22、
Sister Fu had mainly come to X City on business, only dropping by to visit her younger sister along the way. After just two days she’d already become completely familiar with Mao Mao and the others.
At the moment she leaned against the window of Dorm 315, holding a lit cigarette between two fingers, gazing at the sky with half her face bright and half melancholic.
Mao Mao exclaimed, “Qingdao’s holding the big naval parade these days! So many sailors! Makes me want to fly over and flirt shamelessly!”
Chaoyang sighed. “Even soldiers aren’t safe from you anymore?”
Qiangwei chuckled. “Mao Mao, you’re becoming more and more flirtatious.”
“Life’s wasted if youth isn’t romantic!”
Sister Fu snorted. “Nobody’s more romantic than me.”
“Mm… Chiang Kai-shek maybe?”
A lazy voice drifted over.
“At fourteen, the young shota married a nineteen-year-old wife. At twenty-four he lived with a twenty-three-year-old courtesan. At thirty-two he met a fourteen-year-old loli at Huangpu Military Academy. At thirty-four he finally conquered the sixteen-year-old loli. Then at forty-two, due to political necessity, he had no choice but to win over a thirty-year-old mature beauty.”
“……”
Sister Fu’s eye twitched. “Little girl, you write novels or something?”
Anning smiled faintly and pointed at the computer. “Someone else wrote it. Pretty interesting, and historically fairly accurate too.”
Qiangwei wailed, “Sis, spare her! She didn’t mean it!”
“Your brain’s broken.”
That very night, Sister Fu dragged A’Miao out to watch a movie.
Sister Fu had always judged people by first impressions. If she liked someone, she liked them!
Poor A’Miao, a creature who operated only during daylight hours, considered nighttime activities spiritual torture. But she wasn’t good at refusing others, and all her so-called friends had hidden themselves in corners without a shred of loyalty.
Thus, at the deep dark hour of night…
Actually only seven o’clock…
She was dragged out to the movies.
They watched The Scorpion King.
For someone who loved historical research, the experience was agonizing.
“The story’s set before the pyramid era… The earliest historically verified step pyramid dates to the 27th century BC, during the Third Dynasty. Meanwhile, in the Yellow River basin, clan leader Ji Xuanyuan was busy fighting the Jiuli tribes. So if this movie’s world setting is before the 27th century BC, then it should belong to a distant age bordering on mythology. Would stirrups and gunpowder even exist back then? Mm, even if they claim the magic powder came from China, the Yellow River basin was still in tribal society…”
By the second half, A’Miao had completely tilted her head sideways and fallen asleep.
Until the person beside her coughed lightly.
“Miss, the movie’s over.”
Anning opened her eyes to find Sister Fu gone from the seat on her right, while she herself had been leaning against the shoulder of a well-dressed gentleman on her left.
She immediately sat upright properly and apologized profusely.
The man smiled. “Was the movie that boring?”
“…It was okay.”
His smile deepened slightly as he stood up. “Your friend went to the restroom. She asked me to tell you to wait outside for her.”
Anning nodded gratefully and followed the refined gentleman out.
Seeing her yawning repeatedly, he couldn’t help teasing, “You slept for an hour and still aren’t awake?”
Anning felt embarrassed, though she didn’t say much. She tended to behave more familiarly once she recognized someone.
When they reached the roadside outside to wait, she unexpectedly spotted another familiar figure.
Mm…
In her previous life, she and Xu Moting must have passed by each other at least five hundred times.
Otherwise how could they even run into each other in a place like this?
Xu Moting, who had just emerged from the building opposite, also noticed her.
Anning instantly straightened unconsciously.
Today he was dressed formally in a black suit — the image of a polished elite professional.
Anning stared blankly for a moment.
Then her mind suddenly flashed back to that day in the small classroom…
He had lowered his head and kissed her lightly on the shoulder and neck…
Boom.
An overwhelming sense of intimacy surged through her chest.
He gave her a slight nod from across the street before getting into a black sedan with the people accompanying him and driving away.
When Sister Fu returned, she found A’Miao staring blankly into space.
“What’s wrong?”
Anning looked up.
The flowing light in her eyes momentarily stunned the woman asking the question — commonly known as “being dazzled.”
Then A’Miao said quietly:
“I want to sleep.”
Once the semester’s workload settled into routine, Anning predictably had to start her internship at Longtai again. Mrs. Li had found the position for her. Because the location was far away, she basically had to wake up at 6:30 every morning, wash up, rush out the door before seven with her backpack, queue with elementary school students for breakfast, then squeeze onto the subway alongside middle school students…
Every time this schedule made her feel as though she’d returned to the distant era of being a schoolgirl loli again…
Sigh.
Anning: I have to start internship work again.
Anning: No going home on weekends anymore.
Anning: From now on it’s just endless overtime…
Anning: This is tragic.
Cousin: ==!
Cousin: Every day for me is vacation.
Cousin: Once this business trip’s over, I’m buying another camera to play with.
Cousin: Zeiss sample shots are too beautiful.
Anning: I just hope I stay alive long enough to visit Jiuzhaigou this year…
Cousin: So pitiful… I can go wherever I want anytime.
Cousin: Ah, freedom!
Cousin: Last week I accompanied my advisor around Shenzhen, and this week I’m touring Hong Kong with company people again.
Cousin: Exhausting.
Cousin: If only I’d studied physics too, I wouldn’t suffer such tragedy.
That night, Cousin was added to the blacklist…
For one week.
Mao Mao burst through the door panting. “I exercised for an hour, then ate a ton afterward. Damn it, might as well not have exercised or eaten at all!”
Chaoyang suddenly asked, “Mao Mao, did you touch my external hard drive?”
“Who’d touch that thing? It probably descended into the mortal world to become a demon. It’s been gone three days already — maybe the little USB drives have reproduced by now?”
“……”
Chaoyang and Mao Mao both instinctively turned to look at the person collapsed over the desk.
Anning blinked. “What?”
“N-Nothing!”
Meanwhile, on Anning’s side…
She was thinking about Xu Moting.
After calming her emotions for a while, she finally took out her phone.
This was the very first time she had ever主动 called him.
Coincidentally, he happened to be working late that night.
When Moting saw the incoming caller ID, he gestured for his two colleagues to pause discussion, then walked over to the window to answer.
“Hello.”
His tone remained perfectly steady, though the corners of his lips had already begun lifting slightly.
“Mm… I just wanted to ask, if I invite you to dinner tomorrow, would you prefer Chinese food or Western food?”
Xu Moting genuinely froze for a moment before replying, “Anything’s fine. You decide. I’m not picky.”
Anning knew for certain she was blushing, and her heartbeat had sped up too. So she decisively ended the call.
“Then… see you tomorrow.”
For Xu Moting, that single phone call was enough to completely stir his emotions.
As one colleague stood up, he happened to glimpse the gentle brightness on Xu Moting’s face and unconsciously stopped walking.
Xu Moting, who had never taken the tender-romantic route, now looked as though water shimmered in his eyes.
“…What?”
“N-Nothing!”