Chapter Ten: The Issue of Surnames

Arriving at the cafeteria, the crowd inside was clearly much larger than yesterday. The place was noisy and bustling. Su Yuan frowned slightly without drawing attention. “So many people. Ye Hao, there’s no money left on my meal card. Help me get the food—I’ll go grab seats!”

After saying that, he headed straight toward an empty table. Ji Yehao froze for a moment when he heard this. No money? I could lend you some—why make someone else buy food for you? But seeing so many students eating here, if they didn’t secure seats in advance, there probably wouldn’t even be a place to sit. So even though he knew Su Yuan was just being lazy, he could only sigh silently and walk toward the long line.

After lining up and getting the food, he soon returned carrying several dishes and two bowls of rice. Gao Jun had gotten himself a clay pot meal, implying that he’d been exhausted these past few days and needed to properly nourish himself.

After finishing the meal, the group carried their trays and poured the leftovers into the swill bucket. When they came back, Gao Jun continued working on his software, while Ji Yehao flipped through his textbooks, apparently doing some preview study.

Outside the window, rain fell steadily—another rainy night. Just like yesterday, Su Yuan moved a chair to the aluminum-framed glass door between the dorm room and the balcony, straddled it, rested her chin on her hands atop the backrest, and stared off into space.

After a long while, extremely bored, she nudged someone’s back. “Ye Hao, I’m depressed again…”

“Let’s hear it.” Having his thoughts interrupted, Ji Yehao helplessly put down his book and turned around.

“Uh… seems like there’s actually nothing to say.”

“You’re just messing with me, aren’t you?” Ji Yehao shook his head speechlessly.

“Pretty much.” Su Yuan shamelessly admitted it. Ji Yehao was so exasperated that he pretended to raise the textbook on the desk to knock her on the head, but in the end, he didn’t bring it down.

Su Yuan burst out laughing. Then she suddenly thought of something and asked, “Ye Hao, why is your surname Ji?”

“Because my dad’s surname is Ji.”

What kind of answer was that? She joked, “Actually, I think the surname Ye would suit you just fine. Ye Hao sounds way better than Ji Yehao—much smoother to the ear.”

“The body, hair, and skin are all given by one’s parents. If you think Ye is such a good surname, why don’t you change yours to Ye?”

Su Yuan shook her head. “That’s different. I think Su is a little better than Ye. Oh right, since your dad’s surname is Ji, what’s your mom’s surname?”

“Su.”

“Ah!” Su Yuan was surprised. “So we’re from the same clan! Surnames—xing originates from the female line, shi from the male line. If you ask me, taking your mom’s surname wouldn’t be bad either.”

Ji Yehao studied Su Yuan carefully and frowned. “Why are you so enthusiastic about helping people change their surnames? What kind of psychological state is that?”

“Hehe.” Su Yuan gave an awkward laugh.

Ji Yehao also got in the mood to joke. “Why don’t you change your own surname—take mine and be surnamed Ji like me?”

“NO! NO! NO! Su sounds better than Ji… Besides, Ji doesn’t even make it into the top thousand of the Hundred Family Surnames. Who knows what corner it’s hiding in. Su is different—it’s in the top fifty, a super common surname. Just comparing them, you can tell Su is more advantageous.”

So whichever sounds better and has more advantage is the one you take? Ji Yehao felt extremely depressed.

“Oh right, did you buy Huaxin Technology stock?”

Ji Yehao snapped, “No!” Then he paused and asked, “You’re that sure I’d buy this stock?”

“Tch.” Su Yuan snorted. “If you weren’t going to buy it, why would you keep watching it for months?”

Ji Yehao looked at her in surprise, then nodded thoughtfully. “After analyzing it for several months, there are finally some signs.”

“Did it go up or down today?”

“It went down—has been falling for several days in a row.”

Su Yuan immediately put on a mature expression and said knowingly, “That’s good. If it’s falling, it means the major players are absorbing enough shares—it’s about time for it to rise.”

“Oh? I didn’t expect you to know that.”

“That’s easy. I learn as soon as you teach me!”

…

My tomorrow
Which day will it be
When will I finally stop missing you
Forgetting time
Forgetting yesterday
Love and hate no longer replay

It turned out that Su Yuan felt the atmosphere had gone cold, so she used her knockoff phone to play the female version of Autumn of Farewell she had just downloaded.

Just as Ji Yehao said, compared to the male version, the female version had a different kind of charm.

Last night the rain drizzled on, and the temperature was just right. However, the moment the morning sun poked its head out, it put an end to that comfort. Pulling open the curtains, the blazing sensation announced the arrival of a hot day, and before long the ground itself became scorching.

Early in the morning, the rhythm of campus life had already begun. Students hurriedly poured out of the dormitories, and as it neared eight o’clock, this busy scene even more vividly displayed the fast pace of student life.

Dormitory 330 was left with only Su Yuan. Ji Yehao and Gao Jun had gone ahead to the classroom to secure seats, while Su Yuan stayed behind to finish up. It wasn’t that she wanted to dawdle—rather, the changes to her body meant many things could no longer be done as casually as before.

Take washing up and using the restroom, for example. In the past, several people would crowd together and take turns. Though busy, it was extremely efficient. Now, that simply wouldn’t work anymore. Either Su Yuan had to get up early to finish, or wait until the very end. When she used the restroom, she had to lock the door.

“That should be about right.” Looking at herself in the mirror, she still looked pretty much as “handsome” as before. She patted her cheeks with a satisfied expression. After this morning’s “rehearsal,” she decided it would be better to get up earlier in the future.

She was wearing a white short-sleeved shirt with one blue and one red stripe embedded on each shoulder, and a pair of thin jeans on the bottom. This outfit wasn’t afraid of the heat and added a refreshing air to Su Yuan.

In the morning were Linear Algebra and College English II. There were no classes in the afternoon. After checking the schedule, she hugged her textbooks and headed toward classroom NC210.

In front of the teaching building, students coming to class crowded together at the stairwell entrance, forcing her to slow her pace. It was almost eight o’clock, yet there was still a long way to go to the classroom. Su Yuan grew anxious and kept looking ahead.

Being late wasn’t really a big deal, but since it was the first class, it would still be a little embarrassing under everyone’s gaze. Just as she lifted her head to look at the crowd ahead, someone grabbed her arm. “Where are you looking? This way!” Ji Yehao was standing at the back door of a classroom at some point unknown.

She looked at the classroom he pointed to in surprise. “NA203?”

Like NC210, it was a large classroom that could accommodate seventy to eighty students at once.

Noticing the Linear Algebra and College English II textbooks in Su Yuan’s hands, Ji Yehao was a little surprised. “Hey, today is Thursday. The classes are Physical Chemistry and Human Physiology.”

“You’ll never believe why I moved to… Sidoarjo
My life in emojis: airplane, surfer, sushi, mountain biker”

“Ah! No way—today isn’t Friday?” Su Yuan exclaimed.

Ji Yehao laughed. “I think you got so dizzy during summer vacation that you even mixed up the days of the week.”

“Don’t talk about that—come on, come on.” With an awkward smile, Su Yuan pushed Ji Yehao into the classroom, deftly defusing her embarrassment. After two months of summer break spent holed up at home in a daze, she still hadn’t fully adjusted even after school started.

“Ring—ring—ring!” The class bell rang at just the right moment, cutting off their conversation. “Over here!” Gao Jun waved at her. It was a seat toward the middle-back.

Yang Xiaowei was also sitting there—a tall young man with a sunny aura. Although they were dormmates, he hardly stayed in the dorm more than a few days a year. He stood up and moved aside a little to make space for Su Yuan to squeeze in, greeting her, “Su Yuan, you really timed it perfectly, coming in right on the second.”

“Pure coincidence!”

Su Yuan chuckled, treating it as a response to Yang Xiaowei.