DBTHDCAR Chapter 82

Ning Xiaobei felt he had picked the wrong major.

Mechanical Automation was a completely different beast compared to the International Finance program he had studied before. He felt like he was still stuck in high school continuing fourth year. Every day was packed with eight full periods, not a single break, and once back in the dorm, he had to work hard reviewing and previewing lessons, or he would completely fall behind.

Any notion of a relaxed, carefree college life? Totally nonexistent.

In the real world, to ease Ning Jianguo’s financial pressure, he had basically started working while studying almost immediately after receiving his university acceptance letters.

KFC, McDonald’s, Pizza Hut, bubble tea shops, tutoring middle and high school students—he spent nearly every spare minute earning money. At his peak, he was working three jobs in a single day. Ning Jianguo had even worried that all these part-time jobs might affect his studies.

After getting into J University, Ning Xiaobei had originally planned to work weekends tutoring kids for some pocket money. But it wasn’t that he lacked the cash now, he just wanted to have something to do. Soon he realized he’d overestimated his free time; there simply wasn’t any.

Entering J University, Ning Xiaobei truly understood what it meant to be surrounded by talent. Faced with such smart peers, even with his experiences from two lives, he could barely aim for an above-average grade. There was absolutely no room to slack off.

“The Third Brother is back.”

After showering and returning to the dorm, he found two of his roommates sitting at their desks reading.

“Huh, aren’t you guys going to shower?”

“Too crowded right now. We’ll go later when it’s quieter.”

Ning Xiaobei put away his toiletries, towel-drying his hair as he walked over to his bed.

The new student dorm at J University housed four per room, all from the same class and major. Unlike their high school dorm, here everyone slept on the upper bunk while the desk and books occupied the lower space. By the entrance, there were four stacked cabinets serving as wardrobes, keeping things separate and private.

He’d heard graduate student dorms were even nicer—one room plus a living area, with a private bathroom and toilet—but Ning Xiaobei had never visited and silently longed for it.

The two roommates in the room were also locals from Shanghai; the other person, absent for now, was from Nanjing.

By birthdate, Ning Xiaobei was the third oldest, and the Nanjing student, Liang Wei, was the eldest. Not only older, Liang Wei carried an air of pride, always insisting that local Shanghai students only got in thanks to favorable location and policy advantages, and that their low scores couldn’t compare to the tougher cut-off marks of Jiangsu Province.

Naturally, the four quickly formed little cliques in the dorm. Liang Wei, aware that he wasn’t particularly likable, usually kept to himself after class and stayed in his own world. On top of that, he had gotten a girlfriend not long after military training, which, in the eyes of the other two bachelors, made him even more annoying.

“Third Brother, isn’t it Thursday today? Isn’t your little dark-skinned buddy coming to hang out with you?”

Fan Xia had no classes on Thursday afternoons this semester, so he often came over to J University to find Ning Xiaobei. J University and H University were both in the same university district, just a half-hour bike ride apart. Sometimes, if Fan Xia had no classes in the morning, he would even come over for lunch.

From the start of the semester until now, Fan Xia’s comings and goings had become so frequent that even the dorm supervisors downstairs knew him. One of the supervisors joked that if you didn’t know better, you’d think this was a girls’ dorm, and that the little dark-skinned guy was here to visit his girlfriend.

Not funny.

“Hmm, looks like he was pulled into some club activity.”

With his hair almost dry, Ning Xiaobei opened his textbook to review.

“Oh, I thought the little dark guy had a girlfriend too. Last time outside campus, a bunch of girls were around him; some from the Normal University, a few were really pretty.”

“Probably met at the freshman dance.”

The three of them joked for a bit, then gradually fell silent.

Overall, the dorm had a pretty strong study atmosphere. The two who had decided since their freshman year to aim for graduate school at this university made Ning Xiaobei feel like a bit of an underachiever by comparison.

He put on his headphones, flipping through his book and spinning a pen between his fingers. His pen-spinning skills had long since been surpassed by Fan Xia—he wasn’t even half as good.

Back then, it was precisely this trick that had tamed that little troublemaker.

Watching row after row of neatly printed text lying stiffly on the pale, smooth pages, Ning Xiaobei inexplicably felt restless.

Out of consideration for the other two still deep in study, he gently put down the pen and drifted into thought.

Fan Xia really was becoming harder and harder to understand.

That day on the train to Beijing, Ning Xiaobei had heard it clearly: Fan Xia said he liked him.

He had been genuinely shocked at the time, and it had taken all the thick-skinned salesmanship he’d honed over the years just to keep calm when he returned to the compartment, chatting with the two elders about Beijing’s various scenic spots and must-try snacks.

After making such an earth-shattering confession to his own uncle, Fan Xia behaved on the trip exactly as usual. Same enthusiasm, same goofing around, and on the Great Wall, he even boldly approached and chatted up foreign girls—completely different from the scared little coward who froze at the sight of foreigners back on Xiangyang Road.

Could he have misheard?

But then again, in high school, Fan Xia had spent plenty of time ogling those provocative pin-up posters in the next-door dorm, especially the blonde women with big chests. In the real world, he’d also gone on a few arranged dates and even had a half-serious relationship with Chang Leyun.

So Ning Xiaobei never doubted his orientation. Fan Xia was safe. He was a brother.

His phone on the desk lit up; a message from Fan Xia:

—⟦ Sorry about today, just finished up club stuff. Tomorrow, same time, we head home together. ⟧

Ning Xiaobei put the phone down.

He didn’t reply.

After returning from Beijing, the four kids went to their respective universities, attended military training, and waited for classes to start.

Within the first month, Ding Zheyang and Chang Leyun, far away in Chengdu, would still occasionally chat with them in the school group chat, exchanging messages back and forth. Once everyone got busy, contact became limited to weekend check-ins at home.

Kids naturally assume that being together is a given; only when they grow up do they realize that separation is the norm. They hadn’t graduated yet, hadn’t started work, and were already slowly drifting apart.

During this time, Fan Xia made no overstepping moves. He even joked that J University had fewer girls than their H University, befitting Shanghai’s famous male technical college. He boasted about his Michael Jackson-style dance at the freshman ball, which attracted a crowd of girls and made his reputation spread to the neighboring Normal University and the Foreign Languages University, taking the university district by storm. He was, in every sense, the campus heartthrob.

If a guy like this were gay, Ning Xiaobei really couldn’t imagine what a straight man would even look like.

His phone buzzed again. This time it wasn’t a message; Fan Xia was calling directly.

The Nokia ringtone rang so loudly that both roommates shot him irritated looks. Ning Xiaobei walked into the hallway to answer.

“Just got out of the shower, only just saw it.”

He leaned on the railing and looked down.

The boys’ dorm below was cold and quiet, unlike the nearby girls’ dorm, where windows glowed warmly. Down here, each boy stared up at the lights above, a candle-like line of eyes straining toward the floors.

“Mm, I’ll wait for you at the station tomorrow. You don’t need to come out early, just meet me there. Bye.”

After hanging up, Ning Xiaobei rested his head on his arm. He felt like his life was entirely occupied by Fan Xia. Conversely, Fan Xia’s free time seemed almost entirely devoted to him, which didn’t feel right.

Fan Xia was just too used to his presence; they had been inseparable for six or seven years. He must be mistaking habit for affection and simply couldn’t break it yet.

Fan Xia was still young and naïve. Ning Xiaobei, a man in his thirties, couldn’t just watch him wander down the wrong path.

Fan Xia should be down at the girls’ dorm, not here.

A thought suddenly popped into his mind.

Should he help Fan Xia find a girlfriend?

………………

Finding someone a romantic partner, of course, wasn’t easy. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be the whole matchmaking business, especially in the Excavator (Mechanical Automation) program at Shanghai’s well-known male vocational technical college.

But every era has its enthusiastic helpers, like the tall and slim Tang Xin in front of him. Wearing framed glasses and seemingly unremarkable, she was actually famous in her class. Perhaps a reincarnated matchmaker, she was keen on organizing social events and especially loved pairing girls from her own department with boys from other schools. By the start of the semester, she’d already arranged two events and successfully matched three couples—quite efficient.

This diverting resources to outsiders naturally upset the boys at their school. J University already had too few girls, and now someone was poaching them?

But her reasoning was solid: looking across the university district, the boys at H University were handsome and charming, the Normal University boys gentle and romantic, and the Foreign Languages University boys even spoke in foreign languages when flirting. Only J University’s boys all wore glasses, and dating them was like dating air; completely unexciting. Her efforts were, in her words, helping others and myself, opening a new world for J University girls. If anyone objected, they could find their own girls. She wouldn’t give out her contacts.

It was strange; someone with that much talent, why did she end up studying physics? She should’ve been collecting scholarships in the Liberal Arts Department.

“Ah, I know you, Ning Xiaobei.”

Friday’s last class was Marxist philosophy, held in a large lecture hall with several classes together. As soon as it ended, Ning Xiaobei walked up to Tang Xin. When she turned around and saw him, her face lit up with a big smile.

“You know me?”

Ning Xiaobei pointed to himself, thinking, aren’t we in different classes?

“In our department, I know all the good-looking boys. Come on, give me your number.”

Tang Xin handed her phone to Ning Xiaobei, who sighed with a smile and typed in his number.

“Yes!”

Tang Xin pumped her tiny fists in delight.

“So, tell me, what do you need me for?”

They walked out of the classroom together, drawing curious glances from several girls.

Although Ning Xiaobei didn’t have the same fame at J University as he did in middle and high school, good-looking boys always drew attention and plenty of girls were curious about him.

After Ning Xiaobei explained his purpose, Tang Xin patted her chest confidently.

“No problem, leave it to me. The darkest-skinned guy among the H University freshmen, right? He got a good build and good temper. If you need help, just call and he’ll come right away. Some girls in our class even asked me about him, and now here you are, I finally tracked him down after all that searching.”

Hearing that some girls had been interested in Fan Xia all along, Ning Xiaobei felt a strange pang of frustration.

It was baffling. He was supposed to be helping Fan Xia find a girlfriend, so he should be happy.

By the time Ning Xiaobei had finished up with Tang Xin and packed the clothes he wanted to take home, he arrived at the station to find Fan Xia had been waiting for a long time.

Freed from the constraints of his high school uniform, he wore a white printed T-shirt, gray sweatpants, the latest Adidas sneakers, and a pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses, standing out like a crane among chickens in the crowd of waiting students.

All the short, chubby, acne-faced, prematurely balding, and otherwise unimpressive guys, whose presence made you wonder how they even got into university, faded into the background. Truly, comparison is the thief of joy.

“Boss!”

Seeing Ning Xiaobei, Fan Xia waved his arms energetically.

“Why so long? Several buses have already gone. If we get home late, Uncle Ning is definitely going to scold you.”

Fan Xia knew Xiaobei’s class schedule better than his own. The last class had already ended. What had held boss up?

Ning Xiaobei was about to answer when the shuttle bus arrived, and they had no choice but to get on.

Fan Xia adjusted his backpack straps and casually leaned a little closer to Ning Xiaobei. The shuttle to the nearest metro station was packed with students from the university town. The mixture of male sweat and female perfume made the air thick and a little oppressive.

Using his height and broad shoulders, Fan Xia created a small protective circle behind Ning Xiaobei.

He knew Xiaobei had a cleanliness obsession, didn’t like being too close to others, especially in hot weather when skin was sticky with sweat. Being pressed against random arms and backs would drive him crazy.

But apparently, he didn’t count himself as someone else.

By the time of the senior-year physical exam, Ning Xiaobei had finally hit 1.8 meters, and over the summer he had trained a little with Fan Xia to build some muscle. But he hated sweating profusely and had stopped by the start of the semester. Fan Xia thought it was a pity, but now he could see that the effort had paid off a little.

Fan Xia’s chest pressed lightly against Xiaobei’s back as he looked down. Xiaobei wore a short-sleeved checkered shirt with the collar slightly open. At Fan Xia’s height, he could see the ivory-colored, finely textured skin and the slightly lean but not scrawny chest muscles underneath. The rest was hidden by the intersecting blue and red check pattern.

It was strange, the military training hadn’t been long ago. He remembered that Xiaobei had been tanned then; how did he manage to turn so pale so quickly? Had he secretly rubbed something on his skin?

There was a boy in the next room over in Fan Xia’s dorm, who apparently had a line of cosmetics on his desk longer than any girl’s collection. Even so, that boy wasn’t as pale as Xiaobei and he had acne on his face.

“Boss, where did you go after school…”

He grabbed the hand strap dangling from the overhead bar, leaned in slightly, and whispered into his ear.

But Ning Xiaobei had turned his face, staring toward the back of the bus.

Following his gaze, he saw a girl, a beautiful girl.

She wore a knee-length blue skirt with a matching short-sleeved blouse, one hand gripping the back of the seat in front, a shoulder bag slung across her chest. Even from the side, it was clear she had long hair down to her waist and delicate features. Yet her brows were tightly furrowed, lips pressed together, as if enduring something, her shoulders trembling slightly.

“Grab the pervert!”

Realizing what had happened, Fan Xia didn’t hesitate and lunged forward.

……………… 

Author’s Note:

See Ning Xiaobei’s outrageous scheme: I’m trying to find a girlfriend for my childhood friend, and I’m just frustrating myself in the process.

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