A cup of cold tea
At 10 p.m., the lights in room 517A of dormitory 6 at Huaxing University were still on.
He Yinxin's hands remained on the keyboard, typing away at the person on the other side of the screen.
The sample size is insufficient, which is why the result is not significant.
These are the codes that change the variables. Try typing them in and see.
He stared at the screen, and the other party replied to his message shortly afterward.
He looked at the picture the other party sent, the bright 0.04 under the P value, and breathed a sigh of relief.
[It's good enough, highly significant, and can be included in the paper.]
The other party immediately sent a message: "Bro, thank you! That's amazing! I've tried proving significance so many times and couldn't get it to be significant."
[Transfer: 400 yuan]
[And bro, your pricing is incredibly reasonable! Thesis and empirical tutoring is only 400, while others charge 700 or 800, or even over 1000!]
He Yinxin's face remained expressionless as she casually typed a reply: "[It's just normal pricing. I'm just earning a little pocket money.]"
He closed the chat interface, stretched his arms, and yawned.
His gaze fell on the cold white tea beside him.
He Yinxin pictured those bright, sparkling eyes as she smiled and introduced the two cups of milk tea.
Actually, that milk tea tasted exactly the same as the milk tea that people would order when I attended parties.
However, I ended up drinking it all in one go.
I am clearly a "tea" fundamentalist; I prefer simply steeping tea in hot water to adding milk.
He reached for the teacup with his fingertips, and as his fingertips touched it, a cool sensation spread across his fingertips.
The tea has gone cold.
"Beep beep beep—"
His cell phone, which was lying on the table, rang at an inopportune moment, and he shuddered.
He then picked up his phone, and the screen displayed the four large characters "Cousin Xuexi".
He answered the phone, and a girl's voice came through the phone: "Brother, you're still awake?"
"Yes. I'm busy." He sighed softly. "Is there anything I can help you with?"
"It's about this morning, bro. Thanks to you, I got my academic record verified, and now my thesis is much easier to write!" the girl said cheerfully. "I'll transfer the tutoring fee to your Alipay account later!"
His hand holding the phone trembled slightly: "No need. You're family, you don't need to give me money."
"No, no, no, cousins should keep clear accounts, and besides, you've taken the blame for me a lot since we were little." A girl's tentative voice came from beside him. "By the way, brother, are you really with Aunt and the others..."
"Yeah. After all, I'm twenty-two years old now, and I can't rely on them forever." He said calmly.
The voice on the other end sounded hesitant: "But bro, is it really okay not to contact them like this?"
"Grandpa always says you're an ingrate, heartless, and things like that."
"Actually, these aren't my biggest worries. I'm afraid you won't have enough money..."
He Yinxin chuckled lightly: "Don't worry about that, I've been working part-time to earn money lately."
"Moreover, I feel much more comfortable living than before."
His lips still curled into a smile: "But you, Xiaoxi, you need to work on your thesis. Otherwise, you won't get your graduation certificate and degree, and your uncle will nag you for days on end."
"Then I'll be accused by you for days."
"Okay, okay, bro, I'm done chatting, I'm going to sleep!" The other person seemed eager to escape as soon as they heard his nagging.
He Yinxin's smile widened: "Okay, go to sleep."
The other party hung up quickly, and he stared blankly at the light green phone screen saver.
He Xuexi is his cousin, who is a year younger than him, and they studied the same major.
She is a senior in college, studying at an ordinary first-tier university in her hometown's provincial capital.
This girl has always liked to run around and play in the wild since she was a child. She wasn't very motivated in her studies, and her grades were always in the middle range.
Grandpa would often sigh, "Xixi, you should learn from your brother. Look how outstanding he is!"
He didn't know what to say at that moment, so he could only touch his cousin's drooping head and gently tell her, "You don't need to learn from me, you are you."
"Being happy is the most important thing."
Although I always nag my younger sister, I can never be happy when faced with such comparisons.
In that home, I was always placed at a height that didn't belong to me, and subjected to gazes that I didn't want to see at all.
"Xinxin, you should do this."
"Xinxin, you have to listen to us."
"In today's society, if you don't become the best, you'll be pushed down by others, you know?"
Home, that place, gave him a crown, but also shackles.
He Yinxin rubbed her temples, pulling herself out of her past thoughts, and opened the notes app on her phone.
The first document is his schedule.
[Third-grade math tutoring in the Renmin North Road neighborhood on Wednesday evening.]
[Private tutoring in middle school math at Yong'an Road campus on Saturday morning.]
[Thesis tutoring on Saturday afternoon.]
[Part-time job at the trade show on March 14th.]
[Part-time job at the trade show on March 19th.]
He casually added a paragraph:
[Friday afternoon and evening, Jiang Yichun provides tutoring for postgraduate entrance exam preparation at University A. Weekly math and economics tutoring, bi-weekly software tutoring.]
As he looked at the three large characters "Jiang Yichun," the image of her smiling face when she ate that bowl of bibimbap flashed through his mind.
A slight smile appeared on his lips.
He Yinxin exited the first memo and opened the second one.
The second memo was more like a collection of random, rambling thoughts.
Jiang Yichun, majoring in Economics, ranked first in his class in terms of GPA.
[She has a unique way of eating, likes sweets... and doesn't seem to have any particular food she dislikes.]
...
[3.1 Today I had milk tea with her, but I didn't calculate the calories in that cup of milk tea.]
He looked at the short sentences, his fingertip paused on the phone screen, and continued typing a new sentence below.
[March 10th, she likes beef bibimbap.]
[The stone pot bibimbap with cheese is really delicious.]
No calories were recorded today.
After finishing these treatments, He Yinxin inexplicably felt her cheeks getting hot and turned to look at the air conditioner.
My roommate, who always complained about being freezing, didn't turn on the air conditioner.
He turned around and asked, "Old Jia, you didn't turn on the air conditioner?"
His roommate, who was playing games behind him, took off his headphones, stared at him blankly, and asked, "No, why are you playing?"
"Old He, why are you suddenly asking this?"
He Yinxin coughed lightly a few times: "It's nothing, I just suddenly feel a little hot."
Jia Shugui laughed: "Is that so? Maybe my passion for playing games ignited the whole room."
"Hey Hey Hey, wanna play a round? You haven't played since the start of this semester."
He Yinxin turned around and said, "No, I've been too busy lately, I don't have time."
"Oh, I see. Okay, you continue, and I'll continue too." Jia Shugui turned around and continued typing away on the keyboard.
He Yinxin turned around, took out her earphones from the drawer, put them on, and started scrolling through her WeChat Moments.
He watched as a series of trivial complaints, glamorous photos, and articles from various public accounts rushed past him like a fleeting glimpse.
He finally remembered the cold cup of white tea next to him.
He Yinxin reached out, picked up the cup of tea, and downed it in one gulp.
The now-cold white tea slid down his lips and into his mouth.
It was cold and slightly bitter, but in the end, a hint of sweetness emerged.
That bittersweet taste seeped into every vein of his body, completely suppressing the sudden surge of blood that had just risen inexplicably.
Tea is very low in calories, so it is considered a beverage in his "safe zone".
White tea also has a calming and sleep-inducing effect, so he often drinks a sip before bed.
"Ha—" He sighed softly, his hand hovering over the exit button, only to see a familiar profile picture.
It was a small mongrel with its tongue sticking out.
Jiang Yichun (Economics): [I'm a little homesick. School is so tiring. I want to rest. I hope that after a good night's sleep, I'll be full of energy for another day!]
He looked at the few dozen words and his gaze fell on the two words "homesick".
Jiang Yichun misses home. She must have a good relationship with her family.
She looked so happy and radiant while eating; she must have been raised with the love and care of her parents.
Moreover, despite the many complaints in her words, she still believed that tomorrow would be better.
Tomorrow will be another day full of energy...
He Yinxin's thoughts were scattered. By the time he came to his senses, he had already liked her post on WeChat Moments.
"Um?"
The blood and energy that had just been calmed by the cold white tea surged up again, and he almost dropped his phone on the ground.
He scanned the likes section again and spotted a familiar profile picture.
Yang Fei, a junior minister in her own student organization, also liked that post on WeChat Moments.
He Yinxin felt as if she were being exposed to someone else's cold flashlight.
He thought of Yang Fei's eyes, which were always gossiping, and her mouth, which never shut up, and could only brush the stray hairs from his forehead.
If I hadn't asked Jiang Yichun a few more questions out of curiosity...
He Yinxin gripped his phone tighter, muttering to himself, "What am I doing...?"
He took a deep breath and hesitated for a long time on the button to cancel the like.
Like and then unlike, that's the strangest thing, isn't it?
What will Jiang Yichun think of me?
Will she think I'm making fun of her?
So he began to make some “futile struggles”.
After struggling for a while, he gave up and turned off his phone, took off his earphones, stood up abruptly, grabbed shower gel and a change of clothes from the side, opened the door and rushed into the bathroom.
Only his roommate Jia Shugui was peeking out from behind him: "What's up, Lao He? I wasn't playing games very loudly today, was I?"
He Yinxin didn't reply to him. She strode into the bathroom of the suite, took off her clothes, and turned on the tap.
Hot water poured down, splashing onto his skin.
A thick layer of steam filled his vision, and he pressed his hand against the wall.
Jiang Yichun's smiling face appeared before him, and he couldn't shake it off no matter what he did.
Why would I hesitate and worry about things because of her? Why would I go to such lengths and even draft a contract for her?
He questioned himself repeatedly, but could only use other answers to cover up the deeper issues.
I was just curious about her, nothing more.
I was just curious why the calories in the numbers disappeared when I ate with her.
I'm just curious how she can be so full of energy every day.
Therefore, this can be considered at most a sociological experiment.
It was just an experiment to explore the influence of one person on another.
It's just an experiment that will end once she successfully gets into graduate school and I have a chance to recover.
He gasped for breath, squeezed out the shower gel, lathered it into foam, and applied it to his body.
The sticky sound of water, along with the foam, completely overwhelmed and enveloped his chaotic thoughts, finally flushing them into the sewer.
He rubbed his dripping hair, slipped on his slippers, walked out of the bathroom, and returned to his dormitory.
When roommate Jia Shugui saw He Yinxin, who had just rushed out the door in a hurry, open the door with a fogged-up look on her glasses, he gave her a wicked smile.
"Old He, why did you rush out like that?"
"Did my game disturb you?"
He Yinxin glanced at him, casually grabbed a tissue to dry her lenses, and put them on: "No. If you disturb me, I'll tell you to your face instead of rushing out to take a shower."
"Moreover, I found that taking a bath doesn't solve any problems."
Jia Shugui sat up straight: "Oh? What brilliant insights does our great philosopher He have to offer?"
"It's nothing, just saying." He Yixin casually brushed him off, then turned around and packed up all the toiletries. She then went to the balcony to wash her underwear and hang it to dry.
After doing all that, he returned to his seat.
It was already 11:30 p.m. when He Yinxin opened her WeChat Moments again.
Jiang Yichun's post on WeChat Moments has disappeared.
He Yinxin breathed a sigh of relief.
It's good that I deleted it, otherwise it might have caused some trouble.
Next time Jiang Yichun asks why I liked a post, I'll just say I accidentally liked it when I was liking my supervisor's research recommendation.
As he pondered various countermeasures, a newly popped-up message caught his eye.
Jiang Yichun (Economics): [Senior He, are you free Sunday evening?]
I know a really good night market stall near the university! I'm thinking of having my third meal with someone this week there.
[And the prices there are incredibly affordable, so you don't have to worry about going bankrupt.]
The little dog avatar and the friendly bunny emoji she sent made it seem like she was hopping and skipping in front of her.
He looked at his phone screen and accidentally noticed his own smile reflected in it.
Why am I laughing again?
He covered his mouth and typed a reply with one hand: "[I'm free Sunday night. Send me the address. Departure time is 5:30 PM. Is that okay?]"
The other party quickly replied: 【Of course! See you on Sunday~】
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