didn’t have a photo?

Ting Shuang stared at the name of the person without a photo for a while.

Jianguo Huang

Jianguo… Huang…

Cycle’s name being Huang Jianguo…(2)

Huang… Jian… Guo…

It didn’t feel right.

Ting Shuang zoomed in on Cycle’s profile picture and compared it with the researcher who had a photo. The jaw and neck of the two people did not look similar at all … The researcher was obviously fatter, and from the photo of his upper body, he did not look 187cm, which was written in the Cycle profile…

If he was 187cm, he should be taller.

All of a sudden, a face for which Ting Shuang had to look up appeared in his mind—

Rimless glasses, thin metal frames, thin metallic chains hanging down beside both sides of his face, and a pair of eyes gazing back into his.

The hair at the back of Ting Shuang’s neck raised.

Maybe he had developed a fear of that face. When taking a bath that night, Ting Shuang couldn’t get hard even though he wanted to stroke himself.

Early the next morning, Ting Shuang rode his bicycle to school and arrived at classroom S17 at 8:01. At this time, there weren’t many people. He found a place not far from the podium and sat down, hoping not to attract extra attention from the professor.

After a few minutes, Song Xin arrived and sat next to him, “Was your pleading a success?”

Ting Shuang said, “Pleading with him was just pleading to be shamed.”

Song Xin became interested, “Shamed? How?”

Ting Shuang looked at Song Yan and said, “You want to hear about me being shamed so badly?”

Song Xin’s words were filled with loyalty, “No, how could I?” But his face read: Hurry up and tell me.

Ting Shuang did not want to disclose more details, “Anyways, I’ll still come to class in the future.”

At 8:14, the professor still had not arrived, and Ting Shuang wanted to send a message to Cycle asking if he had time this afternoon.

He looked at the distance between them on Distance first, since he didn’t know if Cycle would even come to school today…

Opening Distance, Ting Shuang looked at the current distance between them displayed below Cycle’s name—

“The professor’s here.” Song Xin nudged Ting Shuang with his arm, whispering, “Keep the phone.”

“… Oh.” Ting Shuang dazedly kept his phone under the table and looked up at the podium.

He’d probably read it wrong…

3 metres……

Metres……

Ting Shuang couldn’t help but glance down at the distance displayed again.

Still 3 metres.

3 metres!

Doesn’t 3 metres mean that Cycle is in the classroom now?!

Did Cycle secretly come over to see him?

Ting Shuang disecretly glanced at the classmates around him. Male, Chinese, thirty odd years old…

There was already a small number of Chinese students in the class and they were all familiar faces. Even if Ting Shuang didn’t know their names, they had at least seen each other before. The researcher whose photo was on the department’s website was not in the classroom. Ting Shuang looked at everyone one by one and didn’t feel like any of them was Cycle. He even stared at Song Xin’s side profile for a while.

Song Xin turned his head and met Ting Shuang’s gaze, “Ting Shuang what’s that look in your eyes? It’s creepy.”

Ting Shuang looked away, “What does Cycle mean?”

Song Xin said, “What? You’re talking about the English Cycle? It means cycle. Why do you ask? Did the professor just say it?”

“No.” Ting Shuang tucked his phone back into his pocket and refocused his attention on the lesson.

In the last five minutes of the class, Bai Changyi took attendance as regulated and announced the end of the class.

The sound of tables being clapped sounded around him[1], and Ting Shuang also clapped the table twice like a good kid. Before anyone left the classroom, he quickly took out the phone to check the current distance between him and Cycle.

Still 3 metres.

Song Xin asked Ting Shuang, who hadn’t moved, as he packed his things: “Aren’t you leaving?”

Ting Shuang stared at his phone screen and said, “Mm, you go on ahead.”

The surrounding classmates left the classroom one after another, and there were fewer and fewer people left. The 3 metres remained unchanged.

There were only five people left in the classroom.

There was a white student still copying notes from the board at the back of the classroom, and there were three students asking questions on the podium, all of whom were white.

And then there was Ting Shuang who was still in his seat.

But the current distance shown on Distance was still 3 metres!

Ting Shuang suspected a bug in the application.

He typed a message to Cycle: What’s the distance between us shown on your side? It says here 3 metres, but there isn’t a single Chinese person within a 3 metre radius of me.

No, that’s wrong.

Chinese people……

There actually was a Chinese person within a 3 metre radius.

But Ting Shuang didn’t think of him as a person, so he didn’t count him in.

Ting Shuang suddenly raised his head and looked at the podium. The students asking questions had already left. There was only one person on the podium who was tidying up his lecture script.

Ting Shuang turned back. The student copying notes from the board had also left.

There were only two people left in the classroom. Himself, and the professor on the podium.

Chinese.

Male.

36 years old.

187cm.

Wearing glasses.

Ting Shuang’s legs completely turned into jelly.

His entire body was in shock.

No way……

Ting Shuang desperately recalled two voices, Prof. Bai’s and Cycle’s. Only then did he realise that not to mention the difference between speaking to someone in person and through a cell phone, even he himself sounded different speaking Chinese and German. He had never heard Prof. Bai speak Chinese, nor had he heard Cycle speak German. The huge difference between the two languages ​​made it impossible to tell that it was the same person.

At that time, he still had a bit of hope.

Maybe the app’s positioning was wrong.

He lowered his head, watching the professor from the corner of his eyes, waited for him to step out of the classroom, and then looked at the current distance shown on Distance—

12 meters.

Fuck.

He was pretty much dead.

Was he really flirting with Prof. Bai???

Fuck, what had he said…

“Dear, good night.”

“Oh yeah, you left your tie at my house last night.”

“Do you often leave your tie at someone else’s house?”

Fuck.

No, Ting Shuang suddenly realised that that was not the important point…

Flirting was not the focus.

He seemed to have said something even more terrible…

No morals…

Super narrow-minded…

Now that I’m thinking about how I have to see him tomorrow, I feel like I’m going to get nightmares tonight….

No, those didn’t seem to be the scariest things he said.

The scariest thing was said the night before he looked for the professor to plead to him in person…

Say, what professor would be this perverted… If it wasn’t a required course for us who want to go into this profession, I reckon not a single person would be willing to take his course… That stupid ass professor’s so annoying, and the failure rate of his course is super high. Who would want to take it…

Oh, I wasn’t sick. I just drank too much, so I overslept yesterday…

Ting Shuang’s vision went dark.