Translator: 549690339
Bo Yan still remembered that they met about eight and a half years ago. She was a freshman, and he was a senior. After being recommended for graduate school in his senior year, he started to help his mentor with some teaching assistant tasks.
In university classrooms, there’s always that one subject known as an “easy pass,” referred to as “College Aesthetic Education.” It’s the king of elective courses—the ones where you just need to be present when the professor calls attendance, and as long as you don’t hand in a blank paper at the end, you can effortlessly earn a ninety percent. Plus, such classes are in high demand, with many students eager to boost their GPAs, bursting with speed to sign up for them during course selection week.
Coincidentally, Bo Yan’s mentor’s public course was on College Aesthetic Education.
His mentor wasn’t very keen on taking attendance, so throughout the semester, Bo Yan didn’t have much opportunity to use the roster. The number of students attending dwindled visibly as the semester went on. By the time finals were approaching, with the course workload accumulating, even fewer people bothered to show up for such a trivial class. Those who did would just sleep through it, wipe their drool, pat their butts, and leave.
Originally, the lecture hall could accommodate over a hundred people, but only about twenty or so turned up for this session, not even hitting thirty percent. Even his mentor, usually mild-tempered, couldn’t take it anymore and asked Bo Yan to call the roll.
Bo Yan always sat in the first row, a place no one occupied during such public courses—sleeping there, you’d be easily spotted.
But when he stood up to take attendance, all the girls in the class went wild: Wow, that guy is so handsome!
Bo Yan, expression unmoved, went down the list calling names in order. The colleges and names were sorted alphabetically, with the Art College last. So Xia Siyu and Zhou Weiwei were the final two.
When Bo Yan came across the name “Xia Siyu,” he thought she must be a girl. But if she was a girl, how big was her temper? Her surname was Xia, and she even had the name “Siyu,” which pretty much screamed a fiery personality.
Of course, after getting to know her later, Xia Siyu herself admitted that her fate was “pure Yang,” with strong fiery energy. She was born in the summer, surnamed Xia, and the three months prior to her birth hadn’t seen a single drop of rain—hence the name “Siyu.”
But when he called her name at that moment, “Xia Siyu.”
There was no response in the classroom.
Bo Yan, still with a calm expression, raised his voice and called out again, “Xia Siyu.”
With only around twenty individuals present, coming from different colleges and unfamiliar with each other, hearing the name only made them glance around at one another, with no one bothering to respond.
Three strikes rule; Bo Yan would call each name three times. If there was no response after three times, he would mark an ‘X’ next to the name, deducting points from their final exam.
He spoke up again: “Xia Siyu.”
“Here, here,” came a feeble voice from Zhou Weiwei, who sat in the last row. Then, giving a shove to the person next to her who was sound asleep, she whispered, “Wake up, the teacher’s calling the roll.”
Following that, Xia Siyu blinked open her sleepy eyes and slowly lifted her head.
When she first woke up, her hair was still a mess in front of her face. Bo Yan glanced at her, uninterested, and asked again, “Are you Xia Siyu?”
Xia Siyu tidied up her hair and asked with confidence, “And who are you?”
Bo Yan couldn’t help but almost laugh as he looked up.
Xia Siyu was fully awake by now, her gaze fixing on him.
How to describe that instant? It was like tonight’s Fire-burning Heidelberg; amid the pitch-dark night, suddenly a firework shoots into the sky and bursts open, illuminating the whole world.
After the first question, Li Yiru continued without a pause, smilingly asking, “And when was your first kiss?”