Chapter 37: A Surprisingly Nice Person

Hao Anqi was stunned for a moment.

Thinking about it carefully, this logic did hold up; everyone's moral standards were different, and the boss simply lacked sympathy, but he hadn't done anything truly heinous.

It really wasn't appropriate for her to judge him like that!

If she couldn't control others, she would just do her own part; Hao Anqi immediately got up and went to another stall not far away, bought a bowl of wontons for five yuan, handed them to the old man, and gave him an extra ten yuan.

"Thank you, young lady, you really are a kind-hearted person."

The old man's eyes turned red with emotion; after the whole day, Hao Anqi was the first person to offer him help.

Hao Anqi gave a sweet smile, then happily returned to the barbecue stall and said to Shen Yan, "I can't control others, but I can still do what is within my power."

Helping others brings happiness; at this moment, this was vividly embodied in Hao Anqi.

The corners of Shen Yan's mouth lifted slightly, and he didn't say much, only pulling out two tissues for her to wipe away her sweat; the air was muggy, and the skewers they had eaten turned into waves of heat coursing through their bodies.

Both of them were covered in fine beads of sweat, which accumulated from small drops into streams, then flowed down from their chins and hit the ground with a crisp sound.

After wiping away the sweat, with skewers paired with draft beer, and while in high spirits, Hao Anqi started another topic.

"Shuai Yan, do you think there really are men as devoted as He Yichen in this world, waiting for Mo Sheng for seven years even after she went abroad?"

Meeting those fox-like eyes that were as bright as stars and filled with anticipation, Shen Yan pondered for a moment and said three words: "There probably are!"

Hao Anqi sat up straight and asked excitedly, "Then if it were you, would you keep waiting like that?"

Shen Yan said categorically that he would not.

"Why? There's that line in the book: if that person has ever appeared in the world, everyone else becomes a compromise, isn't that so?" Hao Anqi pouted her red lips, looking lost.

Young girls are always like this, full of beautiful fantasies about love.

But reality is often not as one wishes; life must go on, and a compromise doesn't necessarily mean one won't be happy.

Shen Yan pursed his lips and explained, "Novels are ultimately illusory; since you can't let go of the other person, it's better to just find them and clear things up in person, why waste seven years for nothing."

So that was what he meant; Hao Anqi beamed and changed the subject again.

Without realizing it, the time had reached ten o'clock, and they were about half full; after Hao Anqi paid the bill, she turned back and found Shen Yan with a lollipop in his mouth, and she asked in surprise, "You're so big, and you still like eating lollipops?"

"To get rid of the meaty smell!"

"Are there any more? Give me one too."

Shen Yan had only brought two, so he handed the last one over.

Facing the warm breeze and swaying in the moonlight, the two rode the e-bike toward Communication University of China; Shen Yan hadn't noticed it last time, but like Hangzhou University, Communication University of China had an artificial lake, which was embedded in the ground like a mirror, reflecting the clouds and moon in the sky to form a vivid ink-wash painting.

Occasionally, a red fish would surface to breathe, sending out ripples that slowly spread to the shore.

On the back seat of the e-bike, Hao Anqi wrapped her right hand around Shen Yan's abdomen, brushed away the hair blown messy by the wind with her left hand, and asked Shen Yan if he had bought sunscreen; Shen Yan said, "No, I use..."

He had just wanted to say he could use Yu Youwei's, but before he could finish, he was interrupted directly by Hao Anqi.

"How can that work? Military training still has twenty days to go; if you keep getting tanned like this, won't you end up like a piece of charcoal? No! Absolutely not!"

Ten minutes later, downstairs at the girls' dormitory, watching Hao Anqi disappear around the corner of the building, Shen Yan looked at the small black bottle he had just bought, his pupils becoming increasingly deep.

This girl is actually quite nice!

Back at the dormitory, Tang Song was sitting on his bed, focused on playing and singing the song "Love Is Simple": "Forgot how it started, maybe it's just a feeling I have for you..."

For once, Lin Yang wasn't playing games, but was playing a four-person game of Fight the Landlord with Zhu Baoping, Liu Haijun, and Zheng Chuan, with a base bet of one mao and bombs doubling the stakes.

Don't look at the small amount, but if the bombs really started piling up, a single round could reach several dozen yuan; when Shen Yan entered, Lin Yang, as the biggest winner, already had over two hundred piled in front of him.

Zhu Baoping, on the other hand, was pale, with cold sweat on his forehead; he was just a poor kid from a rural area in the Northeast, and his total monthly living expenses were only five hundred yuan; if he kept losing, he was afraid he wouldn't even be able to afford instant noodles this month.

This was also the reason why Shen Yan never called Zhu Baoping whenever he went out for late-night snacks.

"Old Shen is back, come play with us." Lin Yang extended an enthusiastic invitation.

Shen Yan waved his hand to refuse, then took off his shirt and began his daily muscle training; once the path of fitness began, there was no reason to stop, otherwise, all previous efforts would be wasted.

"1, 2... 49, 50."

The next morning, the first ray of sunlight shone into the dormitory through the window, and the breeze rustled the leaves; Shen Yan woke up in a daze and felt something unusual in his lower body, which made his face turn awkward.

It was all that girl's fault, running into his dream for no reason to cause trouble.

But... then again, his imagination was quite rich.

He climbed down from the bed, took a pair of underwear from the cabinet, and then sneaked into the bathroom.

He got up at 6:30 sharp and first folded his quilt into the shape of a tofu block; yesterday, the instructor had personally run to the dormitory to demonstrate the entire process, requiring every student to persist in daily interior organization during military training.

At the time, some people were still complaining, feeling it was unnecessary.

The instructor said that they only had to fold it for twenty days, while they in the military had to keep it up for two years.

Everyone was filled with awe.

Looking at the sleepy-eyed group, Shen Yan asked in surprise, "What time did you guys play until yesterday? Why do you all look like this?"

Lin Yang raised his hand to yawn and complained, "It's all Old Zhu's fault; it was supposed to end at twelve, but this guy couldn't accept losing and dragged it out until three in the morning."

"Who couldn't accept losing? I just wasn't satisfied with the game yet," Zhu Baoping said, stiffening his neck.

In fact, he was regretting it so much his guts were turning green; he had only lost one hundred at twelve o'clock, but after that, the snowball grew bigger and bigger, and by the end, he was down two hundred yuan.

Damn it! If he had known, he wouldn't have played this trash card game no matter what.

The others chuckled and didn't continue to provoke Zhu Baoping.