“I don’t want to,” Su Yun replied immediately.
Campus belle? That just means more attention, becoming the object of others’ imagination. Other than that, Su Yun saw no benefit at all.
Besides, she was a guy.
“Sister Xiaoyun really doesn’t want people to find out…” Faced with such a decisive answer, Qin Xue wasn’t all that surprised.
She was about to say something else, but got cut off.
“Sister Xue!” A slightly childish-sounding voice rang out from not far away. It sounded pretty cute.
In no time, a girl ran over to Qin Xue’s side and intimately linked arms with her, like a couple.
“What are you doing here?” Qin Xue looked at Qin Yuanyuan beside her with a troubled expression.
This girl was a handful.
And of all times, she had to show up when she was with Sister Xiaoyun.
After linking arms with Qin Xue, Qin Yuanyuan also spotted Su Yun standing nearby. Then, like she was annoyed, she puffed out her cheeks.
“Sister Xue, who’s she?”
“Um, I’m just her friend. If you guys have something to talk about, I’ll get going. Bye.”
Su Yun knew it was time to leave the moment she heard a stranger’s voice.
Out of politeness, she still said goodbye to Qin Xue.
“Wait—” Qin Xue tried to stop her, but the girl beside her suddenly leaned over and wrapped both arms around her, pinning down the hand she was about to reach out with.
“Sister Xue, you said you’d take me out to play this afternoon. Why’d you suddenly say you can’t go?
Is it because of her?”
...
After leaving, Su Yun walked alone with her umbrella to the Academic Building, where every floor had restrooms.
As for whether to go into the men’s or women’s, Su Yun chose the former.
Going into the latter just felt weird—like she was sneaking around.
She didn’t want to, so she didn’t go.
Su Yun got lucky; when she entered, no guys were coming out. Otherwise, it would’ve been total social death.
Open door, close door, put the umbrella in the backpack.
Inside the empty restroom, she reached back and grabbed her long hair into a bundle.
But right now, for some reason, Su Yun couldn’t help but care about what just happened.
That girl who suddenly ran over and clung to Qin Xue—was she someone even closer to her?
Well, it made sense. She was the campus belle. Of course she had lots of friends. Su Yun could understand that.
Still, there was an empty, hollow feeling in her chest.
Ever since they met yesterday, Qin Xue had been talking to her nonstop, trying to pull her out to hang out.
Even though she’d just asked a bunch of confusing and annoying questions earlier, that still counted as caring about her in some way.
It had been a long time since anyone cared about what she thought.
Whether Qin Xue was the campus belle or not, or even if she was a guy or girl, Su Yun still felt the same.
Back in high school, Su Yun had a very close friend.
That friend also considered Su Yun their best friend. There were lots of things only the two of them would share. They hung out, ate together, spent every day by each other’s side.
But that feeling didn’t carry over into college. Even though her roommates would call her out to eat and chat, Su Yun knew…
They treated all their other roommates the same way. She wasn’t special.
“...” Now that her hair was tied up, Su Yun just stood in the restroom in a daze, not even sure how long before she finally pushed the door open.
She still had stuff to do—couldn’t keep wasting time.
Advanced Calculus class in the afternoon. She hadn’t done the homework yet.
So Su Yun quickly pulled out her umbrella and rushed back to the dorm.
Since it was still early, most of her roommates hadn’t gone to sleep yet.
When she walked in, among the five boys: two were reading web novels, two were eating while watching videos, and one simp was lying motionless on his bed.
“Su Yun, why haven’t you been in the dorm much lately?”
“You’re still holding an umbrella—was it raining outside?”
This was the usual dorm chit-chat whenever someone came in.
“Just went out to eat. Got tired of takeout,” Su Yun replied casually.
This kind of thing could be brushed off easily.
“No, no, no—none of you noticed!” Suddenly someone raised his voice dramatically.
Su Yun turned her head in surprise. It was the guy who’d tried to grab her hat after class earlier.
She’d even swatted his hand away back then.
Was he mad? Gonna start roasting her?
“Didn’t you guys notice Su Yun has a new hat? When I tried to touch it earlier, she straight-up slapped my hand away. So it has to be from someone else!”
Then that roommate stood up like she was about to deliver a courtroom verdict.
“Umbrella? Rain? Nah. He was out holding someone else’s umbrella. And he came back at 11 p.m. last night. That’s when the new hat showed up—he was probably on a date with his girlfriend, and the hat was a gift!”
“You really kept it hidden well, huh? Not telling us anything! What’s going on?” The roommate was fired up, and low-key jealous.
“Oh, right!”
“Su Yun, what did you do last night?”
Suddenly the four other roommates—who had been watching videos and reading novels—swarmed around Su Yun, completely surrounding her.
At this point, not explaining wasn’t an option.
“This hat’s something I bought, okay? Don’t make stuff up.” Su Yun hurriedly unlocked her phone and pulled up the payment receipt.
There it was: a few transactions from 11 p.m. the night before.
“Really?... Tch.”
“I knew it. Su Yun sleeps all day—how could he suddenly have a girlfriend?”
They quickly lost interest and dispersed.
“Is that so…”
Only the roommate who started it all returned to his seat looking dazed.
Then why did he smack me away like that? It’s just a hat—why get so mad?
As he thought more about it, he suddenly remembered something strange about when Su Yun slapped his hand.
He whipped his head around—
Su Yun was already working on her calculus homework.
And he had been secretly watching for a while.
How come Su Yun’s hands looked smaller now? And her skin… a little fairer?
Almost like a girl’s.
...
Su Yun did her calculus homework using a college question-solving app, plus a little of her own reasoning to make it look less like a straight-up copy.
Class started at 3 p.m., and she got there at 2.
Finished the homework, charged her phone, and left early.
As long as she wasn’t sleepy, she’d rather not stay in the dorm—more peaceful to be alone.
Looking at the dim, empty classroom, Su Yun walked to the front and turned on the lights, then sat in her usual back-corner seat.
“Baby, did you eat lunch yet?” Her mom had sent a few voice messages.
Su Yun played them on speaker, then typed out a reply.
(Me: I ate. I’m getting ready for class now.)
Since her mom wasn’t working at noon, she replied in seconds, sending back a bunch more messages.
Too many to answer all at once.
They chatted a bit more, then her mom told her to focus on class.
Even though class hadn’t started yet.
Bored, she scrolled through a few mindless videos.
Got tired of them, turned off the screen, and stared at the blackboard.
Right—didn’t Chen Tingting search something about a “campus goddess ranking” on her phone?
Su Yun remembered and opened WeChat. She pulled down from the top and found the mini program.
Curious, she clicked in.
Only female students were on the rankings—no male equivalent. No “campus god.”
Su Yun didn’t really care. She figured this kind of ranking was mostly for guys to look at anyway.
There were a few different lists—Overall, and then one for each year level from freshmen to seniors.
Each person just had a photo and a name.
You could only vote once per person per day.
After glancing through the rules, Su Yun found the whole thing pretty simple.
But still—why were so many people paying attention to this?
“Two hundred thousand?” After browsing for a while, she finally noticed the top name on the overall rankings.
Qin Xue, with 200k votes.
Second place? Only 20k.
Holy crap, that’s insane.
Su Yun stared, shocked by the ridiculous gap.
So that’s the universally acknowledged campus belle, huh.
How many students did the school even have? Just over ten thousand? That basically meant everyone kept voting for her for two weeks straight.
Absurd.
Su Yun gawked for a while, then suddenly felt kind of impressed that she’d become friends with Qin Xue.
Still, it wasn’t something to brag about. She wasn’t about to go around telling people she was friends with the campus belle.
She didn’t even dare to say it.
Otherwise, next thing you know—
“Shocking! Info Engineering Student Su Yun Slices Off Little Bro…”
Then Su Yun casually checked the other rankings.
Aside from Chen Tingting being 13th on the freshman list, she didn’t recognize anyone else. She just kept scrolling, treating it as eye candy.
“2:34.” Su Yun looked at the time and decided to nap a bit before class.
Just as she laid her head down to sleep, she suddenly felt a wave of dizziness.
“Ugh…”
It was like being injected with anesthesia—her mind started to float and fade in just a few seconds. She nearly passed out, barely managing to hang on and stay conscious.
“Haah…” She let out a soft gasp, her voice breathy and sweet—almost like she’d just been…
Thank god no one else was in the classroom.
Then Su Yun remembered the duck blood she ate at lunch.
That stuff was disgusting—even worse than flavorless mixed noodles. It tasted like something sour and expired.
She’d forced it down, not wanting to waste food, but now the consequences hit her hard.
Low-quality blood… is really no good.
That sensation of her brain emptying out and losing control of her voice—she genuinely thought she was about to die.
(End of Chapter)