Chapter 16

She didn’t see Jing Ming again for days after that.
The midterms were fast approaching and she was doubled down on both exam prep and extracurricular study, too busy for much else.
On a campus this size, when your routine is just dorm, library, cafeteria, classroom, you’d be lucky to catch a familiar face at all.
Beyond that, she was stuck in a rut of self-loathing. She hated this distracted, drifting version of herself, like a clueless fly, completely off course.
She longed for the old girl at home, the one with a clear goal and an undistracted mind.
She fought herself, scrambling to claw her way out of the spiral.
While thinking all this, she started slashing her pen across paper without realizing, a mess of jagged, angry lines scattered everywhere.
In the dorm, He Huanhuan was chewing spicy beef jerky, head bent over notebooks copying out key points. She heard the furious scribbling, turned. “Du-‘Rough’, what’s up? You in a fight with your homework?”
Xia Nan didn’t even look up from her book: “Sounds like someone’s facing execution.”
Du Ruo snapped out of it. She looked down and saw the ruined draft paper, tore off the top two sheets, crumpled them, and tossed them into the trash. “Nothing, just spacing out.”
“Okay.” Huanhuan didn’t push it. Xia Nan, though, shot a suspicious look her way; Du Ruo averted her eyes, guilt prickling.
It was Saturday, but with the midterms looming, Xia Nan and Qiu Yuchen had stayed in, noses buried in their books.
Qiu Yuchen got bored, tossed her book aside, pulled out her laptop and headphones, ready to binge a few shows: “Huan, pass me a pack of your family’s signature ‘Super Hot Beef Jerky’.”
He Huanhuan lobbed a pack at Yuchen, then eyed Xia Nan.
Xia Nan shook her head, “Too spicy for me. If it breaks me out, all my skincare’s gone to waste.”
Huanhuan gave her a thumbs up. “Respect your self-control! …Xiao Ruo?”
“Period pain. My stomach’s killing me.” Du Ruo groaned weakly.
Huanhuan remembered something, “Hey, weren’t you guys supposed to have an autumn field trip this week? You skip out?”
“Yeah, I took a day off. But as soon as I did, all the guys in class bailed too, said they’d wait for me and move it to next week.”
Qiu Yuchen munched spicy jerky, beads of sweat on her nose, “Class beauty perks, huh. When a guy misses from our class trip, nobody reschedules a thing.”
Du Ruo hugged her crampy stomach and managed a weak smile.
Once the snack talk faded, the dorm fell quiet again.
Everyone buried themselves in studying; only the crinkle of Huanhuan unwrapping snacks or the faint leak of audio from Yuchen’s earbuds broke the silence.
Then, the harsh scrape of pen across paper cut the air again.
Huanhuan and Xia Nan looked over in sync: Du Ruo sat biting her lip, gouging harsh lines into her draft paper.
Huanhuan called, “Du Ruo?”
Du Ruo froze, her palm clammy with sweat.
“You okay?”
She crumpled the page and lied, “Probably just nerves before exams, nothing major.”
Huanhuan let out a breath, relieved. “I thought it was something huge. You’ve been wound crazy tight since freshman year, like you’re always prepping for college entrance exams or something. Chill out a bit!”
“I know, I know. Don’t worry.”
Xia Nan took a beat, then asked, “Du-‘Rough’, you’re not bottling something up lately, are you?”
“Yeah!” Yuchen paused her show, looking concerned. “If you’re in trouble, just say the word, see if we can help.”
Du Ruo twisted her fingers, hesitated, then said quietly, “I don’t even know what’s wrong, just keep falling into this gross, stuck mood, and don’t realize it until after. Like just now, the lines, it just happens, and then I regret it instantly.”
Qiu Yuchen said, “Probably a bad mood cycle, right? Everyone gets those now and then; it goes away after a bit. I just had a random slump not long ago.”
Huanhuan nodded, “Yeah, totally happens to me too.”
That made Du Ruo feel a little better.
Xia Nan closed her book and suggested, “Want to go take a walk down the tree-lined road? Dorm bonding activity.”
“Awesome!” Huanhuan tossed her pen aside, “I seriously can’t take another minute of this textbook!”
Qiu Yuchen shut her laptop, “Let me change first.”
Du Ruo agreed too. She’d already studied all she could. If she stayed in here any longer, she’d suffocate.
Only the trees know just how much deeper autumn gets with every passing day.
Near the physics college, a few long, quiet, tree-lined avenues rested. Miss a week, and half the treetops had turned gold overnight.
The road was dusted with a layer of fallen leaves. Step by step, shoes crunching softly on brittle edges.
The gentle sound seemed to say, college life is more than just the library and lecture halls. There are tree tunnels and stadiums too.
At first, the four girls strolled in silence, caught up in the autumn wind. No one mentioned exams, or what was weighing on their mind.
Passing the administration building, Du Ruo suddenly recalled that night, waiting for Jing Ming on the steps.
But now, the leaves had all turned gold, the daylight shining bright.
She blurted out, “If you end up obsessively focused on something bad for you, how do you stop it? How do you let go?”
Huanhuan scratched her head, “Huh? Don’t people only fixate on stuff they like? Yuchen loves a TV binge, I’m all about snacks, Xia Nan’s obsessed with skincare.”
“You can obsess over stuff you dislike or fear too, you know.”
“Fear? Like how people with pollen allergies notice flowers anywhere?”
Du Ruo couldn’t help a soft laugh.
Xia Nan chimed in, “Doesn’t matter if you love or hate it, obsessing too much about anything messes with your focus. Like, I sometimes hate-watch dramas, rage the whole time, but can’t look away. The cure’s simple though, distance yourself. There’s nothing space can’t fix.”
Du Ruo was lost in thought.
Qiu Yuchen changed the subject: "If Du Ruo is Little Tough, should the three of us have nicknames too?"
Du Ruo said, "Xia Nan can be 'One Wood', and Yuchen is 'Four Waters.'"
Qiu Yuchen: "What about He Huanhuan?"
Xia Nan: "'Double Happy.'"
He Huanhuan protested, "That sounds awful!"
Du Ruo: "She’s such a goof, let’s just call her Silly Happy."
He Huanhuan kept protesting, "Speak for yourself, you’re the silly one."
Qiu Yuchen: "I dunno, it kinda fits."
He Huanhuan: "No way!"
Xia Nan: "Silly Happy it is."
He Huanhuan: "If you three are all silly, that makes six sillies in here."
Xia Nan: "See? She’s doing it again, classic Silly Happy."
The four of them kept chatting and joking, walking further away, their laughter scattered on the autumn breeze.
Whatever ripples Du Ruo felt in her heart seemed to drift away, brushed off by falling leaves and carried far off by the wind.
For a long while, she didn’t run into Jing Ming again. Instead, she dug into studying the details of scholarships and student loans, and eventually handed in her application.
Meanwhile, Jing Ming was nowhere near campus these days, spending all his time holed up in the industrial park. Midterms meant nothing to him. Not only that, the whole Prime crew was with him daily at the park, Jing Ming’s dad had just shipped back an autonomous car from overseas.
Since the self-driving car was basically a robot on wheels, everyone just called it the robot.
The day it arrived, a swarm of excited guys crowded around, poking and peeking at every part. Boys love cars, and this one was their dream come true. When it finished its automated trial run in the park, it was like their team had struck gold.
But after a thorough study of the system, the guys, hearts breaking, forced themselves to start tearing it apart, piece by painful piece.
Jing Ming was there nearly nonstop, overseeing every step, every screw, refusing to miss a single detail.
During one break, Li Wei sighed in awe, "This thing is a freakin' work of art! Damn, sensors everywhere, up, down, all around, front, back, you name it."
"And check out that laser sensor. Damn!"
"You see this gyroscope? Insanely precise."
The team's resident computer genius, He Wang, groaned, "Who knows how many separate CPUs are in here or what kind of algorithms they’re using for path-planning and obstacle avoidance."
Zhu Tao just shrugged, "Honestly, the steering, gas, and brakes are the easy part for us. If we want to get to this level, we’ll need to step up, but it's doable."
Jing Ming barely spoke, just meticulous planning, notes, indexing, analyzing both the big picture and the tiniest mechanism.
One night, after the team trudged out of the park under the streetlights, Wan Zi'ang asked Jing Ming, "Does your dad know you’re going to take this thing apart?"
Jing Ming: "Of course."
Everyone: "Wow."
Jing Ming: "What?"
Wan Zi'ang: "Your dad spoils you, huh?"
Jing Ming rolled his eyes, "Whatever."
…
A week later, finals week arrived.
Du Ruo was never one to cram. She was a natural test-taker, never lost her cool back in high school, even with all the pressure. But this time, she pushed herself extra hard, because her grades would decide her shot at a scholarship.
The academy based scholarships on midterm grades (40%), attendance (20%), and finals (40%). The competition started day one.
Electives only required papers, but for every core requirement and general ed class, there were exams to take.
She’d spotted Jing Ming at a couple of public core exams; for both politics and English, he turned his test in early. She couldn’t tell if he was just that confident, or just didn’t care.
The rest of the time, she was buried in the library, cramming till her head spun. She didn’t see him again.
Not until Thursday afternoon, after her circuits exam, three-thirty sharp.
No more tests that day. Du Ruo was heading to the library to review calculus when she got a text from Li Wei: Homeroom tutor Zhang Ruhan wanted to see her.
Their class had two mentors, one for academics (like a high school homeroom teacher) and a life advisor shared between grades. Their teaching mentor was Teacher Yang Changqing; the life advisor handled non-academic stuff.
In short, someone to check in now and then, and help out with anything outside classes.
The office was huge and open, without cubicles. Every desk was stacked high with mountains of files, giving off real “senior-year classroom” energy. In one corner, a handful of lush Hawaiian ti plants brought in a burst of green.
All the other teachers were off proctoring exams, leaving only Zhang Ruhan in the office.
"Du Ruo! Come here, have a seat," she called out.
Du Ruo sat across from her, taking in her surroundings.
Zhang Ruhan's desk was by the window, the blinds open, dividing the blue sky and tree tips into shifting panels. Stripes of sunlight slanted across the succulent pots on the windowsill, washing them in a halo of gold fuzz.
On both sides, desks stretched out, on the left, nothing obstructed her view; on the right, a single desk was piled so high with files it completely blocked the line of sight.
"Teacher, you wanted to see me?"
"Half a semester’s gone by, I never did get a chance to chat with you. Just thought I’d check in," Zhang Ruhan said, her voice gentle, her smile warm. "How are you settling in? Any trouble at all?"
Put at ease by her kind look, Du Ruo relaxed:
"Honestly, I was pretty nervous the first month. Back in high school, everyone said college would be easy, yeah, right. Here, everyone’s so capable, the top students are as hardworking as they are smart. I’m scared to death I’ll fall behind, so I push myself every day. After a while, I got the hang of it. Now I can keep up and not get flustered."
She’d actually already started teaching herself some extra materials, but there was no need to brag about that.
Zhang Ruhan smiled approvingly. "If you feel like you’ve adapted, that means you’ve quietly improved your abilities."
Du Ruo gave a modest smile.
"But don’t forget to give yourself a break sometimes."
"I know. I will."
"You joined any clubs?"
"Not yet," Du Ruo answered honestly. "But I plan to try one next semester."
"That’s good. Make more friends. And if you ever feel stressed or run into difficulties with life, come talk to me any time."
"Mhm." Just as she was feeling a little grateful, Zhang Ruhan pulled a form out of her drawer and asked, "You want to apply for the national grant?"
"Yes."
"But, you know, that grant’s reserved for students from low-income families."
The air shifted ever so slightly.
Du Ruo didn’t reply right away.
Someone’s footsteps echoed in the hallway. Only after they faded into the distance did she say softly, "I am."
Zhang Ruhan tapped her chin, thinking for a minute. "As far as I know, you’re using an iPhone 6s."
Du Ruo stared, wide-eyed in surprise, studying her for several seconds before answering, "That’s a hand-me-down, someone gave it to me. I didn’t buy it. I have no reason to lie, not for this money."
Zhang Ruhan smiled. "I was just asking, not doubting you. Don’t take it the wrong way."
"It’s fine, I’m not bothered. Teacher, for the grant, I already attached the required government certificate, it’s clipped to the application."
"I saw it. But you’re not the only applicant, so it’ll depend on the final review whether you get it or not."
In other words: let the poorest win.
Thankfully, no one else was in the office. Even if her pride ended up shattered on the floor, at least she could dust it off, tuck it away, and face the world again.
The sun cast still reflections on the Hawaiian ti plants, their leaves glowing quietly in the light.
Zhang Ruhan shifted topics, "By the way, if things are tough at home, why didn’t you apply for a student loan at the start of the semester?"
"I’ve had someone sending me money regularly. That’s why I didn’t look into it then. But now, I’m applying."
"Oh? Is it not enough support? Mind if I ask how much?"
Du Ruo froze, and shook her head. "It's not that. Honestly, I’m applying for the grant because I’ve already leaned on people for help too much, I don’t want to keep bothering them or take their money anymore."
Just as she spoke, someone entered the office.
Caught off guard, Du Ruo turned. A male teacher headed straight past her to the cluttered, paper-laden desk on the right.
Apparently, that absolute disaster zone was his workspace.
He rolled up a sheaf of paper in his hand and rapped it gently, thump!, on someone’s head.
If Zhang Ruhan wasn’t surprised, Du Ruo’s heart nearly leapt out of her chest. Had someone been sitting there behind that file mountain this whole time?
The male teacher scolded, "How do you get a 9 on your politics exam?!"
Du Ruo stared as the figure behind the papers sat up straighter, a shock of black hair poking up above the piles, ruffled with a few quick swipes of his hand.
"I think it’s pretty impressive I managed a whole 9 points," Jing Ming retorted, completely unfazed.