Chapter 126: How many such coincidences are there in life?

Lu Zhixin had said that she liked the riverside residence. Thus, Xu Tingsheng left the riverside residence for her.

“You can stay here first. I’ll be returning to the dorms to stay for a while. My two friends who might sometimes come over to stay both haven’t returned yet. I’ll convey this to them properly.”

Xu Tingsheng returned to Room 602 with his roommates.

The dormitory was the most important base unit of a university. Most of the time, Xu Tingsheng preferred to stay there rather than at the riverside residence. It was only there that he could truly feel like a youth who was currently studying in university.

If it was possible, Xu Tingsheng actually wished that there could be fewer twists and turns in his life, his career going smoothly and ordinarily along just like that as he just quietly lived through his times in university once more.

In the day, he would cycle through campus, attending lessons, leaving lessons, going to the library to read, going to the field to play football, asking girls for their telephone numbers, messing around with his friends.

At night, he would chat leisurely with his roommates, discussing girls. Even if there had been some small squabble between them that day, that was really only normal of a university life.

𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶

However, a pressing feeling that there just wasn’t any time for him to waste as well as all that had occurred since his rebirth made it such that Xu Tingsheng was seldom able to enjoy such peace and leisure. The matter at the end of the previous year and Fang Yunyao’s matter which had happened one after the other had really left him feeling both physically and mentally drained.

Xu Tingsheng decided to let himself stop and rest for a while.

There was actually a reason in Xu Tingsheng’s roommates having come to find him. Another girl had caught Li Xingming’s eye now. This time, having learnt from his earlier mistakes, he acted very cautiously, being careful not to act too desperate in front of her.

Li Xingming had asked his roommates for help. Then, they had thought of Xu Tingsheng who seemed ‘very skilled’ in this area.

“Another girl’s caught Li Xingming’s eye? Isn’t this a very normal thing? It happens every day and every night, every time he’s eating, every time he’s going to the toilet,” Xu Tingsheng said.

Thinking about those pitiful girls who caught Li Xingming’s eye in merely just going to the toilet...

“It’s not the same this time round. It might possibly actually really work out.”

Tan Yao had used several terms that denoted uncertainty in his earlier sentence. However, Li Xingming didn’t find it to be inappropriate at all as he was nodding joyfully by the side.

“It actually might work out? That’s really a major event of Room 602 then,” Xu Tingsheng did not refuse them, following them back to their dormitory.

A two hour long ‘summit meeting’ of Room 602 thus began. Xu Tingsheng was left feeling confounded. The might work out that they spoke of referred to Li Xingming and the girl having chosen to take the same elective and sat together twice?

“Wasn’t it like this that you got together with Lu Zhixin?” Lu Xu said on Li Xingming’s behalf.

“Bros, I beg you guys. Believe me, there’s really nothing between us,” Having repeated this countless times before, Xu Tingsheng already lacked the strength to insist on it, just hoping that Zhang Ninglang would not believe it whilst not really caring if the others had been convinced.

“Let’s not mention that first then,” Li Xingming exclaimed rather enthusiastically, “Bro Xu, I’m telling you, she really seems a little interested in me...we chatted while we were sitting together.”

“What did you talk about?”

“She asked me what course I was from. I also asked her the same thing.”

“What about after that? Did you ask for her number?”

Li Xingming woodenly shook his head.

“What? If you want to conquer a city and take a territory, you’ve at least got to have a path first,” Xu Tingsheng said, “How about we get Tan Yao to help you get her number first?”

Xu Tingsheng knew as soon as he said it that it was a terrible idea. Indeed, if Tan Yao personally ventured forth, he would definitely obtain her number. The problem was that if he were to go and ask for it, it would be even more unlikely for Li Xingming to succeed then.

“No! Definitely not!” Li Xingming leapt up, warning sternly, “Before I manage to win her over, you’re both forbidden from appearing in front of her. Just stay as the inept advisors behind me.”

The two ‘inept advisors’ exchanged glances, both deep in thought.

“I really can’t think of anything. I’ve never hit a bump in picking up chicks before, really. I’ve never had to consider all this,” Tan Yao said.

Xu Tingsheng very much wanted to throw a sentence that he heard in his previous life into Tan Yao’s face: Casually acting cool is the most fatal. His words had offended two people, one being Li Xingming who was at the complete other end of the spectrum and the other being Xu Tingsheng who had been about to propose something, “You’re saying that...this Uncle’s hit a bump before?”

“It’s all on you, Bro Xu,” Li Xingming tugged on Xu Tingsheng’s arm, staring at him so pleadingly and earnestly that he felt goosebumps on his skin.

“Let’s do it this way then,” Xu Tingsheng said, “Let’s try to get this girl to believe that something miraculous exists between the two of you.”

“What something?”

“Fate.”

......

The members of Room 602 all mobilised, creating fate.

It was a girl in the Japanese course named Zhu Yingying who had caught Li Xingming’s eye. The Japanese course...Li Xingming’s roommates privately felt that this might be a major reason why Li Xingming was trying so hard and being so serious about it.

The girl was very conscientious, and would generally enter a self-study room to study on most evenings. Like most other universities, reserving a seat in self-study rooms was an unchanging tradition. Zhu Yingying habitually made a trip to a self-study room during afternoon break time, leaving a book there to reserve the seat for herself.

Of course, she didn’t always go to the same self-study room. She just went wherever there was available space.

All of Room 602 mobilised, flipping through all the books in Yanzhou University that were being used to reserve seats in self-study rooms all afternoon till they finally found Zhu Yingying’s seat. When Zhu Yingying came to the self-study room that night, she found the guy who was seated directly across from her and was currently hard at work in his studies to be somewhat familiar.

Following Xu Tingsheng’s advice, Li Xingming was not hasty in calling out to her in greeting. He feigned to be studying in earnest for a good half hour before raising his head at one point in time to suddenly discover to his ‘great surprise’ that Zhu Yingying was seated right across from him.

“What a coincidence,” Li Xingming smiled, saying in a low tone.

Zhu Yingying ordered a bowl of claypot rice at the C District canteen and waited there with her number plate. She waited for a long time, but her claypot rice had still yet to arrive.

She went and asked the canteen auntie who said, “What number? 18? But wasn’t 18 just called...Hey, who took away the wrong bowl, taking away number 18’s?”

Carrying a bowl of claypot rice and a number plate, Li Xingming came guiltily before Zhi Yingying, “Sorry about that. Look, I’m number 28...how about the two of us switch? It’s fine, the things added within your claypot...what a coincidence, they’re exactly the same as mine.”

Zhu Yingying was struck with another ‘what a coincidence’ before she had been able to finish digesting the first one.

Li Xingming suddenly feigned realising something as he smacked his head, exclaiming, “Right, you must be hungry? I’ll go buy some other stuff for you first.”

Before Zhu Yingying could stop Li Xingming, he had already run over to another stall. Soon afterwards, he returned carrying an entire dish containing various small food.

As the two finally sat down at the same table, Li Xingming smiled awkwardly, “It’s fortunate that it was coincidentally your bowl that I mis-carried away. Otherwise, I would probably have had to suffer a bitter scolding.”

How many such ‘coincidences’ are there in life? Li Xingming successfully planted a seed within Zhu Yingying’s heart.

......

Three days later, a Friday. Li Xingming dashed joyfully into his dorm room, “Her number, I’ve got her number!” Clutching his phone, he looked like he was about to burst into emotional tears.

Xu Tingsheng was sitting on his bed playing Snake on his handphone at the time.

As the snake was about to fill the entire screen, Li Xingming lunged over and hugged him, “Thank you, Bro Xu!”

“My record...” Xu Tingsheng sighed dramatically towards the heavens.

Whether it was Tetris or Snake, all the records on his phone had been attained by others. This somehow felt like his home country had been ‘invaded’ and ‘occupied’ by others, just causing him to feel rather uncomfortable...just as he had been about to break and get back a record of his own, Li Xingming had come, and...

“Get lost!”

Xu Tingsheng exasperatedly pushed Li Xingming aside, holding up his phone as he intended to go for another round. This time, the greedy snake was interrupted just as it appeared on the screen. It was the captain of the school team who was calling. Xu Tingsheng picked up the call.

“Our opponents for the next round have been decided. Next month, we’ll be playing an away game at Jianan University,” His captain said.

“You said, Jia...?” Xu Tingsheng repeated slowly.

“Jianan University, yeah...what’s wrong? Xu Tingsheng, you don’t sound too right. Is it that you have some insider information?”

“No, it’s nothing.”

Hanging up, Xu Tingsheng was already no longer in the mood for games.

“How many such coincidences are there in life...it’s actually Jianan University.”

Jianan University was something Xu Tingsheng could not be any more familiar with. In his previous life, it had precisely been Jianan University that he had studied in.

In that instant, the campus which he had resided in for four years in his previous life, the people he had been with back then, the things they had done together...all these scenes flickered intermittently before Xu Tingsheng’s eyes like old photographs.

“I’m finally going back. How about I go to the dorm and see them? My bros. What should I say?”

“Also, what about the two of them? We won’t coincidentally meet along the way, right? Not having met me in this life, might they have met someone else?”

“...’

As for insider information, of course Xu Tingsheng had some. In fact, it could not be any more comprehensive. After all, those people had once been his teammates for four years.

However, it didn’t matter at all that he had insider information. There was also no need for him to troubledly mull over which side it was that he hoped would win. Really, there was no hope of them winning at all, not in a thousand years.

Amongst Xu Tingsheng’s former teammates in Jianan University had been two localised Chinese-African black dudes. One of them would even play in the Jia-B league for a few days later on in the future.

To Yanzhou University, they were ‘divinities descended from heaven’.

Therefore, this football match itself was already completely set in stone, utterly meaningless. Then, what about his trip to his home of old?