My Demon Friends

Dormitory 106.

The door was wide open, and a draft lifted the gauzy mosquito net.

Baozi lay quietly on the bed, perfectly still, not sleeping but with her eyes open, as if sensing the passage of time.

Qian Qian was awkwardly chatting with her crush, Zhong En, her fingers flying across the keyboard while ancient-style music played on her computer.

Mianmian was playing Ji San, and the whole dormitory echoed with her soft, saccharine voice—

"Senior Brother, I can't heal fast enough~~"

"Ah! I got hit!"

"Brother, save me!"

"Sob, sob, sob..."

This affected demeanor could easily provoke dislike among other girls, and indeed, it had before. Mianmian had once overheard others secretly speaking ill of her, using rather vulgar words. At the time, she hadn't reacted outwardly. Only after returning to the dormitory had she cried to Brother Nan with an even more pronounced affectation. After that, such incidents never happened again.

Baozi lay quietly, staring at the ceiling, her eyes devoid of expression. The sounds of Mianmian acting cute and feigning helplessness, the operatic vocals of the ancient-style music from Qian Qian's computer, and the mournful whistling of the wind filled the air around her.

This continued until a tall figure appeared at the dormitory door.

"Kids! Brother Nan is back!"

"Brother Nan, Brother Nan, what should I do if I ask Zhong En to go to the movies and he refuses?" Qian Qian asked anxiously.

"Beat him up!"

"Brother Nan, did you have fun with Zhou Li?" Mianmian also diverted her gaze from the computer.

"Don't even mention it..." Brother Nan waved her hand dismissively.

"What happened?" Mianmian asked, concerned.

"Nothing much..."

Brother Nan didn't want to answer. Instead, turning her head and standing on tiptoe, she looked at Baozi lying on the bed. Then she noticed the half-full bowl of fish soup on Baozi's desk and couldn't help but ask, "Why didn't you finish it? Isn't fish soup with rice tasty?"

Baozi turned over slowly, looked at Brother Nan, fell silent for a moment, then said, "Saving it... for tonight..."

Her voice was incredibly soft.

Brother Nan's heart ached. "Hey! Listen to you... With Brother Nan here, are you still afraid of not having leftovers?"

... Baozi thought. Might as well save some energy.

After a moment's thought, she said, "I have some inside information. The task on the last day is for you all to gift each other a souvenir. There will be a price limit, so you better start preparing early to avoid rushing... and appearing insincere..."

Brother Nan blinked several times and then cocked her head, leaning her ear closer to Baozi. "Avoid what? Why is your voice getting softer and softer!"

Baozi just watched her silently.

Brother Nan shook her head. "I asked you to come eat with us, and you wouldn't. What do you have to be embarrassed about? Your appetite is so tiny. If I only eat until I'm eighty percent full, that's enough for your meal. And if Huai Xu were here, it would be even more outrageous; what you eat in a day would only be one-tenth of one of his meals."

Baozi opened her mouth.

Brother Nan leaned in closer to listen carefully. Baozi seemed to be asking what "tiny" meant.

Ugh, this girl... Brother Nan thought.

Cai University One-Week Couple Event: It's already the fifth day!

Cai University One-Week Couple Event: Fixed task: Before you go to sleep, say good night to your partner and warmly remind them to rest early.

Cai University One-Week Couple Event: Today's task: What does your partner look like now, and what did they look like in the past? Want to know more about what they were like before? Send them three childhood photos and share stories from that time (photos from elementary or middle school are fine; choose interesting stories to let them see your growth process).

Zhou Li: ...

Meanwhile, a message from Brother Nan also came through.

Li Daimao: We agreed, no photos from after junior high. It's best if they're all from before junior high.

Zhou Li: ...

Li Daimao: ?

Zhou Li: What if I don't have any?

Li Daimao: You can't even find three? /shocked

Zhou Li: I'll try.

Li Daimao: Good. /Kitchen Knife

Zhou Li and Brother Nan had met very early on. During his junior high days, Zhou Li often went to her family's noodle shop to eat. No matter how much of a big shot Brother Nan was at school, she still had to help carry bowls and clear plates at home. She was also keen on collecting money; back then, her family's place didn't have a cash register or an ordering machine. But at that time, they could hardly say they knew each other.

They had merely seen each other.

Zhou Li had very few photos from his childhood.

Forget before junior high; even during his entire junior high period, the only one he remembered was a single graduation photo. Occasionally, he would find himself in classmates' selfies or photos taken by others, mostly having been accidentally caught in the shot.

Photos taken during elementary school were even scarcer.

Zhou Li had no choice but to seek help from Aunt Jiang.

Soon, Aunt Jiang sent him seven or eight photos. They were all original paper photos that had been recently photographed with a phone. Many of the photos were of poor quality, or had yellowed, acquired white spots, or developed creases from poor preservation over time.

Zhou Li scrutinized these photos one by one, sometimes zoning out for a moment, then saved each one.

He hadn't expected there to be so many.

At noon, after lunch, the two strolled slowly under the scorching sun, eventually finding a bench shaded by trees.

"You first," Brother Nan said.

"Oh."

Zhou Li took out his phone and opened his photo album.

Brother Nan peeked. "So many?"

Zhou Li quickly turned the back of his phone towards her. "No peeking. You can only look when I show you."

"Then hurry up."

"Alright."

"Wow, you were so little..."

In the photo, Zhou Li looked like he had just started elementary school, perhaps first or second grade, but his expression wasn't typical for a child his age. He faced the camera with excessive calmness, even appearing slightly indifferent, lacking the liveliness expected of his age. Next to him stood a young, handsome man in a suit and tie, standing very straight, which made Zhou Li seem even smaller and thinner by comparison. The background was filled with flowers, but it was clearly fake—just a cloth backdrop.

"How old were you then?"

"Five or six, I guess."

"You looked so well-behaved!"

"Indeed."

"So shameless... Was that your dad?"

"Yeah."

"Pretty handsome!"

"True." Zhou Li thought for a moment. "At that time, I was still living at my grandfather's house in the countryside. He seldom came back. I remember once when he did, he said he'd take me to the market fair and get a photo taken, and he changed me into a new set of clothes. This might have been the first time I ever had my photo taken."

"The first photo of your life?"

"Maybe."

"Send it to me, send it to me!"

"Okay."

"So you were considered a left-behind child then?"

"Yes, but my grandfather was very kind to me. He was a man of great virtue and wisdom, and the villagers all respected him. I think I had a pretty good life back then."

"I'll show you mine."

"Okay."

Brother Nan also took out her phone and started searching.

Zhou Li pretended not to look but secretly snuck glances using his peripheral vision. He saw that Brother Nan's album was a chaotic mess, mostly filled with memes, saved internet videos, and inexplicable screenshots, with only a few selfies scattered here and there.

"Alright!"

"Ta-da!"

Brother Nan showed her phone to Zhou Li.

Zhou Li took the phone from her hands and turned the brightness up to maximum—

It was terribly pixelated.

A little girl, bundled up in thick clothes and wearing a small apron, stood by a pond. Her hair was in two pigtails, but even then, her features were already quite delicate. She held a glass bottle containing some unknown substance.

Zhou Li glanced at the top of her head and asked, "You had that cowlick even when you were this small?"

"...Is that what you focused on?"

"Just asking."

"I've had it since I was little!" Brother Nan muttered, explaining, "It seems that spot is a bit... a bit..."

Brother Nan was lost for words, clearly flustered.

After thinking for a good while, she said uncertainly, "Maybe the structure there is a bit different from other parts of my head?"

Finishing her sentence, she nodded, hummed in agreement, then looked at Zhou Li, as if trying to convince both him and herself to accept this explanation. "Right, that's it. So the hair that grows there is also a bit different. You sleep on it, and boom, a cowlick appears."

"I see."

"You're such a pervert!"

"What's that you're holding?" Zhou Li asked.

"A bomb."

Brother Nan paused for a moment, then continued to explain, "A bomb I made myself, to catch fish. It's packed with gunpowder and yellow mud. It took me a long time to collect the gunpowder. See, there's even a fuse—oh, you can't see it clearly. Anyway, I was dynamiting fish."

"...Who took the photo?"

"My idiot cousin."

"I see..."

Zhou Li figured as much; it probably wasn't taken by her dad or mom.

Brother Nan pointed to another part of the photo. "Look, there are a few other kids here. Some older than me, some younger—all my little followers. I told them the explosives I made were an atomic bomb that would blow up the entire pond, and after blowing up the pond, I'd go blow up the school. They believed me, hahaha... Look, they're all too scared to come close, afraid of getting blown up!"

"Did you catch any fish?"

"No... Your turn."

"Okay, let me show you this one. This is a photo of me and my mom." Zhou Li pulled out another precious photo. "I used to cry looking at this photo when I was little."

"Oh!"

Brother Nan scratched her head, her mouth slightly open, looking a bit dazed. For once, she sat remarkably still and quiet, waiting to hear about Zhou Li's past.