It seemed like it was only after they came out of the dorm building that Yi Zhe finally entered the state of excitement of being a new student.

Xu Tangcheng saw that he was looking all around, so he explained some of the relevant history behind the campus buildings. However, Yi Zhe very quickly realised that Xu Tangcheng's knowledge of the university wasn't very in-depth, especially when it came to the exact years. As he talked, he would always take a breath and ponder, then say, "Aiya, I don't remember this. Which year was it again?" But despite the muddled commentary, Yi Zhe still listened quietly without asking questions and also without interrupting. He only laughed along when Xu Tangcheng laughed, and responded when he needed to respond.

He remained that way all the way until they passed a building where classes were held, where he suddenly stopped.

"Is this where you attend your classes?"

"This building is for our department," Xu Tangcheng corrected his wording, then continued to say, "But most undergrad teaching won't be done here. Some of our teachers do their work here and some labs are also in this building."

Yi Zhe nodded, then continued to stand there and look quietly.

Just like he had half a year ago, on that winter's day.

The two of them ate at the cafeteria, paid for using Xu Tangcheng's meal card. After the meal, Xu Tangcheng brought Yi Zhe to one of the larger supermarkets near the school. Yi Zhe hadn't brought anything with him other than a couple of outfits, so he had quite a number of items to buy.

There were quite a lot of people in the supermarket in the afternoon. Xu Tangcheng pushed a shopping cart over to the entrance and Yi Zhe immediately reached out to take it. "Let me."

Xu Tangcheng didn't fight him for it. He let go and walked beside him.

"Get toiletries—towels, toilet paper, shampoo and all that stuff needs to be bought. What else?"

The person beside him was muttering the whole while and listing the items on his fingers. Meanwhile, Yi Zhe was openly staring at him the whole time. Xu Tangcheng suddenly turning and asking him a question made him at a loss for words.

"N-Nothing else, I guess."

It turned out that Yi Zhe had absolutely no experience in staying at a dorm and, of course, he also wasn't someone who was good at taking care of the place he stayed. He probably had no clue whatsoever about these things, to say even less of considering every detail. Hence, Xu Tangcheng decided that he might as well not ask Yi Zhe and just led him to pick from shelf after shelf.

"Soap, which scent do you want?" At the front, Xu Tangcheng bent down and asked.

Yi Zhe stared blankly from where he was standing behind the shopping cart. He seemed to have no intention of picking anything for himself.

"Anything's fine." After saying that, his index finger tapped against the shopping cart. "Which one do you use?"

"Lemon."

"Then I'll take lemon too."

Xu Tangcheng let out a laugh and looked up at him from where he was crouched on the floor. "Can't you have some views of your own?"

Even though he said that, he still tossed a bar of lemon-scented soap into the shopping cart. The soap rolled half a circle and landed on a blue-coloured towel.

The first time they went to the supermarket together, he pushed the shopping cart while he filled it with things.

When it was time to line up to pay, Yi Zhe felt that the corners of his mouth were stiff thanks to his own actions—they kept wanting to curve upwards but he kept forcing them down.

Naturally, Yi Zhe was the one who carried the bags. He didn't even give Xu Tangcheng the chance to contribute his strength to carry the toilet paper. When they left, Xu Tangcheng opened the door for him, still feeling rather unused to it. There was no need to speak of when he went to the supermarket with his family; even when he came with Cheng Xu, most of the time, he couldn't bear to let Cheng Xu, who was much smaller than him, carry the bags.

Looking at Yi Zhe's steadily walking figure from the back, he sniffed and thought, How nice it is to be tall.

New students entering university had to first go through a week of various training and lectures. In a large auditorium, Yi Zhe listened to a teacher give a speech on "Everyone is a favoured child of Heaven."

He had heard this phrase more than once these few days. The auditorium seat was narrow and after sitting for a long while, it was uncomfortable. He slid his body forward but his knees hit the seat in front. Hungry and tired, he looked at the ceiling and thought, was getting a good exam result all it took to be "a favoured child of Heaven"?

Suddenly, the image of Xu Tangcheng, composed and self-assured as he spoke with a group of his juniors that day when he entered university, appeared in his mind.

It was just like when he was young, all the uncles and aunties in the building had been fond of Xu Tangcheng. He seemed to have a kind of charm that made the people talking to him smile without them realising it. Even if all he was doing was to stand there and slightly nod his head, you would feel that at that moment, that slight nod was exactly what he should be doing.

The wind in September led his thoughts to him.

He was in the shade of the tree, he was also in the blazing sunlight.

The half-transparent image seemed to hover before his eyes, obstructing his sight, and even the bright lights on the auditorium ceiling became a little gentler.

University life was basically no different from what Yi Zhe had imagined it to be. If he had to point out a difference, it would be the fact that he and Xu Tangcheng were not staying in the same dorm building. And when classes formally began, he finally realised that both their areas of activity were two different sections that could be almost completely separated by a line. Even when going to the cafeterias, if they were to each go to the nearest one, it would not be the same one. On top of that, the campus of University A was exceptionally large, like it wanted to force all students to buy a bike each to get around. In just a short while, all the accidental encounters in his imagination became unrealistic fantasies.

After class today, phone in his hand, he walked all the way from the classroom to his dorm and still couldn't think of any reason to look for Xu Tangcheng. The bed sheet over his mattress was still the one Xu Tangcheng had given him. Even though he had already washed it once, he was pretending to have forgotten about it and was holding on to it instead of returning it.

He sprawled on top of it and took a deep breath.

While he was wallowing in melancholy, a loud sound suddenly came from the corridor. It sounded like a stool hitting a door. Yi Zhe stared blankly, then lifted his head and focused on listening. Immediately after that, he heard a round of cursing.

The voice was very familiar. The person should be from the dorm next door.

As he spun his phone in boredom, a message suddenly popped up on the screen. When he saw who the sender was, he sat up abruptly, the bed even swaying with his movement.

Want to have dinner together?

Yi Zhe jumped down from the bed, stepping on only one of the rungs of the ladder. Before he left, he also quickly washed his face.

The commotion in the corridor had yet to die down. Yi Zhe went out and saw that a guy was standing at the stairs, pointing towards the dorm at the side and cursing. There were quite a number of people coming and going, but no one dared to go forward to persuade him to stop. Even though the guy at the stairs had his leg out and was blocking the way, those who needed to go downstairs all chose to detour to the other staircase.

Yi Zhe's gaze swept over the scene. He headed directly towards the guy.

"Move aside. I'm going downstairs."

For a while, the guy quietly studied this person who had suddenly come over with a calm face. He didn't move.

A number of heads poked out from a few dorms. Everyone held their breaths, yet what they saw was the guy suddenly turning his head away and laughing. Following that, he moved to the side and leaned against the wall.

Without even looking at him, Yi Zhe walked by him and headed downstairs.

"Hey," the guy suddenly called out behind him. "I'm Zheng Yikun."

Yi Zhe had no interest at all in this ruckus. Who was right, who was wrong, who had problems—none of these were of any concern to him. Naturally, he was also unconcerned about what this guy's name was but this self-introduction still made him pause his steps.

He had already turned the corner to the next flight of stairs. He cast his eyes up in silence, his gaze sweeping past the few people there who stood as still as statues. Only then did he see that standing at the door to the next dorm was another guy who looked very feeble, whose eyes were even reddened at the moment.

His brows furrowed slightly.

When he reached downstairs, he heard Zheng Yikun continuing to curse upstairs. "Are you still drinking your mummy's milk? Tattling to the teacher, oh my, you can even do something like that. Aren't you amazing?"

Business was booming at the grilled fish shop. Fortunately, Xu Tangcheng had called in advance to reserve a table. After they entered, the server brought the two of them to a table near the window.

"How have you been recently?"

"Fine."

"Can you get along with your roommates?"

When showing concern for someone, what specific issue to ask about first was a question that was very worth studying deeply. Yi Zhe didn't expect Xu Tangcheng to ask him this. After thinking for a while, he said, "So-so."

He pushed a glass of warm water to Xu Tangcheng and continued to say, "To be honest, I don't like them very much."

Actually, out of his three roommates, two were still fine. It was only the last one that had, in just a few short days, made Yi Zhe exceptionally speechless. In their dorm, other than the wardrobes and desks, there was also a luggage rack. There were four shelves in total, one for each person. Yi Zhe didn't have a suitcase but that day when he came back from the supermarket, he didn't have any place to store the toilet paper he'd bought so he'd put it in the luggage rack.

He had put it there without much thought in the first place. As for which shelf he'd put it in, it was just the one that was convenient, he hadn't selected it on purpose. Unexpectedly, that night, that roommate suddenly suggested in their dorm to wipe the luggage rack. The other two people in the room were all on their beds, busy with their own matters. One person said "Wait a moment" while the other felt that there was no need to wipe it. Yi Zhe wanted to go to the bathroom but that person kept pestering him and asking so he had no choice but to say, "Up to you."

But by the time he came out of the bathroom, he saw the toilet paper he had originally put on the second shelf had been moved to the topmost shelf.

At that time, Yi Zhe felt so resigned that he didn't know how he should react and even felt that it was very incomprehensible. He actually didn't mind which shelf it was put in. If that roommate had directly told him that the fourth shelf was too high and wanted to swap with him, he would definitely say yes. He had just really not expected that there would be someone who would make such a fuss over a minor matter and spend so much effort to scheme for something like this.

"You've never stayed in a dorm before. In the future, when you stay in dorms, there will definitely be more of this kind of thing that you aren't used to." Xu Tangcheng didn't ask about the specifics of what had happened. Like it was completely within his expectations, he only let out a soft laugh. "Those who come here can all be said to be the cream of the crop. Top scorers and number ones can be found everywhere, and almost everyone has been prideful since young. Personality-wise, there might be some who are even harder to get along with than the schoolmates you've interacted with in the past. You also can't rule out the possibility of there being the type who have only been concerned about their studies in the past and don't know how to interact with people at all."

Xu Tangcheng looked at Yi Zhe. "But no matter what other people are like, don't ever be impulsive when something happens in the future. I'm serious. The way you fought in the past really gave me a fright. Don't get into a fight again when you have a conflict with someone."

"I won't," Yi Zhe hurried to reassure him.

"Just carry on as you are now and first get to know what your roommates and coursemates are like. Try to get along with them as much as you can. If you feel that there's really a problem and you can't get along with them, avoid them. You just need to ignore them."

Yi Zhe nodded, then asked curiously, "Have you ever met someone whom you can't get along with?"

"I sort of met one in undergrad." Xu Tangcheng recalled the past. He drank some water and said laughingly, "In the past, I had a roommate that I can't really say I didn't get along with, I just felt that he was rather special and a bit funny. He had to be the first to leave the dorm in the morning and the last to return at night. Every morning, the moment someone moved, he would spring up in his bed, fumble for his glasses, and rush out of the dorm without even washing his face."

Yi Zhe was taken aback. After blinking for a long while, he finally asked, "Why was he like that?"

"Probably because he wants to be the one who spends the most time studying." Xu Tangcheng suddenly laughed. "The funniest thing was that there were times when the reason why we weren't back at the dorm wasn't because we were studying. There was once when another roommate and I went to watch all-night movies. He texted us at two a.m. asking us whether we had gone back. We said that we were watching movies and advised him to return to the dorm but he didn't believe us."

There were really all kinds of people. Yi Zhe felt that this person was quite funny and couldn't help laughing. All at once, he felt that the one he had met wasn't a big deal.

"That's why I say that you'll meet all kinds of people. They might be just like that roommate of mine. He just has this one aspect that makes you feel like you can't understand him but he's not a bad person…"

As they spoke, a group of people suddenly entered. Yi Zhe saw Xu Tangcheng looking in that direction and immediately letting out an exclamation of surprise. He turned his head to see; a guy from the group was walking over.

He looked familiar. When he came nearer, Yi Zhe finally remembered that this was the person he saw at the parking lot the other day.

In the group of people, Xu Tangcheng was the first to speak.

"Senior, why are you here?"

"The student council are eating together here and insisted on dragging me along."

At that moment, another guy came from behind him and called out to Xu Tangcheng, "Wonderful, Cheng-ge. You turned us down but came out to eat with someone else."

A certain phrase in his words provoked a faint sense of displeasure in Yi Zhe. He lifted his eyes indifferently and looked over.

"I had an appointment beforehand. It was you guys who only called me right before it was time to eat."

The person whom Xu Tangcheng had called senior looked in Yi Zhe's direction.

"This is? The younger brother you mentioned previously?"

Xu Tangcheng nodded and called out to Yi Zhe. "This is Senior Yu An."

After that, he patted another person's shoulder. "This is the current student council president. He's also your senior, Lu Ming."

Similarly, he introduced Yi Zhe to Yu An and Lu Ming, saying that he was a new student in communications engineering and that he was his younger brother.

It was strange. There were plainly two people there, yet when Yi Zhe looked over, his eyes only met Yu An's.

"Your younger brother seems pretty good." Yu An met his gaze and lifted the corners of his mouth. "Hey, Lu Ming, why aren't you recruiting him into the student council?"

Yi Zhe couldn't say for sure what it was that made him uncomfortable but as he looked at Yu An, his brows slowly furrowed.

"Sounds good." Lu Ming clapped a hand on Xu Tangcheng's shoulder and answered with a wide smile.

After a short and simple chat, someone from the other side called the two of them. Before leaving, Lu Ming also asked Xu Tangcheng if he wanted to bring Yi Zhe along and join them for the meal. Xu Tangcheng hurried to wave his hands in refusal. The reason he gave was that they were too noisy.

After they left, Xu Tangcheng asked Yi Zhe, "Do you want to join the student council?"

Yi Zhe didn't have strong feelings on these things. He had never joined student councils before and didn't understand them, so he couldn't say whether or not he wanted to join. But looking at how familiar Xu Tangcheng was with them, and also considering the look in Yu An's eyes just now, a burst of annoyance rose from somewhere.

He said, "I can give it a try."

"In that case, give it a go. It's quite fun."

To Yi Zhe, the coincidental encounter today was just an interlude. Saying that he would join the student council was also only because he had somehow detected a hint of hostility and had spoken in anger. But he never thought that he would really end up being recruited into the student council.

On the day the societies recruited new members, the campus streets were thronged with people. There was on average one person stopping him every two steps to promote their society to him as he walked back from the cafeteria. In the chaotic environment, the people approaching him were so enthusiastic that they were shouting in his ear. The most over-the-top incident was when he was surrounded by a few senior sisters from the Animation and Comics Club and asked whether he had any interest in cosplay. Standing in the middle, Yi Zhe didn't feel like he could push his way forward and there was no way out behind him either. He stood there stiffly, not daring to move.

"Hey, hey, hey." A girl's voice came from behind him. She squeezed to stand beside Yi Zhe, clutched his arm and dragged him out. "Lao-Liu, don't snatch our people. He's ours."

It was the girl who had sat at the table that day during the welcoming for new students.

Yi Zhe was dragged by her towards the shade of an umbrella. Before he could say anything, he was given a sudden light push.

"I rescued him for you."

He withdrew his gaze from his arm that was being pulled and looked up, and unexpectedly saw a sight he couldn't be anymore familiar with. There was a hint of teasing in Xu Tangcheng's smile. "You're quite popular."

The girl deftly slapped a form down in front of him. "Come. Yi Zhe, right? Welcome to the student council's literature and arts division. Fill in the form and leave your contact details, we will let you know when the interview is."

"Sports and culture are inseparable." At some point, a guy with a crew cut had come to stand beside him too and slapped another form down on the table. "Why go to the literature and arts division? Just look at how tall you are. You should come to the sports division. Our sports division is filled with strong guys."

"Drop it, you. Let me tell you, don't listen to him. The sports division means physical labour, menial work."

"Psh! The literature and arts division does odd jobs."

As they continued talking, the crew cut guy and the straight hair girl began arguing in jest.

Looking at the two forms in front of him, Yi Zhe took the chance while the two quarrelling people were not paying attention to give Xu Tangcheng a questioning look. Xu Tangcheng understood his look and stealthily jutted his chin at the literature and arts division's form.

And so, Yi Zhe quietly took the pen and filled in that form.