Zhou Xiaqing slid her stool back a little, turning her head to look at Xu Ling, who was sitting at the opposite desk.
Xu Ling was wearing headphones, listening to music while typing away to chat with someone.
Softening her voice, she asked, “Xu Ling, can you hear me?”
Xu Ling pulled off one of her earbuds and leaned back in her chair. “Of course I can hear you. At this very moment, I am going someone.”
“Tell me, seducing…” what kind of tactics actually work on a person?
The question that had been swirling in her mind for so long only barely made its way out.
It hadn’t felt like much when she was just imagining it in her head, but hearing the words spoken out loud by her own voice made her so incredibly embarrassed that she couldn’t take it.
She hurriedly cut herself off.
“Going what?” Xu Ling teased. “Monitor Zhou, do you also need a lesson on how to use the simple future tense be going to?”
“No need.”
Zhou Xiaqing felt crestfallen and slid her chair back to its original position.
She brooded over it by herself for a long time without getting anywhere.
In the end, she pulled out her phone, stealthily opened Xiaohongshu, and typed a line into the search bar: How can you seduce someone?
After browsing through the results for several rounds, she summarized a few key points and, like a highly studious pupil, took notes in her memo app:
Observe him blatantly. Especially when there are a lot of people around, lock eyes with him.
Compliment him on an area of his expertise but make it a backhanded praise.
Know how to guide him into a trap and establish a certain amount of physical contact.
Coquet/act spoiled occasionally.
Zhou Xiaqing was exceptionally rigorous.
While taking a shower in the bathroom, she even envisioned specific scenarios for each note, detailing them right down to the facial expressions, body language, and dialogue.
Granted, she had never seduced anyone before, but with a guide to follow and her strict execution, the final result couldn’t possibly be too bad.
What did shame even matter? It was invisible and intangible.
Only outstanding, brilliant grades could be seen by others.
She, Zhou Xiaqing, would definitely win.
She would always win, with no exceptions.
Friday marked the Beginning of Winter.
Inside the lecture hall, the professor stood on the podium delivering a passionate lecture.
Chen Jinshan sat in the very last row of the tiered classroom, checking his phone every thirty seconds.
Otherwise, he would unconsciously tap his fingers on the desktop, looking completely restless.
His flighty mood also infected Gao Zhiyang, who was sneakily playing games right next to him.
“Damn it, lost again,” Gao Zhiyang cursed under his breath.
He looked up at Chen Jinshan, whose eyes were fixed intently on his phone, and lowered his voice. “What on earth is inside that phone?”
“There are plenty of things inside a phone,” Chen Jinshan shot him a sidelong glance.
“For example?” Gao Zhiyang raised an eyebrow.
“There are text messages, and there’s WeChat,” Chen Jinshan replied with a perfectly straight face.
“Did you drink too much? You’re just talking complete nonsense.”
Chen Jinshan couldn’t be bothered to pay him any mind.
He pressed his palms together and made a silent prayer to the void, then fixed his eyes back on his phone.
Text messages were the channel through which he would receive the arrival of the dumplings; WeChat was the medium to contact Zhou Xiaqing.
Perhaps Heaven really did hear his devout prayer because three seconds later, a text message containing the express pickup code arrived.
Chen Jinshan’s eyes instantly lit up.
The level of brightness could easily compete with the laser beams fired by Ultraman.
He immediately took a screenshot and sent it to Bread King: The dumplings are here. I’m going to pick them up right now. Are your classes over?
Zhou Xiaqing, who was repeatedly rehearsing the seduction scenarios in her dorm room, replied: I don’t have a fifth period. I’m in the dorm right now.
Chen Jinshan: Then I’ll message you when I get downstairs at your building in a bit.
The ill-intentioned Zhou Xiaqing: Okay.
She even went out of her way to find a cute, obedient emoji to send over.
She had to warm things up first, so that it wouldn’t seem so jarring when she officially launched her seduction operation.
Looking at the puppy emoji nodding its head on the screen, Chen Jinshan swiftly saved it and even moved it to the very front of his custom sticker collection.
Thrusting his phone into his pocket, he slid out of his seat with practiced ease.
Seizing the window of opportunity when the professor turned around, he grabbed his bag, hunched his back, and nimbly darted out the back door.
“Chen Jinshan, what are you doing?” Gao Zhiyang mouthed to him. “Abandoning me?”
“Yeah,” he stood outside the door and mouthed back.
“There are only 15 minutes left, can’t you just wait a bit?”
“No.”
He was dying of impatience, dying of impatience, dying of impatience.
Chen Jinshan ran all the way to the express delivery station outside the campus.
By the time he arrived, he was so exhausted that he had to support his hands on his legs, his throat completely parched: “Pick… picking up an express package… cough cough…”
Having successfully retrieved the loving homemade dumplings packed by his dad, he didn’t stop for a single breath.
Clutching the dumplings, he dashed madly to the front of Zhou Xiaqing’s dormitory building, stopping right next to that same familiar streetlamp.
With trembling fingers, he sent a message to Bread King, a brief two words: Arrived.
The other side replied: Coming downstairs right now.
Chen Jinshan opened his front-facing camera to fix his hair, tugged at his clothes, wiped away his sweat, and quickly regulated his breathing so that the rise and fall of his chest wouldn’t look so obvious.
By the time Zhou Xiaqing made it downstairs, she saw Chen Jinshan standing perfectly straight with a face full of cool detachment.
He was dressed very youthfully today, wearing a black sports jacket with white stripes paired with dark blue jeans, and an athletic bag slung across his back.
It was actually a very simple, basic outfit, but since he was tall and well-proportioned with a sufficiently handsome face, he looked extremely pleasing to the eye.
Seeing him clutching the delivery box and straightening his body like a Taobao model posing to showcase a product and play it cool, Zhou Xiaqing silently criticized: What a poser.
“What did you say?” Chen Jinshan asked.
“I said thank you.” Zhou Xiaqing’s eyes curved as she flashed what she believed to be a flawless fake smile. “Thanks for your hard work.”
“Zhou Xiaqing, I’m not deaf!” Chen Jinshan narrowed his eyes.
“Then your hearing is really good. Your English listening score must be a perfect mark, right?”
Involuntarily hitting him with her usual sarcasm out of reflex, she realized only after the words had left her mouth that she had strayed from her newly established persona, and a wave of vexation washed over her heart.
She had to keep it in mind at all times: her most important goal right now was to seduce Chen Jinshan!
Seduce! Seduce! Seduce!
She absolutely must not let herself indulge in a moment of petty satisfaction!
They opened the package together.
His mother had sent three trays of dumplings in total.
Without even thinking, Chen Jinshan tried to hand her two trays and asked, “Do you have a pot in your dorm room?”
“I have a small pot.” Zhou Xiaqing pushed one tray back. “We won’t be able to finish that many.”
“Okay.”
“Alright.”
The topic regarding the dumplings ended right there.
The two of them stood facing each other, and the atmosphere somehow grew subtly strange all of a sudden.
He racked his brains trying to think of a new topic just to make her stay a little longer, while she harbored hidden motives, hesitating over how to ask him out.
“Zhou Xiaqing.”
“Chen Jinshan.”
The two of them spoke at the exact same time.
He stopped talking and looked down at her face, listening to her speak very submissively: “Are you free tomorrow? I’d like to treat you to a meal and see a movie, as a thank you for delivering the dumplings to me.”
Chen Jinshan looked up at the sky.
Zhou Xiaqing followed his gaze and tilted her head up as well. “Is it raining?”
He calmly shook his head. “It’s not raining.”
Because what was falling was a meat pie from the sky.
A windfall had actually dropped right out of the blue!
It hit him so hard he felt close to fainting.
Seeing that he hadn’t replied to her invitation yet, Zhou Xiaqing feigned a couple of coughs, softening her tone to play the emotional card: “I know there are misunderstandings between us, but after all, our parents have known each other for so many years. They even moved houses together and their relationship is so good. If the two of us are always at odds, it will make them uncomfortable.”
Pausing for a moment, she lifted her gaze to look into his puppy-dog eyes, her tone earnest: “Honestly, just grabbing a meal together isn’t a big deal, right?”
As if his soul had left his body, Chen Jinshan nodded his head with extreme slowness. “It really isn’t a big deal.”
Then, like a robot, he added mechanically and coldly, “I have training tomorrow morning. It finishes at 11 o’clock. I’ll come here to wait for you then.”
“Okay, see you then.” Zhou Xiaqing turned around and entered the dormitory building.
As she walked upstairs, she was still recalling Chen Jinshan’s expression and tone just now.
He had looked so reluctant; it seemed tomorrow’s seduction was going to be difficult.
She needed to refine her plan a bit more.
She absolutely had to successfully seduce him.
Zhou Xiaqing pumped herself up.
Downstairs by the streetlamp, Chen Jinshan stood frozen like a wooden post, not moving for a very long time.
Gao Zhiyang happened to pass by riding a bicycle and called out to him a few times, but he didn’t get any reaction whatsoever.
Seeing his abnormal state, Gao Zhiyang swung off his bike, stepped forward to shake his shoulders frantically, and put on an exaggerated act: “Boss Chen, what’s wrong with you! Don’t scare me! I kept telling you that you should ask your restaurant-owner dad to adopt me as his godson! Now that his biological son is having a fit and breaking down, what am I supposed to do! No, no, no, you can’t break down! When my allowance runs dry, I still have to rely on you for relief! What’s your payment password?!”
Suddenly, Gao Zhiyang felt his body lighten as his feet left the ground, kicking circles in mid-air.
Chen Jinshan held him and spun around three times, the corners of his mouth splitting all the way to his ears.
After setting him down, he gathered the delivery box in a few swift motions, clutched it tightly, and ran off like the wind.
He vanished from sight in the blink of an eye.
Leaving Gao Zhiyang completely bewildered in the wind, “Is this the birth of the Monkey King or what?”