On opening day, many girls from the class came to support the store. This clothing store, called "Shuangcheng," mainly sells women's clothing and some accessories, which is very popular with girls. Actually, when it comes to the attraction of clothing to girls, it really can't compare to the attraction of a few handsome guys—Le Xi's gentle smile, Zi Jie's energetic sales pitch, and Chen Song leaning coolly against the door left many girls dumbfounded.
Shi Lu was furious. He rushed into the shop, but Le Xi didn't even glance at him, which greatly hurt his pride. So he started nitpicking. Yan Shuang would call this "sour grapes." However, Le Xi listened attentively to Shi Lu's criticisms, nodding earnestly in thought. Her adorable expression made Shi Lu secretly pleased.
As the shop closed in the afternoon, a florist delivered a large bouquet of roses with a card attached. There was no name on the card, just a simple note: "Congratulations on your opening." One hundred roses left Le Xi a little stunned. Shi Lu, standing beside her, said sourly, "I didn't realize you were so popular! Probably another shy girl."
Zijie and Chen Song, however, both wore serious expressions, their faces as stiff as shoehorns. Zijie said, "Giving roses is too blatant, what's there to be shy about!"
Chen Song, feeling exasperated, gently leaned close to Zi Jie's ear and said, "Zi Jie, please stop swearing, okay?"
"None of your business!" Zijie glanced at him and continued, "The person who sent the flowers is definitely a psychopath! Sending roses to an opening ceremony? They must be out of their mind!"
Yan Shuang frowned: "Comrade Xiao Zhang, it's wrong of you to slander your female compatriots like this! Don't you understand that women hold up half the sky?"
"Women? This guy is a pervert. What do you mean by women? Besides, is someone who gives roses to a guy a woman? Even if she is a woman, she's definitely a repressed pervert..." Zijie wanted to say more, but Chen Song covered her mouth and dragged her into the inner room.
Le Xi pouted, ignoring their bickering, and followed Chen Song inside. Actually, she was quite happy; serving so many customers on opening day was a successful first step in a long journey, and all her hard work had finally paid off.
The crown jewel of "Twin Cities" is a black embroidered cheongsam worn by a mannequin in the window. Le Xi says this cheongsam is her graduation piece from her tailoring apprenticeship with Aunt Lan. The cheongsam is exquisitely crafted; the gold-embroidered phoenix against the black satin background exudes elegance and grandeur, captivating almost every customer who enters. Curious women often ask Le Xi about the price, but she always smiles and shakes her head, pointing to the tag at the hem—not for sale.
Shi Lu, intrigued by the cheongsam, stood before it, scrutinizing it intently. His limited knowledge of cheongsams stemmed solely from the film *In the Mood for Love*, starring Maggie Cheung, which reportedly featured the beautiful actress in twenty-three different cheongsams. However, the pseudo-intellectual Shi Lu had downloaded a pirated version to his home computer, resulting in poor image quality. Furthermore, the lighting in the scenes where Cheung wore cheongsams wasn't great, and coupled with Shi Lu's slight astigmatism, discerning the cheongsams was more difficult than Yang Liwei's moon landing.
Study hard and make progress every day.
After the start of the semester, Shi Lu began his teaching career, but the students at Xingzhi Academy indeed had a strong tradition of not paying attention—not listening in class was secondary; the students who weren't listening also started heckling and creating disturbances. This was very frustrating. For example, he asked the students to practice dialogues, dividing them into groups of four for oral practice. The result was that all the students lazily huddled together chatting, and not content with just chatting, they even whispered among themselves and laughed loudly. Shi Lu couldn't help but feel sorry for the homeroom teacher, Mr. Zhang: If classes have become like this, how can this class be managed?
Shi Lu glanced at the time; there was still half an hour before get out of class ended. So, with a nonchalant air, he crossed his arms, leaned against the podium, and, a glint in his eyes as he looked at the students below, deliberately dragged out his words, coldly saying, "Now, we'll invite a few groups of students to come up to the podium and perform their dialogues. Let's see how well you've practiced." Sure enough, a chorus of "Ah!" erupted from below.
"You," Shi Lu casually pointed to the boy who had laughed the loudest during their earlier chat, "What are you doing looking around like that?" Her tone was laced with amusement, as if she were waiting for a good show. Then she raised her finger to Le Xi, who was sitting at the back of the classroom by the window, and said calmly, "And you, Yao Le Xi, who's been dozing off since class started, please raise your noble head and come to the front." Inwardly, she was overjoyed: Hmph, Le Xi, Le Xi, you dare to sleep in my class! Don't I have any charm at all?
The noble head did not lift because of Shi Lu's words. The classroom fell silent. In this silence, it seemed that the noble Le Xi could be heard snoring.
Shi Lu glanced at Le Xi, knowing that he had been busy teaching at the special education school, running his shop, and auditing classes at the art and design college, which must have been exhausting. However, he was feeling a bit embarrassed to be in such a public situation. He sighed and said, "Alright, alright, Yao Le Xi isn't feeling well. Let's invite another student." He then randomly pointed to a student and wrote the title on the blackboard with great flair: Open House.
The two boys, staring at each other with wide eyes, turned red-faced and, with great difficulty, began to stammer and stammer as they looked at the question.
Students in the audience started laughing. The two "innocent" teenagers interpreted "open house" as "booking a room." One shyly expressed his love, while the other reluctantly said, "Then let's go book a room." Shi Lu chuckled to himself as he listened.
Seeing the teacher's expression of laughing so hard he was practically injuring himself, the two boys turned to him, extremely embarrassed, for help.
"Teacher..." His desire was utterly unfulfilled, his eyes filled with resentment, "Behind..."
"What do you mean by 'behind'?" Shi Lu asked, looking puzzled.
"It's that...that behind..."
"Whose back?"
"We...we..."
What's wrong with you?
"We won't..."
"No way? Really? You're all adults!" Shi Lu persisted. This remark caused the crowd below to burst into laughter. Shi Lu glanced back; it seemed the laughter had even woken up one of the students who had been dozing off.
"How are you feeling? Are you uncomfortable?" Shi Lu walked to Le Xi's side, bent down and asked him softly.
"No... I... I'm sorry, I fell asleep..." Le Xi pursed her lips apologetically, her face slightly flushed, whether from shyness or just waking up.
"Teacher...teacher..." the boy on the stage continued to plead for help. Shi Lu stood up and returned to the podium, his expression immediately returning to that of a serious and dignified engineer of the soul.
“Yao Lexi, please perform a dialogue from the open house.” Shi Lu nodded with his chin at Lexi, who was sitting by the door, signaling him to come up on stage. “Come on, let’s demonstrate for everyone.”
Lexi's spoken English was excellent; she answered almost fluently, and in standard American English. This completely surprised Shi Lu and astonished the students in the audience, who all opened their mouths in an "O" shape to express their overwhelming admiration.
After the bell rang, Le Xi hurriedly packed up and left, carrying a large textbook from the art and design college. Shi Lu watched him run off and shook his head helplessly, pondering: How can I get him to pay attention to me? He's been so cold lately!
The Art and Design Department's classes were located in the East Campus, so Le Xi had to run there after class to avoid being late. He was currently auditing second-year classes, but since he wasn't a student in the Art and Design Department and didn't want to attract too much attention, the best approach was to arrive early and sit in a corner of the classroom. However, because he had been consistently attending classes since the beginning of the semester, Professor Liu, who taught the courses, had taken notice of him and recommended many professional books to him, even patiently answering his questions after class. Professor Liu was an authority on fashion design in the Art and Design Department, and even nationwide. He was probably around fifty years old, but not old-fashioned, and dressed quite fashionably. His renowned fashion design theories were primarily derived from famous international fashion design schools, so he recommended several English textbooks to Le Xi. These books were borrowed from the faculty reading room by Professor Liu. Fortunately, Le Xi had a good foundation in English; otherwise, he would have been overwhelmed by those several large English originals.
Carrying several thick books, Le Xi entered the classroom through the back door just as class was starting. Professor Liu was lecturing on Paris Fashion Week and nodded slightly when he came in. Le Xi pouted, her cheeks puffing out like two little buns, and gave a mischievous, apologetic look as she sat down in the last row by the window. She wore black-rimmed glasses because of her eyesight.
Shi Lu had originally planned to go to the library to look up information. But as he passed by the classrooms of the School of Art and Design, he inexplicably stopped and slipped in through the back door to audit the classes. Shi Lu explained that he suddenly had a strong urge to learn as he passed by the classrooms, so he went in with a diligent and studious mindset.
"Hi." Shi Lu sat down next to Le Xi and greeted her softly. Le Xi was stunned for a moment, seemingly startled because she was too focused. She stared at him with her peach blossom eyes for two seconds before whispering, "Why are you here?"
While absentmindedly watching Professor Liu, who was balding, on the stage, Shi Lu shifted his gaze to Le Xi's desk. A thermos, glasses case, pencil case, notebook—the epitome of a model student. Especially with his glasses and upright posture, he seemed determined to be a model student to the very end. Shi Lu glanced at the notes in Le Xi's notebook, frowned, and silently concluded, "So, model students' notebooks are always this clean and tidy, always so densely filled with what looks like an incomprehensible script."
In fact, Shi Lu had always been averse to any kind of art, and making him sit here and listen to a lecture was practically torture for him. He was incredibly bored, but didn't want to openly walk out of the classroom, so he reluctantly sat next to Le Xi, lost in thought. Actually, he wasn't just spacing out; he was staring at someone. The person being stared at, however, was completely oblivious, continuing to diligently take notes in his notebook.
Shi Lu glanced at Le Xi's notebook, which contained detailed notes on almost everything Professor Liu had said, with key points underlined. The handwriting wasn't particularly beautiful, perhaps due to haste and sloppiness. However, the fingers holding the pen were exceptionally beautiful—long, white, and with well-rounded nails. Le Xi, attentively listening to the lecture, liked to prop her chin up with her left hand, her little finger casually touching her pale lips, and occasionally adjusting her glasses. When she encountered something she didn't understand, she would mark a small question mark in her notebook, presumably to ask questions during breaks. This earnest expression was truly captivating, and Shi Lu couldn't help but secretly swallow. It was fortunate that Professor Liu, so engrossed in his lecture, remained unmoved despite frequently offering Le Xi "autumn spinach" (a metaphor for being overly eager to please). Therefore, Shi Lu felt a pang of jealousy: Why was Le Xi so focused in his class here, yet soundly asleep in my English class? Was I less charming than this balding old man?!
"You're not taking notes the right way." Shi Lu whispered a reminder to Le Xi, who was frantically taking notes while Professor Liu was giving a long lecture. "Just write down the key points. The teacher will usually focus on the content that will be on the exam."
"Huh, why are you still here?" Le Xi looked at Shi Lu in surprise, showing no gratitude whatsoever for the advice.
Shi Lu made a defeated expression and laughed, "Leaving now is clearly disrespecting Lao Liu. If he blames you later, he might blame you too. After all, you and I were sitting together, and we're both from Xingzhi Academy."
"But you're the teacher and I'm the student! What does this have to do with me?"
What an ignorant child… Shi Lu could only stare blankly, his face full of black lines: “Then I guess I was just bored.”
"Are you really that bored?!" he blurted out almost without thinking.
"..." Shi Lu was almost choked, and after a pause, he continued, "You haven't mastered any note-taking methods at all. You've written down a lot, but only a portion of it is useful."
"Really?" Le Xi tilted her head, frowned slightly, and then slowly said, "Maybe. I wasn't a very good student before, so maybe my study methods were the problem."
"But your English is quite good. How can you have such talent if you're not good at studying?" Shi Lu secretly grabbed Le Xi's hand from under the table and squeezed it a few times.
Le Xi pouted and said childishly, "Are you upset that I slept in class? Aru, are you saying this on purpose because you're jealous?"
"You really have a thick skin!" Shi Lu quickly pinched Le Xi's cheek, feeling great after getting the better of her. He grinned and said to Le Xi, "Look how your mother-in-law has raised you. You've become a little pig."
"You...you're talking nonsense again..." Le Xi wanted to lash out, but considering that they were in a classroom, she could only glare at him with a red face.
They fought
Zijie suddenly had a whim and invited everyone to eat Japanese food, ostensibly to celebrate the official opening of "Twin Cities." Being a very lively person, he cheerfully invited Yan Shuang, and incidentally, Shi Lu as well. Because it was an "incidental" invitation, Shi Lu's face was initially a little sour, but she quickly recovered.
Chen Song drove a bright red SUV. Zi Jie had teased him about the color for a long time, saying it perfectly matched Chen Song's flamboyant personality. But to be fair, Chen Song did look quite cool leaning against the car with his sunglasses on. Before getting in, Zi Jie whispered to Le Xi that she hadn't expected him to be so handsome. Unfortunately, Chen Song overheard this. After Zi Jie sat in the passenger seat, Chen Song naturally helped him fasten his seatbelt, then deliberately leaned close to Zi Jie's ear and whispered, "Isn't your husband handsome?"
"You old man! Drive!" Zijie yelled.
"Ouch! Why did you hit me in the head? What if I get a concussion? There's a saying: 'You can cut off my head, but you can't mess up my hairstyle.' Have some public spirit, will you?"
"Are you going to drive or not? If you keep nagging, I'll get you..."
"Yes, sir!" Before Zijie could even get angry, Chen Song saluted him and started the car.
The restaurant was a Japanese eatery called Izakaya. It wasn't large, spanning two floors, with all but four private rooms divided into small, independent areas by screens. The staff were all dressed in traditional Japanese attire, and their greetings were in broken Japanese. However, the food was both affordable and delicious, and the owner was a very eloquent woman, making the restaurant extremely popular.
Zijie ordered food with practiced ease, ordered several jugs of sake, and chatted with the madam for a while. Chen Song was a little jealous and pinched Zijie's thigh under the table. Zijie sneered, still chatting and laughing with everyone at the table, but under the table, he used all his strength to stomp on Chen Song's foot. Chen Song winced in pain, his eyebrows furrowing.
"What's wrong with you? Why do you look so strange?" Le Xi asked curiously, looking at Chen Song's face which reflected various colors of red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, blue, and purple.
"No...no...it's nothing..." Chen Song forced a smile, but his hands were still restless. He retaliated by reaching his hand to Zi Jie's crotch. Sure enough, he saw Zi Jie pause for about two seconds while talking animatedly. He couldn't help but smugly stroke him up and down through the fabric of his pants.
"Chen Song!" Zi Jie shouted, still smiling as she turned to him, her smile bordering on venom. "Do you want to eat pufferfish?"
"I won't eat it, it's poisonous."
"You even know it's poisonous~~" Zijie deliberately dragged out the sound, pretending to be friendly as he patted Chen Song's back, making a terrible "thump thump" sound, which almost made Chen Song fall onto the table.
The dishes were served quickly, and soon the table was full. Chen Song picked up the sake pot to pour sake, but stopped abruptly in front of Le Xi. Seeing Le Xi looking at him expectantly, he paused, then said, "Have a little less, and then have some tea..."
Le Xi pouted and muttered softly, "Stingy, no wonder she always gets bullied."
Shi Lu chuckled and said to Chen Song, "Fourteen-degree liquor won't make anyone drunk, let him have a little."
"You have no idea, his drunken rampage can be quite devastating." Zijie shook her head helplessly. "Sigh, I'd better not say anything... lest I ruin your image in the eyes of all the sisters."
"Is he still prone to drunken outbursts?" Schru asked with interest.
“That’s absolutely amazing! Right, Zijie?” Chen Song interrupted, smiling ingratiatingly at Zijie, then turned to everyone and said, “Zijie and I have encountered this before. He got drunk and cried and made a scene, hugging everyone and calling them ‘brother.’”
"No way! I don't remember." Lexi retorted.
"How could you remember when you were drunk?" Zijie began to act as an accomplice, listing all of Lexi's crimes.
"I protest! How can you slander me like this! This is a frame-up!" Lexi blushed with embarrassment.
"Protest denied!" Zijie waved his hand dismissively. "Besides, you're not good at rock-paper-scissors, drinking games, or card games. What's there to protest about?"
"Great!" Yan Shuang clapped her hands. "It's been so long since I've seen such a clash of titans! Exciting! Thrilling!"
"Then let's have a competition today!"
Rock-paper-scissors, drinking games, and other games—Le Xi lost every single one. He looked helplessly at his "scissors" and shook his head. Chen Song had been egging him on, saying something like, "A real man chooses scissors," and he had indeed chosen scissors. In the end, Zi Jie chose rock, resulting in a crushing 3-0 defeat.
"Here, wasabi. It's all yours!" Zijie grinned smugly, then turned to the madam and asked for a large piece of dry wasabi. "Dry wasabi isn't as spicy as wet it, see how good I am to you—it's all yours!"
Le Xi looked dejectedly at Zi Jie, then at the culprit Chen Song, and helplessly picked up her chopsticks. She picked up a piece, held it in front of her, swallowed hard, and with a look of impending doom, frowned, closed her eyes, and swallowed it in one gulp.
"How does it taste?" Zijie leaned closer to him to see his expression. Knowing he didn't like the taste of wasabi, she still wanted to tease him. Lexi had lost more than he won before, and he had already drunk a lot of alcohol, so she made him eat wasabi as punishment.
Le Xi made a face like a bitter gourd, his eyes squinting into slits from disgust. Everyone held back their laughter as they watched his expression; his desperate attempt to suppress his laughter was absolutely adorable.
"How is it? The wasabi here tastes pretty good." Zijie tried her best to keep her expression straight and not laugh out loud.
Le Xi squinted at him, his mouth slightly open as if he wanted to say something, but as soon as he opened his mouth, he sneezed three times in a row, followed by tears and snot streaming down his face. Shi Lu quickly grabbed a napkin and handed it to him, almost laughing himself sick as he saw him still sneezing: Le Xi hadn't even noticed Zi Jie cheating earlier, and he was clearly about to win, but he lost in a series of inexplicable twists and turns. Only he could be so clueless, being so blatantly outmaneuvered without even realizing it.
"I can't take it anymore, I need to go to the restroom," Le Xi complained.