Sticky days always seemed to pass by quickly. On Sunday evening, Lu Xingyan reluctantly set off to return to Xingcheng.
Shen Xingruo accompanied him to the airport. The two of them chattered away, delaying until the very last moment before parting, with a hint of reluctance reminiscent of a farewell at the eighteen bends of the mountain road.
There was no way around it. Both of them had been busy this semester, with less time to see each other than the previous one. Once they parted, they wouldn’t be able to meet for at least another half a month.
After returning to Xingcheng, Lu Xingyan immediately sent a WeChat message to Shen Xingruo to let her know he had arrived safely.
Shen Xingruo had just come out of the teaching building. She was dressed warmly, with only her eyes exposed to the biting cold wind.
Though bundled up, her movements were naturally restricted. However, when her phone vibrated, she still took it out to check without delay.
It was only at that moment that Shen Xingruo noticed Lu Xingyan had, at some point when she wasn’t paying attention, changed the nickname for himself in her WeChat to “Luoluo’s Little Cutie.”
He was always playful like that. After letting her know he was safe, he even sent her a screenshot of the nickname he had changed for her on his phone — “My Baby.” He kept sending her various “baby” emojis.
Baby, baby, baby.
Shen Xingruo stood in the snow for a few seconds, holding her books. The cold wind seeped into her collar as she adjusted her scarf, but it didn’t stop her from curling up her lips, which hadn’t relaxed in a long time.
The winter in the capital city this year stayed dry and cold until March before showing any signs of relenting. Xingcheng was almost the same, with a slight hint of early spring warmth in mid-March.
Normally, in the first half of the year, there would be at least three short holidays — Qingming, May Day, and the Dragon Boat Festival — along with various school activities and arrangements, giving Shen Xingruo and Lu Xingyan some fixed opportunities to meet. That’s what they had thought. They had managed to hold back from rushing back and forth for two or three weeks, planning to spend some quality time together during Qingming.
However, fate had its plans. Unexpectedly, the Qingming holiday coincided with the date when Shen Xingruo and the school orchestra were scheduled to go to the United States for an exchange program. The exchange was a big deal, and Shen Xingruo couldn’t refuse due to time constraints.
When she returned, both of them would be busy with exams. When they added it all up — “Luoluo’s Little Cutie Baby, it’s been forty-eight days since we last met.”
Tears welled up in Shen Xingruo’s eyes. She missed him dearly. But she was currently involved in preparing for this year’s Model United Nations conference. The event would end on Friday, but there would still be unavoidable follow-up work afterward, which would keep her busy for at least a day.
If Lu Xingyan came over, he’d be sitting idle on Saturday, and then he’d have to prepare to return on Sunday afternoon. It just didn’t seem necessary.
She was about to discuss this with Lu Xingyan when he spoke up first.
“My Baby, my little cutie, I miss you so much, but our college is hosting the Book and Culture Festival this weekend, and I can’t leave Xingcheng.”
After saying this, he added a pitiful emoji, implying that he hoped she would come back to Xingcheng.
Shen Xingruo regretfully explained to him the follow-up matters regarding the Model United Nations conference. She could only arrive on Saturday night and would have to leave again on Sunday afternoon, leaving them with very little time together.
As soon as Lu Xingyan heard this, he dispelled the idea of meeting up.
He tried to console her, saying, “Anyway, it’s been so long since we last saw each other, one or two more days won’t make much of a difference. We’ll meet on May Day.”
In this relationship, Shen Xingruo always seemed to be the more rational or restrained one at any given time. But after hanging up the phone, Shen Xingruo silently stared at the plane tickets to and from Xingcheng for a long time.
Perhaps it was fate’s way of telling them that meeting this week wasn’t meant to be; there wasn’t a suitable time for the flights either.
Shen Xingruo had no choice but to exit the ticket booking app and focus on her studies.
However, not long after, she picked up her phone again and scrolled through her chat history with Lu Xingyan.
Lately, Lu Xingyan has taken to sending her short videos to make her laugh. Whenever she felt upset or missed him, she would watch them, and they always cheered her up. She had accumulated quite a few of these videos. Her favorite was the one where he blew her a kiss. She often hid under her blanket to kiss the screen.
Of course, this was something she could only do in the dead of night. If anyone caught her doing it, it would be too embarrassing.
When she returned to the dormitory that night, all three roommates were there.
Sujiao was sitting on the balcony, talking on the phone. Shen Xingruo wasn’t sure what had happened, but she seemed very agitated. She talked for a long time, but her frown didn’t seem to ease.
Shen Xingruo stood by the desk, placing one book after another on the shelf.
Sujiao unintentionally glanced up and suddenly had an idea. But immediately, she felt uneasy — although Shen Xingruo hadn’t explicitly talked about her family background, it was apparent just from observation that she came from a well-educated and affluent family. Her clothing and belongings were not cheap, and she didn’t seem to chase after well-known brands or niche ones; she just bought whatever she liked. Last week, that sophomore from the International Trade Department tried to woo her by gifting her a Dior Lady Dior handbag in sakura pink, worth over twenty thousand yuan. Shen Xingruo didn’t even spare it a second glance and returned it directly to him, appearing completely indifferent. So, she probably wouldn’t help with this favor. It sounded a bit unpleasant to bring it up, but Sujiao couldn’t think of a better person or a better solution at the moment. She reluctantly hung up the phone and limped into the dorm, intending to give it a try.
“Car model?”
Shen Xingruo looked up at Sujiao.
Sujiao, with a hint of pitifulness, said cautiously, “Um… but this is a formal car exhibition, and it’s for Aston Martin. They only want students from prestigious universities…”
“Don’t worry, it’s just for one day on Sunday. Just wear a dress and stand next to the car. The pay is very generous. Xingruo, please help me. I’m really in a bind right now. If I hadn’t fallen so badly, I would have toughed it out and gone myself.”
Shen Xingruo wasn’t interested in other people’s private matters, but she had gleaned some information from the other two roommates.
Sujiao came from an average family background, and she had a younger brother who would be entering university the next year, adding to the family’s financial burden. At the beginning of this semester, her mother had fallen ill and needed surgery. They had to sell their 100-square-meter apartment and downsize to a smaller one to raise money for the medical expenses. To make matters worse, her father’s guarantee for someone had backfired, instantly burdening the family with debts amounting to two or three hundred thousand yuan. Fortunately, Sujiao was optimistic and managed to earn some extra income by relying on the halo of being a top student. Last semester, she had been doing one-on-one tutoring, and this semester, she had taken on two translation projects from her teachers and a biography writing job for a wealthy businessman, all of which paid well. But these tasks couldn’t be completed in a day, and the money didn’t come in quickly enough, so occasionally Sujiao took on some quick cash gigs outside, like being a car model.
In the capital city, there were frequent car exhibitions of various sizes, and with Sujiao’s good looks and figure, coupled with her status as a student from a prestigious university, she could get gigs with relatively high-end brands through connections.
The higher-end brand meant that the brand wouldn’t stoop to doing anything cheap or vulgar to attract attention, like having the models bare their chests or dance provocatively. They simply needed to stand there in attractive dresses with an air of sophistication. Besides the generous pay for the gig itself, occasionally luck was on their side, and if they happened to showcase a particularly popular car, they could earn some commission from it.
This spring’s car exhibition was quite substantial, and Sujiao had managed to secure a spot early on in Aston Martin’s exhibition area. However, a couple of days ago, she had gone out on a date wearing high heels and hadn’t been paying attention when she was walking down the stairs. She accidentally broke her leg. So, the intermediary, Haoge, who had connected her with the gig, was displeased with her last-minute cancellation and deliberately made things difficult for her by insisting she find someone to replace her.
Of course, if she couldn’t make it and couldn’t find a replacement, it wouldn’t be a big deal. Haoge simply wouldn’t involve her in future opportunities.
Normally, for Haoge, who was responsible for outsourcing model services, finding a replacement would be effortless. He was only giving Sujiao a hard time because he wanted to gain some advantage from her situation.
Sujiao was much smarter than him; she wouldn’t be fooled by such tactics. But she pretended not to see through it because she didn’t want to give him an advantage, nor did she want to have any issues over money.
After hearing the whole story, Shen Xingruo didn’t immediately agree but said she needed to consider it. However, after Sujiao repeatedly assured her that she wouldn’t need to dance and would just need to be a quiet flower vase in a normal dress, Shen Xingruo eventually agreed.
Sujiao had helped her out a lot with small things like fetching hot water or buying things, and although these seemed trivial, they added up as favors. Favors, in the end, needed to be returned.
By the time Shen Xingruo finished the post-Model United Nations conference cleanup on Saturday, it was already ten in the evening. She rushed back to the dormitory before curfew.
She sent a WeChat message to Lu Xingyan around eight, but he hadn’t replied all evening, and she didn’t know what was going on.
After finishing her nightly routine and lying in bed, Shen Xingruo absentmindedly scrolled through her phone. Suddenly, she noticed that the public account for the College of Literature and Arts had been updated.
This public account was something Lu Xingyan had shared on his WeChat Moments when he first joined the student council, asking his friends to show him some support and help boost his business.
Shen Xingruo had been following it for almost half a year, but it was the first time she had paid attention to it.
Shen Xingruo quickly skimmed through the newly updated article on the public account, scrolling down to the bottom. It had only garnered a few hundred views, but the selected comments section seemed to have turned into a chatting ground for members of their student council.
Through a few brief exchanges of messages, Shen Xingruo deduced that there was a high probability that the student council of their College of Literature and Arts was having a gathering tonight.
She didn’t pay much attention to these details. Her focus was entirely on a comment from someone named “萌萌0201” that simply said, “Ayan got drunk.”
As the saying goes, women in love are like Sherlock Holmes. As long as they’re willing, they can uncover all the subtle clues hidden in the corners and, through intuition, piece together the truth.
And Shen Xingruo’s intuition was quite accurate.
“Ayan” was the nickname for Lu Xingyan.
This “Adorable(Meng Meng) 0201” was undoubtedly a member of the daring squad trying to sabotage her relationship.
As she lay in bed, using the keywords “Adorable(Meng Meng) 0201” and “Star City University College of Literature and Arts,” she traced back to an old Renren account registered by Chen Mengmeng, along with the email she had carelessly left when seeking resources. With further investigation, she found Chen Mengmeng’s current Weibo account.
None of this information was particularly useful to Shen Xingruo, but Chen Mengmeng’s Weibo had shared a short video twenty minutes ago.
The video was taken in a karaoke room, crowded with people, and at a glance, Shen Xingruo spotted Lu Xingyan lying on the couch, drinking with others.
—This wasn’t difficult; Chen Mengmeng’s camera was aimed at Lu Xingyan.
What surprised Shen Xingruo was the caption of this Weibo post: “What should I do if my crush gets drunk? Online waiting, is quite urgent. Dog head emoji.”
There were one or two hundred replies below, along with over three hundred likes.