My everyday life and yours

Chen Zhu decided to ask Yu Xian. Now she was a genuinely gorgeous, sexy, 170-centimeter-tall high school girl.

As for Yuanyuan, he wasn't planning to bring her into this for now.

He had even worked out the scene:

To find out what happened next, visit Si[Tu] Read[ing].

One morning, after he, Bian Xiaoliu, and Ji Haixing finished their driving practice, they would be chatting under the shade canopy.

Suddenly, Yu Xian would walk in from outside.

Right, he had to remember to tell her to wear crystal high heels. That was the key point.

With her perfect figure and those heels, every step would make her seem to sway in the scorching breeze.

That ought to make Xiaoliu face the gap between them, and let Haixing understand why Sichuan-Chongqing had been famous for beautiful women since ancient times.

At that point, he absolutely had to keep a straight face, as if this were nothing special, as if he had long since gotten tired of looking at her. Ideally, he would even frown and say with a hint of impatience, "What are you doing here?"

That would give him all the swagger he needed.

"But..."

Chen Zhu suddenly felt a little uncertain. With Yu Xian's temper, what if she widened her almond-shaped eyes and blurted out, "Didn't you tell me to come?"

Wouldn't everyone realize he had staged the whole thing?

Forget it. If they figured it out, so be it. This wasn't Pokémon, where he could summon her whenever he wanted.

In real life, having a beauty on Yu Xian's level occasionally help him look good was impressive enough.

So after driving practice, Chen Zhu ate lunch and went to the convenience store in Shangxiajiu.

But the manager told him Yu Xian had gone back to her hometown for summer vacation. She wouldn't return to Yuecheng until shortly before the Gaokao results came out on the twenty-eighth.

"She went home?"

Chen Zhu immediately felt a little disappointed.

It wasn't really because he had failed to find backup. More importantly, why did it feel as though the moment school let out, the two of them no longer had anything to do with each other?

Chen Zhu pushed open the door and left the convenience store. Outside, the sun blazed brightly, yet the sky was a cold, metallic white. The sunlight cut into his skin like a knife, leaving him inexplicably irritable.

Big Huang was probably still gaming with a condom on at this hour. Chen Zhu didn't feel like going to 3play either, so he simply went home to get online.

There was a computer at Chen Zhu's house, an old one retired from his dad's workplace.

It had reached the end of its service life and was about to be scrapped. The management thought that would be a waste, so employees with children at home were allowed to take the computers back with them.

Its specs were so poor that it couldn't run games at all. While Chen Zhu had been studying, Empress Dowager Mao had even canceled their home internet.

Now that the Gaokao was over, Mao Xiaoqin had renewed the internet subscription herself.

After getting home, Chen Zhu went into the study and switched on the computer. Following a painfully long startup, a whole pile of useless programs popped up.

Expressionlessly, he closed them one by one, leaving only TTPlayer and the web browser open. He listened to Jay Chou's songs while reading the news on Sohu.

As he listened, he suddenly felt something was off. What song was this?

No matter how I mend the broken string;

You can no longer hear how I feel.

The way you've changed is like a broken string;

However I reconnect it, the sound is wrong.

It was Jay Chou's 2003 song, "Broken String."

Surely it couldn't be that much of a coincidence...

Chen Zhu shook his head helplessly. He left it playing and returned to Sohu to keep reading the news.

But less than thirty seconds later, he opened TTPlayer again and switched "Broken String" to "The Roof."

Only when he heard these words through his headphones:

Singing your song on the roof;

On the roof with the one I love.

Let the stars adorn the most romantic night;

Embrace this moment, let every minute and second stand still.

Did Chen Zhu finally nod in satisfaction.

After reading the international and domestic news, Chen Zhu remembered the older student from the Flying Insects Club at SYSU's School of Computer Science.

He had been facing the Gaokao a little while ago, so they had barely exchanged a few words after adding each other on QQ. Now he could finally have a proper chat with her.

Money earned from stocks was quick money, after all. If he truly wanted to ride the tides of the era, he needed more than the right opportunity. He also needed a foundation of technical knowledge.

With SYSU behind him and many of his classmates at South China University of Technology, these two Project 985 universities were natural talent pools. Not making use of them would be an enormous waste.

After logging into the QQ account he had only recently created, Chen Zhu suddenly noticed an avatar flashing with a series of beeps.

Wiggly Fish.

Yu Xian!

Chen Zhu opened the chat window and discovered that Yu Xian had actually sent him several messages.

June 9, 13:14

Wiggly Fish: Director Chen, are you thrilled now that the Gaokao is over?

June 9, 13:16

Wiggly Fish: My great-aunt and her family came over from Sichuan-Chongqing today. I'm going to have lunch with them now, so I won't be at the store all afternoon. Just letting you know.

June 10, 9:31

Wiggly Fish: No reply, so you didn't come looking for me? Great, wonderful. Then I'm heading back to Sichuan-Chongqing.

June 10, 9:32

Wiggly Fish: I'm counting to three. Hurry up and reply!

June 10, 9:33

Wiggly Fish: Honestly, you pig. The moment your exams are over, you start sleeping in. I really am going back to Sichuan-Chongqing with my great-aunt and the others. I'll return to Yuecheng before the results come out.

After reading those messages, Chen Zhu's mood suddenly lifted.

So their connection hadn't been broken after all. She simply had no other way to contact him, so she could only leave messages on QQ.

"The Roof" really is sweeter than "Broken String."

With that thought, Chen Zhu opened the chat window and replied:

June 10, 15:23

Composed: I didn't see your messages, but I went to the convenience store looking for you both yesterday and today.

Chen Zhu's QQ nickname was "Composed," a simple, memorable pun on his name.

After a moment's thought, he added another line.

June 10, 15:23

Composed: I'm counting to three too. Hurry up and reply!

After sending those messages, Chen Zhu figured that if Yu Xian was on a train, she probably wouldn't see them anytime soon.

So he chatted with the older student from SYSU instead. She happened to be online too. Computer science students probably spent an awful lot of time online.

The student, whose name was He Yu, was actually quite nice. After hearing that Chen Zhu would most likely get into SYSU's Lingnan College, she quickly began treating him as one of their own.

While venting her frustrations, she told Chen Zhu why the Flying Insects Club had disbanded.

Ultimately, it came down to one thing:

Everyone had too many ideas of their own, and since the club was an organization formed purely around shared interests, nobody felt any need to compromise with anyone else.

He Yu was only a student about to enter her third year. She had no way to placate everyone individually. In the end, she became upset and lost her temper too, so she simply disbanded it.

Chen Zhu thought that was easy enough to solve. If nobody wanted to compromise, then tie them together through shared interests. Money, status, connections, even promises of a rosy future would work...

The point was to give everyone something to look forward to and motivate them to get things done.

But even if Chen Zhu told He Yu all this, she probably wouldn't know how to put it into practice. He would have to wait until he started university and handle it himself.

Chen Zhu browsed the internet for a while longer, and soon Mao Xiaoqin came home to cook.

The second day after the Gaokao passed without a ripple.

Before bed, Chen Zhu checked QQ again. Wiggly Fish's avatar was still gray. She might well have fallen asleep on the train.

The next morning, Chen Zhu went to driving practice again.

Bian Xiaoliu was no longer as enthusiastic as she had been when they first met yesterday. After all, she knew he was just a student headed for the second-tier Guangdong University of Finance. Aside from looking much better than he had in middle school after his haircut, he didn't seem to have much else going for him.

He wasn't sure why-perhaps it was because he had seen the QQ messages Yu Xian had left him-but suddenly, dragging her over to put them in their place felt a little unfair to Sis Cos.

Besides, Chen Zhu rather liked interacting with them this way, exchanging a few casual words now and then to relieve the boredom of driving practice.

After returning home, Chen Zhu was eating fish for lunch when he suddenly thought of Wiggly Fish. He went into the study and opened QQ. Sure enough, Yu Xian had replied.

June 11, 9:50

Wiggly Fish: Nearly twenty hours on the train. I'm exhausted.

June 11, 9:51

Wiggly Fish: Chen Zhu, the clouds here are so pretty. I really want to take a picture for you, haha~

Chen Zhu smiled and replied:

June 11, 12:49

Composed: I went to driving practice this morning and had fish for lunch )))<<.

And so Chen Zhu and Yu Xian began chatting from afar.

Their days were ordinary and repetitive, but fortunately, there were so many little things that they could always share a few scattered fragments of everyday life.

June 12, 10:01

Wiggly Fish: I couldn't sleep last night. I'm so sleepy today.

June 12, 12:31

Composed: Then go back and catch up on your sleep.

June 14, 9:48

Wiggly Fish: I'm going hiking this afternoon. It's so beautiful.

June 14, 11:59

Composed: I overslept this morning. Driving practice this afternoon.

June 16, 10:03

Wiggly Fish: We're visiting relatives today. I'm going to eat ten Ye'erba.

June 16, 12:01

Composed: What are those? Bring a few back if they're good.

As they kept chatting, however, Chen Zhu suddenly noticed that Yu Xian seemed to reply every day between 9:40 and 10:15 in the morning, so he asked why.

June 17, 8:03

Composed: Morning, I'm up. Why do you always reply around ten?

June 17, 9:51

Wiggly Fish: You're so dumb. That's when we did our morning exercises at school. Replying to you then feels like saying hello to you during the exercise break.

When Chen Zhu returned from driving practice that morning, he stared at that message in silence for a long time, then asked another question.

June 18, 13:07

Composed: How are you getting online?

June 19, 9:59

Wiggly Fish: I go to an internet café. There's no computer at home. It's raining here today [sad face], and my trouser cuffs got soaked.

June 19, 12:44

Composed: You go to an internet café just to reply to my messages?

June 20, 9:42

Wiggly Fish: What else would I go for? I don't like gaming. Chen Zhu, listen, I cooked a meal yesterday, and everyone said it was delicious.

During this period, aside from learning to drive, Chen Zhu sometimes went out with Huang Bohan, occasionally inviting Wang Changhua and Zhao Yuanyuan along. They just no longer met at the convenience store.

He didn't contact anyone else from their class, since he had no way to reach them either.

But as June 28, the day the results would be released, drew closer, everyone grew anxious again. Even Big Huang lost interest in gaming, worried that he hadn't done well.

Chen Zhu kept chatting with Yu Xian, until:

June 26, 9:42

Wiggly Fish: Chen Zhu, I'm coming back tomorrow, haha. I even brought some local specialties for you and your parents.

June 26, 11:58

Composed: Okay, I'll come pick you up!

Then Chen Zhu walked out of the study and said bluntly to Empress Dowager Mao, "Mom! Give me some money. I'm buying a phone!"

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(End of chapter)