If this had been a boys’ dorm and one of them had hit a scene like this, the other three would have crowded straight over to appreciate it together — and would certainly have supplied commentary.

“Good body on this one.”

“Dumbass director. Can’t even give us a close-up.”

“And this guy’s acting is fake as hell.”

“…”

If it had been a girls’ dorm, they’d have looked away instantly. Some would have found an excuse to get up and move around; the rest would have started talking about something else, doing something else, making a show of not caring.

And if a girl were watching it on her own, some would cover their eyes and peek through their fingers, while others would get to the end of it and then drag the progress bar back to watch it again.

But right now there were boys in the living room and girls in it, and the atmosphere turned distinctly charged.

Nobody made a sound. Even the crunching of crisps stopped.

Chen Qingqing’s eyes went everywhere — a glance at the screen, a glance somewhere else, back again. The armchair was a squeeze with two of them in it, and Xu Ye had taken hold of her hand not long after she sat down; now, with this scene playing, his hand refused to behave, squeezing the back of hers, scratching lightly at her palm, until her face was thoroughly red.

Over on the big sofa, Jiang Yu pretended a message had come in and bent over her phone — except she just swiped back and forth between two screens and never opened anything.

Shen Xinyi stood up instead, head down and face burning, and busied herself picking through the snacks on the coffee table.

Zhang Ruowei made a show of composure. As the most experienced old hand in the dorm, she had no intention of squirming about like the rest of them.

As for Qin Zhiwei, he sat there like a block of wood. With this many people in the room, a scene like this was uncomfortable — although if he’d had the living room to himself, he’d have been entirely unbothered.

Mercifully the scene didn’t go on very long. And just as everyone was quietly letting out a breath, Xu Ye turned his head, looked at the three on the sofa, and said with a wicked grin, “Shall we rewind and watch that again?”

“Get lost!”

“We are not!”

“You menace!”

Chen Qingqing didn’t swear at him. She reached over and pinched his arm, hard, and fixed him with a ferocious look that said: I’m warning you. Not another word.

Xu Ye laughed, picked up a bag of potato sticks from the coffee table, tore it open, ate two, then took one and reached around her head to hold it up to her mouth.

Chen Qingqing looked at it for two seconds, hesitated, and then opened her mouth and ate it.

The rest of the film wasn’t especially interesting to Xu Ye, and he hadn’t slept properly the night before. Before long his eyelids were fighting each other, and he was asleep before it was half over.

And once the film ended, the others seemed to catch it from him — one by one they sprawled every which way across the sofa and dozed off.

The person this left in the most awkward position was Chen Qingqing. Xu Ye’s arm was still half around her waist, so she couldn’t move; and if she wanted to lie down like Zhang Ruowei and the others, the armchair left her nowhere to lie except against his chest.

She hesitated at first. But seeing that all of them had their eyes shut, Chen Qingqing stopped thinking about it so much. She put her phone down on the coffee table, leaned slowly into him, and closed her eyes.

The living room went completely silent — silent enough that you could hear the second hand moving on the clock on the wall.

Tick. Tock.

Time slipped away before anyone noticed.

When Xu Ye woke, the living room was dim. He turned his head to look out of the window and found the sky already going dark.

Shen Xinyi and Zhang Ruowei were still asleep. Jiang Yu was awake, quietly on her phone. Qin Zhiwei must have gone to the toilet — he was nowhere to be seen.

Xu Ye stayed exactly as he was after waking, because Chen Qingqing was entirely in his arms, still fast asleep. Her breathing was very light, and she didn’t shift around in her sleep at all.

He decided the moment deserved to be recorded, so he called softly to Jiang Yu and had her pass over the phone from the coffee table.

Once he had it, he opened the camera, switched to selfie mode, and snapped away.

Looking at the album afterward — Chen Qingqing curled against him like a kitten, with what looked like the tiniest trace of drool at the corner of her mouth — Xu Ye couldn’t help laughing.

And at exactly that moment, Chen Qingqing opened her eyes. For the first few seconds her gaze was completely blank; by the time she came back to herself and sat bolt upright, it was already too late — she’d realized Xu Ye was awake too.

“You were sleeping like the dead.”

Chen Qingqing ignored him.

Xu Ye went on, “Want to sleep a bit longer?”

“No.”

“Here, have a look at yourself asleep.” Xu Ye leaned in and held the photos he’d sneaked up in front of her, and the moment Chen Qingqing saw herself lying in his arms, her pale little face went scarlet.

“You took photos of me on the sly again!” she said hotly.

“It’s not like I’m going to show anyone.”

“I’m not talking to you. Move away from me. I’ll have you know I’m horrible when I’ve just woken up.”

“Hah.”

The sound of them talking woke Zhang Ruowei and Shen Xinyi as well. Seeing that it had gone dark outside, Shen Xinyi asked, still a bit hazy, “What time is it?”

“Gone five.”

“Then shouldn’t we be heading back to school? It’s probably a good hour or more from here.”

“Mm.”

Xu Ye got up and called out, “Zhiwei? Zhiwei?”

Jiang Yu said, “He was already gone when I woke up. Why don’t you ring him?”

Xu Ye nodded, took out his phone and called — and the ringtone went off out in the courtyard. Qin Zhiwei came in from outside, saw that everyone was up, scratched his head and grinned foolishly. “I didn’t sleep long. None of you were awake, so I went to the supermarket and got three bags of dumplings. Thought we could just have something simple tonight.”

“Look at you, Zhiwei. Real progress.”

Qin Zhiwei said, “Shall I go and boil them, then?”

Xu Ye waved a hand. “Go on. We’ve got nothing on tomorrow anyway, there’s no rush.”

Qin Zhiwei went straight into the kitchen and cooked the dumplings, and the six of them had a bowl each. Then they all pitched in and gave Zhang Ruowei’s house a clean, and it was nearly six by the time the group left and got on the subway toward the Shanghai Conservatory of Music.

On the way, Xu Ye took a call from Zhang Hong.

Zhang Hong: “Son. What time were you all out until last night?”

Xu Ye: “Two in the morning.”

Zhang Hong: “That late! Where did you sleep?”

Xu Ye: “A hotel. Where else were we going to sleep? We could hardly sleep in the street.”

Zhang Hong: “Did you sleep with that girl?”

Xu Ye: “Mom. Am I that kind of person?”

Zhang Hong: “That’s hard to say.”

Xu Ye: “No, I didn’t. Don’t go getting ideas. I shared a room with Zhiwei.”

Zhang Hong: “Good.”

Xu Ye: “But we slept together this afternoon.”

Zhang Hong: “You are a piece of work.”

Zhang Hong: “How did the Xu family produce someone with as little shame as you?”

Zhang Hong: “And let me tell you — you’d better do right by that girl!”

(End of Chapter 175)