Be Passionately In Love

A University typically enrolls around fifty to sixty students from S Province each year. However, the admission scores aren’t always straightforward due to the province’s recent education reforms, which introduced a 60-point Self-selected module, bringing the total score to 810. This made A University’s cutoff scores unpredictable. Before 2009, scoring 700 in S Province would have universities like A, B, C, and D clamoring to call you, given the notorious difficulty of the provincial exams. But after the 2009 reforms, with the addition of the 60-point Self-selected module, nearly a thousand students in S Province now score above 700 each year.

So, raw scores alone don’t matter—it’s all about provincial rankings. Xu Zhi ranked 38th in the province, well within A University’s usual range.

But then, in the next moment, Chen Luzhou’s exam results abruptly flashed across the screen.

Chen Luzhou, Science track. Total score: 713. Self-selected module: 0. Provincial rank: 362.

Well, that’s outside the top 300. Even with his 20-point competition bonus, he might barely miss A University’s cutoff. He had initially thought getting into A University wouldn’t be a problem, but after seeing Xu Zhi’s ranking, he realized just how fierce this year’s competition was. He had overestimated himself. Fine—maybe it was for the best. No regrets.

“Did you check yours?” Xu Zhi asked hesitantly over the phone.

“Yeah,” Chen Luzhou replied, already having exited the score-checking website. He was now browsing A University’s architecture program’s historical admission scores for her. “Want to know?”

“Do you want to tell me?” Xu Zhi was curious but also wary, scarred by Tan Xu’s reaction to poor results. “It’s fine if you don’t. You’re going abroad anyway.”

“Seven-thirteen,” he said bluntly, omitting that it was his raw score. The gaokao was just one phase of life—whether he aced it or bombed it wouldn’t define his future. No point in dwelling on it. Explaining too much would only make someone else worry needlessly.

So Xu Zhi assumed it included the Self-selected module. “That’s not bad, right?”

Chen Luzhou lazily scrolled through A University’s admission brochure and joked, “It’s alright. But for me, anything below 750 is a flop.”

Xu Zhi didn’t expect him to be even more shameless than her. “Are all No. 1 High School kids this crazy? And aren’t you afraid Jiang Changwei will smack you for saying that?”

Jiang Changwei was a notorious, sharp-tongued teacher from their city’s top high school. Rumored to be one of the gaokao exam setters, students in Qingyi trembled at his name.

Chen Luzhou chuckled, slowly scrolling down. “You guys at Rui Jun just call him ‘Jiang Changwei’ outright?”

“Well, he never taught us. But whenever we saw his name on city-wide mock exams, we knew we were doomed,” Xu Zhi groaned. “The difficulty would instantly jump to 8.5, and our scores would be unsalvageable. Ugh, did he teach you?”

“Yeah, first and second year. He also coached our math Olympiad team.”

“So… is he really one of the gaokao exam setters?”

Chen Luzhou thought for a moment, indulging her curiosity. “That’s the rumor at school. Every May for the past two years, his classes were covered by substitutes. The school said he was away for ‘research and study,’ but everyone assumes he was setting the gaokao papers.”“Did he not know he was going to draft the exam papers?”

“Even if he knew, he wouldn’t tell us. But supposedly, he didn’t know. Usually, they just notify you to attend a study session out of town, and only after arriving do you find out it’s for drafting the exam. All communication devices are confiscated, and you’re not released until after the college entrance exams are over. That’s why no one could reach him for over a month—he was probably drafting the papers. But if you ask him directly, he’ll deny it.”

“He’s probably afraid of getting beaten up,” Xu Zhi laughed. After a pause of two or three seconds, she called out, “Chen Luzhou.”

Chen Luzhou responded with a hum. He had been planning to help her look up architecture programs at other universities, but the tone of her voice suggested she had a favor to ask, so his movements slowed unconsciously. “Go on.”

After a brief silence, she asked, “Can you check someone else’s score for me?”

Chen Luzhou’s hand, scrolling the mouse, paused slightly. He had a good guess who she meant. “Do you remember their ID number and exam ticket number?”

“Yes. I’ve bought train tickets for them before, so I have their ID saved on my phone. The exam ticket number is a bit fuzzy, but I can try,” Xu Zhi added. “He really did help me a lot with my grades. I just want to know what went wrong—”

“No need to explain,” he interrupted, his tone unchanged but slightly colder. Expressionlessly, he closed the admissions brochure for University A and reopened the score inquiry page for her. “Give me the numbers.”

Xu Zhi, however, fell silent.

Chen Luzhou’s patience wore thin. “Xu Zhi?”

“Never mind. Checking someone else’s score without permission feels a bit unethical,” she said. Though her own moral boundaries were low, she didn’t want Chen Luzhou to take the blame. “I’ll ask him myself later.”

“Suit yourself.” Chen Luzhou shut down the computer and got up to leave.

“Yeah, I’ll hang up now. I need to tell my dad about my score first,” Xu Zhi said.

The internet café was crowded. Next to Chen Luzhou, a guy had just checked his score—698—and closed the page with a numb expression. He put on his headphones and went back to casually gaming with friends as if nothing had happened. When someone asked why he’d been standing still earlier, the guy replied offhandedly, “Checking my score.”

The disparity in the world of top students was staggering, let alone among average ones.

“I was hoping to aim for the Central Academy of Fine Arts this year, but after seeing my score, I know it’s hopeless. What a shame—my specialty ranking was 81st in the province.”

After the scores were released, Zhu Yangqi, Feng Jin, and their group had set up camp in Chen Luzhou’s rented apartment from his senior year. The living room was a mess of leftover barbecue skewers and empty beer cans scattered haphazardly across the sofa and floor.

Zhu Yangqi’s cleanliness obsession kicked in. As he bent over to tidy up like an old housemaid, he grumbled, “Chen Luzhou, just pay me. Hiring a cleaner costs fifty or sixty an hour these days.”

Chen Luzhou, broke yet unapologetic, sat on the carpet with a game controller, playing Super Mario with Feng Jin. He leaned lazily against the coffee table, his inner dog-like nature surfacing. “I’ve only got five hundred in my account. If that’s not enough, I can offer my good looks as payment.”

Zhu Yangqi scoffed. “Hah, didn’t you once say you’d rather die than sell your looks?”

“Exactly. So I’d rather die than give you money.”

“With how stingy you are, you’ll pinch your way to a mansion someday.”Jiang Cheng sat on the single-seater sofa with his girlfriend perched on his lap. The two were so lovey-dovey that the air grew thick and sticky, as if smeared with glutinous rice cake. Disgusting as it was, there was nothing to be done—who could argue with someone who had a girlfriend? Once Zhu Yangqi finished tidying up, the living room instantly felt more spacious, with clean windows and a spotless floor. Perhaps finding Jiang Cheng’s display too nauseating, Zhu Yangqi grabbed a pillow to block the view and leaned against Chen Luzhou’s shoulder in an exaggeratedly languid pose, watching him mercilessly defeat Feng Jin in the game while chattering nonstop: "You’re going easy on him, aren’t you? Seems like you and Feng Jin aren’t that close yet. When you were crushing me, you didn’t leave me a single coin."

"Get lost," Feng Jin shot back, refusing to concede. "You’re just bad at this."

Ignoring him, Zhu Yangqi continued provoking Chen Luzhou. "Cai Yingying just told me Xu Zhi ranked first in her school. Do you know her score?"

"No idea," Chen Luzhou replied, not taking the bait. His eyes remained fixed on the TV screen as he focused intently on maneuvering the game controller.

"Fair enough," Zhu Yangqi pressed on, undeterred. "Rui Jun is just an average high school, after all. I’ve heard their top student would only be mid-tier in our school. Even if she got into Zongshan, she’d probably be at the bottom of the class, right?"

Suddenly, the character on the left side of the screen froze, allowing Feng Jin to swoop in and snatch all the nearby coins. Seizing the advantage, Feng Jin surged ahead, effortlessly bypassing the character Chen Luzhou had been controlling, which had previously blocked his path.

Zhu Yangqi turned his head and saw that Chen Luzhou had indeed stopped playing. Instead, he set down the controller, one knee bent as he sat on the floor, resting his elbow on it with a sly, almost unnervingly intense gaze. Slowly, he uttered two words: "Wanna bet?"

Zhu Yangqi was taken aback—he’d never seen Chen Luzhou so serious before. "Bet on what?"

"Bet that even if she gets into Zongshan, she won’t be at the bottom. Even there, someone like her would be one in a million."

Zhu Yangqi teased him, "Love is blind, huh?"

Feng Jin overheard and shot him a surprised look. "Wait, Chen Luzhou, you like Xu Zhi?"

Chen Luzhou instinctively glanced at Jiang Cheng. Thankfully, he was too absorbed in flirting with his girlfriend to notice. Jiang Cheng was close with Tan Xu, and Chen Luzhou didn’t want Tan Xu finding out. He was the latecomer, the one who’d arrived second—their bond would always run deeper. Worse, he feared that Tan Xu, who hadn’t valued Xu Zhi before, might suddenly start pursuing her again if he knew someone else was interested. So he shot Zhu Yangqi a glare, picked up the controller again, and said coolly to Feng Jin, "No, not really. Just think she’s prettier than most girls."

Feng Jin nodded. "Yeah, she’s gorgeous. Didn’t expect her grades to be so good either. I don’t agree with Zhu Yangqi—she’s still first place, after all. Whether it’s a chicken or a phoenix, the head is still the head, right?" Realizing his metaphor was off, he corrected himself, "Or the tail is still part of the phoenix?" Still not quite right, he gave up. "Ah, whatever. I’m bad at this. But the first time I saw her, I thought, damn, she’s stunning. I wondered if I’d just seen too few beauties lately. But if even you say so, then my taste isn’t off."

Chen Luzhou and Zhu Yangqi exchanged a glance. Chen Luzhou coughed. "You don’t… like her too, do you?"

Feng Jin laughed. "Nah, same as you—just superficial appreciation. Wait, why ‘too’? Who else likes her?"This time, Jiang Cheng heard it. While peeling grapes for his girlfriend, he asked with great interest, "Who? Who likes who?"

Chen Luzhou glanced at Zhu Yangqi—solve this problem yourself.

Zhu Yangqi had no choice but to take the blame. "Me, me, me. I like Cai Yingying."

Feng Jin was immediately sidetracked, looking incredulous. "Zhu Yangqi, you actually like Cai Yingying?"

Jiang Cheng had no idea who Cai Yingying was, so he didn’t press further. He fed the grapes to his girlfriend one by one and then asked if she wanted an orange.

Chen Luzhou was equally shocked and laughed, "Zhu Yangqi, are you serious?"

"This is all because of you," Zhu Yangqi whispered in his ear, his face flushed with embarrassment, no longer hiding it. "Everything is because of that night I helped you by taking Cai Yingying away."

"The way you say it makes it sound like she forced a kiss on you. Seems like you were pretty passive," Chen Luzhou couldn’t stop laughing.

"No, nothing like that," Zhu Yangqi reluctantly explained. "Remember after we ate at Shangfang Hotpot? She was too full and said she wanted to walk it off, so I went with her. Then we ran into Zhai Xiao and Chai Jingjing halfway. You remember, right?"

Feng Jin realized they had a lot of juicy gossip, and it was quite entertaining. So he pricked up his ears to listen carefully.

Chen Luzhou leaned lazily against the coffee table, nodded, and hummed in acknowledgment. With a knowing look at Zhu Yangqi, he didn’t even need him to continue and pieced the story together himself. "Then Cai Yingying grabbed your hand and asked you to pretend to be her boyfriend, and you, being utterly hopeless, fell for her."

Zhu Yangqi was on the verge of tears. "Chen Gougou, you really have watched too many dramas. Such a cliché plot, and you figured it out instantly. And worst of all, you’re right. Ugh, am I sick or something? If a slightly pretty girl so much as touches me, I’ve already thought of our kids’ names."

Chen Luzhou knew Zhu Yangqi all too well. Back in elementary school, a girl in their class accidentally gave Zhu Yangqi an extra piece of candy when distributing them. Zhu Yangqi proceeded to have a crush on her for a whole year. Then, just before graduation, another girl mistakenly slipped the autograph page meant for her secret crush into Zhu Yangqi’s yearbook. Zhu Yangqi swore to turn over a new leaf and study hard to get into a top middle school for her sake.

Only then did Feng Jin speak up. "Zhu Yangqi, you’re in trouble. Cai Yingying seems to like someone else."

Zhu Yangqi: "I know. But how do you know? Did she talk to you privately too?"

Feng Jin quickly clarified, "Don’t get the wrong idea. Remember when we went to that city to check out shops? On the way back, it was just the two of us, and we were bored, so we chatted a bit."

By now, they had switched to a soccer game. Hearing this, Chen Luzhou’s No. 8 player froze on the lush green field. He gave Feng Jin a suspicious look and asked, "That day coming back from the other city, it was just you and Cai Yingying? What about Xu Zhi?"

Feng Jin nodded. "Xu Zhi said she was waiting for you. We came back first. Why? Didn’t you two come back together?"

At this point...Before Chen Luzhou could ponder further—Was Xu Zhi waiting for me?—the doorbell rang. He was about to tell Zhu Yangqi to answer it when, in a flash, a faint possibility flickered through his mind. So he forcefully shoved Zhu Yangqi, who had just started to rise from the floor, back down and wordlessly tossed the game controller into his lap before going to open the door himself.

……

"Hello, your delivery is here."

Alright, he knew she wouldn’t come. He knew her offer to rush over and cook him porridge overnight was just a joke. But when the doorbell rang, his heart still hammered uncontrollably in his chest. Zhu Yangqi claimed he wasn’t familiar with Feng Jin and had been going easy on him all evening, but the truth was, his mind had been elsewhere.

The hallway light was broken. Potted plants crowded the windowsill, blocking half the moonlight, leaving the corridor pitch-black. It was so dark he could barely see his own hand, let alone the delivery person’s silhouette. From the voice, it sounded like a woman with a low tone.

"Thanks," Chen Luzhou said, taking the delivery bag, but the other person didn’t let go.

Only then did he instinctively look up at her face. It was so dark that Xu Zhi, afraid he wouldn’t recognize her, had foolishly turned on her phone’s flashlight and shone it upward from below, illuminating her face. Her skin was naturally pale, and her features were delicate—but the effect nearly scared Chen Luzhou to death.

"It’s me, Chen Luzhou."

Holy shit—

He almost cursed aloud. He’d just been thinking about her, and now he probably wouldn’t dare to for a while.

"If Zhu Yangqi had opened the door, your head would’ve been smashed in by now," Chen Luzhou said.

"If he’d opened it, I would’ve left immediately."

"So why are you here now, Architect Xu?" He took the food from her, leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, looking down at her with an amused smile. "Coming to check my apartment’s feng shui in the middle of the night?"

Xu Zhi met his gaze with clear, bright eyes, utterly unashamed. "Huh? Didn’t you say if I didn’t come, I’d be a dog?"

He dragged out an "Ohhh" in response. Then he stepped out, pulling the door shut behind him and leaning his back against it, the delivery still in hand. One hand slipped into his pocket. The hallway was so dark—Xu Zhi had already turned off her flashlight—that when Chen Luzhou closed the door, the last remnants of light vanished. He looked down at her in the pitch-black doorway, studying her freely.

Tonight, he hadn’t touched a drop of alcohol. Not a single sip. But his heart burned, its pounding reverberating in his chest.

Chen Luzhou lowered his voice as he gazed at her. "Just to cook a bowl of porridge?"

"Are you feeling better?" Xu Zhi finally asked seriously. "And I wanted to ask you about college applications."

"What about them?" He tilted his head up to glance at the broken light above, his expression uncharacteristically earnest as he listened.

"I’ve ruled out Qing University, but Beijing is too far. I’m thinking of Shanghai—T University’s architecture program is second only to A University’s."

They stood side by side against the corridor wall. The senior-year review building was quiet. Since the exams ended, almost everyone had moved out, except for a few students planning to retake them next year. Chen Luzhou’s floor was the only one still occupied, and no one had bothered to fix the broken light. Xu Zhi leaned against the water-stained, peeling wall, seemingly uncertain, and asked him:

"What do you think of T University’s architecture program?"

Chen Luzhou had already looked it up for her at the internet café. He thought the admission score was too low—around 710 in previous years. What a coincidence—wasn’t that about the same as his own score?Chen Luzhou leaned against the door, still holding the takeout, one hand in his pocket. He glanced at her, his Adam's apple bobbing impatiently. "What do you mean by that?"

Are you actually trying to reel me in, damn it?

Xu Zhi looked bewildered. "...No, I did the math. The high-speed train to Beijing costs 680, while the one to Shanghai is only 180—"

Author's Note: Chen Luzhou: She must be lowering her standards to accommodate me, choosing Shanghai over Beijing. She wants me to stay!

Xu Zhi: Yingying... Let me calculate—the high-speed train to Beijing costs 680, while the one to Shanghai is only 180.

200 red envelopes.

I recalculated the scores carefully yesterday and made some adjustments. Xu Zhi's total score with the optional subject is 738.

CLZ's college entrance exam score isn't low either. I'll explain more later. Honestly, with his raw score, almost no one in this province could achieve it in reality. Even I feel like I've given him too much of a golden finger.

——————

Admissions aren't just about the cutoff scores. In fact, Xu Zhi's score is still quite risky for A University's architecture program. Chen Luzhou didn't check the provincial ranking at the time, but if he had, he'd have thought it was a bit risky too. Still, compared to Rui Jun, Chen Luzhou is incredibly proud that Xu Zhi achieved such results. Often, some people choose a more secure university to ensure they get their preferred major, but this plot point doesn't affect the story's progression. I'm just mentioning it in advance to prevent some readers from over-identifying.