Friday at noon, the moment class ended, Xu Ye made his way over to Shanghai Institute of Technology.
Once he’d met up with Qin Zhiwei, the two of them got to work mapping out vending machine locations. Every stairwell in every teaching building needed at least one unit; the library, activity center, and gymnasium all required coverage; anywhere that saw consistent foot traffic got added to the list. All told, the sites came out to around thirty-five units.
Xu Ye logged every position into his notes and sent the list straight to Zhang Bin.
By the time the two of them made it to the cafeteria for lunch, it was nearly three in the afternoon — lucky the kitchen still had food left.
They found a table and sat down, and Xu Ye gave instructions between bites. “Once Zhang Bin confirms the arrangements, I’ll have the factory crew come out to install. You handle the coordination on your end. After the machines are in, this whole operation is yours to run — I’ll pay you five thousand a month. You can hire two part-timers to help you out, set their wages however you see fit.”
“Five thousand?! That much?!”
Xu Ye smiled. “It’s not that much. But don’t go throwing it around.”
Qin Zhiwei sighed. “I don’t even have anywhere to spend it. I don’t want to go anywhere on my own, and staying on campus a month costs me maybe a thousand at most.”
“Then save it.”
Qin Zhiwei looked at him sideways. “Xu Ye, how much are you actually making a month now?”
“Don’t ask. I’d hate to crush you.”
“You bastard. Back in high school we were basically the same, and now look at the gap between us.”
Xu Ye put on his most philosophical expression. “You haven’t graduated yet. Right now, standing before me, you are like wild grass before a green mountain. But one day, when you’ve been out in the world and seen what’s out there — you’ll stand before me as a mayfly before the open sky.”
“Oh, screw you—” Qin Zhiwei was so irritated he reached over with his chopsticks and plucked the sausage right out of Xu Ye’s bowl, eating it in furious silence.
Once everything that needed saying had been said, Xu Ye headed back to his own campus. The round trip alone burned two or three hours in transit.
Back at the fruit shop, Jiang Wei had just finished class and was sitting at the computer, mimicking Xu Ye’s accounting style — calculator in hand, totaling up the week’s numbers.
Xu Ye came up behind her and glanced over her shoulder. “I run these figures every day. You don’t need to come back in the evening and do it all over again.”
Without looking up, Jiang Wei said, “What if I just don’t trust you?”
Xu Ye smiled and let it go. In truth, it wasn’t really distrust — she simply enjoyed the process. To her, every number on that calculator was money, and that money made the future feel like something to look forward to.
Things were moving in a good direction all around.
Saturday morning arrived under a grey sky, wind pushing through the trees with a dry rustle.
Xu Ye got Zhang Xinzhou up, and the two of them headed to the vending machine factory together. They’d worked with this supplier before, so everything went smoothly — half an hour in the factory, a twenty-thousand yuan deposit, and seventy units reserved. Half were slated for Songjiang campus, the other half for Shanghai Institute of Technology.
On the bus back to campus, a crack of thunder split the sky, and a moment later the rain came down in torrents.
“Good thing we got out early. Any later and we’d be completely soaked.”
“Yeah. This one’s not letting up anytime soon.”
…
Saturday.
Chen Qingqing was up early. She washed up, put on a little makeup, slung her bag over her shoulder, pulled on a face mask, and slipped out of the dorm alone.
Out of the school gates, she began murmuring the route to herself under her breath.
“To the subway station, take the line going toward Qishenlu, transfer to Line 9 after one stop…”
Ten minutes later she was at the station. She’d started early enough that there were still empty seats — she found one, sat down, and when the train stopped one station on, transferred to Line 9 without any trouble.
Fourteen more stops on Line 9. She put in her earphones and let the music run, but as the train accumulated passengers stop by stop, the crowd pressed in around her until she was wedged into a corner of the car.
Standing there, a thought surfaced before she could stop it: It’d be nice if that dumb pig were here right now.
If Xu Ye were here, he’d already be standing in front of her, taking up space so no one could crowd in close. She wouldn’t be squeezed into any corner.
She let the thought go. She was almost there anyway.
And besides — Xu Ye had made this trip to see her so many times already, ninety minutes each way on public transit, and never once complained. Every single time she’d looked out the dormitory building and found him down there grinning like an idiot.
She’d expected the journey to go smoothly the rest of the way. It didn’t.
Hemmed in at the back of the car, she couldn’t see the station display, and the announcements got swallowed by the noise around her — and before she realized it, she’d ridden one stop past Gutang Road.
She got off in a hurry, then immediately called Zhang Ruowei, voice a little tight. “Ruowei, I missed my stop. What do I do?”
Zhang Ruowei heard her tone and came in calm and reassuring. “It’s fine, happens to everyone. Just go across to the other side and take the train back the opposite direction.”
“I can just get on without a new ticket?”
“You can use your original fare to exit — it’ll work.”
“Oh.”
“Where are you, anyway?”
Chen Qingqing said quietly, “I came to find Xu Ye.”
“Got it. Call me if you need anything else.”
“Okay.”
She waited two minutes for the train going back, boarded it, and this time kept her eyes fixed on the station map the whole way until she saw Gutang Road and ran off the train the moment the doors opened.
She opened her maps app, typed in Shanghai University of Finance, and let the navigation voice guide her out of the station.
One and a half kilometers to go. Seventeen minutes on foot.
The thought of being that close to Xu Ye quietly smoothed over the irritation the missed stop had left behind. She started walking.
She’d gone only a few minutes before a deafening clap of thunder rolled overhead. Chen Qingqing startled, instinctively picked up her pace — but it was already too late. Within seconds, the sky opened up completely.
She had no umbrella. She was soaked almost instantly.
The cold rain hitting her skin was the final straw. How could one trip be this hard, she thought, and felt her throat tighten. She ducked under the awning of a bus stop — it had a roof, but the wind drove the rain sideways, and a fair amount of it still reached her.
She watched the road empty out as everyone ran for cover, and felt something behind her eyes start to sting.
She took out her phone and called Xu Ye.
When his voice came through, she lost what was left of her composure. “Xu Ye,” she said, her voice catching, “come get me.”
He heard the sound of her crying and his whole chest seized up. “Where are you?”
She glanced at her map. “The bus stop on Minyao Road.”
“Stay there. I’m coming right now!”
He’d only just gotten back to campus. He grabbed the electric scooter and rode out to Minyao Road as fast as it would take him.
He spotted her under the bus stop awning — drenched, wrapped in her own arms.
The moment she saw him, every last bit of composure crumbled. Tears ran freely, mixing with the rain on her face. She said through hiccups:
“I got up at six thirty this morning… there were so many people on the subway… I was standing by the door at first… but then I got pushed all the way to the back… and then I missed my stop… I was going to come find you on Monday actually… I planned it since Monday… so why… why does it still have to be like this…”
She looked up at him.
“Xu Ye… am I really that dumb?”
He shook his head, and without a word pulled her into his arms.
“It’s okay,” he said quietly. “Don’t cry. I’m here.”
Chen Qingqing sniffled once, and buried her face in his chest.
(End of Chapter 114)