Twenty minutes on foot from campus brought them to Baolong Plaza — an enormous mixed-use shopping complex, the kind that housed every brand imaginable alongside an entire floor of chain restaurants.

For Li Tongwen, it was his first time in a place like this. His hometown was the kind of small county seat where things like this didn’t exist. The farthest he’d ever been from home was the city proper, and that trip had been to visit his mother in the hospital.

The mall was overwhelming in the best and worst possible way — vivid colors, blazing lights, decorations engineering a feeling of energy and fashion, crowds moving in every direction, goods on display in every window. Li Tongwen turned slowly, taking it in. Everything was new. And then, underneath the novelty, something else crept in.

While the other three debated dinner options, Li Tongwen stood slightly apart, head down, somewhere else entirely.

“What about this place? Barbecue and hot pot together.”

“Xu Ye?”

“Either works for me.”

Zhang Xinzhou made the call. “This one then.”

They headed toward the escalator. Li Tongwen watched the other three step on and then carefully followed — and because he’d never been on one, his upper body lurched forward and he nearly went over. He steadied himself immediately, took two quick steps up the moving stairs, and got alongside Xu Ye before anyone could dwell on it.

Xu Ye threw an arm around his shoulders. “Li Tongwen — strategy for tonight: maximum meat, minimum vegetables, skip the drinks if you can help it. Eat everything. Opportunities like this don’t come around every day.”

Zhang Xinzhou glanced back with a grin. “If you’re going to say it like that, next time I’m taking you all to an all-you-can-eat buffet.”

“Don’t threaten us with a good time.”

The restaurant wasn’t hard to find. It was busy — start of term, the whole city seemed to be going out to dinner. Zhang Xinzhou led them in, found a table, and a server arrived shortly with menus, which she handed to Xu Ye.

Xu Ye accepted without ceremony and began ticking things off.

“Have a look — anything you want to add?”

Yang Fei waved a hand. “You pick, I eat anything.”

“Same,” Li Tongwen said quickly.

“If that’s how it is, I’m going by my own taste.” Xu Ye added several more ticks, handed the menu back, and the four of them settled into conversation.

Li Tongwen couldn’t always find the thread to join in, so he mostly listened and nodded at the right moments. He noticed a sheet of paper sitting on the grill surface, reached over, picked it up, and was about to drop it in the bin.

A server came by with a trolley at exactly that moment.

“What are you doing?”

Li Tongwen’s hand froze mid-air. The server’s expression told him, before any words could, that he’d done something that made no sense.

The paper was the grease-proof liner. You left it on the grill.

Xu Ye glanced over and said easily, “He’s particular about cleanliness — that liner’s been sitting there since before we arrived. Could we get a fresh one?”

“Of course,” the server said, and moved on.

Xu Ye caught Li Tongwen’s eye and gave him a brief, unconcerned look. Li Tongwen finished dropping the old liner in the bin, and that was the end of it.

To Xu Ye, it was nothing. A two-second redirect.

He would never know that Li Tongwen would carry that moment for years. Long after university, he would still remember: in the first days of his first year, there was a roommate named Xu Ye who had quietly protected his dignity without making anything of it.

“Right — let’s eat.”

The grill heated up, the hot pot came to a boil, and Xu Ye raised his glass with great ceremony. “A toast to Boss Zhang for tonight’s generosity. May he continue to spend with this level of freedom for all the years ahead.”

Yang Fei and Li Tongwen raised their glasses immediately.

Zhang Xinzhou shook his head. “You people.”

Money for a dinner like this meant nothing to Zhang Xinzhou — it never had. Growing up, his father had kept him disciplined in most things, but never in creature comforts. Before sending him off to Shanghai, the old man had also delivered his standing guidance: be generous with friends, meals, drinks, all of that — but don’t spend money on women.

He had, in fact, established three household rules long ago:

No starting businesses.

No involvement with questionable women.

Never touch gambling or drugs.

Yang Fei picked up his chopsticks and changed subjects. “Did any of you join the freshman group chat before school started?”

The other three shook their heads.

“How do you not join the freshman group chat? You went in completely blind?”

“Sounds like you know things. Enlighten us.”

Yang Fei brightened immediately. “Do you know who the campus belle is?”

“Who?”

“Jiang Wei. Law faculty, economic law stream, second year. 166 cm, weight unknown, measurements 89-61-88, sings, dances, apparently trained in taekwondo. Absolutely stunning.”

Xu Ye: “Unverified claims.”

Yang Fei scrambled for his phone and pulled up a photo he’d saved from the group chat. Zhang Xinzhou took it, looked, passed it to Xu Ye.

Xu Ye studied it for a moment. “Face: 9.3. Figure: 9.5. Style: 9.6. Wait—” he tilted the phone slightly, “—black stockings. Add a point.”

Zhang Xinzhou raised a thumb. “Great minds think alike.”

Xu Ye passed the phone to Li Tongwen, who glanced at it without much interest. Someone like that was a completely different world.

“9.3 for the face seems low,” Yang Fei said.

Xu Ye shrugged. “Heavy makeup, and the photo’s taken from below — flatters the proportions. Real life might take a point or two off.”

“You’ve got a whole system.”

Yang Fei pocketed his phone and noticed a new message blinking in the group chat. He tapped it. “Tomorrow morning, ten o’clock, Fifth Teaching Building, Room 402. Don’t tell me military training starts tomorrow—”

“It won’t.”

Xu Ye shook his head. “If training started tomorrow morning, they’d have us in uniform. A morning assembly is probably just the full class meeting each other — supervisor, class advisor, introductions.”

“That tracks.”

“Training either starts tomorrow afternoon or the morning after. Either way, it’s two weeks. Blink and it’s over.”

Yang Fei looked at Li Tongwen. “You going to make it through military training? You’re not exactly… built for it.”

Li Tongwen laughed a little awkwardly. “I’ll do my best.”

“One more thing —” Yang Fei said, “— that Zhang Yiyang. You all know him? Same year as us, apparently. What’s he doing volunteering for the supervisor on day one?”

“You really can’t figure that out?”

“What?”

“He wants to be class representative. Volunteering means he gets face time with every single person in the class before they’ve even formed opinions about anyone. When military training ends, first order of business is the election — class rep, party secretary, academic officer. Whoever has the highest visibility among classmates by that point has the best shot.”

“Ah. Okay. That’s actually clever. Xu Ye, how do you know everything?”

“If you’re impressed, you can call me Dad.”

“Absolutely not.“

(End of Chapter)