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Chapter 10: yx, yc.
Yu Xun went back to the dorm to get something.
Yun Ci had a task at hand and had to go back with him.
With his hands in his pockets, he entered a state resembling preparation for battle, mentally tense. He felt his phone in his pocket, pressed against it, silently repeating a few calming words.
The combined power of Yan Yue and Gao Pingyang.
He could temporarily lower his head and think of a countermeasure.
The two walked back to the dormitory along the small path outside the teaching building.
Suddenly, Yu Xun said, “Why are you nervous?”
Yun Ci’s tense hand paused.
Yu Xun: “Just guessing. You’re about to share a room with me soon; you being nervous and excited is understandable.”
“…”
“I can still hear the dogs barking,” Yun Ci said, “which means the distance between me and the dogs isn’t far enough.”
Yu Xun unconsciously looked around, “Where are the dogs?”
Yun Ci turned his head away, intending to create a greater distance between them.
He slowed down more and more as they walked, directly pulling apart from Yu Xun down the entire street.
Alright.
Now no one could tell that they were actually going to the same place.
***
Yu Xun’s dormitory was thoroughly destroyed.
Part of the walls were blackened by smoke, especially the table used for cooking instant noodles, which was almost blown out. Walking in, there were no lights, and all the wires were cut off.
The floor was a mess, indicating that many things were knocked over in the panic last night.
Yun Ci, who arrived across the street, looked like he was just passing by, leaning against their dormitory door. He originally wanted to send the message “I think they can still manage to live in the dormitory for a while” to Gao Pingyang, but choked up in the chat box.
Yun Ci: [……]
He withdrew his phone, realizing the reality of changing dormitories.
Yu Xun didn’t have much luggage, just a suitcase, a blanket, and some daily necessities.
Men’s daily necessities are very simple, and can all fit in a washbasin.
Just before leaving, the other five guys who had been standing against the wall in their dormitory even held a farewell ceremony for Yu Xun.
Liu Zi was the first. He opened a bottle of mineral water, “Ge, it was hard for us to become roommates, but it seems we have to part so soon. Our fate might end here. I won’t say much more; it’s all in this bottle.”
Yu Xun sat on the completely transformed table, one hand supporting the tabletop.
Surprisingly, he was very cooperative, lightly clinking his bottle of water with theirs.
Liu Zi tilted his head back and finished his drink, “I’m done!”
“…”
Yu Xun also took a sip, then held the water bottle like a referee and shouted, “Next!”
Another guy came up and said, “Dage, your jungle skills are really strong. Will there be a chance to play together in the future?”
Yu Xun patted the guy’s shoulder, “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”
Yun Ci anxiously checked the time.
After bidding farewell to Liu Zi and Yu Xun, they kept looking in his direction.
He looked up and met Liu Zi’s gaze, then Liu Zi, arms crossed, solemnly warned, “I live in the building above yours. You and Yu-ge live together, so be careful. There are many of our people in this building.”
Yun Ci was speechless for a moment.
What the hell kind of speech is this?
“You should be careful too,” Yun Ci retorted coldly, “next time you use a transformer.”
Liu Zi: “……….”
After Yun Ci’s retort, he felt that this conversation was actually quite normal.
He and Yu Xun had this kind of relationship of being at odds with each other.
Back when they were in West High, people from their two classes would challenge each other, and Yu Xun could always gather half of his class to accept the challenge.
Usually, two groups of people would confront each other in the hallway, using class rankings, sports results, and any other material they could use to mock each other.
“Hey, isn’t this the class that only got third place in the last monthly exam?”
“The average score is 0.7 points lower.”
“This kind of test paper, one can do it with their eyes closed, right?”
“Someone from this class lagged behind by three meters in the 800-meter race, was 1.3 seconds slower. Where did he find the courage to scream like this?”
“…”
Later, once Yan Yue couldn’t bear it and made him and Yu Xun each write a self-criticism, which would be read out during Monday’s flag-raising ceremony.
At that time, he and Yu Xun each held a self-criticism paper, standing in Yan Yue’s office.
Yu Xun stood on the left side of the desk, and he stood on the far right.
With one on each side, they looked like Yan Yue’s left and right guards.
After Yu Xun received the self-criticism paper, he asked, “May I ask, what is the reason for writing the self-criticism?”
Yan Yue: “You guys gathered——”
Yu Xun reminded him, “There was no fighting.”
Yan Yue: “Anyway, you guys gathering like this——”
Yu Xun: “We were just chatting.”
Yan Yue: “It’s gathering that affects the order of the hallway!”
“The whole day a large group of people standing in the hallway making noise,” Yan Yue slammed the table in anger, “do other students still need to rest during break time, do they still need to study! All they see is your commotion! And you, Yun Ci, you’re the class monitor this week. Is this how you maintain order?!”
……
The Yu Xun who always rallied half the class to battle and the Yu Xun who was currently being called “dage” in the dormitory overlapped heavily at this moment.
Yun Ci closed his eyes.
He suppressed everything that suddenly emerged about Yu Xun.
What was the point of thinking about these things?
Might as well think about how to live on after today.
***
Yu Xun stood at the door of Room 608 with his suitcase and belongings, while the other four people in the dormitory were all taking a break.
Three of them were gathered around the internet addict, who was wearing headphones and immersed in battle.
They cheered while watching, “Nice play, nice play.”
“Ultimate skill ready in three seconds.”
“Finish him off! Awesome!”
Just as the internet addict finished a game, after the exhilarating battle, he took off his headphones, and then everyone’s gaze shifted from the computer screen to the door.
“……?”
Yun Ci calmly introduced, “New roommate, their dormitory exploded, so they moved to ours.”
Others: “?!?” What exploded?
Lunch break ended quickly, without much explanation. After the four in Room 608 cleared out an empty bed, the whistle for assembly sounded.
It wasn’t until evening that they truly faced the fact that there was one more person in the dormitory.
Except for the trendy guy who had some understanding of the situation between Yun Ci and Yu Xun, the others didn’t know why their dorm head was acting so strangely today.
As soon as Yu Xun entered the dormitory, he called the dorm head for every little thing.
Yu Xun: “Help me get the duvet cover, dorm head.”
Yun Ci sat on the chair farthest from him, “……deaf.”
Yu Xun: “I’m holding things, not very convenient.”
Yun Ci: “Can’t hear.”
“…”
After a while.
Yu Xun didn’t really have anything to tidy up, but still found something to do and sat next to Yun Ci, “Dorm head—”
Yun Ci twitched his eyebrow.
Yu Xun: “There’s nothing. I just arrived in the new dormitory and am not quite used to it. I’m just feeling a bit shy, and wanted to chat with you for a bit.”
Yun Ci stood up abruptly.
He grabbed the internet addict who was playing games on the side, “You.”
Internet addict: “Me?”
“Starting today,” Yun Ci resigned on the spot, “you’re the new dorm head.”
After lights out in the evening, everyone finished washing up and got into bed.
The internet addict broke the subtle atmosphere, “Um, since I’m the dorm head now, I just realized that we haven’t officially introduced ourselves yet. Since we have enough people now, why don’t we do it tonight…officially introduce ourselves?”
The dormitory was pitch black.
Yun Ci lay on his bed, only catching the key phrase “self-introduction,” and didn’t hear much else.
Mainly because he didn’t have the mindset to listen; he felt uncomfortable all over.
Yu Xun slept on the bunk below him, and the distance between them was too close.
Close enough that after the internet addict finished speaking and the dormitory returned to silence, Yun Ci could even hear very subtle sounds coming from below.
Very shallow breathing.
Friction from adjusting the blankets.
……
Yun Ci stared at the ceiling, wondering how things had developed like this.
It wasn’t like he hadn’t thought about finding someone to change the bed.
But everyone had already settled into their positions, and the trendy guy even bought a bed curtain in advance. Plus, they had to check attendance every night and score points according to the names corresponding to the bed positions. He didn’t want to cause trouble for anyone.
His high school archenemy for three years had now become his college roommate sleeping on the bunk below him.
Since no one objected, the dormitory entered the self-introduction phase.
Internet addict: “My name is Luo Sifang, from the Computer Science Department. My gaming alias is ‘Dasha Sifang,’ and my highest rank is top fifty-six thousand on the server.”
Trendy guy: “Fifty-six thousand, why don’t you just introduce yourself as ‘I’m actually bad at games’?”
Luo Sifang: “…Don’t underestimate fifty-six thousand.”
Trendy guy: “I.” He hesitated for a moment and said, “My name is Wang Zhuang. I had poor health when I was young, so my mom thought this name would be easy to take care of.”
Luo Sifang teased, “You, such a trendy person, actually have such a plain name…”
The other two also stated their names.
One was Liu Sheng from the Vocal Department, and the other was Peng Yiyuan from the Performing Arts Department.
In short, except for the three law students, the majors of the other three people in Room 608 were all different.
Yun Ci listened absentmindedly, leaning over to check his phone.
But within half a day, his phone had accumulated over 99 unread messages.
Li Yan: [What the heck, did the dorm explode?]
Li Yan expressed shock: [So what’s the situation now, you and Yu Xun are roommates——?]
These two messages were sent several hours ago.
Yun Ci tapped on his phone and replied: [How did you know?]
Li Yan replied instantly: [The news has spread everywhere, even the groups from our old high school are blowing up.]
Li Yan: [There are even people betting on who between you two will lose their cool and throw the other out of the dorm first. I bet on you.]
Yun Ci: [?]
Li Yan: [Mainly not for the money, but to support my buddy.]
Li Yan continued: [So what are you planning to do now?]
Yun Ci typed quickly: [Planning to buy a plot of land.]
Yun Ci: [No matter who dies, it’ll come in handy.]
Li Yan: […………]
After a while, Li Yan sent another message:
[How about being a bit cunning, I’ve thought of an idea for you. You take the initiative, lead the other roommates to isolate him, ostracize him, make it so he can’t fit in the dorm anymore.]
[Not a bad idea.]
Yun Ci replied to him: [Don’t think about it next time.]
Yun Ci’s self-introduction was very simple; after stating his name and class, he remained silent.
Finally, it was Yu Xun’s turn.
Yun Ci heard the voice clearly coming from the bunk below.
“Yu Xun, Xun from Zhuixun (追寻, pursue and search).”
“Law Class 1.”
Since Yu Xun had just moved in today, the others listened especially attentively.
But Yu Xun’s self-introduction was just a couple of normal sentences. The rest of the introduction revolved around their former dorm head: “We were classmates with Yun Ci at a previous school, three years of schoolmates, we often keep in touch.”
Re-defining “keeping in touch,” huh?
Yun Ci lay on the bed, feeling like his breathing wasn’t quite smooth.
Yu Xun continued, “It could also be understood as having a deep relationship with him.”
Luo Sifang and Wang Zhuang didn’t know whether to agree or not, but they heard a sharp “smack” from the upper bunk where Yu Xun was.
Luo Sifang, the newly appointed leader, turned on his phone’s flashlight to assess the situation.
Seeing Yun Ci sitting on the bed, his face obscured, but holding a USB desk lamp that he usually used.
However, the lampshade seemed to be broken.
Yun Ci held the broken lampshade, his voice numb: “It’s nothing. Just wanted to put something away.”
“This lamp,” he added, “is of poor quality.”
Luo Sifang swallowed nervously.
“It’s quite late,” Luo Sifang said, “Let’s leave it for another day.”
With that, he wanted to quickly get through this weird atmosphere of the night and concluded with: “We don’t have a dormitory group yet, for future convenience, how about we create one? After joining, everyone can rest.”
Creating a dormitory group was standard procedure.
Everyone left their homes, and some even came from different cities to study at Nanyang University. They needed to take care of each other in daily life, and it was convenient to notify each other of any news.
Yun Ci had no reason to refuse. He wasn’t the type to avoid group activities, and he didn’t want to make it difficult for Luo Sifang, who had proposed the idea.
It was just being in the same group.
Not adding friends individually.
He already had so many groups, and there were quite a few where he didn’t read or respond to messages.
Being in the same dormitory, could things get any worse?
With these thoughts in mind, Yun Ci scanned the QR code to join the group.
After joining, before returning to the contacts page, he inadvertently glanced at the list of group members.
To his surprise, he saw a profile picture that could be considered identical to his WeChat profile picture—a completely black image. Even when reduced in size, the all-black frame stood out among the group avatars, clashing with his all-white framed profile picture.
“…”
Unable to resist, Yun Ci tapped on the black profile picture.
There wasn’t much information on the profile, just a WeChat name identical to his naming style: yx.
yx, yc.
One black profile picture, one white profile picture.
Placed side by side, these two profile cards looked as if two people were engaged in some kind of special relationship.
No one would believe that these two didn’t know each other.
In the darkness, only the occasional sound of their roommates turning over or placing things could be heard.
Yun Ci tried hard to ignore the odd feeling in his heart, but his thoughts drifted to the bunk below.
There wasn’t much movement from the lower bunk; Yu Xun seemed to be asleep.
Yun Ci’s mind was in turmoil.
Had this person’s name and profile picture always been like this?
Since when?
……
Just then.
His phone vibrated lightly.
At the bottom of the screen, there was a red notification on the contacts icon.
Opening it, he saw a black profile picture.
[Message notification: yx requested to add you as a friend.]
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