Facing Zhang Liang’s ramblings, Beijiao said nothing, primarily because he was genuinely hungry.
He returned to his seat, placed his breakfast down, and began patiently tapping the tea egg wrapped in a white food bag.
From the adjacent bunk, Zhang Liang’s head dangled down like a head severed and ownerless on a chopping block… watching patiently as Beijiao peeled the egg. After thinking for a moment, he suddenly said, “So the reason you aren’t coming with us to Xiamen is really because your family is having difficulties.”
It was a declarative sentence.
Beijiao’s breakfast paused halfway to his mouth.
He looked up, slightly bewildered, staring at him… simply unable to understand why Zhang Liang was acting so strangely.
But this bewilderment was interpreted differently by Zhang Liang, whose eyes instantly filled with compassion.
He picked up his phone and waved it slightly, and thus Beijiao finally understood what madness everyone had been up to today—
The video was dim and shaky, vaguely showing the sink counter behind someone in a restroom.
On the somewhat weathered wooden floor, a young man sat there, one leg bent, his head swaying slightly before falling limply onto the arm resting on his knee.
Outside the phone, a woman’s voice floated lightly, asking repeatedly—
[“Are you drunk?”]
[“Call me sister.”]
[“Call me sister nicely, and I can send you home.”]
[“You can ride in my car~”]
She was quite persistent.
And she might have been a bit tipsy too, otherwise, where did she get “car~”? Did she think he was three years old?
It was indeed perverted.
“…”
Beijiao stared at the video screen. The woman, one hand still holding the phone, didn’t forget to reach out and mess with him—
Her slender index finger gently brushed aside his disheveled hair, paused for a moment, then lifted his chin.
Thus, in the video, one could clearly hear his gradually heavy breathing.
And his prominent Adam’s apple, forced to roll uncomfortably as his jaw was tilted upward.
His eyes were half-closed.
Too quiet.
The music outside seemed to come from another space behind a glass cover.
All one could hear was the dripping sound of a loosely closed faucet behind him at the sink.
A strange atmosphere floated in the dim air.
She laughed softly or whispered.
There were no indecent actions, but that didn’t stop the viewers from making primal “aww” sounds, with some even more perverted ones yelling, “Don’t just call me sister—I want her to slap me in the face!”
These spectators might be seriously ill.
Compared to their excitement, Beijiao, the one actually touched by that hand in the video, showed no excessive expression throughout.
—As if he weren’t watching his own borderline R16-themed video.
At this point, explaining that he had woken up alone from the sofa at the bar where he worked part-time sounded a bit like a desperate struggle…
He thought carefully, tilted his head slightly, and spoke in a casual tone, “Part-time job, illegal?”
It wasn’t illegal.
But…
Zhang Liang thought for a long time, wanting to retort several times, but when he met the dark gaze of the person beside him, he had to admit the lingering intimidation from their first encounter on the first day of school.
So he shuddered slightly, hesitantly pulling back the hand holding his phone before saying, “Not illegal… it’s just, that thing—”
“What thing?”
“It’s just not encouraged.”
“…”
Beijiao stuffed the entire tea egg into his mouth.
Chewing.
His silence prompted Zhang Liang to lean in further. Right now, half his body was sticking straight out, almost like a snake hanging down—
“Beijiao, so if your family is in hardship, why didn’t you apply for work-study?”
“Isn’t this a part-time job?”
“I mean a proper work-study program.”
“Did I do a stripping dance at the bar?”
“…You know that’s not what I meant,” Zhang Liang climbed down from the top bunk, brought a stool to sit beside Beijiao, and after thinking for a while, bravely said, “Actually, that’s exactly what I meant.”
Beijiao slowly tore open the steamed bun in his hand. His eating manner was very refined, unique among boys—calm and unhurried, like a poor nobleman, so elegant that Zhang Liang even got distracted watching—
How could someone eat a one-yuan purely vegetable-filled steamed bun as if it actually contained “Buddha jumps over the wall”?
“So are you the only college student from your village?”
Zhang Liang sat astride the chair, hugging its backrest, resting his chin on the edge of the chair back, asking seriously.
Influenced by positive social news, Zhang Liang now had a full picture in his mind of Beijiao’s farmer father going door to door borrowing ten or twenty yuan to raise tuition fees… the day before departure, the whole village sending him off at the village entrance, the village chief holding his hand saying: Beiwawa, you are the village’s hope. If you become rich, don’t forget us—remember to come back and build roads.
Yeah.
Building roads.
Building roads was very important.
The first thing to develop the village was definitely to build roads.
Upon hearing this, Beijiao turned his head to look at his roommate immersed in his fantasy, ruthlessly shattering it: “No, I’m just a regular poor city kid.”
“…”
At this point, the only remaining roommate in their dorm who hadn’t left yet couldn’t understand the two’s bizarre conversation anymore, so he picked up two water kettles and went out to fetch water—
One was his own, and when he left, he didn’t forget to take Beijiao’s with him.
Zhang Liang watched his roommate leave, then thought back to their high school days, increasingly convinced that students like Beijiao—good-looking, academically excellent, introverted, and from a disadvantaged background—were particularly prone to bullying.
He said he was from a city.
Lingjiang City.
Urban key high schools usually had special recruitment classes for second-generation rich kids, filled with useless troublemakers who liked to pick on the top students in the key class who hadn’t even changed their school uniforms in three years—bullying them.
Zhang Liang got so worked up imagining this that his blood pressure spiked.
“So when you were studying, did anyone bully you?”
He asked with a frown.
Upon hearing this, Beijiao slowly turned his head to glance at him, then after a while, chuckled lightly.
The straw in his hand “snap” pierced the cheap plastic cup full of soy milk.
“No.” He said calmly.
Lowering his eyes, his long lashes concealed all the fluctuations in his gaze.
Zhang Liang naturally didn’t believe him. Staring at his roommate’s perfect jawline curve, he felt a surge of paternal responsibility welling up in him just before turning twenty…
He reached out, snatching the soy milk from Beijiao’s hand—doubtlessly some cheap soy milk powder mixed with water—and shoved an imported soy milk powder into his hands instead.
“Don’t work part-time in weird places anymore,” Zhang Liang said. “It’s not like back at your old school, really, really! From now on, you’ve got us brothers. No one will ever bully you again!”
Beijiao: “Why are you suddenly so excited?”
Zhang Liang: “I’ll treat you to dinner tonight!”
Beijiao: “…”
Zhang Liang: “I’ll treat you every day from now on!”
Beijiao: =L=?
…
At noon.
In stark contrast to the simple environment of a university dormitory, in a high-end apartment building.
The previous night’s activities had been tossed aside by Jiang Ran the next morning after waking up slightly tipsy.
After waking up, it was already noon. Jiang Ran glanced at the time, then turned over intending to continue resting when suddenly her phone started ringing and vibrating simultaneously, as if it had sensed something.
She sighed, eyes still closed, feeling around for her phone and answering, “Hello.”
Because of the hangover, her voice was a bit hoarse.
The caller was clearly in a specific setting—boring single-track music looping, and some vaguely noisy background sounds. Upon hearing her answer, the person on the other end called out, “Ran Jie.”
It was Zhao Keyan.
The only one from yesterday’s group that Jiang Ran was somewhat familiar with—the rest were all his friends. Those messy people, she had disliked after a whole night drinking with them, and upon returning home tipsy the night before, she had quickly deleted all their WeChat contacts.
Now she acted as if nothing had happened, eyes still closed, humming faintly into the phone, indicating she was listening.
A simple nasal sound perfectly conveyed, “I just woke up, better not say anything I don’t want to hear.”
Zhao Keyan was a sharp person. Indeed, he wisely refrained from questioning why she had deleted everyone’s WeChat contacts… as if nobody had ever desperately grabbed his collar shouting, “Jiang Ran deleted my contact, I didn’t even do anything!” He acted like nothing had happened, asking Jiang Ran casually why she hadn’t gone to the “fridge” today.
“I just woke up.”
“That’s a shame. The snow’s great and there aren’t many people at the fridge today.”
Jiang Ran snorted disbelievingly.
“Fridge” was a special term for skiers.
It was an affectionate nickname for the Sunac Snow World indoor ski resort.
From May to October, when the snow season ended and hadn’t yet returned, this period was called the “off-season” by snow enthusiasts.
During the off-season, with flowers blooming and ice melting, most snow lovers gathered at various indoor ski resorts across the country to practice and prepare for the next snow season.
Most of China’s indoor ski resorts belong to Sunac Snow World, with locations spread nationwide. Among them, the three major ones in Guangzhou, Chengdu, and Harbin… during summer, these three “fridges” stood as equals, bustling with snow lovers—
The masters were also distributed accordingly.
Guangzhou, as a first-tier city and aviation transportation hub, had the highest popularity. Besides many newbies gathering here, most were carving and sliding masters who enjoyed gliding;
Chengdu followed second in popularity, with relatively shorter slopes, mainly intermediate slopes, wide and gentle, mostly gathering flatland freestyle masters who enjoyed balance-based tricks;
Lastly, Harbin originally had the steepest slope nationwide at Sunac, but due to its remote geographical location, it had the lowest popularity among the three major Sunac resorts, usually with only a few people around… but fewer people had their advantages, mostly professional training teams or introverted, socially anxious individuals coming here for secluded practice.
In the summer, Jiang Ran flew back and forth between Guangzhou and Harbin.
Right now, she was in Guangzhou. Since the campaign of “three hundred million people on ice,” Sunac Guangzhou had been packed every day. After 11 a.m., the snow was completely ruined by skiers…
What “few people and great snow”? It simply couldn’t exist.
Jiang Ran turned over and sat up: “Save those lies for someone else. What do you really want?”
Spit it out.
Zhao Keyan hesitated, then said, “Nothing, just checking if you’re okay?”
“How could I not be okay?”
Jiang Ran yawned, lazily running her fingers through her messy hair, half-heartedly responding to Zhao Keyan while scrolling through WeChat on her phone. Finally, she found that the video she posted yesterday had been shared in a snow-lover group with around 500 members, successfully sparking a heated discussion from last night until this morning—
Hundreds of @ mentions, all asking: Ran Jie, that drunk little puppy is really tempting.
……………………
Ah.
What was going on?
After hanging up, Zhao Keyan messaged her privately on WeChat—
【CK, Yan: ……
【CK, Yan: Change your WeChat name, this one is creepy.
【Who is Ran Ran’s Duck: Isn’t this name cute?
【CK, Yan: Not as cute as your “drunk little puppy” from yesterday.
【Who is Ran Ran’s Duck: …
【CK, Yan: The video you posted yesterday has spread everywhere.
【Who is Ran Ran’s Duck: And then?
【CK, Yan: Including the pup’s school, it’s already the top trending video today, and is a top ten trending video of the year.
Jiang Ran was about to think she had indeed done something uncivilized and maybe should apologize, but before she could voice this thought…
She saw Zhao Keyan mysteriously ask: Do you know who the little pup is?
She casually replied: Who?
Three seconds later, Zhao Keyan sent a video.
In the video, it looked like a school cafeteria—
Probably high school, because the kids coming and going in the video were all wearing high school uniforms, something like “Linjiang No.1 High School.”
A group of people stood in the video, one boy holding a can of cola standing by the table in the center of the frame, while another boy sat at the table.
The one sitting at the table had his head lowered, his face unrecognizable.
The boy holding the cola had a slightly crooked smile, let’s call him the crooked-mouth boy for now. The crooked-mouth boy smiled down at the seated boy and said: Bastard.
Jiang Ran raised her eyebrows.
But the person being insulted in the video didn’t react. Seeing no reaction, the crooked-mouth boy became even more arrogant, placing the cola can on the table.
—A bit heavily.
Brown liquid splashed out, some landing on the collar of the seated boy’s white school uniform shirt, some on his chin.
The seated boy still didn’t move.
But the person recording the video with the phone clearly trembled slightly, the lens shaking.
Just in that instant, before the lens could steady itself, the boy who had been sitting up suddenly stood up, and in the blink of an eye before anyone could react, using his height advantage, grabbed the crooked-mouth boy’s hair at the back of his head and slammed his face into the food tray on the table!
A loud “Bang!”
The crowd exploded!
In the chaos, the person filming was already trembling like jelly, fleeing in panic. Meanwhile, the boy pressed his head deeper into the tray while raising it slightly, as if sensing something. He shot a fleeting, icy glare toward the camera.
Cold gaze.
Familiar face.
Ran blinked.
Ran was silent.
【CK, Yan: High school “little puppy.”】
【Who is Ran Ran’s Duck: …】
Jiang Ran snorted, rolled her eyes, and lifted her hand to brush the loose strands of hair behind her ear.
【Who is Ran Ran’s Duck: Hmm, that’s it?】
【CK, Yan: That’s it?】
【CK, Yan: How sturdy must the metal table in the high school cafeteria be? The dent he made there still exists today, serving as a unified school rule reminder for all high schools in Linjiang: be a good person, never attempt bullying.】
【CK, Yan: That’s it?】
【CK, Yan: It’s you, as always. Amazing.】
【Who is Ran Ran’s Duck: Oh, look at your timid chicken heart.]
As she said this, Jiang Ran switched out of WeChat, opened the Ctrip app, and started checking for direct flights to Harbin that same day.
See? She wasn’t afraid at all.
Come to Harbin and try to kill her if you dare.
The author has something to say:
Ran Ran: I’m out, 886
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