The car passed through the light and shadows made by the magnolia street lamps and stopped in front of a white three-story European building. Upstairs and the ground floor are full of lights, like a sparkling jewelry box.
Jing Ming turned off the engine
Du Ruo pushed opened the door to get out of the car, but her chest was pulled by the seat belt. She turned back to unfasten the seat belt and finally got out.
A man in his thirties walked quickly out of the house: "Do you have any luggage?"
Du Ruo did not know him and had not yet figured out how to say hello. Jing Ming walked up to him and said, "Uncle Chen, bring it in from the trunk."
"Oh, okay."
Uncle Chen smiled at Du Ruo. She responded with a smile and quickly followed him to the side of the car, feeling sorry "The box is a bit heavy, let me help you."
"No need, no need"
"It's really a little heavy." Du Ruo is apologetic as she helped him carry the suitcase.
A few meters away, Jing Ming looked back and didn't bother to pay them any more attention, and entered the house first.
When Du Ruo entered the door, she realized that it was indeed a jewelry box.
In the empty living room, the crystal chandelier is extremely bright, like a dream. Huge curtains fall vertically, cascading down from the ceiling; outside the floor-to-ceiling window is a boundless garden lawn. The living room is bigger than the classroom, with European-style sofas, blue wood coffee tables and spiral patterns on the stairs.
There are even several tall trees planted at home.
Everything is beautiful and feels so distant
But the smiles of the Jing couple —— Jing Yuan Shan and Ming Yi —— are close and familiar.
"How did the train arrive this late?" Mother Mingyi asked with a smile.
"I don't know. I think it's to make way for the bullet train." Du Ruo said, taking a peek at Jing Ming. The teenager was lying across the single sofa texting, with his long legs resting on the sofa's armrest, without sitting posture, like a rag
"Has Ruochun grown taller?" Father Jing Yuan Shan said, "You're taller now than when we went the year before last."
"But still so thin." Mingyi said, "You need to eat more and gain more weight."
The Jings were so enthusiastic that Du Ruo had no room to interrupt. With legs together, she sat on the sofa properly.
"You didn't eat anything tonight, did you? Are you hungry? Chen Ma made a table of dishes, but she didn't expect the train to be late, so now she'll warm it up again."
"I……I ate instant noodles on the train." Du Ruo was somewhat apologetic and could not help but look at Jing Ming again, who also collapsed on the sofa, sending away texts without any shame.
"That's fine. If you get hungry later, you can eat midnight snacks. " Mingyi said
Jing Yuanshan sighed: "Ruochun was very sensible to have worked hard to be admitted to such a good university."
Jing Ming was fiddling with his cell phone as if he had never heard anything.
Seeing that the Jings' attention was all on herself, Du Ruo was afraid of belittling Jing Ming and said slowly, "Jing Ming is also very good since he goes to the same school as me."
However, Jing Ming didn't listen to her and didn't respond to her trying to make up to him.
Jing Yuanshan was obviously not satisfied, with a frown he said: "This brat, to make him learn is to force a cow to drink water. How many tutors have been hired for him? They're all famous teachers. After all this, I still have to ask someone to take care of him from class to class. He also sneaks away that I have to hire people to catch him from all over town. Fortunately, we were able to catch up with the special enrollment quota. This careless brat, How can he compare to you? You've been through difficult conditions, but you were still able to read and study consciously."
Du Ruo was sitting on pins and needles, she smiled awkwardly and dared not look at Jing Ming. The sound of his fingers typing on the screen never stopped.
Jing Yuanshan had it enough, so he turned to look at Jing Ming, "You have no bones? Sit still!"
Jing Ming put his legs down, sat up, and leaned into the sofa.
"You should learn more from Ruochun in the future!"
Jing Ming laughed out loud. "Don't call her Ruochun here, Ruochun there. She already changed her name, her name now is Du Ruo, as in "Cai Fangzhou Xi Du Ruo", it's very artistic"
Du Ruo's cheeks were burning and she bowed her head and grabbed her fingers.
The Jing couple were stunned for a moment and quickly said, "It's better to change it. That's a nice name."
"Little Ruo." Mingyi Read it again and laughed.
She added, "Are you tired from the train? Why don't you go upstairs and have a rest early?"
Du Ruo hurriedly stood up and said, "Uncle and aunt, I have brought you some specialties."
She opened the luggage and took out a large smoked ham and a pile of air-dried sausages. "My mother made all of them. She's very good at cooking."
Mingyi said with a smile, "That's great. I wanted to eat ham the other day, and here you are, bringing the specialty here."
Chen Ma placed her things in the kitchen.
Jing Yuanshan said, "These things are very heavy to carry. It's been a lot of hard work, isn't it? It must be hard on the road."
Du Ruo smiled: "it's all right."
Jing Ming was playing with his mobile phone in the sofa. His eyes glanced lazily at her head and snorted, "The clothes are all crowded with ham and bacon. Can you still wear them?"
With a look of disgust, he stood up and stuffed his phone in his pocket, ready to walk away.
Mingyi said, "That's right! Jing Ming, since you will go to school to report with Little Ruo tomorrow, you should take her to buy some clothes."
Jing Ming became irritable immediately, with a face of "How come it's me again?" He was going to say something, but when he saw his father's expression, he didn't bother to retort and went upstairs with a straight face.
Du Ruo slept in a spacious guest room that night and was not used to it. Sure enough, her clothes smelled of smoked ham, and her stomach growled since she only ate a bowl of instant noodles.
She didn't go downstairs for midnight snacks either for fear of causing trouble.
In the middle of the night, she heard Jing Ming go downstairs to find something to eat, but she didn't follow.
The next day, Du Ruo received an Iphone 6s, it was an old phone which a member of their family had already replaced. It looked no different from a brand-new one, and there was also a new local phone card.
Jing Ming drove his car to the opposite side of the school gate, when he stopped and realized a serious problem. He drove a red sports car today, which was very ostentatious.
No problem.
But Du Ruo is also in the car. What is this?
Du Ruo was so sensitive that she guessed his qualms and said, "Why don't we just say that our parents are friends?"
Jing Ming turned to look at her, his handsome face under the sunglasses was expressionless: "Like?"
Du Ruo: "…"
"It's also okay to say we're distant relatives."
The corner of his mouth hooked up "My relatives go far beyond the solar system, and they are not like you ..."
Before he finished, she nodded consciously, "Well, not as poor as I am."
He did not feel guilty at all, just bored. He took a card out of his pocket and handed it to her: "My mother said that your living expenses are in the card, and the password is your birthday. I've already deposited the money you need to buy clothes." He paused and looked at her jokingly, "Don't you want me to accompany you?"
She shook her head. "No." she was just about to push the door open and get off.
"Stop!"
She looked back and whispered, "Is there anything else?"
"If you meet me at school, you don't know me." He said, almost in a commanding tone, "Do you hear me?"
Du Ruo gently scratched the car door with her fingers and nodded: "I hear you."
She picked up her luggage and got out of the car.
Jing Ming's red sports car drifted away.
"Do you think I want to know you?" Du Ruo whispered, it was a useless resistance.
She didn't let him affect her mood. She looked at the wide school gate across the street and took a long breath. She took her luggage to the overpass and happened to see his red sports car turning on the road, cross under the bridge and enter the campus, attracting a lot of people's attention.
When she got off the overpass and walked into the campus, her heart moved again.
Long and straight tree-lined streets, the trees covering the sky and mottled with sunshine, this is what universities should look like.
There is a red banner on the treetops -"Welcome New students".
As she continued to walk toward the inside, new clubs recruiting one after another, senior students laughing, handing out flyers to freshmen.
Du Ruo collected a pile of leaflets and went to the dormitory first.
There are fewer girls in engineering schools, and there are even fewer girls majoring in science and engineering.
There are four girls in the dormitory but three different majors.
Du Ruo is studying Control Systems Engineering, two Beijing roommates Qiu Yuchen and Xia Nan were both in the same class, studying Information Engineering, while Chongqing sister He Huanhuan majored in Mechanical Automation.
The four girls were very excited when they first arrived and soon mingled together.
Qiu Yuchen is even more severe. She is lively and generous. She visits everywhere. In a short time she even found out the situation in the dormitory next door. Now she returns to the dormitory to report to her sisters.
"The dormitories in the west are from liberal arts colleges, and there are many girls in the same class. In the east dormitory, they have two Mechanical Automation and two Mechanical and Electronic Engineering. "
When she finished, she grinned at Du Ruo. "Congratulations, you're the only girl in your class."
Du Ruo did not react: "Why?"
"Silly girl" He Huanhuan even jumped out of her dialect and laughed, "The dormitory is arranged according to majors, and the dormitory next door doesn't have anyone with same major as you. So aren't you the only girl?"
"......ah?" Du Ruo felt as though her head could explode, and her expression is very embarrassed.
Xia Nan trimmed her eyebrows in front of the dressing mirror and said slowly: "Being the only girl is not that bad. All the boys in the class will spoil you."
Du Ruo was disappointed and said, "I still want a girl to keep me company." She longed for Huanhuan, "If only Huanhuan had the same major as me. If I had known, I would have chosen Mechanical Automation."
He Huanhuan hugged her: "Don't be afraid, we'll still be together after class."
Xia Nan looked at her eyebrow in the mirror and said, "The schedules are different," The mirror turned and she looked at Du Ruo in the mirror. "I see that you don't seem to know that you're lucky"
"who knows if it's a blessing?" Qiu Yuchen sat in a chair, placed her pair of long legs on the desk and said "When I walked around the school today, I didn't see many handsome brothers. Where have they been hiding, why didn't come out to meet the younger sister on the reporting day."
He Huanhuan said: "I haven't seen any handsome boys in the freshman class either. They are all very dusty."
Du Ruo inexplicably thought of Jing Ming, but she did not speak.
The next second, Qiu Yuchen suddenly pulled back her leg, turned and lay down on the back of her chair and said, "There is one!"
He Huanhuan pointed at her and said in unison with her, "The driver of the red Ferrari" "——Fuck, that one was fucking arrogant." Qiu Yuchen said the second half of the sentence.
Du Ruo sat in silence.
Oh, everybody saw it.
Xia Nan: "Who is it?"
"I don't know. I guess he's a rich second generation." Qiu Yuchen joked, "I hate this kind of talented and rich people who are really handsome."
Xia Nan is not interested, after all, she did not see the real person, there is nothing to discuss.
But that night, when the four went to the canteen for dinner, Du Ruo saw Jing Ming.
At that time, the four people sat around a table, and each of them ordered different dishes and shared them with each other. A girl at the next table whispered, "Hey, isn't that the guy?"
"The red Ferrari."
"Well, where do you think he parked his car?"
"God knows where."
"Our school is really crouching tiger, hidden dragon."
Du Ruo looked up and saw Jing Ming and some other boys in their dormitory coming with dinner plates. Jing Ming saw her and looked away without stopping, just like he didn't know her.
She bowed her head and continued to eat.
The boys passed by Du Ruo's table and Jing Ming followed.
Xia Nan said, "Hello, Jing Ming!"
The boy stopped and Du Ruo hung her head and saw the hem of his white shirt next to her cheek. He changed his shirt today, with a black embroidered cloud pattern from top to bottom in front of him on the right.
His lazy voice dropped from her head: "Hey, did you get in?"
"Go to hell." Xia Nan laughed and scolded, and her tone was familiar. "It's you who I should ask, why did come to report so early? I thought you were going to put it off until the last day. "
"Staying at home is boring." He's not interested in staying and said to his friends "Let's go."
The shadow on Du Ruo's head moved and her shoulders relaxed as if she had just removed a mountain.
He Huanhuan saw Jing Ming go away and said, "That's the guy Yu Chen and I saw. Xia Nan, do you know him? "
"He's my high school classmate, we're in the same class. He was the most handsome boy in our school at that time. When I was in the first year of high school, my senior sister came to our classroom just to see him."
Qiu Yuchen raised her eyebrows and clamped the Dutch beans on Du Ruo's plate: "Then why didn't you chase him? You're near the water tower."
Xia Nan clipped the eggplant on Qiu Yuchen's plate and said, "Chase? What chase? He was paired with our school flower."
-----------
如坐针毡 used to describe anxiety and restlessness .
Actually it's 传感与控制 which is literally Sensing and Control. I have no idea what this degree is so I looked around and only either "Control Systems Engineering" or "Sensor Manufacturing and Process Control" seems to make sense. I picked the former since its wiki says it also "uses sensors and detectors to measure the output performance of the process being controlled"
近水楼台 the moon is near the water tower first, meaning to give priority because of its proximity
