In the end Xu Ye did push Li Lulu’s WeChat through to Yang Fei.

And he gave Yang Fei an opportunity to have contact with her into the bargain.

He put Yang Fei in charge of everything to do with sponsoring the campus singing competition, which amounted to the most support he could have given him.

Of the three roommates:

Zhang Xinzhou and Yanqing were made for each other, and if the two of them didn’t marry it was a fair guess that neither set of parents would stand for it.

Li Tongwen was unlikely to get a girlfriend at university — partly because he had no such thought himself, and partly because he wasn’t in a position for a relationship right now.

Which left only Yang Fei, who had been announcing that he wanted a girlfriend since the first day of first year and was still a singleton to this day.

Xu Ye knew nothing about Li Lulu, but since Yang Fei had taken a liking to her, he didn’t mind pushing the boat along and letting him have a go.

Once Yang Fei got back to the dorm after lunch, he used his position as the client to start talking to her.

Li Lulu didn’t know Yang Fei, but she was perfectly polite and chatted with him for the whole of the lunch break, and then, when class was nearly due, replied, “I have to go to class. Shall we talk later?”

Yang Fei answered with an “okay” and then opened her Moments and started reading.

Li Lulu posted to Moments almost every day, and every post had a photo attached — some of them ordinary shots of her life, some of them selfies.

The longer Yang Fei looked, the more a lecherous smile spread across his face.

Zhang Xinzhou glanced over and asked, laughing, “What are you looking at? That laugh is absolutely revolting.”

“This Li Lulu. I am so in love.”

“I seem to remember you saying exactly that when you first got to know Wang Shiyu.”

“That’s different.” Yang Fei said it with total conviction. “Back then I was being purely lecherous. This time I actually like her. Here, look at the photos.”

Yang Fei handed him the phone. Zhang Xinzhou took it, had a look and laughed. “What year is she?”

“Third.”

“She’s older than you, then.”

“I like them older. Dating older — don’t you get it?”

Zhang Xinzhou laughed twice and handed the phone back. Yang Fei went straight back to staring at it, and didn’t forget to press him. “Well? Isn’t she good-looking?”

“Not as good-looking as Yanqing.”

“Her chest is bigger than your girlfriend’s, anyway.”

The things boys compete over when it comes to girlfriends are nothing whatsoever like the things girls compete over.

In a boys’ dorm, if the talk turns to girlfriends:

Boy one says: my girlfriend is really good-looking.

Boy two says: mine is better-looking, and she’s got a bigger chest.

Boy three says: mine is unbelievably good-looking, and not only has she got a big chest, she’s got long legs.

But in a girls’ dorm, if the talk turns to boyfriends:

Girl one says: my boyfriend is a complete moron.

Girl two says: is he as much of a moron as mine?

Girl three says: mine isn’t just a moron, he’s a dumb dog as well.

Hearing that, Zhang Xinzhou only smiled and didn’t take the subject any further, except to add a reminder. “Don’t forget the job Xu Ye gave you. If you don’t do it properly this time, he won’t give you another chance.”

“Mm. I’m looking on Taobao right now to see whether anyone sells the kind of fans Xu Ye was talking about.”

…

After lunch Xu Ye drove straight to the Shanghai Conservatory of Music.

He set off at twelve-forty and pulled up at the foot of the girls’ dormitory at one twenty-five.

When he messaged Chen Qingqing, the four of them had only just got up from their afternoon nap and were about to head to class. He waited downstairs five or six minutes, and then Chen Qingqing, Zhang Ruowei, Jiang Yu and Shen Xinyi came down, each with a book in her hand.

Chen Qingqing saw him and walked quickly over. “Didn’t I tell you I had class this afternoon? Why have you come so early?”

“I haven’t got class this afternoon, and there was nothing to do at school, so I just came over.”

“What do we do now, then?”

Xu Ye was about to say he could wait in the car until they finished when Jiang Yu cut in. “Why don’t you just have him come to class with us?”

Xu Ye scratched his head. “Would that work?”

“Our class this afternoon is sight-singing and ear training. It’s in a big lecture room with over a hundred people in it. Nobody’s going to notice you.”

That really is how it works at university. A few people missing might get spotted, but a few extra and nobody cares.

Zhang Ruowei said, smiling, “A big lecture runs an hour and a half. Qingqing certainly won’t have the heart to leave you waiting in the car. Just come with us.”

“Fine, then.”

The Shanghai Conservatory of Music isn’t large, and it doesn’t take long to get from the dormitory to the teaching building, so Xu Ye was inside it with them before long.

By the time they reached the door of the big lecture room, a great many people were already sitting in there.

Anyone else might have lost their nerve at that point, but Xu Ye’s skin was thick enough for anything. He strolled in beside Chen Qingqing bold as brass and found a seat towards the back.

A big lecture room holds somewhere around two hundred, and even with several classes in together it doesn’t fill up — besides which people are forever skipping. The ratio in the room, though, really was extraordinary: something like eight to two, and looking around, it was almost all girls.

When the bell went, a fair number were still coming in right on the stroke.

Two of them Xu Ye actually knew.

Li Junfeng and Zhang Xiaobei. The first of them had once bought Xu Ye a meal, and after that meal Li Junfeng had been left with a very strong impression of him. The second time they met was in the instrument room, when Xu Ye happened to be writing Sheng Sheng Man for Zhang Ruowei and the others, and they only nodded at each other in passing.

But the business card Xu Ye had handed over on his way out, Li Junfeng still had to this day.

Li Junfeng hadn’t noticed him at first. It was Zhang Xiaobei beside him who spotted a man sitting next to Chen Qingqing, and having seen it, tapped Li Junfeng and pointed.

Li Junfeng looked where he was pointing, recognized Xu Ye, and his eyes widened a little.

Xu Ye?

What’s he doing here?

Curious, Li Junfeng sat down with his three roommates on the other side of the aisle.

By then Xu Ye had seen them too, and finding that Li Junfeng happened to be looking at him, he waved a greeting.

Li Junfeng acted as though he hadn’t seen it and gave him a flat look instead.

You dog, Xu Ye thought. All I did was show off in front of you a couple of times. Why are you still ignoring me?

“All right, let’s begin.”

At the front, a slightly plump woman began to lecture without pausing for breath. “Last time we covered the concept of pitch and the aural identification of intervals. This time we’ll be looking at triads…”

Xu Ye had never sat through a class of this kind in a lecture room, but back when he was learning the guitar in his previous life he had watched a great many tutorial collections on Bilibili.

Basic music theory and ear training were things he had looked into.

Xu Ye listened for a dozen minutes or so and found it genuinely interesting — in fact he was paying closer attention than the overwhelming majority of the room.

The first period went by before he knew it. There was a ten-minute break, and once the second period started the lecturer carried on from where she had left off. “We’ve just covered major triads, minor triads, augmented triads and diminished triads…”

“Right. Now I’d like a student to stand up. I’ll play a triad and you tell me the notes in it, and we’ll see what your ears are like.”

The moment she said it from the front, a whole crowd of them put their heads down, as though terrified of being called on.

Watching it, Xu Ye was reminded for no particular reason of being called on to answer questions in elementary school, and couldn’t help finding it funny.

And at that moment:

“The one in the second row from the back, in the black. You have a go.”

Looking up at the lecturer fixing her eyes on him from the front, Xu Ye was left rather blank-faced. He pointed at himself and asked, taken aback, “Me?”

“Yes. You.”

Xu Ye’s mouth twisted into a grin.

Chen Qingqing and Zhang Ruowei and the rest of them beside him were all caught off guard.

None of them had expected Xu Ye to be the one the lecturer called on.

Li Junfeng, off to the side, watched him stand up looking utterly blank, and laughed until his mouth went crooked.

“Everyone else quiet. You listen carefully.”

(End of Chapter 209)