In early September, in Xingcheng, the sky seemed oblivious to the transition to early autumn, with the scorching sun hanging high, making people feel restless and irritable.
It had been a week since the freshmen at Xing University started their military training, and they were now enduring the toughest phase.
On the afternoon parade ground, over twenty neat squares of green recruits stood in formation, listening to the commander’s instructions in perfect silence, making the scene feel eerie.
At that moment, Lu Xingyan leisurely strolled past the parade ground, holding an umbrella adorned with quaint illustrations. He was already quite eye-catching, but with the umbrella, he stood out even more.
Many of the girls standing in the front row of the formation caught sight of him, and four words flashed through their minds—handsome and charming.
Why would a grown man be carrying an umbrella?
He must be a zero.
As Lu Xingyan reached the spot where the student union activities were set up and joined the group, someone from the student union asked, “Hey, Xingyan, where did you get such a girly umbrella?”
This question hit the mark perfectly. Lu Xingyan casually replied, “Oh, this? My girlfriend insisted that I bring her umbrella because she didn’t want it to get sun-damaged outside.”
As soon as he said this, everyone understood and started teasing him in unison.
Chen Mengmeng, who was putting up posters, paused for a moment.
Before she could ask, someone else beat her to it. “Hey, isn’t your girlfriend in a different city? Why hasn’t she gone back yet?”
Lu Xingyan replied, “She’s here as an exchange student at our school for now.”
“His girlfriend came to our school as an exchange student? Wow, true love!”
“She happens to be working on a project with Professor Cao, and she’s also pursuing a double major.”
Lu Xingyan explained briefly, maintaining a modest demeanor but secretly reveling in the validation of their “true love” theory.
Unconsciously, Chen Mengmeng tightened her grip on the corner of the poster. Somehow, amidst her feelings of surprise and disappointment, a sense of nervousness crept in.
Ever since she deleted that short video from her Weibo last semester, she has been feeling anxious and uneasy.
The account that left her a message was a small account, with no clues that could be traced back to any real person. Yet, this fact only made her more fearful. She couldn’t shake the feeling that the person behind the account had planned everything meticulously.
What puzzled her, however, was that after she deleted the message and the post, the person didn’t send her any more private messages or leave any comments under her other posts. It was as if they disappeared into thin air.
She began to wonder if she had been overthinking things. Perhaps it was just someone playing a prank and saying things casually.
With this mindset, after a period of silence, she posted a new covert crush post as a test.
Since it had been a while since she last posted, her fans were quite enthusiastic in the comments section. She monitored it for two days without any strange questions popping up, which boosted her confidence. She posted a second and then a third… She even had one of her posts reposted by a Big V account and still didn’t see any sign of the person.
Feeling completely at ease, she concluded that the previous message was just someone being idle and there was no exposure at all.
A peaceful summer passed by, and Chen Mengmeng’s Weibo followers were about to hit the milestone of one hundred thousand.
She had promised a special photo once she reached one hundred thousand followers, either a selfie or a high-quality side profile photo of her crush. She had carefully prepared the photos. However, at this moment, Lu Xingyan’s girlfriend unexpectedly transferred to Xing University…
She couldn’t forget how Shen Xingruo’s mere visit to Xing University had cast Bai Lu into shadow for nearly half a year.
Shen Xingruo was not someone to be taken lightly.
“Hey, Mengmeng, what are you thinking about? The poster is all wrinkled!”
Chen Mengmeng’s thoughts were interrupted, and her heart jumped.
She snapped back to reality, smiled apologetically, and quickly came up with an excuse.
All of them were about to be promoted from the student union of the School of Literature to the university student union this semester. But before joining the university student union, they needed to recruit new assistants and officials from the freshmen, so they were busy organizing recruitment activities here.
As Chen Mengmeng snapped back to reality, she heard a group of boys discussing Lu Xingyan’s promotion to the head of the university student union office.
Despite the official-sounding title, being the head of the office was essentially being on standby for the positions of president or vice president of the student union, a tradition at Xing University that everyone was well aware of.
Amidst a chorus of congratulations and teasing, someone interjected, “Hey, Xingyan, I heard you transferred to the management major this semester?”
Lu Xingyan replied, “Yes.”
He had been considering transferring to a different major, so he hadn’t taken the exam for changing majors. He had agonized over it during the summer, on one hand, Shen Xingruo was here on exchange, and they could attend classes together if he stayed in the Chinese literature department. On the other hand, he had no interest in Chinese literature and knew he wasn’t cut out for academic research. After discussing with Shen Xingruo, he finally decided to talk to the teacher about changing majors, and with Lu Shan’s help, he completed the application before the start of the semester.
As they chatted while working, someone suggested grabbing a meal together after the recruitment ended in a couple of days.
Chen Mengmeng subconsciously glanced at Lu Xingyan.
Perhaps in a good mood, Lu Xingyan surprisingly didn’t refuse. When someone asked if he would bring his girlfriend, he just smiled and said, “We’ll see.”
While the student union was busy with recruitment, Shen Xingruo also moved into the dormitory at Xing University.
She had come on exchange and was living in a dormitory with students from different majors and years, with one bed still vacant.
On the first day of school, Shen Xingruo unexpectedly bumped into an old acquaintance in the dormitory.
It was Li Ting.
Li Ting was dumbfounded when she saw Shen Xingruo.
At the end of the first semester of freshman year, she had successfully applied for a room change and had finally been relieved from the tension with Bai Lu.
However, when the new semester started, the room change fell through, and she had to continue living under the same roof as Bai Lu. They bickered every three days and fought big battles every five days, each having enough ammunition to mock the other, and they were evenly matched.
This semester, she had finally managed to change rooms as she had wished. She had even brought a bag of snacks to share with her new roommate to make a good impression.
But why was she seeing Shen Xingruo here?!
Wasn’t there a saying about leaving the wolf’s den only to enter the tiger’s lair? Just because she tore up an exam paper, did it mean she couldn’t have a pure roommate relationship for the rest of her life?