EAY Chapter 27

Dormitory First Night

Dormitory First Night

27

Li Tianyi started acting crazy after drinking.

“This is too much! We’ve only been apart for less than a day, a day! And those guys are already too busy to answer my calls!” Li Tianyi angrily slammed the table. “They texted saying they were going out to sing and drink with their roommates, and they even made plans to go camping this weekend! Isn’t that infuriating?”

Meng Nan picked up a piece of grilled eggplant and said slowly, “Aren’t you out eating with your new roommates too?”

Li Tianyi paused, realizing he had a point, but quickly rejected it, shaking his head and saying, “It’s different, completely different. Even if I were with you guys, if they called to chat, I’d definitely ditch you to talk to them. Old friends are the most important!”

Meng Nan scoffed, “You’re really polite to us, huh?”

“That’s just how it is. If your good friends called you, you’d definitely chat with them for a while, asking about the new school and stuff,” Li Tianyi waved his hand dismissively. “You’ve never been backstabbed by a friend, you wouldn’t understand my feelings.”

“Is that what you call a backstab?” Meng Nan chewed on the eggplant, glancing at him sideways. “Are you made of tofu? How can you be stabbed so easily?”

Shi Ran, who was drinking beer, couldn’t hold it in and burst out laughing, spraying the table and his clothes with beer foam. Qi Ye quickly grabbed some tissues from the table and handed them to him.

“These two are hilarious,” Shi Ran said, wiping his clothes and leaning closer to Qi Ye. “I feel like dormitory life is going to be exciting.”

“Yeah,” Qi Ye replied, his attention focused on the two empty beer cans in front of Shi Ran. As adults, drinking was naturally allowed, but Shi Ran had just turned eighteen! He was already so skilled at drinking; this probably wasn’t his first time.

Shi Ran caught his gaze and, surprisingly, understood what he was thinking. He smiled and said, “I drank with Grandpa Shi a few times at home during the summer vacation.”

What Shi Ran didn’t say was that the first time he drank, he had actually been looking forward to doing it with Qi Ye.

Sometimes, the first time might not be that important, but it’s often the most interesting.

Li Tianyi and Meng Nan were still bickering with each other. Li Tianyi said that the thought of having a toxic tongue like Meng Nan as a roommate for the next four years filled him with despair. Meng Nan simply said he could apply for a room change.

Li Tianyi said helplessly, “Can’t you say something comforting? Or how about this, you call one of your old friends right now and see if they answer your phone.”

Meng Nan: “Why would I do that?”

Li Tianyi: “If that person ignores you too, then you’ll understand how I feel right now.”

Meng Nan: “Too bad, I don’t have any friends.”

Qi Ye suddenly felt a sense of kinship with Meng Nan, but then he saw the cute little guy next to him, head down, devouring his food. No, it was still different; he had Shi Ran.

Li Tianyi first said in disbelief, “How is it possible to have no friends?” But seeing that Meng Nan really didn’t seem to be joking, Li Tianyi moved closer and put his arm around his shoulders. “I’m going to say something a little hurtful, but this situation, it doesn’t seem that strange for you.”

Meng Nan nodded indifferently. “Yeah, yeah.”

After they were full and satisfied, Li Tianyi wanted to go sing, but since they had come out late, it was almost curfew time when they finished eating. Qi Ye and Meng Nan supported him as they walked back to the dormitory, having to be careful of the slaps that Li Tianyi’s nimble hands occasionally threw their way.

Shi Ran was responsible for dealing with Li Tianyi’s drunken ramblings.

Don’t be fooled by how drunk this young master Li seemed to be. Once they got to the dormitory, he slumped on the table for a while, then suddenly sprang up, saying he felt uncomfortable and wanted to be the first to shower. Everyone went along with him.

But Li Tianyi was taking too long. Other people grabbed their towels and pajamas in one trip, but he was running back and forth seven or eight times and still hadn’t gotten everything.

Meng Nan couldn’t take it anymore and put down his book. “Hey, do you need an assistant to come in and help you wash?”

Li Tianyi daintily raised his little finger, deliberately trying to disgust him. “I wouldn’t ask you, no matter who else I asked.”

Meng Nan: “Oh, thank you.”

Once the young master finally went in, Meng Nan let out a long sigh. “If this were our high school dorm, there’s no way we would let him shower first.”

Qi Ye was chatting with his family, sending them photos of his tidy desk. He had never lived in a dormitory in junior or senior high school, so he asked Meng Nan curiously, “Were high school dorms very strict?”

Meng Nan said, “Lights out at a certain time, only half an hour after evening self-study. And there were eight people in the dorm, all rushing to shower every day. There were always people showering in the dark. It was okay in the summer, but in the winter the water would get colder and colder, and it would take a long time to heat up again.”

Shi Ran nodded in agreement. “Our dorm was like that too, so in the winter a lot of people would go home on weekends to shower. You’d catch a cold every time you showered.”

Shi Ran hadn’t lived on campus either, but he was good friends with several boarders and would often go to the boys’ dormitory to hang out after school. On weekends, when there were a few empty beds in the dorm, he would stay overnight.

Meng Nan heard someone happily singing in the bathroom and made a simple conclusion: “Someone like young master Li would never survive in a dormitory.”

Shi Ran nodded with a smile. The phone on the table vibrated. He picked it up and looked at it, his smile immediately fading. He answered the call and held it to his ear, standing up and walking out of the dormitory.

Qi Ye noticed his abnormal behavior. If it had been Grandpa Shi calling, he definitely wouldn’t have had that expression.

Qi Ye observed the activity in the hallway, feeling that Shi Ran had finished the call before he slowly walked out, resting his hand on the railing next to him.

The lights were bright on the opposite floor. Everyone was probably excited on their first night, chattering loudly. Shi Ran listened for a while, then smiled and said, “I’ve always been looking forward to living in a dormitory; I feel like it’ll be lively.”

Qi Ye stated the facts: “There will also be a lot of inconveniences, right?”

“Yeah, I feel like there won’t be any privacy, and it might be fun at first, but later you’ll think it’s too noisy and you won’t be able to find a quiet space. You also have to rely on luck to meet compatible roommates. It’s a big risk.” Shi Ran glanced at the person next to him. “But based on today, my luck is pretty good.”

Qi Ye’s heart fluttered slightly. He didn’t know if he would be able to sleep tonight.

After a while, Shi Ran took the initiative to speak: “That was my dad who called me just now.” He lowered his head slightly. “He asked so many questions, but the main point was that now that I’m in college, he and my mom won’t be responsible for my tuition or living expenses anymore. Actually, I didn’t expect them to be. Grandpa Shi has saved up money for my tuition, and I’ve already decided to earn my own living expenses. But when I heard him keep going around in circles about how hard it is for him, wanting me to be understanding, I still got angry, the kind of anger that just boils up inside.”

“It’s natural for you to be angry. They’re adults with the ability to earn money, and even if they’re having a hard time, you shouldn’t be the one they complain to.” Qi Ye paused. “And the divorce and remarriage were their own choices, so you shouldn’t have to bear the burden of the difficulties that come with those choices.”

Shi Ran was a little surprised. “You actually say things like that.”

Qi Ye’s expression changed in shock. “What, what I said, was it too much?”

“No, I feel good hearing it anyway.” Shi Ran gave a cheerful smile. “I just thought you were the kind of kid who was very considerate of his parents, and you’d also advise me not to be so petty, what’s that word… oh, glossing over things.”

Qi Ye breathed a sigh of relief and said seriously, “I’m completely on your side.”

“Thank you,” Shi Ran said sincerely, patting Qi Ye on the back. “You really are my best friend.”

That night, Qi Ye couldn’t fall asleep as expected. Besides his own little excited emotions, it was mostly due to external factors—Li Tianyi was chatting with his “heartless” friends.

From the laughter that erupted from young master Li every few seconds, it was easy to tell that the resentment he had previously felt at being abandoned had disappeared without a trace.

In the end, the dormitory head Meng Nan took action, dragging Li Tianyi off the bed and forcibly disconnecting his group chat, warning him that if he didn’t go to sleep, he would throw his quilt off the balcony.

Li Tianyi muttered a few words of grievance, and then the dormitory returned to silence.

Qi Ye took off his headphones, turned off his phone, and tried to fall asleep. Finally, he heard the steady breathing coming from the bedside—Shi Ran had already fallen asleep, even under such serious interference.

“Amazing,” Qi Ye marveled to himself.

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