Xie Ran urgently needed a camera, so he spent the entire night browsing information, searching for performance comparisons of several cameras, and making plans.
He had also looked things up and taken careful notes in the past, but once a person’s enthusiasm fades away, any previously reviewed or referenced data suddenly feels completely meaningless, since they were all choices that had been filtered out and discarded.
Searching through options now, it still felt like it was missing the mark.
In the end, after a busy night, he still hadn’t found a suitable or favorite lens.
The next morning.
Xie Ran was woken up by a phone call.
Dazedly fishing out his phone, he swiped to answer, and Wang Wenjing’s loud voice came booming through the earpiece: “Xiao Ran, I’m at the Beijing University track right now. Let’s grab a bite together later.”
After taking two seconds to collect himself, he rubbed his sleepy eyes, propped himself up with one hand while moving backward on the bed, and agreed, “Alright.”
“Give me ten minutes.”
Hearing the slightly hoarse voice, Wang Wenjing realized Xie Ran had been woken up by him and quickly asked, “What time did you sleep last night? It’s already ten o’clock and you’re still not up. Don’t you have classes this morning?”
Xie Ran yawned: “I don’t have classes today, so I stayed up pretty late last night.”
Wang Wenjing said: “Alright, I’ll wait for you at your school cafeteria.”
Xie Ran: “Okay.”
Hanging up the phone, he quickly climbed out of bed.
Aside from Liu Shaoyu, the rest of the roommates were not in the dormitory.
Xie Ran tiptoed out of bed, slipped into his slippers, and went out to the balcony to wash up and change clothes.
Ten minutes later, he arrived at the cafeteria entrance right on schedule.
Wang Wenjing stood out quite conspicuously in the crowd. Given his height of 1.9 meters, athletic build, and trendy streetwear, he caught the eyes of many people entering the cafeteria. A couple of girls even walked up with their phones to ask for his contact information, but Wang Wenjing politely and sweetly declined by flashing his phone screensaver.
Xie Ran walked over and teased: “Not bad, Xiao Wang, attracting bees and butterflies everywhere.”
Wang Wenjing pressed his palms together to beg for mercy: “Who is even half as popular as our Young Master Xie?”
Xie Ran chuckled.
Their greeting ritual consisted of a fist bump first, followed by throwing their arms around each other’s shoulders as they walked into the cafeteria together.
Xie Ran asked: “Why didn’t Weiwei come with you?”
Wang Wenjing replied: “They don’t have many classes these days, so she went with her roommates to the neighboring city to see the ocean and attend an anime convention.”
“Over at that Golden Beach, I heard some wealthy guy with the surname Fu developed the area. The local commercialized tourism seems pretty interesting, and they’ve even built a shopping mall, an estate, and an amusement park. They’ve been running events lately.”
Xie Ran nodded in understanding: “That sounds genuinely interesting.”
“We can go check it out together another day.”
“Sure.”
Beijing University’s cafeteria was already well-known. Wang Wenjing used Xie Ran’s meal card without the slightest bit of polite reservation; they were childhood friends, and money had never been an issue between them.
After getting his food, Xie Ran found a seat and took out his phone to take a picture.
He had been too busy looking for camera lenses last night to pay much attention to V. Since V belonged to the type who wouldn’t initiate contact unless spoken to first, their conversation was still stuck on the single word “Good” that V had sent earlier.
Seeing Xie Ran fiddling with his phone, Wang Wenjing could tell at a glance that the other guy was messaging the digital goddess that Xie Xuan kept talking about.
“Xiao Ran, did you buy your women’s clothing yet? Do you really not need Weiwei to help you?”
Xie Ran raised his head from the phone screen: “I bought it, but I haven’t taken photos yet.”
He should have unpacked it last night, but the camera search completely derailed his plans, and the clothes were still sitting in their packaging.
Figuring tomorrow was the weekend, he decided he would just bring them back home to check out.
Wang Wenjing asked with curiosity: “At what stage is your relationship with them right now?”
After sending his message, Xie Ran put his phone down and leaned in mysteriously toward the center of the table.
He gestured with his hand for Wang Wenjing to lean closer, putting on the expression of someone about to share restricted, confidential gossip.
Being extremely nosy, Wang Wenjing nervously leaned in.
“Which stage? Did he ask you to open a hotel room?”
With a smile, Xie Ran said in a very quiet voice: “The stage where he finally replies to my messages.”
Wang Wenjing’s smile instantly drooped.
He dropped his pants just to hear this? He made such a big production out of it that Wang Wenjing thought solid evidence was about to be secured.
“I don’t know what’s going on either,” Xie Ran said, using a tissue to wipe his cafeteria chopsticks before picking up some food to eat. “Logically speaking, He Ruizhe has no reason to give the cold shoulder to a young girl throwing herself at him.”
“Could it be he got traumatized from being slapped by that cute girl last time?”
Wang Wenjing agreed: “Possibly. Why don’t you try taking the mature imperial sister route?”
Xie Ran pondered for a second: “Whenever I message him, I use words like ‘duck’, ‘QAQ’, and ‘big brother’.”
“If I switch to the mature imperial sister route, would it work if I tell him I have a split personality?”
Wang Wenjing thought about it for two seconds: “He might just think you have a mental illness.”
Xie Ran was left completely speechless.
“Forget it, let’s eat first. After we eat, let’s take a couple of laps around the track.”
Wang Wenjing agreed: “Alright.”
The two of them ate at a fairly fast pace, finishing within ten minutes. After returning their trays, they headed out to the track together.
On the rubber running track.
Xie Ran finally remembered to ask: “What are you doing coming over to Beijing U?”
Wang Wenjing said: “Our school’s chemistry department has a basketball match against your school’s chemistry department this afternoon.”
Xie Ran was surprised: “The chemistry department?”
Isn’t that Jiang Xu’s department?
Considering Wang Wenjing was a sports major playing basketball against chemistry students, wasn’t that just bullying people?
Wang Wenjing nodded and said: “Right.”
“We scheduled it before, but never found the time. So I’m just squeezing in a chance to play ball now.”
As he spoke, he threw an arm around Xie Ran’s shoulders with a cheeky grin and said: “Xiao Ran, come bring me some water later. The art department’s campus crush delivering water to me, just hearing that sounds amazing.”
Xie Ran raised an eyebrow: “Fine.”
He didn’t really like basketball as an activity; it was too hot, involved too much physical contact, and smelled too strong.
Normally, he didn’t care for watching basketball games either.
Wang Wenjing shifted the topic: “By the way, tell me about He Ruizhe? I know of the guy, but I’ve never seen him. Friends say he’s also a sports major and pretty well-known.”
“What does he even look like to make little Xuan think he’s drop-dead gorgeous?”
Xie Ran clicked his tongue: “She’s blind.”
“I don’t like talking behind people’s backs, but he’s really not as exaggerated as Xie Xuan makes him out to be.”
“I just feel like his left face is ordinary, and his right face is absolute perfection.”
As he spoke while walking along the rubber track, he raised his head and happened to see Jiang Xu holding a camera and taking pictures, causing his words to trail off.
Wasn’t that camera the Fujifilm X-S10 he had been wanting all along?
Wang Wenjing was waiting for the rest of the sentence, but after seeing Xie Ran fall silent for a long time, he urged him impatiently: “What’s wrong with his right face?”
Xie Ran had clearly long forgotten what he was saying earlier. His entire attention was completely captivated by the camera in Jiang Xu’s hands, and he had a hunch that lens might even be an upgraded version. Without thinking, he blurted out: “Absolute perfection.”
Left face ordinary, right face absolute perfection?
Wang Wenjing picked up on the cue: “Good grief, did you instantly recognize that as your beloved Haotian?”