Still, Wait For Me (Web Novel)
chapter-260

There was a long pause after Old Wai’s and Li Xingming’s words.

Lu Xu shook in laughter, “You mean that…I know, I was inferior to her in the first place. She’s so great, and I’m just a completely useless guy. Still, I’m also not tying her down with anything…?”

Li Xingming and Old Wai were speechless as they exchanged looks, seemingly just unable to understand how Lu Xu could have managed to interpret their words in such a fashion, having even given such a reply.

Xu Tingsheng hauled Lu Xu over and looked at him. Then, he spoke, his words forceful in stark contrast to his calm tone.

“Lu Xu, I actually don’t want to manage your life too much. In my eyes, you’re still just like a kid. Just this once, I’ll ask very seriously for you to be a little more sensible and mature, setting your self-respect and inferiority aside and treasuring things properly…otherwise, when you’re crying and regretting this someday, none of us bros will sympathise with or pay any attention to you.”

Lu Xu was rendered somewhat dazed by Xu Tingsheng’s sudden earnest words of advice.

He remembered how Xu Tingsheng almost never spoke to them in such a manner. Even though everyone unconsciously treated him like their older brother, he behaved in much the same way as them when in their dormitory, messing around with everyone everyday with wild abandon.

“I’ve seen too many people bawling their lungs out if only for a single ‘pill of regret’…no such pill exists in this world,” Xu Tingsheng’s tone eased, becoming warm, sincere, even a little desolate.

Actually, even Xu Tingsheng himself could not understand why he had suddenly been overtaken by emotion at that moment.

Xu Tingsheng usually disliked it, was even very rejecting of it…Acting the role of a mature educator who pried into the lives of others and tried to tell them what to do with the face of a twenty-year-old-this was something he only ever did once in a while with Fu Cheng and Huang Yaming when it seemed necessary.

This time was an exception.

Perhaps it was because Xu Tingsheng had seen too much lost happiness and sad letdowns by ignorant youths in these two lives. Lu Xu and Chick Bao could both be considered friends of his in this life. He believed that Lu Xu did like Chick Bao, just that he was still insensible. Yet…it was likely that…there wasn’t enough time for him to become sensible before the tale came to an end.

People often lose many things that are precious to them in the process of becoming sensible, becoming ‘sensible’ as a result of that ‘loss’. Afterwards, they are only ever able to reminisce. Meanwhile, what was lost can never again be regained.

Like Old Wai and Li Xingming, Xu Tingsheng did not wish to see such a conclusion to this tale.

Lu Xu thought hard for a while before raising his head rather awkwardly, “Bro Xu, Old Wai and Xingming too, sorry for just now. I, I’ll definitely think properly on it, then try my best to change.”

The three reached out and patted Lu Xu’s shoulder in succession.

Lu Xu still had an awkward smile on his face as his phone vibrated. He took it out, placing it on the table and turning it on right before the three.

Chick Bao’s text read: “Sweetheart, wasn’t I amazing just now? Wasn’t I cool? Cold and aloof, handsome and authoritative, slaying enemies all round…countless girls swooned beneath my graceful skirt…sweetheart, aren’t you proud of me? Will you still dare to bully me in the future?”

Lu Xu looked at his three roommates who had just given him advice. Thinking of what they had said to him, his eyes instantly turned red.

“There isn’t anyone who’s better than you, Bao Peijun. I’ve been insensible for so long. Don’t be angry with me and not want me anymore. I will be changing. I really do love you,” Lu Xu replied.

Lu Xu did nothing to hide his typing on his phone. Still, his three roommates were unable to take it any longer as they all turned…that was just so mushy that even their goosebumps were rising.

What should be said had already been said. As for whether or not Lu Xu could truly mature as a result, learning how to treasure those dear to him…there was no one who could truly know this.

……

As they conversed, some dumb game, ‘Carrot Squatting’, was currently ongoing up on stage, leading to peals of laughter resounding all around as everyone was excited beyond compare.

Five minutes passed, then another five.

Everyone had already grown tired of it, grown tired of laughing at it, but this dumb game had still not ended, just being unable to end somehow. Six girls up on stage, two from year two and four from year one…none of them had made a mistake in these ten minutes…and all of them were still completely into it, no one being willing to give up at all.

If this went on, they might really be squatting and rising all the way till daybreak.

Li Xingming drew the others of Room 602 close, saying dirtily, “They’re all…very flexible!”

Standing by the wall, Tan Yao conversed with the female MC in hushed voices for a while.

Then, he stepped forward and called for a temporary halt in the game.

“So,” Tan Yao said, “Since the six beauties on stage definitely can’t be separated in terms of reaction and wits, let’s switch to a test of strength. Not amongst you, but amongst the guys.”

“What do you mean?” Someone asked.

“The six beauties on stage, each of you choose a guy from everyone present and let him carry you…in carrot squatting.”

Right after Tan Yao had said this, wild cheering resounded throughout the entire room. There had finally appeared a game in this event that somewhat had a bit of a ‘matchmaking’ nature.

The only doubtful thing here was how only two of the six girls whom Tan Yao spoke of lived up to the term ‘beauty’, these being the petite chick who had just performed an Indian dance and Zhang Ninglang’s girl with the long plait.

Some well-informed students were saying, “Those two are even from the same dorm room.”

The other four were generally average, though one of them…her tonnage was kind of horrifying.

“So, we’ll begin right away. Beauties, come out one by one to pick someone. Guys, raise your hands when you see fit, and then the beauties will freely pick from amongst you…understood, everyone?” Tan Yao asked.

“Understood!” Came the excited howls and the drumming of fists on the tables.

“Can it be mixed? Like year one students picking year two students and the other way around,” Someone asked.

“Of course! Getting to know one another is basically what today’s all about, isn’t it?”

Tan Yao blinked in indication to the guys: Relax, my bros. I’ve got this.

“I love my Bro Yao,” Li Xingming exclaimed excitedly.

Up on stage, Tan Yao continued, “Don’t be in a rush, girls! The guys will be competing afterwards…we’ll just start directly with this. Don’t feel shy to raise up your hands then, beauties…this is just a game.

Li Xingming felt incomparably pained, “If only I’d known…I’d have signed up for sure. Sigh, whoever doesn’t want to play, give me your spot!”

The selection process began.

First to step forward was the petite girl in that Indian dance costume which exposed her waist.

“Help me out, big brothers. I’m afraid that maybe…it’ll surely be very pitiful if there isn’t anyone.”

As soon as her delicate voice appeared, more than thirty hands were raised from amongst the seventy odd guys present from both years combined.

Xu Tingsheng just lay low by that corner of the room.

Li Xingming wasn’t able to sit still on his chair at all as he was raring to go.

That girl happily looked around the area twice, completely ignoring the thirty odd ‘big brothers’ who had raised up their hands in support for her at her earnest behest with no hesitation at all.

They were only there to ‘raise’ her up.

She asked, “Upon entering our university, I heard that there’s a senior from our Chinese course who’s known as Xishan Tower’s Xu Tingsheng…I wonder if Senior Xu Tingsheng is here today?”

A great many gazes converged on the corner of the room.

Li Xingming said decisively, “He isn’t here.”

Laughter resounded throughout the room.

The girl did not look dejected as she smiled lightly before turning and asking Tan Yao, “Then, I wonder if Senior Tan Yao can participate in this game as the MC? Are you willing to raise your hand for me?”

This was a chick with a very big appetite.

Everyone thoroughly understood it now. Many of the upraised hands were promptly dropped.

Tan Yao was not some easy, inexperienced youth. Having hung out with Huang Yaming and Xu Tingsheng over this period of time and even attended one of Tianyi’s cocktail parties, a girl such as this really wasn’t qualified for him to think anything of her.

The current him only teased girls once in a while just for fun, just because it was interesting. For example, he had been flirting with the female MC here simply because the mood would be more interesting that way.

And now, Li Xingming still had his hand raised as he was staring at him in a threatening manner.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I signed up for the guys’ game that will be happening in a while. If I participate in this too, I won’t have any strength left for later,” Tan Yao politely declined.

“Oh, that’s alright. Never mind then,” The girl did not exhibit any unhappiness as she smiled, looking back at those few hands which were still raised for her, including that of Li Xingming.

The most courageous person here actually wasn’t Li Xingming. Instead, it was a second year student from Class 1. Seeing how the competition had diminished, he had just secretly raised his hand.

The problem was that he had a girlfriend. Moreover, said girl was from the same class as him.

Someone who was better acquainted with him asked him in a hushed tone, “Heck, you’re being so aggressive? Aren’t you afraid of being discovered by your girlfriend?”

“I just saw her getting up to go to the toilet, heh. I’m gonna give it a go, heh.”

Just at that ‘heh’, his girlfriend appeared at the back door. Seeing him with with his hand raised, she instantly stopped in her tracks.

“What the, back so fast?!” The boy muttered.

An aggrieved look appeared on his girlfriend’s face as she turned and stormed off.

Seeing it, the boy hesitated for a moment before turning back, his hand still resolutely upraised.

“You aren’t going to go after her?” His friends asked.

The boy chortled, “She’s run off in a huff anyway, so I might as well just try again.”

The people around him all felt that this dude really had kind of a robust mentality.

Up on stage, the girl scanned those few people who remained before finally looking towards that corner and asking delicately, “That senior, can I trouble you?”

Li Xingming pointed at himself, “Me?”

The girl nodded.

Li Xingming couldn’t wait for everyone else on the same row to make way as he directly vaulted over the table.

From the back row resounded a ‘the heck’ of many mixed emotions, of agony and disbelief and of disappointment…

That boy from Class 1 who had persisted despite even causing his girlfriend to storm off finally put down his hand, his face filled with helplessness as he appeared unresigned to his downfall.

“How’re you feeling now?” A nosy classmate asked him.

“Like an astronaut, flying to the moon. Coincidentally looking back, I discover that the earth has exploded. Thus, I can only continue flying towards the moon. In the end…the moon drifts off its set trajectory, sucked by the gravitational pull of some deviant star…I think I may have to drift solitarily for a while.”

The boy gazed at the ceiling, voicing some deeply philosophical ponderings.

Following this, three of the remaining five girls finished their picks as well.

The second last person to step forward was the girl with the long plait.