My Demon Friends-Chapter 510 - 489: The End of the Term

At a certain pavilion on campus.

A male student wearing a baseball cap and face mask, his clothes slightly bulky, was huddled alone in a corner with headphones on, earnestly reading a book titled "Cell Biology."

Beneath the pavilion was a gathering place for couples.

Right next to him were two pairs, sitting close together, their behavior affectionate, occasionally glancing at him.

A mutual discomfort settled in. The couples felt they were disturbing his studies; he felt he was interrupting their intimate moments. They envied his passion for studying, having no desire to open a book themselves. He, in turn, envied how uninhibitedly they could be together, knowing his own girlfriend would find such displays too clingy.

The sky started to darken, night was about to fall, with only a streak of red in the western sky stubbornly persisting.

Finally, the couples left.

Only Zhou Li remained in the pavilion.

He continued reading his book, occasionally glancing at his watch, growing a bit agitated with the long wait.

Then, with a POOF!

Huai Xu’s voice, full of approval, sounded from in front of him, "You’re studying very diligently, huh? Very good, very good, that’s how it should be!"

Zhou Li didn’t even lift his head. "Didn’t you say half an hour at most? It’s already dark now."

"Oh my, there was a little problem~"

"What problem?"

Having finished that section, Zhou Li closed his book and looked up, only to be momentarily stunned.

Before him stood a petite figure, about one meter sixty tall. A remarkably eye-catching face, as pale and puffy as a baozi, was turned towards him. Yet that baozi face was completely expressionless.

He was somewhat puzzled. "How have you turned into a baozi again?"

While the Baozi form was also quite cute—arguably even prettier than Cotton Swab, or those two beauties Mianmian and Qian Qian—the Old Monster had always had high standards. Logically, the Baozi form’s appearance should still fall a bit short of the Old Monster’s expectations. His own looks had once been highly praised by the Old Monster, and he had been a bit proud of that. But if this Old Monster now unreasonably accepted the Baozi form, did it mean the authority of the ’Huai Xu Certification’ had diminished somewhat? Zhou Li was somewhat worried.

He saw Huai Xu’s face remain expressionless. "Because I think it’s interesting."

"What’s interesting about it?"

"The expression."

"Oh. Why do you keep making that face?"

"Because that’s how your Little Cousin looked when she left, and I found it funny." Huai Xu grinned, the expressionlessness vanishing for a mere instant before returning. "I think it’s fun."

"..." Zhou Li pursed his lips. "Why were you delayed so long?"

"Because the exam took a long time," Huai Xu began to explain. "Your Little Cousin knew you were shy and didn’t study well, so she specifically came to laugh at you. Li Daimao had me go last, making her wait there all alone like a fool."

Zhou Li could imagine. The scene must have been quite amusing. "What happened next?"

"Afterwards, it was very amusing."

"She specially went to the sports field just to mock me?"

"No, she wanted to treat you and Brother Nan to a meal. Since you and Brother Nan had treated her to quite a few meals, and she’d just gotten her paycheck and probably had some money, she wanted to treat you back," Huai Xu explained carefully. "We ate in the cafeteria, on the second floor. Stir-fried dishes. The taste was quite good."

"I see..."

Zhou Li couldn’t help but sigh. It wasn’t for Little Cousin’s wallet; that had nothing to do with him. It was for his own image.

But at this point, more words would be useless. Zhou Li silently closed his book, removed his mask and headphones, and also took off his hat before walking out of the pavilion.

An expressionless Baozi followed beside him.

Huai Xu saw through his thoughts and was very displeased. "You! How can you only think that I’ve ruined your image? I ate so little, yet you always assume the worst of me!"

He sounded a bit upset.

Zhou Li continued walking in silence.

「Back in the dorm room.」

Chang Xiaoxiang turned his head immediately. "Boss, why are you back? Isn’t today Christmas?"

Chen Yang turned at the sound and said with a sly grin, "I thought you guys were going out to watch a movie and wouldn’t be able to come back because it got too late."

Liu Zhengming just nodded.

Zhou Li didn’t care but simply pursed his lips into a smile and said sincerely, "Sometimes I really admire you guys. You’re single and have never even dated, yet you know more than I do."

He paused, then looked earnestly at Chang Xiaoxiang and said apologetically, "I was talking about those two, not you. You’ve dated quite a few people, even though you got dumped after a short while every time. But at least you’ve dated, unlike them, who haven’t even dated once."

All three of them stiffened, especially Chang Xiaoxiang.

Only then did Zhou Li sit down, satisfied, and continued flipping through "Cell Physiology," bracing himself to read further.

The professor for this course was annoying. He didn’t highlight any key points and would say things like, "Everything important is in the textbook," and "What I teach is what I test." To make matters worse, his lectures were dull. Zhou Li hadn’t paid attention and had also been caught skipping class twice. This meant he had to work even harder.

"Did you pass your PE class, Boss?"

"Yes."

"Right? It seems like no one fails PE unless they skip all the time or don’t show up for the tests." Chang Xiaoxiang gossiped, "There’s such a character in Class One; rumor has it he’s attended only about a dozen classes this term at most. He picked the same PE class as I did, didn’t show up for the exam, and couldn’t be reached by phone. I really don’t know what he’s doing in university."

"Oh..." Zhou Li wasn’t interested.

"Exams are starting soon—some tomorrow, and more after New Year’s. We should go print some cheat sheets together!"

"You guys go ahead; I don’t need them." Zhou Li decided to emulate Brother Nan and firmly resist cheating. And somehow, despite having skipped many classes and been marked down several times this semester, he wasn’t too worried about the exams. He had a feeling, an illusion almost, that ’I can do it.’ Outwardly, however, he remained modest: "Let fate decide. If I pass, I pass. If not, I’ll take the makeup exam."

"That’s what I admire about you!" Chen Yang affirmed enthusiastically. "So magnanimous! Truly worthy of being my big bro’s man!"

"..."

Zhou Li continued to read his book, head down.

His three roommates, already familiar with his personality, didn’t mind and kept chatting.

Their sophomore year was more than halfway done, and most classmates had become familiar with each other. For a social butterfly like Chang Xiaoxiang, students from neighboring classes, and even those from the somewhat more distant Class One and Class Two, were all subjects of his plentiful gossip. Some of it sounded quite ordinary, while other bits were rather shocking. 𝙧𝙚𝙚𝔀𝒆𝓫𝓷𝙤𝓿𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝙤𝓶

Stories like who made a grand love declaration, who had numerous boyfriends, or who won an off-campus award, all fell into the ordinary category.

Finding out that someone who already had a partner was getting a room with a classmate from their own class was a bit shocking.

Discovering that 60 freshmen had tested positive for HIV this year was extremely shocking.

Zhou Li wasn’t normally one for gossip, but the stories from these three guys were too captivating—even more enthralling than when Mianmian and Qian Qian gossiped—and he found them irresistible.

Initially, he tried to read while listening, multitasking. But as he listened, he soon lost track of his place in the book.

Then, in a daze, he realized just how many things had happened around him. Through Chang Xiaoxiang’s descriptions of those faces, comparing them to the people he remembered seeing when he first entered university as a freshman, he could perceive each person’s changes and growth.