Chapter 49 (1/2)

Someone said confusedly, “Hasn’t Zhang Dong always taken care of Lin Wenxi?”

“What was going on?” Gu Yu asked Shu Xiaoman, the nearest bystander of the conflict, but she cried so hard that she could not utter a single word.

Chen Wanxin contemplatively looked at Shu Xiaoman and felt very surprised.

“Come on, they’re grown-up men. Let them handle their own business. Let’s continue to play,” Wang Zhengjuan said and immediately came up with a game, which was similar to music chairs. Instead of snatching chairs, they passed around a sheet of paper with their mouths and the one who failed to pass the paper to the next person when the music stopped would be eliminated. The boys and girls felt excited upon hearing this idea. They asked the waiters to come in and clean the table for them. After that, they gleefully began to play.

Shu Xiaoman did not seem to be interested in this game at all. She stood up and wanted to go out. Zhang An’an grabbed her hand to stop her and slowly shook her head toward her, while saying, “Tell me what happened.”

As Shu Xiaoman refused to talk to her, Zhang An’an dragged Wang Xiang aside and whispered something beside his ear while throwing a quick glance at Chen Wanxin. Evidently, she had already guessed what had happened to Shu Xiaoman.

The next moment, Zhang An’an pushed Wang Xiang away while complaining. “Sigh, how can you be so stupid?”

Wang Xiang scratched his ear and went back to drink with the boys while muttering to himself. “That’s ridiculous. You’re not making any sense.”

Chen Wanxin played a piece of dance music and proposed a toast to keep the party lively. They guys felt excited again and quickly forgot about what had just happened.

“I have to leave now. Help me find him and then contact me,” Zhang Dong said to Zhao Yuan on the phone.

“Please rest assured. He’s my roommate. I have the responsibility and obligation to take care of him.” Zhao Yuan replied. After leaving the karaoke club, he went to the top of a nearby pedestrian bridge to look around, searching for Lin Wenxi. He believed that Lin Wenxi would not want to go back to the university now.

Zhang Dong got into a military car. His driver glanced at him and asked teasingly, “Brother Dong, how did you get hurt during such a short time?Did you catch your woman cheating or something?”

“That’s none of your business. Let’s get down to some serious business and go to find Boss Mo now,” Zhang Dong replied in a deep voice while wiping the blood off his forehead with a tissue and taking some shards of glass out of his wound. After that, he acted as if nothing had happened and continued to chat with his driver cheerfully.

One hour later, after searching nearly all the places nearby, Zhao Yuan came to a fountain square near the campus. He sat beside the fountain, in a daze. After a moment, he felt somewhat surprised and wondered, “Isn’t here a dazzling musical fountain performance every night? Why is it so quiet now? And where’s the fountain?” Zhao Yuan felt that the air was humid here and thought, “Maybe the performance stopped not long ago.” Zhao Yuan heaved a long sigh and saw the steam come out of his mouth.

Suddenly, he heard someone complain, “What a pity. If that boy hadn’t stepped into the fountain and stayed there for more than half an hour, the performance would not have stopped this early.”

Someone echoed, “Yes. He must be crazy. Who would want to step into a cold fountain in the winter? He’ll suffer from frostbite if he has not frozen to death.”

Their words made Zhao Yuan’s heart ache. He thought anxiously, “What? He stepped into the cold fountain and stayed there for more than half an hour! Why did he torture himself like that? What happened to him?”

Finally, he got through to Lin Wenxi. Lin Wenxi’s voice sounded exceptionally cold.

“I’ve come back to the dorm,” he said on the phone.

“I’ll come back to find you. Just stay in the dorm and don’t go anywhere,” said Zhao Yuan. When he was about to speak again, Lin Wenxi hung up on him.

When he walked up the stairs, he saw obvious water stains all along the way. He opened the door of Dorm No. 216 and saw water stains at the door, inside the room and in front of Lin Wenxi’s desk. He found some wet clothes in the bucket and then he saw Lin Wenxi lying on his bed, shivering. He wrapped himself in a thick blue quilt and buried his wet head in the quilt too. Zhao Yuan noticed that the air was humid inside the dorm and went to open the door of the bathroom. He discovered that the floor of the room was wet. He touched the shower-head and found out that it was freezing cold. “This stupid boy!” He could not help but sigh inside his heart.

Zhao Yuan was a little upset. He slowly sat down beside Lin Wenxi, and then he stood up again and went downstairs to buy some ginger powder. He made some warm ginger tea with the powder, calmed himself down and then gently patted Lin Wenxi.

“Wenxi, get up and drink some ginger tea. Otherwise you’ll catch a cold.”

Lin Wenxi revealed his face. His lips had turned purple because of the cold. He moved his shivering lips and said slowly, “You didn’t prepare the cinnamon juice just for me. I remember that at that time, Chen Wanxin caught a cold too.” He paused and then muttered. “I smelt the fried fish inside her tent that evening, but I kept telling myself that I would find another extinguished campfire you left and I would find some fried fish there. If you just wanted to leave the fish to her, why did you use the eyes that I drew to mark the spot?”