"Sister, come here, let me carry you down." Xu Youluo is the kind of girl who is cute and well-behaved, making it hard to refuse her. When she smiles, her dimples appear and disappear, making her look young and lovable.
“…Just support me.” Xu Youqing ignored his displeasure, put her hand on his forearm, and dragged her leg in a cast as she stepped out of the car and walked towards the restaurant.
Xiang Yu got off the bus and stared at the backs of the siblings, feeling that something was off.
"Let's go, deskmate." Gu Chen was like a persistent plaster; whenever the two of them needed to walk, he would stick to them without giving them a chance to refuse, his forearm wrapped around the other person's neck.
Like conjoined twins.
"Aren't you tired?" Xiang Yu had wanted to ask this for a while. He actually thought it was strange for two healthy boys to do this.
Gu Chen had been holding Xiang Yu like this for several days, and for a moment he didn't realize that the other person was referring to this: "Huh?"
Xiang Yu gestured towards the siblings who were walking up the steps and said, "You're not lame, why are you always holding onto me?"
The unspoken message was clear: Leave me alone.
Gu Chen didn't move, but instead smiled and tightened her grip on his arm, asking, "Haven't you gotten used to it for several days?" It's been several days already, and you still haven't gotten used to it?
"..." Fine, Xiang Yu felt that she had asked him too much, and now her neck was being strangled even tighter.
"elder brother--"
Li Yifan parked his car and came to the main entrance. He recognized two people over there. One of them looked like his cousin, but the other...
"Boss Gu?"
Gu Chenming was no stranger to the second year of high school. Girls were initially attracted by his looks, but eventually by his talkative nature. Boys, on the other hand, were drawn to him by his long opening speech.
The man Li Yifan mentioned in his WeChat Moments, who was said to be "learning ten years' worth of knowledge from a single conversation with a wise man," was referring to Gu Chen.
"Hello, cousin." Gu Chen greeted Li Yifan, who was jogging over, as if they were old friends.
Upon hearing this, Xiang Yu nudged him in the waist with his elbow, thinking to himself, "Who's your cousin?"
The lobby on the first floor was packed. Following the Xu siblings, we took the elevator directly to the third floor. The soundproofing of the private rooms in the restaurant was so-so that we could hear loud conversations coming from the rooms as we passed by.
The other boys from Class 2 had arrived long ago and were shouting something in a private room at the end of the corridor; it was the noisiest room on the floor.
The Xu siblings stopped outside the door, letting Gu Chen and the other four boys go in first.
Sure enough, as soon as Gu Chen entered, he saw the two Zhangs bickering and arguing at the round table. He asked in a serious tone, "What are you two arguing about? You two are the loudest on this floor. Can't you learn from Song'er next to you and use your spare time to memorize English words?"
Xiang Yu glanced at him, puzzled, wondering what was wrong with the other person who was suddenly talking like this.
"Holy crap!" Yang Shuhuan couldn't help but exclaim in surprise, "Brother Chen, your imitation of the dean is so perfect!"
“…Damn.” Zhang Zitong hadn’t looked towards the door, and hearing the familiar tone and content, he really thought it was the dean. He reflexively sat up straight and shouted at Gu Chen, who was sitting opposite him with a big smile, “Brother Chen, are you okay? This is too damn scary!”
"Exactly!" Zhang Boyuan's reaction wasn't much better than Zhang Zitong's.
After everyone was seated, Gu Chen opened the cutlery in front of him and said, "What are you afraid of?"
“You’re definitely not afraid,” Zhang Boyuan continued. “You’ve never been invited to the dean’s office for tea.”
"Hey, this gentleman looks unfamiliar." Zhang Zitong noticed Li Yifan next to Xiang Yu and asked him.
"My name is Li Yifan, also known as Li 13. May I ask your name?" Li Yifan stood up and replied in a江湖人气 (jianghu person's tone).
"The next two are Zhang Zitong, and this is his deskmate Zhang Boyuan."
After saying this, Zhang Boyuan stood up, clasped his hands in greeting, and said, "Hello, Brother Yifan! This is Jiang Wensong, Brother Jiang."
Jiang Wensong was memorizing vocabulary when he heard this. He looked up, holding his vocabulary book, and bowed to him.
Xiang Yu: "???"
What the heck? He didn't understand what these people were doing, and he hadn't been in contact with them recently. Could it be that this is how different classes greet each other?
Looking around, I noticed that everyone around me looked calm, and I wondered if I had guessed correctly.
At this moment, Xiang Yu felt as if he had been struck by lightning, shocked from the inside out.
"What's going on with them?" Xiang Yu couldn't help but ask Gu Chen in a low voice, not bothering to hide the surprise and tension on her face.
Gu Chen feigned the same expression as him and said in a low voice, "Actually, I've never told you..."
He paused here, which made Xiang Yu even more confused. She was afraid that she would have to accept such strange etiquette in the future, so she stretched out her ear and urged him to speak quickly.
Gu Chen said, "Actually... the four of them are in the same drama club."
I'll punch you.
Xiang Yu glared at him angrily, while Gu Chen couldn't help but smile.
The drama club is something that most of you here know a little about, except for Xiang Yu. In addition, the drama club put on a play about chivalrous heroes at the campus cultural festival. Among the actors were Zhang's deskmate, Li Yifan, and Jiang Wensong, who is the playwright of the drama club. So this scene is not unfamiliar to the students of No. 1 Middle School.
Gu Chen had been observing the other person the whole time, and was amused by Xiang Yu's expression just now: "Hahahaha."
The other person wasn't a good actor; he was trying to suppress his laughter while saying those things, but he was too nervous to notice.
"Hahahaha, I'm dying of laughter, Brother Chen, don't tease Brother Yu." Wang Zehao, on the other side of Gu Chen, heard the two chatting. After spending an afternoon alone with Xiang Yu, he was clearly much closer to Xiang Yu. "Believe it or not, my school bully Brother Yu will beat you up."
Gu Chen said, "My deskmate only beats up bad guys."
After saying that, he grinned at Xiang Yu and said, "Right, right, deskmate?"
In a sense, that's actually true.
It wasn't funny at all. Xiang Yu felt like he had made a fool of himself in front of everyone. As a socially anxious person, he couldn't think straight for a moment.
Xu Youqing hadn't actually realized what was happening yet, wondering if these boys were out of their minds, but she maintained a calm and collected demeanor on the surface, which was largely an act.
Seeing their reaction, Xu Youluo smiled and said, "I'll call the waiter in, let's order first." Then she added, "Order whatever you like, just like at home."
It really is their own home; Manjianglou is one of the properties under the name of the mother of the Xu siblings.
Wang Zehao said, "Then I won't be polite!" After saying that, he performed a special skill for everyone.
To recite the names of dishes without any context.
At the end of the meal, Yang Shuhuan couldn't help but hit him, "Can you stop? Can you finish this?"
"It's okay, we can just pack up the leftover rats and take them home. It won't go to waste," Xu Youluo said. "Would you like something to drink?"
"Alcohol!" a few boys from Class 2 of the Literature Department said decisively.
Gu Chen said, "No." Minors are not allowed to drink alcohol, and Gu Chen, a soldier with impeccable family background, felt he had the right to keep an eye on them from outside.
"Damn it!" The boys backed down.
Gu Chen said, "Then let's have fruit beer."
"Is fruit beer considered beer?"
"Sure." Gu Chen smiled and ignored them, turning to talk to Xiang Yu, but all he could hear were dissatisfied shouts, and he was interrupted every time he spoke.
Squad Leader Gu, being good-natured, picked up the tea that the waiter had just poured for him, took a sip, cleared his throat, and coughed twice.
"Cough cough."
The noise subsided instantly, with remarkable effectiveness.
Gu Chen chuckled twice and continued telling Xiang Yu about the interesting things that happened at the orphanage during the day. He talked for a long time, but the other party completely ignored him.
"Classmate? Classmate, pay attention to me!" Gu Chen had been trying to talk to him for a long time, but the other person didn't give him a single expression. He started to get annoyed and reached out to grab the other person's arm.
Xiang Yu had just been teased by Gu Chen in public, and the tension of facing people had returned. Now that she had just come to her senses, she didn't want to listen or speak at all.
System: Why don't you talk to him?
The system felt that talking for 80 points was tiring, and if Xiang Yu didn't reply, it could keep talking.
-Xiangyu: Ah, refusal.
[Author's Note: Gu Chen: Desk mate, please pay attention to me! ×N]
Chapter 18 Do you know the harm of Gu Chen's early romance?
Chapter 18 Gu Chen: Do you know the dangers of puppy love?
They were all around seventeen or eighteen years old, young and impetuous, and loved to make a ruckus. They had huge appetites and wouldn't give way to each other; they would fight over a dish at the table.
Zhang Boyuan used his chopsticks to pick up the last crispy chicken leg, and gave Li Yifan, who was sitting directly opposite him, a provocative smile: "Brother Yifan, you were a step too slow!"
No sooner had he finished speaking than a chicken leg was brought to his mouth, and someone next to him grabbed it, saying, "Give it to me!"
"Holy crap, Boss Tong, are you even human?" Zhang Boyuan yelled and pinched her.
"You guys have to fight over all this food!" Wang Zehao shouted, desperately protecting the shrimp on his plate. "That's going too far, Brother Chen! How much food have you taken from me already!"
Gu Chen said, "Your sleeve has oil on it."
Wang Zehao was startled; the shrimp was snatched away the moment he reached out, and he only realized what had happened afterward.
Damn, I was wearing short sleeves!
"Hey, make sure you have a balanced diet, don't just stare at the plate of vegetables in front of you." Gu Chen, under Wang Zehao's resentful gaze, put the shrimp he had taken into the corner's plate. "Come on, eat the shrimp."
On the plate in front of him were three or four slices of beef, a large piece of fish belly, two slices of pork belly, and a whole chicken leg.
Xiang Yu never stopped eating, and Gu Chen never stopped serving food.
Xiang Yu sighed, just as another sigh came from beside him.
Xu Youqing, who was just one person away from him, was smiling helplessly. The dishes in front of her were piled up like a small mountain. Xu Youluo acted as if he didn't see them and continued to build his base on the plates while the boys on the table were grabbing at them.
Their eyes met in the air.
"Hey, eat up, don't get distracted." Gu Chen waved his hand in front of his eyes, and when he turned around, he saw that the other person had picked up another piece of beef tenderloin and put it on his plate.
Xiang Yu initially didn't want to talk to him because of his earlier teasing, but the other guy's offensive was too strong. He hadn't even eaten two bites before he was frantically piling food onto Xiang Yu's plate, which made Xiang Yu feel embarrassed. So he immediately pushed the plate towards Xiang Yu and said, "Stop piling food on your plate, you eat too."
“…Okay.” Gu Chen sighed, marveling at how kind his deskmate was, thinking of him even while eating.
Such a good deskmate, you can't fall in love too early.
They ate with relish, especially Wang Zehao, who ate to his heart's content to avoid the hassle of packing up leftovers. He also drank several glasses of fizzy fruit beer. After taking a few steps, he felt something was about to come up in his throat, leaving Yang Shuhuan, who was supporting him, speechless and unable to even utter a curse.
On their way back, the group split into four groups. Zhang's two classmates and the Xu siblings lived in the same direction, so they hitched a ride. Jiang Wensong had come by bicycle, but his route wasn't on the same side as Li Yifan's, so he had to walk alone. Gu Chen and the other two shared a ride back.
"See you tomorrow, deskmate—" Xiang Yu had already ridden his electric scooter a distance away when Gu Chen waved and called out to him, staring at his back, completely unconcerned that the other person couldn't actually see his movements.
Coincidentally, he turned back at the corner, but quickly turned back again.
"Brother, you and Boss Gu are really close!"