Chapter 14
I swallowed hard, my palms sweating from nerves. It's not that I'm a coward, but she really did look too much like that skeleton from before. What if she really bit me, and bit into my windpipe... Was that game some kind of curse? Was I going to have to listen to that "rustling" sound in real life too? And worst of all, even if she lunged at me, it seemed like I wouldn't be able to fight back.
While I was spiraling into random thoughts, she finished her "inspection" over there.
She shook her head, looking troubled: "Yes, I really don't like eating tofu, ah, this is quite a problem."
This was the first time I'd ever been so grateful for tofu!
"However..." Her voice shifted, becoming excited. "Yilin, you can help me bite it!"
"No problem." A girl beside her immediately responded. If Xiao Wei was the cute high school type, then this one was the gorgeous career woman type. Unfortunately, that mature exterior hadn't matured her mind. She said with even more excitement than Xiao Wei: "I'll definitely bite this piece of tofu off!"
With that, she revealed two very cute little fangs, but at this moment those fangs looked more like the fangs of a medieval vampire. Her eyes were sparkling. I really regretted not believing in God.
Just when I was worrying about my life, she suddenly stopped, tilted her head to look at me: "But A-Yi, did you wash your face today?"
...
The room fell into a few seconds of silence, followed by earth-shaking laughter. The three guys who'd been mocking me earlier were laughing so hard they slid off the sofa—even Shangguan's mouth twitched!
In the midst of everyone's laughter, I finally remembered who Yilin was, but I would have preferred to never remember for the rest of my life.
Yilin, the ultimate nightmare of my college years!
I'm always terrible at remembering people's names, and I don't like thinking about the past anyway—most of it I can't recall anyway, even my memory of Chen Zhongyang is only based on him kindly switching bed assignments for me. But Yilin, though I didn't recognize her at first, with those words, those painful and hellish memories came flooding back into my mind!
I admit I'm not diligent, I don't like washing my face. In fact, before moving in with Shangguan, I only washed my face whenever I took a shower.
But while acknowledging that I'm not diligent, one should also fairly and impartially recognize that ninety-nine percent of boys are lazy too. I at least shower every two or three days, at least change my underwear and socks when I shower, at least wash my coats and jackets once a month.
Maybe that counts as messy by female standards, but among guys I'm already very diligent. I'm not making excuses for myself—that's just the truth!
I still remember there was a competition in the dorms back then, about who could make their socks stand upright the longest. What? Don't understand! Fine, let me explain. Socks are soft, under normal circumstances they absolutely cannot stand upright on the floor. But if you wear them every day, month after month, until they become hard and stiff, they'll exhibit the law of extremes—they'll stand up like they'd been frozen.
Think about socks like that, think about how dirty they'd be, think about that smell... would anyone still call me messy?
As a guy, I can proudly declare I'm clean and diligent. Fine, even if I don't meet the "Four Haves" standards for the new era's new youth, at least nobody would pay too much attention to my personal hygiene. At one point, I was even told I was clean like a girl.
But all of that was destroyed by this girl named Yilin.
I still remember—it was a sunny afternoon, the weather in October was cool, comfortable, and warm, and I was still a student enjoying life. In weather like that, listening to the teacher's sleep-inducing lecture on the podium, of course I was dozing off.
Between sleep and wakefulness, a girl asked me: "Hey A-Yi, your skin is so good, what do you use to wash your face?"
I groggily answered: "Soap." As for what brand, I hadn't paid attention—anyway I just grabbed whatever was at hand at the convenience store, whatever I grabbed was what I used.
"Aiya, I'm asking about washing your face, you use soap to wash your face?"
This was a perfectly normal question, and I just needed to answer that I used soap, or not answer at all, but one, my brain hadn't responded yet, and two, I wasn't thinking too much, so I honestly answered: "I don't wash my face..."
"You don't wash your face?" That girl was utterly astonished.
"Yeah." Not washing face was very common, how many college guys washed their faces every day?
"Didn't wash today?"
"No."
"Yesterday?"
"No."
"The day before?"
"The day before? Hmm, I showered the day before, so I washed my face then as part of it."
I still remember that look, like she was looking at a dinosaur. Before I could even react, I heard a volume that absolutely should not have existed in a classroom: "My god, A-Yi actually doesn't wash his face every day!"
Even with my terrible memory, I remember that day's class was Marxism, and there were students not just from the Chinese department but other departments too, not just from our year but other years as well. If it weren't for that teacher liking to take attendance, many people wouldn't have shown up, but the two-hundred-person lecture hall was packed. Everyone, like me, was dozing off, but this girl's voice quickly stimulated everyone's nerves.
Swish—two hundred people, four hundred pairs of eyes—and on the podium, the teacher's killing intent rivaling a lion's. I'd never received so much attention before.
I can't remember if I knew Shangguan back then or not. Even if I did, we definitely weren't as close as now, and I absolutely hadn't gotten used to people staring in my direction. So at that moment, I was completely petrified.
I don't remember clearly what happened after, because my brain had completely gone blank. But that was only the beginning of my nightmare. Because the next day I ran into that girl again, and the first thing she said was: "A-Yi, did you wash your face today?"
That girl wasn't in my year, and I don't think she was even from my department, so the chances of me running into her were actually quite low—of course that's counting by frequency. As far as my personal experience went, even once was too much.
Even though I didn't run into that girl often, her words spread quickly: "A-Yi, did you wash your face today?"
Nearly everyone I met would ask me this. The guys said it teasingly, the girls said it in astonishment. As they asked, they'd stare at me intensely, as if trying to find a flower blooming on my face.
And no matter how I answered that question, it was wrong. If I said I didn't wash, it would definitely trigger an exclamation. If I said I did wash, I'd be asked what kind of facial cleanser and what kind of cream I used. And if I didn't answer? Hehe, then there'd be no peace. The person asking would follow me around, asking this boring question endlessly. Even if they had something else to do, someone would help them continue asking.