Chapter 147 — The Long-Awaited...

"I was afraid you'd miss me, so I came to see you," Yang Hengye said.

"Who misses you? I was sleeping just fine without you." Wang Yanqiu had gone to bed right after Zhao Ying left—around six in the evening—and had slept straight through until midnight, six hours in all. She'd had about enough sleep.

Yang Ce chuckled and climbed into Wang Yanqiu's bed. Wang Yanqiu didn't refuse—after all, she knew her chances to be alone with Yan were growing few, especially once school started. "Hm?" Yang Ce reached casually toward the nightstand, then froze. "Where are the condoms? Why are they gone? I remember there should still be a few left."

Those condoms were the ones Yang Ce had asked Zhang Zhishen to buy from the supermarket along with the rest—two boxes, one used up, and the remaining box should have had a few left.

"I was afraid someone would see them, so I put them in the bathroom cabinet," Wang Yanqiu said lazily. "Go get them yourself."

"Which cabinet?" Yang Yanchuan said. "Ugh, what a hassle," Wang Yanqiu grumbled. "Never mind, I'll go find them." So she got up and walked out of the room naked. Before long, Yang Ce heard a shriek from Wang Yanqiu. Startled, he called out at once, "Yanyan, what's wrong?"

"It's over, it's over!" Wang Yanqiu came running back into the bedroom clutching the little box, saying as she ran, "Ying took a shower here today and got a towel and her underwear out of that cabinet. She couldn't have found this, could she?"

Yang Ce was stunned for a moment, then could only give a helpless, bitter smile. Wang Yanqiu had let her cleverness backfire—she hadn't wanted anyone to find out, yet she'd put it right where anyone would easily stumble upon it.

He didn't know whether Zhao Ying had seen it or not. Yang Ce asked, "Did Ying say anything afterward?"

"No. She went home right after her shower. I thought it was strange at the time—why she was in such a hurry to leave. She couldn't really have seen it, could she?" Wang Yanqiu blushed a little too. Earlier she had sworn up and down to Zhao Ying that there was nothing between her and Yan, and now evidence had turned up.

"Who knows," Yang Ce sighed. "Forget it, no use thinking about it so much. Sooner or later she'll find out about us."

"You mean the assassin group?" Wang Yanqiu was taken aback and looked at Yang Ce with some suspicion.

"Yes. That day will come eventually—our identities will be revealed to them," Yang Yanzhou said. "But not now."

Early the next morning, just as the sky was turning light, Yang Ce returned to his own villa. The business with Zhao Ying had left him somewhat unsettled. If Zhao Ying hadn't seen anything, that would be easy enough; but if she truly had, then no explanation he gave would do any good—better to keep silent.

Still, all of this would have to wait until Zhao Ying could get online, when he could slowly probe her under his online-friend identity and decide what to do based on how things looked.

Originally, Yang Ce had wanted to go to school together with Chen Shutang and Lin Yanhe, but neither of them agreed, saying it would draw too much attention—after all, they were at school, and one guy driving a car full of girls would look bad if people saw.

Yang Ce thought it over, and Chen Shutang had a point. Even if he didn't care, he couldn't let Chen Shutang and the others be pointed at and gossiped about behind their backs.

But the bus was hard to catch during the morning commute, and taxis were hard to hail, so Yang Ce simply chose a compromise: he brought both Chen Shutang and Lin Yanhe over to the villa, and from there they set off for school separately.

To be continued

1054. I Love Xiaoming

Yang Duoran left together with Chen Shutang, and Lin Yanhe went with Zhou Yanning.

That arrangement, however, left Chen Shutang a little embarrassed, so she simply abandoned Yang Ce and went along with Lin Yanhe and Zhou Yanning, leaving Yang Puqi alone to drive slowly behind them—looking for all the world like the three girls' bodyguard.

Once they reached the school, the group naturally split up, though Yang Ce ended up walking with Zhou Yanning. They were both in the computer science department and under the same advisor, so naturally they went to register together.

Walking along the campus paths, he found that even in the depths of winter, many people stood in clusters in the wind, utterly unafraid of the cold. A closer look revealed that the various student clubs were recruiting.

The school had a rule: freshmen in their first semester were considered to be in an adaptation period and were not allowed to join any clubs. In the second semester, once everyone was familiar with the school's systems and regulations, they could join clubs freely.

In truth, this was also to keep students, newly arrived at university, from being bewitched by the slogans of various clubs and joining at random, only to quit later, which would create chaos and make management difficult for the student union and the Youth League committee. That was why such a rule existed.

During the first semester, everyone basically got to know what each club and organization did, so that they could join the right one directly.

Even so, some clubs, eager to recruit more members, set up promotional sign-up booths on campus on the very first day of the second semester to win people over.

"Hey, you two are from the Computer Science department, right? We're from the Computer Club—come join us!" A young man and a young woman in Songjiang University uniforms walked over, each holding a stack of flyers, and handed one to Yang Ce and one to Zhou Yanning.

"How did you know we're from Computer Science?" Zhou Yanning asked the young man who had handed her the flyer.

"This way leads to the Jisuan Yunmeng teaching building. If you're heading in this direction, you must be here to register with the Computer Science department." The young man stared at Zhou Yanning, his eyes practically glowing green.

Year after year, the science and engineering departments were short on girls, let alone pretty ones. A beauty like Zhou Yanning, the kind you might meet once in a thousand years, was a rare prize indeed—how could the young man's eyes not light up?

If he could recruit Zhou Yanning into the club, everyone else would be dying with envy of him, the man who had pulled it off. So he pitched his recommendation with extra zeal.

The girl who had handed Yang Ce his flyer, however, was not much to look at. But there was no helping it—too many monks and too little gruel; the best of a poor lot. As the only girl in the club, she had been assigned the flyer-distribution duty.

Having one was better than having none. In a department as badly short of girls as Computer Science, even one could draw plenty of wolves.

Seeing that Yang Ce was tall and broad-shouldered, thoroughly manly, the girl felt a touch of admiration. He was nothing like the rest of the club—either four-eyed or skinny as twigs and unkempt.

"So that's how it is. You're quite observant," Zhou Yanning said with a nod and a smile. She had always been interested in computers, so she asked, "What does your club mainly do?"

Seeing that Zhou Yanning seemed interested, the young man was overjoyed and hurriedly led the two of them to a temporary club sign-up station nearby. The station was a makeshift office of a few tables and a windbreak umbrella, and a few students were already there asking questions.

A few Computer Club members in charge of explaining things were working hard to pitch the club's purpose and the benefits of joining to these inquiring students: "Our club has already reached agreements with some well-known software companies. In our spare time, we help them complete projects, and we get paid quite well for it."