Chapter 96: The Thoughts of a Maiden

  The main gate of Minzu University of China is directly opposite the teaching area. Due to the evening party, all classes tonight have been cancelled, so the school's main entrance appears particularly quiet tonight.

  As the car carrying Han Xiaoxi and her family disappeared from his sight, Chen Chufan turned around and walked into the quiet campus. The promise he had been thinking about for a long time was finally fulfilled, but that elf-like girl was no longer by his side, and the boy suddenly felt a strong sense of loss, followed by emptiness.

  It would be more accurate to describe the current state of mind of a teenager as boring rather than using empty or artistic words.

  The TOEFL exam that I'm about to take is just a formality for me at this age, and then it's all about waiting - waiting for the procedures to be completed, waiting for the admission letter from an overseas school to arrive. It's really boring.

  The young man even felt that having an overly powerful brain was not a good thing after all. Because making everything simple, but lacking the process of struggle, is really a very boring thing.

  This idea has a somewhat "unaware of blessings" flavor, and is quite cheap and deserves to be beaten. The young man himself thinks so.

  "Or maybe I'm just as despicable as Yang Tao, only not as obvious and thorough as he was back then!" The young man defined his thoughts about himself in his heart.

  With a mind full of thoughts, his feet didn't stop moving, and he walked to the banks of Nanhu Lake. It seemed that every time he was in a bad mood, or very good mood, or neither good nor bad, he would involuntarily walk here.

  So Nanhu should be a carrier, which carries countless joys and sorrows of university life.

  Chen Chufan thought he wasn't a sensitive person, without so many sentimental sorrows and joys that must have a reason. For example, he wouldn't be moved by the brilliant sunset, nor would his heart surge with excitement at the magnificent sunrise, let alone cry because of the tragic situation of the protagonist in some sad drama, all these emotions seemed very boring to him.

  So from this point of view, Chen Chufan is actually a very uninteresting person.

  But today seems to be a bit different. Maybe it's because the wind is too light or too strong, the moon is too bright or too dark, and the croaking of frogs by the South Lake is too small or too loud. Anyway, the young man was not quite normal today, he was melancholy, not the kind of melancholy that tries to force new words, but a real and genuine one.

  A melancholic handsome young man strolled along the small path by Nanhu Lake, then met a similarly melancholic beautiful girl. Unfortunately, this wasn't the start of a romantic encounter, because the young man already had his own lover, and the girl was also an acquaintance, her name was Ye Siying.

  The girl leaned against a willow tree, not minding the dirt on the tree would stain her white skirt. Her shoulder-length hair was scattered randomly, blown by the gentle evening breeze, but she seemed to be unaware of it, staring blankly into the distance, lost in thought.

  Chen Chufan knew that the girl was not looking at the scenery, because in the distance it was pitch black, and even with his abnormal eyesight he couldn't see anything.

  "What are you thinking about?" Chen Chufan walked up to the girl and asked.

  Without any unexpected surprise, the girl calmly turned her head to glance at him, then continued to gaze into the distance. "I wonder what my mood would be like if I had never met you!" The girl's voice was faint, so faint that the boy doubted whether she had actually spoken or not.

  "It doesn't make sense!" Chen Chufan leaned against a nearby willow tree, imitating the girl's mannerism, and said softly.

  "What's meaningless?" The girl didn't turn around but still asked aloud.

  "Your hypothesis is meaningless! Because the premise you assumed does not exist. The question of whether we met or not is not a scientific argument that requires bold reasoning with assumptions, but just a fact that has happened." The young man explained in a calm tone. "You are not Madame Curie, and I am not Einstein. We cannot discover the existence of radium or create great relativity through these hypothetical associations, so you can only accept the fact that I have appeared."

  "You're so boring. Hypothesis and imagination are essential emotions for humans." The girl spoke out in a tone with emotion for the first time tonight, refuting him.

  Chen Chufan let out a wry smile and said, "Yes, I also know an advertising slogan that says if humans lose their imagination, what will the world be like? Actually, I really want to tell them that even if you shut down your business and humans lose their imagination, the earth will still rotate, the sun will still rise in the east and set in the west, humans will still eat when they should eat, drink when they should drink, and complete their daily metabolic processes with three meals a day. But I think they're not interested in listening to my ranting, just like how Xiaohui was ordered to go home and can't hear me ranting either."

  The girl remained silent, unsure if she had accepted the boy's explanation from the bottom of her heart. Just a moment later, the girl suddenly spoke up in a low voice: "Do you remember? The first day we met, I took you to Nanhu Lake and told you that we could only be friends."

  "Uh-huh, I still remember you wore a white shirt that day. Blue pants."

  "That's where it was that day."

  "Oh!" The boy responded with a sound, and then there was another long silence.

  "I'm a bit regretful!" The girl broke the silence again, but the content of her words made the boy somewhat surprised and even unsure how to respond.

  The girl seemed to have no intention of letting the boy interrupt, and continued to speak on her own: "I know there's no regret medicine in this world, and I don't want to ruin Xiao Xi's happiness. But I have a small request, can you satisfy me?"

  "Huh? What's the requirement?" Chen Chufan couldn't describe his inner thoughts at this moment, was he excited? Proud? Thrilled? Expectant? Ashamed? Intimidated? In short, his mind was a jumbled mess, like a bowl of porridge.

  "Be my boyfriend for just one night!"

  "Huh? Do I need to devote myself? Actually, I'm still a virgin!" This response is clearly very cheap and full of Yang Tao's style.

  "You..."

  "Alright, I was just joking, trying to ease the tension." The young man said seriously.

  "Very nervous?"

  "Yes!" The young man nodded.

  "So is that a yes?"

  "Ah!"

  "Alright, let's start with chasing me then!" The girl said coquettishly, her usually calm face now had a hint of a smile. Her gaze also returned from afar and fell onto the somewhat bewildered young man.

  "How to chase?" The young man scratched his head, somewhat bewildered.

  The girl glared at him and said irritably, "Think for yourself, must I teach you how to chase me?"

  "Do you have a boyfriend?" The boy asked stiffly.

  "No!"

  "Then be my girlfriend!"

  "Why?"

  "Because I found out I kind of like you!"

  "Your taste is really cheap!"

  "If you think that a boy's first love is cheap, I reckon it'll be very hard for you to find true love in this lifetime." This sentence was really shameless, shameless to the point where the girl beside him couldn't stop laughing.

  "First love?" After a long while, the girl who had been trying hard to hold back her smile finally asked out loud.

  "What Yang Tao said, he said that men can always use the first time to describe anything." The young man rubbed his head and explained seriously.

  "How shameless he is!"

  "Who says it isn't!" The young man slandered his friend without feeling any shame.

  "You're no different, you've had your chance and blown it!" The girl's next sentence made the boy feel ashamed.

  "Huh?"

  "But I like it, so I agreed with you, Chen!"

  "This plot twist is too strong, my heart can't take it!" the young man protested with feigned dissatisfaction.

  The girl didn't say a word, she just walked up to the boy and gazed at him quietly.

  That face, with its eyebrows and eyes so refined to the extreme, was less than ten centimeters away from Chen Chufan. Under the clear moonlight, one could clearly see the girl's long eyelashes trembling slightly, and two drops of clear tears slid quietly down her smooth, unblemished cheeks.

  Chen Chufan felt a bit nervous. He thought something was off, the playful conversation they had just had didn't seem to be a big deal. But he really hadn't planned on anything happening with the girl in front of him. Even now, Xiao Xi's face flashed through his mind, her beautiful features and mischievous expression, staring at him fiercely, making him involuntarily chant a Buddhist mantra in his heart, then silently warning himself: "Young man, your mouth can move, but your heart must not! Ah, and don't let your hands get out of control either."

  The thoughts that were turning in her mind made Chen Chufan's voice tremble: "Miss, what's wrong with you? Why are you crying? You were just laughing happily a moment ago?"

  "What's your name?" The girl's gentle and pleasant voice entered Chen Chufan's ears.

  The young man replied with a pretended ease: "Of course it's a girl! What, are you going to call her a man? The image doesn't match!"

  The girl didn't respond, but instead stared at Little Chen with clear eyes, making him feel a bit sweaty on his back.

  "Why?" The girl's question was a bit absurd. But Chen Chufan understood what she meant.

  "After some thought, the young man said: 'Why don't I tell you a joke instead?'"

  "Ah! You talk!" The girl said bluntly.

  "A cadre in charge of family planning went to the countryside to promote eugenics. He asked a simple old farmer, 'Why can't close relatives get married?' The old farmer smiled and said, 'It's too familiar, not good for starting a hand!'"

  The joke is over, but the girl didn't laugh. Then, it was awkward.

  "It's all over, I forgot it was too hot and was afraid the joke would go bad, so I left it in the freezer. It's become a cold joke now." The young man couldn't bear the silent atmosphere, twisted his body awkwardly, and spoke nonsense.

  "Haha", the girl finally burst out laughing.

  Chen Chufan finally let out a sigh of relief, but he didn't know that the girl's heart was humming a sad song.

  It's too much trouble

  So fearless

  The more you want it

  The more I dare not give

  .............

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