NOVPUB"Not this? Xu Qingfan, what are you reading?" Inside the library of Yanshi University, Guan Biyue pointed at the Probability Theory book Xu Qingfan was holding with a look of seeing a ghost.
"I’m revising here, could you please keep it down? I’m almost finished," Xu Qingfan looked up at her briefly, then continued to flip through the pages nonchalantly.
"You... you understand it?" Guan Biyue wanted to speak but stopped.
Xu Qingfan stretched out his index finger and gave her a shushing gesture, then continued reading.
Because the official exam was tomorrow, Xia Xiaoxiao and Wu Lingyu were incredibly nervous, they got up early in the morning and started intensely solving problems.
The hotel room was too small, so with a grand gesture, Guan Biyue took them to a study room at Yanshi University to review.
The winter break had been going for over ten days now, and there weren’t many students left at school; hence, the library lobby on the first floor was completely empty, only populated by the four of them.
Guan Biyue picked up the notebook Xu Qingfan had placed aside, flipped through a few pages filled densely with formulas and symbols, and nudged him with her arm, "You really understand all this?"
Although Guan Biyue had studied accounting in college and was now teaching elementary mathematics, her own math grades had been quite poor. The reason she ended up teaching mathematics was only because, compared to Chinese language and English, the teacher’s certificate in mathematics was easier to get.
Fortunately, she studied college mathematics tailored for her accounting degree, not Advanced Mathematics, otherwise, graduating would have been a luxury.
"Teacher, you’re really annoying," Xu Qingfan turned his head away, looking irritated.
"You little rascal~"
"Ms. Guan, I can’t do this problem," Xia Xiaoxiao frowned deeply, circling a math Olympiad problem on the test paper for Guan Biyue to see.
"Ms. Guan, look... Xiao Ming sums up the natural numbers from 1, and when he sums up to a certain number, the total is 888, but he accidentally added one of the numbers twice. What is that number?" As soon as Guan Biyue finished reading the question, she knew she was doomed, this was the peak of the competition.
[This is a sequence summation problem, right... what’s the formula? How do I know which number he counted twice? Ah!] Guan Biyue felt a cold sweat breaking out on her back.
"Um... this... think about it again, this problem is actually very simple, just use that method..."
[We’re done for, even a primary school question is this difficult!?]
"Add the first and the last numbers together, divide by two, then calculate the sum with the resulting number, and subtract to get the answer," Xu Qingfan interjected, explaining.
"Oh," Xia Xiaoxiao nodded her head, took back the test paper, and hunched over a scratch paper to calculate.
Guan Biyue: ???
Before long, Zhong Wenqing also arrived, and Guan Biyue finally breathed a sigh of relief.
"We used to sit here and review together in the past," Zhong Wenqing said, feeling nostalgic as he sat down.
"Have you come back to visit after you graduated?" Guan Biyue asked casually.
"I came twice, watching the juniors and juniors at the school made me feel empty inside, so I never came again afterwards."
Listening to the two of them talking, Xu Qingfan gently shook his head; the joys and sorrows of others are indeed not connected, at 25 years old he was still in the school lab, fretting over an elusive second SCI publication.
Suddenly, he remembered he had another side mission on this trip to Yanjing. Xu Qingfan took out the photograph his grandma had given him from his backpack, handed it to them, "Sister Qingqing, the woman in the photo was a student at Yanshi University’s class of ’88. Do you have any way to get her contact information through the school?"
"Do you know what major she was in?" Zhong Wenqing took the photo and examined it closely, asking.
Xu Qingfan shook his head: "I only know she was part of the ’88 class, and her name is Chen Zipei."
"Just knowing the name isn’t helpful, the archival records back then were all on paper, never recorded onto computers."
"I see, let’s forget it then," Xu Qingfan also wasn’t very passionate about it. Hearing that it was troublesome, he was ready to back out.
"Does this person owe your family money or something, why are you looking for her?" Zhong Wenqing curiously inquired.
"Sort of..." Xu Qingfan thought it wasn’t a big deal and related the love story between the woman and his uncle’s older generation to them, "The second year, she passed the college entrance exam and went to Yanshi University, and ran away while pregnant."
"What?"
Zhong Wenqing and Guan Biyue felt as if they had just binge-watched a hundred episodes of a melodramatic TV series, and were at a loss for words.
"My grandparents want to meet their grandchild once in their lifetime, so they tasked me with coming here to find her," Xu Qingfan continued.
"This..."
Xu Qingfan narrated the story from a neutral perspective, allowing them to empathetically consider the situation from the woman’s point of view – living a backward life in the countryside forever?
They could only shake their heads thinking about it.
But severing your first love on your initial attempt was slightly too much like Chen Shimei.
It’s hard to judge.
"Ah this... all the teachers have gone home for the New Year, I’ll help you ask when the school year starts again..."
"Then Sister Qingqing, just see what you can find. If it doesn’t work out, let it go. She’s from the ’80s, seventeen years my senior, who knows how old she is now. If she really wanted to come back, she would have come long ago," Xu Qingfan shrugged and said.
"You little rascal, if you hadn’t mentioned it, I would have thought the seventeen-year-old was you!" Zhong Wenqing laughed and ruffled Xu Qingfan’s head.
After hearing Xu Qingfan’s gossip, Wu Lingyu and Xia Xiaoxiao also lost their motivation to study. Guan Biyue clapped her hands, "Alright, let’s mix it up a bit and go out for a walk."
"Hmm!" Xia Xiaoxiao and Wu Lingyu happily packed their review materials into their backpacks and stood up.
In Yanshi University’s campus, few people walked around, unlike outside on the streets where snow had melted under the trample of footsteps, covering the small paths of the campus with a thin layer of white frost.
Besides the fishbone-shaped pine trees that resembled Christmas trees and still had their needle-like leaves, all other trees were bare.
Last night’s light snow had turned the early morning campus into a world of ice and snow.
Xu Qingfan brushed the snow hanging from a tree branch onto his hand, formed it into a fist, and hurled it at Xia Xiaoxiao, "Take this!"
Xu Qingfan!" The small snowball hit Xia Xiaoxiao’s clothes; caught by surprise, she also picked up a snowball and threw it back at Xu Qingfan.
"Ah~" Wu Lingyu, who had been enviously watching from the side, was hit by Xu Qingfan’s snowball on her head the next second, "Brother Fan, you!" The little girl looked at him, both stunned and aggrieved.
"Let’s play together; you won’t feel cold if you run!" Xu Qingfan said as he dodged Xia Xiaoxiao’s snowball attacks, "Can’t hit me!"
Guan Biyue and Zhong Wenqing exchanged smiles, recalling the scenes of snowball fights with their roommates years ago.
"Go play," Guan Biyue pushed Wu Lingyu lightly, saying with a smile.
"Hmm!" Wu Lingyu turned to look at Teacher Guan and nodded.
The three of them frolicked along the way from the library to the sports field, leaving their playful tracks on the snow-covered red running track.
"Xu Qingfan, you’re dead!" Xia Xiaoxiao, after packing a big snowball she had gathered for several minutes, threw it hard at Xu Qingfan.
"Got you!" Wu Lingyu, also smiling, threw a small snowball at him.
"Yikes!" Xia Xiaoxiao scored a direct hit, smacking Xu Qingfan in the face, causing him to stagger and fall on his rear.
"Hahaha~ serves you right!" Xia Xiaoxiao pointed at Xu Qingfan’s comical appearance and laughed triumphantly.
"Brother Fan, are you alright?" Pretending to be in pain, Xu Qingfan put on a show as Wu Lingyu hurriedly helped him up.
"Ouch, it hurts... just kidding!"
"Ah~ Brother Fan, why are you like this!" Wu Lingyu shook off the snow that had fallen around her neck, and when she saw Xu Qingfan dodging more of Xia Xiaoxiao’s snowballs, the little girl burst into laughter.
"Xia Xiaoxiao, you wait!" Xu Qingfan ignored the previous attacks, crouched down, and desperately expanded the snowball in his hand.
"I’m so scared!" Xia Xiaoxiao didn’t care, she just happily kept throwing snowballs at the big villain, Xu Qingfan.
It wasn’t long before Xia Xiaoxiao couldn’t laugh anymore, as Xu Qingfan, holding a snowball with a radius of about twenty centimeters, ran towards her.
"Xu Qingfan, what are you doing!" Xia Xiaoxiao sprinted off, looking back occasionally at Xu Qingfan chasing her, "Don’t come over here!"
"Weren’t you acting tough just now? Take this!" Xu Qingfan pretended to throw.
"Ah~ Don’t!" Xia Xiaoxiao dodged left and right in fear, only to realize that Xu Qingfan had feigned the throw.
"Xu Qingfan, you’re a dog! I’m not playing anymore!"
The two of them ran gasping for air around the track, their breath instantly turning into clear white mist.
"Not playing? The cabinet moved, you still have to play!"
"Ah!!"
The sandpit next to the track was covered with white snow, and Xia Xiaoxiao, not paying attention, stepped on it and, unlike the soft feeling of the ground, the little girl fell face first, back to the earth, onto the sandpit.
"Ahahaha!" Xu Qingfan, adding insult to injury, also threw the large snowball he was holding onto her head.
"Ah!!!" Xia Xiaoxiao’s screams echoed at a higher pitch.
Worried that things had gone too far, Xu Qingfan quickly walked over and helped her up, "Are you alright?"
"I told you I didn’t want to play anymore and you still chased me; I’m not playing with you anymore, Xu Qingfan, I hate you!" Xia Xiaoxiao clenched her little fists, her eyes tearful as she looked at him.
"Alright, my fault, don’t cry, didn’t you fall, did you?" Xu Qingfan stuck out his tongue, wiped his hands on his clothes, then stepped forward to lift Xia Xiaoxiao’s bangs, checking if she was injured.
"Hahaha~ Xu Qingfan, you’re dead!" As Xu Qingfan leaned in, Xia Xiaoxiao quickly changed her expression and rapidly stuffed the snow hidden in her fists into Xu Qingfan’s collar.
"Darn! Xia Xiaoxiao, you’re a dog!"
What goes around comes around; after Xu Qingfan cleared the snow inside his garment, he looked both annoyed and amused at the little girl who had run far away, making faces at him.
"Brother Fan, take this!" Wu Lingyu, unnoticed, had also sneaked up behind him, taking advantage of the distraction caused by Xia Xiaoxiao’s antics, and avenged her earlier grievances.
"Yu, you, you guys!" Xu Qingfan turned around, looking incredulously at Wu Lingyu.
Pointed at by Xu Qingfan, Wu Lingyu shyly shrunk her head, "Hehe~" The little girl’s face was a mix of the triumph of a successful prank and the embarrassment of being caught.
"You guys wait for me!"
"Run fast!"
A new round of snowball battles soon erupted in the field...
