Chapter 32. The Love Affair Was Fierce and Violent

The box was large, with a round table of ten or so seats to accommodate nine first-year students. Chen Du entered the box. He and Lin Feng were the last to go in. There were a few empty seats scattered, and the people inside, as if discussing, had moved the extra chairs to the corner. There was one of the empty chairs left on the boys’ side, and one was placed next to Zhuo Tingting.

Chen Du took a glance at the door and went straight to the boys’ side. He pulled out a chair and sat down.

Lin Feng was one step short of his feet, and when he saw this, his blood pressure shot up. Cursing a million expletives in his heart, he sat down next to Zhuo Tingting with a smile on his face and cast a glance at Chen Du.

Chen Du looked down at his phone and asked Chen Jiashu if she had eaten dinner yet.

She didn’t reply. She was probably resting, or maybe she had gone to dance practice. While others were eating, playing cards, and drinking tea, she was sweating alone in the dance studio.

Many people looked down on art students, but the truth is that they often had to pay several times more than the average person to be on the same platform.

The top students were not all pilgrims studying in an ivory tower. The statue of Confucius at the back of the school building was a group of people who held the Analects of Confucius and made the world a better place during the day. Maybe the ones who sneak around after studying in the afternoon and playing games in the evening were probably among them. People don’t waste their youth. From class one to class ten, from year one to year three, there was a lot of romance everywhere.

Since Chen Du and Lin Feng were seated, Zhuo Tingting was so angry that her head was smoking. She took a bite of grilled fish and burst into tears on the spot. “It’s so spicy. What Tsinghua grilled fish? Beijing people are used to eating spicy fish well.” She grabbed a few tissues and pressed them to her face. When the paper was peeled off, her nose was not red, but her eyes were.

The people at the table were jokingly passing it by. They were a bit embarrassed while thinking that this was really not a problem. What was the point of the obvious single arrow? Chen Du had never looked at people’s eyes. In the end, she was still moving stones to hit her own feet.

Chen Du knew he should have at least handed over a tissue at this point, but he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t find a position to comfort this girl who liked to make her own situations, but she was a bit pitiful. He had Chen Jiashu in his heart, and this alone made it impossible for him to show affection to any other girl.

He now understood Chen Jiashu’s state of mind. Perhaps for Chen Jiashu, he was similar to Zhuo Tingting. She knew that the other party liked her but was indifferent. The difference was that Chen Jiashu had no one else in her heart, so she could hang him with peace of mind.

–

Chen Jiashu had not been sick for a long time, but this evening she suddenly developed a fever.

Perhaps the mirror was too cold or the afternoon was too fierce and violent. Maybe she had sweated a lot, or perhaps it coincided with the change of season when viruses were rampant, but a sudden fever had left her bedridden. She felt stuffy and terrible. At night, she vomited all the congee and cabbage she had ordered and felt like she was dying.

When Chen Du learned that she was sick, he threw his books away and went over in a hurry. He took a night off from studying and carried her to the hospital. Chen Jiashu was lying on the hospital bed with a syringe in her hand. Her eyes were hateful, wanting to scold him but not having the strength to do so. She was so annoyed that she simply turned her head away from him and let him apologise like a little wife.

After most of the bottle of IV drip went down, Chen Jiashu’s face gradually improved, and her temper was mostly gone. Chen Du didn’t go anywhere. He leaned on the side of the hospital bed and watched ballet videos with her.

She showed him the most classic Swan Lake, but he couldn’t really see much of it, not being able to appreciate the skeletal figure of a Westerner. But seeing Chen Jiashu’s admiration, he nodded along with her, “It’s nice.” He lowered his head and kissed her gently on the temple. It was not as good looking as her.

The boring self-study time became extraordinarily fast when it was spent at the hospital. It was eight o’clock, half an hour before the end of the evening self-study. The driver picked him up from school three times a day, so Chen Jiashu nudged him, “It’s time for you to go.”

“Just wait a little longer.” He looked up at the bottles on the pile. He figured he could finish in about twenty minutes because the big one was finished and the small one still had most of the bottle. They could take a taxi together back to school once she was finished.

“I’m going to be hospitalised tonight,” Chen Jiashu slid into the hospital bed and shook the leave slip she had in her pocket. “I’ve taken sick leave, and I’ll just take it to the dormitory tomorrow to check it off.”

“…… Why do you need to be hospitalized?” Chen Du froze and had a flash of light, “Then we’ll go home together.”