Keeping the appointment
On Saturday, Xu Feifei arrived at the pavilion in East Lake early as agreed.
At eight o'clock in the morning, there weren't many people walking around on campus. And since East Lake is a relatively remote area, there were even fewer pedestrians passing by.
Xu Feifei paced back and forth in the pavilion, her emotions tense, silently reciting her words of greeting and the questions that were nagging at her.
After a long while, looking around, I still couldn't see anyone. The longer it went on, the more nervous I became.
Xu Feifei took a deep breath, trying to calm herself down. She shifted her attention to East Lake, where there were many more lotus flowers in bloom compared to last Saturday.
Today is the summer solstice. I'm secretly counting down the days, and I estimate that I've been here for about a few months now.
"Sigh! Time really flies!" Xu Feifei couldn't help but sigh.
"Yes, time really flies!"
Xu Feifei was startled by the voice behind her. She turned around and saw the person who had come in, and exclaimed in astonishment, "Su Huan?"
"Did you invite me here?" Xu Feifei asked uncertainly.
“It’s me.” Su Huan smiled at her.
Xu Feifei cut to the chase: "Did you also transmigrate into the book 'The Domineering School Prince Loves Me'?"
Su Huan looked puzzled, trying hard to recall but couldn't remember anything. "I guess so, but I'm not sure. I've been trapped here for too long, and many of my memories are hazy."
"How long?"
"It's been more than a year."
"Oh! It's been so long? Do you have a way to get back?"
Su Huan shook her head and said, "Yes, I do, but I don't quite remember. I checked the books you borrowed in the library; you should have seen the bookmark I left, right?"
"Which one?" Xu Feifei was a little uneasy and wanted to test the waters, so she deliberately asked back.
Su Huan smiled slightly, not caring. "I've forgotten exactly what it said, but it was something like how my memories of reality have become increasingly blurry after staying here for so long."
Xu Feifei felt relieved after she answered, "Yes, I just saw this bookmark a while ago."
"Then how do we get back? Do you have a way back? Didn't you say your memories of reality are getting increasingly blurry? How can you remember them...?"
As Su Huan listened to the barrage of questions raining down on her, she hurriedly interrupted, "Stop, stop, stop! Ask me one question at a time. How am I supposed to answer so many?"
Xu Feifei suppressed her anxiety and asked the question that concerned her most: "Okay, how do we get back to the real world?"
"I'm not entirely sure about that either. The biggest problem right now is that my memories of being here are fading every day."
Upon hearing this answer, Xu Feifei felt a wave of disappointment, as if she had deflated like a balloon.
"If you stay here for a long time, will your memories of reality really fade?"
"Look at me, I'm a living example. Think about it, can you still remember clearly what happened before you came here?"
Xu Feifei stood there thinking for a while, then shook her head and said, "It seems I really can't remember. But I can still remember the general outline, and the rest is a bit blurry."
Su Huan nodded, having anticipated this outcome, and wasn't bothered. She continued, "I thought you were going to ask me why we came into this world?"
"Oh right, why did we come into this world? I only skimmed through a few pages of the novel. Did you read the ending? What was the plot like? Which side were you on? A good guy or a bad guy?"
Su Huan sighed and smiled helplessly, "Look, look, you're here again."
Xu Feifei obediently shut her mouth and didn't say anything. Her two big eyes blinked as she looked at her, silently accusing her of being wronged.
Have you heard of Einstein's theory of relativity?
Xu Feifei thought the name sounded familiar and nodded blankly, indicating that she had heard of it before.
Seeing her nod, Su Huan raised an eyebrow and slowly said, "According to Einstein's theory of relativity..."
However, these words automatically translated into Xu Feifei's ears as: "@%#%#@#%..."
"In the K-coordinate system, an event can be represented by three spatial coordinates: x, y, and z. Our real-world events are located in..."
"@&#……￥*&*"
Xu Feifei stayed up late yesterday, going to bed late and waking up early. Listening to these introductory physics lectures so early in the morning, especially since physics is completely foreign to her, was undoubtedly a lullaby. She just wanted to yawn, but she had to hold it in so she could go home.
So, Xu Feifei shifted her attention to Su Huan. She watched as Su Huan gazed at the distant East Lake, her mouth opening and closing as she spoke physics concepts Xu Feifei couldn't understand. Xu Feifei inadvertently noticed that Su Huan kept glancing at her hands while speaking.
Xu Feifei was a little curious, so when Su Huan turned her back to her, she leaned over to take a look.
"You actually wrote cheat sheets!"
Su Huan quickly took a few steps back, guiltily putting her hands behind her back and saying, "Don't get too close when other people are talking!"
Xu Feifei pointed to her hand behind her back and said, "I saw you have cheat sheets."
Su Huan put her hands behind her back, hiding them there, and took a few steps back, stubbornly saying, "What cheat sheet? What did you say? I don't understand."
Seeing that she wouldn't admit it, Xu Feifei tried to step forward and take her hand out to prove it.
"Okay, okay, I admit it. You know how hard it is to memorize Einstein's theory of relativity. I'm just doing this to prevent myself from forgetting the rest."
"I know, that's why I don't understand a word you're saying."
"You don't understand? Then when I asked you if you knew, you nodded?"
Xu Feifei replied matter-of-factly, "How could I not know Einstein's theory of relativity? Anyone who has read some time-travel novels or watched some movies and TV shows knows it. It's just that I don't know the underlying principles, and I can't learn them."
Su Huan was speechless; it seemed her preparations had been in vain.
"Besides, isn't this a Mary Sue novel? How can it contain such profound knowledge? I feel it should be related to the male and female protagonists, but I don't know what it is."
"Not necessarily. When someone transmigrates into this book, the overall style changes. You like Chinese style and Chinese food, right?"
Xu Feifei stared at Su Huan in shock, her expression as if to say, "How did you know that!"
"Actually, before you transferred to our school, there were no Chinese-style buildings here, they were all European-style."
"So, before I came here, there was no such thing as East Lake?"
After Xu Feifei finished speaking, she looked around East Lake and then at the Chinese-style pavilion with an incredulous expression.
"Yes. This used to be a golf course. The fifth floor of the restaurant is not a Chinese restaurant, but a Western restaurant."
Su Huan continued, "The courses weren't as boring as they are now, just the major courses. There used to be a lot of interest and skill-related courses. I just assumed you were a top student, otherwise why would you take so many courses? When I talked about relativity, I just wanted to show off and make you think I was a top student too."
After saying that, he smiled a little embarrassedly.
Xu Feifei was taken aback, and upon hearing about the "academic star," she was on the verge of tears. What academic star?! She was just inexperienced and poor; how could she know what life was like for the wealthy? She was just an ordinary high school student.
Xu Feifei said sadly, "You flatter me. I'm not a top student. The current curriculum is probably based on changes in my real life. My real school is just a fairly ordinary high school. I only have two PE classes from Monday to Friday, so I can barely breathe."
Su Huan nodded and said, "Yes, I can see that."
"So there used to be equestrian lessons? And nature lessons too?"
"Yeah, school used to end around 3 p.m. I never imagined there would be evening self-study sessions now, and so late at that."
Xu Feifei silently coughed up blood. School ended at 3 PM, an experience she had never had before, but she still couldn't experience it here.
Xu Feifei suddenly remembered something and asked, "Then why did you suddenly contact me? How come the surveillance cameras didn't capture you?"
"I'm not entirely sure about that either, but when I'm in contact with you, some of my memories come back. I guess there might be some bugs in this world, so I thought I'd look for you."
"Then how did you hide back then? The time in the dormitory and the time in the hospital."
Su Huan looked troubled and thought for a long time before saying, "How should I put it? My memory is very limited, and I don't remember things for very long. Moreover, when I encounter other NPCs, my real-world memories are automatically formatted. Only when I look for you alone do some of them come back."
Xu Feifei seemed to be deep in thought, carefully recalling everything that had happened before, and then asked, "Are there only two of us who traveled to this world?"
"It's hard to say. It's possible that he has connections, but he's just forgotten about them now."
Xu Feifei looked troubled, lowered her head and pondered for a moment before asking, "Do you still remember how you got here in the first place?"
"Like you, I transmigrated here after reading a romance novel. Although I've forgotten a lot of things, I have a feeling that I was constantly searching for a way back in the early stages."
Xu Feifei looked up at her and asked, "How did you know?"
"When I first met you, some of my memories came back, and I discovered that I was working part-time as a librarian at school. I used to hate organizing things, but now I'm working as an organizer in the library. There must be a way back to the library, but I just forgot."
Su Huan voiced her guesses, as the flickering memories always bothered her.
Since arriving here this morning, Xu Feifei felt as if she were constantly enveloped in a thick, white fog. Hearing the word "library" triggered a sudden thought.
"By the way, can you read the text of romance novels?"
"Those you borrowed before?"
"Yes, those books I borrowed before."
Su Huan closed her eyes and thought for a moment before saying, "I mentioned the bookmark before, but after interacting with you, I can still see the words inside, just not as clearly as before."
"Then let's get together more often? Maybe then we'll remember."
"Can."
“Let’s add each other on WeChat. We can get together more often when we have time. If we find anything, we can contact each other immediately.” Xu Feifei opened her WeChat QR code and handed it over.
After adding each other on WeChat, Xu Feifei looked down and added a nickname to Su Huan's WeChat contact. After finishing, she glanced at East Lake unintentionally, and the incident of falling into the water last week suddenly flashed through her mind.
So he hurriedly said, "When I fell into the water last week, I remember there was a moment when I returned to my dormitory. Could East Lake be the channel connecting the novel and reality?"
"Really?" Su Huan was a little incredulous that a way to get back had been found so quickly.
"Really! When I opened my eyes, I saw my pitch-black bed curtains and heard the old, creaking sound of my dorm's air conditioner."
Xu Feifei recalled the scene of falling into the water. She remembered jumping back and forth between her dormitory and East Lake.
After hearing her words, Su Huan wavered and thought for a moment before saying, "How about we give it a try now?"
Xu Feifei leaned out of the pavilion and looked down at the lake. The water was emerald green, with tiny bubbles rising from the lotus leaves, floating to the surface, and then bursting and disappearing without a trace. The depth of the lake was impossible to measure with the naked eye; the bottom was invisible.
Xu Feifei looked at it, swallowed hard, and said to Su Huan, "I can't swim, can you?"
"Then I'll give it a try."
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