I Fell in Love With My Cold-Hearted, Flirtatious Roommate (GL) - Chapter 7

For a subsequent period of time, Ran Jiu’s work seemed to have undergone an adjustment. She was still sleeping when Rong Ting left in the morning, but sometimes when Rong Ting returned in the evening, she would see light filtering out from under Ran Jiu’s door.

It was like a lamp light in a tranquil life.

The weather gradually warmed up. The flowers and plants on campus slowly grew, and the cafeteria also had a lot of seasonal watermelons. It was just that the library was sometimes very hot when the air conditioning wasn’t on.

Rong Ting spent more and more time at home, and most of the time she wouldn’t deliberately run to the library to do her homework anymore.

Sometimes she would buy some books and literary materials online. The downstairs courier service was managed by an old man. Over time, instead of dividing them by courier company, he segmented them by building and household. Sometimes after Rong Ting collected her own packages, she would find some left in the original spot. Once she looked at the recipient on one of them, it only had the character “Jiu.”

She hesitated for a long time, only taking her own packages back.

The next time she went, she found more packages piled up there, including a very large item. The old man in charge of the couriers grumbled: “It’s always your household that doesn’t pick up packages. Last month’s are still here.”

He was accustomed to managing the area and knew which households hadn’t picked up their mail, able to quickly locate each one’s packages. However, he didn’t know that the residents here were mostly highly mobile university students and migrant workers, and many households were shared rentals, so he shouldn’t calculate the backlog together.

Rong Ting apologized, then carried Ran Jiu’s packages back in two trips. The old man kept nagging her to come and collect them promptly next time.

After returning home, Rong Ting unpacked and organized her own books, placing Ran Jiu’s packages next to the sofa by the door. Fearing she wouldn’t see them, she also attached a sticky note on top, “These are yours, I helped you bring them back oh.”

She didn’t attend class that afternoon. In the evening, she heard the sound of the door opening. Ran Jiu was light-footed, so there was only a slight click of her heels against the floor, followed by the sound of the sofa being pressed down—the person outside seemed to be changing shoes.

Then the movement on that side stopped for a moment. Rong Ting guessed that she must have seen the pile of packages.

The subsequent sounds outside the door were very quiet: the sound of tape being torn, a small knife scratching, and the movement of styrofoam boxes being broken open. Ran Jiu carried things back and forth a few times, then returned to her bedroom and closed the door, with no more sound.

Rong Ting’s pen paused, and she shook her head.

Later, when she went out to wash up, Ran Jiu still hadn’t come out. There was a faint “ping-pong” sound coming from her bedroom, seemingly assembling something.

The next morning, the apartment was quiet when Rong Ting left. On the table were some purchased soy milk, meat patties (roubing), and several side dishes like tiger-skin green peppers (hupijianjiao). A very simple note was placed next to them, “Thank you, I’ll pick up my packages on time from now on. I appreciate the trouble this time /w/.”

Rong Ting looked at the strangely matched table of dishes, picked up and put down one after another in confusion, finally finished the meat patty and soy milk, and then forced herself to eat two vegetable dishes, but still left a lot.

Why did Ran Jiu buy her so much?

Then she realized, this seemed to be Ran Jiu’s normal portion size.

Putting down her chopsticks, Rong Ting felt unwarranted envy, jealousy, and fury. Why did she eat so much and still be so thin!!

The Lesser Freesia Studio (Xiao Cang Lan) had recently accepted many collaborations for audio dramas, as well as the voice-over for a small-budget web series. As a result, their time in the recording studio was increasingly compressed. Many live streams were postponed, and Xiao Zhi said they could only switch to conducting them at home.

On this day after the recording session ended, Xiao Zhi informed them that the microphones and sound cards purchased by the studio had been sent to everyone’s homes. If anyone also required a computer allocation, they needed to apply in advance.

Ran Jiu scrolled through a pile of unread messages on her phone and found that all her packages had already been collected by Rong Ting. She clicked “Select All” and “Delete.”

“Does anyone have any suggestions?”

Ran Jiu’s fingertip paused, keeping a few messages from Guizhou, “Sister Xiao Zhi, my work hours are flexible, and I can come here to stream anytime, so changing it to the morning is fine.”

Wei Feng immediately turned his head: “Not many people watch in the morning.”

Ran Jiu: “It’s okay, the capacity of the YY room is also limited.”

Wei Feng: … This statement was too much of a humblebrag.

Yu Lai: “Is the evening not suitable for Little Jiu? Sister Xiao Zhi actually wanted us to go home and rest earlier, which is why she sent the mic equipment.”

Ran Jiu paused: “I share an apartment with someone, and she is usually studying. My live streaming would bother her.”

“Then let’s do the morning,” Wei Feng was easy-going. “Anyway, we are neither cross-talk performers, nor do we rely on this to make money, nor do we sell our looks.”

Yu Lai immediately mocked, “Do you even have looks to sell?”

Wei Feng tried to refute but then smiled and shook his head. The few boys here were all standard science/engineering types; they looked decent, but they really couldn’t go down the idol route.

Xiao Zhi was a refined and emotional goddess, but she was already married. Her husband, rumor had it, was a manager at a foreign company. The couple was harmonious, and Xiao Zhi’s career was largely thanks to her family’s support.

When it came to appealing to both genders, everyone’s gaze collectively turned to Ran Jiu.

She was still cleaning up the text messages on her phone screen. Her slightly faded dark-green hair draped over one side of her face. Her nose bridge was straight, her long, thin eyelashes were distinct, and the faint lower eyelid fat (known as a “silkworm”) always made her eyes look exquisite and deep.

Ran Jiu seemed to sense it, raised her head, and looked around blankly, then turned off her phone screen.

Xiao Zhi remembered something: “When did your roommate start loving to study? Didn’t she often bring people home before?”

Ran Jiu shook her head: “I got a new one.”

Wei Feng found it hilarious: “A change is good, a change is good. The one you used to share with was truly an oddball. The last time I delivered something to you, she even tried to hit on me. Putting sticky notes on yogurt, can you imagine that?”

Ran Jiu seemed to recall something, and the corners of her lips slightly curved, which Wei Feng caught: “You think it’s weird too, right?”

The curve of Ran Jiu’s lips dropped. She wasn’t used to speaking ill of others, so she could only deliberate for a long time: “The previous roommate was just relatively… enthusiastic?”

“Enthusiastic my butt.” Wei Feng laughed. Since they started graduate studies, they had met many people, and he advised her in the tone of an elder: “Yu Lai and I came looking for you several times and ran into her entering and leaving your apartment with different guys. She could form a soccer team. If you ask me, it’s better that you split up—oh no, I mean it’s better not to share. If you must share, change to someone quiet and obedient, don’t look for trouble.”

Ran Jiu nodded in agreement: “At the time, I planned to live alone.”

She wasn’t that dissatisfied with the last roommate; she was just tired.

Ultimately, that girl had no other faults, she was just full of energy and circulated among different guys.

Ran Jiu was used to it, believing it was just a choice of different lifestyles for different people, and besides, it hadn’t disturbed her. Her only requirements were not to enter her room, not to touch her things, and not to bring men back when she was home.

Ran Jiu adopted a hands-off attitude toward her last roommate: ignoring her, not caring.

Besides, she spent most of her time at the studio. Other than coming home to sleep, she wasn’t home the rest of the time, occasionally greeting the roommate when they met.

She believed that roommate relations were just that.

Later, the girl wanted to live with her boyfriend and moved out without telling her. Ran Jiu didn’t realize she had moved out for a long time until the girl asked her for the deposit. Only then did she remember she had such a roommate.

Ran Jiu didn’t explain to her that the deposit required the landlord’s agreement, and they had to terminate the lease together. She returned the girl’s half to her and felt relieved deleting the extra person from WeChat.

Including this roommate, she had a total of four previous roommates, and none of them stayed long. She was tired of helping others clean up messes and was planning to live alone.

When her mother’s friend contacted her that day, she was resistant. But after withstanding the other person’s repeated persuasion, she finally relented and allowed the person to come and check out the apartment first.

When she opened the door, she didn’t have much expectation. But as her vision opened up, the girl outside was wearing a light-blue cloud-patterned shirt, dutifully buttoned up to the very top, revealing a fair, slender neck. Over it was a thin, apricot-yellow cashmere coat. Her features were delicate and gentle, yet she had a somewhat prim and proper air.

She must be a good girl (guai baobao), and the idea of teasing her sprouted in Ran Jiu’s mind.

Later, she teased her twice in total, and both times it made the girl’s ears turn red.

That hesitant heart, somehow, became no longer hesitant.