The Beauty Said She Has A Secret Crush On Me - Chapter 8

Chapter 8

A whistle blew, but it was quickly suppressed by the massive cheers. The other players from the Law School ran onto the field to embrace their teammates. The Materials Science team was too weak, losing badly with a score of 5-0. However, because several of the Law School’s goals were so brilliant, the surrounding audience applauded enthusiastically and stayed for a long time.

A beautiful girl rushed onto the field from the sidelines and leaped into the arms of one of the Law School players. The boy’s strong arms held her steadily. The girl gave her hero a kiss, landing on the tip of his nose.

Zhuang Lu looked at the scene and found it very beautiful. She clapped again as if she had taken an excitement drug. That boy was the Law School’s forward, the most dazzling sun in this match.

Zhuang Lu was so absorbed watching the young couple that by the time she retracted her benevolent gaze, Wen Zhuo was already surrounded by a group of girls.

Seeing this, Wu Nianxi, as Zhuang Lu’s friend, naturally spoke with a tone of indignation. “He’s too popular. This noisy crowd of girls is really something.”

Zhuang Lu smiled indifferently. “That’s right. He’s handsome, kind, and plays great football.”

Wu Nianxi gave her a moist-eyed eye-roll.

“Hehe.” Zhuang Lu grinned again, coaxing her like a child. “Are you hungry? Shall we go eat?”

Wu Nianxi glanced at Wen Zhuo, who was surrounded by the crowd, then looked at Zhuang Lu, whose gaze was focused on her. She sighed for some reason. “Let’s go. I feel like having a pancake.”

The two left the bustling crowd. Zhuang Lu held Wu Nianxi’s hand with one hand and took out her phone with the other to text Wen Zhuo—Senior, you played awesome!

“What are you doing?” Wu Nianxi asked.

“Complimenting the senior. Oh, right, Study Committee member, I didn’t have a partner for the Contemporary Literature assignment, but I’ve already finished it myself. Isn’t it our class’s turn next class? If no one goes up, just put me on the list.”

Wu Nianxi frowned. “Why didn’t you say so earlier? I could have pulled you into our group. It’s so tiring doing it alone.”

Zhuang Lu smiled. “It’s no big deal.”

The two walked to the Fallen Street, but Wu Nianxi no longer wanted the pancake. Pancakes are quite high in calories, and she hesitated.

Zhuang Lu hadn’t thought of that at all. As soon as she heard the beauty didn’t want a pancake, she put an arm around her and took her to her favorite noodle shop.

It was a small noodle shop. Wu Nianxi curiously looked around the small, old-looking shop. The somewhat dimly lit interior had only four wooden tables. There was no need to take a number. A teenage boy wearing a school uniform placed two large porcelain bowls in front of Zhuang Lu and Wu Nianxi and walked away without much of a smile.

Wu Nianxi handed Zhuang Lu the chopsticks, which she had already rinsed with hot water. “Do you often come here to eat? Is it your favorite?”

“This place is an old establishment. The taste is very authentic.”

Zhuang Lu drank all the noodle soup and couldn’t help but let out a satisfied burp. “Still so delicious! How is it? Isn’t it good?”

Wu Nianxi hadn’t finished eating yet. She pulled out a napkin and handed it to Zhuang Lu.

“I feel like this is the best bowl of noodles I’ve ever eaten so far.” Zhuang Lu smacked her lips, savoring the taste.

Wu Nianxi thought seriously while eating her noodles. “It should be the sixth best among the noodle dishes I’ve eaten.”

“Ah?” Zhuang Lu said disbelievingly. “What were the ones before it?”

“Shanxi’s dāoxiāomiàn (knife-cut noodles), yángchūn miàn (plain noodles), Henan’s huì miàn (braised noodles), Wuhan’s règān miàn (hot dry noodles), and Beijing’s zhájiàng miàn (noodles with soybean paste).”

Zhuang Lu’s eyes lit up. “They all sound delicious!”

Seeing Zhuang Lu lost in imaginative thoughts, Wu Nianxi couldn’t help but smile too.

Zhuang Lu watched Wu Nianxi elegantly eat her noodles, not letting the moment grow quiet. She spoke in detail, as if enumerating her treasures: “Take yì pǐn dàn sū (First-Grade Egg Crisp) for example. Even in Jinzhou City, the taste is different. The yì pǐn dàn sū at Sān Qiān Yuàn is more crispy and fluffy, with a rich egg flavor, perfectly balanced—neither too sweet nor too bland, not greasy—it’s the best I’ve had so far. The yì pǐn dàn sū at Jiahua Hotel is harder in texture, but the finished color is beautiful, though the taste is mediocre. The yì pǐn dàn sū at Donghu Hotel could be considered the second best. It’s on the sweet side, but the sweetness is very gentle, not overpowering the delicate egg flavor. And then there’s the brown sugar mácí (sticky rice balls). The most authentic old-style one is still at Sān Qiān Yuàn. I love Sān Qiān Yuàn, but the prices are a bit high. The most innovative one is at a small restaurant near Fù Yuán Road in Beichuan District. They seem to use brown sugar, but likely added peanut butter, and sprinkled hazelnuts on top. The mácí is very soft but not greasy at all, and the taste is great. Mácí is a traditional famous snack from Zhejiang, Fujian, and Jiangxi. You probably haven’t eaten it, have you?”

Wu Nianxi’s eyes lit up. “I have! The cafeteria made it once, surprisingly, but it was a bit sticky on the teeth.”

“Ah? When? I’ve never eaten Brown Sugar Mácí at Jingda [Peking University],” Zhuang Lu lamented tragically. “I consider myself a connoisseur of Brown Sugar Mácí!”

Wu Nianxi was amused by Zhuang Lu again. Her eyes curved with laughter, and her already beautiful features softened incredibly.

After the meal, taking advantage of the bright evening sun in the west, Wu Nianxi insisted on holding Zhuang Lu’s hand and walking around Cultural Plaza to help digestion, gracefully calling it a stroll.

Zhuang Lu’s sharp eyes spotted Wen Zhuo, wearing a cool leather jacket, walking toward the Fallen Street with a group of guys from the Law School football team. It was too far to call out, so Zhuang Lu silently pulled out her phone, only to find no reply from Wen Zhuo—an empty text message screen, a praise that went nowhere.

“Zhuāng Zhuāng, how about I call you Zhuāng Zhuāng?” Wu Nianxi asked with a giggle.

Zhuang Lu put her phone back in her pocket. The frown that had been on her face gradually eased when she saw Wu Nianxi’s tender and beautiful small face, and her mood brightened completely.

“Whatever you want,” she maintained her usual carefree nonchalance.

“Zhuāng Zhuāng!” Wu Nianxi exclaimed sweetly, as if she had received a secret key.

Wu Nianxi was Zhuang Lu’s first female friend in life. Unsure how to express it, Zhuang Lu could only indulge Wu Nianxi in every way—doing whatever she was asked, listening to her talk, and occasionally expressing her own views. The two girls were both humanities students, so their conversations naturally focused not on biology or chemistry, but on authors and works.

Wu Nianxi particularly loved the Classic of Poetry and favored cí poetry. The current Qing Dynasty cí poetry class was most to her liking. She recited in a lyrical tone: “The man may be cured of his passion, but the woman is incurable.”

Zhuang Lu briefly thought about it and recalled that this was a line from the Classic of Poetry, “Máng,” which cautioned women who indulged in love. This overlapped somewhat with her Contemporary Literature assignment, which also wrote about women, but one focused on love and the other on life.

She gently squeezed Wu Nianxi’s hand, meeting Wu Nianxi’s gaze, and spoke in a strangely soft voice: “For the Contemporary Literature class, the piece I want to share is Woman in the Mirror. It mentions a passage that has a slight similarity to this.”

“I haven’t read that one.”

“I remember it. I’ll recite it to you.”

Zhuang Lu recited some verses she had memorized using a tone she had never used before. It was as if a feather gently pressed against the environment surrounding them, until it shattered everything, mingling it with the fallen leaves.

“—It is as if

the woman in the mirror once wore clothes from the Classic of Poetry era

and met him by her low garden wall

They spoke a basketful of sweet nothings

and engaged in

three or five acts

They made solemn vows, the main content of which was

for the man to assure the woman to wait patiently

He would surely ride in on a tall horse

to marry her. But the reality

as you can see

was the woman, in her increasingly impossible-to-hide swollen body

throwing herself into the river with its islet

At that time the moon was bright and the wind clear

The cry of the osprey was unheard

but the rushing of the water was audible, like her tears

and her lament”

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