Chapter 18
When Shu Baiyu returned to the dormitory, someone was already there.
Bright fluorescent light spilled through the room. Jiang Min sat at his desk and looked somewhat guilty when he saw the door open.
Shu Baiyu gave him no extra attention. He opened his suitcase and prepared to take a shower.
As though remembering something, he glanced from the corner of his eye at Jiang Min, who was secretly watching him. While taking out his clothes, Shu Baiyu slipped a small booklet that had originally been hidden beneath his pillow into a compartment of the suitcase.
Jiang Min seemed to sense that Shu Baiyu was ignoring him and turned to chat on his phone instead.
The atmosphere between them remained stiff, and neither disturbed the other.
Jiang Min’s chair had its back toward the bathroom, though he had not noticed this yet.
After Shu Baiyu went inside and the pattering sound of water began, Jiang Min grew bored and opened a contact, intending to start a video call.
Inside the bathroom, Shu Baiyu removed his clothes.
As he bent over to take off his trousers, his gaze uncontrollably fell upon his waist and abdomen. His curved back, its muscles forming a clear line, suddenly stiffened.
In the next second, he slowly placed a hand over his stomach.
The warmth of Lu Xingzhou’s palm and the words he had murmured beside Shu Baiyu’s ear seemed to return at that moment.
Shu Baiyu could not help frowning as he felt around and found the place Lu Xingzhou had pointed out before.
“The reproductive cavity… is here.”
A faintly cool presence seemed to draw close without warning.
Startled, Shu Baiyu abruptly returned to his senses and quickly jerked away the hand resting on his stomach.
He frowned deeply at his palm and silently sighed.
Refusing to let his thoughts wander further, he removed his trousers, tossed them aside, and stepped beneath the shower.
The water rushed down.
Warm mist gradually filled the small room, and amid the hazy steam, Shu Baiyu’s thoughts cleared slightly.
After taking a quick shower, he casually pulled on his pajamas, swept the wet hair hanging over his forehead backward, grabbed a towel, and opened the bathroom door.
The sink stood directly beside the bathroom entrance, and a flat mirror occupied nearly the entire wall above it.
Jiang Min’s coy voice sounded from time to time. His phone was propped on the desk while he spoke to someone on a video call.
Shu Baiyu looked at himself in the mirror.
His hair was still wet, and he had brushed all his bangs back, fully exposing his forehead. He had no intention of going into the corridor to find a hair dryer.
He also had no intention of paying attention to Jiang Min.
Standing before the sink, he bent down, splashed cold water over his face, and then turned toward his bed.
The person video-calling Jiang Min was one of his ambiguous romantic interests, a male Alpha named Yu Zhaonan.
The conversation had originally been going well. Jiang Min acted spoiled at the appropriate moments, and Yu Zhaonan once again promised to take him driving and shopping the next day.
However, while Jiang Min continued pretending to resist halfheartedly, the Alpha on the screen—who had only been casually looking at him—suddenly sat upright.
His eyes focused entirely on the space behind Jiang Min.
Jiang Min’s voice faltered, and a bad feeling immediately arose within him.
When he turned around, he saw Shu Baiyu walking out after washing.
The gloomy bangs that usually hung over Shu Baiyu’s face had all been swept back. His smooth, full forehead was completely exposed, along with his bright black eyes, which now appeared clearly on the video screen.
When Shu Baiyu casually glanced in their direction, Jiang Min abruptly shuddered and instantly slammed the phone facedown against the desk.
Shu Baiyu gave him a puzzled glance but did not pay much attention.
After drying his hair a little, he climbed onto his bed.
Only Jiang Min remained seated beneath the beds in the spacious, brightly lit dormitory.
His heart pounded violently, and he did not even dare think about the look Yu Zhaonan had given Shu Baiyu.
Ordinarily, Yu Zhaonan always acted careless and disinterested toward Jiang Min.
Yet just now, he had clearly looked extremely intrigued!
While Jiang Min’s thoughts were tangled with anxiety, Yu Zhaonan’s impatient and displeased voice sounded from the phone again.
Jiang Min steadied his racing heart and silently told himself that perhaps he had merely imagined it.
He forced a smile and picked up the phone.
On the screen, Yu Zhaonan wore an unhappy expression and demanded to know why Jiang Min had suddenly covered the camera.
Jiang Min smiled and brushed the question aside.
Afterward, their conversation continued as usual.
He gradually relaxed.
Just as he prepared to coax Yu Zhaonan into taking him to an upcoming gathering, the man on the other end suddenly asked:
“You have a roommate? Why haven’t you mentioned him before?”
Jiang Min’s smile stiffened into something neither quite genuine nor false.
“He… His personality is a little strange. He doesn’t like me talking about him…”
“I see.”
Yu Zhaonan’s eyes swept across every visible part of the video frame.
When he failed to see the Omega from earlier, disappointment appeared on his face. He looked back at Jiang Min.
“You’re roommates, so it wouldn’t hurt to get along better. Our schools are holding a mixer next week. Bring him along.”
Jiang Min could no longer maintain his expression.
He called out unhappily, “Brother Nan,” preparing to throw a tantrum.
This time, however, Yu Zhaonan did not give in merely because Jiang Min acted spoiled.
Instead, his gaze suddenly sharpened.
“What? You aren’t even willing to do this one thing?”
Faced with his displeased tone, Jiang Min had no choice but to swallow his refusal.
He nodded in agreement.
“I understand…”
Only then did Yu Zhaonan smile, his voice becoming gentle again.
“Minmin is so obedient. I’ll take you to the next gathering.”
Jiang Min answered with a false smile.
When the video call finally ended, the dormitory became so silent that he could hear only his own increasingly heavy heartbeat.
Jiang Min’s face instantly darkened, becoming exceptionally ugly.
Yu Zhaonan had seen Shu Baiyu only once—just one glance—and his interest had immediately shifted.
Jiang Min had spent so long reeling Yu Zhaonan in, but Shu Baiyu had nearly destroyed all his efforts merely by appearing once.
Resentment surged endlessly within him as he stared as though he wanted to burn a hole through the curtains surrounding Shu Baiyu’s bed.
However, when his gaze shifted and landed on Shu Baiyu’s personal belongings, something flickered in his eyes.
His fingers unconsciously tightened around his phone.
That night, several more photographs and lines of text were uploaded beneath the online post.
Anonymous: This person is nothing but a slut. Not only does he let people keep him, but he also knowingly becomes the other man and seduces people’s boyfriends. All the girls at our university should be careful, or he might steal your boyfriend before you even notice.
One attached image appeared to have been taken inside a dormitory. Half of a dark-blue bed curtain was visible in the corner.
The other photograph had been taken from the exact angle of the dormitory doorway, with the room number displayed above the frame.
The censoring on both pictures might as well not have existed.
That night, the rumors spread throughout the university at astonishing speed.
When Jiang Min saw that the post had accumulated thousands of comments and views, belated guilt and panic finally arose within him.
He glanced toward Shu Baiyu’s silent bed, quickly deleted the original post, and set his phone down as though nothing had happened.
However, the rumors spread much faster and farther than he had anticipated.
Shu Baiyu had not yet fallen asleep that night when his private messages suddenly overflowed.
At first, his phone chimed repeatedly without stopping.
After silencing it, he opened the unfamiliar messages and discovered that they all contained baseless insults directed at him.
He frowned.
After clearing the messages, he saw an equally large number of friend requests. Only after changing his settings so that no one could search for him did the phone finally become quiet.
Once he finished dealing with those things, he had time to consider who had so much leisure that they would spread rumors about him online.
He could not find the original post. It had already been deleted.
However, judging from the reposts made by others, this was clearly an intensified version of a plot originally belonging to the protagonist Alpha and Omega.
In the original novel, the protagonists had been involved in sweet romantic rumors.
When it came to Shu Baiyu, however, they became vicious and exaggerated accusations.
He refused to believe that no one was deliberately exploiting the rumors to smear him.
The first people who came to mind were Tang Yan and Jiang Min, whom he had encountered near the residential compound, along with Tang Yan’s threat before Shu Baiyu left.
However, none of this was certain yet.
He was merely a cannon-fodder supporting character, and there were probably many people who disliked him.
The most important issue was that these rumors had not only slandered him, but also dragged the protagonist Alpha, Qi Yan, into the matter.
The thought that Tao Xi had barely returned and transferred to the university before Qi Yan became entangled in this indecent scandal with a cannon-fodder character—and was even suspected of being cheated on—made Shu Baiyu’s temples throb.
He did not want to create additional misunderstandings between Tao Xi and Qi Yan.
Remembering how Tao Xi had defended him that day, as well as the nonstop questions arriving from his contacts, Shu Baiyu could only take emergency action and post a message on his social feed to distance Qi Yan from the matter.
Shu Baiyu: It’s false. It has nothing to do with anyone else.
After posting it, he once again blocked the messages that immediately came flooding in.
He set his phone down and lay back.
For now, this was the only response he gave.
He did not care whether anyone believed him and said nothing further. After all, he currently had no evidence.
When he woke the next morning, he washed as usual, bought some breakfast at the cafeteria, and went to the academic building for class.
Just like the previous day, wherever he went, the rumors surrounding him grew louder, and the whispered discussions nearby increased.
Especially while he waited in line to buy breakfast, people subtly avoided standing near him.
Shu Baiyu behaved as though he could not hear any of it.
He continued doing whatever he needed to do and ignored everyone completely.
He maintained this cold treatment of the situation until he returned to the dormitory after class.
Before obtaining decisive evidence, he had no intention of offering an unsupported denial.
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