NOVEL NEXT Ch. 14
Chapter 14
The day after the new-student show, Lin Zhe kept a low profile—yet girls from the next class still cornered him.
He turned every one of them down, politely but firmly.
Girls that age are quick to notice a guy who stands out in a crowd, and quicker still to call the flutter “love.”
That afternoon Lin Zhe looked as ordinary as ever: plain T-shirt, faded jeans, and a fringe just long enough to veil the quiet gloom in his eyes.
After the day’s grueling military-training drill, roommate Liu Xuefei strutted back into the dorm wearing a grin wide enough to park a bike.
“Guess what? A girl from next-door class asked me to dinner.”
The rest of us congratulated the idiot and wished him speedy escape from single life.
Twenty minutes later he was back, hair combed, cologne applied—and shoulders sagging like wet laundry.
An invisible black cloud hovered over him.
He grabbed Lin Zhe the second he stepped inside and shook him hard enough to scramble brains.
“Xiao Lin, you absolute menace,” Liu wailed.
Turned out the dinner invitation had been a feint within a feint: the girl only wanted Liu’s help getting Lin Zhe’s contact.
The other three roommates burst out laughing.
“Man, that’s brutal.”
Yang Zhen, passing Lin Zhe’s desk, glanced at the laptop screen.
“What’ve you been grinding at all night, Xiao Lin?”
Lin Zhe spun the notebook around.
“Club application forms and activity proposals—everything has to pass the student-council audit.”
Yang Zhen read the header aloud, word by word.
“Modern Audio-Visual Arts Research Club...”
Han Xinglong, slurping instant noodles, leaned in.
“Lemme see. You starting your own club, bro?”
Lin Zhe pushed up his glasses.
“Yep.”
Freshman military training ends in two weeks; then every club on campus scrambles to recruit.
Lihai University prides itself on its societies—there’s serious funding for groups that prove themselves, and outside companies sometimes invest.
A decent club can even pay its members.
Lin Zhe had planned since high school to launch something of his own.
Hence the proposal: Modern Audio-Visual Arts Research Club.
Talk turned to the publicity war already raging outside.
Dance crews, waist-drum troupes, Rubik’s-Cube geeks—every oddball society was parading on the quad, hunting fresh meat.
The hip-hop girls, all long legs and swagger, were especially good bait for first-year guys.
Yang Zhen, quoting a senior he knew, shrugged.
“Clubs that need to advertise this early usually suck. The big shots just sit back and wait for the fair—freshmen will mob their booths anyway.”
Lin Zhe stacked the finished paperwork, slid the balcony door open, and lit a cigarette.
He rarely smoked—only when his head felt full of wet cement.
Night wind, laced with campus humidity, lifted his fringe, baring eyes dulled by too many thoughts.
Down by the dorm road, someone was strumming “Mercury Records,” the song Lin Zhe had sung the night before.
The cover lacked his ache and texture, yet a circle of first-year girls had still gathered.
He stubbed the cigarette, ready to head back in, when his phone buzzed—Chen Zhijing.
He hesitated, then answered.
“What’s up?”
A small, careful breath came through the speaker, as if she were assembling courage.
“Nothing... just wanted to hear your voice.”
“You a puppy that whines without her master’s voice?”
A soft laugh trickled back.
“If my Xiao Lin wants a puppy, I can be one.”
The corner of his mouth curved despite himself.
Lethal levels of cute—his girlfriend in a nutshell.
On her end, Zhao Lin, eavesdropping, nearly coughed up a lung.
The sugar content was illegal.
Ever since Chen Zhijing recovered her memories she’d clung tighter, ringing him every night.
Having a devoted girlfriend was nice; the headache was juggling everyone else he’d once “cleared.”
Any of them could resurface at any moment.
At last he begged off—“still got work”—and returned to the proposal.
Chen Zhijing slipped on her headphones, hugged her sketchboard, and burrowed into her private world.
Bare feet tucked beneath her, she hummed “Mercury Records” while charcoal strokes took shape on the page.
Somewhere in the middle she paused to answer her editor’s message.
She’d only just picked up the character-design commission from that indie studio a few days ago, and the deadline was already looming at the end of next month.
These days Chen Zhijing’s name carried real weight in the illustration circle; game companies lined up to book her.
Ironically, love for the craft wasn’t what had turned her into an anime-style artist in the first place.
She’d simply wanted a skill that would let her skip the nine-to-five grind after graduation.
But ever since she’d started dating Lin Zhe, her future plans had quietly rearranged themselves around him.
She could picture it: tucked away at home, a full-time housewife, maybe even earning enough on her own to support Xiao Lin.
The thought made her press her flushed face into the sketchboard she was hugging; a dreamy, delighted smile slipped across her lips.
Two pale, delicate feet peeked from under her pajamas, toes curling happily against the soft sheets.