I'm a sophomore in college, what the heck is this "male god cultivation system"?

Chapter 19 Circle of Friends

After entering university, the appeal of summer vacation for students drops sharply.

After all, students can use their phones and computers anytime at school, have their own living expenses, and can skip class when they want to slack off. Moreover, their families can't control them at all. It's like being far from the emperor's reach, with maximum freedom.

Aside from the accommodations being a bit worse, in other aspects, there's not much difference between school days and holidays.

For this reason, some students even look forward to starting school early.

Zhao Zheng was one of them.

……

When will school start?!

Zhao Zheng lay on the bed, groaning weakly.

For him, summer vacation was far less enjoyable than school days.

After all, he was in school, so he could stay up as late as he wanted, and his living expenses were usually quite sufficient.

Now that I'm on vacation at home, my monthly allowance of two thousand yuan has naturally been cancelled. As for staying up late...

His parents place great importance on his daily routine and require him to put down his phone and go to bed before 11 p.m. every night.

For a college student who is not yet twenty years old, going to bed at 11 o'clock is practically the same as being useless.

If you don't stay up late when you're young, are you going to wait until you're fifty or sixty to start?

But none of this was what Zhao Zheng found most unbearable. What truly tormented him was that he hadn't been able to play badminton properly for a month.

To be precise, he has played a lot of badminton recently, since his parents are also badminton enthusiasts, and the three of them go to the park almost every night to play badminton.

However, what he wanted was to play badminton with Tian Jingyi.

I didn't know how to communicate with the girl I liked before, and I finally managed to find a "ball buddy" to connect with. But before we could even play for a few months, summer vacation came.

The thought of having to endure another month made Zhao Zheng feel uneasy.

"Don't rush things, think about how to get along next semester." Zhao Zheng sighed, hoping to continue to improve their relationship next semester.

Despite being teammates for so long, their relationship has always remained at the level of ordinary friends.

Zhao Zheng wanted to make the relationship a little more ambiguous, but he couldn't find a direction... During this time, he watched a lot of videos from those relationship bloggers, and even spent more than 200 yuan to buy a "teacher's" instructional video.

but……

There is still no breakthrough.

However, Zhao Zheng wasn't in a hurry. Even without any romantic feelings, time would tell. Continuing to be friends might allow Tian Jingyi to realize she was used to his presence, which would then allow them to smoothly advance their relationship.

While indulging in his "fantasy moment," Zhao Zheng opened WeChat and casually browsed his Moments.

He didn't see that Tian Jingyi had posted a new update half an hour earlier.

Zhao Zheng didn't even look at what the other person posted; he first gave it a like, and then opened each photo one by one.

It's a very normal set of nine-grid photos taken at a dessert shop.

Zhao Zheng initially looked at the photos with a smile, pondering how best to comment, until he saw the photo in the very center of the nine-square grid.

The photo centers on a fruit salad with ice cream scoops, but Zhao Zhengdi's focus isn't there. His gaze quickly settles on the far right of the photo…

A large hand with long, slender fingers and distinct knuckles is holding a cup.

This hand occupies only a small part of the photo; in fact, it might not even be noticeable at a glance.

But for Zhao Zheng, the existence of this hand was like a bolt from the blue.

Zhao Zheng took a deep breath, took a screenshot to save the photo, then shrunk the image and looked at the text Tian Jingyi had posted.

"A little bit of post-workout slack off (laughs, jpg)"

At that moment, Zhao Zheng's IQ spiked dramatically. Not missing a single detail, he connected the post to Tian Jingyi's WeChat Moments from a few days prior. 'A few days ago, Tian Jingyi posted an update about being at the badminton court, so this sport must be badminton.'

'And the hand in her photo must belong to her badminton partner.'

After determining the owner of the hand, another question facing Zhao Zheng was whether the owner was male or female.

Although such a large hand has a 99% chance of being a man's hand, sometimes people just deceive themselves and make excuses for the person they like.

As his heart rate increased slightly, Zhao Zheng opened a group chat called "506 Handsome Guys Alliance (4)" and sent the screenshot he had taken earlier to the group.

[Zhao Zheng: Guys, can you take a look? Is this a woman's hand or a man's hand?]

[Yang Qi: Where are my hands... No, why are you worrying about this?]

Jiang Wu: ?

[Song Liu: Isn't this the photo Tian Jingyi posted on her WeChat Moments? It's clearly a man's hand. Zheng Ge, are you heartbroken?]

Yang Qi: Understood.

Jiang Wu: Understood.

Zhao Zheng: What do you know? I was just asking.

……

After being teased by his roommates again, Zhao Zheng finally got a very clear answer.

These are a man's hands!
Even though the truth was laid bare before him, Zhao Zheng was still unwilling to give up and made up several excuses for Tian Jingyi in his mind.

"Having dessert together doesn't necessarily mean you're close friends. Maybe you just bumped into someone you know at the restaurant and shared a table."

'Maybe they're just new badminton buddies they met, and they'll grab some dessert together after the game.'

'Don't overthink it. Anyway, that guy can't come to our university after school starts, so I'll still have to take care of the basketball buddy thing.'

Zhao Zheng kept making excuses, and at the same time, he lost interest in continuing to play on his phone, so he prepared to turn off the lights and go to sleep.

However, after tossing and turning several times, and delaying for more than an hour, he still couldn't fall asleep, and all sorts of chaotic thoughts kept flooding his mind.

After hesitating for a long time, he finally opened the chat interface with Tian Jingyi.

[Zhao Zheng: Are you there?]

[Zhao Zheng: How's your badminton playing lately?]

[Zhao Zheng: Will we still play together in the new semester?]

Zhao Zheng held his phone, waiting for a reply from the other end.

Unfortunately, an hour later, the chat window was still stuck on the message: "Shall we play basketball together again in the new semester?"

……

the other side.

Tian Jingyi lay in bed, her mind filled with the image of Chen Yan knocking down the bald man with two punches.

Most girls have some aversion to violence, but sometimes different people doing the same thing can elicit different reactions.

Just like when an ordinary boy says sweet words to a girl, he is likely to be criticized as "flirtatious" or "slick-tongued".

If a girl has a crush on a handsome guy and he says sweet words to her, she will be praised for his "sincere feelings" and "romantic flair".

Sometimes a girl's opinion of you isn't about "what you did," but rather "who you are."

Chen Yan is clearly the latter.

(End of this chapter)