A date

"Pretend to be my boyfriend?"

Wei Zijin had spoken so softly that Wang Xiaoliang thought he had misheard her and instinctively repeated her words.

His brain stalled for a moment. What was this? Some new drink bundle deal? Buy a coffee, get a boyfriend trial pass?

Wei Zijin did not answer. She simply nodded calmly, confirming that he had heard correctly.

"Have you been watching too many TV dramas?" Wang Xiaoliang finally recovered his train of thought and could not help making a jab.

He glanced at the laptop beside her. Its screen was lit, showing an old-fashioned setting where several men and women in lavish costumes were tugging at one another. Sure enough, it was one of those trendy historical romance dramas.

Wasn't this whole "contract couple" thing a worn-out romance drama trope?

Wei Zijin seemed completely unconcerned by his comment. She did not even twitch an eyebrow.

"I'm asking you for help. You can either help or not," she said, her voice as flat and unreadable as ever. "I didn't ask you to analyze my reasons."

Her blunt response left Wang Xiaoliang momentarily at a loss for words.

Just then, someone sat down in the empty seat beside him.

The library was not a suitable place for conversation.

Especially not a conversation about pretending to be a couple.

Wei Zijin clearly realized this too. She pulled a blank sheet of scratch paper from beside her laptop, laid her pen on it, and pushed it toward Wang Xiaoliang.

Wang Xiaoliang picked up the pen and wrote a brief question.

"Why?"

Wei Zijin took the paper and pen back and wrote a line beneath it.

"I don't know why I don't have a boyfriend either."

Wang Xiaoliang wanted to laugh when he read that, but the setting hardly seemed appropriate. Her answer was surprisingly honest.

Before he could react, Wei Zijin began writing again, her pen moving swiftly. This time, she wrote quite a bit. She closed her laptop and spread the entire sheet out on the table.

"There are four girls in our dorm room. On the first night of freshman year, we went out for dinner, had a little to drink, and made a promise."

"At our final farewell dinner before graduation, everyone would bring her boyfriend."

"It was meant to give the occasion a sense of ceremony, and to mark our romantic lives over those four years of college."

Wang Xiaoliang read every word carefully, gradually piecing together what had happened. A promise like that between girls sounded a little childish, but to the people involved, it probably felt incredibly important.

Wei Zijin continued writing.

"Until yesterday, I had no idea those three girls had all secretly found boyfriends. I'm the only one left."

"For the past two days, they've been excitedly discussing what to wear and where to take their boyfriends to get their hair done."

"Then they asked me, 'Zijin, what about yours? Is everything ready?'"

"What could I say? I couldn't tell them I didn't have one, could I? It would have been so embarrassing."

"I got carried away in the moment and said it was no problem."

Wang Xiaoliang could almost picture the scene. The campus beauty everyone admired had discovered, in front of her roommates, that she was the only single one left. To save face, she had gritted her teeth and pretended she had someone too.

The contrast was rather cute.

Wei Zijin's pen paused over the paper before she wrote a few final lines.

"My thesis defense is tomorrow. Once it's over, I'll officially be a graduate. Our dinner is the evening after that."

"There's too little time, so I can only find someone to pretend. I hope you'll help me with this."

Her handwriting was elegant and firm, but her words carried a hint of embarrassment and helplessness. Even the seemingly unapproachable campus beauty had troubles of her own.

Wang Xiaoliang picked up the pen and wrote down his question.

"Why me? You're so famous on campus. If you wanted some handsome guy to play your boyfriend, wouldn't a whole crowd line up at the crook of your finger? What made you think of me?"

Wei Zijin seemed to have anticipated this question.

Without the slightest hesitation, she quickly wrote her reply.

"Because you have good character, and you're kind."

"You won't brag about this to everyone, or use it to expose me and embarrass me."

"Most importantly, you won't cling to me afterward."

Wang Xiaoliang found these reasons rather absurd.

Good character? Kind? Won't cling to her?

What a vicious insult.

He picked up the pen and wrote again.

"We've only known each other a few days, and you already know me that well? What makes you so sure I won't?"

This time, Wei Zijin did not write anything.

She picked up her phone, unlocked it, tapped a few times, and lowered the volume until it was barely audible before sliding it toward Wang Xiaoliang.

Puzzled, Wang Xiaoliang picked it up.

A video was playing on the screen.

The footage was shaky, with noisy sounds in the background. In the center of the frame, a girl lay on the ground, blood streaming from her head. A young man knelt on one knee beside her.

The young man had taken off his shirt. Bare-chested, he pressed his white T-shirt firmly against the girl's wound while shouting to the people around him.

"Give her some room! When the ambulance gets here, tell them we're over here!"

The young man in the video was Wang Xiaoliang himself.

He had not expected anyone to have filmed what happened, let alone posted it online.

Even less had he expected Wei Zijin to see it and, because of that... give him the "nice guy" label.

He pushed the phone back, picked up the pen, and firmly wrote a single word on the paper.

"When?"

Then he added another.

"Where?"

When Wei Zijin saw what he had written, the corners of her tightly pressed lips finally seemed to lift in the faintest hint of a smile.

She picked up the pen again and wrote carefully.

"Hongbin Tower."

"The Peach and Plum Fragrance Private Room."

"The day after tomorrow, Saturday, at five in the afternoon."

After finishing, she added another sentence.

"Could you wait for me downstairs at Girls' Dormitory No. 3 at four forty that afternoon?"

He did not write down those concerns, replying instead with a simple, decisive answer.

"No problem."

And just like that, it was settled.

Wang Xiaoliang took back the sheet covered in writing, folded it, and tucked it into his pocket. He stood, picked up his backpack, which still held a few bottles of drinks, and put Wei Zijin's empty coffee bottle inside as well.

"I'll get going, then," he said quietly before turning and leaving the social sciences section.

When he stepped out of the library, the afternoon sunlight was rather dazzling.

But Wang Xiaoliang's spirits burned even brighter.

Pretending to be the campus beauty's boyfriend, going to a fancy hotel for a lavish meal.

Something that only happened in novels and TV dramas was actually happening to him.

He looked down at his old T-shirt and faded jeans, and an unprecedented sense of urgency welled up inside him.

He couldn't go dressed like this.

Absolutely not.

With almost no hesitation, he changed course instead of returning to his dorm and headed for the shopping street outside campus.

The shopping street bustled with people, its storefronts filled with all kinds of brands. Wang Xiaoliang walked straight past the lavishly decorated, expensive streetwear shops without even pausing at their doors.

His goal was clear: find the best value for his money.

Outside an impressive menswear store, he noticed a casual shirt on a mannequin priced at 899 yuan. He silently calculated how many bottles of drinks he would have to sell to earn that amount, then decisively turned away.

It was too expensive. He would have to sell hundreds of bottles just to buy one shirt.

Finally, he stopped in front of a store with a huge red discount banner.

ERKE.

"Twenty percent off one item, thirty percent off two, forty percent off three! All clothing included!"

A speaker by the entrance played the promotion on a loop, giving the place an unpretentious but enthusiastic atmosphere.

Wang Xiaoliang went inside.

The store was fairly crowded, mostly with students much like him. He soon threw himself into picking out clothes. He had little sense of style and only one criterion: they had to look clean and presentable, neither too student-like nor too old-fashioned.

He chose a plain white short-sleeved T-shirt and a pair of khaki casual pants. Then he spotted a pair of white canvas shoes that looked decent and decided to get those too.

With the forty percent discount, the three items cost him a total of 588 yuan.

Over the next two days, Wang Xiaoliang was somewhat distracted.

While delivering drinks to the dorm buildings and the library, he kept rehearsing in his mind what might happen at the upcoming dinner.

How should he greet her roommates?

What questions would they ask?

How should he answer? Plans after graduation? Say he was still looking for work? Family background? Say he came from an ordinary family.

He even searched online for "things to keep in mind when meeting your girlfriend's roommates for the first time" and read the most upvoted answers several times.

Amid a mix of anticipation and worry, the appointed day finally arrived.

Wang Xiaoliang made a point of returning to his dorm early and taking a thorough shower.

He put on the complete outfit and shoes he had bought two days earlier, then stood in front of the mirror, checking himself over again and again.

The young man in the mirror looked clean and fresh. Though he was not particularly handsome, he looked neat and sharp.

He nodded in satisfaction, feeling a little more confident.

He checked the time. Four fifteen.

He picked up his phone and left the dorm.

At four twenty that afternoon, Wang Xiaoliang arrived punctually downstairs at Girls' Dormitory No. 3.

Girls came and went around the building. The few guys waiting for their girlfriends soon paired off with them, lingering affectionately together. He alone stood by himself beneath a large tree, looking somewhat out of place.

He forced himself to act casual, looking at the sky one moment and kicking a pebble the next, but his eyes kept drifting involuntarily toward the dorm entrance.

Time ticked by.

It was four thirty.

Wei Zijin still had not come down.

He took out his phone and opened the WeChat conversation they had barely used. After a moment's hesitation, he sent her a message.

"I'm here, downstairs."

After sending it, he slipped his phone back into his pocket and continued waiting, pretending nothing was wrong.

One minute.

Two minutes.

Five minutes.

His phone remained silent, without any reply.

Unease began to creep into his heart.

Maybe... her thesis defense had run late, and she was still busy? Or maybe she was putting on makeup. Girls always took ages to get ready.

That was how he reassured himself.

Another five minutes passed.

It was four forty.

This was the time they had agreed on.

People kept coming and going through the dorm entrance. He even spotted a few familiar girls from his department, who gave him curious looks.

Wang Xiaoliang felt his cheeks begin to burn.

He took out his phone again. The screen still showed that lonely conversation, with nothing beneath the message he had sent.

He sent another one.

"Are you ready? It's already four forty."

This time, instead of putting his phone back in his pocket, he gripped it tightly and stared fixedly at the screen.

The second hand ticked silently at the top of the screen. Each movement felt like a tiny hammer striking his heart.

A tremendous wave of anxiety and humiliation suddenly surged up from deep inside him.

Had this campus beauty, famous throughout the university... really been making a fool of him?

Maybe it had been a prank from the start. She and her roommates had made a bet about whether they could pick some honest guy at random and get him to dress up in new clothes, then stand downstairs like an idiot waiting for nothing.

Once that thought appeared, he could no longer suppress it. It spread wildly through his mind.