After two rainfalls, the temperature in S Province dropped earlier than usual this year, turning cool in September. Xu Zhi left Qingyi in early September. Old Cai drove her, with her and Cai Yingying sitting in the back seat. Old Xu sat in the front passenger seat, chattering endlessly. Whenever he saw a girl on the road who prioritized style over warmth, he would turn back to remind her, “Don’t learn from them when you get there. It’s colder there than here. When winter comes, you still need to wear thermal underwear.”
Old Cai took the opportunity to remind Cai Yingying as well: “You should pay attention too. Study hard when you go back. Don’t spend all day researching makeup.”
Cai Yingying immediately became defiant, hugging Xu Zhi’s arm and saying, “It’s not like that. Isn’t this your fault? If you had made me more beautiful, I wouldn’t need to study makeup. I want to be like Xu Zhi, going out with a bare face every day and still having lots of boys chasing after me.”
“What? Lots?” Old Xu’s ears perked up. “Isn’t it just one?”
Cai Yingying leaned forward from the back seat and whispered, “Is it the one I know about?”
Old Xu turned back mysteriously and glanced at her: “I’m not telling you.”
Xu Zhi looked out the window with a speechless expression, leaving Cai Binhong confused as he drove, trying to catch bits of the gossip. “What, what’s the gossip?”
No one answered him.
When the car arrived at the airport, Cai Yingying finally realized that the separation was real. They had never been apart since childhood. At the security checkpoint, amidst the dense crowd flowing between the four of them, Cai Yingying held Xu Zhi’s hand with teary eyes and said, “I’ll get into a university in your city next year.” Xu Zhi nodded involuntarily, saying, “I’ll wait for you.”
Cai Binhong took out a red envelope from his pocket and handed it to her. Xu Zhi was cautious and asked, “This isn’t an IOU this time, right? You still haven’t cashed the amount from the red envelope for my 18th birthday.”
Cai Binhong laughed heartily, amused by her money-mindedness. “Feel it.”
Wow, it was thick. Xu Zhi looked at him in surprise, then turned to Old Xu with a somewhat confused expression. Old Xu immediately reached out to feel it. “I was wondering why this red envelope looked so strange. Using a cloth bag to wrap it, this must be nearly 20,000 yuan. No, you can’t just give such a large sum of money to a child like this.”
Old Xu was about to confiscate it without further discussion, but Cai Binhong quickly stopped him. He glanced at Xu Zhi before explaining to Old Xu: “This is what we agreed on when she was ten. I haven’t given her New Year’s money for the past few years. Didn’t you notice? It’s all been saved up with me. I’m giving it to her all at once now that she’s starting university. Your little girl is quite smart. She told me back then that New Year’s money was all a scam. She said she wanted to control her own money when she grew up.”
Xu Zhi didn’t expect Old Cai to remember. She had forgotten about what she said at ten years old. It wasn’t until she got on the shuttle bus that she realized she had forgotten to say thank you. She immediately sent Old Cai a WeChat message, sincerely praising him. Old Cai only replied with one message.
Dean Cai: College student Xu, we have just one request. When you start earning money in the future, buy your dad a pair of thermal underwear first. Boyfriends and such can wait.
Xu Zhi replied with an “OK.”
She remembered last night when she and Old Xu were drinking. The moonlight was casting a pale light on the potted plants by the window. The room was quiet and dark, with no lights on. She watched “The Snow Queen and the Dragon” with Old Xu one last time. Every time Old Xu watched it to the end when Shangguan Yan gave the resurrection pill to Ouyang Mingri, but Ouyang Mingri gave it to his father, using his last ounce of strength to save his father’s life, Old Xu would be in tears, saying, “Good son, good son.”
Yesterday was no exception. Wiping his tears, he said to Xu Zhi in his usual manner: “See? The old man is the most important.”
Xu Zhi knew what he meant. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry as she handed him a tissue. “Dad, don’t worry. I probably won’t date in university.”
Xu Guangji was somewhat taken aback. He let out a “Huh,” quickly holding back his tears. He took a sip of alcohol, slowly swinging his leg as he spoke earnestly: “You should still date though. When you enter society in the future and are constantly judged by worldly standards, you’ll realize that campus romance is the purest and most carefree. I suggest you experience it.”
After saying this, Old Xu turned to look at her meaningfully, his expression serious: “What’s wrong? Can’t you live without Chen Luzhou?”
Xu Zhi rarely wore glasses. Her prescription wasn’t high, so she could wear them or not. The silver, rounded frames sat on her pretty, straight nose, making her look strangely mature and intellectual. She leaned back on the sofa, lowering her head to study the alcohol percentage on the bottle of baijiu. She said quite sincerely: “It’s not that. I just feel it might be hard to meet someone like Chen Luzhou again. Besides, our major is quite busy.”
Xu Guangji didn’t believe it. How could it be that good? That boy just seemed to be a bit good-looking: “Nonsense. Go and see first. Maybe there are many like him in your university. The streets might be full of his type. Throw a brick, and you could hit nine Chen Luzhous out of ten.”
Xu Zhi finally put down the bottle, adjusted her glasses, and said with a smile, half-jokingly: “Alright, I’ll take your word for it.”
Xu Zhi originally thought she would be the first to arrive in their dorm room, but she found that one bed was already neatly made up. After she finished unpacking and was about to go downstairs to buy some daily necessities at the supermarket, another girl arrived. She had shoulder-length short hair, wore black-framed glasses, and had a round face. When she saw Xu Zhi, she was visibly startled and instinctively asked, “Room 507?”
Xu Zhi nodded, “Hello, I’m Xu Zhi.”
The other girl shyly and timidly replied, “Hello, hello. I’m Xu Gongzhu.”
Xu Zhi was about to go downstairs to buy daily necessities. Seeing that Xu Gongzhu had a lot of things and hadn’t unpacked yet, she didn’t ask her to come along. Instead, she asked, “I’m going downstairs to buy some things. Is there anything you need me to bring back for you?”
Xu Gongzhu said, “No, no need. I’ve brought everything,” and as she spoke, she pulled out a small rice cooker from her suitcase. Xu Zhi sighed, but since it was their first meeting, she didn’t feel it was appropriate to remind her that first-year students probably weren’t allowed to use such electrical appliances, and even hair dryers could only be used at specified times.
When she returned after buying her things, the dorm was almost full. Xu Gongzhu saw her return and immediately enthusiastically introduced her to the other two roommates. She was busy shaking out a bed sheet she had just taken from her suitcase as she pointed to one of the girls kneeling on the bed, making her bed, saying, “She’s called Liu Yisi. She’s in the same department as us.”
Liu Yisi smiled sweetly, showing her canine teeth on both sides and still shyly greeted her, “Hello.”
Xu Gongzhu looked around and said, “Senior Du might have gone to eat. We have a senior in our dorm, a second-year philosophy student. She was left without a roommate, and since there are few girls in our department, she was assigned to our room.”
Not long after, Du Qilan returned, carrying a box of yogurt. Without standing on ceremony, she directly distributed one bottle to each person, casually tossing them into the cabinet. The lock was broken. Her personality was quite cold but cool. She said casually, “Take one if you want to drink.”
The three of them said in unison, “Thank you, senior.”
For those few days, the atmosphere in the dorm was shy, with constant “thank you”s and “excuse me”s. They were extremely polite. Xu Zhi felt that Liu Yisi might have some social anxiety. Several times when they met on the stairs, probably not knowing how to greet her, Liu Yisi just brushed past her shoulder and walked away.
Xu Gongzhu noticed it too. Liu Yisi’s personality was indeed a bit more shy than the two of them. Xu Zhi felt she was slow to warm up, but occasionally quite interesting, with surprising comments.
Xu Zhi was quite busy during that period. She enrolled in an off-campus art crash course to learn drawing. She originally wanted to find a tutoring job or some part-time work to earn some pocket money, but she found that the first-year courses were too intense, and she basically couldn’t find time for part-time work. For the first month, she was shuttling between the crash course, the dorm, and the library.
Oh, once when she was buying things at the small shop, she ran into Li Ke. He was also in architecture, but majoring in civil engineering. They happened to meet as they came out after buying water. Xu Zhi didn’t avoid him and greeted him frankly. Li Ke still smiled like a neutral party, his shrewd eyes behind his glasses evenly dividing time between her and Xu Gongzhu. “What a coincidence. Do you have class this afternoon?”
Xu Zhi nodded, “Professor Wang’s class.”
The architecture department had the highest fail rate of any major, and Professor Wang had the highest fail rate of any professor in their department. Li Ke and his classmates also had his class this semester. He looked at the time and said, “Then you’d better hurry. This professor fails you if you’re late.”
Xu Zhi and Xu Gongzhu looked at each other in horror and were about to run when Li Ke suddenly called out to her, “Xu Zhi, are you coming to our class gathering this weekend?”
Xu Zhi waved her hand without looking back.
“Who’s that beautiful girl? Your classmate?” a boy next to Li Ke asked, looking at Xu Zhi’s retreating figure.
“No, a friend of my classmate. That classmate of mine is impressive,” Li Ke said.
“How can he be more impressive than you? You’re the provincial top scorer,” the person said with a laugh.
“He’s more impressive than me,” Li Ke said honestly. “Excluding the optional questions, I only got 696. It was the last year of the education reform, and the exam was harder than in previous years. In our province this year, only he scored over 700 on the core subjects alone.”
After learning that Professor Wang was strict, Xu Gongzhu would sit in front of the mirror ten minutes early to apply makeup carefully before every one of his classes. Xu Zhi thought Xu Gongzhu had taken a liking to some boy in their class, but she only saw Xu Gongzhu vigorously patting her cheeks with a powder puff, sending clouds of powder floating in the air, quite choking. She explained reasonably, “I just want to make a good impression on the professor, don’t I?”
Xu Zhi waited for her to get ready, growing increasingly impatient. Seeing her start to apply mascara, she finally couldn’t help but say, “You look like you want to date him. Princess, can you hurry up? We’re going to be late again.”
“Okay, okay,” Xu Gongzhu hurriedly pressed her lips together a couple of times, closed her powder compact, and grabbed the book on the table. “Let’s go, let’s go.”
Xu Zhi: “…You’re holding the English extensive reading book.”
Xu Gongzhu let out several “Oh”s, and while changing books, she didn’t forget to check herself in the mirror again. “Let’s go, let’s go.”
She kept saying “Let’s go, let’s go,” but her feet hadn’t moved a step. She was still adjusting her bangs in front of the mirror. Probably afraid that Xu Zhi would urge her, she kept muttering to herself, “Let’s go, let’s go.”
Senior Du, who had just returned from the bathroom, tossed a tissue on the table and leaned against the bed ladder, saying, “You two dare to cut it so close for Professor Wang’s class? When we were freshmen, if we knew it was Old Wang’s class, we’d skip lunch and go sit outside the classroom directly.”
“Does your philosophy department also use Professor Wang’s math class?”
“We didn’t have a philosophy department in our first year. We were in the Humanities and Sciences Experimental Class in our first year, and we chose our major direction in the second year, so the first-year courses were quite diverse.”
“Is Professor Wang that strict?”
“No choice, Old Wang is a man of temperament. Unless you’re brilliant enough not to need his key points for the final exam, he might not bother giving key points to those with poor attitudes.”
“Let’s go, let’s go.”
“You two better hurry. If Xu Zhi gets asked for her WeChat on the way again, you’ll be late,” Senior Du said, hitting the nail on the head.
The beginning of the school year is always more lively, especially in a science and engineering university where there are more men than women. In Senior Du’s words, “Xu Zhi, you’ve entered a wolf’s den.”
For example, during the military training days, Xu Zhi was noticed by many boys. There were even boys from other departments coming to ask about Xu Zhi, inquiring if she had a boyfriend. Even boys from Senior Du’s department were asking. One day, coming back from the library, Senior Du casually tossed a note to Xu Zhi, saying, “It’s from a senior in our department. He’s quite handsome. If you’re interested, you can add him on WeChat.”
As soon as they saw the name on the note, Xu Gongzhu became extremely excited. “Jiang Yu, isn’t he the campus heartthrob of your philosophy department?”
Senior Du chuckled and said, “What campus heartthrob? Did he crown himself? Our department is full of handsome guys, it’s hard to distinguish between them. But this guy is indeed quite romantic.”
At that time, Xu Zhi was reading “A History of Chinese Architecture,” leaning back in her chair, leisurely balancing on the back legs. She suddenly threw out a line, “How romantic? Does he swing while pooping?”
Xu Gongzhu was greatly shocked: “I didn’t expect you to be like this, Xu Zhi.”
But two minutes later.
Senior Du calmly put down her phone, obviously having asked.
“He said he can swing.”
Author’s Note: The university setting is fictional, please don’t associate it with real institutions.
This is a campus novel, family background is truly minimal.
I feel I might need to remind you, the “swinging while pooping” thing was mentioned earlier when Zhu Yangqi said Chen Luzhou was very romantic, so romantic that he would swing even while pooping.