When Qiu Wu returned to school, it was close to nine o’clock at night. The sky was thoroughly dark, and the summer night breeze was very refreshing. Most of the edible stalls in the cafeteria were already closed, so she simply had a satisfying meal at the spicy hot pot shop right at the school gate.
Although the high-tech ingredient proportion in this bowl of spicy hot pot was exceptionally high, she still felt it tasted much better than the tasteless cake from the Eternity restaurant.
Sesame paste was forever god.
As a token of reciprocity, she snapped a photo and sent it to Luo Bai.
Luo Bai did not reply.
The fruit shop nearby was shouting about closing-time clearance sales, so she detoured inside to buy two large bags of seasonal fruit, catching the last campus bus back to her dormitory.
Only one person was in the four-person dormitory. A slightly tanned girl was furrowing her brows while reading a book, and she was startled by the sound of Qiu Wu opening the door.
The girl was named Wei Jia. Like Qiu Wu, she was from West Luocheng, but she had only come to East Luocheng after starting university. She usually spent her time alone and silently in both the classroom and the dormitory, maintaining a very low presence.
Lin Ya had told Qiu Wu that she would be fighting alongside her sisters preparing for the recruitment fair until twelve o’clock, while their other roommate, Jiang Hong, had a place nearby and almost never stayed in the dorm.
“Sorry for disturbing you.” Qiu Wu smiled, placing one of the bags of fruit on Wei Jia’s desk. “The fruit shop was having a discount today, super cheap, and I accidentally bought too much. Please help me eat some, I’m begging you.”
Wei Jia glanced at her sideways, quickly averted her gaze, and took out her phone to ask in a low voice, “How much is it? I will transfer the money to you.”
“Oh, no need. It’s not worth much anyway, and I just couldn’t resist a bargain. If you are willing to eat it, you’re helping me out a lot.” Qiu Wu pulled a box of lychees from her own bag and placed it on Lin Ya’s desk, complaining, “She wouldn’t even be willing to help me eat, only wanting this one box.”
Wei Jia lowered her eyelids, accepting the goodwill. “Thank you.”
Luo Bai returned home at six-thirty. After jogging for an hour and a half, she showered, and by eight-thirty, she was in the study reading literature on mechatronic research. At ten o’clock, she opened her phone to check if there were any messages requiring attention, conveniently planning tomorrow’s work in her memo pad.
The moment she opened WeChat, the account pinned as girlfriend jumped straight to the top with a red dot.
Qiu Wu: Photo.
Qiu Wu: Spicy hot pot, delicious!
In the large bowl, the red and green meatballs and greens were suffused with billowing steam, a dish she had never seen before.
Luo Bai: The colors are very vibrant, but I have never eaten it, so I do not know if it tastes good.
Qiu Wu replied very quickly, sending a voice message.
“Ah? Then what do you usually eat? You don’t only eat food from the Eternity restaurant, do you?”
Qiu Wu’s tone fluctuated greatly, overflowing with emotions that Luo Bai could not comprehend.
Few people spoke to her this way, just as few people sent her WeChat voice messages.
She required precise and accurate expressions, whereas spoken language was more prone to error than text.
Luo Bai hesitated for two seconds before pressing the microphone.
“The research institute is indeed supplied by the Eternity restaurant.”
Qiu Wu: It doesn’t matter. I will treat you to it sometime later. It is very delicious, I promise.
Luo Bai: Mm.
Qiu Wu: Just finished showering, going to sleep first, good night.
Luo Bai: Good night.
Closing the chat window with Qiu Wu, she opened a group chat named Seven Future Tech Girls.
It showed that someone had tagged her.
There were only eight people in this group, encompassing the chief engineers of Future Technology’s seven research institutes and the CEO, Luo Cheng.
Aside from Luo Cheng, whose nickname was 00, everyone else was named by the number of their respective research institute.
01: @07 What on earth did you do to Chairperson Luo? She sneered three times in a row during today’s meeting, and I almost got scared to death.
05: I know about this. Because Miss Luo went off to get married of her own accord, Chairperson Luo is super-duper angry.
03: Her getting married? You’ve got to be kidding me, sister. Is the partner a computer or a robot?
04: It’s a great beauty. (Photo attached)
She did not know where she had gotten Qiu Wu’s photo. In the picture, the girl was sitting on a park bench, leisurely closing her eyes to rest as a bird landed on her hand, lowering its head to peck at the breadcrumbs in her palm.
The group fell silent for a moment, and the speed at which messages scrolled past became significantly faster.
03: My goodness! Done for, done for, done for. I’m hallucinating from working overtime.
01: She is indeed a pretty girl. @07 Aren’t you going to come out and say something?
03: Forget it, when has she ever paid attention to us? I suspect she has already muted this group.
00: Workplace groups forbid gossiping.
04: Isn’t this group a complaining group? Since when did it become a workplace group?
05: I know about this too. Ever since this double agent entered, right @00?
01: Kick her out right now.
00: Hey, hey…
Luo Bai never participated in idle group chat, but since this involved Qiu Wu, she figured it was still necessary for her to clarify.
07: @01 I did not have a conflict with my maternal aunt. I have the right to decide my own marriage. @05 We are not married; we are currently in the dating stage. @04 Where did you get the photo?
The group stayed quiet for three full minutes before a message popped up again.
03: I really am hallucinating from working overtime. I’m going to go brew a cup of coffee.
01: @07 You still haven’t realized that the fact you two generated a conflict is already the biggest conflict.
05: Wow, the dating stage. Such an archaic-sounding vocabulary, especially coming from your mouth.
04: @07 I scraped it from her friend’s public social media account. It’s public information, I certainly don’t have the hobby of invading other people’s privacy.
07: @01 Incomprehensible. @04 Understood.
00: Don’t you have anything else to say?
07: Say what?
05: What does it feel like to fall in love? Did you hold hands, kiss, or do the deed?
01: @05 Please mind your language.
05: @01 Do you dare swear you aren’t curious?
01: …
07: @05 None of those, and no feeling either.
03: It seems not to be a hallucination. This sounds just like something Number Seven would say.
07: If there is nothing else, I am going to rest.
After sending this message, Luo Bai exited WeChat and opened her photo album.
The first photo was the one she had just saved from the group chat, Qiu Wu’s picture.
Sunlight fell through the gaps in the tree branches onto the girl’s cascading long hair, presenting a golden-red texture.
Luo Bai could clearly feel that her heartbeat had quickened slightly, and the tip of her nose seemed to detect the scent of Qiu Wu being baked by the sunlight.
It felt similar to the sensation when she first saw Qiu Wu’s photo.
Very novel.
By the time she recovered her senses, it was already ten-thirty-five, past her routine rest schedule.
Luo Bai closed her phone, yet her thoughts did not immediately return to the matter of sleeping.
She had never experienced this feeling toward anyone or any photograph. Without the accumulation of experimental results, she could only resort to seeking help from the experiences of others.
She collected and analyzed relevant information.
Ultimately, she arrived at the most common public answer.
High emotional intelligence: Love at first sight.
Low emotional intelligence: Taking a fancy to someone’s looks.