"Ye Qiuli, hurry up, roll call is going to start in a minute! It won't look good if we're late for our first meeting with the counselor!"
Li Nuo called out to Ye Qiuli, who was running behind him and struggling to keep up.
"No, Li Ge, how can someone who looks as scholarly as you run so fast?"
Ye Qiuli said in near despair.
After the three of them finished eating, a notification suddenly popped up in the class group chat: arrive at the study room for roll call before half-past six!
"I'm already running very slowly! Look at those two ahead, what a waste it is that they don't do track!"
Li Nuo looked at Qing Ke and Qin Huai ahead of him, feeling even more despairing than Ye Qiuli.
With his mask on, Ye Qiuli was running so hard his head felt dizzy!
"Hurry up, you two, the teacher is tagging us in the group chat right now! We're the only four who aren't here!"
Qing Ke shouted from the lead position.
There were plenty of other students walking toward the teaching buildings inside Kyoto University, but very few were sprinting like the four of them!
Soon, at thirty-one minutes past six, the four of them arrived at the entrance of the study room!
"Report!"
Qin Huai shouted at the top of his lungs from the doorway.
How mortifying! What a dirty trick! He had been played! Qin Huai's heart was shattered. He had treated Qing Ke like a brother, and yet Qing Ke had played him like a fool!
Qing Ke had originally been running in first place, but right as they were about to enter the door, he spun around and let Qin Huai take the number one spot right behind him.
Ye Qiuli and Li Nuo, standing behind Qing Ke, suddenly felt that running slowly wasn't such a bad thing after all!
"You four students, hurry up and find a seat. Our very first evening self-study session is about to begin!"
The teacher on the podium looked at the four at the door with a smile, not giving them a hard time.
The four of them hurried toward the back rows of the classroom. The study room was large and there were plenty of empty seats, but they were all in the back, while most of the students were sitting near the front. Moreover, Ye Qiuli quickly realized that as he walked, he had somehow ended up in the lead position among the four of them—which meant Qing Ke and the other two had left the awkward task of choosing seats entirely to him!
If it were a normal class, it would be fine, but they were late. If they went and sat in the very back row now, wouldn't they look like stereotypical troublemakers?
Ye Qiuli fell into deep thought as he passed row after row of seats, until he felt a mountain of gazes staring at them, at which point he hurriedly sat down in an empty seat next to him.
Qing Ke, right behind him, very naturally took the seat next to Ye Qiuli. But no sooner had he sat down and glanced around than his expression shifted drastically!
"My brother! You've got some nerve!"
Qing Ke turned his head, gave Ye Qiuli a thumbs-up, and whispered.
Before Ye Qiuli could react, Qin Huai and Li Nuo, who had followed and sat down, also gave him a thumbs-up.
Just as Ye Qiuli was completely baffled, he suddenly caught a whiff of an extremely pleasant, faint fragrance! He turned his head and found a pair of bitterly cold eyes staring straight at him!
*Oh, crap!* Ye Qiuli roared in his mind! Even the motion of turning his head became stiff! That explained why the entire study room had been staring at them when they sat down! He had gone and sat right next to someone else! And what's more, this "someone else" was the very person he and his roommates had been discussing at length just a moment ago!
The young woman beside him clearly noticed Ye Qiuli's unnatural stiffness, but for some reason, she felt that this boy gave her a strange sense of familiarity, as if she had seen him somewhere before!
"Holy crap, this guy's got guts! He actually dared to sit next to Sister Jiang Ran, aren't he afraid Sister Jiang Ran's gonna beat him to death?"
The twin-tailed girl next to Jiang Ran whispered to the girl beside her with a gleeful expression, as if watching a good show.
"I advise you to shut up first."
Jiang Ran pinched the soft flesh at the girl's waist under the table.
Ever since she met this woman, Jiang Ran always had an urge to beat her to death!
"Fine, I'm shutting up!"
The girl said in a hurry, not forgetting to make a gesture of zipping her lips shut.
***
"Ahem! Students, please quiet down! Let me give you a brief self-introduction!"
The female teacher on the podium stood up and called out.
The classroom quickly quieted down; students who could make it into Kyoto University obviously had top-notch classroom discipline!
"My name is Li Yu! I'm your head teacher for the next four years and also your counselor! My phone number is on the smart blackboard, students can take out your phones and save it. Whenever you need help, you can call your teacher!"
Ye Qiuli hurriedly saved Li Yu's contact information. Having the contact info of your counselor and head teacher is crucial in college!
"Our class is Geography Class 2! The student IDs and names of everyone in our class are up on the screen! Please check to make sure there are no errors in your names, and memorize your student IDs while you're at it!"
Li Yu said after opening a document.
"Right, in a moment, I'd like each of you to come up to the stage in order of your student IDs and give a brief self-introduction!"
Oh no, please, anything but that!
My world is ending! The moment Ye Qiuli heard Li Yu's second sentence, his mind went completely blank! He was most terrified of self-introductions! What made it even more despairing was that his student ID was 02! That meant he was the second person going up!
"Good luck, brother! We're rooting for you!"
Qing Ke flashed a wretched smile from beside him.
His student ID was 7, at least there were six people going before him to test the waters! No big deal!
Li Nuo and Qin Huai, whose student IDs were even further down the list, were even happier.
About five minutes later, Li Yu spoke up.
"Let's invite student number one, Jiang Ran!"
With that, Li Yu stepped aside to clear the podium.
The young woman beside Ye Qiuli stood up with a completely expressionless face and walked toward the podium. Everyone's gaze instantly converged on her!
Even though they had already stolen glances at her many times, the moment Jiang Ran stood on the podium, everyone still couldn't help letting out sighs of admiration!
"Wow, so pretty!"
Ye Qiuli also looked up, his heart skipping a beat.
To put it simply, the moment that girl stood there, she was already an absolute stunner among mortals!
When he looked at her photos earlier, he had only skimmed through them casually; he hadn't expected the girl to be this gorgeous. He had never seen anyone so good-looking—she could practically rival the female celebrities he saw on TV!
"Hello everyone! My name is Jiang Ran! I'm from Beijing No. 1 High School! I'm this year's top gaokao scorer!"
Jiang Ran's self-introduction was very short—so short one could hardly call it an introduction at all. Her demeanor was icy cold throughout, as if she were merely going through the motions. Yet nobody felt there was anything wrong with that! After all, the prettier a girl was, the harder she was to approach. Everyone seemed to have gotten used to it long ago!
"This girl is so aloof!"
"The top scorer in the gaokao! And from Beijing No. 1 High School, no less!"
"Being this cold will certainly squash some guys' thoughts! If a girl this exceptional falls in love, I'd die crying—unless she dates me!"
"Hey bestie, aren't you a lesbian?"
"As long as she's pretty, I'd be willing to be the bottom!"
······
Clearly, most of the boys looked somewhat excited, while the girls wished Jiang Ran were a boy instead!
"Student Jiang Ran is exceptionally brilliant. I hope everyone in our class will learn from her!"
Li Yu nodded and put a checkmark next to her name on the name roster.
Soon, under Ye Qiuli's watchful gaze, Jiang Ran walked back to her seat!
"Next student, Ye Qiuli!"
Ye Qiuli pumped himself up in his seat before standing up and walking toward the podium!
As he passed the aisle, he could hear Qing Ke and the other two trying to stifle their laughter behind cupped hands, which made him even more nervous than he already was!
"Hello... everybody... ! My name is Ye Qiuli... ptui! No, wait, it's Ye Qiuli! I'm from Lin City in Nan Province! In my free time I like reading... books... singing, and playing video games! Please... take good... care of me!"
Stammering through his words, Ye Qiuli practically bolted off the stage!
"Hahaha, looks like our student from the south is a bit shy!"
"Hahaha!"
Li Yu's teasing laughter instantly provoked another wave of uproarious laughter from the class!
"Seriously, man, why were you so nervous just over a self-introduction?"
Qing Ke turned his head to look at Ye Qiuli, asking in bewilderment.
Ye Qiuli rolled his eyes at Qing Ke and stayed silent.
If you aren't socially awkward, you have no idea how terrifying it is to go on stage and introduce yourself!
Once everyone had finished their self-introductions, Ye Qiuli quietly memorized a few people's names.
"Alright, students, that's it for tonight's self-study session. Everyone received their military training uniforms when you checked in. Our military training will start tomorrow and last for one week! If any students are unable to participate in the military training, please bring a hospital certificate to see me tomorrow to request leave. Our military training carries academic credits, so please take it seriously. Get some rest early tonight!"
With that, Li Yu left the classroom!