Xu Ye’s university didn’t start registration until the following day.

After dropping Qingqing off, he took the metro to the area near his campus, found a hotel, checked in, and called his parents to let them know he’d arrived safely.

That evening, Wang Yuxin messaged to ask whether he’d gotten Qingqing jiejie to school in one piece. He chatted with her for a while.

Nothing from Zhiwei — probably still out at dinner with his new roommates. Male dormitories tended to be simpler that way. You weren’t going to find four separate WeChat group chats for a single room of guys.

Xu Ye showered, stretched out on the bed, and idly watched the market figures scroll past on his phone.

The A-share market had started its climb. His portfolio was ticking up every day. At this rate, once the bull run peaked, multiplying his money a hundred times over wasn’t out of the question. [TL: The 2014–2015 Chinese stock market bull run saw the Shanghai Composite Index roughly double in value before crashing sharply in mid-2015.]

That said, he wasn’t putting all his hopes on the stock market. After this run ended, the A-share index would spend years grinding sideways around the 3,000-point mark. Sustained income was going to require something else. Real business.

Investment was too early — and his capital still too thin.

What he had in mind for his first year was something small, low-risk, and certain to turn a profit. Build up the funds. Get some real experience. Learn by doing.

Just before ten that night, Qingqing finally messaged.

Chen Qingqing: You asleep?

Xu Ye: No. I was waiting for you.

Xu Ye: Dinner done?

Chen Qingqing: Yeah, just got back to the room.

Xu Ye: How did it go?

Chen Qingqing: Better than I expected.

Xu Ye: Good. Military training’s next — get yourself ready. Eat on time, sleep on time.

Chen Qingqing: You sound more like my mom every day.

Xu Ye: I’m looking out for you.

Chen Qingqing: Idiot.

Chen Qingqing: Going to shower. Talk later.

Xu Ye: Okay.

Half an hour passed.

Chen Qingqing: Good night.

Xu Ye: Good night.

An uneventful night. Early the next morning, Xu Ye grabbed a quick breakfast at the hotel downstairs and headed straight for campus with his suitcase.

The sun was already high and insistent.

Walking through the gates, he felt it immediately — that specific energy that only exists in the first days of a new university year. The campus was packed, and a number of the older students were dressed in ways that would have been unthinkable in high school. Strappy tops, short skirts, white T-shirts that became rather more informative in direct sunlight. Xu Ye noted all of this and kept walking.

He found the payment window first — tuition and accommodation fees — then made his way to the registration desk.

“Finance Faculty, Financial Economics students — register here.”

A row of long tables stretched in front of the teaching building. Behind them sat the class supervisors, each with a student assistant alongside — most of whom, Xu Ye noted, were incoming freshmen themselves. Volunteering in the blazing sun for a chance to make an early impression and secure the class representative position before anyone else thought to want it.

“Are you Financial Economics?”

“Yes.”

A boy in frameless glasses pushed them up his nose and nodded. “Our supervisor is Su Tong. We’re classmates — I’m Zhang Yiyang.”

“Hey.”

“Hey. Fill out this form first, then hand over your acceptance letter and file. I’ll walk you through collecting your bedding and training uniform.”

Xu Ye saw through Zhang Yiyang’s strategy immediately and felt no particular opinion about it. He had no interest in being class representative. He filled out the form, handed over his documents, and followed Zhang Yiyang to collect his things.

“Everything’s here. Add me — I’ll post the military training schedule in the group chat.”

“Sure.”

“Dormitory building is straight ahead, first intersection turn right, keep going — your room’s next to the sports field.”

“Thanks.”

“No problem.”

Zhang Yiyang watched him go, exhaled, then spotted a new queue forming at the registration desk and jogged back over with his welcoming smile already in place.

The path to the dormitory ran a gauntlet.

“Campus SIM card — 2GB of data a month, only 28 yuan—”

“Broadband bundle with phone plan — 198 per semester—”

“Qidian e-reading room, deposit 300 and we match it—”

“First canteen is hiring part-timers—”

“Street dance club recruitment — all new students welcome—”

Xu Ye navigated all of it, suitcase rattling behind him, until he finally reached the dormitory building. He wiped the sweat from his forehead, hauled the case up three front steps, and headed for the second floor.

His room was also on the second floor. First door on the left.

Room 201.

The door was open. Nobody inside.

Operating on first-come-first-served logic, he picked a bed, made it, unpacked his essentials, and then — since his roommates still hadn’t arrived — decided to clean the room while he had the time.

He hadn’t gotten far before the desk drawers and the space beneath the bunks yielded a small archaeological collection from the previous occupants.

Several crushed cigarette boxes. A stack of old textbooks.

A Liu Yifei poster. [TL: Liu Yifei (刘亦菲) — Chinese actress, widely considered one of the most beautiful celebrities in China. A poster of her in a university dorm is approximately as surprising as a poster of a sports car.]

And, in the back of a drawer, an unopened condom.

Xu Ye bagged everything up, finished cleaning, and took the rubbish out.

Still early. Still no roommates. He used the time to walk the campus — three canteens in total; the first was near the main teaching buildings, the second and third closer to the dormitories. At noon, he had a stone pot bibimbap at Canteen One. Decent.

When he got back to Room 201, the other three had arrived.

Xu Ye stepped into the doorway, scanned the room, and walked in. “I’m Xu Ye, from Jiangzhou in Jiangxi province. Which corners of the world did you all crawl out of?” [TL: Xu Ye uses 大佬 (dàlǎo) — literally “big boss,” used ironically here in Cantonese-influenced internet slang as a jokey address for strangers. Common in Chinese online culture by 2014.]

The first to answer was the one in the short-sleeved button-up, in the bed next to Xu Ye’s. “Yang Fei. Shanghai local.”

Across the room, the boy opposite Xu Ye looked up from what he was doing. “Zhang Xinzhou. Shenzhen.”

The three of them looked at the fourth — the scrawniest boy in the room, around 172 cm and almost certainly under a hundred pounds. Thin wasn’t quite the word; skeletal was closer. He smiled a little shyly. “Li Tongwen. From Yuzhou.”

“We’re roommates now, so we should work out the seniority,” Xu Ye said. “Everyone’s probably around the same age, but someone’s got to be the eldest. I’m April — what about you?”

“July.”

“September.”

Zhang Xinzhou smiled. “December. Though I’m probably a year older than you lot.”

“You’re kidding — I thought I was going to be the senior.”

Yang Fei laughed. “That settles it then. Zhang Xinzhou is number one, Xu Ye is number two, I’m three, Li Tongwen is four.”

“Number two?” Xu Ye looked at him. “If you call me number two, I’m calling you number three. [TL: 小三 (xiǎo sān) — literally “little three,” but in modern Chinese slang it specifically means “the other woman/man” in an affair. Yang Fei would be ranked third, but calling him 小三 carries that second meaning.] We both go down together.”

The room exploded.

While other dormitories across the building were still sitting in the polite, awkward silence of strangers who’d just met, Room 201 was already losing it.

(End of Chapter)