Chapter 3 — The Bed of Your Own Choosing

After enrolling, my time was almost occupied by Gu Cheng's class activities and Shen Nianchu's chores. By the time I really started thinking about making money, it was the second semester of my second year. This time, I saw an announcement about tuition support jobs and startup talks on the bulletin board, and immediately signed up that day. Meng Lan used her chopsticks to point at the untouched piece of tomato in my rice tray: "But you were a bit strange just now. You obviously knew that girl was about to faint, why didn't you mention it?" I looked at her. "What do you see?" "Everyone was watching excitedly, only you looked at her lips first, then at Gu Cheng. When she staggered, your legs moved." Han Dongming and Du Hang stopped their chopsticks at the same time, with the look on their faces that they were finally waiting for romance in school. I picked up a piece of tomato: "I thought there was someone next to her who would take care of it." Meng Lan did not ask further, just said: "It can be seen that you trust your judgment completely." "Do you also divide the division when eating meals?" "Yes. You don't like to eat tomatoes, you can share them with me." She picked them up. "Put your chicken thigh on my tray and take a piece of tomato instead." The movements were as natural as just completing an equal exchange. After finishing the afternoon training session, Shen Nianchu waited for me in the dormitory. Gu Cheng leaned against the tree next to him, playing with his phone. When he saw me, he raised his hand to call. "Yanxuan, Nianchu said that when she fainted at noon, you were right next to her." "I'm present." Shen Nianchu looked at me: "Did you know I had low blood sugar before?" I was silent for a moment: "Your face doesn't look good." "Then why didn't you say anything?" she asked very seriously, even a little hurt, as if I owed her a right hand to reach out at the right time. I asked back: "Is there finally someone to take care of you?" "Yes." "That's okay." Gu Cheng put the phone in his pocket: "Why do you always seem to be drawing boundaries with others? We are classmates, so if we lend a hand, we won't lose any meat." I looked at him: "You know she has had low blood sugar since childhood, why don't you prepare sugar for her first?" The smile on Gu Cheng's face faded. Shen Nianchu immediately explained: "He didn't expect it to be so serious today." "I didn't expect it either." I walked around them and entered the building. Shen Nianchu called me from behind: "Zhou Yanxuan." I turned my head. She held her training sleeve, as if she had a lot of questions to ask, in the end she just said: "The way you look at me, it's like you've known me for a long time." Someone in the stairwell was holding a basin of water and rushed down. I leaned forward to avoid it. "Maybe you look like an old acquaintance of mine." She looked stunned. "Who?" "A person who always feels that others do not help him or her is cold-blooded." This sentence is a bit heavy. Shen Nianchu's face immediately became unsightly. Gu Cheng took a step forward. I didn't wait for him to open his mouth and turned around to go upstairs. After returning to the room, I sat by the bed, not feeling as happy as I imagined. Shen Nianchu in her previous life was indeed used to being taken care of by others, but that habit was not created by her alone. Gu Cheng always drew close, then left whenever it suited him, and I filled the position he left vacant. She took it for granted that someone would support her. I thought that if I just supported her, I would become her most important person. The two mistakes collided and exploded more than ten years later. In the evening, Meng Lan texted me to remind me that the startup talk had changed rooms. At the end of the message, there was one more sentence: "Today's girl will be fine in the future. It's not wrong if you don't help her, but next time don't talk too harshly. People might think you two were divorced." I looked at that line without moving. Finally answered: "I know, reporter Meng." She quickly texted back: "I'm not a reporter yet, don't increase my professional pressure first." I laughed. The next room heard the sound of Gu Cheng playing the guitar, the strings suddenly breaking. Perhaps Shen Nianchu was sitting downstairs listening. This time, I didn't go to the window to look.

After finishing military training, I found a night-shift job at a printing shop on campus. The owner, Boss Qiang, was over forty, with a round belly and alert eyes. He asked me if I knew page layout, I said I knew a little. He conveniently threw me a club membership recruitment flyer and told me to follow the form on the computer. Ten minutes later, he stared at the screen: "Do you call this knowing a little?" "Humility is the basic quality of a student." "Forget it. Five yuan an hour, from six o'clock in the evening to ten o'clock, when busy, one meal is included." In my previous life, I did not come to this store until my second year. At that time, Boss Qiang's business was robbed by another half of the school's store. Every day he complained that students only knew how to bargain and did not talk about feelings. Now in the store there are only two old computers and a printer that often jams paper. A red sign by the door read, "Photos: ten cents." Meng Lan also works here.