"Can I borrow it?" Hao Ren asked in an inquiring tone.
"Hehe, I sure I wasn't as cute as your Zi." Xie Yujia put the disc in Hao Ren's hand softly.
Hao Ren thought, "I'm just curious and never wanted to compare you two. Women...always find themselves opponents."
The bus was empty besides Hao Ren and Xie Yujia in the back row. The evening breeze blew through the window. Xie Yujia looked outside, and Hao Ren had no idea what she was thinking about.
The bus arrived at the school gate near the dorm buildings. Xie Yujia waved goodbye at Hao Ren and walked toward the female dorm building; she didn't show any anticipation in Hao Ren walking her over to her dorm.
Hao Ren weighed Xie Yujia's disc in his hand and walked to his dorm building.
It was very lively in the dorm.
Hao Ren went back to the room with his basin after freshening up. He asked Zhou Liren, who was playing with his phone in bed, "Who has a laptop here?"
"Chen Ke from the room across the hall has one, but there is no internet. I heard that the internet would only be available for third-year and fourth-year students. What an inhumane rule," Zhou Liren complained.
"I don't need the internet." Hao Ren knocked on Chen Ke's door and borrowed the laptop after a few words.
"Chen Ke uses that for studying only, so there is no games or movies," Zhao Liren said from the upper berth when he saw Hao Ren on the laptop.
"Mind your own business." Hao Ren turned the laptop away from Zhou Liren and inserted Xie Yujia's disc.
The laptop made a sound when it read the disc.
The video played automatically.
Follow on NovᴇlEnglish.nᴇtThe stage looked similar to the one tonight, but it was only a little dimmer.
After seeing Zhao Yanzi's performance today, Hao Ren suddenly had strong expectations for Xie Yujia's recording.
"Hey, Ren! What are you watching?" Zhou Liren was bored, so he climbed down the berth. "You got some video and didn't want to share it with me?"
He noticed that Hao Ren had turned the screen to himself and smirked. "Ah...I see! You are watching that kind of video! Let me see! Let me see!"
He dashed to Hao Ren and found that it was a play.
"This is so... boring..." Zhou Liren immediately lost interest.
Cao Ronghua came back from getting hot water. He saw that Hao Ren, who was sitting, while Zhou Liren, who was standing, were both staring at the laptop, so he came over to take a look as well.
The stage and the dialogues were both similar to tonight's play, and it would be a little boring to watch the videotape.
Zhou Liren yawned as he was about to climb back up into his berth. Suddenly, a girl in a fancy violet dress appeared on the screen.
"Woah! This is really something!" Zhou Liren shouted immediately.
Cao Ronghua was stunned for a bit. He felt like... the girl in the video... looked very familiar...
"She is just too cute..." Zhou Liren kept on shouting.
But soon enough, he noticed something as well. "Oh? How come I feel like I've met her before..."
Hao Ren rolled his eyes at him. "Stop yelling and close the door."
"Ok..." Zhou Liren closed the door to their room immediately.
Cao Ronghua frowned intensively. "Could this be... Xie Yujia?"
"Xie Yujia!" Zhou Liren finally recognized the person on the screen. "It is really Xie Yujia!"
"Told you to stop yelling..." Hao Ren sighed, not knowing what to do about him.
"I mean..." Zhou Liren was still excited. "I had no idea that Xie Yujia was so cute before. Although she is pretty now, she had a completely different temperament when she was in middle school! This is from middle school, right?"
"Could you just be a little quieter?" Hao Ren glimpsed at him.
"Ok, ok, ok..." Zhou Liren finally shut his mouth and dragged over a chair.
Cao Ronghua put the water bottle down and sat on the bed to watch as well.
Xie Yujia indeed looked very innocent and pretty when she was in middle school.
Her partner in the play was more handsome than the one today. However, he lost all his glamour when standing beside Xie Yujia.
Ka...
Zhao Jiayi opened the door and walked in. He saw the three of them sitting together and focusing on the laptop. "What are you watching? You even locked the door? Oh, sh*t... Are you watching that kind of..."
"That's something YOU would do! I am a well-adjusted young fellow of the modern society!" Zhou Liren said presumptuously.
Zhao Jiayi rolled his eyes at him and squeezed over, covered in sweat. "Eh? Is that the Class President Xie Yujia?"
"Yeah, it's a video of her when she was in middle school," Zhou Liren explained, "She is indeed Ren's girlfriend; she even found such an ancient tape for him to watch."
Hao Ren smiled and shrugged as he was too lazy to explain. However, if she were really his girlfriend, it would have been a lovely move to show a video of her childhood to her boyfriend."
Follow on Novᴇl-Onlinᴇ.cᴏm"Damn... Xie Yujia was absolutely a killer when she was in middle school!" Zhao Jiayi took over half of Zhou Liren's seat regardless of his sweatiness from training. He watched the video with full attention as well.
"She is gorgeous now as well. Especially after she started dating Ren, she is dressing prettier and prettier," Zhou Liren said.
"There must have been a lot of guys after her when she was in middle school," Zhao Jiayi said as he watched, "I would have pursued her if I was at her middle school!"
"Alright, alright, move now!" Hao Ren pushed them away as he didn't think the three of them would understand "art."
"Ok, ok, we'll leave Hao Ren alone to enjoy this." Zhao Jiayi pulled Zhou Liren and Cao Ronghua away from the laptop.
Hao Ren had never seen Xie Yujia when she was in middle school, but he could get a feel through this videotape. Then, he thought about Zhao Yanzi and sensed the similarities as well as the differences between the two most popular girls at LingZhao Middle School of different times.
Hao Ren watched the entire two-hour video patiently, yet he still wished there was more. Xie Yujia was almost perfect throughout the play, whereas Zhao Yanzi's performance lacked practice but was ingenious.
"Juliet was 100% focused in love and was willing to die for love. Xie Yujia is actually like that too..." Hao Ren put away the disc and returned the laptop to Chen Ke.
"I didn't expect Xie Yujia to be so gentle and cute in her middle school years," Hao Ren thought.
That was the period of time when he and Xie Yujia missed each other, but this video filled up that portion of his memory.
Xie Yujia looked elegant and innocent in the play. No wonder Zhao Yanzi wanted to challenge her; she didn't want to lose to the current version of Xie Yujia and also the middle school version of Xie Yujia.
In the second day, Hao Ren returned the disc to Xie Yujia before their first class in the morning.
"What do you think? In fact, I forgot about the details already," Xie Yujia wanted to know how Hao Ren thought about it.
"You were beautiful when you were in middle school too. If we could enter this play in some contests, you are probably going to win," Hao Ren laughed.
"I rarely participated in school activities while I was in middle school; that was the only one. Therefore, I paid extra attention to it. I was probably not as good as your Zi from yesterday, right?" Xie Yujia asked.
"You both did a good job," Hao Ren felt like she started to targeting Zhao Yanzi more and more now, so he went ahead and changed the topic. "What did you and Zi's mom agree upon after all? I thought about it all night yesterday and still couldn't figure it out.
"It's nothing. I'm just going over to visit her tonight." Xie Yujia smiled as she put the disc in her drawer.