Zombie University – Chapter 3

The discussion over the student from Department of Archaeology stays heated for half a day. At night, every instructor unanimously disappears after leaving a message that “The matter is under investigation. All students please do not believe in rumours. Anyone found spreading malicious rumours will be subjected to severe punishment without fail.”

The so-called “severe punishment” is nothing more than getting scolded by the instructor, receiving criticism from the school, or at worst, having your final assessment score at the end of the semester deducted by some points. It won’t go so far as lowering your graduation honour by one class or two, nevertheless, no one wants to cause unnecessary trouble to themselves.

Later, Song Fei secretly hears that Department of Archaeology confirms a male student is no longer in the course. As for the reason, there are many versions: “gory murder”, “loss of contact during an archaeological internship”, “elopement with a female teacher”, “withdrawal from school due to inability to pay tuition fees” , “addiction to the Internet and refusal to go back to school” and plenty of others. Song Fei isn’t a curious kid anyway and soon forgets it.

In a blink, Sports Day is already here.

It is November, golden autumn lingers in the air — the season of harvest. The city where Song Fei’s university stands is located inland. Early November is when the breeze is most pleasant, a perfect time for having Sports Day.

Passionate parades, a melodious MC, a lively sports field, students marching in square formations coming one after another, so much youth, so much vitality — that is, if you ignore the students who are secretly playing with their phones on the stands.

“Marching to us right now is School of Sports! Look at how they pace in complete unison! Listen, their slogan is loud and clear! They are the newborn suns, they are the future…”

“This script is so ancient.” Ren Zhe couldn’t listen to it anymore. His phone battery life isn’t good, yet he also doesn’t want to bring a power bank with him everywhere. At first he still wants to focus on the opening ceremony, but after a short while, he gets really bored and starts playing. He tries to save some power but the data downloads are aggressively eating it all up. 

Xiang Yang, who just finishes one game on the phone, looks at him thoughtfully, “You actually bother to listen.”

Ren Zhe glances enviously at his roommate’s domestically-produced phone that has invincible battery life. He wonders if he should show more compassion towards his own nation the next time he changes phone. “The MC script is subpar, but the junior holding the board is good-looking.”

The square formation of students from School of History consists of freshmen only; that’s why they can sit on the stands and give commentary on other people.

Song Fei has been checking out Weibo for a while and feels so not enthusiastic about all this. Hearing Ren Zhe shouting, he looks up reflexively. They are sitting in the second area behind the VIP’s front row. At this time, School of Sports’ square formation is marching right in front of them. True to Ren Zhe’s exclamation, the girl has a commendable waistline and a praise-worthy pair of legs, is neither too fat nor too thin, and her curves are especially appreciable. Although her facial features are only pleasant and not splendly pretty, her whole body exudes a healthy grace.

School of Sports is followed by School of Journalism and Communication. If the girl holding the board of School of Sports is most appreciated for her waist and her legs, then the girl holding the board of the next school is most celebrated for her waist and her bosom. Even better than her bosom is her strikingly beautiful face that looks almost like an angel. Song Fei knows that for people from Department of Arts or of Broadcasting or of whatnot, whether guys or girls, their appearance is always above average; in fact, many of them are distinctively pretty. For this junior, even if she is placed among a big group of people, you can notice her immediately. Yet, her beauty isn’t the dangerous type — It is a kind of soft, translucent beauty that makes people feel very comfortable.

Perhaps the male students sitting on the stands are looking at her too obviously, as the junior marches through them, she turns around and smiles.

“Bright eyes, gorgeous brows and a graceful smile,” Wang Qingyuan spits out the sentences decisively.

Song Fei doesn’t understand this. He is just bored. Then a female voice is heard from the loudspeaker —

“Now coming to us is School of Life Sciences! The sea is wide, the sky is high, and the birds are flying…”

Suddenly there is a cold breeze.

Song Fei is taken aback by the breeze and instantly comes back to his senses. Why is he looking for that bastard? He was the one who asked to break up, how can he be missing him now? This is ridiculous.

Shaking his head, Song Fei goes to Xiang Yang to distract himself, “Yang Zi, when will your girlfriend come?”

After a deadly war, Mrs. Xiang has emerged as the victor. Besides agreeing to bring the lady to this Sports Day, Xiang Yang has to let her see his Tai chi fan dance performance. Not to mention, the lady is looking forward to not only coming by herself, but also bringing two roommate girl-friends of hers..

Xiang Yangsheng sighs relentlessly, “She is coming at noon. Why, we’re only performing this afternoon.”

“But what’s good is that she makes a special trip here to see you,” Ren Zhe speaks with envy. “How can I find this true love?”

Xiang Yangte sincerely gives him advice, “You always only think about the girls of this university. That isn’t enough. Let me tell you that distance is the charm. You have to stretch the devil’s claws towards the neighbour university.”

Ren Zhe’s eyes light up, “Didn’t your wife say she will bring two girl-friends in the afternoon? How do they look like? Do you have photos?”

Xiang Yang grimaces alarmingly, “If I have photos of both my wife and her girl-friends in my phone, wouldn’t I die sooner? !”

Ren Zhe rolls his eyes: “You won’t look at her friends’ photos when she’s around of course!”

Xiang Yang slaps his head and quickly turns the phone over. Ren Zhe immediately looks at it. Wang Qingyuan appreciates beauty, but he doesn’t seem to have much interest in pursuing beauty, and Song Fei isn’t interested either so he goes back to Weibo.

Ther morning portion of Sports Days passes by uneventfully since most of the matches are just preliminaries. Such is not the most exciting time, and the more you watch the more disinterested you will become. Except pretending to clap and waving his stone-filled plastic bottle whenever the ‘university spirit’ inspection team comes around, Song Fei spends the entire time focusing on playing with his phone and taking quick glimpses at whichever programmes that School of History participates in. .

And he also pays attention to the military fitness performance by School of Mathematics.

Like two bitter gourds on the same vine, Song Fei has a special liking for his brothers in School of Mathematics. Especially when he sees them chanting in green military uniforms, this surging emotion is brought to the highest point.

At noon, Xiang Yang decides to treat everyone, bringing the whole 440, Mrs. Xiang and her two girl-friends to the canteen on the second floor. Xiang Yang’s girlfriend is very cute, her face round with big eyes and remarkably long eyelashes. Her eyes light up at each blink like an anime loli. Ren Zhe works hard to get close to the other two girls, but they aren’t impressed much. Instead, they actually want to talk to Wang Qingyuan. Wang Qingyuan nonchalantly pushes his glasses up, unenthusiastically replying with sometimes an “uhm”, sometimes an “ah”, or sometimes he just couldn’t bother. At long last, the girls get the gist and stop embarrassing themselves further.

Song Fei is neither as thirsty for attention as Ren Zhe nor as distant as Wang Qingyuan. He likes men, sure, but that also doesn’t conflict with his desire to be admired by girls. The former is a matter of orientation, while the latter is a matter of charm. So when he is almost done with eating, he asks half-jokingly, “Why do you just ignore me?”

The two girls look at him, he looks at them, everyone looks at each other happily.

One girl says, “You seem to be a playboy.”

Song Fei just wants to shout for his innocence. Determined, he turns to girl no.2, “Do you also think so?”

Girl no.2 shakes her head, “You seem to be not very good at studying.”

Song Fei pauses for two seconds and turns back to girl no.1, “You’re right.”

— Even if I’m a dumbass, I still must hold my pride.

The first programme in the afternoon is the Tai chi fan dance. It seems that the organizing committee knows this is the time of day when people are easily sleepy, so they naively intend to use a large-scale performance to light up the atmosphere and refresh the spirit.

440 collectively put on white Tai chi uniforms. They hold in their hands bright red, loudly-clanging Tai chi fans and walk on the always-under-repair route towards the sports field. What a stunningly beautiful scene. 

When they enter the sports field and arrive at the secluded meeting place in one corner, reds are all over the place. At last, they could feel some security.

As it is not yet performance time, the Tai chi masters stand idly in twos and threes. Mrs. Xiang sneaks in and pulls Xiang Yang to one corner to give her boyfriend some encouragement, “Oppa, come on!”

Oppa Xiang opens his fan, fanning hysterically against the wind twice, his buzz-cut hair completely not moving in the wind, “Look at me!”

As they talk, several athletes in sports tops and shorts enter the field through the gate. Following the Tai chi fan dance are competitive programmes, so these people have to come in advance to register. The familiar face that he has been looking for all morning suddenly turns up.

Song Fei withdraws from the crowd without delay, his heart chanting, “He can’t see me, he can’t see me, he can’t see me, the bastard can’t see me…”

“Song Fei? !”

The bastard calls him.

Song Fei walks over daringly and smiles amicably, “You are competing?”

Qi Yan nods and looks suspiciously at his ex-boyfriend’s appearance.

Song Fei flicks the fan but no wind could come out, “Tai chi fan dance.”

Qi Yan is delighted, his eyes curving like crescent moons.

This is when Qi Yan looks the kindest and most harmless, like a truly good man.

Song Fei almost lets himself indulge in that smile again, fortunately, the other party opens his mouth, “It’s cute.”

Song Fei seriously wants to put on a pair of spike shoes and gives him a good kick.

It is finally gathering time. The MC announces on the speaker “Please enjoy the performance brought by School of History and Culture: Tai chi fan dance. Let us applaud and welcome them.” Sophomore students of School of History, who have shaped themselves into a formation, stride into the center of the field.

The twenty or so athletes in Qi Yan’s group who are waiting to compete also watch them from the side track. Qi Yan is especially excited.

Song Fei feels as though there are nails spiking into his back. Even when the music starts, he still subconsciously looks over there.

As it is often said that “one mind can’t be used for two things”, the result is that when they are doing the “white crane spreads its wings” move, Song Fei’s loose hand sends the fan flying, hitting the back of Xiang Yang in front. Don’t forget it is a stainless steel fan. Although it is only a fan whose force can’t be compared to a direct stab, Song Fei can already feel the pain just by looking at it. Sure enough, Xiang Yang lets out a groan and almost falls down, but then the eagle spreads its wings and flies high again, his motion graceful, soft yet firm. Song Fei tells himself that this must be the power of love, then hurriedly steps out to retrieve the fan and continues with the “split the mountain” move.

When the performance is over, Song Fei blends in with the team and quickly leaves the sports field. As they walk out of the gate, he also sees Qi Yan having so much fun.

In front of this person, he always feels small. Song Fei thinks, this time is just like that again.

When he returns to the stand, Qi Yan is already at the starting line. Only then Song Fei learns from others that this is a 10km run. When they were together, Song Fei was often pulled by this man to run around the sports field at night in the name of “physical training”. But after merely two nights, Song Fei gave up and insisted inside and out to never go again. Now that he thinks about it, from studying methods to habits then hobbies, there is nothing in common between them. It was a miracle that they stayed together for a semester.

The pistol is fired, and the twenty people at the starting line steadily sprint forward.

Qi Yan is extremely eye-catching amid the crowd. He is 183 cm tall, with nothing but long legs under that belly button. When he runs, he looks even more attractive, his posture full of strength and beauty. Song Fei looks at him; his throat becomes a little dry and he unconsciously swallows hard. He withdraws his gaze in anger, forcing himself to bow his head and play with the phone.

He likes Qi Yan. He was the one who made the first move. Later, when the other party agreed to date him, he was happy for a few days, so much so that he couldn’t sleep. But as their interactions increased, the disharmony gradually showed up, most obviously in the two’s daily lives. Qi Yan likes to consistently spend his time at these four locations: classroom, library, canteen then dormitory. When there are classes, he studies; when there are no classes, he self-studies; then he exercises in the sports field every night. In contrast, Song Fei turns up at classes; if there are no classes, he is at the dormitory; he doesn’t go near the sports field except during physical education class; as for the library, he basically never touches it.

At first, Song Fei was able to pretend to accompany Qi Yan as a good student, but he really couldn’t bear it anymore after a short while. Qi Yan could immerse himself in self-study for one whole day, but sitting next to him, Song Fei felt like it was years. Qi Yan was indeed handsome, but looking at him couldn’t be compared to looking at American dramas. Thereafter, Song Fei escaped as much as he could whenever Qi Yan asked to study together. Qi Yan wasn’t stupid so he figured it out after a few times. Then Qi Yan started a long road of education which Song Fei referred to as — Criticism. 

The general idea was that Song Fei was not good at this and also not good at that. He didn’t go to school with sincerity, so when he entered society in the future, there would be little hope. Song Fei couldn’t keep his cool for long, so after being lectured again and again, he began to fight back. This kind of quarrel had nothing to do with right or wrong — Song Fei just didn’t like that the other party’s words always carried this condescending tone. If Qi Yan looked down on him that much, why did he even agree to date? But Qi Yan didn’t bother to quarrel with him. Every time Song Fei made a scene, Qi Yan maintained his temper and thought the whole thing through before speaking again. Every time, Song Fei felt his anger piling up, and at the breaking point, he no longer could hold it and directly asked to break up.

The schoolmates all said that Qi Yan looked nice, had a good personality and studied well. Truly there were no negative points to pick out from him.

Song Fei felt that all of Qi Yan’s negative points had probably transferred to him.