Chapter 1 — The Bed of Your Own Choosing

When I opened my eyes, the dorm manager was using a ballpoint pen to tap on the table. "Zhou Yanxuan, Academy of Economics, building six, Room 406, bed number two. Hold the key carefully, if you lose it, it will cost you ten yuan." She pushed over a bunch of keys with a red plastic tag hanging on them. I lowered my head to look at the back of my hand. The skin was smooth and unmarked, without the calluses I had gained from years of gripping a computer mouse. The upper-right corner of the registration form bore the date: September 3--the first day of college. I stood in front of the table for a long time.
A male student behind me coughed impatiently as he dragged in his suitcase. The manager looked up at me: "Young man, if you're not satisfied with the dormitory, go aside first, there's a line of people waiting behind you." I tightened my grip on the keys, my chest felt stuffed with wet cotton. A moment ago, I was lying in the rented house, on the table was the divorce certificate that had been signed for half a year. Before I moved the last box, Shen Nianchu asked me if I needed to throw away the yogurt box in the refrigerator.
I told her it depended. After the door closed, I took a nap on the sofa. Opening my eyes again, I was back when I was eighteen years old. Room 406, bed number two. In my previous life, it was from that bed that I got to know Gu Cheng, got to know Shen Nianchu, and then helped them clean up their messy relationship that had lasted for more than ten years and still couldn't be resolved. "Miss, can I change dorm rooms?" The manager immediately raised her eyebrows, as if she had just heard someone new entering the restaurant and asked to change chefs: "The list is all arranged, could you change? Who would switch with you?"
I turned my head and looked around. A tall, thin male student was telling his parents that his high school classmate was placed in Room 406, while he was in Room 407. His mother asked the manager if she could be a little flexible, and she said twice that she could not. I walked over: "Is your name Qian Kai?" He was stunned: "You know me?" "Just heard. You want to go to 406, I'll go to 407, same bed type, same major. As long as the teacher agrees, it's okay." Qian Kai looked at me and then at his mother, as if afraid.
I offered to swap beds: "Really exchange? You don't collect money?" "If you're willing to buy me a bottle of water, that's fine." We took two registration papers to look for an academic advisor. The advisor was surrounded by new students to the point of having a headache. Hearing that both sides volunteered, had the same major, and were on the same floor, he used a red pen to cross out the room number and told us to go back to the manager to re-register. The manager amended the list while muttering: "You've already done something right after enrolling, don't regret it later." I handed back the key to Room 406 and took the key to Room 407. "You won't regret it." Dragging my luggage up to the fourth floor, I stopped at the turn of the stairs. In front of the door of Room 406, there was a tall male student standing, wearing white sneakers, a gray T-shirt, and his forehead hair combed very casually. Next to him was a girl in a light blue dress, squatting on the ground to help him remove the newly purchased mattress. Gu Cheng still had the fresh, carefree appearance of his youth, with bright eyes and an easy smile. Shen Nianchu raised her head and reminded: "Don't damage the medicine package in your suitcase. My aunt told me that if you change your place of residence, you'll easily get an allergic reaction." Gu Cheng replied lazily, handing the water bottle in his hand to her: "I know, Butler Shen." She took the water bottle, not angry, just glared at him. My previous life was also this scene. I pushed the door open and walked in. Gu Cheng put his arm on my shoulder and said we would be brothers from now on. Shen Nianchu helped us clean the table, and when leaving, she asked me if I wanted to eat together. Then I accepted the invitation, and my college life began with a four-person dinner. Later I understood that just because someone pulled you to sit at the table didn't mean they actually left room for you. Perhaps the food was simply abundant and no one wanted to pay alone. Gu Cheng saw me walking by with my suitcase and greeted: "Classmate, are you also staying at 406? The bed is ready for you." I stopped walking. Shen Nianchu also looked over. Her face looked much younger than in my memory, her eyes clear and free of the exhaustion that had marked her after marriage. I used to love this face so much that if she was quiet for a moment, I could guess who she would speak for next. "I've moved to the next room." I said. Gu Cheng raised his eyebrows: "Have you changed just now? Is our room's feng shui not good?" "There's someone who wants to be with you more." Qian Kai ran up breathlessly, hearing this sentence he patted my shoulder: "Brothers, thank you." He crawled into Room 406 and hugged a high school friend inside. Gu Cheng laughed and didn't ask more. I pushed open the door to Room 407. The male student next to the window was stepping on the curtained chair, another person was squatting on the ground fixing the extension socket, and under the innermost bed were two sacks of country specialties. The male student hanging the curtain turned his head: "New roommate? Han Dongming, from the Northeast. Let me tell you first, I can grit my teeth when I sleep, but I don't hit anyone." The male student fixing the socket said: "Du Hang, from Zhejiang. If he grinds too loudly, I will beat him in the whole room." The person inside poked his head out from behind the sacks: "Zhao Yue, from Ha Nam, Vietnam. My family forced me to bring twenty pounds of peanuts. If I can't eat them all, no one will be able to graduate." I stood at the door and suddenly burst into laughter. The smile escaped me so suddenly that all three of them looked over. I pushed the suitcase in: "Zhou Yanxuan. I don't know how to fix sockets, but I know how to eat peanuts." Han Dongming patted the bed board: "That's enough people." As I spread out the bed, the phone rang. The screen was still an old-fashioned push-button phone, and the message came from the temporary person in charge of the class. "Gather at 8 a.m. tomorrow morning at the teaching building to receive textbooks. Please have one person from each room report the number of occupants." I stared at that name, the sheet in my hand was still not flat. Han Dongming poked his head down from the upper bed: "What's wrong? Did your girlfriend text you?" "No." I turned off the screen and shook out the sheet. Changing a bed cannot avoid the same major, nor can I avoid people who have appeared in my life. But at least this time, I don't need to sleep opposite Gu Cheng.
I remembered Gu Cheng saying again and again, "Yanxuan, take care of Nianchu for me."

The first collective activity of Room 407 was to go downstairs to buy a sink. Han Dongming saw a red pot printed with peony flowers. The owner said it was definitely durable, but he said it was too fun to look at. Du Hang stood next to advise: "Whether four years of university can escape being single or not is not certain, getting used to wedding clothes in advance is not harmful." Zhao Yue hugged six bottles of mineral water and smiled to the point of squatting on the ground. I stood by the shelf, listening to them haggle over three yuan as if they were negotiating an international trade deal. The feeling of inauthenticity gradually faded after being reborn. Room 406 had also been lively in my previous life, but Gu Cheng was always the center. His family is in the provincial city, he knows a lot and is generous. Right at the first meal after enrolling, he took us to a restaurant outside the school. My family was ordinary. The first time I saw a plate of vegetables on the menu cost twenty-eight yuan, so I did not dare order it. Gu Cheng pushed the menu to me, told me to eat whatever I wanted, but when it was time to pay, he patted my pocket and said he left his wallet in the dormitory. That day I paid. Later when he returned it, I immediately felt that he lived a very virtuous life. Now that I think back, our relationship was like that from the beginning. He decided to replace me first, then used a little favor that was neither heavy nor light to erase everything. After shopping, I returned to the dormitory and the door to the next room was open. Gu Cheng stood in the hallway making a phone call, his voice impatient: "Mom, I'm here, Nianchu is also home. Mom, don't ask eight times every day, I'm going to college, not prison." After speaking, he hung up the phone, saw the red pot in my hand and smiled without hesitation. "The aesthetics of your rooms are really unified." Han Dongming held the pot under his arm: "Mainly to ward off evil spirits, to prevent people from the next room from borrowing things and not returning them." Gu Cheng didn't hear the sarcasm, but smiled and said we'd play football together someday. That evening, the class held a meeting. When I entered the classroom, Shen Nianchu was standing next to the podium handing out registration forms. She was in charge temporarily not because she liked to stand out, but because she worked carefully. The counselor conveniently called her name, and she immediately arranged each form neatly according to student code. "Zhou Yanxuan." She handed the form to me, her eyes stopped on my face for a second. "You changed the dorm room, right? In the original list, it was Room 406." "Yes." "Why did you change?" "Qian Kai wants to stay with you."
She still wanted to ask something, but the student behind her urged her forward, so she stepped aside to let me pass. During the class meeting, we had to choose a temporary cadre. Gu Cheng arrived ten minutes late, and when he came in from the back door, he was still holding three cups of milk tea. He put one cup on Shen Nianchu's table, sat down in the last row himself, causing the surrounding girls to look over. The counselor asked who wanted to be class president, Gu Cheng raised his hand. It was the turn of the life committee member, he turned his head and winked at me. In his previous life, he also signaled like that. I worked as a life committee member, collected money for the whole class for four years, and made forms for four years. Gu Cheng was the class president. During activities, he went on stage and assigned me the chores. Shen Nianchu felt that we worked well together, often saying that Gu Cheng didn't look trustworthy, but luckily he had me. This time, I bowed my head and filled in my family information, without raising my hand. The last person chosen as life commissioner was a male student named Luo Nan. He excitedly wrote down the dormitory list, but after the meeting ended, Gu Cheng stopped me again. "Did you see me winking at you?" "Yes." "Then why don't you register? The class president and the life committee have to coordinate, it's convenient for people who know to work." I put my pen in my bag: "We don't know each other." Gu Cheng was stunned, then smiled: "In the next room, it's still considered half of the same room, you'll gradually get used to it." He's always had such bravery. When someone else rejects him, he doesn't feel like it's a rejection, he just thinks that the other person is temporarily out of his rhythm. Shen Nianchu brought over the remaining form: "Gu Cheng, stop keeping others from talking. The dormitory statistics still lack your Room 406." Gu Cheng took the form and handed it to me. "Yanxuan, take it back and give it to Qian Kai for me, they are all in the dormitory." That action was too natural. In my previous life, I also accepted it very naturally. I didn't show my hand: "When you come back, take it yourself." Gu Cheng's hand stopped in midair. Shen Nianchu looked from me to him. "I can pass it to you; it's on my way anyway." "Female students cannot enter the men's dormitory." I said, "If you leave it at the security guard, it might get lost. Gu Cheng is the class president, he can handle it." My voice wasn't heavy, but Shen Nianchu frowned, as if she felt I was deliberately making things difficult for others. Gu Cheng rolled up the form, tapped it on his palm: "Okay, okay, I'll take it. Classmate Zhou is really principled."