Chapter 15: Record of Moving to the City in the 90s 15

Military training was grueling, but not so bad that it was impossible to endure.

Everything else was manageable, but for Su Huandan, the hardest part of military training wasn’t the hardship or exhaustion. It was when their instructor made the boys and girls split into two formations and stand at attention facing each other.

Su Huandan just happened to be in the front row, and there was a fat boy in the front row opposite her who was so funny-looking it was unbearable.

His skin was so fair he looked like a snowball, and his peach blossom eyes were bright and lively. Aside from being a little overweight, his face shape, eyes, brows, nose, and ears were all delicately handsome. The only flaw was his huge buck teeth, which looked even more ridiculous than her dad Su Dakui’s protruding teeth.

The fat boy loved to smile, and every time he bared that set of huge buck teeth, you couldn’t spot a single straight one among them. They were all crooked and twisted. Didn’t anyone remind this kid about his teeth when he was little?

Every time she saw the fat boy across from her, she had to struggle not to laugh. The instructor called her out by name several times because of it.

The agonizing military training lasted twenty days before finally ending.

Su Huandan majored in English and minored in Russian, and just like that, her freshman life officially began.

What a coincidence, right?

That old Beijinger girl she had run into back at the old dorm building turned out to be in the same class as Su Huandan.

The moment that girl saw Su Huandan, her face darkened.

In the dorm Su Huandan lived in now, two of the girls were her companions. When they saw that girl’s expression, they asked Su Huandan what was going on.

Su Huandan didn’t hide anything. The matter hadn’t been her fault to begin with, so she told her two roommates the whole story.

Unfortunately, that old Beijinger girl happened to be passing by and overheard it. She let out a loud wail and immediately burst into tears.

“Is this never going to end? Back when the dorms were assigned, you picked a fight and moved out. Now I’m unlucky enough to end up in the same class as you, and you’re still picking on me. Su Huandan, are you not going to stop until you’ve driven me to my death? Fine, then I’ll jump off a building right now and die in front of you!”

Crying, making a scene, threatening suicide, where exactly had she learned tricks like these, and why was she using them at school?

“Hey, hey, hey, say the whole thing. What do you mean by only saying half and throwing away the rest? Why did Su Huandan pick a fight with you on the first day of school? Wasn’t it because you wanted to snatch her lower bunk, and then right in front of her parents you said she was a bad person? The first time you met her, you said she had bad character? Does that even make sense? Su Huandan refused to let you bully her like that, so she asked a teacher to switch dorms. Today is the first official day of class. We’ve just been sitting here doing absolutely nothing. So why don’t you tell us exactly how Su Huandan bullied you? Where did you learn this shrewish behavior at such a young age? You’re pretty good at turning the tables, aren’t you? And now you’re using death to threaten people. Then go ahead and jump, instead of just shouting about it.” The one defending Su Huandan was her dormmate Zhang Meijuan.

She was also a native Beijinger, her home around the Houhai area.

The moment she’d heard Su Huandan talk about the bunk-switching incident, she’d already taken a dislike to that old Beijinger girl. Beijingers weren’t like this. Could she stop embarrassing herself and dragging down the reputation of Beijing people?

So when she fired back, she didn’t hold back at all.

The girl was completely stunned speechless. She looked around, and the entire class was watching the drama unfold. Not a single person said a word in her defense. Humiliated and furious, she stamped her foot and ran off.

Zhang Meijuan looked at the girl’s retreating figure with a cold laugh and continued, “Look at that. Just now she was threatening Su Huandan with jumping off a building, so why isn’t she jumping now? She ran away? That just shows everything she said was pure intimidation. She just wanted to pressure Su Huandan, make her too afraid to act, and force her to bow her head. Anyone who gets into university should have a decent brain, so where exactly did this person crawl out from? Pulling this whole song-and-dance act at school, is she putting on a play or what?”

Su Huandan gave Zhang Meijuan a couple of surprised glances. This was a formidable person. With just a few sentences, she’d pinned a label on that girl.

What Su Huandan had done when she switched dorms had basically put that girl on record with the school staff. What Zhang Meijuan had just done had put that girl on record among their classmates too.

That girl was going to have a hard time getting along in this class from now on.

Only after the professor walked in did the girl return. She quietly slipped in through the back door and sat in the last row without speaking to anyone traveling with her.

Of course, no one else particularly wanted to talk to her either.

After finishing the morning classes, Su Huandan felt that as long as she didn’t pile extra work onto herself, the current coursework shouldn’t be difficult for her.

A good memory was truly invaluable in subjects that required rote memorization.

So the question was, should she take on a heavier load and learn a few more foreign languages?

After thinking it over and over, she still couldn’t find the motivation.

In this life, all she wanted was to stay by her parents’ side. She had no other wish.

After graduating from university, she’d find a teaching job near home and teach English. The whole family staying together, that was the thing she longed for most in her heart.

At lunch, she ran into that buck-toothed fat boy again in the cafeteria.

The fat boy’s eyes lit up when he saw Su Huandan. Carrying his lunch tray, he walked over and pushed the soy-braised beef he’d bought in front of her.

“Su Huandan, this is really good. Give it a try.” The fat boy’s action immediately drew laughter from the nearby students who had noticed.

There was no malice in the laughter. It was all good-natured.

Freshly arrived at university, these young men and women had just escaped the crushing pressure of senior year in high school. Now that they were in college, what could be better than falling into a beautiful romance?

But Su Huandan truly had no interest in dating right now, and even if she did, there was no way she’d choose a buck-toothed fat boy.

“I appreciate the thought, but I’ll pass.” It wouldn’t have looked good not to respond at all, so after giving him that one reply, Su Huandan ignored the buck-toothed fat boy and lowered her head to focus on her own meal.

The school cafeteria food was far inferior to the restaurants outside, and compared with home cooking, it lacked the taste of home too.

Su Huandan’s appetite at school was probably never going to improve.

The buck-toothed fat boy wasn’t discouraged by the rejection. He sat across from Su Huandan and ate. In the end, no one touched that plate of soy-braised beef. After Su Huandan finished and left, the fat boy packed it up and took it away.

At noon the next day, the fat boy came again. This time he opened a stainless steel lunch box, revealing steaming hot fish.

“My family just brought this to me. It’s really delicious. Want to try some? It’s Baiyu Mansion’s signature dish.” The buck-toothed fat boy only grew bolder after repeated setbacks. So you won’t eat the soy-braised beef from the school cafeteria, huh? Fine, then I’ll get you a signature dish from a big restaurant.

Su Huandan shot the buck-toothed fat guy a helpless look. “Classmate, I still don’t know your name.”

The buck-toothed fat guy immediately blushed. “My name is Yu Zexiu, a freshman at the International Business School. I know who you are, you’re Su Huandan, the beauty of the English Department. I don’t mean anything else by it, and I’m not a bad guy. I just want to make a friend.”

Before Su Huandan could speak, Zhang Meijuan, who was sitting beside her, let out a snort of laughter. “Make friends first, then turn her into your girlfriend later, right? Classmate Yu, you’ve really got it all planned out. No wonder you’re a student at the business school.”

It was only good-natured teasing, so Yu Zexiu didn’t get angry. He just kept staring at Su Huandan, and the pure, burning look in his eyes made her swallow the words of rejection that had already reached her lips.

At their age, feelings were at their purest.

“Hello, I’m Su Huandan.” Not dating, but making a friend was still fine.