Liu Shuyao got the answer she wanted and was so excited her heart was pounding.
She knew her boyfriend was just being tsundere—cold on the outside but soft on the inside. He still cared about her~
With that, weren’t they about to take their relationship to the next level soon?
Hehe~~
The school beauty was lost in her thoughts, fantasizing about their sweet dates. She couldn’t stop smiling, her lips curling up uncontrollably. She’d already planned more than ten date ideas in her mind.
While sketching, her hand mindlessly doodled on the computer screen, filling up most of the page.
Xiang Ran, flipping through "Storytelling with Data," found it unremarkable and decided to return it. Then, he glanced at Liu Shuyao's screen.
He froze in place...
It was a mess.
An eyesore...
There were mountains and rivers, even!
Wait, what?
In the bottom right corner—is that a bed?
He furrowed his brows, instinctively wanting to intervene but remembered what the fatty had said.
He sighed and cautiously spoke, "What’s the inspiration behind this background you drew?"
“Huh?”
Caught off guard, the school beauty blinked in confusion before looking up at Xiang Ran, explaining, "It's what we discussed before—combining the school anniversary theme with iconic landmarks. Is there something wrong with it?"
Xiang Ran looked at Liu Shuyao’s serious explanation, then back at her drawing.
He felt like he had gone blind...
“Oh, really?”
“You just don’t get it! With your lack of artistic sense, it’s normal you can’t appreciate it,” the fatty chimed in, giving up on reading after two minutes and scrolling through Weibo instead.
Upon hearing Xiang Ran’s words, he immediately defended the school beauty.
Liu Shuyao also found it odd. Couldn’t her boyfriend recognize their own school gate?
But even though she thought this, she still turned around to explain in more detail.
Then,
She saw her rough lines, chaotic composition, and even some... indescribable symbols.
Xiang Ran leaned in closer and noticed a small line of text on the right:
Amusement park, beach camping, Jiuyun Mountain,
and...
XXX hotel?!?!
“This is what you meant by iconic landmarks?”
The fatty, now curious, also leaned over to take a peek.
“What do you know? Let me, someone with artistic talent, take a proper look!”
By this point, Liu Shuyao was so embarrassed she couldn’t lift her head. Her ears turned red like strawberries, and her toes curled into the ground. She wished she could bury her face in her chest.
Suddenly, there was a “snap” sound.
She looked up to see Xiang Ran closing her notebook...
“Hey! Hey! Hey!”
“What are you doing? I wasn’t done looking!”
The fatty whined in protest, but the school beauty quickly caught on and stuffed her laptop into her bag.
Before leaving to return the book, Xiang Ran casually left a remark:
“If you claim to have artistic sense, you should definitely know Picasso’s full name, right?”
The fatty, eager to prove himself, shouted, “Of course I know! Isn’t it that…”
“Wait... full name?”
“Damn! Do you know it?”
“Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno Crispín Crispiniano María Remedios de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz Picasso!”
Even though Xiang Ran didn’t know either, he knew how to wing it.
The school beauty kept her head down, not daring to look at Xiang Ran for the rest of the day.
...
Liu Shuyao rushed back to her dorm.
The first thing she did was search online:
"What’s it like to be caught daydreaming by your boyfriend?"
Zhao Ying and Li Meixun noticed her blushing face and immediately sensed something was up.
They exchanged a glance and snatched her phone.
“Why are you searching this?”
Li Meixun looked at the odd question.
At this point, the school beauty, feeling utterly defeated, showed them her ridiculous drawing.
Zhao Ying glanced at Liu Shuyao and pointed at one of the figures.
“You even drew the body modestly.”
The other one was more direct.
“You’re saying Xiang Ran saw this?”
The school beauty nodded fiercely, her messy hair from burying her head in her pillow making her look extra disheveled.
“And then?”
“And then I ran away in a panic…”
Li Meixun, worldly and experienced, looked at her with exasperation.
“Why did you run?”
“You should’ve just asked him where he wanted to go!”
“Wait, what? You can do that?” Liu Shuyao and Zhao Ying exclaimed in unison.
“Just be direct. Xiang Ran can’t read between the lines.”
“You think he understood it?” Zhao Ying teased.
“He probably did. The drawing was pretty bold...” Li Meixun nodded affirmatively.
Hearing their teasing, Liu Shuyao wanted to crawl into a hole and disappear.
...
Meanwhile, Xiang Ran, on his way back to the dorm, was dragged to the supermarket by the fatty.
Watching the fatty happily toss snacks into the cart without much thought, Xiang Ran stayed quiet, letting him load it up.
“Do you want chips?”
“No.”
“Alright, I’ll get five bags—one for Dong Ge, one for the dorm leader, and one for the school beauty.”
“Do you want dried tofu? Do you think the school beauty likes it?”
The fatty mumbled.
Xiang Ran felt exasperated. “Why do you keep thinking about her? Just buy whatever you want!”
“It’s not that. We’ve been so busy lately, working overtime and all. I thought we could share some snacks.”
The fatty saw nothing wrong with his reasoning.
Xiang Ran stopped talking, watching as the fatty continued loading the cart.
Then, the fatty picked up a carton of coconut milk and started counting the bottles.
Xiang Ran coldly interrupted, “Liu Shuyao is allergic to coconut. She can’t drink it.”
“Huh?” The fatty, who sometimes got confused with the school beauty’s full name, suddenly remembered. “Oh, right, I’ll just drink one extra!”
“But how do you know she’s allergic to coconut?”
That was a good question...
It wasn’t a big deal, but right now, Xiang Ran felt guilty, his mind still preoccupied with the drawing. Without answering the fatty’s question, he headed straight for the checkout counter.
Trailing behind him, the fatty was carrying bags of snacks.
Back in the dorm, Xiang Ran, still troubled, couldn’t concentrate.
Originally, Liu Shuyao had been constantly visiting the Computer Science building, almost becoming a mascot for their dorm room 306, thanks to the cross-department project.
Now, not only were they not growing apart, but she had even drawn… that kind of thing!
Why was it that the school beauty lost her memory, but he was the one suffering?
Their relationship was stuck between moving forward, which felt opportunistic, and staying put, which felt like cold indifference. There was no easy way out!
Xiang Ran, unsettled by the strange drawing, tried to distract himself by reinforcing his security code.
He sped through a lecture on Computability and λ-Definability before opening his unfinished code.
The keyboard clattered beneath his fingers.
import java.util.Sca;
public class Confession {
public static void main(String[] args) {
Scanner scanner = new Scanner(System.in);
System.out.print(—
But he still couldn’t stop thinking: What was Liu Shuyao really planning?
And what kind of hotel was that to make her write it down specifically?
Comments
Post a Comment
We’d Love to Hear from You!
Share your thoughts, feedback, or questions about this posts. Your comments are important to us.