ATLAS TRANSLATES

As soon as Lu Jiaheng put on his backpack, he seemed to transform from a dog back into a human.

Class hadn’t started yet, and both Xiao Yi and Lu Jiaheng were eye-catching. Many students in the classroom were already looking their way. After hearing his words, their gazes naturally fell on Chu Zhi beside them.

Chu Zhi was still dazed, completely caught off guard by what he had said.

The classroom erupted with excitement. Girls were giggling, boys were whistling loudly, and someone called out, “Why just ‘like’? Isn’t she your girlfriend?”

“He hasn’t won her over yet!” someone else chimed in.

Chu Zhi lay her head on the desk, burying her face in her arms, her exposed ears bright red.

Lin Tong was quite surprised and leaned in with a grin, asking softly, “What’s going on between you two?”

Chu Zhi herself was confused and had no idea what was happening.

She lifted her head slightly. The two boys were still standing there, neither willing to back down.

Everyone from Advertising Classes 2 and 3 was watching the scene unfold. Chu Zhi even thought she kept hearing her name being whispered, though she wasn’t sure if she was imagining it.

Taking a deep breath, she lifted her head with slightly flushed cheeks and firmly placed several books on the seat beside her.

The sound was soft but clear. Both Lu Jiaheng and Xiao Yi looked down.

Chu Zhi looked up at them defiantly: “This seat’s taken. You’ll have to find somewhere else.”

Lu Jiaheng: “…”

Xiao Yi: “…”

Class Monitor Xiao didn’t say anything and appeared normal, just joking: “So I have to sit with Zhou Ming? How pitiful.”

Chu Zhi felt a bit sorry for Zhou Ming: “The way you say it makes Zhou Ming seem even more pitiful.”

Xiao Yi took his things and walked to the right front row. Zhou Ming threw an arm around his shoulders, and seeing Chu Zhi looking their way, grinned and gave her a peace sign. Xiao Yi maintained his usual demeanor, smiling shyly and gently.

Chu Zhi breathed a sigh of relief and turned around.

She had thought it would take some effort to talk to Lu Jiaheng.

But unexpectedly, he had already settled into the seat behind her, casually taking off his shoulder bag and placing it on the empty seat beside him, looking completely compliant and well-behaved.

Seeing her turn around, his almond-shaped eyes lifted slightly, and a smile curved his lips as he asked in a low voice, “What’s wrong? Regret letting me sit behind you? Missing me already?”

The two girls sitting next to him heard this and couldn’t help but giggle softly, whispering, “He’s so handsome.”

Chu Zhi glared at him hard before turning back around.

She hadn’t finished her breakfast, and now she couldn’t eat her red bean bun either. She laid her head back down on the desk, chin tucked in, feeling stiff in her back and not daring to move, sensing that something wasn’t quite right.

The words of the girls behind her still echoed in her mind — “He’s so handsome.”

Chu Zhi quietly raised her hand and pinched her warm earlobe.

Maybe he was a little bit handsome.

After watching for a while and seeing no more drama, the attention of the class scattered, and soon after, the teacher came in.

Chu Zhi tossed her phone into her desk drawer, took out her textbook and highlighters, and prepared to mark the important points.

She was usually very focused during class and rarely got distracted, but today something felt off, and she found it hard to concentrate.

Fortunately, it wasn’t a major subject, and marking important points didn’t require intense focus. She just followed along with the teacher’s page numbers, folding corners to mark entire sections of key points.

With final exams approaching, almost everyone seemed very serious. Besides the teacher’s voice from the front and occasional student conversations, there weren’t many other sounds in the large classroom.

After about six or seven minutes, a vibration sound came from Chu Zhi’s desk drawer.

The metal desk drawer amplified the phone’s vibration, making it quite clear – at least the other three girls from her dorm who shared the same desk heard it.

Lin Tong and Gu Han looked at her in perfect unison, while only Xue Nannan seemed completely immersed in her studies, undisturbed by any external noise.

Chu Zhi sincerely hoped her other two roommates could reach such heights of concentration.

She carefully glanced at the equally absorbed teacher in front, put down her pen, leaned back slightly, and with minimal movement, grabbed her phone to look.

Sure enough, it was a message from Lu Jiaheng.

Brother Lu: Finish your breakfast.

Chu Zhi: “…”

Chu Zhi didn’t reply, quietly putting her phone back in the drawer and picking up her pen to continue listening to the lecture.

Two minutes later, another clear vibration sound.

Chu Zhi was startled, quickly grabbed her phone with one hand, paused, then leaned back against her chair, put down her pen, and unlocked it to look.

Brother Lu: Hurry up and eat, the soy milk will get cold.

Chu Zhi carefully lowered herself and turned her head slightly to look back at him.

Lu Jiaheng was lazily propping up his head, looking down at her. Seeing her turn around, he nodded slightly toward the soy milk beside him, mouthing without sound — “It’s getting cold.”

Chu Zhi raised her hand and touched the soy milk cup.

The classroom’s heating was quite strong, and the soy milk was still warm. Chu Zhi withdrew her hand and typed: We’re in class right now!!

To emphasize her point, she added two exclamation marks!

This time she didn’t put the phone in her drawer but held it in her hand. The teacher had already covered two pages, and Chu Zhi hadn’t had time to look, so she quickly folded the corners of those pages.

Sure enough, within a minute, her phone buzzed again.

Brother Lu: It’s fine to drink some soy milk, it’s bad for your stomach when it’s cold.

Chu Zhi paused, her fingers hovering over the screen.

She instinctively wanted to turn around to see what expression he had while typing that message.

Chu Zhi lowered her eyes, silently put her phone on silent, and stuffed it back into the drawer.

She held her highlighter, marked a few pages, then thought for a moment, looked at the soy milk beside her, picked it up, and slowly unscrewed it to take small sips.

The rich flavor of soy milk spread through her mouth. The soy milk sold at the small store below A University’s female dormitory was sweet. Chu Zhi loved sweet things but usually found it bland, yet today it seemed a bit sweeter.

She looked at the white liquid in the transparent bag, squeezed it slightly, and the water level rose a bit.

Maybe they added too much sugar.

She quietly finished the entire bag of soy milk and put the garbage in a bag on the empty seat beside her.

There were still two books there, and the empty soy milk package was visible from behind, placed right next to those two books.

She had deliberately placed it next to the books, as if preparing to show someone.

Chu Zhi didn’t have a big appetite, and she had never finished her breakfast soy milk so completely before.

For some reason, she felt an oddly childish sense of pride. She turned her head slightly to look at the person behind her.

She gently pressed her lips together, her big black eyes bright as she looked at him, appearing very obedient.

It was a bit like when You Cai would proudly run into her arms after successfully scratching two red marks on his arm, looking at her with bright blue cat eyes.

As if seeking praise.

Lu Jiaheng lowered his eyelashes and silently licked his lips with a smile.

She was really cute.

With Christmas approaching, there were many apple vendors on campus a week in advance.

Bright red apples wrapped in beautiful transparent paper with ribbons, selling for dozens of yuan each.

And many people actually bought them.

Chu Zhi watched in astonishment as those poor souls spent twenty or thirty yuan on a single apple, mostly boys buying them for girls, who would accept them with happy smiles. She couldn’t quite understand it.

Thirty yuan could buy a basket of apples at the fruit market. Chu Zhi really couldn’t understand the romance these couples saw in it.

Gu Han couldn’t understand either. The day before Christmas Eve, on Friday during the last class, Chu Zhi and her roommate arrived at the classroom early as usual and picked their seats. While playing with her phone, she listened to Gu Han complain. Gu Han was usually very sharp-tongued and unmatched when it came to witty remarks. Chu Zhi couldn’t help but laugh at her jokes, and the two of them sat very close, shoulder to shoulder, collapsing into laughter together.

Just as the two were chatting happily, with Gu Han having imagined an entire dramatic scenario about a Christmas apple incident, a shadow fell across Chu Zhi’s desk.

Chu Zhi’s first thought was that the teacher had arrived.

But when she looked up, it was an unfamiliar girl.

The girl was blushing for some reason, smiling, holding a huge bouquet.

It was extremely large, almost too big to hold. She bowed slightly and presented the bouquet to Chu Zhi.

Chu Zhi looked down and realized it wasn’t flowers – it was all apples.

Countless apples, arranged like a bouquet, each apple red and plump, individually wrapped in packaging paper, looking like flower blooms.

Someone really did chase after someone with such a huge bouquet of apples.

Gu Han burst out laughing, while Lin Tong turned away with an unbearable expression.

Chu Zhi was stunned, watching as the large bouquet of apples was pushed into her arms. It was unexpectedly heavy, and she quickly hugged it, barely managing to hold it.

She was small, making the huge bouquet look even bigger in her arms. Chu Zhi came to her senses and instinctively looked toward the classroom door.

The poor soul was leaning against the doorframe with slightly bent legs.

Many of her classmates recognized him as the one who had claimed he would attend class with the girl he liked during Monday’s Marxist Philosophy class, and the cheering erupted enthusiastically.

The PE representative was particularly loud, shouting with extreme indignation: “I object! I object! We can’t let our Advertising Department’s little cutie be stolen away just like that!”

Chu Zhi’s cheeks turned crimson from the teasing. She struggled to put the armful of apples on her desk and reluctantly walked toward the classroom door.

Behind her, the PE representative was still shouting “Come back, my love!” Chu Zhi kept her head down, almost running out of the classroom.

Lu Jiaheng was leaning against the doorway watching her run out, and very cooperatively straightened up to follow her.

Chu Zhi walked forward for quite a while, all the way to the end of the teaching building’s corridor. She finally stopped and looked at him as if she completely couldn’t understand, more like a sigh than a question: “What are you doing…”

Lu Jiaheng thought his apple flower idea was extremely cool. He licked the corner of his lips and looked at her with narrowed eyes, tilting his head slightly: “Isn’t it obvious? I’m trying to mate.”

Chu Zhi: “…”

Chu Zhi was stunned by him, taking a long time to recover. She stood with her mouth slightly open, looking up at him with wide eyes.

Lu Jiaheng: “…”

“…No, I meant to say, courting.”