Chapter 18: He... doesn't want it?

In the dormitory, Zhao Zhouyuan mentioned it intentionally or unintentionally. "Zhang Zixin asked you to go out at this hour?"

"Mm." Shen Li glanced at the time.

"The dorms are already closed, and she's still out. Looks like she's not coming back tonight. It's such a mess. Not coming to class, not returning to the dorm, just knowing how to mess around with Xie Qin's crowd all day. Don't know what's so fun about it. Not working hard now, won't be able to find a job after graduation. Dating now is just for fun. With this time, it's better to spend the energy on yourself and improve your own abilities." Zhao Zhouyuan finished her skincare, climbed up the ladder to her bed, and kept talking. "Softie, let me tell you, there are so many college students who get pregnant before marriage. If you really get pregnant, your beautiful future is ruined."

"When can't you date?"

"Dating yourself is one thing, but it also affects others' rest."

Zhao Zhouyuan complained to herself, saying a whole lot.

Shen Li closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep, not hearing what she said at the end.

Midnight, the last five minutes before lights out.

Zhao Zhouyuan took off her glasses, climbed down from the bed, locked the dorm door, went to the bathroom, and went to sleep.

The next morning at 5:30.

Zhang Zixin only just returned to the dorm. She pressed the door handle and found the door locked from the inside. She was just about to take out her key.

The person inside had already opened the door.

Zhang Zixin was a bit surprised. "Shen Li? Are you not asleep at this hour, or did you just wake up?"

Shen Li had her long hair draped over her shoulders and was still wearing her pajamas. She lowered her long lashes, avoiding her gaze, her voice faint: "Just woke up."

Being from the same south, the difference in skin tone was too great.

Shen Li was wearing a nightgown, revealing slender arms and legs, her cold, fair skin enviable.

Shen Li smelled the lingering scent of alcohol from her hangover, mixed with cigarette smoke and perfume, an indescribable smell, not exactly unpleasant. She was wearing a sexy miniskirt, her makeup was exquisitely applied, and she was carrying breakfast.

Zhang Zixin put the breakfast she brought on the table. "We bought this breakfast at the school entrance. Xie Qin accidentally bought too much, so he let me bring it back."

"It's okay, I'm not very hungry." Shen Li sat at the table, holding a cup of warm water, with an English Level 4 study book spread out in front of her.

"If you don't eat it, I'll just throw it away when it gets cold. Just do me a favor and help me finish it." Zhang Zixin took a cup of sweet soy milk for herself, and gave everything else to Shen Li, including porridge, steamed buns, sticky rice balls, fried dough sticks, millet porridge...

Zhang Zixin was about to remove her makeup in front of the mirror when she suddenly remembered something. She got up, took a fifty-yuan note from the bag hanging by her bed, and said, "I gave your electricity money to Xie Qin. He didn't take it, so I brought it back to you."

Shen Li: "He... doesn't want it?"

She didn't have the habit of owing others, and she didn't want to have too much contact with him because of this.

Zhang Zixin returned the money to her, turned on the makeup mirror light, and sat down to remove her false eyelashes. "Xie Qin said to keep it to buy candy."

"He doesn't lack this little bit, so if he doesn't want it, just keep it."

Shen Li: "Thank you for the breakfast, but it's really too much, I can't finish it alone."

Zhang Zixin: "It's fine, just pick a few bites to eat, and throw away what you can't finish. The barbecue ordered yesterday was the same, really ordered too much. If you had come, you could have helped us finish some."

Shen Li drank the white porridge and ate a few steamed buns. To avoid wasting food, she could only try to finish as much as possible.

Shen Li wasn't someone who got close to others easily, but rather a slow-to-warm-up person. Sometimes her personality was too cold, and she didn't have many close friends around her. She hadn't kept in touch with her high school classmates from Haishi either.

She put the leftovers in the refrigerator.

7:30 AM.

On the way to class, under the scorching sun—it was 39 degrees today, the heat making one's chest feel stifled—Shen Li held a parasol.

Zhao Zhouyuan was holding a cup of iced soy milk, drinking it. "So much breakfast in the fridge, all bought by Xie Qin? He's really rich."

"But you can't say, this soy milk is actually quite delicious. Don't know which shop it was bought from, very sweet."

Walking into the teaching building, she folded up the parasol, rolled it up, and put it into her handbag.

Just before class started, people walked into the classroom. They didn't pick seats, and even if they played on their phones during class, as long as they didn't make noise, the teacher wouldn't care.

For the two-hour morning class, they covered a bit of the book's content, and for the remaining hour and a half, they continued to watch a classic philosophy film.

The film ended, and class was dismissed right on time.

This kind of college life, without supervision, was comfortable yet decadent. Coming to a vocational school like Chengde was indeed just drifting through life, and for most, it all depended on one's own self-discipline.

Zhao Zhouyuan was just thinking about going with Shen Li to eat at that spicy hot pot place on the first floor of the university town, but she didn't expect the class monitor to call her away.

Shen Li had no choice but to go alone. At this hour, there were many students on the road, all shopping nearby.

In front of a tutoring center, a blackboard was set up with an Olympiad math problem, and a sign next to it read: Students who can solve this Olympiad math problem can get a seafood buffet voucher worth 688.

Shen Li stood in the inconspicuous crowd. Several students around her were discussing, "This buffet voucher is so hard to buy, limited time and quantity every day, simply can't grab one."

"I've always wanted to eat it, but unfortunately I can't solve this problem. Otherwise, I'd really want to eat for free once; seven hundred yuan is half a month's living expenses for me."

"Don't look, don't look. Just us two academic slackers, one more look and I'll get sleepy."

"No, I heard people say this problem has been hanging here for months, how come no one has solved it yet?"

This problem was a high school Olympiad competition problem. Shen Li had once represented the Haishi Middle School individual group in an Olympiad competition and had solved a problem similar to this type.

It wasn't very difficult.

"Shen Li, why are you still here? Waited a long time, right?"

Zhao Zhouyuan blocked the sun with her hand on her forehead. "The teacher asked me to move some things, I'm exhausted."

"It's still better for you. Being a class monitor is so annoying, having to do everything. If I had known, I wouldn't have been this class monitor."

"Let's go eat quickly, I'm starving."

Zhao Zhouyuan bought a cup of iced milk tea on the way at a milk tea shop. When it was time to pay, she asked Shen Li, "Don't you want to drink? How about getting a cup?"

"No."

Her mother never let her drink these, and Shen Li had never tasted one either.

Zhao Zhouyuan saw that she rarely spent money and thought she had family difficulties and was embarrassed to say so. She said generously, "How about ordering the same as me, I'll pay for you."

"Thank you, really no need, I don't drink it."

"Oh, drink it, I'll treat you." Zhao Zhouyuan took out the money and bought another cup to pay the clerk. "You don't have to be polite with me. If you don't have enough money, you can borrow from me, don't be embarrassed to ask."

Shen Li: "..."

In the end, a cup of pearl milk tea was shoved into Shen Li's hand.

"Here, taste it quickly, this is my favorite shop, I used to drink it every day. Do you think it's good?"

Shen Li took a sip, not quite used to it, it was too sweet. "It's okay."

The two finished lunch and went back.

In the dormitory, the curtains were drawn, and Zhang Zixin was wearing noise-canceling headphones, sleeping soundly on her bed. ===== CHAPTER 19 =====