University Town had a snack street, and at the very end of it stood a ramen shop.
It was right around mealtime, yet there wasn’t a single customer in the shop.
It wasn’t that they didn’t want any customers. They simply didn’t dare.
A ring of men in black stood outside, surrounding the ramen shop as tightly as an iron barrel. Anyone passing by detoured around them, thinking the mob was about to have a showdown there.
Inside the shop.
The Qi family’s Steward set his phone on the table, crossed one leg over the other, and looked up at the person sitting across from him.
“Do you know Qiu Xiaoyue?”
The ramen shop owner stood in front of him. His belly was round and bulging, like a freshly risen ball of dough.
He raised his arm and wiped the cold sweat from his forehead with his sleeve.
“N-No, I don’t know that girl.”
“You don’t know her?” The Steward smiled without warmth. “Then how do you know she’s a girl?”
The owner’s face turned deathly pale.
“I’m not close to her! I’ve never even met her! We’ve only spoken on the phone a few times, and every time she was looking for that little server who works for me!”
The Steward narrowed his eyes. “Little server? What’s her name? Call her over.”
“Unfortunately, she just went out…” The owner swallowed. “Her name is Yang Zhaodi. She works part-time here, and she’s from the same hometown as Qiu Xiaoyue.”
“Yang Zhaodi?” The Steward raised an eyebrow. “A woman?”
The owner nodded vigorously. Rubbing his hands together, he leaned in and lowered his voice.
“That… did Qiu Xiaoyue do something serious? Steal money? Set something on fire? She couldn’t have… killed someone, right?”
The Steward shot him a glance.
“What are you talking about? Qiu Xiaoyue is our Young Master’s wife.”
The owner: “…”
Outside Jingbei Normal University.
“Xiaoyue!”
“Xiaozhao!”
The two girls began calling out to each other from far away. Then they ran over and embraced.
Yang Zhaodi wore her hair in a high ponytail and bounced excitedly on her toes. “That’s wonderful! We can go to school together again!”
Qiu Xiaoyue’s eyes curved into crescent moons. “Hurry up and show me around! I’ve never seen what a university looks like!”
Then she was stunned.
This school was way too big!
They spent the entire afternoon walking around and still hadn’t finished exploring even half the campus.
The two of them found an empty classroom to rest in.
Summer vacation hadn’t ended yet, and there was still a week before classes began. The classroom was deserted.
Qiu Xiaoyue looked up at the large lecture hall, which could seat more than a hundred people, her mouth forming an O.
“So many people attend class together? The teacher has to shout really loudly, right?”
Yang Zhaodi laughed so hard she could barely stand. “The teachers have microphones! You can hear them no matter where you sit!”
Qiu Xiaoyue looked amazed. She found a seat in the front row and sat down. “I can’t wait for school to start!”
Yang Zhaodi suddenly stopped laughing. With a guilty look, she said, “It’s all because of me. I made you start university a year late.”
Qiu Xiaoyue glared at her, clenched her fist, and lightly jabbed her in the stomach. “Didn’t we agree never to bring that up again?”
Yang Zhaodi covered her stomach and laughed. “My fault, my fault! I’ll buy you milk tea later to make up for it!”
“What’s milk tea?”
“You’ll know once you drink it.” Yang Zhaodi rubbed her stomach. “But we haven’t seen each other in a year, and your punch has gotten stronger.”
Qiu Xiaoyue giggled. “That’s what you get for provoking me!”
At the milk tea shop.
Yang Zhaodi ordered two cups of bubble milk tea, adding extra popping boba and grass jelly to Qiu Xiaoyue’s.
They found a seat by the window.
Qiu Xiaoyue bit down on her straw and told her everything that had happened over the past few days.
When Yang Zhaodi finished listening, her hand trembled, and she nearly crushed the boba in her milk tea.
Her eyes widened, and her brows drew together more and more. “He didn’t run away, did he?”
Qiu Xiaoyue paused. “I guess you couldn’t really call it running away… He said he had to attend a meeting…”
“A meeting?” Yang Zhaodi wore the expression of someone who had seen it all. “Men are devils driven by impulse! Animals that think with their lower bodies! There’s an eighty or ninety percent chance he regrets it and is deliberately hiding from you, giving you the silent treatment and driving you crazy bit by bit until you’re the one who takes the initiative to ask for a divorce and becomes the bad guy!”
She bit into a boba pearl and continued, “A lot of my female classmates have been hurt by this kind of breakup tactic! Don’t be foolish!”
Qiu Xiaoyue listened in a daze, looking at Yang Zhaodi with admiration.
As expected of someone who had spent a year at university—she had seen and experienced so much. She really knew how to get to the heart of things!
Qi Sen truly hadn’t sent her a single message in three days.
Thinking of that, she slammed her milk tea onto the table and said angrily, “Fine, if he doesn’t want me, then so be it! Who cares?”
That evening, Qiu Xiaoyue returned to Rose Mansion.
The moment she entered, the Steward came forward carrying a large gift box tied with a pink ribbon.
“Young Madam, this is a gift the Young Master had someone bring back for you from overseas.”
Qiu Xiaoyue opened the box.
Inside lay a black square, perfectly rectangular and shaped like a brick.
On the back was a gray apple with a bite taken out of it.
“What… is this?”
The Steward was even more excited than she was. “Young Madam! This is the latest phone! An iPhone 4! It’s sold out worldwide! You can’t even buy one by paying extra! Only the Young Master could manage it.”
Qiu Xiaoyue turned the “brick” over and over several times, utterly bewildered. “A phone? How do you make calls when it doesn’t have any buttons?”
The Steward said, “Cutting-edge technology!”
Qiu Xiaoyue carried the box back to the bedroom and spent a long time studying the instruction manual.
She finally figured out some of the basic functions.
She stretched. She had spent the entire day walking around outside and was drenched in sweat.
She took off her cardigan and skirt and prepared to take a shower.
Just then, the phone screen suddenly lit up.
Qiu Xiaoyue hurriedly swiped at it.
Then a face appeared on the screen.
Qi Sen’s face.
At the same time, the screen also showed herself.
She was standing there in nothing but her underwear.
“Ah!”
Qiu Xiaoyue screamed and threw the phone onto the bed.
An eerie silence fell over both ends of the call.
Qi Sen stared at the shifting image on the screen and swallowed.
Although the picture had been shaking badly, he had seen everything in that one glance—what he should have seen and what he shouldn’t have.
Her full, snowy-white curves trembled faintly.
And there was also a deep, impossible-to-ignore valley that made it difficult not to imagine things.
His body tensed for a moment. When he spoke, his voice was slightly hoarse.
“Xiaoyue, it’s me.”
After quite some time, the screen lit up again.
This time, Qiu Xiaoyue had learned her lesson.
She was hiding beneath the bed, with only her fluffed-up little head resting against the edge. She held the phone in her hand, her face red as a fully ripened shrimp.
“W-Why can this phone see people?”
Qi Sen’s lips curved. “This is a video call. It’s a new feature Apple released called FaceTime.”
Qiu Xiaoyue didn’t care about any of that. She only cared about one thing.
“Did you… see everything?”
Qi Sen replied solemnly, “Xiaoyue, we’re husband and wife.”
Qiu Xiaoyue’s face grew even redder. “I still feel embarrassed!”
Qi Sen laughed, his smile somewhat wicked. “It’s all right. We have plenty of time. After we do it a few more times, you’ll get desensitized.”
Afterward?
He had said afterward?
Qiu Xiaoyue’s heart skipped a beat. She stared at that handsome face on the screen.
“You’re… coming back?”
Qi Sen looked at her, his gaze softening. “Of course I’m coming back. My home is there.”
“Where?”
“Wherever you are.”
Qiu Xiaoyue felt something melt in her chest.
It was warm and comforting, like soaking in hot water.
Her ears burning, she said without thinking, “Then come back soon.”
She regretted it the moment the words left her mouth.
Why did that sound so much like she missed him and was impatiently urging him to come home? What if she interrupted his work?
She was just about to explain when Qi Sen said, “I will. Good night.”
Then he hung up.
Qiu Xiaoyue lay sprawled beside the bed. It took her a long while to recover before she finally got up.
She opened her contacts and stared at the string of numbers.
What should she save him as?
“Husband”? Too mushy.
“Qi Sen”? Too distant.
After much deliberation, she typed in a few words:
“Sustainable Development Prospect.”
Perfect.