Chapter 12: The First Day of School

However, people simply cannot control themselves. The more you try to convince yourself not to look, not to pay attention to something, the more you end up focusing all your attention on it.

So Ming Ying still couldn’t resist. After walking out of the subway station, he took out his phone again.

The screen showed XI’s messages were unread and unanswered.

Phew.

Ming Ying inexplicably breathed a sigh of relief.

He didn’t quite know what kind of psychological quirk this was. He wanted the other person to see the things he sent, but was also afraid of them being seen.

It was like he had some kind of mental illness.

But, after exiting the chat interface with XI once more, a buzzkill arrived—Professor Thomas’s emails suddenly bombarded his notification bar.

Uh, seeing his supervisor’s name scattered half the romantic whimsy in Ming Ying’s heart.

Alright, he thought to himself, next time his brain short-circuits and he wants to send XI some weird comment, he’ll just go check Thomas’s emails instead.

At that very moment, a certain renowned Professor Thomas sneezed for an unknown reason.

Ming Ying walked while opening his phone’s email app, his eyes scanning past long, complex terminology to pick out some very familiar keywords. In summary—Thomas wanted to hold an online group meeting tonight.

School hadn’t even started yet, and the teaching tasks were already assigned.

Ming Ying had no choice but to brave the light rain and hurry back to his apartment. As soon as he pushed open the door, he saw Mark had returned sometime earlier and was watching a ball game in the living room. Seeing Ming Ying push through the door, Mark turned his head and said dramatically, “Ming~ Any new developments with that hot girl of yours~”

Ming Ying forced a stiff smile and flipped Mark the middle finger.

Mark accepted it with practiced ease and flipped a middle finger right back.

The boys’ friendship truly began through this mutual exchange of middle fingers.

Back in his room, Ming Ying tossed his phone aside, took a quick shower, and came out without even drying his hair before opening his laptop to prepare to connect.

As soon as the computer booted up, a WhatsApp chat window popped up first. Ming Ying paid it no mind; right now, his sole focus was getting into the meeting as fast as possible.

Professor Thomas himself could be late, but if they were late, it was uncertain whether they’d be assigned to run a marathon around Manhattan.

Thankfully, Ming Ying rushed and managed to arrive just in time, right on the dot.

Tsk. Ming Ying inwardly praised himself once again for being a timing prodigy.

The computer screen was divided into several small boxes. Ming Ying saw Alan, the French guy with curly hair—Bruce, and three other foreigners he didn’t recognize. Thomas started speaking with a jovial tone.

It turned out that due to a business trip, Thomas couldn’t attend their college’s opening ceremony—N University has two opening ceremonies: one held by the individual colleges and one by the university as a whole. Since the start dates for the various colleges were flexible, the college ceremonies were generally held first, followed by the unified university ceremony.

Besides this, Thomas discussed some of his project arrangements, but as a first-year graduate student, none of this was relevant to Ming Ying.

Unfortunately, just like every teacher does, after finishing his long speech, Professor Thomas asked each student to talk about their own course schedules.

Fortunately, Ming Ying had long been skilled at handling teachers. When it was his turn to speak, he put on a standard, model-student smile. But just as he was about to open his mouth, a Ding~ sounded.

A computer pop-up notification suddenly appeared, displaying a message from 【XI】.

In an instant, Ming Ying blanked out and stumbled over his words on the spot.

GOD! Did he have to reply now?

Until Thomas called out, “Ming?”

“Ah.” Mentally cursing, Ming Ying smiled and said, “Sorry, Professor, my mind wandered for a moment. Apologies.”

“No problem.” Thomas smiled kindly. “As long as it wasn’t because you were thinking of some pretty girl, it’s acceptable.”

“…”

Guiltily, Ming Ying finished outlining his course plan for the first academic week. Once he was completely muted, he guiltily moved his mouse and clicked open the dialog box hidden behind the video webpage.

The screen read:

Mingo: So teacher… I have other photos, wanna see?

Mingo: Free of charge [shy]

XI: Like what?

Like what. Heh, another two-word reply!

Ming Ying truly suspected XI was even more immersed in this cosplay than he was; otherwise, why was her phrasing always so precise?

He also thought, good thing XI wasn’t a guy. If a guy talked to him like this, he definitely wouldn’t stand it.

Still… could this count as having accepted his “seduction”?

Ming Ying had no experience in researching this area and could only rely on instinct. At the very least, it meant he wasn’t disliked, right?

So he glanced at Thomas on his screen and then guiltily began typing again.

Mingo: Like…

He wanted to write, like abs or something, but it was really too embarrassing, and far too fast—completely inappropriate.

So Ming Ying mimicked the other’s tone and threw back a rhetorical question.

Mingo: Teacher, what do you want to see?

Mingo: [Puppy Peeking Sticker]

Ming Ying waited for a while. The other party must have been busy; about ten minutes passed before the message was marked as read.

During those ten minutes, Ming Ying, of course, didn’t absorb a single thing Thomas said.

Ding~

XI: Anything’s fine.

Damn. Ming Ying was amused by this reply.

Mingo: What does ‘anything’ mean? Do you want to see something nice, or something not so nice?

This time, XI replied very quickly.

XI: up to you.

For some reason, Ming Ying inexplicably felt that XI definitely knew what he wanted to send, dammit!

Ming Ying covered his face in front of his computer screen.

No, the more it was like this, the less he could let him guess correctly.

So he picked up his phone, and at a bizarre angle, wedged it between his laptop screens, snapping a raw, unflattering close-up photo of Professor Thomas on the monitor.

As soon as he sent it and the read indicator lit up, Ming Ying could barely contain his laughter.

Mingo: My advisor, handsome, right? [Laughing crying]

Perhaps his joy turned to sorrow—before XI could even reply, Thomas called out from the screen: “Ming, could you summarize what I just said?”

The smile on Ming Ying’s face instantly froze.

At the same time, XI’s message suddenly popped up.

XI: Are you in a meeting, or playing around?

Damn.

One right after the other.

Luckily, Bruce secretly sent him a private message, telling him the project content Professor Thomas had just discussed.

Ming Ying gave Bruce a thumbs up and praised him as a true communist comrade.

By the time this distracted evening meeting finally ended, Ming Ying still hadn’t clicked open the dialog box with XI—because as soon as he clicked it, that message would become “read.”

Wouldn’t that just confirm the fact that he’d been slacking off!

Ming Ying’s petty clever stratagems came in sets.

Mingo: I didn’t! Heaven and earth bear witness! I only looked for you after the meeting ended [crying, jpg]

XI: Mn.

Ming Ying had figured it out now; this girl used “Mn” like it was a comma.

No good, he had to steer the conversation back.

Mingo: So, Teacher XI, was my professor’s photo good-looking?

XI: Individual aesthetic preferences differ, I won’t comment.

Ming Ying laughed out loud. He truly, absolutely loved chatting with XI!

And so, over the next period, Ming Ying began sharing the photos he’d taken, becoming quite engrossed in getting XI to critique them.

At first, it was just his gaming consoles and comic books he’d brought from home. Then, it quickly evolved into his clothes, his room, even his bedding sets.

Within a few days, based on the chat records, Ming Ying had probably revealed his entire life’s possessions.

So much so that Mark was now terrified whenever he saw Ming Ying prowling the living room with his phone, afraid Ming Ying might photograph him too.

But clearly, Mark was overthinking it. Ming Ying was far too busy—busy with the start of school and busy chatting fervently with XI.

Ming Ying also summarized from their chats that XI seemed like the type of person who simply wouldn’t say the word “ugly.”

In other words, words like “ugly” or “unsightly” didn’t seem to be in her vocabulary. No matter how bizarre something was—like when Ming Ying shared a photo of a four-eyed ugly frog that had jumped out from under the apartment building—she would only say: It holds a certain research value.

Ming Ying seized on his wording and added: Teacher, I’m also worth researching~

Mingo: [Puppy Shaking Head Sticker]

XI: Ming, do you also have four eyes?

“Pfft-hahahahahahahaha…”

Ming Ying collapsed laughing onto the sofa.

Passerby Mark, walking behind the sofa, had gone from intensely curious to completely accustomed to this, calmly pouring water and returning to his room.

And it was in this atmosphere that Ming Ying finally, finally, STARTED SCHOOL!

The day school started in New York was a one-in-a-million beautiful day. Ming Ying and Mark set out early. He excitedly wandered around the campus, relentlessly bombarding Ms. Chen Qinqin, Comrade Ming Jianguo, and his childhood friends’ group with a ton of photos.

Of course, this also included Teacher XI.

Unfortunately, XI seemed to have been busy all day. After replying “Something came up” in the morning, he hadn’t read any more messages.

Luckily, Ming Ying was busy too. The first week at an American university didn’t allow Ming Ying to slow down. Welcome ceremonies, opening parties, that sort of thing—he couldn’t refuse even if he wanted to.

It felt less like coming to university and more like coming for social networking.

Complaints aside, he still had to attend.

That evening, Ming Ying came to the School of Architecture and Design’s opening lecture—the lecture Thomas was absent from.

It was odd; his own supervisor wasn’t coming, yet he still had to go.

The lecture was held in the school’s auditorium. As soon as Ming Ying entered, he squinted, wanting to find the curly-haired Bruce. But he really hadn’t expected that with so many foreigners around, there were suddenly a lot more curly-haired people. His distinguishing feature was now useless. How was he supposed to remember what Bruce looked like!

At that moment, someone behind him suddenly said, “Ming?”

Ming Ying turned his head; it was actually Alan. The other glanced at him and said in English, “Lost again? Let’s go up. Our seats are above.”

“Okay, thanks.”

Ming Ying forced a smile and followed him up.

Honestly, he’d rather sit with Bruce. At least then he’d have someone to talk to.

But this would have to do.

They’d arrived fairly late as it was. Not long after they were seated, the auditorium filled up with students. Yet, it was unclear who they were waiting for; the lecture was delayed. Bored, Ming Ying lowered his head to glance at his phone.

His chat with XI had stopped in the afternoon—Ming Ying had sent a photo of a cat.

XI was still showing as unread.

Ming Ying propped his chin on his hand and grinning, sent another message.

Mingo: Our college opening ceremony is today. I’m at the lecture. Did you come? [Shy]

Ming Ying still suspected XI was an N University student. Otherwise, how could he have recognized the school emblem on his suitcase at the airport back then?

Just then, the atmosphere around him suddenly grew lively. Ming Ying looked up amidst the surrounding students’ screams and applause.

Curiously, he followed everyone else’s gaze towards the front. It turned out another group of suit-wearing foreigners had entered the auditorium; they looked like leaders or officials.

But since Ming Ying paid absolutely no attention to who the school leaders were, he didn’t recognize a single one of them—wait?

Wait a minute…

Subconsciously, Ming Ying leaned forward against the backrest of the seat in front of him and squinted. That tall man walking at the very front of the group… he looked somewhat familiar…

Wasn’t that… the foreigner from ASTON that day?!