After finishing their meal, Zhou Xiaqing and Xu Ling strolled around the back street for a while longer.
When the time was right, they went to the phone repair shop to pick up their phones and quickly returned to the dormitory.
The very first order of business was still studying.
Zhou Xiaqing flipped open the study materials compiled by Qi Yanlang, but after reading just one page, her head spun and her brain began to buzz.
With no other choice, she closed the materials and slumped over the desk to clear her mind.
Just then, her phone beside her started ringing.
She pressed it against her ear, listened to the person on the other end, and replied, “Did you make a mistake? I didn’t order any food delivery.”
“Bread King, phone number ending in 1789, that’s you, right?” the delivery guy asked.
“Yes, that is me.”
“Then there’s no mistake. Come down and get it.”
Three minutes later, Zhou Xiaqing stood downstairs at the dormitory building, staring at the yellow paper bag in her hand with “Meituan Medicine Delivery” printed on it, lost in thought.
A paper receipt was stapled to the outside of the bag.
In the remarks section, there were four words: Cream Overlord.
She tore open the paper bag and took out the box inside.
Jingwanhong Ointment.
It was meant for treating mild burns and scalds.
Holding the bag, she slowly trudged up the stairs.
She unlocked her phone with one hand, found a certain someone whose nickname was “Cream Overlord,” and smoothly tapped into his Moments.
His latest update had been posted half an hour ago.
The accompanying photo was a cream bread with two bites taken out of it, and the text read: Cream bread tastes so awful. How can anyone actually like eating this?
It was a provocation.
It was a blatant provocation.
A sudden surge of anger flared up in Zhou Xiaqing.
She sent him a two-word message: You’re sick.
He replied within a split second: Such weak attack power.
Grinding her teeth, Zhou Xiaqing sent a voice message: “You’re sick, you’re sick, you’re sick!”
Sitting inside the milk tea shop, Chen Jinshan listened to this voice message five or six times, the corners of his mouth curving upward and never coming down.
He sent her a voice message back: “You too.”
Setting his phone down, he opened the booklet in front of him and flipped through it slowly.
He had only made a special trip back here before the milk tea shop closed because he overheard Gao Zhiyang mention in passing that Zhou Xiaqing seemed to have written something in the booklet.
There was nothing on the first dozen pages.
After a few seconds of thought, he relied on his intuition to flip to the ninth page from the back.
It is a boat, there is clear weather, there is rain.
In the bottom right corner was her English name.
As expected, she was indeed the one who drew it.
He picked up a pen and added a few strokes to the blank space.
After finishing his drawing, he also wrote his own English name and the date right next to her name in the bottom right corner.
Carl, 11.5.
Mission accomplished.
Chen Jinshan looked at the simple sketch before his eyes, an irrepressible, satisfied smile breaking across his face.
Behind the lonely little boat, a massive mountain had been added.
A mountain stands behind the boat.
Whether it is sunny or rainy.
At 11:15 PM, the dormitories across Fanghua University were still brightly lit.
Zhou Xiaqing wore headphones, her fingers tapping away intently on her keyboard.
Xu Ling sat opposite her, keeping her head down as she typed continuously on her phone.
Liu Jia was also wearing headphones, silently reading a book, while Zhang Mingzhu was remotely tutoring her younger cousin with his homework, shrieking and howling in sheer frustration.
Five minutes later, Zhou Xiaqing clicked the submit button.
The page remained the same page, and the score remained the same score stuck right in the middle, thoroughly unsatisfying.
Closing her laptop, she propped her head up with her hands and closed her eyes to rest.
Her body had long since signaled that she was exhausted and needed sleep, yet she felt completely wide awake.
Even her breathing would occasionally falter into an abnormal, chaotic rhythm.
The pressure was as heavy as a mountain.
A mountain?
Chen Jinshan’s sharply defined face suddenly popped into her mind, along with his clear, bright eyes, his somewhat plump lips, and his slightly protruding Adam’s apple.
Her nose even seemed to faintly catch that subtle fragrance again.
To be honest, the experience during those two nights abroad had been truly excellent.
Leaving aside his wicked, terrible personality that was exclusively directed at her, Chen Jinshan had a great face, an amazing physique, and a clean body.
On an aesthetic level, he was beyond reproach.
As for his technique, she couldn’t give a fair and reasonable evaluation for the time being.
After all, she had only ever done it with him, so she had no point of comparison.
But she did find it incredibly comfortable and thrilling whenever she engaged in that hearty, exhausting lovemaking with him.
Rubbing skin against skin, kissing him with reckless abandon, and merging with him as they shifted through various positions, all of her worries would completely vanish.
Afterward, her body would feel light, and her mood would soar to the sky.
Her memorization skills would even return to her previous peak state, and solving study problems became as fluid as flowing water.
She was reminiscing a bit now.
She was wavering.
She was going to burn her bridges.
She, Zhou Xiaqing, was about to repeat her past mistakes.
Habitually biting the nail of her left thumb, Zhou Xiaqing agonized over her thoughts for a long time.
There was now a highly critical and thorny problem laid out before her.
How exactly could she get Chen Jinshan into bed?
If she asked him out directly, there was a high probability she would be rejected.
After all, she was the one who had so confidently and righteously put on airs back then, insisting on cutting all ties with him.
After pondering for a while, she decided to adopt a roundabout tactic: seduce him first.
Once she succeeded, getting him into bed would follow naturally.
And so, the second highly critical question arose.
How exactly could she seduce Chen Jinshan?
“Se…duce?”
Zhang Mingzhu spoke to her cousin, who was doing English homework on the other side of the computer screen, emphasizing each syllable heavily.
“Who told you to pronounce the ‘ing’ in going as ‘ying’?
Your accent sounds pretty seductive.”
The other side mumbled something back, and she replied with a mix of helplessness and disdain, “I’m truly speechless.
Don’t tell anyone you’re my cousin when you go out.”
Immediately after, whatever the other side said caused her to blow her top: “Going what?
What did you say comes after the simple future tense be going?
Are you going me?”
Hearing her last phrase, which was uttered in a fit of angry laughter, Zhou Xiaqing couldn’t help but burst into a smile.
“To indicate a plan or an intention to do something, you use be going to… why are you spacing out again?
Hurry up and make a sentence for me, any sentence will do!”
Listening silently, Zhou Xiaqing instantly projected herself into the role of the student, obediently constructing a sentence in her mind: “I am going to seduce Carl Chen.”
I plan to seduce Chen Jinshan.
It is intentional, planned, and arranged.
Wait, that wasn’t right either.
The intention was there, but right now, she clearly didn’t have any feasible plans or arrangements to carry out.