Over here, Ji Shu had finally escaped one crisis and hurried to the cafeteria for lunch.
She arrived late, the cafeteria was already mostly empty. She didn’t have much appetite and picked at her food casually. The food at Frand was shockingly expensive, she had chosen a few vegetarian dishes and even questioned herself at the card reader, wondering if she’d misread the decimal point.
Next to each tray was a label listing the dish’s name, ingredients, and origin. Some ingredients were imported fresh from overseas, but to Ji Shu, the difference wasn’t very noticeable. Any food in her mouth felt dry and unappealing.
From the next table, she overheard quiet murmurs: “Eating here every day… I wish I could just run into the Chief once in a while…”
“Daydreaming, aren’t you? The Chief has his own private buffet. How would he ever come here?”
“Just think about it. Didn’t we hear that the young duke once came here on a whim? Some dishes were discounted for special recruits that week, and the place was packed… Oh, and I think one special recruit even spilled a drink on his clothes by accident.”
“That happened ages ago. Besides, didn’t I hear that it was on purpose?”
“There’s a post about it on the school forum. I’ll check later. I think that recruit’s name was Ruan… something.”
Ji Shu stopped listening.
She set down her tray and left quickly, following the navigation to her afternoon elective: World Classical Music Appreciation.
The instructor for this course was an elderly professor, a graduate of a foreign music conservatory. He had been teaching this class at Frandre for over a decade, was rehired after retirement, and had a good reputation among students, kind, lenient with grading, and highly sought after.
The classroom was in A08. Ji Shu wandered around for a while and arrived early, picking a seat near the front. She briefly reviewed the course material, then opened her Mac to catch up on notes from the main class and took a short rest.
When she woke up, students had gradually begun to arrive. Rubbing her arms, she noticed that the air conditioning had been turned up a few degrees, no longer as chilly as when she had fallen asleep.
She scanned the classroom: all unfamiliar faces. In the back row, someone else, wearing a hat like hers, was leaning over the desk, asleep.
Soon, the room filled further. In the tiered lecture hall, dozens of rows of desks stirred with chatter as students took their seats, gradually blocking the view of the back-row student. Ji Shu turned her head again and noticed that an unfamiliar girl had taken the seat beside her. Round-faced, tied in a ponytail, with lightly pink cheeks, she looked full of energy.
Ji Shu quietly packed her computer away and removed her headphones. Before class started, the room erupted into a cacophony of excited chatter. She looked up and saw Xie Zhoulin approaching with several male Student Council members. Instinctively, she propped her textbook in front of her face, though she could still hear their footsteps and the crowd growing louder behind her.
Looking back, she saw a few boys had already claimed seats and were waving at the Student Council members.
“Power is nice… arriving late but still getting such good seats,” the round-faced girl beside her whispered, a tinge of envy in her voice.
Soon, she heard chairs scraping behind her. She could clearly hear his footsteps, slightly heavier and steadier than others, as he sat down diagonally behind her.
“President, isn’t the young duke coming again today?” someone asked, flipping through their textbook.
Xie Zhoulin replied, “We’ll see when he wakes up.”
Laughter started rising from nearby, casual and relaxed.
“In weather like this, sleeping under the AC is the best. Who wants to come to class? Only the young duke actually dares to make us do what he wants.”
Hearing that Lu Mingxi wouldn’t be coming, Ji Shu felt a small sense of relief. She began flipping through her textbook as the elderly professor arrived, fashionably late.
His hair was silver-white, yet he still looked spry and alert, showing no signs of fatigue. Smiling, he walked to the podium, skillfully handling the computer and display equipment.
“Looks younger than he did during finals week,” the round-faced girl whispered to herself.
The professor quickly started roll call. With over a hundred students in the hall, it took some time. When he finally reached Ji Shu’s name, the girl beside her paused, turned, and widened her eyes at her.
“You’re Ji Shu?”
Ji Shu, not sure what she meant, nodded.
The girl grinned. “You didn’t know? Every time in class, only your name and Lu Mingxi’s go unanswered. Everyone thinks you must be somehow related to the young duke.”
Ji Shu didn’t know what to say. She quietly turned her head, burying herself in her textbook.
After a short while, the girl poked her arm again. “Hey, Ji Shu, you look kind of familiar.”
She stared at her for a while, then suddenly got excited, eyes shining. “Are you the girl from that video on the forum? The one who, all by herself in the dodgeball test, knocked out every other team?”
Ji Shu didn’t dare answer. The girl, oblivious to proper first-row etiquette, pulled out her phone, quickly navigated the forum, opened her saved posts, and selected a silent video. She slid it under the desk toward Ji Shu.
“Look!” she whispered, excited. “Is this you? It has to be you!!”
Ji Shu glanced at it.
The video did indeed show her during the dodgeball test that day in the sports field. It started from the latter half of the test, the camera angle crooked and pixelated. The sunlight from above made her skin look ghostly pale. Soon after the test ended, she fell back and was caught by a pair of hands reaching from behind, and the video abruptly cut off.
Ji Shu froze.
…The only person standing behind her that day was Xie Zhoulin.
She suddenly remembered what Lu Mingxi had said that morning.
Could it be that Xie Zhoulin was the one who sent her to the infirmary?
Ji Shu wanted to deny the absurd thought, but she now felt a prickling unease.
He was sitting right behind her. She could only hope that the small gestures she made earlier hadn’t caught his attention.
In fact, they probably hadn’t, though they did catch the professor’s eye.
The silver-haired elder smiled warmly, tapped the round-faced girl’s desk, and asked her to read aloud the passage she had just explained.
The girl hesitated, fidgeting, then stuffed her phone into the desk compartment, her face flushing as she didn’t know how to begin.
Ji Shu also snapped back to her senses. Fortunately, she had listened to at least part of the lecture earlier. She discreetly tapped her pen against the foreign‑language explanation for Figure 3 on page 129. Noticing the hint, the girl immediately held up her textbook and began reading aloud. When she ran into words she didn’t know, she simply pushed on with incorrect pronunciations, drawing laughter from a large portion of the class and easing the tension that had just built up.
Even the elderly professor couldn’t help laughing. He waved his hand. “All right, sit down. Pay attention in class.”
The girl looked as though she’d been granted a reprieve from execution. She turned to Ji Shu and mouthed a grateful “thank you.”
Before long, the professor assigned the final project for the music appreciation course. Unlike previous years’ term papers, this year’s final would take the form of a group project. Students were required to form their own musical‑theater troupes, rehearse a musical, and give a stage performance at the end of the term. The performance would be graded and count as the final mark.
The classroom immediately stirred, like a kettle of boiling water rattling under its lid. Most students looked pleased and excited.
Ji Shu felt a little puzzled, so the round‑faced girl leaned over again to explain, “The professor has always liked this format for finals. According to upperclassmen, as long as you participate and go on stage, even if you just play a tree, you’ll get at least a B+.”
“So that’s how it is,” Ji Shu thought. No wonder this course was so hard to get into.
Even with her frequent absences, if she worked a bit harder, she could probably still secure a decent grade that wouldn’t drag her GPA down.
Soon, the professor began displaying the list of optional productions for the final assessment on the projector. Smiling, she said, “Starting this week, the official recordings of these productions will be screened every weekend in the theater in Area A. You may go watch any that interest you. Before next month, each student should submit their group and chosen production to Xie Zhoulin for compilation. Once everything is confirmed, you may begin rehearsing on your own.”
The girl snapped photos of the list, then said awkwardly, “I haven’t seen any of these at all. Ji Shu, do you have any preference?”
Ji Shu replied half‑jokingly, half‑seriously, “No idea. Like you said, maybe I’ll just play a tree.”
The moment she finished speaking, laughter came from the row behind her. She turned around and saw a few boys grinning mischievously. Beside them, Xie Zhoulin was lowering his head and diligently taking notes, his expression focused. His lowered lashes hid his eyes, his thin lips lightly pressed together, as if he were completely oblivious to the commotion.
The girl spoke up for her, “What are you laughing at? Keep it up and I’ll twist your ears off.”
“Then I guess I’ll have no choice but to perform Van Gogh,” one of them joked.
“Haha, I guess I’ll have to choose a role that doesn’t have lines to memorize. Is the president going to the theater screening this week too?”
“Did you forget the president needs to prepare for next week’s chairperson meeting?”
“—Ah, my memory! I’ll go back and email the group members about recording and reporting times.”
“By the way, I remember the president’s father used to be a musical theater performer on world tours, right? He must be really skilled at this. I’m really looking forward to it…”
Ji Shu turned her head.
The elderly professor continued at the podium, giving instructions: “The time for forming groups and rehearsals is quite flexible, so students can make their decisions after careful consideration. In addition, in the yearbook section of the school library, there are performance recordings from previous seniors. Interested students may borrow them to study at home…”
Soon after, the class dismissal bell rang.
Ji Shu stood up and was jostled along with the crowd as everyone left their seats.
She heard a sigh from the student council members in the row behind her: “As expected, the young duke still hasn’t come to class even now.”
Ji Shu’s phone hadn’t made a single notification sound either. It seemed this person only stayed calm while sleeping.
After the professor left, the crowd automatically cleared a path. Once the student council members had gone ahead, the rest of the students gradually flowed out, like the tide receding from the beach.
Suddenly, Ji Shu remembered something. She squeezed through the crowd and glanced back.
The student who had been sleeping in the last row had somehow disappeared without a trace.