CH 5

Chapter 5: Zhou Jingze spoke lightly, “We broke up.”

Xu Sui felt a sense of disappointment that Zhou Jingze didn’t remember her, but she eventually summoned up her courage and introduced herself.

He then brought them to the second-floor canteen.

Hu Xixi and Sheng Nanzhou were the ones talking during the entire meal, while Zhou Jingze occasionally said a few words here and there.

Hu Xixi doesn’t like to eat celery, but Sheng Nanzhou would insist that she eat it, giving her the celery in his bowl, and asked her: “Do you know why your Siberian husky looks ugly?”

Sheng Nanzhou waited for Hu Xixi to ask why. Yet, she ended up ignoring her, so he answered it was because the dog was a picky eater. Hu Xixi then picked out all the celery in her bowl, and with a serious tone: “Because it looks like you.”

“You—” Sheng Nanzhou was too angry to say a word.

“Uncle, don’t you also think so?” Hu Xixi asked Zhou Jingze for his opinion.

Zhou Jingze tilted his head and glanced at Sheng Nanzhou: “Now that you mentioned it, he really does.”

“…” Sheng Nanzhou.

Xu Sui gave a small smile during their conversation. Sheng Nanzhou was too lazy to refute them. He directly looked at Xu Sui and said, “Sister Xu, I haven’t introduced myself yet. My name is Sheng Nanzhou. Xixi’s friend is also considered my friend. You can come to me if you need any help. ”

”If she needs any help, why would she go find you if she can ask Zhou Jingze?” Hu Xixi commented mercilessly and looked at Zhou Jingze with a smile, “Am I right, uncle?”

Although it was a joke, Xu Sui’s heart tightened. She lowered her head and pretended to eat but was waiting for Zhou Jingze’s answer. He was about to reply when his phone that was placed on the table vibrated. The caller ID was Bai Yuyue.

Zhou Jingze picked up the phone and placed it next to his ear to listen. Xu Sui sat across from him and saw that his neck was smoothly curved. His left hand was placed on the table on top of a soda can ring pull, where some frost was on his slender fingertips.

“Yeah. I’m busy,” Zhou Jingze replied briefly. Xu Sui couldn’t hear what the caller said, but Zhou Jingze chuckled lightly.

She felt like she was sitting on pins and needles, very uncomfortable.

“I’ll hang up now,” Zhou Jingze said.

After hanging up the phone, Sheng Nanzhou teased: “Tsk, Master Zhou is awesome. His girlfriend calls him ten times a day, but I never saw him call her back once.”

“Speaking of that, your girlfriend is also my dorm mate, but she doesn’t seem to know my relationship with you. Did you tell her?” Hu Xixi said.

“Too lazy to,” Zhou Jingze replied in a few words.

While they were eating in the canteen, a classmate of Zhou Jingze, Da Liu, came over. He looked at the quiet Xu Sui and commented, “You changed your girlfriend so fast, new type now too?”

Xu Sui felt a bit uneasy after his remarks. Zhou Jingze also happened to catch her uneasiness in his eyes.

Zhou Jingze smiled and raised his hand, signaling Da Liu, who was sitting next to him, to come closer.

Zhou Jingze’s slender fingers were placed on the pull ring. When Da Liu leaned over with a gossip expression on his face, Zhou Jingze placed his other hand around his neck, and with a click, the soda’s tab ring was pulled, and white bubbles gushed out, confusing Da Liu.

Da Liu struggled to distance himself, but Zhou Jingze, who was leaning on the back of his chair, easily held him with his other hand. Da Liu was so embarrassed that he couldn’t open his eyes because of the bubbles. He begged for mercy, “I was wrong,” and Zhou Jingze let him go.

The bubbles quickly evaporated into the water, dripping on his face. It was an embarrassing scene for him.

“Take a guess,” Zhou Jingze smiled at Da Liu, replying to the question he asked earlier.

“Hahaha.” The people around them laughed.

That’s how Zhou Jingze was. When he speaks to someone seriously, he would pull some tricks to make the other person understand that they shouldn’t treat and disrespect others like that.

Da Liu looked at his expression and realized.

“You really are something.” Da Liu knew that he had made a joke, and when he was about to apologize, Xu Sui handed him a tissue to wipe his face.

He was even more embarrassed: “I’m sorry, I was only trying to joke around with this guy.”

“It’s okay,” Xu Sui replied with a good temper.

“You can leave now,” Zhou Jingze scolded Da Liu with a smile.

After they all finished eating, Xu Sui accompanied Hu Xixi back to Zhou Jingze’s dorm to get back her things. When passing by the university’s sports ground, a group of boys with well-developed muscles and green training suits were training and jogging while shouting: “Soaring into the sky, defending the territory!”

Their sweat was trickling down their cheeks as the evening sun was high in the sky. The group’s loud and powerful voice echoed across the sports ground.

As Hu Xixi was looking at them, Sheng Nanzhou interrupted her thoughts: Look at you still staring at them. Your saliva is about to come out of your mouth.”

“There are two attractive guys in front of you, but you still look at them,” Sheng Nanzhou commented.

“As if,” Hu Xixi retorted, pushing away his hand.

Zhou Jingze was walking in the front with his hands in his pocket. He met a familiar figure and greeted the senior.

“Are you getting used to this university after being here for about a month?” The senior asked while patting his shoulder. It seems that the two have known each other for a long time.

Zhou Jingze nodded, and the senior smiled: “During the school opening ceremony, your speech as the student representative was quite dashing. Even my class is discussing it.”

“It was all nonsense,” Zhou Jingze lifted the corner of his lips.

After the upperclassmen left, Zhou Jingze led the two girls to the boys’ dormitory but asked them to wait downstairs instead.

When he was about to go upstairs, he heard two boys chatting about the girls standing downstairs. The boys were whistling at them, especially Xu Sui, who had pale and soft skin.

Zhou Jingze glanced up at them from the bottom, his eyes calm but signaling them a message to stop.

The boys on the second floor saw Zhou Jingze and didn’t dare to whistle anymore. Then he went upstairs.

Ten minutes later, he threw a small box into Hu Xixi’s arms and lifted his chin at the two of them: “You guys can go now.”

On the fifth-floor balcony, Zhou Jingze had a cigarette in his mouth. His deep, dark eyes were staring downstairs at the two figures, especially the girl in a white dress.

Sheng Nanzhou flicked the lighter and lit a cigarette for Zhou Jingze. Seeing Zhou Jingze in a quiet and thoughtful state, he joked: “That fast, and already on your mind?”

Zhou Jingze inhaled the smoke and took a puff of the cigarette. He held the cigarette between his fingers and asked: “Do you think this is my type?”

He would never touch such a good student.

Zhou Jingze just thought she looked familiar.

On the way back, Xu Sui couldn’t help asking: “Xixi, how could Zhou Jingze be your uncle?”

“Our two families are somewhat related. He’s actually my younger uncle, and we all grew up together,” Hu Xixi explained.

After returning to campus, Hu Xixi went to the courier, while Xu Sui went back to the dormitory. When she was about to step into the dormitory, an orange cat suddenly appeared out of the bush nearby and meowed at Xu Sui.

The kitten came to Xu Sui and stepped on the soles of her feet, its amber eyes staring at her. Xu Sui’s heart softened. She squatted down to look at the kitten and found that there was a wound on its face; it was still bleeding.

It looked like the kitten was just scratched by a weed flower thorn.

Xu Sui got up and bought a bottle of mineral water and ham sausage from the dormitory canteen. She carefully cleaned the cat’s wound with mineral water and fed it the ham sausage.

After feeding the kitten, Xu Sui patted its head and said in a sorrowful tone: “I’m leaving now. I can’t raise you.”

In the evening, while none of the roommates were back, Xu Sui opened her laptop and searched the Internet for the speech given by the new student representative of Beihang University.

She sat in front of the computer and quickly found a video. She quietly opened it and watched Zhou Jingze, who was giving the speech.

Zhou Jingze stood on the stage, and the audience was a little noisy. He stretched out his long arms and raised the microphone stand in front of him. The sarcasm on his face was obvious, and the students below made a burst of laughter.

The director, who had just finished speaking, was about 5’3. He had a headache as the students in this new class were not easy to handle.

After adjusting the microphone, Zhou Jingze stood in front of everyone and casually said: “To all the students, I’ll be brief, but of course, you can also think that I’m talking nonsense.”

“I believe many people have a preliminary understanding of Beihang after the end of the military training. Whether you are still pursuing dreams or discouraged by the alarm that rings at six o’clock every day,” Zhou Jingze’s dark eyes swept across the crowd, “It may be more difficult in the future where you would question your purpose and goals as a pilot.”

“But I don’t care about those. Instead, I’d like to quote a saying I read from a book before to those who wish to become a pilot— ” The audience suddenly became silent, waiting for Zhou Jingze to say something. Zhou Jingze stood on the stage, his eyes staring at the people in the audience, and his voice carried a sense of arrogance.

“God is silent. The decision is all yours.”

(上帝一声不响，一切皆由我定)

He smiled lightly, folding the speech paper into a paper airplane, and threw it at the stage.

The white paper plane fluttered in mid-air to the audience like hovering across a sea. There was a burst of applause and cheers amongst the students.

The audience, infected with determination, jumped upwards trying to catch the paper airplane. Some of them shouted:

“I want to be the best pilot!”

“I’ll definitely send pictures of the blue sky to my mother.”

The corner of Zhou Jingze’s black T-shirt fluttered against the wind. He stood on the stage, watching the students in the crowd, and slowly smiled.

The boy dressed in black, with a cold appearance, smiled frivolously and willfully like before.

Xu Sui’s heart was beating uncontrollably as she looked at Zhou Jingze on the screen. There were also a lot of comments below the video.

Someone asked: 【Who is this person? Why is he so proud of himself. 】

An enthusiastic student replied:【Probably a shallow person. After the college entrance examination, he went to the Colorado Grand Canyon to skydive and got some private photos of a helicopter. 】

Suddenly, Xu Sui heard a sound and closed the webpage in a panic.

Liang Shuang opened the door carelessly. As soon as she walked in, she put her arms around Xu Sui’s shoulder and said: “Sui Sui, didn’t you tell me that you wanted to find a part-time job? I happened to know a senior who was looking for a tutor. I gave her your contact information.”

Xu Sui nodded: “Okay, thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Liang Shuang gently squeezed Xu Sui’s face.

Xu Sui took the initiative to introduce herself after adding the senior. The senior was very enthusiastic and said: 【Hello! I heard from Liang Shuang that you’re a student from the clinical medicine department who is nimble and bold at dissection. She’d praised you as a scholar. I know someone whose looking for a tutor to teach her sixth-grade child math and English about one time per week for two hours. Does this fit with your schedule? 】

Xu Sui asked:【What’s the address?】

The senior replied: 【Amber Lane in Xinhe District. Since no subway goes directly to there, it’ll take about an hour because of the several bus transfers.】

Xu Sui thought that it was a bit too far away, on top of the fact that she had motion sickness. It would’ve been great if there was a direct subway too. When she was hesitating whether she would accept or not, the senior sent another message: 【Many are declining because of the commute… besides, a tutor is also not easy to find. Can you try going once to see if you like it or not? If you decide that it’s not suitable, you can refuse it afterward.】

Since the senior already worded it like that, Xu Sui agreed to go since it wouldn’t be nice to refuse.

——

No one expected that the dormitory would be in chaos the next day in the dormitory. Bai Yuyue came back and suddenly cried. After crying, she called someone again. However, after several calls, she still couldn’t get through. She was so angry that she smashed her phone.

Hu Xixi came over and comforted her: “Don’t cry. What happened?”

Xu Sui bent down silently and picked up the shattered glass. Bai Yuyue wiped away the tears from the corners of her eyes, and in a distant tone: “It’s nothing; I just had a fight with my boyfriend.”

Within two days, people in the class began to say that Bai Yuyue was dumped by her boyfriend. Some gossiped that she went to his dormitory and waited downstairs, but after a whole night of waiting, they still didn’t get back together.

Liang Shuang and the others don’t believe it. It was normal for couples to get into a fight with each other.

On Thursday afternoon, Hu Xixi received a text message in the dormitory and looked at Xu Sui: “Zhou Jingze came to our school to do something, and he’s free now. Let’s go get lunch.”

Hu Xixi brought Xu Sui to the East Canteen along with Sheng Nanzhou.

They asked Xu Sui to recommend and choose the dishes. Xu Sui ordered a rice noodle casserole and said: “You might not like what I ordered.” Sheng Nanzhou raised his eyebrows, replied jokingly: “Hey, don’t look down at me. I can eat anything.”

At this time, the lunch lady brought out the plate of rice noodle casserole; Sheng Nanzhou glanced at it. The dish looks abnormally spicy, with chili oil all over it.

He embraced himself: “Farewell.”

“I didn’t expect you to be someone who likes to eat food that spicy.”

“Hurry up and order your food. You talk so much,” Zhou Jingze stood behind and lightly kicked him. “If you’re not going to get something, don’t stand in the way.”

At the table, the gossiping Hu Xixi, who didn’t even pick up her chopsticks, looked at Zhou Jingze and asked: “What happened between you and Bai Yuyue? She’s always crying in the dormitory. Everyone said you broke up with her, but she insisted you guys were in a fight instead.”

Zhou Jingze spoke lightly, “We broke up.”

Xu Sui, who was drinking a spicy soup, was startled by Zhou Jingze’s words that she coughed. It was painful and spicy that her eyes were getting watery.

Suddenly, a hand with clear knuckles and long, slender fingertips placed a glass of water next to her. Xu Sui looked up and came into eye contact with Zhou Jingze; her heart beat fastened. His eyes were like rocks on the bottom of a river. When the water receded, the black rocks were silent and shiny.

Zhou Jingze was staring straight at her.