Chapter 293
The autumnal grace was orangey yellow and bright red.
The orangey yellow came from the leaves, and the bright red from the banners.
Xiao Qi had once again hung up a banner, "Warmly celebrate Xiao Qi, first-year Computer Science student from our school, for winning the championship in the Jingnan Province English Speech Competition finals".
This time, Xiao Qi did not ask the president to help remove her name, after all it would be too troublesome to keep asking people for favors, and since there was no money involved this time, Xiao Qi felt it was relatively normal. She felt great pressure carrying the grand prize of a million yuan, but other than that it was fine.
Back in Qingmeng University, she had received an award where first place came with a 3,000 yuan prize, a exquisite notebook, and a luxury Hero pen.
The pen was also said to be very expensive, well over a thousand yuan.
It was rice white, extremely beautiful and high-end, with some glittery little diamonds on the pen cap.
Upon returning to Grace University, Xiao Qi unexpectedly received another prize from Grace University’s side, even more generous, directly awarding 10,000 yuan in prize money. The efficiency was shockingly fast, the next day on Saturday, the money had already been deposited into her card account.
Grace University's side was also very surprised. In terms of cultural achievements, Grace University had very little to show.
Moreover, this was from a competition at Qingmeng University, and she actually won first place, it was simply unbelievable and pleasantly surprising.
The English majors had complex expressions on their faces. The first place winner of the English speech competition was from the Computer Science department... They were specialized in English, yet did not have this capability. How embarrassing!!
The next day was Saturday, a day to sleep in lazily.
As usual, Xiao Qi got up early in the morning to go jogging. With 30,000 steps putting pressure on her legs everyday, she tried her best to avoid finishing them all at once. Xiao Qi split up the steps between morning and evening runs, and would check the number of steps she needed to walk during the day to plan accordingly.
In the morning at six, when the sky was just getting bright.
Xiao Qi got up, and Wei Cheng also woke up with her.
She didn't go running with Xiao Qi, but sat there reciting English textbook passages while holding an English book.
Xiao Qi felt Wei Cheng was better than herself. She didn't have any buffs or systems, yet studied very hard and was also very optimistic. In that bizarre dream, after graduation Wei Cheng was actually better off compared to them. Wei Cheng became a civil servant working at a court. She later passed the judicial examination, rising from clerk to judge step by step. Her partner was also a civil servant, and the two lived quite comfortably.
Wei Cheng liked to go to rooftops to study. Standing high she could see farther, and she already had a usual corner on the rooftop. Xiao Qi went jogging, reciting and reviewing while running. English was fairly simple for her now after finishing the New Concept English textbook series, she really felt like she had a breakthrough, and it came to her very naturally that it felt quite easy.
She was currently learning Japanese and Korean.
After Japanese teacher Yamamoto-sensei left, Xiao Qi wanted even more to learn Japanese well, hoping that one day she could go to Japan, and perhaps even see Yamamoto-sensei again.
With the considerate Korean teacher Kim Jae-eun, it would be foolish not to learn.
Moreover, Xiao Qi discovered that listening to language lessons while jogging was very efficient, much faster to pick up compared to rote memorization of grammar and phonetics.
After jogging, she returned to the dorm to shower, and practiced writing and characters for half an hour.
Surprisingly, Honey got up today while Yun Shu was still lying in bed reading a novel.
Honey had a student council event today, organizing an outdoor barbecue near a creek in the back mountains of Grace University. It was said there was even a waterfall there. Honey got up early and tried on three outfits before settling on overalls and a sweatshirt, nice and refreshing looking, not too cold either. Then with camera and backpack in tow, she headed out looking beautiful.
The delivery boy sent flowers to their dorm door, they had to go downstairs themselves to retrieve them. Yun Shu was still not awake, so Wei Cheng enthusiastically went down to help receive them, very eager and willing. She didn't feel that way herself, she just liked to watch Yun Shu do flower arrangements, it looked nice.
Xiao Qi didn't know much about flower arranging, but the dorm always had some pleasing flowers to enjoy everyday thanks to them, keeping spirits high.
The most leisurely in their dorm was Yun Shu. Seeing the flowers with dewdrops, she slowly washed up wearing her intricate palace princess-style snow white nightgown, and a very delicate pair of fluffy white slippers.
Few things belonging to Xiao Qi and Wei Cheng were such a pure white. Those with countryside experience knew white items easily got dirty, shoes especially could step in animal droppings or mud at anytime.
After washing up, she still slowly ate a few bites of bread, drank half a pack of milk, then didn't continue eating but threw the rest aside, basically wasting it.
Then she sat by the window earnestly and devotedly arranging flowers.
In the dream, after graduation Yun Shu had little contact with them, but Chu Yu from next door strangely had an intimate relationship with Yun Shu. From time to time there would be some news about Yun Shu from Chu Yu. Yun Shu got married to one of her dad's underlings. Later there was news she got divorced, that her husband had another woman outside. It was all said by Chu Yu, Yun Shu herself rarely made appearances.
In their dorm group chat, Yun Shu also very rarely said anything. Because after graduation the roommates lives went different ways, Xiao Qi, Wei Cheng and Honey came from more difficult families, so they talked more amongst each other. Yun Shu's family was well off so she didn't fit in that well. Xiao Qi and the others weren't the types to deliberately try to get on someone's good side, unlike Chu Yu from next door. Right now, Yun Shu was like the white rose petals in her hands covered in dewdrops, beautiful, pure, and full of hope.
Yun Shu cut the flower stems very decisively. Wei Cheng felt it was a pity and helped gather the cut stems, grabbing a handful and putting them in a vase herself each time Yun Shu arranged a bouquet.
One was elegant and dignified, the other was lush and flourishing.
Xiao Qi found it amusing watching them arrange flowers and sketched drawings of both bouquets.
The dorm room felt harmonious for a moment.
Yun Shu continued reading her novel, while Wei Cheng also read some extracurricular books, but only on weekends. Usually she was quite strict with herself, only reading textbooks. Xiao Qi sat by the window painting.
Yun Shu had a bluetooth speaker playing light music. At this time, Honey had already gathered with the student council in the back mountains of Grace University. It was described as a waterfall, but was actually just a stream flowing from the mountain top to bottom. However, with the lush vegetation around, it still felt nice.
Honey had decent features and an energetic personality. Carrying a camera on her back, she was quite popular.
Since this was a university student council event, there were also students from the new district. Before long, Honey had already added many new classmates on WeChat.
Among them one boy in particular was very handsome, tall and big. He seemed slightly introverted, wearing glasses, and had a great personality, smiling brightly and refreshingly. He didn't try to show off, and sat there steadily helping barbecue skewers, quite down to earth.
His outfit also looked nice, a white shirt with black pants, a silver watch on his wrist, also carrying a backpack. White sports shoes on his feet.
Honey also added him on WeChat. Usually after mutually adding each other, there wasn't much more conversation.
Unexpectedly, when Honey was taking pictures of the "waterfall", her phone rang. It turned out to be a message from that boy.
He sent her an emoji, and very sincerely introduced himself, Li Ruisheng from the Finance department class 8. Then he said she took very good pictures.
Honey lifted her head, and saw him smiling at her from not too far away. She didn't know why, but her heart was beating fast, much quicker than usual.
Everyone in class said Li Wei Jin was handsome. Honey would chime in the joking around, but classmates were just classmates. Seeing that boy smile at her now somehow felt different though. His smile was gorgeous, especially in the sunlight, his face seemed to glow.
Today's student council activity was particularly fun for some reason. Honey couldn't sit still, she didn't cook her barbecue well-done enough. At some point, Li Ruisheng was at Honey's side helping her barbecue chicken wings, sweet and spicy and especially delicious, plated very attractively too.
Moreover, after cooking them he only gave them to Honey.
Honey felt differently for some reason.
By the time the activity ended and everyone boarded vehicles to return, Honey was already sitting next to him without realizing when it happened.
Honey truly felt sweet as honey, as if she ate honey. Li Ruisheng was from the new district, yet he accompanied her all the way back to the old district before returning to the new district himself.
Honey was skipping happily back to her dorm, humming songs all the way. She was still humming when she got back to her dorm. This was pretty normal for her, she always seemed to be in high spirits. The other girls in her dorm were used to it.
When it was time for evening self-study, Xiao Qi went to the classroom session. Honey went too and sat next to Xiao Qi, looking at her phone and messaging someone, giggling from time to time.
Xiao Qi: ...
I don't remember seeing Honey dating anyone in my dream.
But then I thought, if I get suspicious about everything because of a dream and try to live my life according to the dream, that would be too scary.
I'll just treat it like a fantasy, and keep living my life the way I have been.
Honey couldn't keep it to herself. During the break in middle of the evening self-study, she mysteriously pulled Xiao Qi over to look at her phone.
"Xiao Qi, look at this guy, isn't he handsome?"
Xiao Qi leaned over to look. She was so stunned that her whole body froze up.