Bone-Attached Disaster - Chapter 9:

Chapter 9: Picky Eater

That evening, in the dorm, Lu Jie, surprisingly, didn’t do any homework. He lay flat on his bed, too lazy to move even a single finger.

In the bottom bunk, Jiang Yan was still playing games on his phone. Although Jiang Yan was wearing headphones and Lu Jie couldn’t hear any battle sounds, the tapping on the screen was still a distracting tap-tap-tap that gave him a headache.

Lu Jie lay down, raised his arm, and dramatically pulled open the bed curtain with a “whoosh.” He hadn’t even spoken, but a look of resentment seemed to waft out of the air.

Jiang Yan was startled, his hand shaking, and he quickly told his teammates he was logging off.

“What’s wrong… in a bad mood?” Jiang Yan looked like a carefree young master. The expensive gaming console his family bought a couple of days ago was carelessly abandoned on his bed, suggesting he wouldn’t care if the dorm supervisor confiscated it.

Lu Jie: “Mhm.”

Jiang Yan pondered for a moment: “That Fu Jia’an is going to the competition tomorrow, right?”

“Mhm.” Lu Jie closed the curtain again and shut his eyes. The world became quiet. Even Jiang Yan’s voice seemed muffled, reaching his ears vaguely as if through a layer of mist.

Jiang Yan pouted and asked a sharp question: “What place do you hope he gets?”

Lu Jie opened his eyes and stared at the dorm ceiling. He answered honestly and coldly: “Last place.” It would be best if he lost and came back crying, but that’s impossible.

He had looked forward to this competition for half a year, and Fu Jia’an had been utterly indifferent about it the entire time.

“Then why did you bother teaching him so diligently? Even if you ignored him, would Teacher Mo really ignore him?” Jiang Yan said. “I thought you didn’t even care about him, seriously, Lu Jie, I actually admired how well you adjusted your mindset and how upright you are… But what’s the use of being upright, right? That kid was the one who was rude by cutting in line first. Why should you swallow this silent loss? If you had told me earlier, we could have just put laxatives in his thermos.”

“……” Lu Jie thought that whether they put laxatives in it or not, Fu Jia’an wouldn’t care much and would drink it anyway.

Where exactly did that suffocating feeling in his chest come from?

Perhaps it was because Fu Jia’an’s appearance made Lu Jie feel like a stranger to himself for the first time. His mean words were honest, but the words of praise were stuck in his throat, as if his mouth was glued shut. He was never like this before.

Lu Jie didn’t think he was exceptionally simple or kind, but at least he was straightforward. Yet, recently, toward a person who had no intention of competing with him, he felt an intense sense of conflict.

Lu Jie’s alertness and defense mechanisms told him that casually blurting out a sensitive family secret like being “adopted” could only mean Fu Jia’an was hiding more dangerous secrets. For example, was Fu Jia’an on his second life? Reborn or reincarnated like in a web novel? Or was he some kind of new-era technology human, with a chip in his brain storing all the formulas and theorems?

Many absurd ideas surfaced, but not a single thought would admit that Fu Jia’an was just a 16-year-old boy. A plain, ordinary genius.

Lu Jie blinked slowly, then suddenly murmured an irrelevant conclusion: “Jiang Yan, I don’t think I like physics that much.”

Jiang Yan froze, feeling like he was listening to a late-night ghost story.

He and Lu Jie had been inseparable since childhood. Since they started having physics class, Lu Jie had been the physics class representative. Every teacher mentioned Lu Jie when talking about physics. Physics equaled Lu Jie. That label was stuck to him, and tearing it off would tear skin too.

“Lu Jie, are you… are you kidding me?” If Lu Jie wasn’t in the top bunk, Jiang Yan would have grabbed his collar and shaken him awake: “This! This is scarier than Einstein not liking the theory of relativity, Hou Yi not wanting to shoot the sun, or King Lanling not wanting to play as a jungler anymore!”

Lu Jie felt mentally exhausted and couldn’t listen to the nonsense anymore. He stuck his hand out from behind the curtain and waved it twice, meaning he wanted some peace, then put in his earplugs.

Soon, drowsiness set in.

In his dream, he saw the first time he brought home a perfect score on a physics test to his parents when he was a child. At that time, Lu He and Dai Mengshu hadn’t divorced. Despite constant arguments, whenever Lu Jie did well on a test, they would sit together happily.

Dinner was four dishes and a soup made by Lu He. Dai Mengshu praised Lu Jie and stroked his head for doing so well. A family sitting together, having a regular meal, and these moments of laughter were always tied to Lu Jie’s report card.

In high school, many students who had been doing well started to struggle, and the top ranks changed completely. In the process of growing up, there was one obstacle after another, so many people dropped out of the race, but only Lu Jie remained the invincible academic god.

In his first year of high school, Lu Jie was selected for the Physics Olympiad class. Teacher Mo, who taught the class, was humorous and charming, the most popular among all the subject teachers. For the next two years, Lu Jie was Teacher Mo’s favorite student.

Until Fu Jia’an appeared.

Lu Jie knew he was excellent, but he was just someone who walked faster than others on the ground. He couldn’t blame the world for having birds that could fly.

And Fu Jia’an was just the first bird he had ever met.

After a flight of over ten hours, the plane finally landed and began to taxi to a stop.

Flying from one night to another, the cabin had been dark. Teacher Mo advised Fu Jia’an to sleep more. Fu Jia’an usually needed a lot of sleep, and even with the uncomfortable airplane seat, he had slept soundly almost the entire way.

Even when the plane experienced severe turbulence over New York due to the weather, Fu Jia’an showed no sign of waking up.

It felt less like he was asleep and more like he had passed out from exhaustion.

“Jia’an… Jia’an?”

In the now-stationary cabin, Teacher Mo gently patted Fu Jia’an awake.

“Are we there?” Fu Jia’an sat up, the English-Chinese dictionary he was holding nearly slipping from his grasp. He must have fallen asleep while trying to review some physics-related vocabulary before takeoff.

Fu Jia’an was compliant and mild-mannered, but his voice was cool, like the water droplets sliding down the misty window outside. Even from Teacher Mo’s adult perspective, Fu Jia’an didn’t seem like a typical 16-year-old high school student. He was too calm, lacking any vibrancy or color, his emotions overly stable, and enveloped in a sense of being fragile, ready to break at a touch.

Thinking this, Teacher Mo couldn’t help but frown, his mind filled with the complex and convoluted stories he had heard about Fu Jia’an’s background and his illness. He looked at Fu Jia’an with a hint of heartache: “Jia’an, after we land, we have to take a car to a hotel near the university where the competition is held to check in. There’s practically no time to rest before the competition begins. Can you handle it?”

Fu Jia’an was familiar with this kind of cautious, almost porcelain-doll-like inquiry. He smiled, and the faint purple twilight on his face finally gave him a bit more color than before: “It’s alright. I slept enough on the way.”

After the long journey, the time to check into the hotel was tight.

Teacher Mo watched Fu Jia’an’s retreating back with worry, afraid that the frail child would collapse the moment he left his sight. Perhaps when Heaven gives one person something extra, it takes something away?

Did Fu Jia’an absolutely have to attend this competition? The school wasn’t that invested. A world-class physics prize brought back by a high school student felt like overkill for a key high school in a second-tier city. In the principal’s words, “It’s acceptable, but unnecessary.” That’s why the school only hastily arranged two cheap and rushed round-trip flights, implying that participation was more important than winning.

But truly.

How many ordinary people’s gazes had Fu Jia’an endured over his sixteen years? Adoring, jealous, oppressive, malicious, sympathetic, pitying. Not just peers, but even adults couldn’t resist manipulating him for their own selfish desires, coaxing him across the ocean for this ordeal. It was a sin.

Mo Xuan stood at the hotel room door, showing a rare awkwardness in front of a student: “Uh, Jia’an, you can rest for ten more minutes. I’ll go have a smoke outside and come back for you later.”

“Mhm,” Fu Jia’an smiled, obediently accepting the arrangement.

Ten minutes was just enough time for him to take his medicine. Fu Jia’an pulled out a box with pre-sorted pills from his backpack, which Shen Rufēi had arranged for him. The pills, in various sizes and colors, were a familiar, unchanging part of Fu Jia’an’s daily life.

After swallowing them with water, Fu Jia’an reached into the very bottom layer of his backpack and pulled out a small, flat plastic box. From the packaging, it was clearly black coffee, the most bitter kind.

Turning it over, a note was taped to the back of the box: “Don’t sleep, answer the questions.”

The handwriting, without needing a close inspection, was recognizable as Lu Jie’s. The handwriting matched the person; seeing those strong, forceful strokes, one could imagine the clean and sharp aura of the person.

There were three coffee sticks inside the box. When he took them out, another note fell out:

“Poisoned.”

A smile couldn’t help but surface in his heart, like seeing a small wolf cub baring its teeth to look fierce.

Coffee. Fu Jia’an felt a touch of regret. Why was it something he couldn’t drink?

Otherwise, he would have quite liked to try the poison Lu Jie gave him.

After the competition, Fu Jia’an and Teacher Mo went to the university’s cafeteria for a meal. Fu Jia’an simply sat at a table waiting while Teacher Mo returned with two plates, both piled high with food.

“I didn’t know what you like, so I took a little bit of everything. Is that okay?”

Fu Jia’an nodded.

After all, he didn’t have a favorite food; he was very, very, very picky.

An international call suddenly came through. It was Shen Rufēi. Fu Jia’an picked up the fork and the phone simultaneously.

“Did little student Fu finish the competition questions?”

Fu Jia’an poked a stalk of asparagus with his fork, his eyelashes faintly lowered: “Finished.” It was noon at Princeton, 4 AM back home. Shen Rufēi must have set an alarm just to call him.

“What are you doing?”

“Eating.”

“Are you at the university cafeteria there? Is the food to your liking?” Shen Rufēi yawned.

“It is.”

Shen Rufēi sat up: “Really? What are you eating?” Ever since he was little, Fu Jia’an had been compliant with shots, IVs, and medicine, but eating was harder than swallowing poison. That’s why he never gained any weight and always looked sickly.

Besides the medicine for his headaches, Shen Rufēi had to arrange many supplements for him to keep Fu Jia’an from getting sick every few days like he did when he was a child.

“What all is there?” Shen Rufēi thought, Does my little brother have a Western palate? Did American cafeteria food finally suit him?

Fu Jia’an emotionlessly began listing the dishes: “Roasted asparagus.”

Shen Rufēi: “But you don’t eat asparagus?”

Fu Jia’an: “Stewed chicken.”

Shen Rufēi: “But you don’t eat chicken?”

Fu Jia’an: “Stir-fried shrimp.”

Shen Rufēi: “But you don’t eat shrimp?”

Fu Jia’an: “Avocado salad.”

Shen Rufēi: “Even I don’t eat that.”

Fu Jia’an pointed to the last item: “Cream of mushroom soup.”

Shen Rufēi: “…Fu Jia’an, are you talking nonsense? You hate mushrooms the most!”

“Because I suddenly,” Fu Jia’an’s lips seemed to curl up a little, or perhaps they didn’t, “want to become a very healthy person.”

I want to live a long, full life.