Wang Dayong sat at his desk, shirtless.
He was holding a small Phillips screwdriver, head bowed as he dismantled an old transistor radio he had scrounged up from somewhere.
Chu Ge pushed the door open and walked in, a lollipop dangling crookedly from his mouth. Bored, he was tossing a coin in the air.
"Dayong, you done yet?"
Chu Ge walked over and pulled out a chair next to Chen Zhuo, then sat down.
Wang Dayong didn’t even look up, his screwdriver still twisting away.
"Can’t you see I’m busy? Besides, you’re a grown man. Aren’t you embarrassed, wandering around with a lollipop in your mouth? It’s so childish."
Chu Ge rolled his eyes.
"You don’t know a damn thing. This is a look. And so what if I’m eating a lollipop? People can say whatever they want. It has nothing to do with me."
He took the lollipop out of his mouth and turned to Chen Zhuo, who was sitting on his bed.
"What are you reading so intently?"
Chen Zhuo closed his book.
"Just flipping through it. Why aren’t you in your room sleeping?"
Chu Ge sighed and ran a hand through his already messy hair.
"Sleep my ass. I’ve had it with my roommate."
Wang Dayong stopped what he was doing and looked up.
"What’s wrong?"
Chu Ge tossed his lighter onto the desk with a CLACK.
"Holy shit, that guy is neurotic. Our class meeting isn’t until seven tonight, but he got up at four-thirty, put on his backpack, and insisted on going to the lecture hall to save seats."
Chu Ge shook his head, a look of utter despair on his face.
"He said he was worried we’d be late and wouldn’t get good seats, and then he wouldn’t be able to hear the advisor’s instructions. He even insisted I go with him, saying we couldn’t be late on the first day of university. I had to use ’I need to take a shit’ as an excuse just to get away."
Wang Dayong chuckled and set the radio’s dismantled casing aside.
"Sounds like a real hard worker. You two are roommates? You’re in for a rough time."
Chu Ge kicked the leg of the desk.
"I’m a coder. I’ve got nothing in common with a study-freak like him. Hurry up, stop messing with that piece of junk. Get dressed and come with me."
"Where to?" Wang Dayong asked.
"To get our books. The notice is posted downstairs. It’s time to pick up our textbooks. Let’s go now and get back quickly. It’s so hot, I don’t want to be outside a minute longer than I have to be."
"Let’s go."
Chen Zhuo got off the bed and looked at Wang Dayong, who grabbed a tank top from his headboard and pulled it on.
The three of them left the dorm and headed toward the Physics Building, staying in the shade of the trees.
The afternoon sun was a bit blinding. A layer of heat shimmered over the asphalt road, making distant objects appear distorted.
The Physics Building was tucked behind a grove of old trees.
A large multimedia classroom on the first floor had been temporarily converted into a textbook distribution point.
As soon as they reached the door, the thick smell of knowledge washed over them.
The three of them walked inside.
In the open space of the classroom, more than forty neat, square stacks of books were piled up, bound tightly with crisscrossing plastic straps.
The person in charge of distribution looked like an upperclassman.
He was holding a piece of cardboard, huffing and puffing as he fanned himself with it.
Four or five new students were lined up in front of the upperclassman to get their books.
Chen Zhuo and the other two walked over and got in line behind them.
In front of them was a girl with a chin-length bob. She was wearing a faded gray T-shirt, a pair of worn-out old jeans, and a simple pair of canvas shoes.
The line moved very slowly.
When the logistics department packed the textbooks, they had taken a shortcut and hadn’t put student names on any of the bundles.
They had been packed by "set menu."
One batch for those taking all subjects, one for those exempt from English, one for those exempt from Advanced Mathematics. Stacks for different categories were all mixed together and piled on the floor.
So, to distribute the books, the upperclassman had no choice but to take the exemption forms from students and play a game of "find the books" among the nearly identical stacks on the floor.
A guy at the front of the line handed over his form.
"Hey, I’m exempt from Advanced Mathematics."
The upperclassman took the form, sighed, and set his cardboard fan aside.
He bent down and started rummaging through the huge pile of book stacks.
"The Advanced Math book is the green-covered one. Let me see..."
He wandered through the stacks for almost two minutes before finally dragging a bundle out from a corner near the wall. He patted the dust off it and handed it to the guy.
The next person handed over their form.
The upperclassman bent over again and began a new round of rummaging and identifying.
Watching from the back of the line, Chu Ge frowned.
He leaned close to Wang Dayong’s ear and complained in a low voice.
"What is this, stone-age efficiency? If this were my job, I’d write the simplest sorting algorithm, print out a few barcodes to stick on the bundles, and find them with a quick scan. Him doing it by eye like this... how long is this going to take?"
Wang Dayong wiped the sweat from his neck.
"Be grateful. At least he isn’t making you go in there and search for it yourself."
Finally, it was the girl in front of them’s turn.
She held out her registration certificate and exemption form with both hands and gave them to the upperclassman.
"Excuse me, I’m exempt from College English and General Physics Lab."
The upperclassman took the form, glanced at it, wiped the sweat from his face, and prepared to once again plunge into the dizzying sea of books.
"English is the red-covered one, and the Physics Lab is a thin yellow booklet. Just a second, let me look."
He had just taken a step.
"Excuse me."
The girl spoke up, stopping him.
The upperclassman stopped and looked back at her.
The girl didn’t move. She just raised her hand, extended a slender finger, and pointed to a spot on the right side of the classroom, near the windows.
"Over there. Second row, third bundle from the bottom."
The upperclassman froze.
"What?"
"That bundle doesn’t have a red-covered book or a yellow booklet in it. It’s mine."

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