OVERGROWN GRASSLAND

4

After spending two minutes readying herself, Zhu Yun moved forward. Ren Di just happened to be leaving, so the two of them bumped into each other.

And then, guitar on her back, Ren Di walked right past Zhu Yun. Zhu Yun, “...” Was it too dark?

“Ren Di?” she tried calling out, but Ren Di seemed totally out of sorts. She picked up her small motorbike from a dark corner and then rode off, disappearing in an instant.

Well, that was pretty awkward.

Now, only one of her targets remained. Zhu Yun really wanted to leave, but then she recalled Fang Shumiao’s hoarse voice and her mother’s earnest instructions. After standing in place for a few minutes, Zhu Yun decided to just bite the bullet and go for it.

“Um..”

Li Xun didn’t seem to be stuck in his own world this time. He heard her voice and turned. Because he’d looked up with his eyes, a few creases appeared on his forehead. The glow of his screen added a coolness to his facial features.

Regret.. Oh, she felt regret, regret, regret.

She should have just returned to her room and enjoyed both cups of milk tea on her own.

“What are you doing?” Li Xun asked.

The knot in Zhu Yun’s stomach tightened. She should introduce herself first. “Um, hello. I’m Zhu Yun. We’re—”

“What is it?”

“...” Zhu Yun tried to calm down. “So, recently the school is looking into the morning and evening study hall..”

Li Xun lowered his head and resumed his typing.

“...”

Can’t you let a person finish speaking first?

Zhu Yun continued evenly, “Because school just started, the teachers are keeping a watchful eye. The class president is really anxious about it too. She doesn’t want to report you guys, so she’s been hiding it, but if—”

Suddenly, something else appeared in front of them.

Once again, she didn’t get to finish speaking.

Li Xun was sitting on the grass. One of his hands was typing on his laptop, and the other pulled a cigarette out from his pocket and lit it.

He blew out a puff and then told Zhu Yun, “Hold this.”

?

“Hold this.”

Zhu Yun put her milk tea on the ground and grabbed the laptop with both hands.

There was a code compiler on the screen.

“Press space.”

“Ah?”

“You don’t understand when people talk?”

“...”

Zhu Yun pressed the spacebar, and then a window popped up. In it, there was a dark pixel character holding a sword.

A game?

“Arrows and spacebar to move. Dodge the balls that float down and cross the river.” Li Xun was sitting on the grass, his back to a goalpost. He held a cigarette in his hand, legs stretched out, as he looked up at her. “You get three tries. If you don’t die, then I’ll go to morning study hall.”

Huh?

Well, fine then. Playing games was easier than trying to speak with him.

Zhu Yun took a deep breath and clicked start. Bang! A ball dropped down from the top of the screen. Zhu Yun trembled. She was dead. He called that “floating” down?

She raised her eyes and saw a very relaxed Li Xun. Zhu Yun asked, “How many balls are there total?”

Li Xun silently raised two fingers.

Fine.

Zhu Yun thought to herself, there are three chances and two balls. She knew where the first ball would fall, and she’d find out where the second ball fell on her second try. Then, she’d be able to succeed by the third time.

She pressed start once more. Zhu Yun moved her character back and dodged the first ball. She continued moving as far as she could, and then another ball fell.

Zhu Yun had already pressed the key to move, but she still got hit.

She looked up again. Li Xun was still looking at her, a smirk on his face.

What a rotten game design.. A person obviously couldn’t react that quickly.

But, no need to worry. There was still another chance. Zhu Yun relaxed and grabbed her hand. It was then that she realized that her palm was sweaty.

Final chance.

Zhu Yun easily dodged the first ball and continued backwards. She was tense, but she’d already pressed the keys to move her character before the second ball could hit her.

Zhu Yun let out a breath and jumped across the river.

And then died.

????

Zhu Yun’s eyeballs nearly popped out.

At her side, Li Xun covered his head and laughed until his shoulders shook, the cigarette ash floating through the air.

Zhu Yun suddenly noticed the compiler running quietly at the corner of the screen. A thought suddenly crossed her mind. Ignoring Li Xun’s ridicule, she investigated the compiler.

They hadn’t formally started learning to program yet, but the code there was very simple. It had a very clear framework, like a math flowchart from high school. At a glance, she saw the first conditional function.

Cross the river and you die.

Die. Fuck.

The laptop was shut and taken away. Zhu Yun raised her head and looked at Li Xun standing before her. At such a close distance, she realized that he was really tall.. But being tall or short wasn’t the problem at hand..

“Is..” Zhu Yun thought for a moment, and then she carefully continued, “Isn’t your game designed a bit unreasonably?”

Li Xun didn’t respond, simply patting away the ash on his sleeve.

Zhu Yun laughed. “Getting hit by a ball causes death. Crossing the river causes death. Something’s wrong, right?”

“Nope,” he replied quietly, in a low voice, a cigarette hanging from his lips.

Zhu Yun said, “So, you die no matter what you do.”

“Yep.”

“...”

Zhu Yun spoke cautiously, “So, you’ll always lose when you play this game?”

“Mmh.”

“So why did you tell me play it?”

“You’re an eyesore.”

WTF? Zhu Yun thought she must have misheard. “What?” she asked.

“Because you’re an eyesore to me.”

Very standard Mandarin, and his voice was actually pretty nice to listen to.

Taken aback, Zhu Yun was silent for awhile.

“Why?”

Li Xun finally pat all the dust from himself as he stood up.

Zhu Yun felt that there was no one like her, someone who would still take notice of his smooth skin in such a circumstance.

He looked down at her and grabbed the smoke in his mouth. Lightly, he said, “You are. Way too. Fucking fake.”

The wind blew.

Zhu Yun arrived at the library. She wasn’t there to look at books, but rather to watch the scenery.

On the first day of classes, she found out that the library opened the doors on the top floor during the evening in the summer to air out the place. You could directly head out to the roof.

The library had six floors, and the top had no railing. Sitting on the floor, you had a clear view of the fountain and the field.

When she was younger, her mother told her that if she was in a bad mood, she should go to an open space and take deep breaths. Her stuffy heart would open up as well, and the trivial things in life would become less important.

Zhu Yun ran to the open space and took a deep breath. And then she smelled the paint can in the corner.

Cough, cough!

..Forget it.

Zhu Yun sat down on the floor and opened a milk tea to drink. After she drank half of it, she suddenly heard a curt voice—

“Fuck.”

She turned around and saw a shadow standing behind her. The sky was dark so Zhu Yun couldn’t make out a face. But she could see the familiar outline of a guitar.

“Ren Di?”

The shadow took a few steps over, and it was indeed Ren Di.

Zhu Yun moved aside a bit to give her some space. “What are you doing here?”

Ren Di frowned. “What about you?”

Without elaborating, Zhu Yun simply replied, “I came for some air, to cool off.”

Ren Di questioned, “The dorm has air conditioning, but you came here to cool off?”

Zhu Yun’s face was neither flushed or pale. “There’s natural air here, and there’s less chance of getting sick. It’s better here.”

Ren Di furrowed her brows.

Zhu Yun asked her, “What about you? What are you doing here?”

Ren Di reluctantly sat down. “I come here to practice guitar.”

“You practice here?”

“People complain if I practice in the dorm.”

“...”

Zhu Yun looked at Ren Di’s unhappy expression and then passed her a cup of milk tea. “You want it?”

Ren Di glanced at her, suspicious.

Zhu Yun said, “The ice melted since I bought it awhile ago.”

Finally, Ren Di accepted the milk tea.

In the night, Ren Di started playing her guitar. Zhu Yun couldn’t name the song, and Ren Di’s hand movement was a bit jerky since she hadn’t been playing long. But for some reason, as Zhu Yun listened, her stirred up emotions seemed to slowly return to normal.

The power of music was really quite magical.

After a bit, Zhu Yun remembered the task that Fang Shumiao had assigned her.

“Um..”

“Mmh?”

“Why don’t you attend morning study hall?”

Ren Di bit the straw in cup of her milk tea. “I’m busy.”

“You’re busy every day?”

“Mmh.”

“With what?”

“Why do you care so much?” Ren Di turned to her. “It’s not like it affects you if I don’t go to morning study hall.”

“No, no, you’re misunderstanding. That’s not what I meant. Anyway, it’s not easy on Fang Shumiao. If there are too many absences—”

“I didn’t raise my hand.”

“Ah?”

“When people were selecting the class president, I didn’t raise my hand for her.”

Zhu Yun hesitated a moment and then asked, “You don’t like Fang Shumiao?”

“It has nothing to do with her. I wouldn’t have chosen anyone.”

“Why?”

Ren Di directed an aloof expression at Zhu Yun. “Choosing someone to decide what I should or shouldn’t do.. Are you crazy?”

“...”

“I’ve never cared for that kind of thing.” Ren Di scoffed. “But no one cares if I raised my hand or not. Still, since I didn’t elect her, I won’t follow her.”

“........”

Zhu Yun was completely dumbfounded by Ren Di’s unimaginable, and yet quite reasonable explanation.

Ren Di glanced at her. “Do you really enjoy running errands for her?”

Zhu Yun paused and replied quietly, “Well, we’re all classmates.”

“Oh really?” Ren Di laughed but didn’t say anything else.

After sitting awhile longer, Ren Di picked up her guitar and stood up.

Zhu Yun also got up and said, “Let’s go back together.”

Ren Di shook her head. “I have things to do at night. I have to go out.”

“This late?”

“It’s fine.”

After parting with Ren Di, Zhu Yun returned to the dorm on her own. She sat on her chair a bit and took several trips to the bathroom.

When Fang Shumiao asked about her, Zhu Yun explained, “I drank too much milk tea.”

A shabby bar, music playing.

Li Xun, Gao Jianhong, and two other male classmates sat on a sofa, chatting. Li Xun’s current girlfriend, Liu Sisi, sat close beside him.

A little while later, someone walked up to them.

Gao Jianhong looked over. “Ren Di, why are you so late?”

Ren Di replied, “It’s nothing.” Then she asked, “Li Xun, come here.”

Liu Sisi glanced at her. Li Xun stood up and climbed out from the crowded couch.

Ren Di walked aside with him.

“Can that matter be settled?” Ren Di asked him.

Li Xun leaned against the bar counter. “Yeah.”

Ren Di frowned. “Really? Can I take your word for it?”

“Mmh.”

Ren Di continued seriously, “Okay. When there’s a profit, I’ll pay you back as per our agreement.”

Li Xun laughed. “Alright.”

Ren Di let out a breath.

Li Xun looked at her. “Why are you so tense? And why are you so late?”

“Oh, I was being lectured.” She glanced at Li Xun. “My roommate, Zhu Yun. Do you know her?”

Li Xun, “Ah..”

Ren Di thought for a moment and then suddenly laughed.

Li Xun, “What?”

Ren Di leaned over to Li Xun and smirked. “She’s not well-behaved.”

“Mmh?”

Ren Di raised her brow at Li Xun. “When I was practicing, I saw her smoking on the roof.”