By the time Xu Ye and Chen Qingqing had said goodnight to each other it was half past ten.
He didn’t put the phone down straight away, though — he messaged Pei Youwei first, to ask how the Taobao store was doing.
Since the store had gone live Pei Youwei had been staying at the office until late every night. She saw Xu Ye’s message and replied at once, smiling. “Operations just told me we had a spike — we’ve sold over a hundred pieces today.”
Xu Ye: “Sounds like business keeps getting better. Tell after-sales to pay more attention and keep the review rating where it is if they can. That part’s critical.”
Pei Youwei: “Mm, I’ve already expanded the Taobao team.”
Xu Ye: “I’ll say something to my classmates tomorrow morning and pad another round of reviews. I’ll send you the order numbers and you can just ship empty packages.”
Pei Youwei: “Is it all right to let your classmates in on this?”
Pei Youwei: “Won’t it make you lose face?”
Xu Ye: “What do I want with face when I’m doing business?”
Pei Youwei: “/thumbs-up.”
Xu Ye: “All right, it’s late. I’m going to sleep. You get to bed early too.”
Pei Youwei: “Mm.”
Xu Ye had barely tucked the phone under his pillow when it went off again. He assumed Pei Youwei had sent something else and dug it out to look — but the person messaging him wasn’t Pei Youwei. It was… Li Lulu.
Li Lulu: “Asleep?”
Xu Ye: “Just about to. Something up?”
Li Lulu: “I’m sorry about tonight. The student union is a mixed bag — you get all sorts. Don’t hold it against us.”
Xu Ye: “It’s fine. I don’t run into them normally anyway.”
Li Lulu: “How about I take you to dinner tomorrow, just the two of us, to make up for it?”
Xu Ye: “No need to go to any trouble.”
Xu Ye: “I’m going to see my girlfriend tomorrow.”
Xu Ye: “I’m tired. Going to sleep.”
Li Lulu: “Okey~”
Li Lulu: “Night~”
Xu Ye didn’t reply again. He put the phone on silent, tucked it under his pillow and went to sleep.
The next day was Friday.
Two periods that morning.
Xu Ye got to the classroom early and went around asking people one by one to help pad orders. He didn’t tell them he had a stake in the lingerie business — he only said a relative of his was in the trade.
They were all classmates, and it wasn’t costing them anything, so of course they agreed one after another.
The only person Xu Ye didn’t ask was Zhang Yiyang. There was something wrong with that one’s head, and Xu Ye was afraid he would go telling on him to the counselor again, so he skipped him entirely.
Over at the fruit shop the clearance sale was under way as well. Xu Ye wasn’t stupid enough to hand the shop to Luo Wenbing early just because the stock had sold out early — this was the good season for a fruit shop, and he was going to drag the ten days out to the last hour whatever happened. He had already arranged it with Chen Jianjun: another truckload of stock this evening, with Zhang Xinzhou, Yang Fei and Li Tongwen quietly getting it into the shop without Luo Wenbing seeing.
Once he had the evening’s arrangements settled, Xu Ye took two boxes of strawberries from the shop and drove out to the Shanghai Conservatory of Music.
…
“Ring ring ring~”
The moment the bell rang for the end of class, Chen Qingqing was up with her books and out of the room without waiting for anything.
Zhang Ruowei, Shen Xinyi and Jiang Yu followed behind her. Seeing how she was skipping along, the three of them looked at one another with smiles all over their faces.
Zhang Ruowei got in first. “A hundred yuan says Xu Ye is waiting downstairs for her.”
“That’s hardly a bet,” Jiang Yu said quickly. “I saw Qingqing replying to him during the lesson.”
Shen Xinyi laughed too. “Who besides Xu Ye could make Qingqing forget herself like this?”
Sure enough, the three of them had barely come down out of the teaching building when they saw a Mazda parked a little way off, with Chen Qingqing already jogging toward it. Zhang Ruowei saw it, thought about the walk back to the dorm, and picked up her pace to follow, meaning to mooch a ride.
The moment she was in the car Zhang Ruowei laughed. “Xu Ye, everyone in our class knows who you are now. At this rate I figure everyone in the school is going to know you.”
Xu Ye laughed a couple of times and let that one go by. He only turned sideways to speak to Shen Xinyi. “Shen Xinyi, your door isn’t shut properly.”
Shen Xinyi said “Oh” and hurriedly pulled it closed again.
Xu Ye drove to the foot of the dorm building, handed the three of them the two boxes of strawberries he had brought from the shop, and settled in to wait in the car. Before long Chen Qingqing came down.
She got into the passenger seat, fastened her belt, and asked eagerly, “Where are we going?”
“Anywhere. Today’s your call.”
Chen Qingqing thought about it and, for once, made a decision. “Want to go see a film first? It’s still early.”
“Sure. Have a look at what’s playing.”
Chen Qingqing obediently opened her phone and looked through the current releases. She ran an eye over the ratings. “The ones scoring well are The Left Ear and Furious 7.”
“Which do you want to see?”
“The Left Ear.”
If it had been up to Xu Ye he would certainly have picked Furious 7, but he didn’t raise any objection — he had seen the whole series several times over anyway.
They drove to the mall and took the elevator up to the top floor, and after a short wait they had their tickets and went through to the screen. It was Friday, so the cinema wasn’t busy; Chen Qingqing had bought two seats dead center in the second-to-last row, with nobody on either side.
Xu Ye put his drink on the armrest beside him and held a tub of popcorn in his other hand. Once the advertisements finished, the main feature began.
Xu Ye watched for a while, found he had no interest at all in this sort of picture, and dug his phone out to scroll idly through Moments.
Chen Qingqing saw that his attention wasn’t on the film. She quietly shifted her small backside over, moved a little closer to him, and put her head on his shoulder of her own accord.
Playing with his phone now would hardly do.
Xu Ye quickly tucked it back into his pocket and put an arm around her, one hand on her upper arm, stroking it slowly up and down, over and over.
Chen Qingqing was still shy about it after all. She no longer went as tense as she had at the very start, but there were a good many other people in the screen watching the film, and the thought made her put her other hand over his, embarrassed — meaning that he should stop.
Xu Ye did stop. He watched the film and ate popcorn, and seeing that she hadn’t moved for a while, he held a piece up to her lips. Chen Qingqing opened her mouth and ate it straight down.
When the film finished, nearly two hours later, Chen Qingqing took him to the restaurant she had mentioned the day before.
Xu Ye, though, had polished off most of a tub of popcorn on his own and wasn’t in the least hungry now. Even so, to keep her happy he praised the food while forcing down a whole large bowl of rice.
“Had enough?”
“Plenty.” Xu Ye burped as he said it, which set Chen Qingqing giggling. She got up and picked up her bag. “Should we head back, then?”
“Back? Back where?”
“Take me back to the dorm.”
“What dorm? Didn’t we agree we’d have a late-night snack together tonight?”
Chen Qingqing’s pretty face went red and she turned and walked off. “Who agreed with you? I never said yes to anything.”
Xu Ye grabbed his phone and went quickly after her. “It’s only seven. Come sit at the hotel with me a while — Zhiwei isn’t coming until tomorrow.”
“No.”
“Please~”
“No amount of please.”
Chen Qingqing walked faster and faster, and Xu Ye was struggling to keep up behind her.
Seeing her walking straight on without looking back, Xu Ye simply started hollering after her. “Wife! What are you walking so fast for? Wait for me!”
(End of Chapter 233)