Chapter 116: What Are You Going to Do With Her?

After that small incident, Cheng Xingye escorted her back to the sports field.

In the following days, Lu Qingyue was afraid of causing Cheng Xingye any more trouble or giving others a reason to say that the former student council president was abusing his power for personal gain. So she behaved herself, staying out of the spotlight and causing no further issues.

Although the military training for freshmen at Jiangda University took place on campus and the instructors were senior students from the school, the training was by no means perfunctory. The regimen was intense—Lu Qingyue and her classmates had to assemble in the evenings for laps and group singing. The girls in her dorm often fell asleep the moment they returned.

For a couple supposedly in the throes of young love, the relentless schedule left them with barely any time to chat on WeChat, let alone find an opportunity to share a meal together. Even though they were at the same university, there were stretches of two or three days where they barely saw one another. Only when Cheng Xingye had no afternoon classes could he stop by to see her, and then she would have to hurry off to shower and prepare for the evening assembly.

The last day of military training fell on a Friday afternoon, and as there were no classes for first-year graduate students, Chen Shujie called everyone to the sports field for a game of basketball. Noticing Cheng Xingye alone in the dorm reading a paper, he insisted on dragging him along.

Cheng Xingye thought the basketball court was right next to the field and planned to look for that “little rascal” later anyway, so he changed and went with them.

After four o’clock, the basketball courts near the men’s dorms at Jiangda were nearly full. Cheng Xingye and his friends were regulars; most of the players knew him, and they waved at him from afar.

All four courts were occupied. On one, there were only three unfamiliar faces. Lou Zhao recognized them vaguely, saying they were from the College of Chemistry. So Chen Shujie went over to negotiate, and soon they joined in.

Cheng Xingye didn’t mind whom he played with; on the court, it didn’t matter if you knew each other—as long as you had a ball, you could play together. But as soon as the game began, he realized these guys had terrible sportsmanship. Their play was aggressive enough, but there were also plenty of sneaky fouls.

It was just a casual scrimmage, yet their opponents kept committing fouls, and once even knocked Chen Shujie to the ground. Cheng Xingye reached out and helped him up.

Chen Shujie was furious, unable to hold back a curse. “Damn it, that’s dirty!”

Cheng Xingye, his interest waning, suggested, “Maybe we should just call it.”

But Chen Shujie, his competitive spirit ignited, refused to back down. “No way, let’s keep playing!”

He rolled his neck, swallowing his anger, but when he returned to the court, his movements were sharper, more confrontational.

The guys from the College of Chemistry actually knew who Cheng Xingye was. Who at the university didn’t know the heir of the Dingli Group? But people can’t help harboring a sense of resentment toward the wealthy—especially in student days, when everyone struggles to get into a good university to change their fate, only to find that social class is determined at birth. The finish line you spend half your life striving to reach is someone else’s starting point. Who could accept that?

So, seeing Cheng Xingye, they held nothing back, using the game to vent their dissatisfaction with the gap between rich and poor.

Neither side was willing to give an inch; the confrontation was intense, neither needle nor wheat ear yielding to the other.

Back and forth they battled until, in the end, the Chemistry team’s stamina gave out first, and they swapped in new players. Cheng Xingye had also exhausted himself and went to get some water.

By then, it was nearly five o’clock. On the sports field, the final review was wrapping up.

The classes who had completed their inspection returned to their formations, waiting for the chief instructor’s concluding remarks. Class 1 of Economics sat in the shade near the field’s edge.

The boys from the College of Chemistry, at loose ends, wandered over to watch the freshmen’s review. There, they spotted a sweet-faced, well-behaved girl standing in the ranks.

She wore an ordinary camouflage uniform, her thick hair pulled up in a high ponytail, skin fair and delicate, eyes round and bright. With the military training scheduled right at the tail end of the summer heat, everyone had been baking for seven or eight hours a day, and many had turned as dark as charcoal. Yet Lu Qingyue, already strikingly pretty and blessed with naturally fair skin, stood out among the tanned faces, dazzling as if she glowed.

The boy who had just knocked down Chen Shujie walked over to the wire fence by the court, eyes fixed intently on her. He clicked his tongue with a smirk. “Which department is that girl from? She’s really pretty.”

One of his friends, glancing at her formation, guessed uncertainly, “Looks like a freshman from Economics and Management. I’ll ask around later—we’ll know soon enough.”

The semester had only just begun, but a girl that pretty would inevitably be identified on the school forum in no time. Finding out which department she was in would be a breeze.

The boy who’d knocked Chen Shujie down was genuinely interested in Lu Qingyue, his gaze openly roaming up and down her figure. Though hidden beneath her loose uniform, the curves of a newly adult woman were unmistakable—a slender waist, long, straight legs.

Some unsavory thoughts arose in him, and he grinned wickedly, saying with a leering tone, “Isn’t this that new trend, what do they call it—pure desire? Damn, if she were my girlfriend, I’d be with her every day…”

Before he could finish, a ball hurtled through the air and struck him hard on the back of the head with a heavy thud.

The force knocked him forward, his face slamming into the wire fence. His scalp throbbed, his mind spinning, and it was a moment before he realized someone had deliberately thrown the ball at him.

“Son of a bitch…” he spat, clutching the back of his head and turning around, about to curse—but was stopped short, meeting Cheng Xingye’s cold, hard gaze.

The man, half a head taller, stood before him with a stern, angular face, eyes sharp and implacable, his very presence radiating a chilling oppression.

Cheng Xingye stared him down, his voice low and brimming with suppressed menace. “With her, you’d do what?”