The plaza in front of Haiqu Station was bustling with crowds.
"Hey, handsome! Need a room?"
A group of middle-aged women waving "overnight stay" signs blocked the exit by the ticket gates.
"Handsome, looking for a girl?"
"No, no," Lu Man said, waving them off. "I've got one at home, I've got one at home."
The young man walked at a brisk pace. As soon as they cleared the station, Lu Man left Gu Jiashuo several paces behind.
"Brother, wait for me!" Gu Jiashuo couldn't keep up and had to call out to him to stop.
Lu Man reached a hand back behind him, and a small smile finally graced Gu Jiashuo's face. She reached out with her delicate hand toward his, but to her surprise, Lu Man swatted it away with a sharp "smack."
He reached out and grabbed the strap of Gu Jiashuo’s bag instead. "Men and women should keep their distance. Hold onto your bag and stay behind me."
Gu Jiashuo froze, then felt a wave of indignation. *So now it’s time to keep your distance? You should have said that back when you were begging me to hold your hand or give you a hug!*
After making their way out of the station, they boarded an 11-route bus. As soon as they found two empty seats and sat down, Gu Jiashuo poked Lu Man’s thigh. "Pull your feet back."
When Lu Man pulled his legs in to make space, she stretched her own long legs out toward his side. Lu Man looked down to see Gu Jiashuo rotating her ankles to relieve the strain, her clean, white canvas sneakers swaying back and forth.
He really should have been heartless and made her pull them back. But thinking of how she had sat through six hours of train travel with him—a hardship she never needed to endure—his heart softened, and he let her be.
"Let's not go too far this afternoon, okay?" Gu Jiashuo rubbed her ankle. She really should have worn sneakers.
"I’ll take you to that aunt’s place in the faculty residential area first." Lu Man hadn't come here for a vacation, after all. "I’m visiting a cousin of my mother's, and I’ll probably move into the university dorms later on."
"Is the school near the beach?" Gu Jiashuo assumed his goal was convenient sightseeing.
"The campus is five kilometers away from the beach. My main priority is to get in touch with the older students on the school soccer team early."
Lu Man opened his mobile browser and showed her a post on the campus forum. Binhai Normal University’s soccer team supported a small number of incoming freshmen to move in and live on campus early each year. Soccer was a team-oriented competitive sport; doing this not only allowed the seniors to mentor the new recruits and build rapport, but it also let the newcomers start training early to improve their skills for the beach soccer league during orientation and the annual school sports meet. It was also a brilliant calling card for the team, demonstrating their commitment to the school motto: "Learn without satiety, teach without weariness."
For Lu Man, this was his opportunity to get a head start. The seniors on the soccer team came from all sorts of departments, and through them, he could meet like-minded people from other colleges in Haiqu City. It was a vast network of relationships. Circles within circles—that was how it worked. From this, Lu Man could pick and choose the right resources to earn that thirty-thousand-yuan emergency fund as quickly as possible.
"If all goes well, I’ll be spending most of my time at school for a while. You can go explore on your own, and head home early once you’ve had enough fun... hey, quit moving your feet."
As he explained, Gu Jiashuo had started acting up, hooking the tip of her sneaker around his calf.
"No, I won't. I'm going to keep bothering you."
Even after being caught, Gu Jiashuo didn't stop; she escalated, her white sneaker continuing to nudge him slowly. Her skirt fell just past her knees, exposing calves that were slender, fair, and shapely, as smooth and delicate as jade soaked in water. Below them were ankles that could be encircled by a single hand and spotless white cotton socks, which were slightly wrinkled from her earlier rubbing.
She was still young and inexperienced, unaware that this gesture carried an underlying sense of flirtation.
Lu Man fought to suppress the rising tide of memories. In his previous life, if this had been Gu Lingyi, doing this under the table during dinner would have been the overture to an intense, long-lasting battle behind closed doors.
As the saying goes: if you pat a married woman on the behind, she’ll immediately turn around and change her posture; if you pat a young girl, she’ll only look back, blink her innocent eyes, and ask why you hit her all of a sudden.
Lu Man glanced at the smug Gu Jiashuo and said nothing.The bus passed a few stops, and the empty seats gradually filled up. Then a new wave of passengers got on, and the driver urged them to move toward the back to clear space near the front entrance and exit.
Lu Man scanned the crowd inside the bus. There were no elderly, young, pregnant, or disabled passengers, but a young woman with a bun and an exposed forehead happened to stand right beside him.
He stood up to give up his seat. "Senior, you can sit here."
"No, that's alright, you take it." The young woman was slightly bewildered by the sudden offer of a seat.
"We're getting off at the North Gate of Binhai Normal University in two stops. Are you getting off at the North Gate, or Arts and Design Vocational College a few stops later? Either way, just sit down and rest for a bit."
"I... I'm getting off at Arts and Design Vocational College." The bun-haired senior asked in surprise, "How did you know?"
"Just sit down first, and I'll explain."
After getting the bun-haired senior to sit in his former seat, Lu Man was finally free from the annoyance of Gu Jiashuo's white canvas shoes scuffing against him. Gu Jiashuo hurriedly pulled back her legs and shot Lu Man a slightly annoyed look.
"Senior, you've got a dancer's hairstyle, with your sideburns and all your hair gathered up on the crown of your head. Since the bus is heading east toward the new development zone, which has no middle schools and therefore no arts examinees, you're most likely a senior from the School of Music and Dance or the Arts and Design Vocational College at Binhai Normal University."
That neat and poised hairstyle was designed for convenience during dance performances and training, with all the long hair and flyaways tightly pulled into a ponytail and then twisted into a bun or coiled into a topknot.
This senior was also wearing a black tight-fitting long-sleeve top, a style favored by dancers that could double as practice wear. That made it very easy to figure out.
The bun-haired senior's mouth opened slightly, her face unable to conceal a look of astonishment and curiosity.
"Hey, little brother, are you majoring in criminal investigation?" An office worker holding onto a bus strap behind them chimed in with curiosity as well. "Then can you try and figure out what I do for a living? Which stop do I get off at?"
In this day and age, people mostly acquired information through newspapers and television, and didn't know much about things outside their own professions and daily lives.
Unlike Lu Man, who had been influenced by the information explosion of a dozen years later—just scrolling through short videos exposed him to a vast, colorful array of fragmented information. This was also a kind of informational advantage brought by rebirth.
Lu Man and the bun-haired senior turned their heads to glance back at the same time. Lu Man smiled and said, "Senior, why don't you take a guess first?"
His gaze swept over the office worker—early thirties, plaid shirt, thinning hair, experiencing premature baldness.
"My name is Lv Na." The bun-haired senior hesitated for a moment. Unable to think of any particular occupational traits, she took a random guess. "An office clerk?"
People in 2006 wouldn't have guessed it right away, but someone from 2022 would blurt out the answer immediately.
Lu Man said with certainty, "You're getting off at the Donggang High-Tech Park Station. You're an internet programmer!"
When you're a child, you want to comb your hair to look like a grown-up, but when you grow up, you realize—haha—grown-ups don't have any hair at all.
"Oh man!" The office worker raised his thumb. "Incredible, you really guessed it!"
"You actually got it right?" Lv Na, the bun-haired senior, looked at Lu Man with sparkling eyes. "Are you really studying criminal investigation? You called me senior, so are you a freshman?"
"No, no, I just finished the college entrance exam. My name is Lu Man. Lu as in road, Man as in satisfied."
"Oh~ Then you really are a junior." Lv Na's appraisal gaze slid over him. "I was wondering, Binhai Normal University has over twenty schools and departments, but none of them is a police academy. How could a criminal investigation department pop up?"
"It's mainly because Senior has such a great figure, with such a slim and tight waist. You can tell it's from years of hard dance practice."
Weary from the journey, Lu Man didn't mind chatting with her for a bit longer to pass the time.
"And Senior's back is straight and proper, with top-tier posture. Standing in a crowd, your temperament really stands out."
"Oh my, Junior, you're laying the compliments on a bit thick." Lv Na's eyes narrowed into smiles. Lu Man had praised both her appearance and her hard work in practice; how could she refuse such sweet talk? "You really know what to say."
The office worker with premature baldness standing nearby listened and clicked his tongue in admiration. The brains of these post-80s and post-90s kids were truly sharp. If it were him, he could rack his brain for ages and only manage to blurt out, "Holy crap, that chick has a really slim waist and super long legs."