Not Familiar

Li Ting’s small, broken school had begun.

No matter how much he wanted to skip lessons, he had to pay attention to the first few classes of his major. His school wasn’t very big, with only three or four teaching buildings. The dormitory was one street away from the school, and it was a borrowed residential building.

    When Li Ting first started school, he lived in the dormitory for about a month. Later, he felt that the accommodation fee was too expensive and was also inconvenient to work part-time. Even his relationship with his roommate was strained.

So he moved out.

 Despite the fact that the male-to-female ratio in the Department of Foreign Languages was significantly out of balance, Li Ting didn’t have many friends at school, and it was even less likely for him to be sought after by girls.

Even if he looked outstanding, who would want to pursue someone poor, stingy, out of touch with the times and busy all day long? Then also missing in class? So, the only girl in the class who ever spoke to Li Ting was a girl named Liang Yu.

She used to work part-time with Li Ting in the same place some time ago and they barely even knew each other, so their relationship wasn’t close. But for the sake of being in some of the same classes and helping people, if there were any important exams or compulsory projects in the school, she would send a message in advance to notify Li Ting, so that the other party will not fail due to lack of attendance.

    It was the same again today.

After class, Liang Yu knocked on Li Ting’s desk as she was passing by and said, “Yesterday, the teacher for our intensive reading course said that there is a report due in two weeks. If you don’t prepare the report and submit it, you might have problems passing the class.”

Li Ting paused in the middle of packing up his things and frowned.

    Liang Yu looked at him, “Which piece are you going to write the report on? Anyway, you won’t be able to find any good books to borrow from the library here.”

    Li Ting’s brows tightened even further.

    She said again: “I’m going to the municipal library today. Although it’s a bit far away, there are more choices. You…”

    Li Ting seemed to have guessed what she was going to ask, so he got up and said, “No need, I’ll find another library.”

    After saying that, he walked out of the classroom.

    …

    Fang Huaining also had classes today, and as soon as he entered the classroom, he was under several pairs of eager eyes from all directions. 

The Department of Computer Science was also an unbalanced environment, but the difference was that Li Ting’s class had more boys than girls, so he could still manage to be unpopular, while Fang Huaining’s class has more girls than boys, and he still had his good looks.

Both can be thought of as two extremes of a situation.

    Zhao Pang had already occupied the seat in the back row. So, Fang Huaining walked over and sat down beside him, listening to him and Wang Fuliang talk about the theft of the game account from yesterday. 

Before Fang Huaining had time to tell them that day, Wang Fuliang had already found out. He and Zhao Pang were not idiots after all. So, even though they were professionals in the tech industry, making such a serious error as forgetting to format the computer before selling, it was clearly very frustrating for them.

    “Hey, although I haven’t lost my real account, the more I think about it, the more aggrieved I feel.” Wang Fuliang lamented.

    Fang Huaining did not tell his ex-roommate about the evil transaction* he had witnessed at the appliance repair shop before. After all, the computer had already been sold, and knowing about it would only make them feel more depressed. It was even unknown who the new owner of the other computer is.

[TN: LT scammed the two idiots into paying him to take their old computers, one he sold and the other one he took home. That’s the “evil transaction” lmao.]

    Zhao Pang also rubbed his chest in agreement, “Yeah, the account being stolen is not a big deal, but it’s a shame that the pictures you and I have collected for more than three years are still in that hard disk. That person will be able to flip through all kinds of videos, laughing at us in the middle of the night, and reach the pinnacle of life, no, no, the anger in my heart is not going away, which kid is so lucky…”

Fang Huaining, “…”

He couldn’t help but imagine a slim figure sitting alone peacefully, and the light from the computer screen falling on his face, flickering, faint and charming.

    Would he really watch it? And would he still have his usual expression when looking?

    Realizing that his thoughts were a little off, Fang Huaining reached out to wipe his forehead. As expected, he was used to the air-conditioned rooms of the research institute and it was all because of dizziness in the hot classroom.

   To distract himself, he tried to listen carefully to the lesson. But it was obvious that the current topic was lagging behind Fang Huaining’s progress in the subject, so he couldn’t help but take out his phone to amuse himself.

    Playing games in class or watching videos would not be a good thing to do. It was too disrespectful to the professor, so he opened the ‘Little Field’ to kill time.

    He deliberately didn’t look at the accounting records but went to the coding area to modify a new project. When he saw the latest progress of the program update, Fang Huaining was a little surprised.

    His little partner* in the app had actually jumped out of the accounting part of the software and had entered another small function of his own… a function for setting daily reminders!

[TN: Remember how FH accidentally gave LT the private app he had created for himself to test his codes on, instead of the actual accounting app he made? So LT is exploring I guess lol]

    Sure enough, after turning back to the home page, there were two more records in the table’s column.

    The first one was a list of book titles. The list included at least a dozen books, and some of them Fang Huaining had already read before.

    What was he going to borrow these books for? Fang Huaining was puzzled, after all, these books should only be available in their school library. Was Li Ting going to be at Library A today..?

    Then, the second entry read: “Hyacinzi Xiaoshe”, which appeared to be the name of some place, but Fang Huaining couldn’t recall hearing of it.

    Fang Huaining didn’t feel unhappy as his private territory continued to be invaded. He simply scanned the list up and down and realized that the table Li Ting had created for the reminder application was far superior to the default one he had created for the accounting application.

No! Why was the interface so ugly? At that time, Fang Huaining had chosen the color scheme randomly, but why did he choose this ugly pickle color?! It seemed almost unimaginable now!

    What if that little money fan complained in his heart when using it…

    After pondering for a while, Fang Huaining returned to the coding area and silently changed the color scheme.

***

    There were no classes in the afternoon, so Wang Fuliang returned to study for the postgraduate entrance examination, and Zhao Bang was going to play the games. When they asked Fang Huaining, he also said he had something to do. Everyone expected him to go to the research institute, but when they parted ways, Fang Huaining made his way to the library.

    The students, who have just started school and are still in a free and undisciplined state of mind, had no energy to run to this place for the time being. As a result, Libraty A was much more empty than in the past.

    When Fang Huaining was looking for a quiet seat to sit down, he suddenly noticed something in the crowd. His gaze paused and then he moved his feet, quickly walking towards a boy in the crowd.

    The boy was wearing a pair of black-rimmed glasses and wasn’t very tall, but the strange hairstyle on his head was particularly eye-catching.

    Fang Huaining stepped forward and called out tentatively, “Liu Lei?”

    The person turned around in response and then looked at him in surprise.    

 “Your name is Liu Lei, right?”

After having it confirmed, Fang Huaining explained his purpose in coming.

     “I’m sorry, but I would like to ask if you have your library card with you right now?”

    “…”

“I received several books anonymously, and after checking, I found out that they were borrowed using your library card. Were you aware of this?”

Liu Lei was at a loss: “No, I don’t know.”

“Really. So you didn’t borrow it yourself? Then who did you give your library card to?” Fang Huaining asked again.

    “I lent it to someone outside the school.” Liu Lei chuckled, “You know, ten yuan for two months.”

    “What does that person look like?” Fang Huaining persisted.

    “This…” Liu Lei suddenly faltered. “It’s a girl, very ordinary, nothing special, and I don’t know her name.”

    This answer made Fang Huaining frown.

    “Anyway, it’s fine with me, since the books were lent on my card. Just make sure to return it on time for me after you finish reading it, haha, it’s okay…”

Seeing that the other party had stopped talking, Liu Lei hurriedly turned and left after dropping this sentence.

    Walking all the way to the back area and moving between a row of bookshelves, Liu Lei asked nervously to a boy who was reading silently with a book in his hands, “Hey, guess who I saw just now?”

The boy didn’t even bother to look up.

    Liu Lei said: “Fang Huaining!”

Although they were not in the same major, he was also from the School of Engineering and Economics, so he had certainly heard of him. “He asked me about the library card I gave to you, so the books on my card went to him?”

    The boy looked over this time, “What did you say?”

    “He seemed a little nervous and even chased me to inquire. I thought it was strange and I wanted to ask you first when I came back, so I didn’t say anything.”

Liu Lei wiped his sweat, “Li Ting, did you borrow the book? Why did you help Fang Huaining in borrowing books? Didn’t you only use it for business purposes?”

After Li Ting successfully helped Liu Lei’s girlfriend occupy a seat on the seventh floor two months ago, the other party rented his library card to him in exchange.

 In Liu Lei’s mind, Li Ting is considered a strong person who does not do business without profit, so he was a little worried and wanted to come back and talk to him first before saying anything.

    Liu Lei’s gaze was very sincere, and it was true that it was his library card. In the end, Li Ting couldn’t hold back an explanation from him any longer, so he paused and said, “There is a man… who fell in love with him early on, he asked me to do it.”

    “Ah… so that’s how it is! All right, I won’t talk too much about it then.” Liu Lei seemed to have understood realized and slapped his thigh in relief.

“Let me tell you about it, Fang Huaining is really unusual. Just talking to him at close range made me feel that my eyes were going to be blinded by handsomeness. If I was a woman, I would definitely fall in love with him, ah no, even if I am not a woman, if I liked men, I can’t, now way…”

Li Ting remained silent as he listened to the ambiguous words that came out of his mouth, before closing the book in his hand and turning away.

    At this time, Fang Huaining, who couldn’t find the answer he was looking for, had made one round around the bookshelves in a daze. After returning to the reading area, he happened to look up and noticed a familiar figure sitting by the window.

    Fang Huaining’s heart skipped a beat as he thought to himself, he really came to Library A…

Note:

Meet Fang Huaining, the sly master of staged accidental meetings with his object of interest. ( ͡ᵔ ͜ʖ ͡ᵔ )

Hey! It’s been a while, I don’t know if any of you happened to read the notice I left previously but the reason I was MIA was due to my exams. They are over now and I’m back here!

I’ll try and be regular in the updates from now though. Don’t forget to comment