Chen Zebin’s face went red at once.

He hadn’t crossed paths with Xu Ye before, but he had heard about him.

He hadn’t expected a little first-year junior to come back at him like that, in a setting like this. Feeling he had lost face, he slapped the table, stood straight up and said loudly, “What’s that supposed to mean?!”

Xu Ye shrugged and said indifferently, “I don’t mean anything by it. It was a joke. What are you getting so worked up for?”

Chen Zebin couldn’t get a word out.

Because a moment ago he had said exactly the same thing himself.

Seeing that, Li Lulu hurried over to smooth things over, then found Xu Ye and Yang Fei two seats and sat them down.

About ten minutes later Xu Ye heard a stir from downstairs. A young man in a suit came up to the second floor with several people behind him, and the twenty-odd people who had been sitting down all got to their feet. “President~”

Yang Fei saw everyone get up and was about to get up himself, but Xu Ye was sitting beside him without moving a muscle, so he hesitated.

In the end Yang Fei didn’t stand. He figured that doing what Xu Ye did could never be wrong.

This last young man to arrive was Jiang Tao, president of the School of Finance student union, and the several people behind him were all senior figures within it.

Jiang Tao swept a glance over the room, let it rest on Xu Ye and Yang Fei for a moment, then pressed a hand downward and smiled. “Sit down, everyone. It’s a dinner, let’s not stand on so much ceremony.”

Only then did the group sit down.

“President, sit at this table.”

“President, come sit with us.”

“President, we’ve got plenty of room here.”

“…”

Xu Ye had no real dealings with these people ordinarily and knew nothing about them; tonight was an education. He had genuinely not expected the student union’s bureaucratic style to be quite this badass.

There were four tables set out on the second floor. Jiang Tao looked around and finally sat down at Li Lulu’s. Before long the waiters began bringing the food out, but the odd thing was that nobody picked up their chopsticks. The people at the other tables were all deep in conversation, and at Xu Ye’s own table most of them were sucking up to Jiang Tao.

Xu Ye thought: we’ve been sitting here half an hour. Are you damn well going to eat or not?

Seeing that nobody showed any sign of moving their chopsticks, Xu Ye couldn’t be bothered to wait any longer. He broke his apart and started helping himself to the dishes.

The few people beside him stared.

Hold on?

What are you doing?

The president hasn’t picked his chopsticks up. How are you eating already?

Jiang Tao’s face went dark and then purple by turns, and in the end all he could do was call on everyone to pick up their chopsticks and eat.

Yang Fei was sitting next to Xu Ye, and seeing Xu Ye pick up his chopsticks first and start eating, he found it deeply embarrassing — this was the student union’s home ground, after all.

But from where Xu Ye stood, he ate with a perfectly clear conscience.

Your old man sponsored you three thousand. What’s wrong with eating one meal at your expense?

“Are these two from our student union as well? I haven’t seen them before.” Jiang Tao asked it casually, and Li Lulu, sitting beside Xu Ye, answered quickly. “No. His name is Xu Ye. He’s a student here too, but he’s also the sponsor for this event of ours. I invited them.”

Jiang Tao had in fact known who Xu Ye was for some time. Back when Xu Ye and Jiang Wei were “the talk of the school,” Xu Ye had briefly been his rival in love — Jiang Tao had pursued Jiang Wei, and after she turned him down he stopped pestering her, though he still kept an eye on her. That was when he first learned there was such a person as Xu Ye.

“So you’re Xu Ye. When I go to the counselor’s office I hear the staff mention you all the time. Would you be interested in joining our student union?”

Xu Ye shook his head and turned it down flatly. “Not particularly interested. I’m usually pretty busy.”

Invitations like that did get refused, but refusals as flat as Xu Ye’s were very, very rare — you could almost say they didn’t happen…

You could hear it in his tone: he seemed to think nothing whatever of the student union, and gave Jiang Tao no extra respect for being its president.

Xu Ye concentrated on his own food, thinking he would leave the moment he finished. Sitting among this lot, everything grated on him.

Li Lulu felt the atmosphere had turned awkward, so she picked up a bottle of beer from the table, poured a glass, and held it out to Xu Ye with a smile. “Xu Ye, thank you for your support with the campus singing competition. Let me drink to you.”

Xu Ye quickly put his chopsticks down and poured himself a glass of Sprite.

He was just raising it to clink with Li Lulu’s when somebody at the table spoke up again. “Li Lulu’s a girl and she’s drinking beer. How come you’re a man and you’re on soft drinks?”

“Oh. I drove here.”

“So what if you drove? Aren’t you afraid of people laughing at you if that gets out?”

Xu Ye was about to say something when Yang Fei suddenly reached over and touched his thigh, and after a moment’s thought he swallowed it.

He paid the others no attention. He clinked glasses with Li Lulu, ate for another ten minutes or so, then found an excuse and went downstairs.

Yang Fei looked at Li Lulu, then at Xu Ye, then got up and followed him down anyway.

Downstairs and back in the car, Xu Ye finally swore. “What a bunch of morons. Don’t you damn well drag your old man out here again. If you hadn’t patted me a couple of times back there I’d have sworn at him.”

“Patted you a couple of times?”

Yang Fei was completely lost. “When did I pat you a couple of times?”

“When that dumbass was talking. Didn’t you touch my thigh and then pat it twice?”

“No.”

Xu Ye’s brows knotted together at once.

Upstairs just now, Yang Fei had been sitting on Xu Ye’s left and Li Lulu on his right. When that dumbass was talking, Xu Ye had distinctly felt somebody stroke his thigh lightly and then pat it twice, and he hadn’t thought much of it at the time — he had assumed it was Yang Fei telling him to hold it in and not sink to their level.

But once Yang Fei said that, Xu Ye realized at once: the person who had touched his thigh hadn’t been Yang Fei at all. It had been Li Lulu.

At the thought, Xu Ye turned to look at Yang Fei, his eyes full of pity.

Being looked at like that made Yang Fei’s skin crawl. He said irritably, “What are you looking at your old man for?”

“Yang Fei. Be sensible. Let’s not go after Li Lulu, all right?”

“Get out of your old man’s face. I’ve barely got a bit of hope and you’re telling me to give up. Can’t you stand to see me do well?”

Seeing how worked up Yang Fei was, Xu Ye sighed and said nothing more, only muttering to himself inwardly, “Brother, you’re on your own.”

He had barely made it back to the dorm when two messages came in from Chen Qingqing.

The first was a picture of food.

The second was a voice message.

He tapped it and the familiar voice came out of the phone. “Dumb pig, look — I’ve found another restaurant that’s good. I’ll take you there tomorrow night.”

Xu Ye replied quickly, “Then can we have a late-night snack together tomorrow night?”

Chen Qingqing: “Eat what?”

Xu Ye: “You.”

(End of Chapter 232)