Chapter 1: Filth on the Meteor

The night was already deep, and the round moon shyly hid behind the clouds from time to time. The scattered blue light between the clouds could not compare to the moon’s brilliance, but it still tried hard to shine.

“At this moment, it perfectly matches the mood of a poem!” The tall and burly man with thick eyebrows and big eyes, who happened to have a scarred face, held his breath and focused. For a moment, his expression was solemn, as if he had sunk into the state of mind of the ancients. Gazing at the round moon that was about to hide behind the clouds again, and under the watchful eyes of his girlfriend who was full of worship, he began to recite. “Quiet Night Thought!”

Chen Fengshi spat out a mouthful of beer. Even the Skinny beside him, who had not expected much to begin with and was even waiting for the awkward contrast, was still severely shocked.

“Laugh! What are you laughing at?” The ‘Big Guy’ who had just recited the title was very dissatisfied and excitedly scolded them for ruining the atmosphere.

Chen Fengshi could not hold back his complaints and said, “Big Guy, it’s bad enough that you picked a poem that even elementary schoolers know, but could you not recite the title like you are reciting a textbook? Is there anyone who pretends to be cultured and also includes the title?”

The Skinny in the same dorm room angrily scolded, “If you recite a poem, you should find one that others haven’t heard and don’t understand! That’s the only way to have style! Reciting an elementary school text that everyone knows is just stupid!”

“You country bumpkins!” The Big Guy looked like a summer bug that could not understand ice. He cleared his throat on his own. Seeing that his girlfriend’s gaze was still firmly stuck on his face, he gathered himself and continued to recite. “Bright moonlight before the bed, suspected to be frost on the ground, raising my head to look at the bright moon—”

The Big Guy’s gaze and expression changed as he recited. Just as he put on a melancholy look and raised his head to gaze at the moon, the Skinny in the same dorm suddenly pointed at the sky and shouted with a mix of surprise and joy, “A meteor!”

In the sky, the night curtain was streaked by light. It looked so close as if it would land right outside the campus.

The attention of the group was drawn over. The Big Guy’s girlfriend excitedly shouted, “Make a wish!”

The Skinny had already put down his beer. He put his palms together and devoutly made a wish in silence.

The Big Guy’s displeasure vanished in an instant, and he hurriedly made a wish like his girlfriend. Finally, after two pairs of eyes opened, they gazed affectionately at each other, understanding each other’s wishes perfectly as if their minds were connected.

Chen Fengshi slowly picked up his beer. Looking at the sweet love between the Big Guy and his girlfriend, he thought of the goddess he had secretly loved for a long time. His envy was written all over his face, but the sour pain could only be hidden in his heart.

The Skinny finally opened his eyes, his face brimming with the excitement that his wish seemed bound to come true, and might even come true immediately.

The Big Guy was only focused on gazing affectionately at his girlfriend. For a moment, it was as if there were only the two of them in the world. Chen Fengshi clinked beer bottles with the Skinny, took a sip, and the sadness from a moment ago beneath his starry eyes and sharp eyebrows had already faded, revealing his usual sharp glint. He stared at the Skinny and asked, “Got a plan?”

Making a wish on a meteor is just a beautiful ceremony. If you come across one, you don’t mind doing it, but actually, they all knew it had nothing to do with whether the wish could come true. The Skinny’s unusually excited mood at this time was certainly not because of the meteor.

The Skinny liked Chen Fengshi because he understood him and the Big Guy so well, so he said in an even better mood, “My dad supports me staying in Xuancheng, and my mom wants me to go back. Both sides have paved the way for me, but in terms of development prospects… I still have to go back. In the future, my aunt will directly look out for me, and climbing the ladder and stuff like that will have hope. If I stay in Xuancheng, the income is a bit higher, but I’ll have to fight entirely on my own.”

“Stay! Why leave! Let’s make our mark in Xuancheng together!” The Big Guy came back to his senses and certainly did not want his good friend to leave. Moreover, he and his girlfriend would both stay and develop in Xuancheng, and there were originally a lot of opportunities here. “Right? Old Chen?”

Chen Fengshi smiled and shook his head. His good friends originally called him Old Chen, but later they felt he liked to stay silent and act deep, so it became Old Shen. “Whether Skinny stays or leaves, it’s useless for us to say. It depends on his goddess.”

The Big Guy looked completely confused. Skinny’s so-called goddess was purely a one-sided crush. Other than that, there was basically no further relationship. Even though she had broken up with her boyfriend half a year ago, to say that Skinny had a chance, the Big Guy knew that was self-deception.

But the Skinny excitedly stood up suddenly and shouted, “That’s right! I’ve decided, regardless of the consequences! I’ll confess! If I succeed, I’ll stay in Xuancheng; if I fail, I’ll go home!”

“Good luck!” The Big Guy and his girlfriend were full of love. Although they felt the chances were very slim, they still sincerely hoped that lovers would eventually get married and longed to fill the world with love, so they raised their glasses together to encourage him.

“I wish you success.” Chen Fengshi also sincerely blessed him, but at the same time, he felt that Skinny’s decision was equivalent to preparing to go back. He felt that Skinny actually did not hold much hope for success; it was more of a kind of resolve—not wanting to leave any regrets, and not wanting to pointlessly deceive himself anymore, which would affect an important choice at the crossroads of his life.

The Skinny had already made up his mind. Encouraged by his best friends, he felt even more uplifted. He drank the beer in the bottle in one gulp and tossed it hard. “Old Chen, you come along too! You can’t leave yourself with regrets either!”

“I’ll pass. You at least have a chance. Confessing to Shen Ai would purely be asking for torture. It’s almost graduation; haven’t enough people been rejected by her over these past few years? She is as good as her word. She said she wouldn’t talk about romantic relationships before graduation, and she really doesn’t. Even if I have the energy, I have to wait before using it!” This was the situation with the goddess in Chen Fengshi’s mind. Precisely because of this, he simply admired Shen Ai, which in turn produced an even stronger attraction, allowing him to secretly love her until now.

The Skinny sobered up a bit and felt that made sense. Their situations were different, and it was not appropriate to generalize, so he no longer said anything to force him.

The Big Guy suddenly raised his chin and called out to Chen Fengshi, “Your goddess—”

Chen Fengshi looked over unhurriedly. Whenever this happened, the Skinny felt he was really good at pretending to be calm. People who didn’t know the truth really couldn’t tell that he had actually liked Shen Ai for years. When others saw their goddess, their gazes would instantly dart away, but Chen Fengshi would always pretend as if nothing had happened, saying that men had to appear mature and steady.

A large group of people poured out of the dorm building, crowding outward as they shouted about going to find the meteorite. The focus of Chen Fengshi’s attention was only on that beautiful figure in the crowd. Pulled by his dorm friends, he moved with the flow of people. In her bright big eyes flashed a light full of passion and joy, and her delicate face looked as beautifully extraordinary as in a virtual world in Chen Fengshi’s eyes.

Shen Ai had already gone far away with the crowd, but Chen Fengshi still had not withdrawn his gaze. In Skinny’s opinion, this completely betrayed his calm disguise from a moment ago, so he urged, “Not going to follow?”

“This kind of joining the fun has never suited me. Just to go over and look at her a few more times? Such a silly thing would only make me look too immature. Shen Ai is obviously the kind of person who thinks a steady personality equals reliability.” Chen Fengshi was completely calm and calmly composed. Even though he was reasonable and well-grounded, he still could not get their agreement.

The Big Guy objected, “Love is supposed to be passionate, so why be as calm as ice?”

“Exactly! Passionate and earth-shattering is true love!” The Big Guy’s girlfriend echoed her boyfriend.

“Serious love should be striven for with all one’s might; impulsive failures are not allowed. Look at how many first loves and true loves end up as regrets, buried in the graveyard of memories?” Chen Fengshi was very persistent about this. Full of passion, he said, “What I seek is not holding hands, but a lifetime of staying together.”

“Old Chen is sometimes even more nauseating than the Big Guy and his girlfriend, but I just want to ask—” The Skinny paused, took a breath, and his expression became especially serious: “—what makes you think you’re not afraid of someone else beating you to it?”

“That’s nonsense; asking it the other way around is the same.” Chen Fengshi remained calm.

The Skinny was speechless. Thinking about his own matters, he opened another bottle of beer and drank it all in one breath, as if this added confidence to his courage to confess. Then, unknowingly, stimulated by the alcohol, he fell asleep, immersed in the beauty of the wish he made under the meteor.

The meteor looked like it landed right outside the campus, but it was actually not that close. More than half of the students who ran out and climbed the hill went back without seeing it. After searching for a while with no results, the rest of the people also gradually dispersed.

Shen Ai chatted with a group of friends from her dorm as they walked back. She heard someone complain that the person who first shouted that the meteor fell this way had scammed everyone. Maybe it burned up before it hit the ground, or maybe it was still far away.

On a tree that the crowd passed by, as the wind blew the branches and leaves, a speck of black, like dust, fell down. When it dropped to the ground in front of Shen Ai’s group, it didn’t even attract attention. However, the next moment, Shen Ai involuntarily shook her head slightly, and then she saw that several friends around her did the same. Some even felt dizzy for a moment and almost fell over.

Was the wind too cold?

Shen Ai and the others all felt an inexplicable unease, until they saw other schoolmates around, they regained their sense of security. A bolder girl joked about the one who almost fell, who looked fine now, saying, “That time of the month, lacking blood and energy?”

This made the group laugh, and the brief strangeness from a moment ago was thrown behind them. Returning outside the school, everyone felt especially hungry. Even the two who never ate after eight o’clock in the evening were unbearably hungry. They ate a huge meal without any resistance, and the amount made even themselves click their tongues. After returning to the dorm building, they all felt especially sleepy. Finally, the last one to close her eyes self-deprecatingly said, “A room full of pigs who eat and then sleep,” and before even ten seconds passed, she fell asleep too.

The meteor streaked across; who knows how many people made wishes. After the momentary brilliance, some people entered sweet dreams.

Chen Fengshi was not drunk, and he did not have a girlfriend, so the responsibility of taking care of the Skinny fell to him. After the Big Guy helped carry the Skinny back to the dorm, he went to accompany his girlfriend who was afraid of being alone in the rented room.

The Skinny slept very deeply. In his daze, he suddenly mumbled a sentence of sleep talk that had no beginning or end. “…There are so many meteors in the world, there must be one that is different…”

The rest of his words were muffled and completely inaudible. Chen Fengshi also did not know if what the Skinny wanted to say in his dream was something like: This one can make his wish come true.

Seeing Shen Ai and her friends returning from afar, Chen Fengshi lit a cigarette. He didn’t really like smoking; he just needed the flickering firelight of the burning cigarette to become a focal point to attract attention. But unfortunately, Shen Ai’s group had not noticed yet. The dorm building manager happened to see it from below and shouted, “Who’s there—”

Chen Fengshi had to put out the cigarette. Carrying a sulky sense of loss, he lay down to sleep.

In the quiet mountain forest, the wind blew and the leaves moved. A flying insect landed on the soil and suddenly stopped moving. After a long while, its wings fluttered, and it flew onto the stem of a plant. Violating its usual feeding pattern, it desperately sucked the sap…