Lin Ci stared at the announcement on his phone screen and stayed stunned for a full three minutes.
Fortunately the same-city express delivery still came through.
At exactly 12:00 noon on Friday, the courier rang the dorm doorbell.
Lin Ci tore open the stiff paper envelope, clutched that brand-new second-generation ID card in his palm, and flipped it over to look at it several times.
The person in the photo had cold, clear features, slightly upturned outer corners of the eyes, and long hair lying smoothly over the shoulders.
The back clearly read: Female.
“Ai. Fate really plays with people.”
Lin Ci slapped the ID onto the desk and collapsed into the chair with a sigh.
At exactly 3:00 PM, a messy clatter of high heels and talking voices came from the corridor.
Counselor Teacher Liu pushed open the door of Room 302, a thick stack of student name lists in her hand.
“Lin Ci here? Take out the original ID for registration.”
Lin Ci hurriedly stood up from the chair and handed the document over with both hands.
Teacher Liu pushed up the black-framed glasses on her nose, first looked down at the ID, then looked up to size up Lin Ci’s face.
Her gaze clearly stalled for two seconds.
Lin Ci had specially worn a loose white shirt today, the collar buttoned properly all the way to the top.
But this body’s waistline was too obvious.
Even in oversized clothes, the outline of the figure was still eye-catching.
Paired with that flawlessly cold and striking face, the visual impact was extreme.
“You’re Lin Ci?”
Teacher Liu came back to herself and made a check on the form.
“Fourth-year foreign languages, how did you end up living in this sophomore dorm building?”
Lin Ci lied without changing expression.
“Before, the men’s… no, the old dorm building’s pipes were aging and under maintenance. The academic-affairs teacher temporarily reassigned me here.”
Teacher Liu flipped through the housing-arrangement sheet in her hand and muttered under her breath.
“Admin’s efficiency is getting lower and lower. Mixing seniors and sophomores, aren’t they afraid of schedule conflicts.”
She handed the ID back to Lin Ci and turned to look at Gu Mianmian, who was shrinking in the corner.
“Gu Mianmian, take your document out too.”
Gu Mianmian silently stepped forward and pulled a badly worn ID card from a washed-pale wallet.
Teacher Liu scanned it quickly, finished verification, checked the name off the list, and turned to walk toward the next dorm.
The door closed.
The footsteps gradually faded.
Lin Ci stuffed the ID back into his pocket and flopped onto the bed.
This life-threatening inspection had finally been dealt with.
He rolled onto his side, preparing to lie in a more comfortable position for a bit.
When his gaze swept across the opposite desk, it suddenly stopped.
Gu Mianmian was bending over to tidy the bed.
A thick hardcover tome was pressed beside the pillow.
The pages were thick.
The black printed letters showing on the side caught Lin Ci’s attention.
Criminal Psychology and Analysis of Abnormal Behavior.
Lin Ci paused.
His gaze slid inward along the opened pages.
In the yellowed page interlayer, a white sticky note folded into a triangle was showing.
A small edge of the note stuck out.
Two characters were written on it in an extremely fine black gel pen.
Lin Ci.
The handwriting was neat to a creepy degree.
The pen pressure was very deep.
Clear raised marks even showed through the back of the paper.
A chill inexplicably ran up Lin Ci’s back.
A socially anxious junior who almost never spoke to anyone in school kept criminal psychology under her pillow.
And a little slip of paper with his own name was clipped in the pages.
How big a grudge was this?
Was she pissed I forced her to eat chicken leg yesterday and putting me on an assassination list?
Lin Ci sat up and cleared his throat.
“Mianmian, you usually read this kind of professional book too?”
Gu Mianmian’s movement paused.
She followed Lin Ci’s finger toward that book.
Her expression stayed normal as she reached out, closed the book, and pressed that slip of paper into the bottom of it along with it.
“It’s for an elective.”
She kept her head down.
Her voice was very calm.
Lin Ci leaned halfway off the bed and asked another question.
“Can the sophomore finance department even elect criminal psychology?”
Gu Mianmian stuffed the book under the pillow.
Her movements were unhurried.
“I didn’t get into the class. I just go over to the junior law school to sit in.”
Her answer was watertight.
Her expression showed not the slightest panic.
Lin Ci stared at her for two seconds and finally swallowed the words that had reached his mouth.
Forget it, forget it.
With this rough, careless straight-guy brain of his, better not randomly guess at a little girl’s sensitive, fragile thoughts.
The sky gradually darkened.
At 10:30 at night, the dorm’s main light went out on time.
The corridor went completely quiet.
Only the night wind scraped past the window now and then.
Lin Ci lay flat on the bed, just about to close his eyes and sleep, when an extremely light speaking voice suddenly came from the opposite bunk.
“Senior.”
Lin Ci opened his eyes.
“What’s up?”
Gu Mianmian’s voice sounded especially clear in the dark.
“Starting tomorrow I’m going to work a part-time job off campus.”
Lin Ci rolled over to face her direction.
“What job? Don’t you still work at the library during the day?”
“Bussing plates at a charcoal-grill shop on the back street off campus.”
Gu Mianmian paused, then added.
“From 6:00 in the evening until 12:00 at night.”
Lin Ci’s brows immediately knotted.
“Twelve? The school shuts the dorm gate at eleven. How are you getting in in the middle of the night?”
“The boss said I can climb in through the little side door on the back street. The dorm auntie doesn’t watch that door at night.”
Lin Ci could not help roasting.
“You’re a little girl walking those unlit alleys on the back street at midnight. Is your brain flooded?”
The other side went quiet for a few seconds.
There was no movement.
After a good while, Gu Mianmian’s voice drifted over, faint and lingering.
“Is Senior worried about me?”
Lin Ci choked on the question.
His straight-guy temper came up at once.
“Obviously. Same roof, same roommate. Even if it was a dog that didn’t come back at midnight I’d still have to fuss a couple sentences.”
In the dark, a faint murmur came from the opposite bunk.
“That’s enough then.”
The voice carried a slight tremor.
Lin Ci did not understand.
He muttered “so weird” under the covers and rolled over to face the wall.
But he could not fall asleep at all.
The moment this body lay on its side, those two weights on his chest squeezed together and pressed until his breathing was not smooth.
If he lay flat, the instant the quilt slipped down a little, cold air poured in at the collar.
Lin Ci tossed irritably back and forth on the bed, yanking the quilt up and kicking it down again.
Twenty-two years of being a man, he had never known sleeping could be this much suffering.
And on the other side of the dorm.
Gu Mianmian had not closed her eyes at all.
She kept a pair of deep-black eyes open, quietly watching the tossing figure on the opposite bunk.
By the faint moonlight coming in through the window, she could vaguely see the snow-white neck Lin Ci had left outside the quilt.
Gu Mianmian’s hand reached out from under the covers.
On her fingertips, a long, thin black hair was tightly wound.
Her expression was focused.
Her fingers turned it nimbly.
The hair wrapped around her index finger once, twice, three times.
The fingertip was bound until it turned faintly pale, yet she could not bear to loosen it even a little.
That faint milky fragrance drifted over from the opposite side.
Gu Mianmian brought her fingers to the tip of her nose, gently drew in a breath, and the corner of her mouth lifted in an extremely tiny curve.
As long as Senior was still in this room, everything was fine.
…
The next evening at 5:30.
Gu Mianmian changed into a slightly loose old black outfit and tied a deep-red apron around her waist.
She slung on a shoulder bag and walked to the dorm doorway to change shoes.
Lin Ci was sitting at the desk gnawing an apple.
Looking at her thin, small back, he still felt uneasy.
Places like the back street were a mixed bag of people.
Late at night it was all drunk thugs.
With Gu Mianmian’s little frame, if she ran into danger she would not even have a chance to shout for help.
Gu Mianmian gripped the doorknob, just about to pull the door open.
Lin Ci chewed the apple and called out.
“Gu Mianmian.”
Gu Mianmian stopped and looked back at him.
Lin Ci tossed the remaining half of the apple into the trash and pulled a tissue to wipe the corner of his mouth.
“Open WeChat on your phone. When you get to the shop, send me a location pin.”
Gu Mianmian froze completely in the doorway.
“Stay in contact at all times. Report in on the dot at twelve that you’re safe. Hear me?”
Lin Ci added the line, not in a good mood.
Gu Mianmian clutched the strap of her crossbody bag.
She forced down the corners of her mouth that wanted to split upward and nodded hard.
“Mm!! Okay. I’ll listen to everything Senior says.”
Finished speaking, she pushed the door open and walked lightly into the dusk of the corridor.