Knowing that Zhu Yangqi hadn’t gone home for the National Day holiday either, Xu Zhi invited him out for a meal near her school. Zhu Yangqi had lost a lot of weight, and Xu Zhi barely recognized him when they first met. She sighed, having hoped to find a trace of the summer holiday feeling in him.
Unfortunately, Zhu Yangqi had gone on a diet, and sitting across from her, he looked both familiar and strange. He pretentiously rolled up his sleeves to his shoulders, showing off his taut muscle lines, and kept flexing his biceps, completely oblivious to Xu Zhi’s distracted state. “How about it? Looks pretty strong, doesn’t it? I’m not exaggerating, many people can’t achieve this level even after a year of working out. Your brother here only took two months to complete this total transformation.”
Xu Zhi sat across from him, her expression unchanged, and asked, “Can you change back?”
Zhu Yangqi was momentarily speechless. Noticing her absent-mindedness, he finally put away his biceps and casually picked up a piece of sushi, asking, “Are you missing him?”
Xu Zhi didn’t respond, absentmindedly looking at the crowded street outside, with its bustling traffic.
She wore a black cardigan that accentuated her delicate, fair skin. Underneath was a plain black camisole that revealed her smooth, pale collarbone. Zhu Yangqi didn’t dare look below her chest, but above it was an exquisite collarbone – the kind people online say could hold fish. Xu Zhi was indeed beautiful, and every time Zhu Yangqi saw her, he couldn’t help but marvel at her beauty in his heart.
Zhu Yangqi put down his chopsticks, took a sip of alcohol, and sucked in his breath like an old man, grimacing from the spiciness. With a contorted face, he said, “When I got your call yesterday, I knew you must be missing him a bit. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have called me first.”
At that moment, Xu Zhi thought to herself that Chen Luzhou would never look so distorted no matter how spicy the alcohol was. Once, when they were drinking in their rented apartment during their senior year, Xu Zhi had sneaked some of her father’s homemade spirits and tricked Chen Luzhou into taking a sip. As soon as he swallowed it, his eyes turned red from the burn. He just silently tilted his head back with furrowed brows, then immediately pulled her close, wrapping his arm around her neck and pressing her whole head against his chest. Without mercy, he pinched her face hard and said through gritted teeth, “You’re playing with me, huh?”
Xu Zhi was laughing so hard she could barely breathe, but his strength was too much for her to escape. She could only let him hold her against his chest and pinch her face, which was being squeezed out of shape like a ball of dough. She mumbled with pursed lips, “Chen Luzhou, are you going to take responsibility if my face gets bigger?”
He laughed uncontrollably, pinching even harder with a hint of retaliation, and said in a low voice, “What responsibility? Did you take responsibility for kissing me so many times?”
…
His vigor and charm were indeed impossible for others to imitate, even for Zhu Yangqi, who had grown up with him since childhood.
Zhu Yangqi put down his glass, his entire face red from the spiciness, and remarked, “Actually, I’ve been in Beijing for so long, but I didn’t dare to contact you actively. Mainly because I was afraid that seeing me would remind you of him, and I was also afraid that seeing you would always remind me of him.”
Indeed, they had hardly been in contact since the start of the semester. It was only on the first night of school when he had just changed to a local number that Zhu Yangqi sent a message to her WeChat with his new number, asking if her enrollment went smoothly and if she needed any help, telling her to contact him anytime if she had any problems, and asking her to send him her new number.
But Xu Zhi hadn’t gotten a new local number yet. Because of that phone call at the end of August, Xu Zhi had been very uneasy. She was afraid Chen Luzhou might call her in the middle of the night again, so she hadn’t changed her number.
The two sat in a Japanese restaurant across from A University, watching the endless stream of people on the bustling street. It was the peak of the holiday season, and students were constantly filing out of the school gates with their suitcases. The golden glow of the setting sun enveloped the entire campus, creating a scene that felt almost like a different world. Although it had only been a few months ago, looking back now, it seemed so distant.
Xu Zhi tried to find a familiar feeling of the summer holiday in Zhu Yangqi. She sat in the remnants of the sunset, slowly and meticulously examining Zhu Yangqi from head to toe. That gaze, as if she were trying to chew and swallow him slowly, made Zhu Yangqi’s back break out in goosebumps. “Don’t look at me like that, bro can’t take it. I’ll start thinking you have feelings for me. But haven’t you noticed I’ve become much more handsome lately?”
Xu Zhi took a leisurely sip of her drink and said, “It’s alright.”
Zhu Yangqi knew to some extent that he couldn’t compare to a certain someone, “Let’s not talk about my brother. What about Jiang Yu from your school? How about it, am I more handsome than him?”
Xu Zhi had been absent-mindedly admiring the sunset scenery outside the window. Hearing this, she instinctively turned her head to look at him, “How do you know about Jiang Yu?”
Zhu Yangqi gave a mysterious smile, “I have eyes and ears at your school, you know.”
“Did Chen Luzhou ask you to keep an eye on me?” Xu Zhi stared at him and asked.
The Japanese restaurant wasn’t very crowded to begin with, and with the holiday approaching, they were the only customers at the moment. The waiter brought over a plate of steaming sashimi, and there was a moment of silence. Zhu Yangqi could only rub his thighs to hide his embarrassment, then pushed the sashimi plate towards the center.
After the waiter left, he finally spoke up, “It was that night when you went to him to discuss your college applications. He asked me to, well, not exactly keep an eye on you, but to look out for you in case anyone bullied you. As it happens, I have a classmate in the Fine Arts Department at your A University. I casually chatted with him the other day and found out you have so many pursuers. That philosophy department heartthrob is called Jiang Yu, right? How is he? Is he as handsome as my brother?”
Xu Zhi silently looked at Zhu Yangqi without speaking. The sunset reflected in her eyes made them look even sharper, and she had an inexplicable aura of being able to hold her ground against thousands. “What does he mean by that?”
Zhu Yangqi thought Xu Zhi minded being inquired about behind her back. But he hadn’t been in contact with Chen Luzhou for a long time and hadn’t had the chance to tell him about these things. So he sighed and immediately explained on behalf of his friend, “Don’t misunderstand. Chen Luzhou didn’t mean anything by it. He was just worried about you being bullied, after all, you’re so beautiful. That’s why he asked me to keep an eye out. And he also said you’re free to date whoever you want.”
Xu Zhi: “…”
“Xu Zhi, it’s not good to keep looking for his shadow in other people,” Zhu Yangqi sincerely advised, “Why don’t you try dating someone?”
Xu Zhi: “…”
After that, the seven days of the National Day holiday passed quickly. Before the break, Xu Zhi received a text message notification about the pre-holiday club recruitment. This semester, club activities carried additional credits, so Xu Zhi casually signed up for the photography club. Soon after, she was notified of a meeting after the holiday. She roughly calculated how many meetings she had on Monday: the publicity department meeting, the club meeting, and a class committee meeting at noon.
Right, she was also the League branch secretary. It was quite strange. On the first night of the freshmen meet-and-greet, after everyone’s self-introductions and a round of introductions, the counselor suddenly started selecting class committee members. In her class, the number of male and female students was quite balanced. During the vote count, the votes were very scattered, and she was elected as the League branch secretary with a slight advantage of about ten votes.
Xu Zhi was the type who was fine with doing it or not. She was used to being a class committee member since childhood. Due to her outstanding appearance and emotionally stable personality, teachers particularly liked to use her.
On the last day of the National Day holiday, she finished editing several promotional videos for the upcoming basketball tournament in the publicity department and returned the keys to Du Qilan. In the afternoon, she went to the mobile service center to get a local SIM card. When she returned to the dormitory and was about to push open the door, she heard a tumultuous noise from inside, comparable to the sound of five hundred ducks. She could hardly believe that Xu Gongzhu and Liu Yisi could make such a noise, nor could she believe that the dormitory had swept away its previous depressing atmosphere and was now bubbling like a pot of boiling water.
“Holy shit, I saw him, right there in the second cafeteria, having a meal with someone,” Xu Gongzhu’s voice was unprecedentedly excited, and she was still involuntarily stomping her feet, making the water dispenser stool that was already missing one leg wobble behind the door. “The guy sitting across from him, I know him. He’s that science top scorer we met at the convenience store when I was buying water with Xu Zhi. You know, the top scorer from Xu Zhi’s province. That guy is handsome. I had just gotten my food and was looking for a place to sit when he and that top scorer were talking and glanced in our direction. My legs went weak right then and there.”
Liu Yisi laughed, “He must have taken a liking to you, why else would he look at you?”
Xu Gongzhu was not one to be fooled by such flattery. She had enough self-awareness. Although her voice was trembling with excitement, she still maintained a bit of rationality: “That’s impossible. There were so many girls in the cafeteria at that time, all secretly looking at him. Even the little beauty from the Foreign Languages Department went up directly to ask for his WeChat.”
Liu Yisi still didn’t quite believe it. She initially wanted to ask if he could be more handsome than the campus heartthrob, but after being here for over a month, she still didn’t know who the campus heartthrob was. The most famous ones were just a few handsome guys from Jiang Yu’s philosophy department. But they were all on par with each other. To say anyone was particularly handsome, well, it was just so-so. There wasn’t a particularly outstanding leader emerging. Because of the school’s reputation, whenever someone mentioned who the campus heartthrob was, people on the forum or Weibo would genuinely start a round of mutual criticism. So the title of campus heartthrob remained vacant. After all, it was a school of academic elites; as long as one’s appearance was passable, it was harder to stand out than the average person.
Xu Gongzhu was scrolling through her WeChat and said, “I don’t care. Anyway, when Senior Du comes back later, I’m going to tell her. Who says the boys in our year aren’t presentable? This one crushes them all.”
“Are you sure he’s from our school? Isn’t he just visiting someone?” Liu Yisi asked.
“No, he’s from the Humanities and Sciences Experimental Class. Isn’t our class taking Professor Wang’s course together with their class tomorrow? You’ll see it in class tomorrow, it’ll be sensational.”
Just as Xu Zhi pushed open the door, the two suddenly fell silent and turned to look at her in unison. Their eyes were still filled with lingering excitement, glowing red with enthusiasm. They had already put aside their previous grievances. Xu Zhi didn’t want to interrupt this atmosphere. Regardless of how handsome that guy was, the fact that he could make these two turn hostility into friendship and successfully break the ice was quite impressive in itself.
While rummaging through her drawer for her campus card, Xu Zhi sincerely advised the two carefree girls, “Oh, don’t mind me. I just came back to get my meal card. You two continue chatting, it sounds good.”
Watching Xu Zhi leave with her campus card, Xu Gongzhu asked out of the blue, “Xu Zhi, are you going to the cafeteria?”
“Mm, I’ll eat and then go to a meeting. Doesn’t your academic department have a meeting tonight?”
“No meeting. Your publicity department must be busy recently, right?” Xu Gongzhu watched Xu Zhi’s departing figure and suddenly shouted, “Go to the second cafeteria! There’s a handsome guy in the second cafeteria!”
Xu Zhi had already planned to go to the second cafeteria, not because there was a handsome guy there, but because she suddenly wanted to eat pork trotter rice, and only the third floor of the second cafeteria had pork trotter rice.
The city had already entered autumn at this time. A few golden leaves were sparsely scattered on the cobblestone path leading to the cafeteria. The autumn atmosphere wasn’t very strong yet. The basketball court was right next to the cafeteria, and you could always faintly hear the boys bouncing basketballs, interspersed with intermittent cheers.
On the way, Xu Zhi kept wondering if she had enough money on her card for a portion of pork trotter rice. The cafeteria hadn’t been open during the holiday, and she vaguely remembered having twenty-something yuan left before the break. A portion of pork trotter rice cost twenty-eight yuan, but she couldn’t remember exactly how much “twenty-something” was, so she was debating whether to go to the card recharge station at the bottom of the cafeteria first.
After recharging her card and sitting in the cafeteria looking at the pork trotter rice, she suddenly didn’t want to eat it anymore. If it weren’t for her lack of a sex life, she would have suspected she was pregnant, with such abnormal hormone secretion and such fluctuating emotions.
The cafeteria was spacious and vast. Although there were many people, it still felt empty. The sound of conversations seemed to come from thousands of miles away, barely audible two tables over. So, almost all she could hear was the clattering of trays.
As Xu Zhi was lowering her head to eat her pork trotter rice, she happened to hear someone calling her name. She looked up in confusion and saw a senior student, the vice president of the publicity department, calling her name from far away, asking if she had finished eating and if they could go to the meeting together after she was done.
Xu Zhi was about to speak when suddenly a tall figure passed between them, blocking her view. Xu Zhi tilted her head slightly, trying to see past the person to find the senior student, about to say, “I’m almost done, wait a moment.” But in the next second, her brain processed what she saw, and she froze completely.
She couldn’t describe how she felt at that moment. It felt too distant, like seeing a grand view in a mirage that might disappear in the next second. She always felt that it was just a phantom appearing because she had been thinking about him too many times recently. She almost didn’t dare to look up, knowing that it was probably just someone who looked a bit like him. To be honest, she occasionally saw people on the street who resembled him, but none had ever felt this real.
This sense of reality was hitting her heart hard. At that moment, she even got goosebumps, her blood rushing through her veins. She was genuinely stunned.
When she first saw Chen Luzhou’s face, she still felt it wasn’t quite real. She thought it was just a handsome guy who looked very similar to him, no wonder Xu Gongzhu and Liu Yisi had turned into five hundred chattering ducks. Anyone who bore even a slight resemblance to him couldn’t be too ugly. However, when Xu Zhi noticed Li Ke beside him, she suddenly came to her senses – this was the real Chen Luzhou.
It was her Chen Luzhou, the poet.