When Xie Ran returned to the dormitory, he saw that V had finally replied to his message.
The other person had sent a photo taken at the Beijing University cafeteria window featuring braised eggplant.
Scrolling up in the chat history, he saw the exact message he had sent earlier praising how delicious the braised eggplant was.
“He really lives up to his name as a playboy.” Xie Ran suddenly felt that the other person might genuinely have some game; otherwise, other guys who didn’t understand the nuances would probably never have paid attention to the hidden meaning behind his words.
Hearing him say that the braised eggplant was delicious without offering any further small talk, the guy had actually gone straight to try it. Compared to saying things like “Is that so? I guess I’ll try it next time” verbally, this kind of action was much more heart-fluttering.
Xie Ran asked a question he already knew the answer to: [Teacher V, did you go eat that braised eggplant I just mentioned?]
The other person replied instantly: [Mm.]
Thinking about the women’s clothing delivery that would soon arrive, Xie Ran said: [Awesome! Teacher V is so good, I’ll give you a reward later.]
The other person asked: [What kind of reward?]
[It’s a secret.]
After sending the message, Xie Ran exited the chat interface, and right at that moment, the dormitory door opened.
Glancing over his shoulder, he saw Jiang Xu carrying the meal he had just packed from the cafeteria.
Jiang Xu placed the items on his desk, reached into his pocket to pull out his meal card, and handed it over while politely saying, “Thank you.”
Xie Ran curled his lips into a smile and accepted the meal card, “No problem at all. But why did the young master pack your food to eat here?”
The term “young master” made a fleeting emotion cross the depths of Jiang Xu’s eyes as he pulled out his chair and sat down: “There were too many people in the cafeteria. I’m not used to it.”
Xie Ran rested his arm along the edge of the desk while his other hand draped over the back of his chair, the meal card pinched lightly between two fingers. Hearing this, his clear eyes held a hint of amusement as he teased: “That’s true. The young master turns heads everywhere he goes, and people asking for your WeChat ID come one after another.”
“Speaking of which,” Jiang Xu took out his phone, brought up his QR code, and lit up the screen, “Add me on WeChat?”
With that, he added another sentence: “I’ll transfer the money to you.”
Xie Ran didn’t care about the money transfer, and since Jiang Xu proactively offered to add him on WeChat, he naturally wouldn’t refuse.
He left the meal card on the desk, picked up his phone to unlock it, opened the WeChat scanner, and aimed it at the QR code. With a soft beep, a contact card popped up on the screen. The profile picture was a snowy mountain scenery photo, and when magnified closely, a faint human silhouette could be made out in the bottom right corner.
The nickname was very monotonous, just a single character: Xu.
He tapped the add button and sent a friend request.
Xie Ran shook his phone slightly, “Added.”
Jiang Xu opened the contacts list at the very bottom of the message list. The new friend request had a red dot next to it. Tapping into it, he saw the other person’s profile information.
The other person’s profile picture was a Q-version CMYK color-mode carrot doodle with a plump body and small eyes, bending over and trying hard to pull itself out of the ground with sweat dripping from the top of its head.
Quite cute, actually.
After accepting the request, he instinctively opened Xie Ran’s Moments feed.
The person was someone who loved life and liked posting random thoughts. The frequency of posting on Moments wasn’t very high, but every single post was enough to let people understand the owner’s personality.
Cheerful, humorous, positive, and kind.
He just couldn’t understand why someone like this would disguise themselves as a girl to deceive him.
“Added you.” Jiang Xu set a nickname remark for Xie Ran.
He opened the chat interface between them and transferred the meal money to the other person.
Xie Ran stared at the transfer amount and asked with absolute, practiced familiarity: “What did you eat that only cost seven yuan?”
Jiang Xu replied: [A portion of rice, a portion of braised eggplant, and a portion of sweet and sour pork.]
This was probably the cheapest lunch the young master had ever eaten in his life.
Xie Ran chimed in: [You like eating braised eggplant and sweet and sour pork too?]
What a coincidence. With so many dishes in the cafeteria, the other person actually ordered the exact same dishes as him.
Jiang Xu said: [A friend recommended them, saying they were good, so I thought I’d give them a try.]
Xie Ran was surprised: [Then your friend really has great taste.]
Braised eggplant wasn’t a particularly niche food, and plenty of people ate it, but he rarely encountered anyone with the exact same preference around him. Sweet and sour pork was pork stir-fried with pineapple, sweet and sour, which was quite hard for people who loved spicy food to accept.
He hadn’t expected that as soon as Jiang Xu’s friend made a recommendation, it happened to be two dishes he loved.
Jiang Xu’s expression remained unchanged, though his eyes carried hidden depths: [Indeed, great taste.]
This attitude made it obvious that Xie Ran didn’t know the person on the other end of that account was him, unless he was pretending not to know. However, if it truly was the latter, the guy could practically break into the entertainment industry and become the newest Best Actor.
Disguising himself as a girl in private to hook up with him, who knows what kind of scheme he was plotting.
Just then, Zhang Xuan, who had just finished using the restroom, walked back into the dorm shouting, “Ran-er! Come on! Let’s queue up.”
Before he even finished speaking, he snapped his mouth shut because he accidentally locked eyes with Jiang Xu.
Xie Ran let out a muffled chuckle, “Coming.”
Then he turned to Jiang Xu and said, “Well, Young Master, go ahead and eat. Xuan-er and I are going to play a game, it won’t disturb you, right?”
Jiang Xu had grown desensitized to the term “young master” and didn’t correct Xie Ran’s address: “It won’t disturb me.”
After a brief pause, he added, “There’s no need to avoid me or mind me. Just act the way you always did before.”
Xie Ran snapped his fingers, “Got it.”
“Xuan-er, get online.”
Zhang Xuan breathed a sigh of relief.
He had been terrified that if he disturbed Jiang Xu, he would be hacked into pieces by the other guy.
It was just that Jiang Xu didn’t look like someone who was easy to get along with. Aside from Xie Ran, who had greeted him very naturally the moment he moved in, the rest of them had awkwardly and nervously introduced themselves just to get acquainted.
A boy’s friendship is simple, playing a game together gets you acquainted.
But Jiang Xu didn’t play games and didn’t like to talk, making him look cool beyond compare.
Back before Jiang Xu moved into their dorm, they had discussed why a wealthy scion like him would even bother coming to study at Beijing University. Logically speaking, shouldn’t he be directly studying abroad at an aristocratic academy? Upon graduation, he would step right into the family enterprise as CEO, reaching a height that ordinary people could never attain through a lifetime of hard work.
Later on, when they found out he was in the chemistry department, they realized he didn’t want to be a CEO after all, but rather a titan in the academic world.
Turns out their own perspective had been too narrow.
Time flies when playing games.
Aside from being a top-tier national support player, Xie Ran was exceptionally good at playing the mid lane.
His Shangguan Wan’er, Daji, and Yang Yuhuan were all at national-server levels.
In the past, his friends used to tease him that these mid-lane mage heroes were only played by gay men. At first, Xie Ran would try to defend himself a little, but eventually, he just couldn’t be bothered to fight back anymore.
He was a hardcore straight man.
An unquestionable fact.
Donning a disguise to hook up with He Ruizhe was forced by life circumstances, born out of an older brother’s well-meaning worry for his younger sister.
After winning three matches in a row, Zhang Xuan finally advanced to the Star or King tier.
He praised unhesitatingly, “Ran-er, you’re too awesome.”
Xie Ran unscrewed the cap of his mineral water bottle, tilted his head back, and took a sip of water, “Piece of cake.”
“Still playing?”
Zhang Xuan didn’t hesitate at all and shouted, “Playing!”
The two of them immediately started a brand-new match.
Over at the desk, after finishing his meal, Jiang Xu pulled out a tissue to wipe his mouth and replied to Ranran: [The eggplant was pretty good.]
Thinking that someone in the middle of a gaming match wouldn’t reply instantly, who would have thought:
[Brother, actually I’m pretty good too.]