Cautiously
Zhou Anran was startled and looked up at him blankly.
“Why are you looking at me?” Chen Luobai continued casually playing with his phone, his dark eyes smiling. “Didn’t my sister say to make sure you get back safely?”
Zhou Anran: “…?”
When did Yu-jie say to have him take her back?
Was he referring to last Saturday?
But even then, Yu-jie probably just meant for him to see her home safely that night.
Zhou Anran wasn’t sure what he meant, but out of a selfish desire to be escorted home by him, she didn’t call him out on it.
He Mingyu lowered his eyelashes.
At that moment, his phone buzzed several times in succession.
He Mingyu took out his phone and glanced at it. Feeling that luck wasn’t on his side, he sighed inwardly and stood up. “I’m sorry, my roommate needs me urgently for something. I have to go.”
Zhou Anran nodded. “You should hurry then.”
After He Mingyu’s figure had hurriedly disappeared outside the cafeteria, Zhou Anran heard the young man sitting diagonally across from her ask in a calm voice, “Shall we go?”
Zhou Anran instinctively wanted to nod, but her gaze inadvertently fell on his tray still placed next to her hand.
“Um—” She paused, pointing at his tray. “You’ve barely eaten anything.”
Chen Luobai followed her slender white hand to look at the tray, casually responding with an “Mm.” “Not much appetite.”
How could he have no appetite?
Zhou Anran looked up and briefly studied him, but couldn’t discern anything.
She was a bit concerned and couldn’t help but ask another question: “Are you not feeling well, or is the food not to your liking?”
Chen Luobai stopped fiddling with his phone. His eyebrows seemed to raise slightly as he teased, “Curious about my tastes?”
Zhou Anran: “…”
This guy suddenly wasn’t following the usual script.
She wanted to lower her head and look away, but that might make her seem even more flustered. She could only try to remain calm and use Yu Bingqin’s words as an excuse: “Yu-Jie mentioned a while ago that you’re quite picky with food, so I was just asking.”
The young man’s voice still carried a hint of amusement: “What other bad things did she say about me?”
Zhou Anran: “?”
She was momentarily confused: “Is that considered bad?”
Chen Luobai continued playing with his phone, looking at her leisurely: “If it’s not bad, then what is it?”
How should she answer that?
Zhou Anran pursed her lips.
He sounded a bit bothered about being called picky. If she said it wasn’t bad, would he be unhappy? But if she said it was bad, it seemed unfair to Yu-jie.
Chen Luobai saw her delicate, pretty eyebrows furrowing, looking very conflicted, as if he had asked her an impossible question. He couldn’t help but chuckle again: “I’m just teasing you.”
Zhou Anran: “…”
So the impression of him becoming more mature was indeed a misconception.
This guy was still the same as in high school, somewhat fond of teasing people.
But before, she had only watched from afar as he teased Zhu Ran or other boys in class. Now she had become the target.
Although she was relieved not to have to answer the previous question, she heard him continue in a slow voice: “She’s not wrong. I am quite picky, so—”
Zhou Anran saw him pause: “So what?”
“If you’re not in a hurry to get back to the dorm,” Chen Luobai looked at her, “would you accompany me upstairs for something else to eat?”
Zhou Anran met his gaze, her heart fluttering slightly, then nodded gently toward him.
Chen Luobai didn’t have anything specific he wanted to eat. When they went up to the second floor, he just casually ordered a bowl of wonton soup, then asked the server inside: “Do you have room temperature Coke?”
Zhou Anran was looking down, secretly noting in her mind that he ate scallions but not cilantro when suddenly she saw a bottle of Coke appear in front of her. The hand holding the can had long, slender fingers, with a familiar small brown mole just above the wrist bone.
A familiar voice also sounded from above: “Is this okay?”
For a moment, Zhou Anran felt as if the scene before her overlapped with that moment two years ago in the small supermarket at No. 2 High School.
She looked up, but the young man in front of her wasn’t wearing a school uniform. He was taller than before, looking down at her.
“For me?” she asked softly.
Chen Luobai made an affirmative sound: “Consider it—”
The young man paused, but unlike that day, he didn’t push the Coke into her hands. Instead, he placed the can on the counter, gripping the body with four fingers and hooking the pull tab with his index finger.
As he pulled the tab open, there was a faint sound of tiny bubbles bursting.
He reached for a straw and inserted it, then handed it to her, slowly finishing his previous sentence: “A thank you for keeping me company while I eat.”
Zhou Anran felt as if small bubbles were also bursting in her heart. She accepted it: “Thank you.”
When the wonton soup was ready and they found a place to sit, Zhou Anran realized that he didn’t eat scallions either. He had pushed aside all the chopped scallions floating on top.
He didn’t talk much while eating.
Zhou Anran hugged the can of Coke, sitting across from him and sipping slowly, not wanting to disturb him either.
The can of Coke he had given her in their second year of high school—she had never been able to bring herself to drink it. It was still sitting in the cabinet in her bedroom, long past its expiration date.
Come to think of it, this was the first time she was drinking a Coke he had bought for her.
Zhou Anran inexplicably felt reluctant to finish it all at once.
So by the time Chen Luobai had finished his wonton soup and walked her to the entrance of her dormitory building, she still had about half of the Coke left in her hand.
As usual, Chen Luobai stopped by the big tree at the entrance.
Zhou Anran stopped with him, hearing him call her name very softly.
“Zhou Anran.”
Zhou Anran looked up.
The young man had one hand in his pocket, looking down at her: “Good luck with your exams.”
Zhou Anran’s Coke no longer had many bubbles. She pursed her lips, her mouth full of sweetness: “You too.”
*
After the chaotic few days of exams ended, on Saturday afternoon, Zhou Anran was invited by her roommates to go out for a “celebration” hotpot meal together.
—A celebration for “successfully surviving the first exam week of college.”
After the meal, even Yu Xingyue, who usually stayed rooted in the library, wasn’t in a hurry to go back. The group wandered around the mall for a few more rounds before returning to the dorm together at four in the afternoon.
Zhou Anran had been smelling the hotpot scent on herself the whole way back. Her first order of business upon returning to the dorm was to wash her hair and take a shower.
After blow-drying her hair, seeing that there were still twenty minutes left before she agreed to meet with him, Zhou Anran sat at her desk and carefully tied her hair into a low bun with a hair tie.
As she finished tying it, Zhou Anran heard Xie Jingyi, who had gone to the balcony to collect some things, suddenly call out to her.
“Anran.”
Zhou Anran checked herself in the mirror and replied: “What is it?”
Xie Jingyi glanced down at the ground floor, estimating that if she said the next sentence as loudly as before, it might attract some attention. She finished collecting her things and walked back into the room before continuing in a low voice, “Chen Luobai is downstairs. He’s here to wait for you, right?”
Zhou Anran was stunned for a moment.
She hadn’t heard her phone ring.
She picked up her phone and unlocked the screen to check.
Indeed, there were no messages from him.
But with that face of his, surely no one in the entire school would mistake him for someone else. Xie Jingyi, who delved into gossip every day, was even less likely to be mistaken.
“I’ll go take a look.”
Zhou Anran took her phone and walked to the balcony. As soon as she peeked her head out to look down, the young man standing by the tree happened to look up in her direction at that moment.
It was 6 PM.
The sky had already darkened.
The young man’s tall, slender figure was slightly blurred by the night, but in the second their gazes met across the distance, Zhou Anran’s heart skipped a beat.
She instinctively took a step back.
At that moment, her phone finally rang.
C: [What are you hiding from?]
Zhou Anran: “…”
She didn’t know why she had retreated just now.
It was just that her heart was inexplicably racing.
Zhou Anran didn’t know how to explain, so she didn’t admit it: [I’m not hiding]
C: [If you’re not hiding, then come down?]
Zhou Anran: [I’m coming down, wait for me]
Zhou Anran returned from the balcony to the dorm room to get her bag.
“Are you leaving?” Xie Jingyi casually asked her, “Didn’t you say another male classmate was joining you for dinner today? How come we didn’t see him?”
Zhou Anran didn’t know either. He hadn’t mentioned Zhu Ran just now: “Maybe he got held up on the way.”
“I was hoping to see if the handsome guy’s friend is also handsome.” Xie Jingyi looked disappointed. “Is your other classmate good-looking?”
Zhou Anran thought for a moment.
Zhu Ran’s features seemed quite regular, and he was tall too, just about two or three centimeters shorter than him.
“He’s alright.”
Xie Jingyi looked even more disappointed: “That’s such a shame.”
“It’s not like you’re going to pursue him anyway,” Bai Lingyun chimed in. “What’s the point of just looking?”
Xie Jingyi: “Being single means I can shamelessly ogle handsome guys.”
Zhou Anran smiled: “He’s Chen Luobai’s best friend, so he’ll probably come around often. There will be opportunities in the future. I’m heading out now.”
She was also a bit curious about why Zhu Ran hadn’t come. As she walked out the door, she lowered her head to ask him on WeChat: [Isn’t Zhu Ran with you?]
C: [Why are you asking about him?]
Zhou Anran: “…”
Weren’t they supposed to have dinner together? Wasn’t it normal for her to ask?
His recent way of speaking made it easy to overthink things.
Zhou Anran: [Isn’t he supposed to have dinner with us?]
C: [He got held up on the way, and told him to go straight to the restaurant]
C: [Still haven’t come down?]
Zhou Anran: [I’m on the second floor now]
C: [Don’t play with your phone while going down the stairs]
The corners of Zhou Anran’s mouth turned up slightly.
After walking with him to the restaurant, Zhou Anran saw that Zhu Ran was already waiting in the private room.
He said this meal was to make up for treating her, and Zhou Anran was a bit worried they might bring up that basketball game from back then.
She still wasn’t sure about his feelings.
So she didn’t dare to reveal too much of her feelings either.
Fortunately, neither he nor Zhu Ran showed any intention of mentioning that basketball game from back then.
Zhu Ran first casually complained about homework and midterms, then looked up to ask Chen Luobai: “Isn’t your school’s basketball tournament about to start? Are you going to play?”
Chen Luobai casually made an affirmative sound.
Zhou Anran knew from her two roommates in the student council that the school’s basketball tournament was indeed about to start, but she didn’t know he planned to participate.
Playing in a tournament was completely different in intensity from just playing casually. It seemed the guys mostly played half-court when they were just messing around.
“Are you able to play in the tournament?” Zhou Anran couldn’t help but ask him.
Zhu Ran interjected with a laugh: “Yeah, you haven’t played much since your leg injury, right? Can you handle it?”
Zhou Anran tilted her head and saw the young man next to her look at Zhu Ran with no expression, but his tone carried some of that arrogance from high school: “If I can’t handle it, who can?”
“Go ahead and be cocky,” Zhu Ran said. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you. There’s not just the two of us in this room now. If you end up losing, you’ll be embarrassed in front of more than just me.”
Zhou Anran: “…?”
Was he referring to her?
Before she could look away, Chen Luobai suddenly turned his head towards her.
Their gazes met unexpectedly, and Zhou Anran’s heart rate picked up again, quite helplessly.
“Would you think I’m embarrassing if I lost?” he asked her in a low voice.
Zhou Anran’s heart was racing, but she shook her head: “Of course not. As long as you try your best.”
Chen Luobai turned back, the corner of his mouth slightly raised, and nodded at Zhu Ran.
Zhu Ran couldn’t stand his smug look and also turned his head slightly: “Zhou Anran, do you know why he injured his leg?”
Zhou Anran had always wanted to ask but had hesitated and never did. Seeing Zhu Ran bring it up on his own, she was about to ask why.
The next second, she heard Zhu Ran cry out in pain and suddenly jump up from his seat. The chair, whether pulled by him or not, scraped back abruptly, making a harsh sound.
Zhou Anran swallowed the “why” that was on the tip of her tongue and blurted out: “What’s wrong with you?”
“He likes to stand up and shout randomly when he’s full,” Chen Luobai answered her instead.
Zhu Ran looked at him, grimacing: “Chen Luobai, you—”
But Chen Luobai turned to her again at that moment: “Your Yu-jie—”
Zhou Anran couldn’t help but look back at him.
Chen Luobai stopped after those four words.
Zhu Ran somehow also stopped, then sat back down with a look of swallowing his anger: “Yes, I like to stand up and shout randomly when I’m full.”
Zhou Anran pursed her lips and moved her gaze from Zhu Ran back to his face: “What about Yu-jie?”
“She’s going to rehearsal again tonight. Want to go watch after we eat?” The young man’s expression was mild as if the little incident just now hadn’t happened at all.
Zhou Anran was silent for a moment, then nodded.
Then she turned back, picked up her chopsticks and slowly bit into a piece of spare ribs, but couldn’t taste much.
She wasn’t stupid.
Just now, Zhu Ran wanted to tell her the reason for his injury but was probably warned and stopped by him secretly.
Was there something about the reason for his injury that she couldn’t know?
Or was it…
Had she been overthinking things all this time?
Zhou Anran’s fingertips tightened on her chopsticks.
The young man’s familiar voice sounded again from beside her.
“It was just before the start of the school year, I twisted it while playing basketball.”
Zhou Anran was stunned and turned her head to look at him again.
Chen Luobai was also looking in her direction, his expression much more serious than before: “I didn’t let him tell you because he can exaggerate one point into ten.”
Zhu Ran interjected with a dissatisfied look: “Chen Luobai, you’re slandering me in front of Zhou Anran again. When have I ever exaggerated one point into ten—”
Chen Luobai gave him a bland glance.
Zhu Ran paused: “At most, I’d exaggerate it to six or seven points.”
Chen Luobai’s gaze returned to the girl beside him: “If you don’t believe me, I can show you my medical records and examination results?”
Zhou Anran’s fingers holding the chopsticks slowly relaxed.
Was he explaining things to her?
If he was offering to show the examination results, he probably wasn’t lying to her, right? If he remembered everything from high school, he should be able to guess how much she liked him back then, so there was no need to lie to her.
Besides, he had never been the type to trample on others’ feelings.
Otherwise, she wouldn’t have continued liking him from high school until now.
Zhou Anran shook her head: “I believe you.”
“If you believe me—” Chen Luobai’s voice softened, “then eat properly?”
Zhou Anran: “…”
She had just eaten a piece of spare rib a bit slowly.
Had he noticed even that?
The corners of Zhou Anran’s lips curved up slightly, then she suppressed it, replying softly: “I am eating properly.”
Zhu Ran: “…”
Zhu Ran put down his chopsticks: “I’m full.”
Zhou Anran looked up and saw that less than half of the dishes on the table had been eaten. She was stunned: “You’re full already?”
“Stuffed.” Zhu Ran said expressionlessly.
Chen Luobai casually pointed at the door: “If you’re full, then get lost. Don’t disturb us eating.”
Zhu Ran leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms: “Why should I be the one to leave? Maybe Zhou Anran would prefer to eat with me.”
Listening to their bickering, Zhou Anran couldn’t help but smile. It felt familiar, yet a bit unreal.
Familiar because she used to often overhear them bickering like this inadvertently or secretly. Unreal because this time she seemed to have become the center of their banter.
Zhu Ran suddenly turned to her: “Right, Zhou Anran? Why don’t we make him leave, and I’ll catch up with you alone? I can tell you all about a certain Chen’s embarrassing stories.”
Zhou Anran: “…?”
Chen Luobai turned his head and saw the girl’s lips curled into a small arc, her little dimple showing on her cheek, looking sweet and obedient.
She seemed quite happy.
“Want to catch up with him?”
A low, clear voice suddenly sounded close to her ear, making Zhou Anran’s heart skip a beat.
She half-turned her head to see Chen Luobai looking at her with an ambiguous smile.
“Should I leave and give you two spaces to chat?”
Zhou Anran: “…”
She hadn’t said anything.
Zhu Ran casually picked up the lemon water beside him and took a sip. He drawled, “Tch, why is the water so sour today?”
Chen Luobai: “…”
At that moment, Zhu Ran’s phone rang.
He picked it up and glanced at it, hurriedly putting down his glass: “Your sister says she’s on her way. I’m done eating, I’ll head over first.”
With that, he picked up his phone and quickly left the private room.
Zhou Anran hadn’t quite reacted yet. When she turned her head back, the door had already been quickly closed behind him.
She was about to turn back when the door opened again. Zhu Ran poked his head in from outside: “Zhou Anran, I haven’t added you on WeChat yet, right? I’ll add you to the group chat later, accept it, okay?”
Zhou Anran nodded.
Zhu Ran quickly withdrew his head, as if not wanting to give anyone else a chance to speak. The door closed heavily again.
As soon as he left, the private room suddenly fell silent.
Zhou Anran turned back, picking up her phone to unlock it. She felt a gaze constantly falling on her from beside her, and that feeling of guilt from the past few days inexplicably surfaced again.
Zhu Ran’s friend request popped up on her phone at that moment.
She quickly accepted it, then quickly turned off the screen.
The young man’s voice sounded faintly from beside her: “You added him?”
Zhou Anran’s heart skipped again. She turned her head to look at him: “Is that not allowed?”
“It’s fine.” Chen Luobai’s lips curled. “But if he says anything nonsensical to you, don’t believe it.”
Zhou Anran: “…?”
What nonsense could Zhu Ran say to her?
His collection of embarrassing stories?
Chen Luobai nodded toward the table in front of them: “Let’s continue eating first, or it’ll get cold.”
Zhou Anran didn’t dare to ask him anything more. She obediently said “Oh” and picked up her chopsticks. Her gaze fell on the table where most of the dishes remained, and Zhu Ran’s bowl was only half-empty. She couldn’t help but feel a bit puzzled: “Was Zhu Ran talking about Yu-jie just now? Is he also going to watch Yu-jie’s rehearsal?”
Chen Luobai made an affirmative sound.
Zhou Anran was even more confused: “If he’s going to watch Yu-jie’s rehearsal, why didn’t he wait for us to go together? Why did he leave in such a hurry without finishing his meal?”
“He couldn’t wait,” Chen Luobai said.
Zhou Anran was stunned, not quite understanding. She turned her head to look at him: “Couldn’t wait?”
Chen Luobai had long since put down his chopsticks. He was now leaning lazily against the chair, looking at her with a mild expression: “He likes my sister.”
Zhou Anran almost dropped her chopsticks.
Does Zhu Ran like Yu-jie?
She instinctively found it a bit unbelievable. Yu-jie was three years older than them and had attended high school in Wuhu. She thought Yu-jie and Zhu Ran didn’t have much interaction.
But thinking about Yu Bingqin’s appearance, Zhou Anran felt it was within expectations. Such a cool girl was indeed very attractive.
No wonder earlier when he mentioned Yu-jie, Zhu Ran immediately changed his tone.
However—
Zhou Anran also put down her chopsticks: “Is it okay for you to tell me this?”
It felt like Zhu Ran’s private matter.
“It’s fine,” Chen Luobai said. “It’s not a secret.”
Zhou Anran blinked. Perhaps because two people she had never imagined being connected suddenly had such an intersection, she rarely couldn’t suppress her curiosity and asked him softly: “Does Yu-jie know?”
Chen Luobai: “My sister might know, or she might not. He tells everyone except her directly.”
Zhou Anran’s eyes widened slightly: “Even Zhu Ran can be afraid?”
“Why wouldn’t he be?” Chen Luobai’s eyebrows seemed to rise slightly.
Zhou Anran: “…”
“It’s just… I had the impression he was quite brave.”
In high school, during class, Zhu Ran dared to joke around with teachers. Whenever there were school activities, if he participated, she had never seen him get stage fright.
She thought only introverted cowards like herself would secretly harbor crushes. Someone with Zhu Ran’s personality would boldly pursue whoever they liked.
“No matter how brave—” Chen Luobai paused.
Zhou Anran turned her head to look at him.
The young man was still leaning casually against the chair, looking at her. The scattered light and her reflection were mirrored in his dark eyes, making his gaze seem inexplicably focused and gentle. His voice was low.
“When facing someone they like, everyone becomes cautious.”