The next morning, when Zhao Yuan got up to wash his face and brush his teeth, he saw Lin Wenxi hurriedly get up and follow him to the washstand. Zhao Yuan asked, “Why do you get up so early?”

“Today, I’m going to herd the sheep, just like a shepherd dog,” Lin Wenxi mumbled.

“What do you mean, little lamb? Tell me. What’re you up to?”

Lin Wenxi smiled without saying a word.

Lin Wenxi followed Zhao Yuan everywhere, which made the latter very confused. He pointed at the girls’ dormitory building and said, “I’m going to deliver some breakfast food. Do you want to come with me?”

Lin Wenxi nodded earnestly.

“Are you saying that you want to watch me deliver breakfast to her?”

Lin Wenxi nodded again.

“So I’m the sheep?” Zhao Yuan could not help but cry out.

Lin Wenxi nodded again.

“You’re courting death, little lamb!” Zhao Yuan stopped and shouted grumpily to Lin Wenxi.

Lin Wenxi pointed at his breakfast and said, “You know what. I haven’t eaten breakfast yet.”

Zhao Yuan had no choice but to admit defeat.

“If you admit that you’re a sheep, just bleat,” said Lin Wenxi.

“You!”

Lin Wenxi looked up at the ceiling thoughtfully, inserted a finger through the handle of the plastic bag, which contained his breakfast, and scooped it up from his desk. The bag swayed from side to side and looked as if it was about to fall to the ground at any minute.

“Barr!” Zhao Yuan bleated like a sheep. This young man had never been so subservient and servile to anyone before. He felt humiliated. Nevertheless, when he saw Lin Wenxi lower his head and smile sweetly, he felt great and thought, “Well, it’s my honor to serve such a pretty person.”

When Chen Wanxin saw Zhao Yuan and Lin Wenxi come together to deliver some breakfast food to her, she smilingly received the food while crumpling a piece of paper in her bag into a ball. It contained detailed information about the optional courses of Jifu University. She had taken a lot of efforts in collecting the information and planned to discuss it with Zhao Yuan this morning. Nevertheless, now she could only watch the two boys walking away cheerfully without saying a word. She felt as if her chest had been pounded heavily.

In the evening, the boys all returned to Dorm No. 216.

“Xiang’er, come here, help me get properly dressed,” Zheng Kai said and pulled Wang Xiang off his bed.

Wang Xiang felt awkward and complained. “Hey bro, only my girlfriend An’an calls me Xiang’er. I was really disgusted upon hearing you calling me Xiang’er.”

Upon hearing that, Zhao Yuan immediately put down the business journal in his hand and said, “Hey, Xiang’er.”

“Hey, Xiang’er, is your surname Guo?” Lin Wenxi echoed while reading a newly bought piano score in his hand. (Guo Xiang whose nickname is Xiang’er is a female character in the wuxia novel The Return of the Condor Heroes by Jin Yong.)

Wang Xiang gritted his teeth. He grumpily pulled Zheng Kai’s collar up to choke him, tied his belt into a dead knot and quickly climbed up to his bed.

Zheng Kai grabbed the guardrail on Wang Xiang’s bedside with both hands, prepared to jump up.

Wang Xiang hurriedly slammed Zheng Kai’s hands, trying to stop him. When Zheng Kai lifted himself up, Wang Xiang started to kick him while shouting, “Stay away from my bed, you sex maniac.” Zheng Kai lifted up a hand to grab Wang Xiang. The next moment, the two boys rolled to the ground together. When Wang Xiang was about to speak again, his guardrail fell down on his head.

Wang Xiang thought worriedly, “Who knows what Zheng Kai is going to do? Maybe he’ll even tear my bead down. I’d better do what he wants now.” With this in mind, he smiled and quickly helped Zheng Kai get properly dressed. Zheng Kai went to look at himself in the mirror. He was satisfied and smiled. Before he stepped out of the dorm, he looked back at his roommates and said, “If I get what I want tonight, I’ll give you guys a treat. If I fail tonight, Xiang’er will make it up to me.”

Wang Xiang was frightened and cried out, “Come on, why do you have to do this to me? It’s just your first date with Chen Wanxin.”

Zheng Kai walked out of the door confidently, although he did not quite understand why Chen Wanxin suddenly asked him out this afternoon when she had already forced Zhao Yuan to promise to be her boyfriend in front of everyone. Anyhow, he still felt excited upon thinking of the pretty girl.

In the afternoon, Chen Wanxin had come to find Zheng Kai and said smiling, “A’kai, come to meet me at the place where we took the military training on the playground at 9 o’clock tonight.” With these words, Chen Wanxin left. Zheng Kai patted his face to make sure that he was not dreaming. When he watched her walking away, he wished that he had wings and could fly beside her his whole life. When Zheng Kai came back to his dorm, he told all his roommates about this and asked Wang Xiang to help him get dressed.

After Zheng Kai’s departure, Zhao Yuan used two screws, some iron wire and a wire cutter to mend the guardrail for Wang Xiang. He finished it within 10 minutes, which deeply impressed Wang Xiang. Wang Xiang shook the guardrail a few times and then tried to rest his back on it. When he confirmed that it was fixed, he expressed his gratitude to Zhao Yuan by reciting a line from a famous poem.

Lin Wenxi thought that Wang Xiang was really overdoing it, as this line was often used to compliment some very powerful people.

After mending the guardrail for Wang Xiang, Zhao Yuan sat next to Lin Wenxi. He found that Lin Wenxi had read this piano score for a long time and asked him to play a tune for himself.

Lin Wenxi said with a smile, “No, I’m really just so-so. I know someone who’s really talented. The tune she played is really amazing.”

Zhao Yuan shook his head and said, “I don’t mind it. I don’t know much about piano. Just play a tune for me.”

Lin Wenxi smiled and then told Zhao Yuan everything he knew about Zhu Ziping, the young woman that he had met in the mountain village.

After hearing that, Zhao Yuan smirked and said, “There are more than six billion people in this world, and you want to find Yun Che for this Zhu Ziping when you know little about this man’s appearance and background. It’s impossible.”

Lin Wenxi replied smilingly, “Yeah, the world is so big, but you still meet me.”

Upon hearing that, Wang Xiang who sat on his bed echoed, “Ah, this is Yuanfen (destiny/ape’s manure).” (In Mandarin Chinese, the word for destiny and that for ape’s manure are homophones.)

Zhao Yuan and Lin Wenxi smiled at each other.

Wang Xiang continued while covering his nose, “It’s so stinky!”

Zhao Yuan and Lin Wenxi came at Wang Xiang together. Wang Xiang cried all the way out of the dorm and went to ask Gu Xi for help.

At night, when Lin Wenxi was engrossed in the piano score Colorful Clouds Chasing The Moon and simulated playing a piano on his desk, Zheng Kai came back to the dorm quietly without be noticed by anyone except Wang Xiang. Wang Xiang lay on the edge of his bed and put his head down to look at Zheng Kai, while shouting, “Hey, Zheng Kai, when did you sneak into the dorm?” Only then did Lin Wenxi and Zhao Yuan notice that Zheng Kai had come back. He was lying on his bed with his hands placed under his head now, seemingly lost in thought. They could not tell at a glance whether he was happy or sad.

After a while, he sighed, “Well, Zhao Yuan, you once defeated me in drinking. I’ve never expected you to be able to defeat me in love.”

“What do you mean? What happened?” Zhao Yuan asked with concern.

“I just want to tell you, Zhao Yuan. Don’t give up on her because of me. I don’t want to chase after her anymore. After all, we’ve known each other for just three months. I don’t care that much about her. If you really like her, just go get her,” Zheng Kai said loudly. “I’ll treat her just as a classmate. I promise.”

“What happened indeed?” Zhao Yuan asked anxiously.

“It’s none of your business. It was I who craved for what I’m not worthy of, like a toad wanting to eat the meat of a swan! It’s not a bid deal. I’ll find a female toad for myself in the future,” Zheng Kai grumbled.

“Haha! When I meet your girlfriend in the future, I’ll call her a female toad!” Wang Xiang teased, but the other three boys in the dorm all remained silent.

Lin Wenxi was lying on his bed, his face covered by the piano score. He seemed to have fallen asleep.

Late at night, Zheng Kai opened his eyes and tightly clenched his fist, when he recalled what Chen Wanxin had said to him.

“Actually, I just want you to do something for me. I want you to tell Lin Wenxi that Zhao Yuan treats him tenderly for a reason. The reason is that I asked Zhao Yuan to ‘bend’ him.”

“What? You can’t tell him this? I can’t believe that you refused to do such a small thing for me. Me? No! I can’t tell him by myself.”

“Alright, alright, you are a man of integrity. I’m a petty woman who is difficult to get along with!”

“Yes, I fall in love with Zhao Yuan. I used to like a lot of guys, but I never loved any of them.”

“Yes, you won the first prize, but I was not happy about that. I never asked you to get the first prize for me. I just wanted to send you away, as Zhao Yuan kept blaming me for urging you to take the risk to climb the cliff and getting Lin Wenxi wounded. Well, it would’ve been great, if Zhao Yuan had won the first prize. I would’ve hugged him and even kissed him on the podium.”

“You owed me a favor during the military training. I want you to return the favor now!”

“Huh? What do you mean by saying that it’s not worthy? I think that it’s worthwhile?”

“Don’t you know that Zhao Yuan refuses to be together with me because of you and Lin Wenxi? He considers you his good friend. And that Lin Wenxi just clings to him all the time. Without you being around, he would have been together with me a long time ago. We would have never needed to feel so awkward!”

“Zheng Kai, you’ll never have a chance with me. You can try, but I advise you to not do it. We’ve known quite a lot about each other for the past 2 months. You’re a person of your word. So am I. I think that you’re a great guy. That’s why I tell you this. Otherwise, I’ll never tell you that we can never be together. I’ll treat you as a random guy who likes me and use you to do all kinds of things for me. ”

“Don’t say that you don’t believe that I’m such a kind of person. You don’t know everything about me, but I know a lot about you. Your father Zheng Zihuan is just a clerk in the government of Yangzi County, and your mother Guo Ciyun is just a high school biology teacher. They sent you to Green Fields Military Academy to save money, didn’t they? Even if your parents were peasants, I would be able to know their backgrounds clearly.”

“Do you want to beat me up? Okay, unless you won’t feel ashamed of beating a girl.”

“You won’t tell this to Zhao Yuan. If you do, we don’t even have the chance to be friends.”

“I don’t want to do this to you, but I can’t believe that you refused to do such a small thing for me. What did Lin Wenxi do to you to make you like him so much?”

Zheng Kai had not said much during the conversation. When he left, he said with a blank expression on his face, “You’ll regret it.”

He thought, “I told you that I owed you a favor but I never told you that I was planning to repay your favor with my whole life.”