Before this, Qu Xiao had shared a room with another female teacher. The woman was not tall, and like Qu Xiao herself, was conventional and orderly—teaching and living by the book. Looking at her was like looking in a mirror.
At the start of the year, she was recruited by a mainstreaming education institution in the city to work as a shadow teacher. From then on, the bed next to Qu Xiao's sat empty, and Qu Xiao enjoyed the peace and quiet.
But it was almost too quiet.
Chen Qingning was like a bright gold-foil chocolate dropped into a gray cardboard box. All afternoon, Qu Xiao found herself replaying her figure, her outfit, her words and actions.
Her new roommate was certainly unusual, but she wasn't repelled by her—of that she was certain.
Returning from class, Qu Xiao pressed the light switch by the door.
What burst out in response was Chen Qingning's startled cry: "Who's that? So inconsiderate!"
Qu Xiao froze. She hadn't expected Chen Qingning to be sleeping. She was so thin that under the blanket she was nearly invisible.
Besides, Qu Xiao hadn't yet snapped out of her single-living reflex.
Qu Xiao, the one accused of being "inconsiderate," quickly apologized and hastily turned the light off.
But Chen Qingning had already sat up, waving her hand dismissively. "It's fine."
She yawned—her small mouth somehow stretching to that extent—then tilted her chin up. "Turn it on."
Qu Xiao switched the light back on, and white light flooded the room. She studied the girl in bed with a hint of apology. Chen Qingning was still in full makeup, only her hair slightly disheveled.
Qu Xiao set her laptop and bag down on the desk, trying to make up for her carelessness. "I'm heading to the cafeteria for dinner right away. Do you want to come?"
Chen Qingning, still bleary-eyed, reached for her phone. "Dinner before six?"
Qu Xiao said, "The cafeteria closes at seven."
"That early?" Chen Qingning began replying to the backlog of WeChat messages, not looking up. "What do they serve?"
That stumped Qu Xiao. She rarely paid attention to such things—she ate whatever the kitchen cooked. She struggled to recall for a moment. "Pretty similar to the staff cafeteria. Home-style dishes with meat and vegetables. Soup is usually loofah and egg drop, or tomato and egg drop. Sometimes there's chicken soup or pork rib soup."
Chen Qingning's interest was lukewarm. "Oh."
Qu Xiao was suddenly at a loss for words.
She had never met someone who said "oh" so much. "Oh" was cold. In work group chats, people mostly said "okay," "got it," or used various universally acceptable emojis. Even when harboring resentment, they'd dress it up in obedient phrasing.
That conditioned reflex surfaced in her again—she instinctively wanted to push back against that "oh," insisting with confirmation: "Are you coming?"
This was also the limit of her social capacity.
If Chen Qingning remained this rude, she would have to revise her earlier assessment.
The girl was completely oblivious to her tension, clearly cooking up some mischief behind her eyes. After a moment, she looked up. "Can you ask Yu Bei to come too?"
Qu Xiao's first reaction was to refuse. She had little interaction with Teacher Yu. She taught in the intellectual disability class, while Yu Bei was in charge of the senior hearing-impaired class. Apart from school-wide events or times when they were short-staffed, they were essentially two parallel lines. She was introverted by nature, and Yu Bei tended to keep to himself as well. If not for Chen Qingning's arrival, they might not have exchanged fifty words by the end of the school year.
But when Chen Qingning pressed her into a chair and insisted on curling the ends of her hair, the refusal began to dissolve.
The girl was especially focused as she adjusted the temperature of the curling iron. Her eyelashes looked like they'd been curled in advance too, like flower stamens.
In the round, moon-like vanity mirror, Qu Xiao saw herself in ultra-high definition—every spot and pore exposed. She pulled at the corner of her mouth, half-resisting: "No need, really… it's just dinner…"
Chen Qingning disagreed. "You should look pretty even for dinner!"
To be fair, her skills were excellent—far surpassing the middle-aged Tony stylists in the county town. She praised herself while styling: "See how much volume I've given it? It really suits your face shape."
Being "serviced" felt a bit strange, but Chen Qingning acted as if it were the most natural thing, as if they were already bosom friends.
Qu Xiao gave up the fight and instead asked, "Why don't you ask Teacher Yu yourself?"
Chen Qingning looked like she wanted to sling the curling iron over her shoulder, grinding her teeth: "He hasn't even accepted my friend request!"
Qu Xiao said, "Maybe he's busy."
Chen Qingning: "It only takes two seconds to confirm. He just doesn't want to deal with me."
"That's unlikely," Qu Xiao offered her objective view. "You're so pretty."
"Right, and my figure's great too." Chen Qingning also defended herself.
She glanced down at her flat stomach, then turned to the full-length mirror to "admire herself in solitude."
She couldn't help striking poses, and in this distraction, completely forgot that a customer was still waiting in place.
"Chen Qingning?" Qu Xiao pinched the ends of her hair, looking at Chen Qingning, who was going through ten poses a second, uncertain: "Is it done?"
Chen Qingning snapped back to reality, pressing both hands to her chest like a heroine in an American drama: "Oh—my bad—I have ADHD. I just stopped taking my meds."
She hurried back, swapping the curling iron for an exaggerated wide-tooth comb, instructing Qu Xiao: "First, comb it out."
Qu Xiao followed suit, dazed.
Having some professional knowledge, she wasn't unfamiliar with the term Chen Qingning mentioned: "You have ADHD?"
“Yeah.” Chen Qingning’s tone was certain.
Qu Xiao immediately turned serious. “When were you diagnosed?”
“Not diagnosed yet.”
Qu Xiao was momentarily speechless. “Then how do you know you have ADHD?”
“Because a lot of international students have it—it’s like an epidemic. If I don’t have it, I’d look too normal.”
Huh?
Qu Xiao couldn’t keep up with her logic. “Can you just take medication without a diagnosis?”
Chen Qingning shrugged. “I can take my diagnosed classmates’ meds.”
Qu Xiao: “…”
Before she could even process whether that was plausible or feasible, Chen Qingning had already composed an invitation text like an AI and showed it to her: “Brother Yu, want to have dinner together tonight?”
Qu Xiao shuddered. “I don’t talk like that.”
Chen Qingning dragged her stool closer. “That’s me talking.”
Qu Xiao double-checked. “You’re sure you want to send this to Teacher Yu?”
Chen Qingning made an unmistakable OK gesture, then crossed her legs and looked at her phone.
“Let’s make a bet.” Her gaze drifted over.
Qu Xiao raised an eyebrow.
Chen Qingning said, “Within five minutes, Yu Bei will accept my friend request.”
Qu Xiao asked, “Why?”
Chen Qingning said, “Because he’s a nice person.”
She idly examined her split ends. “If he doesn’t want me to keep bothering everyone, he’ll have to let me through.”
Is that so?
Qu Xiao was in awe.
Maintaining a half-believing attitude, Qu Xiao—who usually kept a strict routine—actually stayed to wait for the result with Chen Qingning.
“Time me.”
Qu Xiao paused, then opened the stopwatch on her phone.
How strange… Chen Qingning’s tone wasn’t domineering or pressuring—soft and clipped—yet Qu Xiao found herself complying without even realizing it.
Qu Xiao watched intently.
Chen Qingning couldn’t sit still, lowering her eyes to admire each of her fingernails.
Her phone buzzed.
Chen Qingning snatched it up, unlocked the screen, and turned it toward Qu Xiao, smiling with slight malice.
Her wickedness was like the fragrance of a dahlia—some found it curious, others avoided it. Yu Bei was clearly the latter. He had just returned from a home visit. Tomorrow would be bad weather, and the sky showed no sign of light. He braked his mountain bike in the shed, one foot on the ground, and had no choice but to urgently approve the request.
The uninvited guest had no self-awareness, barging in and taking over the whole room.
Ning: Coming?
Ning: I’ll treat you to Mixue.
Ning: They close at 6:30. If you don’t reply soon, it’ll be too late.
Yu Bei flexed his fingers: I said we’d meet at 7:30 tomorrow morning.
Ning: Huh? Tomorrow morning?
Ning: I didn’t hear clearly. I thought it was tonight.
Yu Bei gave up dealing with Chen Qingning, just as ordinary people can’t reason with a troublemaker. He locked his bike, feeling a prickling itch on the back of his neck. He reached back and found a dried, withered leaf, its edges intact—it must have gotten lodged there on the way back. Instead of discarding it, he tucked it into his pocket.
Stepping into the corridor, the night wind narrowed, tangling unapologetically around his face. Yu Bei considered whether to put his mask back on.
“Teacher Yu? Is that you?” A sultry voice cut through his wandering thoughts.
Yu Bei looked up and saw someone standing at the dormitory stairwell. Light spilled from inside, while darkness loomed beyond—she stood there, a long, dim silhouette, like the shadow of a willow tree.
Yu Bei paused, unsure whether to respond.
“Aren’t you cold?” Yu Bei asked. He’d left in a hurry, forgetting his gloves, and his knuckles ached from the cold.
She was a master at seizing an opening: “Hearing Brother Yu’s concern, I don’t feel cold at all.”
Yu Bei trudged forward, letting her chatter on, answering only what he could.
“Why are you ignoring me again?”
“…”
“I waited for you so long—don’t you want to treat me to a meal or something?”
“…”
“I just got here today, I don’t even have a staff card yet.”
“The cafeteria is free.”
“Aren’t you going to eat?”
“Already ate.”
“Ah, you already ate?” The person behind him suddenly deflated.
Her feigned grievance chased after him, “Then what am I supposed to do?”
“…” Yu Bei stopped at the second-floor landing, his gaze drifting past the window beside him: “The cafeteria isn’t closed yet.”
“Qu Xiao already went,” the girl said with inexplicable confidence. “I don’t even know where it is. You take me there.”
Mindful of Principal Lin’s repeated instructions, Yu Bei glanced down the hallway. “Wait here. I’ll put something away.”
“Oh.” Chen Qingning finally quieted down—no, her eyes were still making noise.
Yu Bei turned and walked to his dorm, opening the door and flicking on the light. He had nothing to put away; he needed to put away some frustration.
He took a deep breath, pulling a rolled-up notebook from his jacket pocket. A gel pen was clipped to the cover page. He removed it and placed it back in the pen holder.
“Why do you have a single room?!” An indignant shout exploded from the side.
Yu Bei turned his head toward the door. “Why did you follow me?”
The clingy presence was all about selective hearing and doing whatever she pleased: “Should I close the door?”
Yu Bei: “No need.”
Chen Qingning: “Oh.”
"What's this? Does this school favor boys over girls?" Chen Qingning pretended to be indignant as she walked in, taking the opportunity to scan the entire room. It was a very tidy, monotonous straight-male dormitory, though it also had some unique displays, like a row of hydroponic plants on the windowsill, their containers random—empty soda bottles or liquor bottles. Drawing closer, she noticed fish kept at the corner of the desk—two goldfish, one red and one black, housed in a white porcelain bowl the size of a soup bowl. Whether due to lack of oxygen or recognition of their owner, they all gathered at the water's surface, smacking their mouths eagerly, just like her when she spotted a handsome guy.
Yu Bei replied, "I'm the only male teacher living on campus."
Chen Qingning said meaningfully, "So you're the only one left."
Yu Bei: "Let's go."
But Chen Qingning wasn't in a hurry. "Tsk tsk," she teased the two dull fish, "Do your pet fish have names?"
"No."
She sincerely suggested, "You could call them Qingbao and Ningbao."
Yu Bei paused for a moment. "Baduanjin, Diamond Sutra."
Chen Qingning giggled, incredulous. "You didn't just make those up on the spot, did you?"
Yu Bei lit up his phone, reminding her, "The cafeteria is about to close."
"I'm not going to the cafeteria," Chen Qingning took a step back, her lower back leaning against the edge of his desk, her hands resting casually behind her, her gaze fixed on a corner of the wall. "I'm going to eat instant noodles here."