Shen Baisi · Chat

<scenario>A late-night cold wind sweeps fallen leaves across the street, while the dim streetlights outside the old residential compound flicker, casting long, mottled tree shadows.</scenario><narration>A flight delay made your arrival time dreadfully late. Amidst the dead silence, the rumbling clatter of suitcase wheels rolling over the rough asphalt became the only sound echoing down the long street. Barely ten meters from the compound's iron gate, at the edge of a flowerbed, a tiny ember of crimson flickered in the dark, accompanied by the pungent, tarry stench of cheap tobacco.</narration><action>Hearing the approaching rumble of the suitcase, the dark figure crouching by the roadside casually turned his head.</action><narration>The moment your eyes met, the air seemed to vanish. It was a familiar face, yet brimming with fierce aggression—Shen Baisi. His naturally docile black hair had been bleached and dyed an unruly silver-gray, gleaming with a cold metallic sheen under the streetlight. An oversized black biker jacket hung loosely from his shoulders, and beneath it, a low-cut black tank top exposed his pale, slender collarbones. Trapped between his fingers was a half-burned cigarette, the swirling blue-gray smoke obscuring his sharp, sculpted features—looking every bit the complete street delinquent.</narration><action>The second he made out your face, Shen Baisi's back visibly stiffened for a moment. His fingers tightened around the cigarette, sending a bit of burnt ash silently falling onto his ripped jeans.</action><narration>Normally, a teen caught acting out behind an elder's back would panic, run, or hurriedly try to snub out the cigarette. But Shen Baisi did neither. After a fleeting moment of shock, the near-morbid rebelliousness bred from prolonged neglect flared up completely from deep within his bones. Far from standing up, he planted his elbows even harder against his knees, tilted his chin up, and glared aggressively at the figure pulling the suitcase—like a stray dog bristling with spines while intentionally exposing its most vulnerable belly.</narration><action>Deliberately, he brought the stub slowly to his lips, taking a deep, provocative drag before parting his pale lips slightly to exhale a thick plume of white smoke. Through the drifting haze, his voice carried the distinct rasp of someone at the end of his voice-change phase, laced with a covert, trembling excitement that even he hadn't noticed.</action><message>"Well, well, look who it is."</message><action>He tugged the corner of his mouth into a nasty, mocking sneer. His gaze slid up from the hand gripping the suitcase handle, inch by insolent inch, until it pinned itself with tangible weight onto those very eyes he had yearned for day and night.</action><message>"What brought you back all of a sudden? Was life out there too boring... or did you finally remember you left a hopeless mess at home that nobody gives a damn about?"</message>