[Economics Building, Study Room 3 — September 15, 1:50 PM]
"Actually, no."
Zhang Yuting's lips curved slightly.
Long Tian caught that look, then his face fell immediately, his shoulders slumping.
Of course.
Why did I even hope.
Why would she want coffee with me after watching that disaster? After I'd spent ten minutes having a meltdown and texting Su Qingxue while she's right in front of me?
Zhang Yuting's hand was still on his. Her chair was pushed back from when she had started to leave, her weight forward against the table — not quite standing, not sitting back down either.
Defeated, Long Tian looked down at the table. But when he was about to pull his hand away from her, suddenly, he felt his hand was being held back.
"You spent ten minutes texting another girl."
Zhang Yuting's voice cut him off.
He looked up.
She was leaning forward a fraction. Her hand was still on his. The curve at her mouth had not gone away. If anything, the curve had deepened.
"In front of me. While we were supposed to be studying together. While I was sitting here worried sick about you."
She let the sentence land. Then:
"That's pretty rude, Long Tian."
His throat moved.
"You're — yeah. That was. More than rude."
"Mm."
Zhang Yuting nodded her head, letting the 'Mm' linger for a beat. Then she shifted her weight in the chair. The chair gave a small wooden complaint and went quiet again.
"So here's your punishment."
Dread tightened his stomach.
"You're spending the rest of the afternoon with me."
His brain stalled. His face looked like someone had just told him the sun rises in the west.
"Ah… What?"
"I don't have any other classes today." Zhang Yuting's chin tilted up a notch as she finally let go of his hand, straightened her back and crossed her arms. "And you're going to actually pay attention to me this time."
Then, from its crossed position, she pointed her right index finger towards his pocket.
"Phone stays in there. No texting other girls. No emergencies. No checking. Just you and me."
Long Tian's mouth was still open.
At the edge of his vision —
--------------------------
[Zhang Yuting: Affection — 65.]
[Opportunity Detected: Extended Contact Time.]
[Duration: 3-4 hours.]
[Recommendation: Accept.]
--------------------------
He read it. The recommendation sat at the bottom.
But he did not need to press a button or silently think of accepting it.
Long Tian doesn't need someone telling him how to decide for himself.
"You..." he started.
"I."
"You want to spend the afternoon with me. With — with me. After — "
Long Tian gestured at the table.
"After all that?"
"Yes, after all that." Zhang Yuting nodded.
"Yes!" He was grinning before he knew it. "Yes. I'd really like that."
Her smile widened — smaller at the corners and softer at the center.
[Zhang Yuting Affection: 65 → 66.]
A small tick. Yet Long Tian did not even notice it as his eyes were on hers.
"Phone stays away," she said. "I mean it!"
"Phone stays away."
"And no other women."
"No other women, scout's honor or whatever."
He made a small gesture that was supposed to be a salute and came out as something between a wave and an apology. Zhang Yuting let out a laugh — a short, low sound.
Long Tian finally stood. His chair scraped. He then gathered his book, his pen, his bag.
Zhang Yuting picked up her blazer from the chair beside her and folded it over her arm. She then offered her other arm to him.
He took it.
Her arm came up. He hooked his through it. Then they realized he was too tall for it or she was too short, and they chuckled slightly. After that, they proceeded slowly, trying to find their rhythm together.
Once they did, she let her hand finally settle on his forearm.
Then Long Tian opened the door of Study Room 3 and they walked through it together.
--------------------------
[Female Dormitory, Building 12, Room 403 — 1:50 PM]
Zhang Tingting was still on the edge of her bed. The bag she had set down before the phone call was on the floor between her bed and the door. Her hands were folded in her lap.
Across the room, Su Qingxue had not moved either. The phone was still in her hand. Lin Feng's contact photo was on the screen — the square neutral face she had been staring at for five minutes without moving. The one she had said I don't even like him to, three times, in three different intonations.
The air conditioner cycled on.
Then —
A single buzz.
The messaging app's notification banner climbed to the top of the screen.
Zhang Tingting flinched where she sat. A small chill climbed from the bottom of her spine.
The message also caught Su Qingxue by surprise. She jolted from where she sat; her phone slipped from her hand.
It hit the floor between her and her best friend — face-up, screen-lit, the banner still showing.
On the banner were two characters. A name.
Long Tian?
Zhang Tingting read it from her bed.
The library boy.
The one Lin Feng mentioned earlier?
Wait. Why is he —
While Zhang Tingting was still working it out, Su Qingxue bent down, picked up the phone, and sat back up. She then squinted her eyes, her vision showing light burn spots from earlier as she looked at Lin Feng's picture on the bright screen.
Then Su Qingxue's face changed.
It happened in less than two seconds. The frozen expression that had been on her face for five minutes — the slightly parted lips, the eyes fixed on the photo — moved.
Her cheek tightened at the corner first. Then the lift at the side of the mouth. Then her pupils widened — not by much. Her breath caught. Then it steadied.
Zhang Tingting's own breath stopped while she watched it.
"Qingxue?"
--------------------------
Su Qingxue continued as if her best friend wasn't there. She opened the message instead, her thumb moving fast. Then her eyes scanned.
Only then did she finally look back at Zhang Tingting.
She glowed up in an instant, like a light bulb switched on.
"Tingting. It's Long Tian."
The voice was light and bright and...
Ordinary.
Zhang Tingting had been bracing for something worse — for tears, for screaming, for the breakdown that ought to have come after the phone call. This was not that. Somehow it was worse.
Su Qingxue sounded like she had nothing else to do and invited her to drink some bubble tea with her on a hundred Wednesday afternoons.
"Tingting, he wants to take me out for coffee."
A breath.
"Also, he told me he wants to hear me sing."
The word sing landed in Zhang Tingting's chest.
Su Qingxue had not sung in front of anyone in four years. Her father had told her to stop, saying she should spend her time on something more productive. She had not mentioned singing ever since.
But she had only met Long Tian some five hours ago.
--------------------------
"Tingting."
Su Qingxue turned toward her on the bed. The phone was still in her hand but her eyes were on Zhang Tingting's face now; her face was still glowing like a fluorescent bulb.
"You know girl… this Long Tian sees me. I mean the real me. Not some campus belle, I don't really want to be some campus belle to begin with."
"He also sees me not as my father's daughter…"
"But me."
Zhang Tingting listened to her best friend and almost nodded at her.
"I felt drawn to him. Like gravity."
Zhang Tingting's hand found the thin polyester of her bedsheet, her thumb pressing the mended seam.
Her eye twitched, once, at the corner.
She swallowed.
What the...
What the hell.
What the actual hell!
--------------------------
Su Qingxue kept going.
Her hands had started to move. They were small motions. A lift, a fold, a small conducting gesture that lined up with the rhythm of her own sentences.
As if she was making some grandiose speech though she was still talking in monotone, like some cashier in the supermarket at her 7th hour.
"He's destined for greatness, Tingting. I can feel it. We were meant to find each other. It feels like we are fated to be together!"
Su Qingxue paused for a moment, then continued.
"He's a dragon among men."
Zhang Tingting's eyes widened. She looked at Su Qingxue's face, trying to connect her speech to her voice and expressions.
"A dragon among men?"
Without responding to Zhang Tingting, Su Qingxue, in a single breath, continued.
"He's my white moonlight, Tingting. My soulmate. I felt it the moment I saw him."
Zhang Tingting's swallow came again. Harder.
"White moonlight? Soulmate?"
"Yes, Tingting, he is…"
Zhang Tingting's mind went blank. Her stomach dropped.
She had read these books for three years. She had read them on purpose. She had read them so she could help Lin Feng.
And there were times when books from that genre landed on her reading list.
Why does Qingxue sound like some brain-dead lovesick heroine from some romance books in those wish fulfillment stories?
Zhang Tingting stood up and stepped back.
"Qingxue?" Her voice came out quiet, a little unsteady. "Lin Feng chased you for four years."
Su Qingxue's face flickered.
"Lin Feng—" she almost slipped into her warm-register voice. Then she self-corrected. The face that came out instead was one Zhang Tingting had not seen before.
"Lin Feng was pathetic," she said in a flat tone. "He was desperate and clingy. He worshipped me like I was some kind of goddess. It was suffocating."
Su Qingxue shuddered.
"Revolting, even. Thinking about him makes my skin crawl."
--------------------------
Zhang Tingting was about to raise her hand, as if she wanted to slap her.
But she stopped mid-rise.
Su Qingxue was still holding her phone.
The screen had gone to standby. The lock screen had come up. But not long ago, she had been looking at her phone, at Lin Feng's picture, as if she were a maiden in love.
How could you say that to him! Zhang Tingting thought, looking at her best friend, not knowing what to do with her.
And how come you can say that to Lin Feng?
Lin Feng is not that kind of person!
He is the kindest person there is. He is so patient, gentlemanly and tolerant.
Have you forgotten how he saved you that day? How he placed his own life on the line just to save you?
Zhang Tingting did not say any of that, keeping them locked inside her head.
--------------------------
"Tingting."
Su Qingxue had brightened further, as if she could not see Zhang Tingting's current expression or that she'd almost gotten slapped by her.
She looked at her as if she had found the answer to everything and wanted to share it with the next person near her.
"You know what, you should come with me tomorrow."
"Ah… what?" Zhang Tingting blinked. Her stance suddenly changed from confrontational to flight, with one foot instinctively taking a small step back.
"To meet Long Tian. I want you to meet him."
Su Qingxue paused, a small smile appearing on her face, as if she was about to tell her the truth about everything.
"I believe you'll like him very much."
"You believe I'll like him very much," Zhang Tingting repeated, taking one more half-step backward.
"Yes." Su Qingxue's voice was flat with a thin edge of excitement. Or rather trying to sound excited. "After all, we're best friends. Maybe you'll feel the same connection I felt."
For the second time, her brain froze.
"...Sorry — say that again?"
"I believe you'll like him very much. After all, we're best friends. Maybe you'll feel the same connection I felt."
She repeated exactly the same words. Exactly the same smile. Even the cadence, tone and pronunciation were all the same.
Is she... is she offering to share him… with me?
She paused, taking one more half-step back.
Is she offering to share a man she met this morning, whom she has just called her destiny, with her best friend?
Her brain reached for any frame that fit.
Then she remembered one event. It was the time she and Lin Feng were out buying things Su Qingxue might like.
The two of them were eating ice cream back then, with her holding his hand, telling him that Su Qingxue likes this and that.
In the middle of their walk in the mall, the two of them met a couple. The couple was wearing church attire, handing out fliers with an inviting manner.
When a flier was forced into her hand, she read the flier for a moment, only to see it was a pamphlet about some obscure religion.
Qingxue looked exactly like that couple right now.
--------------------------
Seeing Su Qingxue look like some cult recruiter, Zhang Tingting took her bag. The strap was already over her shoulder before her mouth had found a word.
"I — oh. Oh god — I forgot. My — my retake. Professor Chen said. He said if I came back at two. The soufflé. I have to — I have to go."
Zhang Tingting turned around, looked at her wristwatch for a moment, then at the floor, the wall, the window — anywhere that was not Su Qingxue.
"I have to go. I have to — I have to go. Bye!"
"Oh, okay. Good luck, Tingting."
Su Qingxue's voice remained flat. She turned back to the phone. The screen lit up again, showing her last message to Long Tian. Her thumb was hovering as if she was thinking of what to say to him.
Meanwhile, Zhang Tingting walked to the door. The two steps from her bed to the door took longer than they should have. The hand on the handle was not quite steady.
She looked back once.
Su Qingxue was smiling at the screen. Her thumb was moving. The hand that had been white-knuckled on the silk sheet during the father's phone call half an hour ago was relaxed now, loose in her lap, the fingers slightly parted.
Whatever were Su Qingxue's thoughts back then, whatever her feelings were when she looked at Lin Feng's profile picture — those were all history by now. An ancient memory.
Something else had arrived in its place.
Zhang Tingting's stomach went cold a second time.
She turned the handle.
She stepped through the door.
She closed it behind her.
--------------------------
[1:55 PM]
The latch clicked.
Zhang Tingting stood in the hallway with her back against the door.
The fluorescent strip in the ceiling buzzed at a frequency that was nearly inaudible at most times. She could hear it now. She could hear it the way one heard one's own heartbeat in a quiet room.
Her hands were shaking.
She looked left and right down the empty hallway as if she was thinking of where to go next.
Then she took out her phone, her fingers instinctively finding Lin Feng's contact, only to see that his last message was from last night.
Something is wrong with her.
Should I go and tell Lin Feng about this?
She shook her head, dismissing the question entirely.
He probably doesn't know either.
And also… he must be on a date with that Xiao Yue today…
Xiao Yue's face flashed inside her head, that hooded beauty who looked like her pastime was taking part in beauty pageants while wreaking havoc on her peaceful life and destroying everything.
As her face appeared, a bitter taste came to Zhang Tingting's mouth. A slight stinging sensation rose in her chest, as if someone had pierced her heart with a needle.
She then shook her head, dispelling the thought.
The fluorescent buzzed above her.
Behind the door, the rectangle of sun — the same one she'd been watching cross the floor for the last forty minutes — had moved another finger's width while she'd been inside.
Zhang Tingting stood with her back against the door, her bag on her shoulder, and let the hallway hold her up. Her hand drifted up to where the stinging had been, and rested there.
Then she slumped slowly down until she was sitting on the floor.
"What is wrong with everyone today?"
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[End of Chapter]