Chapter 9: The dorm leader
When French Paulownia leaves carpeted the lawns outside the university's European-style buildings.
Walking along a quiet path with his hands in the back pockets of his shorts, Qian Zhongyuan turned to the friends behind him and flashed a neat set of big white teeth. "Who gives a damn about some lecturer who just stayed on after graduation? He thought he could take us on? We left him eating our dust."
The others thought Qian Zhongyuan's big white teeth looked somewhat at odds with his appearance, but none of them cared about that now. They stood beneath the shedding trees, watching sunlight find its way through the gaps.
The campus, dotted everywhere with buildings blending Chinese and European styles, suddenly seemed filled with boundless vitality. Standing quietly in that brilliant green light, they felt a surge of pride and grinned in unison, baring white teeth.
"Exactly. So many people were watching. We really made a name for ourselves this time."
For the first time in his life, whether before or after his rebirth, Su Can sat through a freshman orientation address under so many watchful eyes.
Down below, the head of the Department of Public Economics, who also served as deputy dean of the Freshman College, was delivering the orientation lecture. His aged, faraway voice expressed his hopes and expectations for all the students at the start of the new academic year: he hoped that today they would take pride in Nanjing University, and tomorrow Nanjing University would take pride in them.
But the address could clearly no longer hold everyone's attention. The only thing people were really discussing was that freshman.
Tang Wu felt rather as though she were sitting on pins and needles, and the people around her were certainly in no state to