Xi Zirui sits up straighter in bed as Han Yu makes his way towards him, his long legs carrying him in easy strides across the room.
Two years have changed him a lot. He has grown much taller, broader too. His face has lost all of its softness, the last remnants of childhood now replaced with sharp, chiseled features.
He kneels down by the bedside, and Xi Zirui finds that he can't wrest his eyes away from him. Mentally filing away all the changes in him -- the visual confirmation that he really spent two years asleep.
"You're taller," he says, his voice raspy from disuse.
"Shixiong looks the same," Han Yu says, taking Xi Zirui's hand between his two larger ones.
Xi Zirui still can't wrap his mind around why Han Yu is now calling him shixiong all of a sudden.
As if noting his confusion, Su Xueyi intervenes, "Han Yu has become my disciple."
"Why?" Xi Zirui asks, wondering why Han Yu would want to do something like that.