Chapter 5 — The Bed of Your Own Choosing

Gu Cheng can always live comfortably not only because his family has money, but also because he always has someone by his side to explain things to him. Shen Nianchu is the most diligent person among them. She walked to the door, turned around and said: "I just feel that he also has advantages." "Of course he does." Gu Cheng will show up for his friends, will tell jokes when everyone is confused, and will also introduce part-time jobs to classmates from difficult families. He is not a bad person; he is simply too good at treating other people's kindness as a permanent obligation that can never be revoked. Shen Nianchu turned her head: "Then why can't you just live with him normally?" I looked at her and slowly said: "Living together normally means I can refuse him, and you don't have to come and ask for him a second time." She didn't speak anymore. Before the registration deadline, Gu Cheng formed another team. He brought two seniors from the student union over and asked Shen Nianchu to be in charge of market survey. At first Shen Nianchu did not want to participate, but he told her convincingly, "You are the person who understands me best. What do you want to do?" Meng Lan finished looking at the list of opponents and asked me: "Are you nervous?" "A little." "I thought you knew everything." I closed the plan on the computer: "I only know one thing." "What story?" "This time what I write down, my name has to be in front."

The creative contest was prepared for a month. Our project was simple: a website for used textbooks, course materials, and campus part-time jobs. Du Hang is in charge of engineering, Han Dongming runs to the dormitories to survey, I arrange the business model, Meng Lan is in charge of the interface and presentation. Gu Cheng's project is more beautiful, serving as a platform for exchanges in school, called "Meeting". On the poster are two people looking at each other over a library shelf, the design alone wins us over half the time. Shen Nianchu was in charge of distributing questionnaires and often stopped people at the door of the lecture hall. She worked seriously, each questionnaire was numbered and, once collected, sorted by subject. Gu Cheng criticized her for being too slow, telling her to just randomly fill in some data. She didn't agree, and the two of them argued once over this matter. That evening, she went to the document photocopying store. Boss Qiang went to eat, Meng Lan was packing the school newspaper in the back. In the store there were only me and Shen Nianchu. The printer released the last page, and she suddenly asked: "Zhou Yanxuan, do you also think I have no boundaries?" I didn't expect her to ask so directly. "Why do you say that?" "When you look at Gu Cheng, you look as though you are looking at trouble. When you look at me, it's like you're looking at an annoying warning sign next to you." I couldn't help but laugh. She glared at me: "Isn't that funny?" "Pretty accurate description." "Sure enough you think so." Shen Nianchu took the paper very hard, pressing the corner of the paper into a fold. I turned off the printer's heating button: "You didn't come today to argue, did you?" "I just want to know what I did to you from the day I entered school. You have been avoiding me." She stood in front of the counter, her eyes slightly red, not from self-pity but from anger she had suppressed for a long time. "During that military training, you clearly realized that I was unwell but still stood still. Gu Cheng asked you for help, every time you looked like he was about to rob you. I said something to help him, and you even teased me. But we didn't know each other before." "Shen Nianchu, do you really want to listen?" "Want." "You did nothing wrong. What I'm wary of is not the current you, but a possibility." "What possibility?" I can't tell her that I was once married to her. I can't say that more than ten years later, she will sit in front of our dinner table and say that the three hundred and twenty thousand yuan transferred to Gu Cheng was just a temporary revolving loan; when I asked why we didn't discuss it, she would ask in return if I wasn't even her last family member. I can only choose what I can say. "You and Gu Cheng grew up together. He is used to turning to you, and you are used to cleaning up after him. You both think it is simply a good relationship, but with someone who comes close to the two of you in the future, it's easy to turn into a third person who will always have to bear the consequences for the two of you." Shen Nianchu was stunned. The bookbinding machine behind us fell silent. Perhaps Meng Lan heard, but didn't come out. "You mean that in the future, my love life will also affect others because of Gu Cheng?" "I don't know. I just don't want to be someone else." She looked at me: "I don't intend to fall in love with you." "That's best." These three words clearly angered her again. She took charge.
She went out and stopped walking at the door. "The year my parents divorced, I was twelve years old. My mother went to another place, my father didn't come home every day, so Gu Cheng's mother let me stay at their house. Gu Cheng gave up his room to me and slept in the study room for half a year." She didn't turn around.