Bei Bei gave Ye Qing a puzzled look, then glanced back at his dormitory key and the number on the door.
"Room 234. That's right!" Bei Bei scratched his head, a smile spreading across his face. "What a coincidence! We actually got assigned to the same room!"
A coincidence?
Not necessarily...
They had both come from the Inner Court, and even the formats of their recommendation letters were practically identical. As long as the person handling the arrangements was that fellow named Li Zhiyi, it was perfectly normal for him to assign them a good room out of consideration for their Inner Court connections.
After all, that guy was quite skilled at tailoring the dish to the diner.
Being assigned to the same room was certainly a coincidence, but it was hardly anything worth being too surprised about.
"Why did you get here so late?" Ye Qing asked.
At the mention of this, Bei Bei's rather refined face suddenly took on an awkward expression that anyone who wasn't blind could see.
He was feeling shy!
Ye Qing's eyes widened slightly. Honestly, even after knowing Bei Bei for so many years, this was the first time he had ever seen that expression on his face.
Ridiculous!
"Why are you looking at me like that?" Faced with Ye Qing's strange expression, Bei Bei's embarrassment turned into irritation.
"What do you think? I saw you fussing over some girl from a mile away. What, has spring stirred in your heart?" Ye Qing shrugged. "You didn't think I missed that, did you? I'm just curious why chatting up a girl took you so long that you only got to the dorm now."
"You... you saw everything?!" Bei Bei blinked, suddenly feeling the embarrassment of having his private thoughts exposed.
To be honest, Bei Bei had no idea why, either. The moment he saw that girl, he had been spellbound, feeling as though every part of her drew him in.
Her delicate weariness from the road, the charm in her every smile and frown, the refreshing fragrance of her hair, and her...
Well, better stop there. Any more and the censorship crab would come crawling in.
In any case, Bei Bei wasn't all that proper himself.
As an adolescent(?) boy, it was perfectly normal for Bei Bei to feel his heart stir at a lovely girl his own age. But Bei, this girl was no easy customer...
Looking at Bei Bei's grinning virgin-boy expression, Ye Qing knew he had already been snared.
By the ultimate SSR edition of the Dragon-Binding Rope, no less.
Still, what did that have to do with Ye Qing? If he went over and told Bei Bei about it now, he might only earn his resentment and make him think Ye Qing had ulterior motives toward Tang Ya and wanted to steal his girlfriend.
Ye Qing couldn't be bothered with such a thankless task.
He and Bei Bei weren't close enough to entrust their lives to each other. Bei Bei could do whatever he pleased.
"As your friend, I wish you happiness." Ye Qing could only reach out and pat his shoulder.
Let go of the urge to save others and enjoy a life of shamelessness!
"I feel like I've found true love, too!" With Ye Qing's encouragement, Bei Bei loosened up considerably and spoke with a face full of longing. "I feel like she's the one destined for me. Every part of her draws me in, every moment of the day!"
Bleeergh~ Ye Qing swallowed, suppressing the churning seas of nausea in his stomach, and spoke against his conscience. "Right, right, absolutely. I trust your judgment!"
"Go ahead and unpack. It's getting late, so I'm going to eat first."
To keep Bei Bei from torturing him any further, Ye Qing greased his soles and made an immediate escape.
People kept calling it the Romance Continent, but Bei Bei's behavior had utterly shattered Ye Qing's notions of romance on the Douluo Continent. What the fuck kind of romance was this? And then there was Huo Yuhao, kept on a dog leash his entire life. Love like that...
Fuck that shit!
"Hey, aren't you waiting for me?" Bei Bei reached out with an Erkang-style hand, only to catch a glimpse of Ye Qing's retreating back.
"Oh well. If he won't wait, he won't wait. I should hurry up and get the room sorted out, too. Maybe I'll run into Xiaoya in the cafeteria later~?" An utterly "happy" smile appeared on Bei Bei's face, and he briskly began unpacking his belongings.
Naturally, he had arrived so late because he had spent the entire day running around helping Tang Ya.
The Tang Sect had only recently been wiped out. Tang Ya was just a young girl, and never mind how she had managed to travel safely from Heaven Dou City to Shrek City. Digging into that would be just as absurd as asking why Xiao Wu had been able to get from the Star Dou Great Forest to Nuoding City unharmed.
In any case, she had reached Shrek City safely and, using the Tang Sect's admission quota, had joined Shrek Academy as a specially invited student without needing a recommendation letter.
Well, that part wasn't really puzzling. Before the Tang Sect was destroyed, Tang Ya's father had handed its sect master's token to her. Otherwise, she wouldn't have called herself the Tang Sect's sect master. Upon seeing that token, Shrek Academy naturally wouldn't turn her away.
However, several days of "hiding" and arduous travel had exhausted what little money Tang Ya had. Amid the crisis that wiped out her sect, she hadn't had time to take much money with her at all.
As a result, after paying the ten Gold Soul Coins required for registration, she was completely penniless.
Bei Bei had spent all that time going back and forth with her over money.
Seeing that Tang Ya had no money, he wanted to help her with his own, while Tang Ya felt she ought to stand on her own two feet and didn't want to accept kindness from a stranger like Bei Bei, even though she, too, felt drawn to this refined, handsome boy.
No, it was precisely because she liked Bei Bei that she was even less willing to use his money. She wanted to maintain her image.
That was why Bei Bei and Tang Ya had spent the entire day going back and forth. In any case, it was just as melodramatic and ridiculous as "The Domineering CEO Fell in Love with Me, a Cleaning Girl."
And yet both of them quite enjoyed interacting this way, giving off the bizarre impression of a turtle eyeing a mung bean and finding its perfect match.
Ye Qing couldn't understand it, but he was profoundly shaken.
Sure enough, he had barely collected his meal and was just about to finish eating in Shrek's one-of-a-kind cafeteria without chairs when he looked up and saw Bei Bei and Tang Ya continuing their back-and-forth on the other side.
Old man, subway, phone.jpg
Can't I even eat in peace?
Across the room, Bei Bei also spotted Ye Qing's indescribable expression and waved at him. "Hey, Ye Qing! Over here!"
In an instant, everyone in the cafeteria turned their eyes toward Ye Qing and Bei Bei's group.
Those two are so handsome!
Damn it, these are formidable foes!
These were the different thoughts that occurred simultaneously to the female and male Soul Masters in the cafeteria.
"Xiaoya, come on, let me introduce you. This is my good friend from childhood, Ye Qing!" Bei Bei eagerly brought Tang Ya over and introduced them. "Ye Qing, this is Tang Ya. She enrolled along with us!"
However, the very first thing Tang Ya said chilled the atmosphere.
"Hello, Ye Qing. Would you be willing to join the Tang Sect?"
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