It was lunchtime, and the cafeteria was crowded. After ordering, they looked around and couldn't find an empty table. Li Xuan simply asked the aunt at the window to pack a bag, and the two of them found a bench by the playground and sat down to eat before going to the classroom.
Statistical Mechanics is a large class. There is still a quarter of an hour before the class starts, and the classroom is already crowded. They entered from the back door. The first few rows and the last few rows belong to different types of Feng Shui treasures, and they are already full. Li Xuan took a look and saw that there were still a few empty seats by the window on the left.
"Just over there." Li Xuan raised his chin and took off his hat.
"Pull your mask up a little more." Sheng Min said softly.
Li Xuan saw that he looked a little nervous, and knew that he was afraid of being recognized, so he lowered his voice and said, "Don't look back."
"Hmm?" Sheng Min followed him forward.
"The girl you just passed was the actress you worked with in your last movie." Li Xuan said seriously, "I forgot her name."
"What are you talking about?" Sheng Min was puzzled, but Li Xuan looked too serious, so she subconsciously turned her head away, "Cheng Xi? What is she doing here?"
Li Xuan strode forward: "Then why are you here? Normal people would never think in this direction, right?"
Sheng Min reacted, glanced at him, and muttered quietly: "Boring."
"Don't think too much." Li Xuan said. He was about to say that you are not some old artist who is well-known to everyone, but he saw a drink on the table of the classmate next to him, and Sheng Min's face was printed on the bottle. He stopped talking halfway and laughed.
"What are you laughing at again?" They had already walked to the empty seats, and Sheng Min was helpless.
Li Xuan shook his head without explaining and motioned Sheng Min to go in. As soon as the two of them sat down, a boy in the first two rows suddenly turned around and asked, "Li Xuan?"
"Ah, good morning." Sheng Min paused, then raised his hand stiffly.
"Good morning." The boy greeted happily, and looked at Li Xuan who was wearing a mask next to him with a little doubt, "What is this..."
"I have a cold." Sheng Min interrupted him and said sincerely, "It's a bad cold, stay away and don't get infected."
"Oh." The other party nodded in understanding and turned back.
Sheng Min secretly breathed a sigh of relief, while Li Xuan sat beside him, lowering his head and trying not to laugh.
"Your classmate?" Sheng Min mouthed.
"Maybe, it should be." Li Xuan thought, "I can't remember the name."
"People say hello to you."
"Yeah, it's not like I was the one saying hello to him." Li Xuan said, throwing his schoolbag into the table. Inside was his laptop, which had broken down on the day of the car accident and had never been repaired.
He was not very good at hardware, but he could install a graphics card occasionally. But this laptop had fallen somewhere and he couldn't turn it on after trying for a long time. There were too many important files in it, and Li Xuan was unwilling to take it out for repair. He planned to go to an Internet cafe after class and ask Zhu Zhou to help him take a look.
Sheng Min was speechless, and Li Xuan continued, "But you pretended very well. You reacted so quickly, did you practice your lines in advance? Do you need me to cough twice?"
His smile did not fade, and Sheng Min's nervous mood also relaxed a little. He pointed at the table: "Let's change seats, you sit by the window."
"Are you cold?" Li Xuan stood up as he was told.
"I see you keep laughing. You'll be recognized soon. It'll be easier for you to jump out the window and run. It has nothing to do with me anyway."
Li Xuan was stunned, and this time he really laughed out loud.
"Stop laughing."
"It's okay. You even arranged an escape route for me."
Sheng Min shook his head and glanced at him without any intimidation, but in the end he couldn't help laughing.
The statistical mechanics teacher is very strict with discipline. He requires everyone to be present before class and does not allow electronic devices to be used during class.
"I thought teachers wouldn't care about me when I was in college," said Sheng Min.
"This one is quite strict, otherwise I wouldn't have asked you to come to class." Li Xuan didn't listen to the class either. He took a printed paper and read it, while writing and drawing on the paper.
Sheng Min tilted his head to take a look, not quite understanding what was being said, but it was obviously not what was being taught in class.
Li Xuan noticed his movements, and without even looking up, he pulled out a book from his bag like a magic trick: "I got it from the living room this morning, and I just forgot to give it to you. You can't play with your phone, so read a book to kill time."
Sheng Min took it and found that it was the drama script he was reading these days.
"Don't you have to attend the class?" Sheng Min hesitated, moved closer to Li Xuan, and lowered his voice, "Do you have an exam for this class at the end of the term?"
"It's okay, maybe we can change it back then."
"What if there isn't?"
"We can only talk about it when the time comes." Li Xuan was actually a little annoyed. Seeing Sheng Min's worried face, he still smiled and said, "You don't have to be so anxious."
"I'm not anxious, I just don't want to affect you," said Sheng Min.
Li Xuan's mind moved slightly, Sheng Min propped up his head and looked at the blackboard: "I'd better listen to the class."
He said this without much confidence. Shengmin debuted early, and he finished his high school years while filming. After graduating from high school, he was admitted to the drama academy, but not long after, he was sent to a talent show by the company. Later, he had more and more work, and he had less say at the time, and he couldn't refuse. He missed too many classes and had to drop out. But even if he finished, it would be too much of a stretch to deal with N University's physics courses.
Sheng Min listened attentively for a while. The old professor's speech was so eloquent that he really felt like he was listening to a book written in heaven. Li Xuan raised his eyes slightly. The early summer sun slanted in from the window. Under the light and shadow, he could vaguely see the mist-like dust in the air, but the face that was so close to him was blurred.
Li Xuan suddenly felt that the face next to him was not his own, but Sheng Min's original face. Thinking of this, Sheng Min's appearance when he was listening to the class really appeared in his mind, but they clearly had never known each other before.
"Have you ever acted in a school play before?"
"He's acted in several movies... Have you seen them?"
"I don't know, probably not. Maybe I saw it accidentally." Li Xuan shrugged, and he could see that Sheng Min was having difficulty listening. He hesitated for a moment and didn't say anything. He took out the textbook, looked up to see where the teacher was talking, and turned to that chapter and pushed it to Sheng Min.
“Why is it still a new book?”
"It's new. My book is in the dormitory. I ordered this one two days ago." Li Xuan continued to read the paper and said casually, "But my book is blank as well."
"Didn't you attend classes before?" Sheng Min asked curiously, "If you don't like this major, why did you study this?"
Li Xuan paused slightly, and said in a lazy tone: "Can people only do what they like?"
Sheng Min shook his head, paused for a moment, and whispered, "But I think you probably won't choose something you don't like."
"You know me very well." Li Xuan laughed and fell silent again, his eyes wandering. Sheng Min thought he probably wouldn't answer this question, and regretted his rashness. Li Xuan suddenly spoke, "To pay off a debt."
This was an unexpected answer. Sheng Min suspected that he had misheard and looked at him in surprise. But Li Xuan seemed to have just said it casually and did not explain any more. He lowered his head and continued to read the paper.
They didn't speak for the whole class. Sheng Min really didn't understand what the teacher was talking about, so he could only copy down everything written on the blackboard. He didn't remember writing so many words, and when the bell rang, his fingertips felt numb.
The boy sitting in the front row actually greeted him again before leaving, and Sheng Min responded skillfully.
Li Xuan had finished reading the papers he brought, and was still writing something attentively, with a slightly frowned brow. Once he was immersed in something, he had the ability to be unmoved by anything. Sheng Min did not urge him, and took the drama script to read. Soon, everyone else in the classroom left, and the only sound in his ears was the rustling sound of Li Xuan's pen tip rubbing against the paper when he was writing.
While reading, Sheng Min couldn't help but be distracted by thinking about Li Xuan's so-called debt repayment.
What debt is being repaid
When Wang Shuying was a child, she borrowed money to gamble, and was even chased home by loan sharks during the Chinese New Year. Even after so many years, she still feels tired when she hears the word "debt".
But Li Xuan didn't look like he owed anyone money. Sheng Min stroked the pages of the book with his fingertips. What kind of debt could be repaid in this way? He was thinking wildly, suspecting that Li Xuan had made up an answer casually to fool him, but he didn't think so.
If he owes money, I can give it to him. Sheng Min was distracted without realizing it, and he didn't even notice that Li Xuan had stopped writing.
"Hello." Li Xuan called him but there was no response. He raised his hand and snapped his fingers in front of him. Sheng Min was startled and came back to his senses.
"What are you thinking about? You're so startled."
Sheng Min shook his head: "It's okay, are you done?"
"Okay." Li Xuan stuffed everything on the table into his schoolbag. His expression had long since returned to his usual nonchalant state, as if he had completely forgotten what he had just said about paying back the debt. "Okay. Go down to the dormitory and get some things for me later."
Non-school personnel had to register to enter and exit the dormitory building, and it was inconvenient for Li Xuan to do so with Sheng Min's face. So he gave the key to Sheng Min and let him go up by himself.
The dormitory was on the fourth floor. One of Li Xuan's roommates changed his major in his sophomore year and left. Of the remaining two, one lived outside with his girlfriend all year round, and the other one spent all day in the library, so he was probably not there. Sheng Min opened the door, and sure enough, there was no one there.
He felt relieved and turned on the light. The first desk on the left was Li Xuan's. It was very conspicuous. He had installed a desktop computer. The display screen took up most of the desktop, and there were a pile of books and a lot of printed materials stacked messily next to it.
Following Li Xuan's instructions, Sheng Min found two USB flash drives in the drawer. Li Xuan also made a list and asked him to take these books with him. The things were piled up in a mess. Sheng Min searched for a long time but still missed a book. Just as he was about to call to ask, he looked up and saw that there was another pile of books, and the book he was looking for was sandwiched in the middle.
Sheng Min stood up, raised his arm to grab the spine of the book and tried to pull it out. Before he knew it, the two envelopes under the book fell out and landed at his feet.
Does anyone still write letters these days
Sheng Min was startled. His first reaction was that it couldn't be a love letter. He felt awkward for some reason and bent down to pick it up. However, he unexpectedly found that the sender's address was written as City Prison.
The sender of both letters was the same, Zhao Jizhe. Sheng Min had no memory of hearing Li Xuan mention this name. He couldn't help but frown and looked at the date on the postmark. One letter was sent last month, and the other was sent a year ago.
Sheng Min was not sure if there were other letters. The two envelopes in his hand had been opened. Probably Li Xuan put them back after reading them. Holding them in his hand, he could feel the thickness of the letter paper in the middle.
He hesitated for a moment and did not open it. He glanced at the words "Municipal Prison" again and put the envelope back in its place. He took the book and the USB drive, quickly closed the door, and left the dormitory.