On the way back, Xu Ye set the photo he’d taken of Qingqing at the Oriental Pearl Tower that evening as his phone wallpaper.

Two bus transfers later, he didn’t make it back to the dorm until after eight.

The moment he pushed the door open, all three roommates turned to stare at him.

“What, I got something on my face?”

Yang Fei got up and came over. “Your girlfriend actually got you an iPhone?”

“Yep.” Xu Ye held it up. “Newest 6s, no less.”

“How old is your girlfriend, fifty-something?”

“Your girlfriend’s the one who’s fifty-something.” Xu Ye shoved him aside, dropped into his seat, crossed one leg over the other, and grinned. “I know you’re jealous. But hold off — this is just the start of it.”

Yang Fei laughed and leaned in. “Let me see how good the new model actually is.”

Xu Ye didn’t even hesitate, handing it right over.

Yang Fei took it like it was made of gold, lit up the screen, and chuckled. “Find this wallpaper online? Pretty good-looking.”

“That’s not a wallpaper. That’s my girlfriend.”

“Bullshit, that’s obviously a stock photo.”

Xu Ye snatched the phone back, shooting him a look. “Don’t believe me, then. Give it back, I’ve got stuff to do.”

He opened WeChat. The truck driver — name was Chen Jianjun, as it turned out — had already sent over the address for the wholesale fruit market in Baoshan District.

Xu Ye dropped the address into a map app. Roughly two hours to get there from school.

“Zhang Xinzhou, those bananas on your desk — those from the fruit shop on the snack street?”

“Yeah.”

“How much a jin?”

“No idea off the top of my head. I think I got a little over two jin for around nine yuan. The fruit shop near campus is kind of pricey.”

Xu Ye nodded, then typed out a message. Uncle Chen, would you mind sending me a price sheet from the wholesale market?

“I’ve actually got one right here,” Chen Jianjun replied. He was a man who clearly valued loyalty — and given how much Xu Ye had helped him out that day, he didn’t even ask why, just sent the full wholesale price list right over.

Xu Ye quickly found bananas on the list: 1.8 yuan per jin. [TL: jin — a traditional Chinese unit of weight equal to about 500 grams, roughly 1.1 pounds, still the standard unit for produce pricing]

Was the margin on fruit really that high?

No, hold on — there was still transport cost and inventory risk to factor in. Moving fruit around wasn’t cheap, and fruit went bad fast. Anything that didn’t sell in time was a pure loss.

But the margin was sitting right there, plain as day. Run it well, and there was real potential in this.

Tomorrow, he’d go scope out that fruit shop near campus and nail down every price down to the cent.

…

The night passed without incident.

Seven-thirty the next morning, the four of them stirred awake one by one.

Today was the official first day of classes, and nobody was going to risk being late on day one.

They scrambled through brushing teeth and washing up, grabbed breakfast at the cafeteria, and ended up eating on the move just to make it on time.

By the time they reached the classroom, the front rows were already nearly full.

“Guess everyone’s pretty motivated this early in the semester…”

Xu Ye smiled and settled naturally into the back row. Zhang Xinzhou, roughly the same height, sat down right beside him as usual.

Yang Fei lowered his voice. “There’s still room up front, you know. We don’t have to sit all the way back here.”

“Best seats for slacking off,” Xu Ye said.

“Plus one,” Zhang Xinzhou agreed.

“But—”

“You can sit up front if you want. Nobody said we all have to sit together.”

Yang Fei thought it over and stayed put. “Forget it. Not like my eyesight’s bad anyway.”

Li Tongwen, predictably, had already claimed a seat up front.

Once the bell rang, Counselor Su Tong walked in and got straight to the point. “Your class schedule’s up — check the group chat. We don’t have class for the first two periods this morning. The reason I called everyone here is that before classes start for real, we need to pick our class officers.”

“You’ve all been together for two weeks now, so you should have at least some sense of each other. In the spirit of fairness, we’ll be electing your officers through a vote, decided by the whole class.”

“All right, I won’t waste time. If anyone wants to run for class president, come up and say a few words to make your case.”

The second Su Tong finished, Zhang Xinzhou leaned in. “Zhang Yiyang came by our dorm yesterday.”

Xu Ye raised an eyebrow. “What for?”

“He didn’t say it outright, but it was pretty obvious — he wants to be class president. He must’ve gone room to room yesterday afternoon. Campaigning, basically.”

“That’s pretty shameless,” Xu Ye said, surprised.

“I’m definitely not voting for him,” Yang Fei chimed in.

Hearing that, Xu Ye almost wanted to laugh. There were probably plenty of other classmates thinking the exact same thing right now — and Zhang Yiyang, smug and satisfied with how well he thought he’d played it, almost certainly had no idea he’d just shot himself in the foot.

Flip it around and think about it from the other side. If a classmate of yours, in pursuit of a class officer title, sucked up to the counselor at every turn and then went around the dorms buttering everyone up right before the vote — would you actually want to vote for him?

Some lessons, you only learn the hard way.

While the three of them murmured back and forth, Zhang Yiyang, seeing no one else stand up, smoothed down his shirt and walked straight to the podium.

Nobody in the room looked even slightly surprised.

His ambitions had been written all over him for weeks now.

“Dear classmates, hello! It’s an honor to stand here and run for class president. First, allow me to reintroduce myself…”

“I believe I’m qualified for this role for four main reasons.”

“First, I have years of experience as a class officer…”

“Second, I’m a flexible, active thinker…”

“Third, I work well with others toward shared goals…”

“Fourth, I will fully respect the will of the class.”

“…”

He’d clearly memorized a full speech, and it was well-organized, even logically sound.

When he finished, the class gave him a smattering of applause.

Su Tong stepped forward, smiling. “Anyone else interested in running for president?”

Everyone glanced around at each other. Nobody made a move toward the front.

Zhang Yiyang’s eyes settled on Xu Ye. He’d already decided Xu Ye was the only real threat in the room — and honestly, he wasn’t wrong. Xu Ye had served as company leader during training, won the Outstanding Trainee award, and clearly got along well with the rest of the class.

But watching Xu Ye stay perfectly still in his seat, Zhang Yiyang’s nerves settled right back down.

“No one wants to step up against Zhang Yiyang?”

“Xu Ye, get up there.”

A guy in the front row turned around and urged him on under his breath. His name was Zheng Yong — during the field march, he’d tripped and fallen, and Xu Ye had walked him all the way back to the starting point. He wanted Xu Ye to give Zhang Yiyang some real competition.

A few classmates nearby, hearing Zheng Yong call out, started shooting Xu Ye looks too, all silently urging him to the podium.

Xu Ye felt torn.

He had zero interest in being class president. But with this much support coming his way, he felt like turning it down now would almost be letting them down.

While he was still hesitating, Su Tong spoke up from the front. “Xu Ye, want to come up and say a few words?”

She’d been keeping an eye on everything he’d done these past two weeks, and she genuinely wanted to see him go head-to-head with Zhang Yiyang — to find out who the class actually wanted leading them.

Caught between his classmates’ encouragement and the counselor’s nudge, Xu Ye finally got up and walked to the front.

Zhang Yiyang, ever the gentleman about it, stepped aside to make room.

Xu Ye stood at the podium, cleared his throat, looked out at forty-some faces all turned his way, and smiled. “Honestly, I wasn’t planning on coming up here, but since the counselor called on me, I’ll say a few words.”

“I don’t have a résumé as impressive as Zhang Yiyang’s, and I can’t promise I’ll do anything special for anybody. So I’ll just say this one thing.”

“If — and I mean if — I actually end up as class president, then for the next four years, I’ve got your backs. From now on, you ride with me.”

(End of Chapter)