After all the students disembarked, they were eager to leave the square, as no one fancied basking in the sun.
Su Qianyi alone stood beside the coach, staring blankly at Xie Shu and Ruan Nianxi in the distance, seemingly lost in thought.
An Tian, who had been sitting at the back, got off a bit later. The discomfort from motion sickness made her feel unwell, so she didn't immediately notice Su Qianyi's odd behavior.
Seeing Su Qianyi standing by the door, she assumed she was waiting for her. Reaching out to grab her hand, she said, "The sun is so intense, let's head back."
But her hand didn't budge.
Curious, An Tian turned to look at her properly and noticed her gaze fixed in a particular direction.
So she looked that way too.
And there she saw Xie Shu talking to a girl, seemingly quite close.
That girl… looked somewhat familiar.
Liu Ping, also prone to motion sickness, was the last to get off. After a quick glance around, he noticed two of his roommates heading towards the shade of some trees, while another…
There were hardly any people around the gymnasium, so he spotted Xie Shu and Ruan Nianxi right away.
Without much hesitation, he started walking towards where his roommates had gone.
He hadn't gone far when Su Qianyi called out to him.
"Do you know what's going on with Xie Shu… and that girl?" Not sure if he knew Ruan Nianxi, she didn't mention her by name.
As she spoke, her eyes drifted back towards the gymnasium, worried that Liu Ping might not have seen them.
Following her gaze, Liu Ping glanced again at Xie Shu and the other person, then shrugged helplessly: "It is what it is, the situation is as you see."
After speaking, he too felt the heat and turned to walk briskly towards the shade of the trees by the road.
Soon, only Su Qianyi and An Tian were left in the square, even the driver had driven the coach away.
Xie Shu and Ruan Nianxi strolled leisurely towards the dormitory area, never once looking back in this direction.
In the end, it was An Tian who forcefully pulled the dazed Su Qianyi away.
***
There were still a few minutes before school let out, and with hardly any other students around and a clear view, everyone who had gotten off the bus around the same time had seen Xie Shu approaching a girl, and they seemed to be on good terms.
Everyone knew about Xie Shu and Su Qianyi, but due to the awkwardness of being classmates, they only gossiped in private. Recently, many girls had been harboring thoughts about Xie Shu, but after witnessing this scene, their hearts shattered once more.
Some of the boys, who had thought they might have a chance with Su Qianyi now that Xie Shu was out of the picture, went up to comfort her seeing her in low spirits, but she paid them no mind.
Xie Shu and Ruan Nianxi continued their leisurely walk towards the residential area under the large sun, sticking to the shade of the trees along the way.
Before they reached the residential area, the bell signaling the end of class rang, and students poured out of the teaching buildings. It wasn't long before they were overtaken by the crowd, but the two of them remained relaxed and at ease.
They followed the crowd to the canteen, had dinner together, and then went for a few more strolls.
Ruan Nianxi had a class in the evening, and before it started, Xie Shu walked her to the teaching building. After watching her enter, he turned and headed to the campus supermarket.
Based on the information he had looked up online that morning, he bought a lot of items, eventually returning to the dormitory with a big bag full of stuff.
When he got back, his three roommates were each doing their own thing. Seeing Xie Shu return so early, they were surprised and teased him about not spending more time with his childhood sweetheart.
Xie Shu waved them off, saying he had more important things to do.
He reached his desk and began pulling out the items he had purchased, one by one. The three roommates craned their necks curiously over his desk, not understanding why he had suddenly bought these things.
"Umm… corrugated paper, cardstock, coated paper, sulfuric acid paper… Xie Shu, what are you doing with all this? And why so much?"
Zhao Lin hadn't climbed into bed yet and approached Xie Shu's desk with his phone in one hand, intrigued by the items being pulled from the pockets.
Not just these, Xie Shu also bought several tubes of UHU glue, a few rolls of small transparent tape, craft knives, and various other tools and materials.
Strange, was there some new craft class that required these items?
Zhao Lin checked the class group chat for any messages from teachers about buying materials but found none.
So what was he buying all this for?
After Xie Shu arranged everything neatly, he pulled out a cutting mat that had been gathering dust in a corner of his desk for a long time and placed it in the center of the table.
He also didn't forget to answer Zhao Lin's question: "I'm making something."
With that, he sat down, turned on the computer beside him, opened Bilibili, and found the video tutorial he had saved that morning. He began to organize the materials on the desk while playing the video.
Li Da, also glued to his phone, popped his head over and asked curiously after glancing at Xie Shu's computer screen, "Are you making a pop-up book?"
"Yeah."
"Why are you making that? I've seen others take days or even months to complete one. It's quite a hassle."
Suddenly, Liu Ping dropped a large arm over Li Da's shoulder: "Making a pop-up book is time-consuming, but if he's doing it, he must have his reasons. Like a gift for his childhood sweetheart, right, Xie Shu?"
This time Xie Shu didn't respond, but everyone understood without saying.
They all chuckled and crowded around, offering to help Xie Shu, but he declined.
It was indeed time-consuming, but he wanted to do it himself.
His schedule was light these next few days, and with a bit of time management, he had enough to spare.
***
Xie Shu had already watched several pop-up book tutorials online that morning and had a general understanding of the process, but since he had never done it before, his initial attempts were clumsy.
To avoid making mistakes halfway and wasting time redoing it, he flipped open a notebook before starting and sketched out the theme he wanted to create, along with a rough idea of what he wanted on each page.
With a rough plan in place, he began in earnest.
He started by carefully crafting a book cover, following the video and being extremely cautious not to make a mistake, as that would mean starting over.
The cover wasn't too difficult, and he managed without errors, but by the time he finished, much time had passed, and night had already fallen.
Proofreader & Editor:Peter Pan