Chapter 3: Sent the Sticker to the Wrong Person

Ming Ying put down his phone and went out to check. Sure enough, Mark was back—or rather, a completely sloshed Mark was back.

“Good evening, my dear Ming!”

Mark burped, cradling a wine bottle in his arms. “There’s a UEFA Champions League match tonight. You in?”

Ming Ying naturally wouldn’t refuse.

He was just worrying about what to do if he couldn’t sleep at night after sleeping during the day. That wouldn’t be good for adjusting to the time difference.

So on his second night in New York, Ming Ying got completely hammered.

Mark, drunk, jumped onto the sofa and asked Ming Ying, “Ming, do you know what N University’s school rules are?”

Ming Ying had drunk enough to be a little hungry, and the match was just at halftime. He got up to find the instant noodles he’d brought from home. Hearing the question, he paused. “You mean in the student handbook?”

“No, no, no…”

Mark looked as if he’d expected this reaction. Proud, he announced, “Those are just the surface rules. Actually, N University has three more unspoken ‘Three Don’ts.’”

Ming Ying rubbed his chin. “Oh really? I’m all ears.”

Mark: “First, don’t ever think you can be a genius.”

Ming Ying made an “mm” sound.

Mark: “Second, don’t ever become a student of Professor Thomas. If you’re unlucky enough to end up one, then refer to the first rule.”

Ming Ying made another “mm” sound.

At that point, Mark suddenly seemed to remember something. “Oh right, I haven’t asked you yet. Ming, who’s your advisor?”

Ming Ying said, “Prof. Thomas…”

Mark looked shocked, as if he had sobered up instantly. “… Which Thomas?”

Ming Ying laughed. “The one you’re thinking of…”

Mark’s expression went through a series of changes before he finally only said, “Good luck!”

Ming Ying went, “Huh? Is it really that extreme?”

Thomas was one of the absolute top heavyweights in N University’s School of Architecture, with a page full of honors and achievements that couldn’t even fit one webpage. When an advisor like that was recruiting students, Ming Ying naturally put in every effort to squeeze his way in.

Mark gave him a thumbs-up. “Ming, your courage is something I should learn from. You know, with other professors, even if you fail a class, there’s always another way. But this campus-famous Professor Thomas will actually force his failing students to run a marathon around Manhattan!”

Ming Ying went, “Ah.” Now he really was stunned.

Mark laughed gleefully at his misfortune. Ming Ying genuinely felt a little uneasy. After all, he hadn’t even met Thomas yet, and he wasn’t good at running marathons.

While feeling nervous, he found his spicy beef instant noodles and asked, “So, what’s the third school rule?”

After his bout of schadenfreude, Mark’s expression grew a bit more serious. “Oh, the third one: never, ever offend anyone with the surname Aston.”

Aston?

Ming Ying thought seriously for a moment. “Who’s that? I thought the U.S. President’s last name isn’t Aston.”

Mark burst out laughing at him. “Ming, you really are a master of deadpan humor.”

Mark explained that Aston was the most influential surname at N University. The youngest member of the School Board right now was Mr. Aston. In a certain sense, you could even say the whole university was their “family business.”

As a good young man raised under socialism, Ming Ying found this capitalist lecture very weighty.

But after thinking it over, he said, “He’s a school board director, I’m a poor student. How would I ever offend him? I probably won’t even get the chance to meet him.”

Mark gave him a you-don’t-know-the-half-of-it look. “That’s exactly why I said, never offend anyone named Aston. Doesn’t matter if they’re male, female, or anything else.”

Ming Ying caught Mark’s deadpan joke and laughed along politely.

Mark shrugged. “There was this one time a Mexican guy got into an argument with some law school student during a debate. They tried to settle it with a fight afterward and got caught. No one expected that the completely ordinary ambulance-chaser was actually Mr. Aston’s nephew. That’s how the third rule came about.”

Ming Ying made an “ah” sound. “So what happened in the end?”

Mark: “Mr. Aston’s nephew? He was fine, of course.”

Ming Ying: “I meant the Mexican guy. Aston didn’t do anything to him, right?”

“How could he?” Mark said. “Mr. Aston is a school board director. Of course he wouldn’t bother with things like that. As for the Mexican guy, nothing happened to him either. But everyone knew he’d offended someone from the Aston family, so his days probably didn’t get any easier.”

Ming Ying let out a scoff and thought to himself, Damn capitalist.

“Speaking of which,” Mark stood up from the sofa again. “I think I have a secretly-taken photo of Mr. Aston somewhere. Let me grab it and show you.”

Ming Ying said, “No need. To be honest, I’m a little face-blind. Even if I saw it, I’d probably forget.”

Being face-blind with foreigners was one reason. But mainly, he felt he would never cross paths with that kind of person anyway.

“Alright,” Mark laughed. “In that case, I hope you at least remember my face.”

Ming Ying burst out laughing, and the two clinked glasses.

The next day, Ming Ying was woken up by the sunlight streaming into the living room.

Eyes still closed, he shifted his position on the sofa and reached out for his phone. After fumbling over wine bottles for ages, he finally touched the rectangular screen.

He sighed, opened his eyes, and pressed the screen on.

New York time, eleven in the morning.

Ming Ying automatically did the conversion in his head: at this hour, Shanghai would be one in the morning.

Still early.

He tossed the phone aside and kept sleeping.

But the very next second, his eyes suddenly flew open.

Hadn’t someone sent him a message just now?

The moment this possibility hit him, Ming Ying jolted upright as if wound by a spring.

The movement was so sudden that it startled Mark, who had been sprawled on the floor, awake. Mark began calling upon God in fright.

Ming Ying scooped up his phone from the floor. Sure enough, someone really had sent him a message.

He glanced at it hastily. After confirming the name Thomas wasn’t there, he let out a sigh of relief.

Ming Ying called out “Sorry” to Mark on the floor, then leaned back on the sofa again.

It must be a reply from that Alan guy from yesterday. He thought.

He yawned and opened WhatsApp. Five new messages.

The top one was from Alan: a string of English letters—an address for a restaurant. It said Professor Thomas was inviting them to a meal together at that restaurant on the weekend before the semester started.

Ming Ying clicked the address link. It was a pretty decent-looking Western restaurant.

He bookmarked it. Then, selecting a [Puppy Giving OK Sign] sticker, he sent it. But after sending the message, his fingertip suddenly froze.

Eh? Wasn’t he the one who had messaged Alan first last night?

He remembered sending the sticker that matched this one—the Puppy Peeking sticker.

But there was no trace of that…

Frowning, Ming Ying scrolled up and down the chat screen. But the chat was only this long. Three exchanges total.

If he hadn’t sent it to Alan, then who had he sent it to?

Ming Ying exited the chat and scanned his message list. There were only a few messages from newly added senior students, but at the very bottom was one more—

XI: Airport.

That was the only word on Ming Ying’s phone screen.

… Oh crap, crap, crap!

Ming Ying shot up at once.

The still-drunken Mark, startled awake again: “Oh! GOD!”

But this time Ming Ying had no time for “Sorry.” He stared at his phone.

Foreigner. Chinese. Airport.

Who else could it be but that girl?

Ming Ying tapped open the chat with XI.

XI: Hello

Mingo: Hello, who r you [smile]?

Mingo: [Puppy Peeking Sticker]

!!!

So he had sent this sticker by mistake. He’d sent it to her!

And the person on the other end had replied five minutes after receiving that second message.

… So what should he say now?

Ming Ying thought for a moment, then first went back to his room. After that, he sent a very brief question to his childhood friends group chat.

But the moment his message went out, his “sons” instantly popped up to start chatting, so fast it made him think it was also noon in Shanghai.

Son No. 1: Holy crap, Ming, you’re good! Only just abroad and already a romantic encounter?

Son No. 2: Are you sure the other person’s a girl? What if it’s a guy?

Mingo: No way. Among the foreigners I’ve added, she’s the only one who knows Chinese.

Son No. 1: Old Qi, you’re just jealous of Little Ming. Just say so.

Son No. 2: Nah, just feels like few girls, especially foreign girls, would use a photo like that as an avatar.

Mingo: That’s why I said, she’s different.

Son No. 2: …

Son No. 1: @Mingo What does she even look like? Describe her for us.

Ming Ying raised an eyebrow and thought, This I can talk about.

But just as he was about to type, the second before his fingers hit the keyboard, his brain suddenly short-circuited.

… Yeah, what did she look like?

Ming Ying froze with his phone in his hands. (⊙_⊙)

No way. He’d drunk a bit of alcohol and forgotten what the person looked like?

To be fair, it was a little embarrassing. As a student from a top-five university in the country, Ming Ying could memorize all sorts of bizarre formulas but had some trouble with facial recognition. He was naturally face-blind, and foreign faces were completely beyond his range.

Ming Ying frowned and tried hard to remember, but all he could conjure was a blurry golden figure. As for the girl’s face, he had completely forgotten it.

By then, the group chat had already started discussing on its own.

Son No. 1: Doesn’t matter what she looks like. Just use my martial arts secret manuals.

Son No. 1: [Warm Guy Roleplay Handbook] [Love Bible Original Edition] [Click link to jump ^%#€]

Ming Ying shook his head clear and clicked.

A minute passed.

Mingo: Are you poisoned? This link redirected me to some bootleg video site!

Son No. 1: Huh???????

Son No. 2: @Agate Diamond Boy withdraw it quick, or the group’s going to get nuked.

…

Totally unreliable. Ming Ying laughed and left the group chat.

In the end, he decided to open the conversation with a more ordinary topic.

He typed and deleted on the phone keyboard for five minutes.

Mingo: I’m Ming. Nice to meet you.

Mingo: Is it okay if I just call you XI?

After sending, he thought for a moment and tacked on a puppy sticker as a suffix.

Mingo: [Puppy Smile Sticker]

A while later, the two blue checkmarks lit up. And there was even a reply notification!

When Ming Ying looked, he felt pleasantly surprised and flattered, because XI had actually replied with two messages.

XI: It’s fine.

XI: Have you reviewed the school’s latest scholarship policies?

After reading, Ming Ying felt confused again.

What’s going on? This girl talks like a teacher.

Mingo: Sorry, I don’t quite understand what you mean.

Mingo: Do you need me to check for you? [smile]

He thought about it, then changed the last line to: “Do you need me to check for you maybe? [smile]”

Adding that “maybe” changed the entire feel of the sentence.

Ming Ying had his own art of chatting. The style of talking to girls, to his bros, and to strangers each had to be freely switched depending on the crowd.

Meanwhile, across the ocean, Silas stubbed out his cigarette. His eyes lingered on the spinning, smiling little white dog sticker in the chat for a few seconds before scrolling down.

When he saw Ming Ying’s two replies, Silas was not surprised. He even smiled a little.

It matched his first impression of this student—a bit scatterbrained.

The man on the sofa turned his head to the side and raised his voice. “Catherine, I recall that this year’s proposed scholarship policies and assistance programs were all included in the student handbook, am I right?”

Catherine clearly didn’t understand why Mr. Aston was suddenly asking this, but as a secretary, she was extremely dutiful. “Yes, sir. Do you need me to contact the school and have them send an electronic copy?”

Silas stood up, adjusting his suit cuffs as he walked toward the desk.

“No need. Please send me next week’s schedule via email. Thank you.”

Catherine, standing at the door, coughed once and replied, “Of course, sir.”

Silas looked up. “Caught a cold? Go see William. He should be at the hotel.”

William was Silas’s traveling physician.

Catherine wasn’t surprised. To them, his subordinates, Silas was exactly that kind of very considerate and thoughtful man.

“Thank you, Mr. Aston.” Catherine suddenly paused and then reminded him, “This weekend, you have a date with Ms. Rachel.”

Hearing this, Silas frowned. “Was it arranged by my grandmother?”

He didn’t even need an answer to already know. Other than his grandmother’s demand, Catherine would never be so rash as to inform him after the fact.

Indeed, Catherine confirmed it.

Silas tapped his fingertips on the desk. “Was an address mentioned?”

Catherine shook her head.

The man’s gaze returned to the meeting proposal on the computer screen. Offhandedly, he said, “Then set it at Aston Restaurant.”

With that, he put his phone aside and paid it no further attention.

……

Watching the message he sent be read but not receive a reply for a long time, Ming Ying rolled around on his bed. He thought, Maybe I said something wrong.

But the real problem was that there had been no conversation to begin with.

The chat history didn’t even fill a second page.

Ten minutes with no reply, and Ming Ying convinced himself: Maybe she’s on the plane.

Twenty minutes with no reply, he tapped on the other person’s avatar to study it for the eighth time. That doorplate looked kind of familiar somehow…

In the end, after agonizing back and forth and recalling that XI had first replied to him after he sent that wrong sticker, he sent another message.

So, half an hour later, the phone that Silas had left on the coffee table during a meeting quietly lit up its screen.

Mingo: [Puppy Peeking Sticker]