Inside the dorm, Xu Yuan sent her final message, then logged out of her alternate account and didn’t check it again.
She never thought she’d get accepted.
The first seven had all been rejected—what difference would the eighth make?
At best, it would just be one more rejection record, making it a nice round eight.
“Forget it,” she muttered. “Today’s not a good day for adding friends. I’ll try again tomorrow.”
Li Meng poked her head down from the top bunk. “You’re not waiting for a reply?”
“Wait for what? It’s definitely getting rejected.”
Xu Yuan sat up and stretched. “Instead of butting heads with that iceberg, I might as well pack my stuff. It’s almost break—I need to bring everything home.”
She dragged her suitcase out from under the bed and started stuffing clothes inside.
Summer clothes were thin—roll them up casually and you could fit a whole pile in.
She packed while planning out her summer schedule.
Unsurprisingly, it was still helping out at the noodle shop.
Getting her face covered in grease from the fumes every day, and being ordered around by that Xu Shen guy.
Two months.
Two whole months without seeing Tang Shuqing.
What if she missed him?
What if he met another girl over the summer?
Xu Yuan bit her lip, put down the T-shirt in her hand, and picked up her phone.
She opened her main WeChat account—her profile picture was also an orange cat, and her nickname was “The Little Turtle Laughing All the Way to Riches in the Wishing Pool.”
She tapped on her chat with Tang Shuqing. The last message was still from last week, when she’d asked to borrow a book from him.
She thought for a moment, then typed: [Shuqing-ge, I have something I want to give you. Can we meet at the school gate?]
After sending it, she stared at the screen, her heart racing.
He replied quickly: [Okay. Give me a moment.]
Just a few words, but Xu Yuan read them three times, the corners of her mouth nearly stretching to her ears.
“Ahhhhh Shuqing-gege replied to me!”
Li Meng was so startled by her shout that the chips in her hand dropped. “You rising from the dead or what?”
“Tang Shuqing agreed to meet me!” She waved her phone in front of Li Meng’s face. “Look, look!”
“I see it, I see it. I’m not blind.” Li Meng picked up her chips. “It’s not like you’ve never met him before. Why are you this excited?”
“Of course I’m excited! I’m excited about every single conversation with him!”
With that, she put down her phone and walked over to the mirror.
The girl in the mirror was 168 centimeters tall, with a slim waist and long legs, wearing a loose, low ponytail.
Not the kind of face that stunned you at first glance, but the kind that grew on you.
Big, round eyes, a small nose, lips naturally rosy without any lipstick, and skin so fair it looked like it had been soaked in milk.
The classic girl-next-door beauty.
Xu Yuan undid her hair tie, letting her long hair fall loose around her shoulders.
She picked up a comb and ran it through her hair a couple of times. Not satisfied, she rummaged through her drawer and pulled out a butterfly hair clip, pinning it to the side of her ear.
Li Meng leaned against the edge of the bunk, munching on chips with a look of pure amusement. “Heading out now?”
“Yeah.”
Xu Yuan said, pulling a book from her shelf—the one she’d borrowed from Tang Shuqing last time.
Li Meng glanced at the book. “Didn’t he say he was giving that to you?”
“It’s just an excuse to meet up.” Xu Yuan hugged the book to her chest, completely unapologetic. “I can’t just say ‘I want to see you’ outright, can I? That’d be so embarrassing.”
Li Meng chewed her chips and let out a meaningful “tsk.”
“If you ask me,” Li Meng said, laughing at her own words, “you might as well just hand him a love letter. You’re a coward when it comes to him, but you’ve got the nerve to harass Yan Ting—servant girl, Xia Yuhui, Zhen Huan, all of them, one after another, no shame at all. But when it comes to Tang Shuqing, you can’t even say ‘I like you.'”
“That’s different!” Xu Yuan spun around, righteous indignation on her face. “You can’t compare them! Yan Ting is a mission—it’s twenty thousand yuan! I have zero improper thoughts about him, so I can say whatever I want. If I get rejected, no big deal. But Shuqing-ge is different.”
“How is it different?”
“If I don’t say anything now, I can still get close to him, talk to him sometimes, see him. If I confess and get rejected, I won’t even have an excuse to stand in front of him anymore. So I have to wait—wait until everything’s perfect before I confess.”
Li Meng was silent for two seconds, then said quietly, “I’m just afraid the vegetables will go cold by then.”
“Pfft! Pfft pfft pfft!”
Xu Yuan spat a few times, grabbed her book, and headed for the door. “You jinx! I’m leaving!”
She pulled the door open and ran out cheerfully, the naturally curling ends of her hair bouncing with every step.
On the June campus, the evening breeze was pure comfort.
Xu Yuan walked down the tree-lined path, book in her arms, in such a good mood she wanted to hum.
When she reached the school gate, she spotted a tall, slender figure in the distance.
Tang Shuqing stood under the plane tree, wearing a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, holding a cup of milk tea.
The setting sun stretched his shadow long, gentle in a way that felt unreal.
Xu Yuan’s steps slowed without her realizing it, her heartbeat quickening along with them.
Tang Shuqing saw her, smiled, and waved.
That smile—gentle as water—seemed capable of melting away all the heat of that June evening.
Xu Yuan clutched the book in her hand and walked over quickly.
After a few steps, her pace slowed.
There was another person beside Tang Shuqing, but he had been blocked by the tree just now, so she hadn’t seen him.
That person was leaning against a black motorcycle, one long leg casually propped on the ground, head down as he scrolled through his phone.
He was wearing a black T-shirt with the collar slightly open, revealing his collarbone. The sleeveless design showed off the muscles in his arms, radiating raw strength.
The evening light fell on him, making his pale, cool skin seem even more melancholic.
A gentle breeze blew, stirring the stray strands of hair on his forehead, revealing sharp, defined brow bones, a straight nose bridge, and thin, alluring lips. But the aura around him carried a cold, world-weary indifference.
Undisputedly the campus heartthrob of A University.
A University and B University faced each other, sharing resources, cross-campus course selection, and even mooching off each other’s cafeterias were common occurrences.
So this wasn’t Xu Yuan’s first time seeing Yan Ting.
When she used to go to A University to mooch meals off Xu Shen, she had seen him from a distance several times.
But every time, there was a crowd in between, and she could only make out a blurry silhouette.
She had never seen him this close before.
It was the first time she realized—this man had something going for him.
Still, Tang Shuqing’s gentle, spring-breeze warmth was more to her liking.
As if sensing something, Yan Ting looked up.
His gaze landed squarely, colliding directly with Xu Yuan’s line of sight.
Their eyes met.
Xu Yuan’s mind went completely blank in that instant.
Those eyes were too cold.
But soon, the gaze shifted away expressionlessly, returning to the phone screen.
As if she didn’t exist.
Only then did Xu Yuan feel relieved.
That look just now—her guilty conscience had made her think she’d been exposed.
But then she thought again, how could he possibly know that the person harassing him was her?
In Yan Ting’s world, she was just a nobody, the kind who didn’t even deserve a name.
She averted her gaze and walked toward Tang Shuqing with her book in her arms.
“What were you spacing out about just now?” Tang Shuqing asked with a smile.
“Nothing, I just thought that motorcycle was pretty cool.”
Xu Yuan replied casually, her gaze locking onto Tang Shuqing’s face and refusing to look away.
She watched him smile, his eyes curving into two crescent moons.
Yan Ting looked up again at that moment.
He saw the girl who had been staring blankly just now tilting her face up, smiling at Tang Shuqing, laughing so hard she was practically swaying—a textbook case of a lovestruck fangirl.
He looked away, unbothered.
Girls chasing after Tang Shuqing were hardly rare. One more wouldn’t make a difference.