Celestial Silver Spoon - Chapter 21

“Behave yourself!” Cai Erman gave Xiang Tengfei a light smack before turning to head to the bathroom to freshen up. After taking a couple of steps, he nearly slipped. He turned back to give Xiang Tengfei a sharp look, expecting a mocking grin, but unexpectedly found him dozing against the wall.

“Two bowls of tomato and egg soup, please.”

“Got it!”

In the Shengze dining hall, Zina and Yixuan each ordered a bowl of tomato and egg soup and sat at two seats in the front row of the dining hall.

“Sis, why do you like tomato and egg soup so much?” Zina asked Yixuan after taking a sip from her spoon.

“I don’t really know. I guess it’s because the first soup I ever drank was this, so I’ve been drinking it ever since,” Yixuan replied, somewhat inexplicably.

“What do you mean? Sometimes what you say is so deep. Maybe I’m just too dumb to get it,” Zina said, taking another spoonful of soup.

Suddenly, a group of people entered from outside the dining hall. They were all wearing white shirts and black trousers – the uniform of Shengze. Peculiarly, the person leading the group was boldly sporting a pair of glasses with brown lenses.

“Wow! That’s so cool!” an exclamation came from somewhere in the dining hall. The person leading the group seemed to have heard it, but showed no reaction, as if such comments were commonplace.

In Shengze, unless you’re filming a movie, it’s unusual to strut around with a dozen people in tow. However, looking around, there wasn’t a camera in sight.

The group approached the breakfast counter, awkwardly inquiring about the prices before finally settling down with their selections.

The dozen or so individuals sat at the front row of the tables, and coincidentally, the person with the glasses sat next to Zina. As soon as he sat, the atmosphere in the dining hall became tense and noisy, like a small stone causing ripples across a lake. Many people stood up to get a better look at the front row.

“What? Who did he sit next to?”

The dining hall buzzed with chatter, a palpable sense of excitement in the air.

Yixuan glanced at the boy wearing glasses sitting next to Zina. It was hard to tell if he was handsome because of the glasses, but the overall contour of his face was quite pleasant.

Zina turned her head slightly to look at the boy beside her, feeling quite surprised. Apart from Mingzi, Cai Erman, and Ye Chen, no one else had ever sat so comfortably next to her during a meal.

The boy with glasses began to feel increasingly uneasy. When he turned his head, he found himself sitting beside two remarkably beautiful girls, which explained the “stirring things up” feeling he had.

However, his glance was quite composed, maintaining his breathing rhythm even after noticing such pretty girls.

“Hey! Where do you think you’re sitting? Move over!” Xiang Tengfei came over with a large bowl of noodles, mumbling with a pair of chopsticks in his mouth.

Hearing someone speak to him like this, the boy with glasses twitched his lips slightly and slowly turned his head to look behind him. He tilted his head too much and hadn’t seen Xiang Tengfei’s head, so he lowered his head and finally saw Xiang Tengfei’s face. Possibly thinking Xiang Tengfei was just a kid, he turned back and ignored him.

“Hey! I said move over! Ah!…” Xiang Tengfei elbowed the glasses-wearing boy in the back twice. A sturdy boy sitting next to the boy with glasses swung a punch at Xiang Tengfei, hitting him in the stomach, causing Xiang Tengfei to bend backward sharply. “Crash!” The large bowl shattered on the floor, and Xiang Tengfei fell down.

Zina quickly stood up to help Xiang Tengfei up. Xiang Tengfei pulled the chopsticks out of his mouth with his right hand and pointed at the guy who hit him, shouting, “Which class are you from?”

At this scene, a hundred people suddenly gathered around in the dining hall.

The boy with glasses looked at the crowd around him, realizing he had provoked the wrong people, yet he still appeared indifferent. He adjusted his glasses and slowly stood up.

“Hey, how can you hit someone?” Zina asked the person who hit Xiang Tengfei, her voice not loud, but everyone around was listening intently.

Zina was brought up with care in Shengze and could be considered its little princess. Xiang Tengfei’s approach was indeed impolite first, but the other party responding with such violence was unexpected. Even daring to hit someone close to Zina was not something Shengze could tolerate.

“Sorry, man, are you alright?” The boy with glasses stood up and walked to Xiang Tengfei, pulling a roll of tissue from his pocket to help clean up the mess on Xiang Tengfei as he apologized.

His speech was somewhat awkward, as if he hadn’t spoken in a long time.

“Don’t think… don’t think just because you wear glasses, you’re the boss. If you cause trouble again… I’ll have you sent to the Administration Office! Yixuan, let’s go.” Zina glanced at the boy with glasses, feeling his gesture of goodwill was a facade. She took off his glasses, surprised to see how handsome he was, and gave him a few words of warning before walking away with Yixuan.

The boy blinked twice, looking bewildered by Zina’s action, unsure if he was more shocked by Zina grabbing his glasses or the fact that someone took them so casually.

“Zina, why did you take his glasses?” Yixuan asked, noticing the glasses in Zina’s hand.

“No way! I’ll return them to him.” Seeing Zina about to discard the glasses, Yixuan quickly snatched them and walked back a few steps to hand them back to the boy, saying, “I’m sorry.”

The boy took the glasses and told his companions, “Let’s go.”

Xiang Tengfei didn’t say anything else, but was curious about what class they belonged to, acting so audaciously.

The gloom in Shengze’s sky hadn’t completely lifted, and nobody wanted to add a blemish to the already unclear scene. This close call concluded in Shengze’s dining hall.

“I’m going to class.”

“Alright, go ahead.”

After a quick exchange, Zina and Yixuan parted ways, one heading toward the classroom building, the other toward the dormitory building.

In the flower bed, butterflies were already visiting, kissing the flowers as the wind gently blew them, creating a truly beautiful scene in Yixuan’s eyes. She stopped in her tracks, watching the butterflies among the flowers, and suddenly envisioned an image: clouds curling as cranes soared, by a white jade bridge where rare flowers vie for attention and exotic grasses emit fragrance; a lake with a wisp of smoke, gently there; occasionally, a few women approached with flowers, laughing as they left, arriving like dragonflies skimming the water, leaving like startled birds taking flight, graceful in movement and dressed in style, amidst diverse clouds and mist, free of worries and concerns.

“Hey, Miss, what are you doing here?” a suddenly appearing young man asked, startling Yixuan, who quickly blinked her eyes and replied nervously, “N-nothing… It’s you? Why aren’t you going to class?”

“Class? I’m not a student here.” It was the boy with glasses speaking, and though he was referred to as a boy, his tone was quite mature.

“Oh…”

“So why aren’t you going to class then?” the handsome boy asked in return.

“Me? I’m… I’m not a student at this college either,” Yixuan replied hesitantly.

“You’re not a student at Shengze? Then how did you get in?” the handsome boy asked, surprised.

“I… Well, you’re not a student here either, so how did you get in?” Yixuan retorted, her eyes quickly shifting.

“I have this.” As he spoke, the handsome boy pulled out a campus access card from his pocket, which was worn on the chest for entering and exiting Shengze’s campus.

“What is that?” Yixuan asked, widening her eyes slightly to look at the campus access card in his hand.

“What? You don’t recognize this? Then you must be from…”

“I’m not telling you. I have to go.” All this talk was too unfamiliar to Yixuan, causing her some panic, so she decided to leave as the best strategy, quickly turning around and walking away. The handsome boy watched her departing figure, shook his head, and glanced at the campus access card in his hand, smiling softly.

“Senior brother, what are you doing here?” a tall boy, about six feet tall, approached the handsome boy and asked.

“Oh, just wandering around,” the handsome boy replied absentmindedly.

“Have you found the person in the photo yet?” the handsome boy gathered his thoughts and asked.

“It’s class time now, isn’t it? How do we search? Should we go from classroom to classroom with the photo and ask?” the tall boy suggested, feeling quite pleased with his own cleverness.

“Can’t you come up with something better?” the handsome boy rolled his eyes at the tall boy, then took the glasses hanging from his shirt pocket and put them on. The tall boy stood there, scratching his head and muttering to himself, “This method might be a bit traditional, but it’s really practical.”

In this era, referring to each other as “senior brother” and “junior brother” is quite uncommon in Xiahua Country. Judging by their appearance, they didn’t seem to be from the Shaolin Temple¹. Even those who are lay disciples from the Shaolin Temple, although not monks, should exhibit some level of “lay” behavior, yet nothing about these two seemed particularly “lay” at all.

“What’s going on? Two people are missing? Are they skipping my class as well? Sigh… forget it.” In the first class of the Chinese Department where Zina was enrolled, an elderly man with white hair and “Shanghai Bund-era” glasses looked at the two empty seats and sighed.

It wasn’t just this class; other classes were also missing students. Such situations have occurred at Shengze before, but having students absent during the first class of the day would be noted. Could it be that those injured students didn’t come to class?

“Xie Wan, we must be discharged today. The 30th Anniversary Celebration is in three days, and I can’t miss it,” Liu Zixu said while sitting on the hospital bed.

“But, Miss…”

“Help me up quickly.” Xie Wan was hesitating with her words as Liu Zixu was already trying to sit up, so Xie Wan hurriedly helped her.

“But Miss, your injury…”

“It’s fine. I should be able to walk. Ah!…” Liu Zixu suddenly felt a sharp pain in her waist.

“Miss, please don’t go.” Xie Wan gently held Liu Zixu’s arm, feeling concerned.

“Xie Wan, so many things have happened at the college recently-students fighting, stocks plummeting… If anything happens during the anniversary celebration…” Liu Zixu said, fingers running through her hair, lowering her head in worry.

“Call the doctor over; I have something to discuss.” Liu Zixu suddenly lifted her head and told Xie Wan.

“Oh… okay.” Xie Wan responded after a brief pause.

After a short while, Liu Zixu’s attending physician, Dr. Diao Qi, a renowned doctor in Xiahua Country, arrived in Liu Zixu’s room, accompanied by Ren Fusheng, the director of Hailing City’s Municipal People’s Hospital.

“Dr. Diao, I need to be discharged urgently. Please give me an emergency painkiller injection,” Liu Zixu requested.

“Madam President, emergency painkillers… have significant side effects. How long do you need to be discharged for?” Dr. Diao asked with concern.

“I need to be discharged for a week,” Liu Zixu replied calmly.

“A week? Are you saying you want a week of emergency painkillers?”

“Yes.”

“This could easily cause vascular wall expansion. Madam, this poses great risks…”

“Dr. Diao, please don’t say any more. I have to do this,” Liu Zixu said firmly. The other three people in the room exchanged glances, and Dr. Diao, seeing no alternative, agreed to Liu Zixu’s request. As he left the ward, he pulled Xie Wan aside.

Footnote:

1. Shaolin Temple(少林寺): A famous Buddhist monastery in China known for its association with martial arts, particularly Kung Fu. It has a long history and cultural significance.