Back at the dorm, Zhang Ruowei changed straight into a pair of slides, sat down at her desk and took a bottle of Anmuxi yogurt out from underneath it. She put a straw in, and while she drank she opened Zhao Ming’s Moments and scrolled back through his recent posts.
Jiang Yu leaned in, beaming. “Miss Zhang. Well? Are you taken with him?”
Zhang Ruowei was back on home ground and had reverted to type. She pushed her chest out. “I don’t know. Want to have a feel and find out?”
Jiang Yu rolled her eyes. “There’s nothing to feel on a landing strip.”
Zhang Ruowei didn’t take offense. She tapped open one of the photos on his Moments. “Seriously, though, he seems all right. I teased him a bit in the car just now and he actually got nervous.”
“How did you tease him?”
All three roommates were very curious.
Zhang Ruowei shrugged. “I pretended I couldn’t get the seatbelt to fasten, so he leaned over to do it for me. It’s cramped in a car — I looked at him on purpose from that close, and then he—”
“And then what?”
“And then he sat straight back and took a big drink of water, very nervous about it.”
“Nobody but you.”
Chen Qingqing put in a question of her own. “So if he asks you out next time, will you go?”
“Of course. Why wouldn’t I?”
Zhang Ruowei answered without hurrying. “Sisters. If a rich man takes a liking to you, then the best thing is to marry him — because what a rich man wants from you might only be to stand by him and raise the children and provide emotional value. What an ordinary man wants from you might be to stand by him and raise the children, run the household, wait on his parents, hold down a job that pays your own way, be thoughtful about every last thing, and so on and so on.”
She took a long pull on the yogurt and smiled. “This Zhao Ming — the family money is right there, he’s good-looking enough, and on a first look his character seems all right too. I’ve got no reason to turn him down.”
Then she added, “I’m not going to be the one chasing, though. I need to keep the upper hand. People or things — anything that comes too easily, nobody values.”
“…”
“…”
“…”
Chen Qingqing, Shen Xinyi and Jiang Yu all watched her wide-eyed, paying closer attention than they ever did in class.
Zhang Ruowei waved her phone and laughed. “I need to warn Xu Ye in advance. And none of you is to give me away in front of anybody.”
Jiang Yu folded both hands at her waist and dipped into a small curtsy, beaming. “As you command, Your Majesty~”
“Don’t start~”
Zhang Ruowei picked up her phone and started messaging Xu Ye.
“Good man. Are you back at the hotel?”
Xu Ye and Zhao Ming had talked for a while and then each headed home. Xu Ye saw her message when he got in, sat down on the bed and typed back, “Just got in. If you’ve got something, say it.”
Zhang Ruowei: “He’s not next to you, is he?”
Xu Ye: “He’s gone home.”
Zhang Ruowei: “So? What’s the verdict?”
Xu Ye: “You’ve got a shot.”
Zhang Ruowei: “Just ‘a shot’?”
Xu Ye: “Isn’t that enough for you? Landing him ought to be no trouble at all for someone like you.”
Zhang Ruowei: “Lil’ ol’ me isn’t that good~”
Xu Ye: “Drop the act. Watching you do that demure routine at the table today nearly had your old man laughing out loud.”
Zhang Ruowei: “Get lost.”
Zhang Ruowei: “Seriously though, don’t blow my cover in front of him.”
Xu Ye: “Don’t worry. Your buddy’s always reliable.”
Zhang Ruowei: “/thumbs up/ /thumbs up/ /thumbs up/”
Zhang Ruowei put the phone down and turned to her three roommates. “Does anybody want the shower? If not, I’m going first.”
“You go.”
She put the mostly finished yogurt on the desk, got a set of pajamas out of the wardrobe and went into the bathroom.
The straw in the yogurt had very nearly been chewed through.
……
Zhao Ming was back at his place.
He was lying on a comfortable leather sofa, doing exactly the same thing — scrolling through Zhang Ruowei’s Moments.
There were a lot of selfies on it. He tapped them open one by one, zoomed in, went to close-up, and saved them to his album.
Xu Ye had asked him about his love life once before, and at the time he had said he wasn’t thinking about it.
But… fate was the sort of thing that tended to turn up when a person’s guard was completely down.
Just as the song has it.
[Lyric slot — to be supplied at publication.]
Those few seconds of holding each other’s eyes in the car — Zhao Ming had really felt something move in him.
He had known Xu Ye a long time by then, and there had never been a single thing about him he envied.
But then there was dinner that evening.
The moment he saw Chen Qingqing feed the shelled sunflower kernels into Xu Ye’s mouth, he envied him from the bottom of his heart.
The main reason he hadn’t been very interested in dating before this was a relationship abroad that had gone badly.
What he wanted was the kind of thing Xu Ye and Chen Qingqing had — simple, innocent, good.
The timing could not have been better.
It was exactly then.
Zhang Ruowei appeared.
The first time he laid eyes on her, it was as though a voice inside him said: It’s her.
Half an hour went by.
Zhao Ming put the phone down and went to shower.
By the time he was lying in bed it was nearly ten.
He thought he ought to send her a message. If you added someone and then sent nothing at all on the first day, getting in touch later only got harder.
But he had to judge it right.
It mustn’t strike her as presumptuous.
And so.
Zhao Ming thought for a moment, finally typed one line and sent it. “Hello, beautiful. Asleep yet?”
Zhang Ruowei was pleased when she saw it, but deliberately didn’t answer straight off. She let a minute go by first. “Just about to~”
Zhao Ming was the one who put the invitation out. “Karaoke tomorrow night? Bring your roommates and Xu Ye and Zhiwei too.”
The corners of her mouth went up.
He’s asked me out after all.
But she didn’t say yes. She answered very seriously instead. “Tomorrow’s no good. There’s an early class Monday, and Xu Ye and the rest have to get back to school.”
Reading it was like having a basin of water thrown over his burning heart — and then the water froze on the spot and shattered across the floor with a crash.
He hadn’t expected the first time he asked her out to end in a refusal.
About a minute and a half went by.
Then her second message came through. “How about next Friday or Saturday instead?”
Zhao Ming’s eyes lit up. He typed back quickly, “Sure. Next week, then.”
With a contact newly added, on the first day of talking, you absolutely could not keep the conversation running — that was the same as showing your hand and admitting you were interested.
To keep the initiative in her own hands, Zhang Ruowei chatted for a line or two more and then sent, “It’s getting late. I’m going to sleep~”
Zhao Ming: “All right. Good night.”
Zhang Ruowei: “Good night.”
“Nice!”
Seeing her good night, Zhao Ming was so excited he nearly jumped out of bed.
And once Zhang Ruowei had sent hers, she changed his contact name, adding a “1%” after it.
It was the progress bar for the start of a romance.
(End of Chapter 297)