The next morning, the alarm went off, but Ji Zhaoxi was curled up under the covers and couldn’t get herself to move.
She pulled open the curtains and peeked outside. The ground was blanketed in snow, and the students passing by were all bundled up in down jackets.
Ji Zhaoxi sat on the bed for a while, then hugged her pillow and rolled over once.
She didn’t want to go to school in winter! She wanted to sleep!
Dragging her feet, she finally climbed out of bed. Then she dug her padded coat out from the back of her closet and fished out a scarf too. Only after wrapping herself up so thoroughly that she could barely move did she leave the dorm.
Today, she’d just have to accept arriving at the last possible second!
As it turned out, she wasn’t the only one cutting it close. A whole line of people was charging up the stairs.
Ji Zhaoxi grabbed the senior student ahead of her and pulled him back, panting. “Senior, let me go first!”
He was so exhausted his eyes nearly rolled back in his head. Still panting, he said, “No—”
With an elbow, he broke free of Ji Zhaoxi and sprinted upstairs. There was no way he was going to be the last one into the lab.
Just as Ji Zhaoxi was about to despair, a figure suddenly passed by her. Ji Zhaoxi immediately started whining. “Lu Huainan, my foot hurts.”
Lu Huainan’s brows drew together. “Did you strain it from running up the stairs?”
But during rush hour, the elevator was even slower than the stairs.
Before Lu Huainan could react, Ji Zhaoxi shoved her bag into his arms and huffed as she ran ahead. She was moving so fast that there was no sign of her supposedly aching foot.
Only then did Lu Huainan realize what had happened. He stared down at the bag in his arms, finally catching on.
The lab was filled with the sound of people panting. Their advisor’s face was as dark as thunder as she held her thermos.
“Look at you all! I told you not to cut it so close and not to run. Now you’re sweating all over, and you’re taking off your clothes. What if you catch a cold?”
“I’m already this old, yet no matter whether it’s windy or raining, I still get up at five-thirty every morning…”
Before their advisor could finish, Lu Huainan walked into the office. Her eyes silently followed him.
Lu Huainan lowered his head and returned to his station, handing the bag back to its owner on the way.
Its owner was already pretending to work on her experiment. Lu Huainan put his things down, walked over to her, and asked quietly, “Where are you at now?”
She pointed somewhere at random.
She hadn’t even had time to catch her breath yet!
Lu Huainan let out a muffled laugh, took the equipment from her hands, and continued working. Ji Zhaoxi looked at him in confusion.
Why did Lu Huainan like laughing so much?
The lab had been getting busier and busier lately. Everyone was practically sleeping there every day. Even their normally health-conscious advisor had started staying up late.
After finishing her part, Ji Zhaoxi had Wen Shuning and the senior student check it over for her. Once they had finished inspecting it, she grabbed something quick to fill her stomach and immediately returned to the experiment.
That was how everyone had been spending their days lately. During lunch breaks, they would simply find somewhere to lie down and sleep. No one had the energy to chat.
At two in the morning, the lab doors finally opened.
The experiments of the past few days had drained every last ounce of energy from them. Everyone looked listless, their hair slightly disheveled, and even their steps seemed to float.
“I definitely won’t get a PhD after this,” Ji Zhaoxi said gloomily, pulling her padded coat tightly around herself.
She was so sleepy. All she wanted was to go home and sleep.
The senior student had two enormous dark circles under his eyes. “I’m starting to think I don’t want to get a PhD either.”
Graduate school was already this intense. He couldn’t imagine how exhausting a doctorate would be.
The others let out gloomy sighs as well.
The snow outside was falling harder and harder. Snowflakes as large as goose feathers swirled beneath the campus streetlights, and a thick layer had already covered the ground. The cold wind made them all shiver.
Perhaps they were exhausted and needed an outlet, or perhaps some primitive vitality had been awakened in them. Just as they were about to go their separate ways, someone—no one knew who—scooped up a handful of snow and threw it at Ji Zhaoxi’s head.
The snow slid down her neck.
Ji Zhaoxi instantly woke up.
Ji Zhaoxi: …
“I don’t care who threw that. You’re all dead!”
Ji Zhaoxi would rather kill a hundred innocent people than let one guilty person escape!
She was suddenly bursting with fighting spirit. Bending down, she grabbed a handful of snow and attacked every single person without exception.
“I want to play too!”
The people nearby, who loved nothing more than watching a fight break out, rushed over with handfuls of snow.
The scene descended into chaos. Just moments ago, they had all been exhausted, but now they had completely abandoned their dignity, focusing only on whether their snowballs had hit their targets. Laughter gradually spread through the snowy night.
Standing off to the side in black with both hands in his pockets, Lu Huainan frowned as he watched them, as though he were observing a group of monkeys that had yet to evolve.
Ji Zhaoxi slipped into the crowd and, when no one was paying attention, threw a snowball directly at Lu Huainan’s clothes. The others seemed to take it as a signal. They immediately stopped fighting among themselves and launched a full-scale attack on Lu Huainan.
Lu Huainan frowned coldly. “Childish.”
Under the barrage of attacks, he bent down and began scooping up snow, striking the surrounding group with uncanny precision.
“Damn it, the enemy has tactics too! Come cover me!” The senior student who had been hit hurriedly hid behind Wen Shuning.
Wen Shuning was barely managing to protect herself. Dodging snowballs in a sorry state, she said, “He looks like a professional.”
The regular troops were defeated one after another. Ji Zhaoxi grabbed a huge handful of snow and charged in from the side, her eyes shining brightly.
She was the last hope of the entire village!
Lu Huainan was in the middle of turning aside to dodge an attack from one of his fellow students when he caught sight of Ji Zhaoxi out of the corner of his eye. His movements suddenly stopped.
He stared blankly at Ji Zhaoxi as she darted in front of him. Her face was red from the cold, and her lashes trembled slightly. There was even a glimmer of laughter in her eyes.
The next second, the snow exploded across his chest.
It felt as though his heart had exploded along with it.
“I hit you!”
Ji Zhaoxi was delighted. She scooped up another handful of snow from the ground. As he watched her looking so happy, Lu Huainan’s gaze remained fixed on her. He lowered his eyes, his ears turning completely red.
He really wanted to take a picture…
She was so cute.
The senior student wailed, “Junior, you’re only gentle with your junior sister! Show us the same spirit you had when you fought back just now!”
Ji Zhaoxi watched warily as Lu Huainan approached her with a handful of snow. The senior student was cheering Lu Huainan on from the side.
Lu Huainan lowered his head and looked at Ji Zhaoxi without saying a word.
Ji Zhaoxi stared back at him in silence.
“Junior, you finally decided to fight back against your junior sister!”
Then, under everyone’s expectant gazes, Lu Huainan reached out and poked Ji Zhaoxi on the cheek before tossing away the snow in his hand.
When he saw the others staring at him resentfully, Lu Huainan cleared his throat awkwardly. “My hands are cold.”
He had chilled her cheek a little. Didn’t that count as fighting back?
Ji Zhaoxi was so pleased with herself. She knew Lu Huainan wouldn’t dare throw snow at her.
The senior student shed tears of despair. “The two of you aren’t even playing properly!”
“That’s not how you play snowball fights. You’re supposed to hit each other’s bodies. If you don’t know how, just say so! I can teach you…”
The senior student, his eyes brimming with tears, was dragged away by his fellow students. His despairing cries lingered in the air.
