Could he have fallen for X?
With his to-do list mapped out for the entire night, Ji Wenyu sat in the library, staring blankly until the closing bell rang, repeatedly and uncontrollably asking himself this question.
The recommendation letter remained undrafted, his research direction unrefined, and the personal statement for his winter camp application untouched. His greatest achievement of the night was probably opening the vocabulary app that had been gathering dust for days, finishing two hundred words, and checking in on Qinghe.
Why did he choose the most unnecessary and unurgent task among all the options? Naturally because memorizing words required very little brainpower, and once he finished, he had an excuse to send a message to that person in his chat with X.
He only memorized vocabulary; tree planting was completely out of the question.
Because the entire evening, he had been obsessively lost in the search function of the social platform.
How to know if you have a crush on someone, Why do people fall in love, Why does chatting make you nervous, Is the desire to share a sign of liking someone.
Because he searched so much, the system automatically pushed plenty of related content his way.
Things like how to chat with your crush, is my crush into me, and my crush steals my meme stickers.
Clicking on that last one, Ji Wenyu began to regret why he had replied so blandly to X’s earlier banter, acting like such a wooden block.
When other people chat with their crushes, it goes like this:
Why are you stealing my stickers? Because I like you. Sticker.
He was usually praised by his friends as a king of witty banter, yet in front of X, he grew as nervous as an elementary schooler.
If only he had casually flirted back with X, the young man thought, beating his chest in frustration.
Just like regretting a poor comeback during an argument, chatting worked the exact same way.
He was angry at himself for failing to give the textbook answer from the internet, and he was equally angry that X hadn’t replied to his message, even though the message X left unread was his bot-like vocabulary check-in.
Being dazed in the library didn’t mean things improved back at the dorm.
His mind was filled entirely with X, leaving Ji Wenyu unable to summon any energy for anything else.
Since that person wasn’t chatting with him, he had no choice but to start browsing X’s notes on Qinghe.
This wasn’t his first time scouring X’s homepage.
Unlike last time, when he left comments everywhere on X’s notes trying to draw the big shot’s attention, this time the young man moved with utmost caution, terrified of leaving any trace that he had been there.
Feeling like a thief with a guilty conscience, he repeatedly verified that Qinghe left no visit history logs.
Ever since they mutually followed each other, likely busy with check-ins, X hadn’t posted any more of those long, original Q&A notes. Therefore, what Ji Wenyu was browsing were actually the exact same ones he had read before.
Yet this time, he couldn’t help but start paying attention to the users interacting with X.
He remembered Wang Xinno mentioning once that a girl at Peking University had posted a photo of X. He didn’t remember the name Wang Xinno had said, but this girl and X must be very close, right?
The young man diligently searched through X’s comment section, and after failing there, switched over to the forum board.
X’s photo.
Ji Wenyu typed into the search bar.
As expected of Qinghe’s number one big shot, he actually managed to blind-search a post.
The title of the post was: Does anyone have photos of X-god? I’m curious and want to see.
It matched his exact state of mind at that moment.
Ji Wenyu clicked into the post.
The initial floors of comments were all “Haven’t seen,” “Didn’t notice,” and “X’s homepage doesn’t have any.” Scrolling down to the second page, the young man dug up a floor that contained an image.
It was the exact same silhouette photo Wang Xinno had shown him that day, taken on the street outside the Peking University gate.
A month ago, he had looked at it with disdain, even mocking Wang Xinno for how blurry the picture was and asking what anyone could possibly discern from it. Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined that a month later, he would wholeheartedly validate Wang Xinno’s assessment.
X really was quite handsome, even though this picture made it entirely impossible to make out his facial features.
Thinking about how his mother had tried to matchmake him with Wang Xinno when he went home for the National Day holiday, Ji Wenyu suddenly found it somewhat amusing. Back then, he had assumed Wang Xinno had a crush on some campus idol and that he himself had zero feelings for Wang Xinno whatsoever. Who could have guessed that a month later, he and Wang Xinno would instantly transform into fellow fans of the same idol, or perhaps rivals in love.
Such a niche concept! Startled by his own thought, Ji Wenyu gave a slight shudder and hurriedly shook his head, trying to rattle that absurd notion out of his brain.
Below the floor containing X’s photo were collapsed comment threads, which the young man curiously clicked open.
Wow, he looks so handsome. Does the OP have a front-facing photo?
He saw the original poster’s reply.
This was posted a long time ago by Senior Sister Yan Qiong. It’s the only photo of X on the entire internet.
Yan Qiong. Ji Wenyu finally found a new lead.
The girl Wang Xinno had cued that day must be this Yan Qiong.
Yan Qiong from Peking University.
Once he had a name, tracking the person down was effortless and straightforward.
Although Qinghe was an anonymous social platform, since Senior Sister Yan Qiong had openly posted a photo of X, the probability of her surfing the web under her real identity was extremely high.
Sure enough, Ji Wenyu quickly found Yan Qiong’s account on Qinghe. The account nickname was “Jade Pavilions in Clear Towers,” and her personal bio read: Yan Qiong from Peking University.
The young man exited, went into settings, changed his following and follower lists to private visibility status so others couldn’t see them, searched for “Jade Pavilions in Clear Towers” again, and hit follow.
He tossed and turned on his bed, shifting to a spot slightly closer to the headboard, and clicked into Yan Qiong’s homepage with rapt attention.
After an entire night of burning the midnight oil in deep reading, Ji Wenyu roughly figured out the relationship between Yan Qiong and X.
Yan Qiong and X were among the very first batch of users when Qinghe was first established, and the two of them were most likely classmates from the same cohort.
This Yan Qiong had been the Student Union President of Peking University last year. In other words, extrapolating from that, she was a senior in her final year now. If X was her classmate, then X must also be in his final year. X majored in Artificial Intelligence, while Yan Qiong majored in Finance. The two of them seemed to have met through some competition, and while there were other members in their team, the only ones active on Qinghe appeared to be the two of them.
Ji Wenyu pieced these basic facts together roughly. But most importantly, Yan Qiong had a boyfriend, her senior who was pursuing a PhD in the United States. She herself also seemed to have secured an offer from an Ivy League school in the US and would head over after graduating next year.
From this perspective, the relationship between X and her should just be that of good friends, devoid of any romantic ambiguity.
The more he dug, the more awake he became. Having stayed up all night, Ji Wenyu was still in exceptionally high spirits the next morning.
[ICE: Civil Law lecture, are you going or am I?]
Huang Bin’s message popped up on the screen. Ji Wenyu’s hand loosened, and his phone smashed squarely onto his nose.
Wincing in pain, the young man picked his phone back up.
[Little Fish: You go] [Little Fish: I’m not going]
Having pulled an all-nighter, he needed to catch up on sleep. Besides, he still had a mountain of winter camp application materials left; when would he ever have time to attend elective fluff classes?
[ICE: Fine then] [ICE: Friendly reminder though, midterm exams are next week, and key points are very likely to be highlighted this week]
What on earth? Midterms?!
Ji Wenyu’s pupils dilated in shock.
Bauhinia University’s midterm exams were notorious for being brutal.
Not only did they account for a higher percentage of the overall grade compared to other schools, but the university also scheduled all course exams uniformly, cramming them all into the exact same week. The sheer demonic difficulty of midterm exam week was hardly any better than finals week.
Should he go to Civil Law after all? Relatively speaking, it was a fluff class compared to professional courses, but an exam was still an exam.
Ji Wenyu sat up abruptly from the bed, thought about it for a moment, and lay back down.
Forget it, midterms weren’t limited to just this one subject. Since disaster was already imminent anyway, he might as well sleep his fill first before getting up to head to the library.
[Little Fish: Listen closely for the key points, buddy is counting on you]
Midterms were next week, and the winter camp application portal also opened next week. Even if he pushed it to the absolute deadline for material submission, surviving midterms the week after next before applying, he still needed to get the recommendation letter from Chen Wang sorted out next week so the professor would have time for revisions. His research direction and the letter of recommendation were best handled simultaneously, sent over to Chen Wang together for review to show his initiative and sincerity. Looking at it this way, roughly speaking, the deadlines for both midterms and material preparation were next week. And today was already Thursday.
He was completely doomed.
The Qinghe vocabulary check-ins were paused, his invitation to treat X to dinner was paused, and everything else would have to wait until he survived midterms!
The check-in event was also entering its final week. However, based on the points he and X had accumulated, even if their points didn’t increase by a single digit in this final week, securing the guaranteed internship offer was still a sure thing. Moreover, Peking University’s midterm exam intensity was far lower than theirs; since he stopped checking in and let X do it alone, it wouldn’t be unreasonable either, right? Thinking this, Ji Wenyu grew increasingly self-assured.
Sleep, sleep. The coming days would all be hard-fought battles.
With an imminent deadline looming over his head, he suddenly managed to set aside the fact that his mind had been entirely occupied by X.
Falling asleep instantly, Ji Wenyu woke up in the afternoon feeling full of vitality, ready to face a brand new day.
After finishing takeout in the dorm, he shouldered his heavy backpack and headed toward the library.
Once a to-do list becomes overflowing, people inevitably slip into a state of bewilderment.
The library was packed to capacity for midterms, with not a single seat available on the sixth floor. Ji Wenyu had no choice but to change floors, going from six to seven, and climbing the stairs all the way to eight before finally finding an empty seat.
As for his professional courses, Computer Vision had been studied during the quizzes in the previous weeks, and he had been listening attentively ever since, so the midterms should pose no major issues and could be put aside for now. Data Mining didn’t involve overly difficult knowledge points, and according to senior students, the professor for this course graded quite leniently, so it could also be pushed back. Machine Learning and Robot Simulation were the ones that required genuine effort. Trying to start reading the textbooks from scratch now was undoubtedly too late. In that case,
Ji Wenyu opened the dorm group chat.
[Little Fish: @ Xu, Big Shot, are you in the library?]
Since his secret crush on Xu Yuanzhe was already a closed chapter, and given that this was a life-or-death juncture for midterms, he naturally cast all inhibitions aside and stopped dodging Xu Yuanzhe altogether.
Right now, only Xu Yuanzhe’s notes could save him.
If Xu Yuanzhe was in the library, he was probably studying and wouldn’t reply to his message right away. If that person wasn’t in the library, things would get tricky, leaving him no choice but to go find Xu Yuanzhe in person to get the notes, bring them back to the library to scan and copy, and then return them to Xu Yuanzhe.
Seeing right through his intentions, Xu Yuanzhe didn’t beat around the bush with him.
[Xu: Which subject do you need?] [Little Fish: All of them] [Little Fish: Flattering.GIF]
The other side of the screen remained silent for a long time. Just when Ji Wenyu began to ponder whether he had been too greedy and whether Xu Yuanzhe might be cursing at him over there right now, the straight-A student tossed a string of files into the group chat.
Notes for every single compulsory class he shared with Xu Yuanzhe had been scanned into PDF format and sent over.
Good grief, Ji Wenyu exclaimed inwardly. Xu Yuanzhe was truly being a ridiculously good guy this time, even helping them with the scanning.
The next second, he suddenly figured out why.
These notes probably weren’t prepared for them; sending them over was merely a matter of convenience.
Xu Yuanzhe was someone with a girlfriend now, so these were naturally prepared for his girlfriend.
Tsk. Ji Wenyu shook his head with an internal sigh. Having to get notes while still getting a faceful of dog food shoved down his throat was truly desolate.
He printed out the string of note files one by one and arranged them in the order of previewing he had just decided upon.
Before opening the first page, the young man couldn’t help lingering a bit longer.
He took a photo of the thick stack of notes on his desk, opened Qinghe, and sent it to X.
[Little Fish: We have midterms next week, I might not be able to check in again before the exams]
Ji Wenyu dug out a wildly apologizing little penguin sticker.
Before going into closed-door seclusion, he still needed to say hello to that person.
X’s reaction was just as he had anticipated, gentle and indifferent, seeming completely unbothered by his behavior of lying flat and waiting to be carried.
[X: Alright, good luck on your exams]
Even though he had known all along that X wouldn’t mind because of this, Ji Wenyu felt an inexplicable sense of loss at that moment.
He figured his brain must be malfunctioning to a degree of eighty percent.
Wasn’t it a good thing that X agreed? Did he want X’s reaction to be dissolving their study buddy partnership right on the spot?
The young man slapped his own forehead.
With his thumb hovering over the screen for a long while, he realized he still couldn’t calm his mind down to study.
When he had free time he thought of X, and even when he was busy he still thought of X, this was starting to get slightly problematic.
After a fierce internal struggle, he tapped into the chat box with X once more.
[Little Fish: Can’t focus on studying, I need someone to supervise me, what should I do]
Fearing he might regret it the next second, the young man frantically pressed the send button, then flipped his phone face-down onto the desktop.
His cheeks burned slightly with heat, and Ji Wenyu cupped his face in his hands, trying to force himself to calm down.
He had set his phone to silent when entering the library, turning off vibrations as well. With the screen face-down on the desk, he had no way of knowing when X would reply to his message.
Forcing himself to read half a page of notes, the young man couldn’t help but flip his phone screen back over.
Seeing the Qinghe notification pop up on the screen, a faint glimmer of hope emerged in Ji Wenyu’s pretty eyes.
He swiped open the screen.
[X: I’m reviewing too. Shall we join mics together?]