What Should I Do When My Roommate Keeps Stopping Breathing?

Follow the column for the historical danmei novel The Young Master Yun Wants to Write Something Steamy. Please add it to your collection! [Frailer-than-frail, always-dying, introverted, secretly flirtatious gong x outgoing, cheerful, airheaded athlete shou] Ren Qingyuan has just started college. He has always thought himself pretty lucky. The most obvious example is that, since their class has an odd number of boys, he was "unfortunately" left without a roommate and paired with the newly crowned campus heartthrob next door, who had also been left on his own. They got a double room. The moment Ren Qingyuan wheeled his suitcase into the dorm, he felt like the next four years were going to be wonderful. A private bathroom, an open balcony, a water dispenser, air conditioning, and underfloor heating... It turned out the room had been specially approved by the school and the parents because his roommate had been frail and sickly since childhood! Ren Qingyuan: What a great dad! As an athlete, Ren Qingyuan is tall and healthy. His teacher entrusts him with an important task: "Take good care of your roommate." "Don't worry, I’ve got it covered!" Ren Qingyuan thinks that since he has benefited so much from the arrangement, it is only right to take extra good care of his roommate. Besides, sharing a room with a handsome guy even taller than him is a win. That night, after showering, he gets ready to tell his roommate to go wash up. Even though the dorm is well equipped, the hot water still shuts off at a set time. His first call gets no response. Neither does his second. Ren Qingyuan looks over at the bed opposite. His roommate, devastatingly handsome, is lying on his side facing the wall, face deathly pale and chest motionless. Ren Qingyuan’s heart pounds as he cautiously checks for a breath. "Teacher! My roommate’s dead!" He bolts out the door. But when Ren Qingyuan returns with the teacher and the principal, looking full of regret, his roommate cheerfully gets out of bed. "What is it, Teacher? I just woke up and was about to shower." Ren Qingyuan sucks in a sharp breath. He stares blankly. Dude, weren't you dead? This time, he figures he just overreacted. Maybe his roommate’s breathing is shallow and he’s just thin. Ren Qingyuan lets out a sigh of relief. He thought he was going to lose his dorm room. "Good thing you’re okay." But in just one month after the semester starts, his roommate dies six times?! After sitting from dusk until dawn and holding his roommate’s hand as it goes from cold to warm, Ren Qingyuan starts thinking maybe he’s the one with a problem. He heads straight to the hospital on the weekend. "Doctor, is it possible I have delusions? Like, a mental illness?" Pei Anning decides he can’t keep lying to his roommate forever, so he tells him the truth. "My birth chart is weak. A fortune-teller said I’m very likely to be dragged off by underworld messengers. So he gave me these talismans. When the red string vibrates and I sense one of them nearby, I crush a talisman and swallow it. That temporarily seals my soul." Ren Qingyuan’s mouth falls open. "Then the underworld messengers can’t find you?" "That’s right." After nineteen years as a materialist, he has no choice but to embrace idealism this year. Ren Qingyuan decides it must be true, or else he really is sick. Once they clear up the misunderstanding, the deaths become much less frequent. Ren Qingyuan volunteers to be Pei Anning’s bodyguard. "Damn, don’t worry. When you die, I’ll carry your body back to the dorm." "...Thanks." His words become a prophecy. Ren Qingyuan ends up carrying his roommate’s body all over the place: the sports field, the cafeteria, the woods, a hotel, even the morgue... "Damn! Your dark eyeshadow and red lips actually look pretty good!" Pei Anning: "...Thanks." [Frailer-than-frail, always-dying, introverted, secretly flirtatious gong x outgoing, cheerful, airheaded athlete shou] [Blurb captured on March 17, 2025] Coming soon: The Young Master Yun Wants to Write Something Steamy "I heard the eldest young master of the Yun family has recovered from his delusions?" "Oh! That’s wonderful news! Young Master Yun made a name for himself when he was a child. Now that he’s recovered, surely Master Yun will throw a grand banquet?" "Of course!" Everyone in the capital assumes that, now that Young Master Yun has recovered, he must be a brilliant and refined scholar. But looking at him... Why is he still acting like that? Yun Zhaozhi crouches in a side room, giggling nonstop. He peeks through a crack in the window while his pen keeps moving. "Hehehe! Hehehehehe..." - Before graduating, Yun Zhaozhi switched careers and became a novelist. His number of fans soared over the next three years, racing toward a million. By the time he graduated, Yun Zhaozhi had become a moderately well-known author. But he never expected to die on his way to the bank to withdraw money. When Yun Zhaozhi wakes up again, he has become the eldest son of the prime minister in an unknown dynasty. The young master's mother died early. His father took a third wife, who bore him a son and a daughter. The four of them lived together in cheerful harmony, and didn't even notice when ten-year-old Yun Zhaozhi fell into the water. The eldest young master became an idiot, afflicted with delusions. Yun Zhaozhi lies in bed, barely clinging to life. This is a disastrous start. What good is being the eldest young master when people mock him at every gathering? Yun Zhaozhi refuses to accept it. At midnight, he crouches in a corner and secretly plots. He has to go back to his old trade. "Hehehehehe..." This fictional dynasty has no censorship, so he can write whatever he wants. Especially about the people who bullied him. Yun Zhaozhi grins slyly. "Liangzai! Bring your young master a pen!" "I’m going to write something steamy!" A month later, the capital is in an uproar. "I heard the second young master of the Yun family is having an affair with the third young master of the Chen family! In the backyard of the Chen family’s eldest son, no less!" "What? How could that be? The second young master of the Yun family and the eldest young master of the Chen family are the ones who are a couple!" "A young master with another young master? Absurd! The eldest young master of the Chen family was engaged to Second Miss Li ages ago. How could that be true?" "It seems like... it really is true!" At another flower-viewing banquet, Yun Zhaozhi calmly sips his tea, keeping his identity hidden and his hands clean. The main characters of this banquet will have to be someone else. Let’s see, where’s his second brother? On the second-floor balcony, a pair of eyes gleam with grim intensity. "Bring Yun Zhaozhi to me." "Yes!" Yun Zhaozhi pouts. What kind of person orders him around like that? He’ll go if he wants to! A cold gleam flashes... Fine, fine! You’ve got a knife, so you win! Cowardly, Yun Zhaozhi appears before Shen Tu Si. "Greetings, Your Highness the Prince Regent." Taking advantage of the moment when no one is looking, Yun Zhaozhi sneaks a glance up. After just one second, his eyes light up. This guy is gorgeous! With those deep-set brows and sharp eyes, he’d absolutely be the gong in a novel. Yun Zhaozhi secretly thinks that if the man doesn’t give him a hard time, he’ll let him off. If he acts like a jerk... He’ll write him as the shou! "I hear the eldest young master is a brilliant scholar, able to read at one and write poems at three. Why not become one of my advisers? It would be a shame to waste your talents at such a fine age." Go to hell! Yun Zhaozhi smiles brightly. "Sure!" Behind his back, he immediately writes a book about Shen Tu Si and his shadow guard, Han Ming. "Han Ming's warm breath brushed Shen Tu Si’s face. His gaze was lovestruck, and his hands kept moving..." Yun Zhaozhi laughs as he writes. This book will fetch a good price too! One night, Yun Zhaozhi is writing furiously, ideas pouring out of him, his face blooming with a grin. "Ah! Yes, yes! That’s the pose, " Bang! The door flies open. Shen Tu Si, his face dark with anger, holds a stack of storybooks. "Young Master Yun, explain to me what 'a gloomy, wicked prince obsessed with his shadow guard in tight-fitting clothes' means." Yun Zhaozhi trembles like a sieve. He falls to his knees and apologizes in every way he can, almost lying on the floor to massage Shen Tu Si’s legs. "You were wrong?" "I was wrong!" "Then from now on, you’ll do everything I say?" "Yes! Anything you say!" Yun Zhaozhi nervously sees Shen Tu Si out, then turns around and hides the remaining books. He has to finish them later. He’s already written them, so he can’t leave them unfinished. But he won’t sell them yet. He needs to keep a low profile. The next day, though, he’s detained at the prince’s residence. Yun Zhaozhi has to help Shen Tu Si with his work if he wants decent meals. "How can we greatly weaken the crown prince’s influence?" That’s asking too much of Yun Zhaozhi. After seven days, seven whole days without meat, Yun Zhaozhi’s face turns green. "Damn it! Are you feeding me like a rabbit or what?" Even a rabbit will bite when cornered! "Liangzai! Bring me a pen!" The guard in tight-fitting clothes on the wall nearly falls off. He’s... still writing? Yun Zhaozhi writes furiously for three days and nights. When he can’t go on, he simply calls over Han Ming, the shadow guard in tight-fitting clothes, to write for him. "It is said that the crown prince and Mr. Shen of the Duke’s residence fell in love at first sight..." Within three days, news comes that the crown prince has been confined to the Eastern Palace. With a chicken leg in his left hand and a braised pork knuckle in his right, Yun Zhaozhi asks, "Ming, where’s your prince?" Han Ming holds a broom and guiltily turns his head away. "My lord is busy finding a tutor for you..." Yun Zhaozhi nearly drops the pork knuckle. He frowns. "Huh?!" "The prince said you use foul language every day and it’s... unbecoming..." Damn it! Isn’t this crossing the river and demolishing the bridge? But Yun Zhaozhi can’t escape, so with tears in his eyes, he endures two months of one-on-one tutoring. Later, he hears the crown prince has been released. Although half his military power has been taken away, he is still a force to be reckoned with. The crown prince swears a solemn oath before the emperor that he will find the person who wrote those storybooks, no matter what! Yun Zhaozhi is terrified. The crown prince’s people trace the books back to him the very next day. Yun Zhaozhi is in the courtyard practicing calligraphy and poetry with his tutor when a cold-faced attendant of the crown prince barges in. He shouts, "You! This is improper! Improper!" Shen Tu Si, who follows the crown prince in from behind, freezes mid-step. One tutor really isn’t enough... "Your Highness the Prince Regent, when those stories about the second young master of the Yun family and the third young master of the Chen family were circulating, the eldest young master of the Yun family didn’t seem to be staying at your residence. And lately, the stories have stopped, while the eldest young master just happens to be here learning to read and write?" Yun Zhaozhi goes rigid. It’s over, it’s over, it’s over, it’s over, it’s over... "Han Ming." "Here!" After the time it takes to drink half a cup of tea, Han Ming brings out twenty storybooks from the room. "There... there were some during this time too, but I confiscated them before they could get out..." The crown prince arrives late and steps forward with a stern face. "Let me see! This... 'a gloomy, wicked prince obsessed with his shadow guard in tight-fitting clothes'?" Yun Zhaozhi’s heart sinks. It’s over. But afterward, he lives peacefully at the prince’s residence for another half a year. Aside from having one-on-one lessons every day, life is pretty sweet. One evening, Shen Tu Si returns from outside. Yun Zhaozhi stares at the rabbit meat he’s been longing for. "That’s from the shop on South Street!" "Mm." Once they’re full, Shen Tu Si announces that he’s going to test Yun Zhaozhi on what he’s learned lately. Yun Zhaozhi answers confidently, "Bring it on!" "The topic is: The Prince Regent and his noble adviser." Yun Zhaozhi narrows his eyes... With Shen Tu Si watching him write, he can’t make the story progress too fast, but too slowly won’t do either. At the end of the storybook, he writes, "...and they lived happily ever after?" Yun Zhaozhi thinks this is far too tame. Shen Tu Si is basically a one-man censor board! "Mm. I’m quite satisfied." "All right, time for bed!" Why isn’t Shen Tu Si leaving? Huh? Why is he going to his own bed? Theme: Help one another and face life with optimism