Chapter 19

Border Xue Dao quickly adapted to the rhythm of university life.

Every morning, he would wake up at around 5:30, go to the sports field to jog a few laps, and if he saw people playing soccer, he would join in for a match or practice dribbling and shooting.

On the way to the first class in the morning, he would buy a few newspapers, read them during class, and mark the most interesting story with a pen, thinking about how to write a commentary on it.

If it was an English class, he would focus entirely on the lesson. For all other classes, he would read the computer books he had bought.

He would take a nap at noon.

In the afternoon, he would spend 1 to 2 hours writing the commentary, then continue reading the computer books.

In the evening, he would go to an internet cafe off campus to type up his articles and send them to the submission emails of various newspapers. This was the hardest part, as the internet cafe was full of all kinds of sounds: the gunshots from CS, the battle music from Red Alert, and often a few girls would gather around a computer to watch "Meteor Garden," commenting on who was the most handsome.

Xue Dao was in Class 1, and Song Jia was in Class 2. The two classes had some classes together, and Song Jia often talked to Xue Dao during breaks. Both dorms knew they had been classmates in high school.

Yu Jin often combed his hair with mousse while joking with Xue Dao, "Song Jia is pretty good-looking. Don't hold out. If you don't want her, I'll go for it."

When there was no class in the second period of the morning, a group of guys would stay in the dorm until the end of the morning classes, then all go to the balcony on the 7th floor, which faced the path leading to the teaching building, and point at the girls going to the cafeteria, rating them. Whoever saw a pretty girl would immediately point her out to everyone, and they would rate her on a scale of 100. When the girl reached the bottom of the stairs, they would whistle and cheer from above.

This behavior made many girls nervous when they walked near Building 6, looking up at the building and pressing their books or bags to their chests to prevent the guys from seeing inside.

A week later, the counselor sternly stopped this bad habit.

During a class meeting, the class president, who lived in Room 719, discussed the class fees with everyone and then mentioned something, "Next week, the department will hold a joint party for the 2000 and 2001 classes. Our class and Class 2 will socialize with the seniors from the previous year's Class 1 and Class 2. I hope everyone will actively prepare performances and participate. There will be prizes."

The party was on Friday evening. The male host was Chen Jian, and the female host was a senior. Chen Jian was witty and worked perfectly with the senior. Soon, some of the sophomore girls started asking for Chen Jian's dorm number.

The atmosphere at the party was excellent. The sophomores sang "The Female Prince," and the freshmen sang "Women Are Tigers." The sophomores sang "Snow Lotus," and the freshmen sang "Red Bean." The sophomores sang "Men Cry, It's Not a Sin," and the freshmen sang "Friends, Don't Cry." The female host asked several times if the freshmen were doing this on purpose, but Chen Jian deflected with jokes.

When a senior played "Again, the Cooking Smoke" on the harmonica, Chen Jian pulled out his trump card: Li Yu played and sang "Waiting for You Until My Heart Hurts" by Wu Qixian.

It was a show-stopper.

Song Jia came over to Xue Dao and whispered, "Why didn't you sign up for a performance? The song you sang on the night before graduation was so beautiful."

Xue Dao whispered back, "My throat hurts, I can't sing. Besides, Li Yu is enough to hold the stage."

During the game segment, the atmosphere became even more lively.

The first game was "Heart to Heart."

Xue Dao and a girl from his class worked together and guessed 5 out of 10 questions, coming in second.

The second game was "Ironman Two."

The content was that each class would send 4 boys and 4 girls, mixed together, and the boys had to carry the girls around the center area 5 times in 5 minutes, then do push-ups. The team with the most push-ups would win a CD player.

Xue Dao, who had done push-ups during military training, was nominated. Amid the cheers of the audience, the two hosts also joined the game.

The original intention was to have the overweight girls from both grades participate, but they had self-respect, and others couldn't force them, so 8 tall girls were chosen.

Xue Dao was in the third group. The sophomore boy in the first two groups did the most push-ups, 42, 10 more than the second. Xue Dao carried the senior who had played the harmonica. As soon as the game started, he sprinted out. Encouraged by the cheers, Xue Dao, who ran every morning, lapped the sophomore boy in his group, then started doing push-ups.

The sophomore boy gave up at 39.

When Xue Dao reached 50, the whole room started counting for him.

"60, 61, 62... 70, 71, 72..."

"Time's up!"

"73!"

Winning the prize, Xue Dao generously gave the CD player to the senior in his group. The female host asked him why, and he said it was thanks to her good figure, which saved him a lot of energy.

The female host, who had also participated in the game, didn't let him off, saying, "You mean we three were too heavy and dragged down our teammates' scores?"

Xue Dao smiled and said, "I would have done the same with any senior."

By November, the initial novelty had worn off, and the freshmen's university life had settled into a routine.

Since only Saturday nights were free from dorm checks, the guys in Room 717 had been staying up all night at the internet cafe for several Saturdays in a row. In the first half of the night, Xue Dao played Red Alert and CS with everyone. His stylish air force and B45 tactics made Yu Jin, who had always considered himself a gaming expert, admit defeat. However, Yu Jin had a strong understanding of games and could grasp the key points of any new game after playing it for a while.

In the second half of the night, Xue Dao downloaded software like TurboC and started programming.

During this period, Xue Dao visited Songjiang University of Technology three times to get Wang Wenkai's help with web page design. For problems Wang Wenkai couldn't solve, he was directed to the teachers.

Xue Dao also bought several maps of Songjiang City in different scales and made various marks on them that only he could understand. As long as he could make his first fortune, these maps would have enormous economic potential.

After writing articles for over a month, an editor finally called to tell him that one of his articles had been selected and would be published soon.

Xue Dao had been anxious lately, as 2002 was approaching. In 2004, Baidu would acquire Hao123, and the time for him to build his navigation page was running out.

In mid-November, Li Yu helped Room 717 contact a dorm for a joint activity. The other dorm was from the landscape architecture department, and it included a high school classmate of Li Yu. According to Li Yu, the dorm was full of beautiful girls.

Yu Jin was dismissive, "Do you know what 'full of beautiful girls' means? If it turns out they're not beautiful, I'll spray you with flower water."

The dinner for the joint activity was set for November 15th. Xue Dao was busy with his navigation page design and told the guys he was a Buddhist and ate vegetarian on the 1st and 15th of the month, so he wouldn't be going.

When everyone heard it was a matter of faith, they didn't say anything more.

When it was time to turn off the lights, the seven guys finally returned, and Yu Jin didn't mention the flower water incident.

After the lights were turned off, Li Yu's high school classmate called to thank the guys for the dinner and said they would find a chance to return the favor.

The room erupted in cheers.

Kong Weize said, "Looks like the joint activity worked out. Our Room 717 is pretty strong."

Li Yu said, "Of course. Cheng Lu said they had met four other dorms before, and none of them passed the vote after returning to their dorm."

Ai Feng added, "Our dorm brothers are talented and good-looking, especially the second one. How could they not like us? Of the seven who went today, three were over 1.7 meters tall, and Cheng Lu said the one who didn't go was also over 1.7 meters. That height is hard to find in most dorms."

Chen Jian, who had been quiet for a while, lit a cigarette and said, "Bro, let's make a deal. From now on, call me Old Chen or Second Brother. If you call me the second one in front of girls again, I won't go next time."

After the weekend, Cheng Lu called Li Yu and said they would invite Room 717 to dinner on Friday evening. This time, all of Room 603 would come, and they wanted all of Room 717 to come too.

Xue Dao had no excuse this time. He didn't want to be too out of touch with the guys, and he was also curious about the dorm that everyone praised so much, so he went along.