Chapter 28 Love Letter Chen Jingchi: [@Zhou Yu]
After listening to the voice message once, Zhou Yu's fingers hovered over the keyboard, her lack of language skills leaving her unsure how to reply politely.
She long-pressed to save the two voice messages, racked her brains, and sent what she thought was a very heartfelt compliment: "[Even a cappella sounds good]."
As soon as I sent it, the other person's nickname changed to "typing," but it only appeared for two seconds before disappearing again. There was no reply for a long time, as if they were helpless against her praise.
Just imagining the expression on his face made Zhou Yu want to laugh, so she simply changed the subject: "I'll wash your clothes and return them to you."
This time he replied quickly: "No rush, let's talk when we meet."
Zhou Yu recalled that Du Heng had mentioned his schedule for the month, and today was the only day off. His schedule was packed every day after that. He wondered if he would have a chance to see Du Heng again next month.
*
The next day at noon, Du Heng brought lunch to Chen Jingchi's apartment. Finding him still asleep, he knocked on the door and woke him up. There were business activities in the afternoon, and he had to leave after lunch.
While he was washing up, Du Heng helped tidy up the living room. Going to the balcony to collect the laundry, he saw a gray coat hanging in the middle that clearly didn't belong to Chen Jingchi's size. He took it down and turned to ask the person walking by, "Whose coat is this?"
Chen Jingchi glanced at it: "Zhou Yu's."
Du Heng was startled: "Is she up yet?"
"I forgot to take it." Chen Jingchi asked, puzzled. "What are you thinking?"
"Oh, okay." Du Heng gave an awkward laugh. "I've put your clothes away for you. You can put them in the closet yourself."
Chen Jingchi reached out and took the folded clothes, his gaze falling on Zhou Yu's coat, thinking of the message he had sent her last night.
Back in his bedroom, he hung his coat in a prominent spot, thinking he'd contact her again when he had some free time.
*
A week later, the carnival that Ankejia had been busy with for more than half a month finally began.
In the afternoon, she was setting up equipment at the stadium. The person in charge of supervision was present. During her free time, she took some pictures of the scene and sent them to the dormitory group, inviting them to come and play in the evening.
An Kejia: [The External Relations Department has secured a lot of sponsorships, and many games are practically free gifts! You guys definitely have to come!]
Fan Xin: [I'll go! I'll go right after dinner!]
Zhou Yu wasn't really keen on joining in the fun, but An Kejia said she would be wearing Hanfu tonight, so she agreed to go in order to show her support.
After dinner, the two went to the stadium. This carnival was jointly organized by the Student Union and the Student Association. It was unprecedented in scale, with nearly a hundred booths scattered throughout the huge stadium, making it a lively and bustling place.
As soon as I arrived at the entrance, I saw that the inside was brightly lit, and the loudspeakers were playing the latest popular ancient-style songs. Looking around, I saw that the people in charge of the stalls were all dressed in Hanfu, and the girls had their hair done in an elaborate and beautiful way, which really made me feel like I was there.
The two saw An Kejia as soon as they entered. They were short-staffed tonight, so she was helping with prize redemption at the booth, which was located near the stadium entrance for easy access. The carnival had just begun, so it was relatively quiet there for the time being.
"You're here!" An Kejia twirled around, lifting her skirt. "Does it look good?"
"Beautiful!" Fan Xin exclaimed. "Wow, who did your hair?"
"My senior helped me with it," An Kejia chuckled. "She also did my makeup."
Zhou Yu took out his phone and took more than a dozen photos of her, and recorded a few videos. An Kejia sent the two of them a map of the stalls and urged, "Hurry up and have fun, otherwise you'll have to queue when there are too many people."
Zhou Yu wasn't interested in games and felt uncomfortable in crowded places. She followed Fan Xin, looking around aimlessly, wondering when she could get back to her dorm, when the person walking in front of her suddenly stopped.
She asked in confusion, "Why aren't we leaving?"
A girl dressed in pink Hanfu saw them stop and waved to them: "Would you like to write an anonymous postcard to someone you like? We can help you deliver it!"
Zhou Yu looked up and saw the words "Magpie Bridge Fairy" pasted on the stall.
Fan Xin quickly pulled Zhou Yu aside and whispered, "Zhou Zhou, I have something to tell you."
Judging from her expression, Zhou Yu already knew what she wanted to say.
"Actually, I've been chatting with a guy recently," Fan Xin said somewhat embarrassedly. "I met him at a lecture, and he added me on WeChat. We've been getting along quite well."
"That's great!" Zhou Yu asked, "You want to write him a postcard?"
Fan Xin nodded, then hesitated.
Zhou Yu sensed something was amiss: "What's wrong?"
“He changed his WeChat Moments background image yesterday to a poem, and I wanted to write one in response,” Fan Xin said softly. “I just don’t know how to write it.”
She clicked on the boy's WeChat Moments.
I have crossed many bridges.
I've seen the clouds many times
I've drunk many kinds of alcohol.
But I only want to love someone who is at the prime of their life.
It's a line from a poem that Shen Congwen wrote for his wife; the boy slightly modified the last line.
"My writing skills aren't as good as yours," Fan Xin asked. "You write lyrics so well, could you help me think of a few lines?"
Zhou Yu thought about it seriously: "Are you sure he changed his background image because of you?"
“He changed after we finished talking,” Fan Xin said.
Seeing her looking at him expectantly, Zhou Yu couldn't bear to refuse and nodded in agreement: "Okay."
"Thank you so much!" Fan Xin was very excited and quickly pulled her to sit down in front of the Magpie Bridge Fairy stall. "You write it first, and I'll copy it later."
Zhou Yu took a postcard and pondered for a moment.
Writing a few lines of poetry wasn't difficult, but Zhou Yu had never written love poems before. She could only try to use a few ambiguous images to construct sentences, trying to make them more romantic.
I have counted many stars in the dead of night.
Peeking into the secrets of the clouds
In the long river of moonlight
The drifting boat finally reached the shore.
After writing the four lines of poetry, Zhou handed her the postcard: "Okay, take a look."
After reading it, Fan Xin exclaimed, "Zhou Zhou, your handwriting is so beautiful!"
Seeing her looking at him with sparkling eyes, Zhou Yu felt a chill run down his spine: "You wouldn't be thinking of..."
"Anyway, he's never seen my handwriting before," Fan Xin said coquettishly. "I'll tell him it was me who wrote it, and I won't expose you, don't worry."
Thinking that this was an anonymous postcard, Zhou Yu sighed: "Okay, what's the signature?"
"Wang Wenxing, majoring in Chinese International Education."
After Zhou Yu finished writing, Fan Xin hugged her tightly and wouldn't let go: "Thank you so much! I'll treat you to milk tea tomorrow!"
"It's sweet enough," Zhou Yu said meaningfully, "It's too sweet."
Fan Xin just smiled, put the postcard into the mailbox, and asked the person in charge, "When will this be delivered?"
"We'll start sending letters tomorrow," the girl told her with a smile. "Keep an eye on the confession wall; we'll keep you updated on the progress!"
The two strolled around for a while longer before returning to their dorm when they got tired. Fan Xin remained in high spirits the whole time. When An Kejia returned from work around 9 PM and saw her unusually excited state, she asked Zhou Yu, "What's wrong with her? Did she win a lottery ticket?"
Zhou Yu didn't reveal much: "People are in high spirits when they have good news, you can ask her."
Fan Xin explained the postcard situation in a few simple words, and An Kejia was happy for her: "Wow, your crush has appeared! Will he write you a reply?"
"Not so fast yet," Fan Xin laughed. "He won't receive it until tomorrow."
Throughout Sunday, as time passed, Zhou Yu observed Fan Xin's demeanor shift from anticipation to slight anxiety.
When they went to the cafeteria for lunch together in the afternoon, Zhou Yu asked, "Hasn't he received it yet?"
"She didn't send me any messages." Fan Xin's face showed no trace of the excitement from last night, and she barely ate any dinner.
“That shouldn’t be the case,” An Kejia said. “Several departments were mobilized to deliver the mail this morning. Our school is only so big; they should have finished by now.”
Zhou Yu remembered what the person in charge had said and reminded him, "Check if there's a progress update on the confession wall."
"Oh right." Fan Xin was reminded by her and picked up her phone to open her social media profile.
However, after waiting for a while, seeing Fan Xin's increasingly strange expression as she looked at her phone, An Kejia asked in confusion, "What's wrong? Did you send it?"
"It's posted." Fan Xin looked up, her face full of confusion, at the two of them. "The confession wall says there's no such person."
"ah?"
Zhou Yu also opened the space and saw that the official account had just posted a new update ten minutes ago.
@JiangChuanConfessionWall: Good afternoon everyone! All the postcards received from last night's Magpie Bridge Fairy event have been delivered to their recipients! Please check your mail!
Three postcards have not been delivered. After investigation, it was found that there are no students with these three names at the school. If the sender needs to retrieve the postcards, please send a private message.
[Images][Images][Images]
The first picture I clicked on was the postcard Zhou Yu had written last night.
"There's no one named Wang Wenxing?" An Kejia guessed. "Could it be a misspelled name?"
Fan Xin was also puzzled: "He sent it to me when we added each other as friends."
She specifically scrolled to the top of the chat history to show the two of them, and indeed, there were no mistakes; the professional names were sent by the other party.
Zhou Yu opened the comments section of the post, where everyone was discussing the matter.
[Is this someone from another school? They really treat the student union like a post office! [speechless]]
"How could there not be? Are you sure you're not mistaken? I even ate with him in the cafeteria."
[Someone upstairs is sharing their experience; what happened?]
Are the student council members being too careless and too trusting?
[Don't just spout nonsense, everyone works hard [smile]. Go ask if there's anyone named Luo Feiyu in the broadcasting and hosting major.]
[Our major has a Luo Feiyu? How come I didn't know?]
[That's true, there's no one named Wang Tan in the animation major either.]
What's going on? I've been transported to a parallel universe?!
[It's simple, some people use fake names when they're in a relationship. [eating popcorn emoji]]
Three in a row?
When Zhou Yu saw the words "fake name," an idea popped into her head. She looked at Fan Xin and saw that she and An Kejia were huddled together reading the comments.
A few seconds later, An Kejia bit her lower lip and looked at Zhou Yu with a hesitant expression.
The answer was obvious, but neither of them dared to say it, for fear of hurting her.
Fan Xin frowned and exited the app, opened WeChat, and made a voice call with a blank expression. The cheerful ringtone made the atmosphere even more eerie.
After waiting for more than half a minute, Fan Xin put down her phone: "Didn't answer."
An Kejia quickly patted her on the back: "Don't worry, it might be a misunderstanding."
"It's okay, thankfully I didn't talk to him for long." Fan Xin withdrew quickly, and smiled wryly, "It's just that I feel like he'll make me even more afraid of men."
Zhou Yu was tongue-tied and didn't know how to comfort her. After thinking for a while, he finally said, "Would you like some milk tea?"
Fan Xin's smile wasn't so awkward anymore: "Drink, we'll order when we get back."
At 9 p.m., Fan Xin still hadn't received a reply from "Wang Wenxing". When she checked his WeChat Moments, she found that he had deleted her as a friend.
Meanwhile, the postcard incident began to gain traction online.
The confession wall posted another update.
@JiangchuanConfessionWall: This is a warning to everyone to avoid this scumbag. The previous posts about "Wang Wenxing," "Luo Feiyu," and "Wang Tan," who couldn't be found, are probably the same person. Fang Ji, a third-year journalism student, specializes in fabricating identities to play with the feelings of freshmen and has multiple relationships at the same time. Girls, see this face clearly and don't be fooled!
[picture]
An Kejia saw this post, forwarded it to the group chat, and asked, "Xinxin, is this the person?"
Fan Xin clicked on the photo and exclaimed, "Holy crap, it's him! That scumbag!"
"He's disgusting," An Kejia added. "If it weren't for this event, I don't know when I would have seen his true colors. I'm glad I didn't actually get together with him."
"Yes, thankfully I only met him once." Fan Xin didn't dare to think about it, "I wonder if other girls were even more badly deceived."
Zhou scrolled down to the previous post and asked, "Xinxin, are you still going to take that postcard back?"
"Oh, I was so angry I forgot all about it," Fan Xin asked her. "Do you want it?"
"I don't want to," Zhou Yu said, considering her feelings. "You can handle it."
“Then I want to come back and cut off the name,” Fan Xin said. “I’ll just take it as a love poem you wrote for me, since you wrote it yourself.”
Zhou Yu smiled and said, "Okay."
Fortunately, the love poem in the background image of that guy's WeChat Moments was also copied, otherwise it would have been really disgusting.
Just as he finished speaking, his phone rang. Zhou Yu looked down and saw that it was a group chat of six people. Zhuo Wencheng had forwarded two posts from the confession wall to the group.
Zhuo Wencheng: [Friends, let's gossip!]
Zhuo Wencheng: [This guy is too unbelievable. While others study journalism and go undercover under false names, he's deceiving girls' feelings.]
Tan Bei: [My goodness, if it weren't for this event, these three girls would still be completely in the dark.]
Zhan Li: [It feels like more than that, it's just that these three sent him postcards.]
Xu Yue: [However, to be fair, these three poems are quite well written.]
Zhan Li: [Your focus is really peculiar]
Zhuo Wencheng then posted photos of the three postcards separately in the group chat.
When Zhou Yu saw the postcard she had written, she thought to herself that it was fortunate it was anonymous. If they had known that it was written by her, she didn't know how she would have ended up in such a mess.
The chat is still going on in the group.
Tan Bei: [Wow, the handwriting on the last one is so beautiful, she must be a beauty.]
Zhan Li: [That's not necessarily true. Our high school Chinese teacher's handwriting was also very beautiful.]
The group chat fell into a deathly silence.
After a full five minutes, the person who hadn't spoken appeared.
Chen Jingchi: [?]
Zhuo Wencheng: [?]
Zhan Li: [?]
Chen Jingchi: [@Zhou Yu]
Xu Yue: [?]
Tan Bei: [???]
"..."
Zhou Yu: [。]
Just as I typed the period, a private chat window with Chen Jingchi suddenly popped up at the top.
Chen: [Image]
Chen: [Did you write this?]
When Zhou Yu saw that the picture he sent was a postcard he had written himself, his heart skipped a beat.
Before he could react, the screen went dark, and Chen Jingchi made a voice call.
-----------------------
Author's note: Second update at 9 PM~
Thank you to reader "keyee" for watering with nutrient solution +1
Thank you to reader "彤彤266" for watering with nutrient solution +2
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