| BYSG | Officially Start Chasing | 54
This was the first time Cheng Mofei had heard someone talking in their sleep, and he couldn't help but feel a sense of curiosity. He stayed by the bedside for quite a while, wanting to hear if Shen Yu would say anything else.
A few seconds later, Shen Yu moved in the quilt and shifted a bit toward the center of the bed.
“Xiao Chengzi.”
Again, it was those three words.
But this time, it sounded even more distinct.
As a fervent fan of oranges, Cheng Mofei was quite sensitive to anything related to the word "orange."
It wasn't just any orange, or sugar oranges, or eating oranges, or little orange cats; it was "little orange."
It sounded like a nickname.
Cheng Mofei had never heard Shen Yu mention it before.
Was it the name of a pet or a person?
He waited a little longer, and when he saw that Shen Yu wasn’t going to continue talking in his sleep, Cheng Mofei quietly made his way to the bathroom.
After using the toilet and returning to the bed, he found that Shen Yu had taken up quite a bit of space on his side. Afraid of waking him up, Cheng Mofei could only curl up pathetically at the edge of the bed.
His rationality urged him to keep some distance from Shen Yu, not wanting to take advantage of him. However, being a big guy from the north, it was really uncomfortable to sleep in such a small space.
To help himself fall asleep quickly and not disrupt their plans for the next day, Cheng Mofei decided to just to inch over a little bit, just a tiny bit.
In the darkness, he shifted a little, then a little more, until he finally pressed against the sleeping figure next to him and hastily stopped.
The person beside him suddenly spoke again, right by his ear, still in a dream: “Xiao Chengzi…”
Cheng Mofei’s sleepiness completely vanished. Lying flat on the bed, he was restless, dying to shake Shen Yu awake and figure out what this “little orange” was all about.
If it were “little orange,” “little peach,” or “little plum,” it would be one thing, but it was his absolute favorite, orange.
But he could only secretly think about such mischievous things in his head.
...
The next morning, when Shen Yu woke up, Cheng Mofei was still asleep.
Shen Yu carefully separated himself from Cheng Mofei's embrace and went to the bathroom to freshen up.
The hotel fee from last night included breakfast, so after washing up, Shen Yu took a room key and headed down to the restaurant on the first floor to grab some breakfast.
The breakfast wasn’t extravagant, but it was enough to fill his stomach.
When he returned, Cheng Mofei was still not awake. Shen Yu didn’t call him, choosing instead to eat breakfast while glancing at his phone.
Han Xuan had already replied to his message from earlier that morning: [I went to bed early last night and didn’t see the message. Let’s hang out next time.]
Shen Yu smiled faintly and responded with a cute hamster “OK” emoji.
About halfway through his breakfast, Cheng Mofei finally stirred awake.
The little incident from last night had caused him to lose about half an hour of sleep, but after that, Shen Yu didn’t say anything else in his sleep, and gradually, Cheng Mofei drifted off again.
Without Shen Yu, his human-shaped pillow, Cheng Mofei groggily hugged half of the blanket as he woke up, his face almost buried in it.
His nose caught the enticing smell of breakfast, and his stomach woke up before his brain did.
Cheng Mofei propped himself up on the bed and rubbed his eyes, looking toward Shen Yu, who was sitting on a small sofa nearby. His voice was a bit hoarse as he said, “Morning.”
Shen Yu responded with a quick “mm” and urged, “Get up and wash up. Come eat breakfast.”
Cheng Mofei obediently did as told, shuffling to the bathroom in the hotel slippers.
After freshening up, he finally felt more awake. Cheng Mofei squeezed onto the small sofa where Shen Yu was sitting, picked up a half piece of corn, and eagerly asked, “What’s this ‘Xiao Chengzi’ about?”
Shen Yu paused in his action of eating the corn, a flash of panic crossing his eyes. He blinked rapidly a few times before replying with a question of his own, “Why do you suddenly ask that? Last night…”
“Little orange” was naturally the nickname he had given Cheng Mofei in his past life, because Cheng Mofei loved eating oranges.
The only explanation he could come up with was that Cheng Mofei had secretly looked through his phone last night, since he had only written that nickname in his journal.
However, he also thought that someone like Cheng Mofei wouldn’t do something like that.
It couldn’t be an unsolvable mystery.
Cheng Mofei replied, “You were talking in your sleep last night, saying ‘Xiao Chengzi’ over and over.”
Shen Yu’s heart, which had been racing, relaxed a little.
At least it wasn’t because Cheng Mofei had looked through his phone.
But… why was he sleepwalking and talking in his sleep after they had reunited?
That had never happened before.
Shen Yu asked, “Did you hear anything else besides ‘Xiao Chengzi’?”
Cheng Mofei shook his head. “No, that was it.”
Shen Yu thought to himself that was good; he didn’t want to say anything that might scare Cheng Mofei off and jeopardize his plan to pursue him.
So he casually made up, “It was the little orange cat I used to have.”
Cheng Mofei was skeptical. “You used to have a cat? I’ve never heard you mention it.”
Shen Yu vaguely replied, “Well, it wasn’t really mine. You know my situation back then…”
He purposely left it open-ended, and Cheng Mofei naturally filled in the blanks, imagining that he had fed a stray little orange cat rather than having adopted one.
But it still felt strange.
Everything felt strange.
“Did something happen to it? Why did you suddenly talk in your sleep calling its name? How’s it doing now?”
If it appeared in his dream talk, it must have had some significance.
Listening to Cheng Mofei’s string of curious questions, Shen Yu worried that the more he lied, the harder it would be to keep his story straight.
So he decided to turn it back on him and said, “What do you mean? It’s probably just because you eat oranges every day. The phone case you gave me also has an orange cat holding an orange. I guess I’ve been influenced by you; I’ve been wanting to pet a cat lately.”
Cheng Mofei let out a reluctant “oh,” successfully distracted, and said, “If you want to pet a cat, we can find some time to go to a cat café.”
Shen Yu nodded and urged, “Hurry up and eat. After we finish, we’ll check out and head back to school.”
“Okay.”
Tan Feng had also replied to Cheng Mofei’s message that morning, similar to Han Xuan’s response, saying he had fallen asleep last night and hadn’t seen the messages.
Cheng Mofei still had no suspicions.
After all, he was only in his second year and hadn’t been in a relationship before. His social circle was clean, and he didn’t have any concept of couples staying in hotels together.
He just thought it was the same as how he and Shen Yu had spent the night outside of school.
While eating breakfast, Cheng Mofei asked, “Have you checked out yet?”
After a while, Tan Feng replied, “Not yet, but I’m heading back to school first. Xiao Xuan is being lazy; you guys can check out without worrying about him.”
Cheng Mofei replied, “Okay.”
Shen Yu watched their conversation unfold, feeling like he understood everything clearly. He quietly sipped his soybean milk.
...
After checking out, the two of them headed straight back to school.
In the afternoon, after the final events of the sports meeting, it came to a successful conclusion, with the closing ceremony lasting until nightfall.
Cheng Mofei received several awards, which meant he would get a few hundred yuan in prize money. That evening, the class monitor delivered the cash that the school had allocated to him.
With mobile payment becoming more and more common, Cheng Mofei hadn’t used cash in China for quite a while.
As soon as he received the money, he started thinking of ways to spend it quickly, worried that if he kept it, he might lose it.
Noticing this, Shen Yu took the cash from Cheng Mofei’s hands and transferred the same amount to his WeChat account, saying, “I want to buy some things to take to my mom’s house on Sunday, so it’s perfect to use this cash.”
Although he said that, Shen Yu actually didn’t spend those bills. Instead, he put them in an envelope and locked it in a drawer, keeping it together with the money his mother had given him before.
On the envelope, he secretly wrote “from Xiao Chengzi” in small letters.
...
After the sports meeting, Shen Yu worked his part-time job all day on Saturday as usual, while Cheng Mofei finally received a call from the phone shop saying his phone was ready for pickup.
He couldn’t wait to go and get it back.
After using his old phone for a while, Cheng Mofei found it a bit hard to adjust back to his original phone.
However, he was finally able to put on his favorite large orange phone case.
When he returned back that evening, Shen Yu had bought a fruit basket to take to his mom's house the next day.
On the subway ride home, he chatted casually with his mom.
She asked if there was anything else he liked to eat that she could pick up in the morning.
Shen Yu smiled helplessly and said he really didn’t have anything in mind.
His mom had already asked him many times, not only about his own preferences but also about what Cheng Mofei liked, and he had shared all of that information with her long ago.
It seemed like Shen Xunyan also realized she had been a bit repetitive, so she didn’t continue on that topic and instead asked with curiosity, [How are things going with that person? What progress have you made?]
Since Shen Yu had shared a few details about his romantic life with her, Shen Xunyan no longer approached the topic with the initial caution she had shown.
She knew Shen Yu was happy to share with her and didn’t mind letting her in on what was going on.
Shen Yu instinctively replied, [It's going well.]
Then he felt it sounded too vague, so after thinking for a moment, he added, [I feel like in a little while, I'll be ready to officially start pursuing him.]
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