She lifted her hand and flirtatiously brushed through her hair, then winked at him.
"Hey, handsome, why are you sitting here all by yourself? Do you want to come over there and have a drink together?"
Rong Xingyu: "?"
He glanced in the direction she indicated and saw that a booth not far away was occupied by four or five women, all of whom were eagerly waving at him.
Rong Xingyu: "..."
Rong Xingyu had never been approached so enthusiastically before.
His face flushed slightly and his gaze became a bit evasive.
Still, he very politely said that he was waiting for someone and that he was not single.
His shy demeanor made the woman almost scream internally, this was just too adorable.
What a pity he wasn’t single.
She could only take her glass and return regretfully to her friends.
The corner grew quiet once again.
Rong Xingyu looked at the drink in front of him, the one called Heartbeat.
The color of the drink was a gradient pink, very girlish in appearance, and indeed carried a sense of "heart-fluttering" to it.
But Rong Xingyu did not take a single sip.
He lightly nudged the cherry perched at the very top of the glass with his fingertip.
The cherry was probably soaked in alcohol; under the ambiguous lighting, it looked crystal clear and very pretty.
Rong Xingyu glanced at the time on his phone again.
The person he was waiting for had not yet arrived.
When he turned his gaze toward the entrance of the bar once more, Rong Xingyu finally saw a familiar figure.
Qian Zhijun was standing near the entrance while looking around.
As soon as he spotted Rong Xingyu, Qian Zhijun waved at him and, together with Yue Yeqiao, they’re walked over quickly with smiles on their faces.
Qian Zhijun’s school had gone on winter break early.
As soon as he and Yue Yeqiao returned to Liaofang City, they arranged to meet Rong Xingyu at this lounge bar.
"Why did you make plans to meet here?"
Rong Xingyu had never been to a bar before, and earlier, sitting there alone had made him feel a little uncomfortable.
"You’re nineteen, not nine. What’s wrong with coming to an adult place like this?" Qian Zhijun teased Rong Xingyu with a grin.
Rong Xingyu said, "That’s true."
Even though it had been several months since Rong Xingyu last saw Qian Zhijun, there was no sense of unfamiliarity between them.
After all, they had kept in touch online the whole time.
"By the way, what was that thing you mentioned before about your final project?" Qian Zhijun suddenly asked. "Was it a senior from your school?"
Rong Xingyu had mentioned these recent events to Qian Zhijun and the others before, but the gossip loving Qian Zhijun was clearly not satisfied with just following the drama through WeChat.
His eyes lit up as he looked at Rong Xingyu, his face practically spelling out words. "Tell us everything."
Rong Xingyu sighed and said, "It was a second year graduate student from our department."
"He had an accident during an experiment before, which injured the left side of his body. He stayed in the hospital for more than half a month."
"Whoa, that’s scary!" Yue Yeqiao couldn’t help but exclaim.
Seeing the gossip filled expressions on her face and Qian Zhijun’s, which looked almost identical, Rong Xingyu: "..."
He coughed lightly and continued, "Because of that, this senior missed the defense for the national scholarship that he originally had a very good chance of getting. Coincidentally, the special scholarship in the end went to a classmate who was very close to him."
Qian Zhijun and Yue Yeqiao: "Hiss..."
"He always believed that this classmate had tampered with his equipment, which was why the accident during the experiment happened in the first place."
Speaking of this, Rong Xingyu still felt a bit regretful.
That senior was very talented in research and should have had an infinitely bright future, yet because of a single experimental accident...
"Even so, he shouldn’t have gone after you. You were the most innocent one," Qian Zhijun summed up in the end.
"That’s right!" Yue Yeqiao echoed Qian Zhijun, the two of them playing off each other and nearly making Rong Xingyu laugh.
Qian Zhijun asked again, "What about that roommate of yours who brought it on himself?"
"You mean Pan Yinhu?" Rong Xingyu couldn’t help glancing at the phone placed to the side. "He’s already taken a leave of absence. His parents took him back home not long ago."
"Serves him right!" Qian Zhijun cursed without holding back.
Rong Xingyu smiled.
Looking at Qian Zhijun’s refreshed expression, as if he was just one step away from shouting "That feels so good," Rong Xingyu suddenly thought of another amusing roommate from his dorm.
He said to Qian Zhijun, "Speaking of roommates, I’ll introduce you to another one of my roommates someday. You two would definitely get along."
Qian Zhijun looked at Rong Xingyu, his tone a bit sour. "Oh, new friends make you smile, old friends cry. Now that you’ve got new people around you, am I still your best friend?"
Seeing Qian Zhijun acting like such a drama queen, Rong Xingyu: "..."
"You are, you definitely are," Rong Xingyu replied, sounding exactly like a scumbag giving a perfunctory answer.
Qian Zhijun had only been putting on an act anyway. Hearing Rong Xingyu say that, his mood quickly lifted again. "Alright! Let’s call your roommate out to eat together another day!"
When good friends finally meet again, there is always a lot to talk about, and time passes very quickly.
Of course, most of the talking was done by Qian Zhijun and Yue Yeqiao, as they shared interesting stories from their school with Rong Xingyu.
Rong Xingyu listened attentively.
However, his gaze kept drifting toward his phone without him even realizing it.
Qian Zhijun lifted his glass and finally noticed Rong Xingyu’s phone as well.
"Xingyu, what are you looking at?" Qian Zhijun asked curiously.
Rong Xingyu shook his head.