booktalesy Chapter 106: The Undercurrents Beneath Su Qianqian's Goodnight
Chapter 106: The Undercurrents Beneath Su Qianqian's Goodnight
In the dormitory.
Su Qianqian sat on the lower bunk by the window, her back against the wall, her knees bent and her phone resting on it.
On the screen is Beifengxiaoxiao's QQ chat box.
The last message he sent stopped there:
Good night, get some rest.
Su Qianqian scrolled up a few pages of the chat history, then flipped back to the beginning, a slight smile unconsciously curving her lips.
"Qianqian, you've been staring at your phone ever since you came in. What are you looking at?"
At this moment, Zhao Lin, from the opposite bed, peeked out from behind the bed curtains, holding a small mirror in her hand, and was curling her eyelashes in front of the mirror.
Zhao Lin is a local of S City. Her family is in the building materials business. On the day she registered, her father drove a Mercedes-Benz and took her directly to the dormitory building. Then he took four suitcases out of the trunk.
Although she wasn't particularly beautiful, she knew how to dress herself well. She had her eyebrows finely shaped, her nails painted with light pink nail polish, and she liked to tilt her head when she spoke.
Su Qianqian turned off the screen, flipped the phone over, and placed it on her lap.
"Nothing, just checking messages."
"Is he your boyfriend?" Zhao Lin put down her eyelash curler, her eyes lit up, and she peeked halfway out from behind the bed curtains.
"It's definitely my boyfriend!"
"The expression you made just now was exactly the same as when my sister was dating."
"She stares at her phone and smiles like an idiot, and can't hear anyone talking to her."
Su Qianqian neither denied nor admitted it; she simply put her phone into the storage bag next to her pillow.
"Really?" Zhao Lin slapped the mattress and sat up straight, immediately becoming interested.
"Which school does he go to? Is he handsome?"
"Do you have any photos? Could you show them to us?"
"There are no photos." Su Qianqian picked up the glass of warm water on the table and took a small sip.
"No photos?" Zhao Lin pursed her lips and said, "Are there still people who date without taking photos these days?"
She turned to look at Zhou Ting, who was tidying up the wardrobe beside her, and asked, "Tingting, do you believe me?"
Zhou Ting was a quiet and petite girl who wore round-framed glasses and spoke very softly, as if afraid of disturbing others.
She put a neatly folded knitted sweater into the closet, pushed up her glasses, and said softly, "If they don't want to talk about it, that's fine."
Zhao Lin pursed her lips, then turned to Su Qianqian: "So, which school does he go to? You can at least tell me that, right?"
Su Qianqian put the cup back on the table before speaking: "It's also from S City."
"That's alright, at least it's not a long-distance relationship." Zhao Lin nodded.
"Long-distance relationships are so unreliable. My high school classmate and her boyfriend were cheated on after only three months of being in a long-distance relationship."
Zhao Lin picked up the mirror again, looked at her eyebrows, and used her fingertip to wipe away a bit of smudged eyeliner from the corner of her eye. Suddenly, she asked:
"What are his family's financial circumstances like?"
"You're so good-looking, you can't just settle for an ordinary family."
Su Qianqian did not answer the question.
She fluffed up the pillow, turned over, and lay down with her back to Zhao Lin.
Zhao Lin, feeling snubbed, didn't mind and continued touching up her makeup in front of the mirror.
The dormitory fell silent for a moment, with only the hum of the air conditioner and the soft clinking of clothes hangers as Zhou Ting tidied the wardrobe.
At that moment, Su Qianqian's phone screen lit up again.
It's a QQ friend request.
The profile picture is of a boy in a basketball jersey, and the signature reads "Let's be friends".
Su Qianqian clicked on it, glanced at it, and immediately clicked "reject".
She has already rejected over a dozen friend requests today.
There were students from our college and students from other colleges; there were not only freshmen but also upperclassmen.
I don't know where these people got her QQ number.
Su Qianqian placed her phone beside her pillow and closed her eyes.
Besides her parents and a few relatives, there were only three people in her QQ friends list—Song Qingning, Lin Bei, and Bei Fengxiaoxiao.
She doesn't want to add others, nor is it necessary for her to add them.
Zhou Ting finally finished organizing her wardrobe. She stood up, stretched her shoulders, took out her phone from her bag, and glanced at the messages in the class group chat.
She suddenly asked in a low voice, "Um, aren't you worried about getting a tan during military training tomorrow?"
"I brought four bottles of sunscreen. If you don't have enough, you can take mine."
"I brought six bottles." Zhao Lin pulled a small storage box from under her bed, opened the lid to show the bottles and jars inside.
"It has SPF 50. My mom brought it back from Hong Kong specifically because you can't buy it in mainland China."
"There are also after-sun repair masks. Apply one after military training and your face will be sore the next day."
Zhou Ting leaned over and glanced at the exquisitely packaged sunscreens in the storage box, then whispered, "Amazing."
Soon, the dormitory door was pushed open from the outside, and the last roommate, Liu Wen, returned from the washroom carrying a washbasin.
She was tall and thin, with her hair tied in a low ponytail, and was carrying a washbasin containing her freshly washed military training uniform.
After Liu Wen finished hanging the clothes on the balcony, she came in and saw that Su Qianqian had already lain down.
She then tiptoed, shoved the basin under the bed, took off her shoes, and quietly climbed onto the bed.
As Liu Wen passed by Su Qianqian's bedside, she glanced down at Su Qianqian with a faint smile on her lips.
However, the smile vanished from his face the moment he turned and got into bed.
Just then, Zhao Lin's phone, which was on the table, suddenly vibrated.
She picked it up and saw a new message pop up on QQ.
It was posted by Liu Wen; her profile picture is a white lily.
The message contained only one line: [Is she ignoring you again?]
Zhao Lin glanced up at Su Qianqian's back, which was turned away from everyone, then lowered her head and typed rapidly:
I only asked one question: what's her boyfriend's family's financial situation like?
[As a result, she turned over, facing away from me, and didn't say a word.]
"At least I care about her."
Liu Wen: [That's just how she is. Because she's pretty, she thinks the whole world should revolve around her, and she's indifferent to everyone else.]
[When I came in, she didn't even glance at me.]
Zhao Lin: [Exactly, didn't you see it during class meeting today? All the boys in our class had their eyes glued to her.]
[Especially when she went on stage to introduce herself, the audience was completely silent.]
It wasn't because she spoke well, it was because everyone was looking at her face.
Liu Wen: [I wonder if her boyfriend is really real or not?]
[This isn't something I made up to scare away my suitors, is it?]
Zhao Lin: [Who knows?]
[Anyway, she said she didn't have a photo and wouldn't give her name; it was like a secret rendezvous between underground members of the Communist Party.]
Liu Wen: [Hehe, maybe he's just an ordinary, poor student, too embarrassed to introduce himself.]
[That's normal. If you really wanted to find a rich, handsome, and successful man, why would you hide it?]
Zhao Lin: [Forget it, I'm not going to talk about it anymore. I have to get up early for military training tomorrow, and she's ruined my mood.]
Liu Wen: [Okay, goodnight.]
Zhao Lin: [Good night.]
Liu Wen placed her phone next to her pillow, turned over, and peeked through the mosquito net at Su Qianqian's back on the opposite bed.
Su Qianqian lay there quietly, her breathing even and calm, as if not a single word of what had just been said had reached her ears.