"I'm starving! I feel like I could eat a whole cow right now!"
"Ma'am, a curry chicken cutlet rice, please."
"I'll have a curry chicken cutlet rice, too."
After a full morning of classes, Chen Yuan and his friends were so hungry their stomachs were growling. They practically sprinted into the cafeteria.
Landa University's cafeteria was pretty good overall. The ladies serving the food always gave generous portions. Chen Yuan's appetite was decent, but adhering to the principle of not wasting food meant he always ate until he was stuffed. In the few months since he started school, he had definitely gained a few pounds.
Carrying a tray with the colorful, fragrant, and delicious-looking curry chicken cutlet rice, he found a random spot and sat down. His other roommates, having bought their food, soon joined him, plopping down with an almost hedonistic sigh as they inhaled the aroma. The meal came with broccoli, shredded carrots, and cabbage. The rice and chicken cutlet took up the center, and on the far right was a large ladleful of rich, fragrant curry.
The rice was steamed until each grain was fluffy, plump, and glistening, still letting off steam. The chicken cutlet was fried just the way Chen Yuan liked it best: the skin golden and crispy, but the meat inside incredibly tender. If you pressed down hard with your chopsticks, you could even squeeze out the juices.
It was peak mealtime, and students were continuously streaming into the cafeteria. Most performed the exact same motions upon entering: closing their umbrellas, wiping off raindrops, and following the fragrant scents to find what they wanted to eat.
A layer of white mist coated the windows, obscuring the view outside, but the sound of the ceaseless rain could still be heard.
In a situation like this, burying your head in your food was pure bliss.
"Third Bro, try this wonton. It's so savory."
"Okay."
Chen Yuan was about to reach for a small plastic spoon from the bowl, but Wei Zhen had already scooped up a wonton and brought it to his lips. It was probably a personal habit, but that kid Wei Zhen absolutely had to have soup with his meals. Morning, noon, or night, he couldn't eat without a sip of soup. He was having tomato-braised rice for lunch today, but the stall next to it selling wontons was shrouded in fragrant steam, and the aroma was so enticing that he'd specially bought a portion to bring back, grabbing a few extra spoons.
Chen Yuan froze for a second, but still opened his mouth and swallowed it in one bite.
"Mmm! It really is good."
"See? Told you so," Wei Zhen said, his face beaming with a smile.
This scene, which so perfectly highlighted the harmonious friendship between roommates, made Liu Nan and Quan Yafeng pause their chopsticks mid-motion.
"...Oh, my dear Zhen, *I* want some wonton too~"
Quan Yafeng whined coquettishly, winking and waggling his eyebrows. He squirmed his broad shoulders back and forth, startling Chen Yuan so much he almost spat out a mouthful of rice.
There were four guys in the dorm. The eldest, the Boss, was a pure-hearted muscle-head—all brawn and no brains. All he was missing was dark skin; otherwise, he could be the standard-issue crude version of Weslie from *Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf*. The second eldest was a neat-looking guy from the north with a buzz cut and a square face. He was straightforward and excelled at critiquing female classmates, but his greatest fear was actually mustering the courage to talk to them.
The fourth, Wei Zhen, was a bit of a special case. He was rather cute, not very tall, and had a gentle personality. He was the type of guy girls liked to have as their "best guy friend."
It was hard to imagine such a big, burly man acting so coy.
Wei Zhen frowned. "If you want to eat, then eat. Are you nuts? The bowl is right in front of your face."
"But you fed Third Bro!"
"Are you competing for my favor? Get lost!"
Quan Yafeng, fuming but not daring to talk back, could only mumble to himself as he grabbed a spoon and fiercely shoved two mouthfuls of wonton into his mouth.
Liu Nan was snickering to himself, but his secret amusement lasted only a few seconds before Quan Yafeng caught him in a headlock.
"I'm fucking eating... Hey!"
Even just over a simple meal, guys could always find ways to have fun. Watching this "heartwarming" scene, a smile touched the corner of Chen Yuan's lips. In fact, from childhood to now, the male classmates he'd met had been pretty decent; very few were just born rotten. And now in college, these few guys in his dorm really suited his temperament.
From his very first day in the dorm, Chen Yuan knew that life would never be dull.
Unlike girls' dorms, where arguments could break out easily—it was common for four girls in one room to have four or five separate group chats—this was perhaps just the difference between men and women.
"Speaking of which, that Senior Sister Liu Tingyue from this morning is pretty hot," Liu Nan said with a waggle of his eyebrows and a sleazy grin. "She's just my type."
"Is there a type you *don't* like?"
"Senior Sister Liu... I'd advise you not to even think about it. She's had tons of pursuers since high school. A punk like you? She'd have you wrapped around her finger and tossed aside in less than three months..." Quan Yafeng mumbled, his mouth full of rice.
"I'm surprised, Boss. I didn't know you had such a sharp eye," Wei Zhen said, a little stunned.
"It's not about having a sharp eye. I heard about her back in high school. Lots of guys were after her. Some were so obsessed they even wrote thousand-word essays on the school's confession wall. When graduation came, they'd orchestrate these elaborate confessions and everything."
"What's the problem with that?"
"Of course there's a problem! So many guys were chasing her, but Senior Sister Liu never explicitly rejected a single one... Hey, let me ask you this," Quan Yafeng said, pulling Liu Nan closer. "If you told our Senior Sister that you wanted to take things to the next level, but she didn't agree, but also didn't say she disliked you—just tactfully expressed that she wasn't thinking about that right now."
"Then I'd think... I still have a chance?"
"Exactly!"
Quan Yafeng clapped his hands. "No commitment, no responsibility, no rejection. She gives you a glimmer of hope just when you're about to give up. Isn't that just 'keeping a pond of fish'?"
Chen Yuan hadn't expected that the Boss, despite his simple-looking exterior, could see through people so clearly.
Girls like that certainly existed. They used their good looks to easily win the affection of many male classmates, enjoying the feeling of being the center of attention. They seemed gentle to everyone, and appeared to be on good terms with everybody.
'It's just to satisfy their own vanity.'
"She really is pretty..." Wei Zhen took out his phone and started scrolling through Liu Tingyue's Moments. Her feed was like a face with makeup on; every post was meticulously curated.
He showed it to Chen Yuan, who glanced at it briefly and couldn't help but be impressed.
If Liu Tingyue's real face was a six out of ten, then with makeup, she was definitely a seven. After a whole series of digital enhancements—skin smoothing, face tuning, skin whitening...—she looked almost identical to those attractive internet celebrities on short-video apps.
It was no wonder she stood out among the crowd of ordinary female university students.
"'More than flowery words, what I really want is blatant favoritism...'" Chen Yuan read one of her posts aloud. Senior Sister Liu had paired it with a photo of herself sitting on a school bench, brushing her long hair back.
It had a very atmospheric vibe.
"And this one: 'I'm always worried my strong possessiveness will push you away. Maybe I was never worthy of being chosen with conviction...'" Wei Zhen read another one, shivering as goosebumps broke out on his arms.
The green tea scent was too strong!
If you didn't know any better, you'd really think she was some poor girl who'd been hurt badly and only yearned for a pure love. In reality, what the hell has she ever been hurt by?
"So why did she invite Chen Yuan to the Arts Department?"
"Hard to say."
"Hard to judge."
"Hard to imagine..." Chen Yuan recalled the scene from that morning when Liu Tingyue, trembling in fear from the thunder, had burrowed into his arms. It made you think she was trying to steal his meal card.
But the truth was far more serious than stealing a meal card.
"This morning, I may have told our Senior Sister to introduce us to more of her friends, but I want all of us brothers to remember this..." Quan Yafeng took a deep breath and said gravely, "In today's society, people's views on love have become twisted. As youths of a new era, we must remember one principle!"
"What principle?"
"Absolutely never be a dog for a woman! If any of you becomes a simp, don't blame me for disowning you as a brother!"
"Well said!"
Liu Nan slapped his belly repeatedly in a show of strong agreement. In his eyes, the Boss's figure suddenly seemed tall and heroic.
Chen Yuan stuffed a piece of chicken cutlet into his mouth and didn't forget to give a thumbs-up.
As he was eating, the phone in his pocket suddenly started vibrating.
BZZZT—
Chen Yuan pulled out his phone to look. The call was from an unknown number, but the area code was for Lanjing.
He answered, and a lazy, pleasant voice came from the other end of the line:
"Hello, guess who this is?"
"I don't know. Hanging up."
"Wait, wait, wait..." The voice on the other end suddenly grew flustered, repeating the word "wait" several times. "I just wanted to say something. No need to be so cold."
From the first sentence, Chen Yuan recognized it was Jiangg Ning. They had talked on the phone for half a year during their online relationship; it would be stranger if he *didn't* recognize her voice.
"If you have something to say, say it."
"Um... I actually wanted to talk to you about getting back together. Chen Yuan, are you free today?"
Jiangg Ning spoke cautiously, her tone laced with a hint of pleading. Combined with her naturally pleasant, magnetic voice, it was truly hard not to soften up.
If it weren't for their conversation that morning, Chen Yuan wouldn't have had such a terrible attitude.
He had actually been a little moved yesterday. If there had been a chance to lay everything out on the table honestly and sincerely, he wouldn't have been opposed. But Chen Yuan hated how Jiangg Ning always put on her "teacher" airs. Who was she putting on a show for?
'Come on, you're a teacher, fine! But you're also my ex-girlfriend. In private, our relationship should always be one of equals.'
'But Jiangg Ning just had to either occupy the high-and-mighty position or be the one humbly wagging her tail.'
'Do you have some kind of special fetish, Jiangg?'
'You're either treating yourself as the dog or the master! Can't we just talk as equals?'
"I'm busy today. No time."