Chapter 53: Someone is Confessing

Generally speaking, tourists choose to visit Qixia Mountain around mid-November to see the red maple leaves, as the scenery at Qixia Mountain is most beautiful at that time.

In late summer and early autumn in September, the maple trees on Qixia Mountain have not yet entered their turning-red phase; the mountain is not particularly beautiful in this season, but for students, walking along together, stopping and going, and chatting about life is a happy enough thing, and whether the surrounding scenery looks good or not becomes secondary.

Xu Heng's group totaled eight people: the four girls from Fan Xi's dorm, three from Xu Heng's dorm excluding Sheng Bo, and then Ji Meimei, a freshman whom Cheng Huaiyu brought along.

Originally, at a normal climbing pace, it would have taken at most two more hours to finish climbing Qixia Mountain, but the girls were a bit delicate and needed to rest every few dozen meters; plus, they loved to play, walking along the roadside while looking at the scenery, so they spent an entire morning and still hadn't reached the top of a small mountain less than three hundred meters high.

During this time, Zhao Gaoyang was busy running back and forth, carrying bags for the girls and serving tea and water to Fan Xi and the others, acting ever so attentive.

The deputy class monitor teased, "Old Zhao, if you want to pursue our Class Monitor, why don't you just say so? What's this, trying to use practical actions to win her over?!"

To this, Zhao Gaoyang just gave a silly smile and pretended not to know what they meant.

Just as the deputy class monitor guessed, after experiencing failure time and again, Zhao Gaoyang had given up on the blunt, straightforward way of pursuing and switched to a soft-touch policy.

He firmly believed that as long as he was persistent and provided care like a gentle breeze and fine rain, one day Fan Xi would be moved by him.

Ji Meimei walked behind and said to Cheng Huaiyu, "Your roommate is really good at caring for people. If only I could find such a thoughtful boyfriend in the future."

Cheng Huaiyu felt unconvinced upon hearing this; he patted his chest and boasted shamelessly, "Forget about a boyfriend, if you like the 'warm man' type, believe it or not, I can be even warmer than Old Zhao?"

"Forget it, you already have a girlfriend, it wouldn't look good if I got too close to you."

"What are you afraid of? I treat you like a little sister; can there be anything wrong with a brother taking care of his sister?"

Ji Meimei gave Cheng Huaiyu a moved look, which made him feel very satisfied inside.

Cheng Huaiyu felt that compared to Dan Yuyue, Ji Meimei was much gentler, understood him better, and dressed more conservatively; she looked like the type from a respectable family and was much more suitable to be a girlfriend, completely failing to notice that Ji Meimei was looking down on him—this little boy who styled himself the "Jin Da Love Saint"—with the posture of a controller.

In terms of experience, Ji Meimei had started dating in middle school, specifically targeting good students with superior family backgrounds and excellent grades who had never dated before; she had gone through five or six boyfriends in just a few years. In front of her, Cheng Huaiyu was like a naive virgin, so wasn't manipulating him a simple matter?

To take a step back, Cheng Huaiyu had a girlfriend now, and she was inserting herself into their relationship as the pursued party; even if things were exposed later, Cheng Huaiyu would be the one taking the blame, and it wouldn't have much to do with her.

Xu Heng saw all of these two's gestures and words, and he mourned for Cheng Huaiyu in his heart for a few seconds.

No matter how good a "tea sister" is, she is still fake and putting on an act; when Cheng Huaiyu failed to notice this, it was destined that he wouldn't get any good results from Ji Meimei.

At noon, the eight people arrived at the top of Qixia Mountain, and other students also gathered here one after another.

Although Fan Xi hadn't been able to keep them in line, under Xu Heng's guidance, she had told everyone a clear meeting point, which was the summit of the main peak, Fengxiang Feng.

With a clear goal, even if others in the class didn't listen to Fan Xi, they would still take the initiative to gather here; this made it convenient for the class committee members to take attendance, and as long as the headcount was confirmed to be correct, it meant that no one had encountered any dangerous problems during the climb.

From twelve o'clock to past one, the total of fifty-two people slowly gathered; seeing this, Fan Xi let out a long sigh of relief and looked at Xu Heng with gratitude. Xu Heng waved his hand to indicate it was nothing, just a small favor, and then told her that she could now give the students some free time, planned for one to two hours, and that everyone should gather here again at the set time to go down the mountain together, otherwise, after the bus departed on time, the remaining students would have to pay for their own return fare.

Fan Xi nodded after hearing this and stated his meaning to everyone in the class using her own words.

Sure enough, once they heard there was a possibility of having to pay for their own return fare, everyone immediately agreed to Fan Xi's request; after all, the bus couldn't stay in one place for a long time just to wait for one or two people, so these students also believed what Fan Xi said about the bus returning to Jin Da on time.

In fact, there were no strict rules on what time the bus had to return; such private buses usually departed according to the requirements of the person who chartered them for a round trip, and even if the time the charterer said was seven or eight in the evening, the bus driver would have to wait until seven or eight to depart.

After easily settling the problem of going down the mountain, Fan Xi began to develop a little bit of admiration for Xu Heng.

This was a gap in life experience; Xu Heng had been in the workplace for over a decade and was relatively smooth in handling many things, while Fan Xi had just graduated from high school a year ago and hadn't fully adapted to the "little society" of university. She treated the university class like a high school class, which definitely wouldn't work.

University students wouldn't obediently listen to their class committee members because, after entering university, they began to feel that they had grown up and had the initiative; if one still used the high school method to forcibly manage them when participating in collective activities, the result would be resistance.

It was better to use "good" and "bad" to let them choose for themselves, meaning to only tell them the pros and cons of doing so, and leave the rest entirely to their own self-discipline.

Most rational students would choose the beneficial side, which achieved a semi-voluntary form of compulsion; the credit system worked on the same principle, relying on giving high credits for participating in collective activities to make students actively participate in the Welcome Gala and various campus competitions, compensating for the lack of interest university students had in collective activities.

Fan Xi didn't understand these things; she just felt that Xu Heng was much more capable than her, and his management ability far exceeded hers; in her eyes, Xu Heng even had a feeling of being a generation older, like a teacher who could give her a lot of useful advice.

If she were Xu Heng's girlfriend, she would definitely be taken care of in every possible way.

"Class Monitor, want to eat an orange? I peeled it; it's a big mandarin orange, very juicy and sweet."

Zhao Gaoyang's ill-timed words broke Fan Xi's fantasy; this guy was holding a plastic bag and handing over the peeled orange.

He was indeed quite strong; he had carried over ten catties of food and drink all the way up the mountain.

Fan Xi smiled awkwardly, pushed his hand away, and said, "I won't eat it, you give it to the other students."

"Then just let me know when you want to eat, Class Monitor." Zhao Gaoyang retracted the plastic bag in disappointment, but a simple, honest smile still hung on his face.

At this moment, a student suddenly shouted, "Someone is confessing! Everyone come quick!"

Then the crowd swarmed over like ants.

Fan Xi also happened to have an excuse to get away from Zhao Gaoyang, so she said to him, "I'll go over and take a look to prevent anything from going wrong."

"Okay." Zhao Gaoyang's smile became a bit difficult to maintain.