After that meal, Jiang Nian felt a bit like a clown. It seemed Qingqing now had some kind of stereotype about him.

Actually, he was just pretending to be a pervert...

She really took it seriously?

Li Qingrong didn’t think much of it; Jiang Nian being lustful was totally normal, like how people need to drink water.

"Is military training tiring?"

"Not really, every day is just..." Jiang Nian stopped halfway, suddenly stunned. "You didn’t do military training?"

Li Qingrong’s eyes lowered slightly as she gave a simple reply.

"I had something."

Hearing this, Jiang Nian sized Li Qingrong up again. Seeing her in her training suit, he couldn’t help asking in confusion.

"Then this outfit of yours...."

"Today I’m free." Li Qingrong’s expression didn’t change much. "When I have time, I’ll tell you in advance."

She thought for a moment, tilted her head and said.

"You can ask me out."

Ask out?

Jiang Nian pondered for a second. That "ask" definitely wasn’t just a verb. At least, not completely a verb.

"Go out somewhere? I’m not really familiar with this area."

"It’s fine, everywhere’s the same." Li Qingrong thought for a bit. "Let’s just wander around, there are a lot of parks around here."

Yeah, Beijing has a lot of parks. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

And food....

If you’re talking about tourist spots, the area beneath their feet. Plus the area next door, those two basically counted as some of them.

"Alright, next time we’ll just stroll around." Jiang Nian said, "But it rains easily, we should bring an umbrella."

After he said that, he suddenly froze again.

He suddenly remembered, in that timeline from the system simulation, he and Qingqing shared a kiss in a heavy rain in Beijing.

Fate is really a magical thing. Even with thousands of possible directions, it still pushed him to Beijing.

After a while, maybe they’d still end up kissing under an umbrella.

Only, the circumstances would be different.

After the meal.

Jiang Nian and Li Qingrong strolled around campus for a bit. It was a garden-style university, with all sorts of traditional buildings everywhere.

Walking there and chatting felt just like taking a walk in a park.

But there was a downside: some areas were a bit remote. At night when no one was around, they felt deep and creepy.

Right before they parted, Li Qingrong reached out and hugged him, just a light dragonfly touch.

"See you in a couple days."

"Sure." Jiang Nian nodded. College really was different; all the time intervals had stretched out several times over.

Busy, busy.

Even if you didn’t know what you were busy with, that’s just what freshmen were like.

In a blink, military training ended.

Xu Qianqian stopped looking for him as often. One reason was she didn’t want to move, another was that the English placement test was coming up.

Both girls were busy reviewing, which honestly was kind of unnecessary.

At noon, at a cafeteria table.

"Have you studied for it?"

"No." Jiang Nian said casually. "Why bother reviewing that thing? It’s just to test your level."

"If it’s too low, isn’t that embarrassing?" Xu Qianqian shot him a look. "I heard level B has more freedom in picking classes."

Song Xiyun said, "But some people say A is easier."

"What, hand in a blank paper?" Jiang Nian was dumbfounded. "Even if you write random stuff and throw it on the floor and stomp on it, you’d still get B."

A was for special-track students, basically close to English illiterates.

"Don’t stress too much, just take it normally." he said. "If you two end up in C, what classes can you even choose?"

"And if the grading isn’t great, it comes with more hassle."

"Let’s just aim for B."

That’s what he said, and that’s how he took it. When the results came out, the whole dorm was basically B.

Yang Jingfan was C, and a bit shocked.

"How am I C?"

"You must’ve swiped the card wrong." Brother Bao Song glanced at him, then went back to his game. "See if you can reload the save."

Da Chao burst out laughing and patted Yang Jingfan on the shoulder.

"What a pity."

After living together for half a month, Jiang Nian had more or less figured out the personalities of his three roommates. Take the example of a museum catching fire.

In the sea of flames, there’s a cat and a world-famous painting.

Da Chao would save the cat, then take pictures to show off. Brother Bao Song would stay completely unmoved and go back to the dorm to play games.

Yang Jingfan wouldn’t even go to the museum, because the library is free. Why pay money to look at a bunch of paint?

As for Jiang Nian, whether or not the fire broke out, he’d carry off the famous painting.

That’s called stealing, goddammit!!

He was pretty short on cash lately. The number of times he met up with Xu Shuang had visibly increased, not to borrow money, though.

He just wanted to vent a bit, then keep thinking of ways to make money.

Xu Shuang actually really wanted to lend him some. She’d hinted several times that she could give him a sum of money, interest-free, for him to use as working capital.

"Is a million enough?"

Jiang Nian was somewhat tempted, but after thinking it over, he still didn’t take it.

"Forget it, it’s not at life-or-death level yet. Let’s talk about it later, I think I can tough it out."

...

After two days of classes, Jiang Nian was sitting in the big lecture hall of Building 5, taking a major course, and thinking that he’d really come to the right place.

What is sociology? It’s "drink more hot water."

Go a little deeper, and you add a polite "sir" or "ma’am."

"Sir, drink more hot water."

In the same classroom, Da Chao was studying "pretend-to-be-cool sociology," Brother Bao Song was studying "Steam sociology."

Yang Jingfan was studying "probability-of-sociology," and Jiang Nian was studying "lying-flat sociology."

Altogether, a court full of "upright officials."

Just kidding—Jiang Nian didn’t care what he was learning at all; he was just sitting there with his head down, eyes closed, resting.

"Hey."

A girl in the row in front, dressed in Korean style, turned around. Her hair was dyed a bright yellow, and she wore a baseball cap.

Her little V-shaped face made her look soft and cute.

"Jiang Nian, you’re sleeping again?"

"That’s just how he is." Da Chao cut in. "Deng Yi, where are your dorm girls eating after class?"

Whenever class started, Jiang Nian became like the living dead. Half-asleep, he heard someone talking nearby.

Then, someone nudged his arm.

"Hmm?"

"Where are you eating at noon?" Deng Yi asked. "Da Chao said our two dorms will eat together."

"He wants to eat with his fellow townsfolk." Da Chao said. "Jiang Nian is great at everything, just too sentimental about the past."

"Military training’s over and he’s still clinging to his hometown buddies every day."

"Hometown buddies?" Deng Yi was surprised and lowered her voice. "That pretty girl who was walking with you last time?"

"What girl?" Da Chao was stunned, then turned to look at Jiang Nian. "Your hometown buddy is a girl?"

Jiang Nian: "...."