Xie Shu hadn't been voice chatting with Ruan Nianxi for long when his phone began to buzz intermittently with WeChat notifications.
He had deliberately left the sound on during the call, so he received an alert each time a message came through.
His phone was right in front of him, so all it took was a glance down to see the name pop up in the notification window: Su Qianyi.
Since the day he was reborn, he had never once clicked on her chat, read her messages, nor had he blocked her. He had always tried his best to ignore her.
This time was no different. He wanted to ignore her, but even after enabling Do Not Disturb mode, the notification window still appeared.
The phone was close, and he couldn't help but catch a glimpse of the notifications out of the corner of his eye, which was starting to distract him.
He couldn't remember how many times he had paused what he was doing to look at his phone, and just as he did so again, another notification from Su Qianyi popped up.
His patience was wearing thin.
He had previously left her alone mainly because they were classmates who saw each other often, and because she was the class monitor, responsible for collecting homework, which meant he had to keep her on his friend list.
After starting university, he joined countless groups on WeChat and QQ, receiving an overwhelming number of messages every day. Eventually, he got used to ignoring the endless red dots indicating unread messages. That's why he had been able to disregard the multitude of messages from Su Qianyi.
But this time… Xie Shu really found her annoying.
After all these days of ignoring her, she should have understood his attitude, right?
They were all adults; it wasn't like she didn't get it.
The notifications kept coming every few seconds.
While continuing to talk to Ruan Nianxi, Xie Shu calmly put down his craft knife.
He minimized the voice call window, navigated to the friends list, and deliberately clicked on Su Qianyi's chat.
The chat was filled with her messages. He didn't scroll up; he simply glanced at the screen and saw that she was asking about his relationship with Ruan Nianxi, probing into details like what they did that afternoon…
What business was it of hers?
With that thought, Xie Shu sent her a message…
In the girls' dormitory.
Su Qianyi had been distracted since returning that afternoon, her mind wandering and feeling increasingly upset. It wasn't until that evening that she seemed to come to a realization and mustered the courage to send Xie Shu another WeChat message.
Her tone was still cautious, afraid that he would find her annoying.
But she had so many questions, and her habit of sending short messages led to her accidentally sending even more.
Just as she worried whether Xie Shu would find her bothersome, she saw that his name changed to "typing…"
He was reading her messages!
Her joy lasted only a second before she saw what Xie Shu had sent her.
Xie Shu: "If you really have nothing better to do, go find a jail cell to sit in."
Su Qianyi stared at the message for a few seconds, then hurriedly tried to send an explanation, but…
"The message has been sent but was rejected by the recipient."
The red exclamation mark next to the message box struck her like lightning, leaving her unable to recover.
***
After a series of actions, Xie Shu returned to Ruan Nianxi's chat window, then set his phone aside and picked up the craft knife to continue his work.
He crafted and chatted with Ruan Nianxi, occasionally glancing at the muted tutorial video on his computer.
For some reason, he suddenly thought of Su Qianyi again.
It wasn't that he couldn't let go or anything; it was just a simple association with their past.
His attitude towards her had been very clear, hadn't it? Dislike meant dislike, and excessive persistence only annoyed him.
If she had been like this before, straightforward, he wasn't a fool; he would have understood and naturally kept his distance.
But she… aside from rejecting his confessions, she never refused anything else, which led to his mistaken belief that it was a "test" and his persistence for so long.
It really was strange. Why not just reject directly? It wasn't hard.
Memories of others were quickly cleared from Xie Shu's mind as he continued to focus on his work.
The sound of flipping paper, the rustle of drawing on paper with a pen, and asking his roommate to borrow a certain color pen… all these sounds were transmitted to Ruan Nianxi through the phone's microphone, making it clear to her that Xie Shu was indeed busy, and she had been overthinking.
After calming down, she felt much more relaxed, and her mood improved significantly. Even her roommates could sense the joy in her voice from behind the bed curtains.
Their aloof class president was in love!
They wouldn't think she was hiding something just because she wore headphones. They knew who she was talking to!
It was the guy from the Art College who had appeared on the campus forum twice, once sharing an umbrella with her, and who had escorted her to class twice today!
They wouldn't steal her secret…
***
Xie Shu noticed it was nearly midnight and stopped his work to wash up, telling Ruan Nianxi to go to bed first.
Ruan Nianxi thought he was done for the night and obediently wished him goodnight.
Their call ended.
Xie Shu went to wash up.
Upon returning, he sat back down, turned on the sound of the tutorial video on his computer, and resumed his work.
Time ticked away, and even the usual night owls were heading to bed while he remained seated at his desk, busy.
"Xie Shu, go to sleep early, I'm heading to bed now, can't keep you company," Zhao Lin said as he put down his phone for good after exiting the game.
"Me too, I'm dead tired," Li Da followed, exiting the short video app.
"I'm already asleep; you night owls are going to drop dead one of these days," Liu Ping turned over in his bed.
"…"
"Got it, you guys go to sleep."
Hearing that they were going to bed, Xie Shu once again muted the tutorial video and turned on the desk lamp.
The night grew deeper, silent and still…
Xie Shu didn't know how much time had passed, but eventually, he was too exhausted to continue and went to bed.
As dawn's faint light crept in and all was silent, Xie Shu got up for another day…
Proofreader & Editor:Peter Pan