Chapter 10: First Encounter

Chapter 10: The First Encounter

Because the next day was the weekend, Fan Xiaoyao found herself with some rare free time. She spent the entire morning hiding in her room, writing her novel, planning a massive update when her story was next promoted, and diligently stockpiling chapters. Her roommate, Feng Youru, had left early, saying she was attending a classmate’s wedding banquet.

Once she’d accumulated a satisfying reserve of chapters, Fan Xiaoyao, bored out of her mind, went back to the boyfriend-seeking post she’d published the day before. To her surprise, the forum moderators, in all their kindness, had pinned her post to the top.

As she scrolled through the replies, she saw that overnight, the thread had exploded, with over ten thousand responses, many of them lively discussions. Shaking her head, she found herself unable to comprehend the madness of the online world.

Who was it who once said, “The replies are more interesting than the original post”? For the first time, Fan Xiaoyao found herself sincerely agreeing with that statement.

“Beauty, I also have five hearts, but you probably wouldn’t want me—I’m a woman!”

“Honey, if you don’t mind a little girl-love, I’d like to apply!”

Fan Xiaoyao was speechless. How had her thread, in a single night, become a breeding ground for lesbian confessions?

Though Fan Xiaoyao herself could be considered something of a pioneer in the world of girl-love fiction, she had never imagined encountering such scenarios in real life. In reality, she couldn’t quite reconcile herself to it; her views were still colored by ingrained ideas about ethics and propriety.

Curling her lips in resignation, she read through the thread. The replies fell into a few predictable categories: some suggested she become a mistress—after all, the man had married before she’d had the chance. Others advocated for girl-love, insisting that women understood women better, that women could cherish women more tenderly…

Fan Xiaoyao found it all rather absurd, quickly closed her laptop, and massaged her aching neck.

She regretted her impulse of the previous day. Posting an online ad for a boyfriend was nothing but self-inflicted torture. Since she’d started writing novels, she’d worn dark circles beneath her eyes every day, written five or six novels and amassed several million words, yet in the era of online literary giants, she remained as tiny as a speck of dust.

Still, she consoled herself that even sparrows could one day fly to the top of the tree. She believed her day as a literary giant would come.

Revitalized by these thoughts, Fan Xiaoyao found the air around her fresher than ever. In her good mood, she carelessly tied her long hair into a ponytail, made herself a simple breakfast in the kitchen, and then faced the grueling task of hand-washing her laundry.

She had complained to Feng Youru about this no fewer than twenty times. “Why don’t we pool our money and buy a washing machine?”

Feng Youru’s classic reply was always, “A washing machine never gets things as clean as hand-washing does. Besides, hand-washing saves water!”

After that, Fan Xiaoyao gave up arguing and simply dubbed her roommate “Feng the Penny-Pincher.”

If Feng Youru’s thriftiness was limited to laundry, it might not have been so bad. But what truly drove Fan Xiaoyao mad was how she extended her penny-pinching ways to every one of their meals.

For example, given a bunch of water spinach, Feng Youru would cold-dress the roots, turn the leaves into soup, and stir-fry the stems. Every meal was an exercise in stretching one ingredient multiple ways. No matter how delicious, Fan Xiaoyao soon lost her appetite.

At that moment, her phone rang. Feng Youru’s voice came through the line: “Xiaoyao, are you cursing me for being stingy again?”

Fan Xiaoyao stammered, “How… how did you know?”

Feng Youru rolled her eyes audibly over the phone. “Because I keep sneezing… Ah-choo!”

Fan Xiaoyao laughed, “If you’re sneezing, it means you miss me! My hands are about to fall off from all this laundry. Penny-Pincher, when are you coming back?”

Feng Youru teased her, “You pretentious little bourgeois, cooking and doing laundry are a woman’s duty. By the way, you really need to up your cooking game! Ha ha…”

Before Fan Xiaoyao could explode, Feng Youru hung up.

That last joke about her cooking skills stung, and Fan Xiaoyao vented her irritation on the laundry.

“In the late afternoon, outside the car window…” When her phone rang again, Fan Xiaoyao didn’t even look at the caller ID. Still angry, she barked into the phone, “Feng the Penny-Pincher, hurry up and finish your banquet and get back here to do my laundry!”

There was only silence on the other end. Fan Xiaoyao realized too late it was a call from an unfamiliar number. With all the recent news about phone scams, she hung up immediately, wary.

When Sun Yanzi’s song played for the third time, Fan Xiaoyao eyed the unfamiliar number suspiciously. She listened carefully, but apart from the hum of static, there was nothing.

She muttered “nutcase” and hung up again.

Just as she was about to hang out her laundry, her phone rang yet again. This time, Fan Xiaoyao was truly on edge and shouted into the phone, “Whoever’s making these prank calls, if you do it again, I’ll call the police!”

Whoever said you should intimidate troublemakers to scare them off had clearly never met her.

“My, you do have quite the temper!” a deep, magnetic male voice teased on the other end.

Fan Xiaoyao bristled at the stranger’s tone. “What’s your problem? I don’t know you, stop trying to be cute!”

The man laughed, warm and amused. “With a temper like yours, you still want a Five-Heart Man?”

Fan Xiaoyao’s mind stalled. “And just who are you? What does my temper have to do with you?”

Leisurely, the man repeated the words he’d written on the forum: “If you treat me with sincerity, I will never leave your side. I say I meet your requirements—I have all five hearts. Do you believe me?”

Fan Xiaoyao’s brain short-circuited. She regretted her reckless words. As she fumbled for a reply, the man introduced himself.

“I’m serious. My name is Wang Guocheng, and I’m a computer science lecturer at T University here in Border City.”

Fan Xiaoyao, recalling all the recent scandals involving university professors, blurted out, “Oh, so you’re a beast in human clothing!”

She realized, too late, that she’d said out loud what she’d only meant to think. Embarrassed, she tried to cover, “Sorry, that came out wrong. What I meant was, oh, so you’re a professor!”

But Wang Guocheng caught her slip. “What, do you have something against university professors?”

Could Fan Xiaoyao admit the truth? These days, there were too many cases of professors taking advantage of female students. She couldn’t help feeling uneasy and instinctively wary of his profession.