Word got around the school fast.

Except the main character wasn't Yang Fei, and it wasn't Li Lulu either. It was Xu Ye, who'd come tearing over after the fact.

By the time it had been passed from mouth to mouth, Xu Ye had become a righteous avenger standing up for his roommate — and between that and how hard he'd come down yesterday afternoon, he was famous around the school all over again.

The next morning.

Yang Fei was up early and out somewhere, nobody knew where.

Zhang Xinzhou heard the door and asked without getting up, "Xu Ye, that dumbass Yang Fei hasn't gone off to find Li Lulu again, has he?"

"He shouldn't have."

Zhang Xinzhou muttered, "Then what's he doing up this early?"

Xu Ye didn't answer, because he didn't know either.

The dorm went quiet again. At seven, when Li Tongwen's alarm went off, he killed it right away, climbed down from the top bunk, brushed his teeth and washed his face in a hurry, then sat down in his chair and started going over his Band 6 English review material.

Around seven twenty the dorm door swung open from outside, and Yang Fei came in drenched in sweat carrying several bags of steamed buns. He split them into three portions and set one on each of his three roommates' desks, then found a clean set of clothes in his closet and went into the bathroom to shower.

He hadn't gone to find Li Lulu. Li Lulu had sent him several messages the previous evening, but late in the night Yang Fei had blocked every way she had of contacting him. He'd gotten a few hours of sleep all night and woken around five in the morning, and getting up early and going out was actually him going down to the sports field below the dorm to run.

Not one of the three roommates said anything about it. Once Zhang Xinzhou had washed up he drove Yang Fei and Li Tongwen to class, and Xu Ye bought a carton of cigarettes and dropped it off…