So, Liu Nian carefully proceeded to experiment on Du Qiyan, while Qing Ye took advantage of the time at the counter to solve practice problems. She even took a shower during this time, and when she returned from the bathroom, she checked the time – it was getting late.

Qing Ye noticed that Liu Nian was quite meticulous in his work, repeatedly adjusting the angle of each roller, and thinking as he worked. This tinkering went on for two hours. After the final application of the solution was complete, Liu Nian soon began removing the rollers. Qing Ye put down her pen to watch, and all three of them were incredibly excited, like mad scientists observing lab mice.

When Liu Nian removed all the rollers, the slight wavy curves immediately caught Qing Ye’s attention – it seemed to have a hint of wool curl to it. She immediately patted Liu Nian’s shoulder: “Not bad at all! Who knew you were a perm genius, figuring it out all by yourself through experimentation.”

Liu Nian felt quite embarrassed by Qing Ye’s praise and shyly said, “My Third Aunt used to say I was a genius too.”

“…”

Liu Nian rinsed the solution from Du Qiyan’s hair and then began drying it with a hairdryer. However, Qing Ye, watching from the side, became increasingly concerned. While the hair looked somewhat decent when wet, as it dried, it began to look more and more like fermented flour. When it was completely dry, all three of them stared at Du Qiyan’s reflection in bewilderment.

If Du Qiyan’s original firework perm was twice the size of her face, this explosion of hair was at least four times the size. From a distance, it looked like the mushroom cloud of an atomic bomb explosion.

And this was no instant noodle hair – it was the kind of spiral perm that old grannies used to get.

Liu Nian said very awkwardly, “Qing Ye, did I perm it wrong?”

What could Qing Ye say? Could she deny his Third Aunt’s words? Deliver such a heavy blow to his young heart? Of course not. She could only pat his shoulder and keep encouraging him: “Hmm… I think it’s quite good. At least it looks similar when wet, right? And besides, it makes the face look smaller, hehe…”

But Liu Nian, as if possessed, muttered to himself: “I should have done a cold perm. If I hadn’t used heat, the curl wouldn’t be like this.”

Du Qiyan tugged at her hair and turned to discuss with him: “The rollers were too small. We need ones a size larger.”

“The shop doesn’t have any.”

“How about tomorrow we tell Manager Li and one of us can go to the county town to buy some?”

They then thoroughly discussed everything from tools to solutions. Qing Ye didn’t understand the more technical aspects, but she suggested: “There’s a big difference between wool curls and granny curls – the volume and the messy feel. I think maybe the technique needs adjustment. If you use the traditional method, you’ll naturally get a traditional hairstyle.”

The three of them discussed further and listed out some necessary items they might need to add. They then gathered around Qing Ye’s computer to research Taobao, and Qing Ye directly ordered some items they were certain about.

Qing Ye checked the time again – it was past eleven. Xing Wu often didn’t return at this hour, but tonight, Qing Ye felt particularly uneasy. Thinking about Xing Wu sitting in shorts at Shu Han’s place made her increasingly uncomfortable.

While Liu Nian and Du Qiyan were still discussing, Qing Ye sent Xing Wu a message: I’m hungry.

After another half hour of discussion, around midnight, Liu Nian and Du Qiyan decided to head back.

As they were leaving Xuan Island, Xing Wu was just returning on his small scooter. Just as he dismounted, he suddenly looked up and saw the mushroom cloud emerging from the shop. The late night, startled Xing Wu so much that he nearly threw his fried noodles at Du Qiyan’s face.

He cursed “Shit,” but when he saw Liu Nian following behind, he held back the urge to throw the noodles and asked: “What the hell did you do?”

Liu Nian replied foolishly: “Oh, we were trying to develop a new style, so we gave Yan Yan a perm.”

“…” Thanks a lot, you’ll run Xuan Island into bankruptcy at this rate.

They said goodbye to Xing Wu and left. When Xing Wu entered the shop with the fried noodles, Qing Ye had just turned off her computer and gave him a cold glance.

Xing Wu put the fried noodles on the counter, but Qing Ye didn’t even look at them and turned to go upstairs. Xing Wu asked, puzzled: “Didn’t you say you were hungry?”

Qing Ye replied without turning back: “I don’t eat before bed.”

“Then why did you tell me you were hungry?”

Qing Ye stopped and turned to look at him, asking in return: “Then why were you out so late?”

“???” Xing Wu looked at her with confusion.

Uncertainly, he asked: “Are you… angry?”

Qing Ye immediately turned and stomped up the stairs.

Xing Wu looked at the fried noodles amusedly and shook his head in disbelief.

After taking a shower, he went upstairs where the room light was still on. Xing Wu, with a towel on his shoulder and wearing an oversized t-shirt, leaned against the doorway. Qing Ye sat at the head of the bed wearing headphones, with her knees bent and a notebook on them, writing while listening.

While drying his hair with the towel, Xing Wu said to her: “There’s a factory on Old Street whose server stopped working. Their previous technician couldn’t fix it, and I saw the pay was good, so I took the job.”

Qing Ye ignored him and continued writing in her notebook.

Xing Wu coughed and continued: “Shu Han is the middleman. She knows a lot of business owners, so she often introduces jobs to me. She takes a referral fee – we have a cooperative relationship.”

Qing Ye finished writing the last line on her paper and looked up at him.

Xing Wu’s lips curved into a smile: “Can’t you not sleep without seeing me?”

Qing Ye grabbed the pillow beside her and threw it at him: “Dream on!”

Xing Wu caught her pillow steadily, its softness carrying her fragrance. He walked to Qing Ye’s bedside to return the pillow, then pointed at his pants: “Look at these, what are they?”

“Track pants.”

Xing Wu shook his head mysteriously: “They’re extraordinarily long legs. Do you know why I don’t come back to sleep? Try putting your legs on the ground all night and see how it feels.”

Qing Ye found it oddly amusing, and then she genuinely looked up and smiled at him. Xing Wu said helplessly: “So can you please be considerate of my long legs?”

Qing Ye raised her eyes and stared at him for a few seconds, her gaze slightly narrowed with scrutiny. Xing Wu maintained a completely open attitude, so Qing Ye got up and moved her study materials to the desk. Xing Wu slowly made his way back to his bed and lay down.

Shortly after, Qing Ye turned off the lights.

Without realizing it, Qing Ye had been living at Xing Wu’s house for almost three months, from summer to autumn, from initially bristling at being around Xing Wu to now being able to peacefully spend the night in the same room.

This was Qing Ye’s first time spending the night in the same room with someone of the opposite sex. Although separated by a curtain, Qing Ye seemed to feel Xing Wu’s strong breathing – it was a very subtle feeling. Despite Qing Ye tossing and turning uncomfortably, her heart rose with an inexplicable sense of security. These two contradictory feelings successfully kept her awake.

Only after the phone light by the curtain completely darkened did she finally fall asleep.

In the following days, Xing Wu was very busy, taking on several jobs at once. He even skipped daytime classes and always returned late at night, but since Qing Ye also stayed up late, she made a habit of leaving a light on for him.

Every time Xing Wu returned on his motorcycle at night and saw the light still on in Qing Ye’s room, he would feel a subtle warmth – a feeling that Xing Wu seemed to have never experienced from anyone in his life before, so no matter how late he was busy, he would always hurry back.

But, when he returned all dirty and took a shower before returning to the room, Qing Ye was usually already asleep, and they barely exchanged a word.

The school was recently preparing for a major speech event, with banners already hung up, making it quite grand. It was said they were welcoming a group of foreigners – employees from a joint venture enterprise that the county’s development zone had just attracted. The county leaders attached great importance to this, as this broken county needed development. For the joint venture’s establishment, they had specially offered many preferential policies, including solving the schooling issues for the workers’ children. Therefore, they specially organized these foreign parents to visit local high schools.

The main visiting targets were Jinlong Middle School and An Middle School. Jinlong Middle School had already started their preparations early.

The An Middle School leadership, not wanting to be outdone by Jinlong, had been busy preparing speech materials these past few days, creating detailed reports covering everything from school history to teaching philosophy to faculty strength. They specially gathered several English department teachers to translate the Chinese speech content.

It was said that the English department teachers had nominated Miss Yu, who had the best oral English, to be the English speech presenter and the principal’s interpreter for that day.

How did Qing Ye know about this? That afternoon, Miss Yu had secretly approached Qing Ye to help review the speech translation. Miss Yu knew Qing Ye came from an international school – from her beautiful English handwriting to her English grades, there wasn’t a second person like her in the school.

Qing Ye went through the script, circled several contextually inappropriate word choices, then clearly marked the replacement phrases in the margins and explained them to Miss Yu.

Qing Ye had attended an international kindergarten since she was young, the kind with both black and white students in class, where teachers taught in both Chinese and English. So by the time she graduated from kindergarten, she could communicate effortlessly in English.

Growing up in such an environment through elementary, middle, and high school, she understood quite a bit about Western background and cultural history. Adding some elements familiar to Westerners in the speech content, and citing references, made it much more lively than a dry translation, and could also achieve certain interactive effects.

After she explained to Miss Yu, Miss Yu suddenly felt enlightened – such cultural differences couldn’t be bridged by teachers who came up through the exam-oriented education system unless they had spent extended time with foreigners.

Then Qing Ye asked Miss Yu to read it aloud for her to hear. Qing Ye tried to correct some pronunciation errors in the beginning, but when she heard Miss Yu pronounce “important” as “impotent,” Qing Ye couldn’t stay calm anymore.

“Important” means significant, while “impotent” means sexually dysfunctional, so a sentence meant to welcome important guests became welcoming impotent guests. Qing Ye broke out in a cold sweat.

After tactfully explaining to Miss Yu, the middle-aged woman also felt embarrassed. As she was leaving, Qing Ye could visibly see Miss Yu’s extreme nervousness. While grading papers and writing problems was fine for her, on-site interpretation would likely be overwhelming. Qing Ye was anxious for her – she just prayed that Miss Yu would pronounce “important” correctly on that day.