Chapter 3 See Him Again

It had been more than a month since Caroline was reborn. The student unions of the three universities were holding competitions again. Caroline was extremely cautious about getting involved in the debate competition.

But as careful as she was, she still slipped. Ted Sun and Caroline were mates in high school. He was studying in the A City Medical University now. In Caroline's previous life, it was Ted Sun who invited her to help him prepare for the debate competition at the beginning. Then she met Edwin. After her rebirth, he still asked Caroline to help him prepare for the competition. He even lured her with money to make it more difficult for her to refuse to participate.

At first, she had rejected it. She bragged that she could not be enticed with such a small sum of money. Finally, after a lot of persuasion, she agreed to become a part of the debate preparation committee at a high price of thirty thousand.

Because they had to choose the theme of the competition, send invites to the judges, arrange the schedule, and attend to many other things, she often worked with Ted and the others until midnight. She and Ted would then cuddle up and sleep on the shabby sofa in the student union building at night. Through it all, neither of them ever made the move to initiate sex of any form.

One evening, at about nine o'clock, Caroline was going back from the medical university. She had been staying with Ted for two days and was so tired that she almost fell asleep on her way back.

There was a huge stone at the gate of the normal university. Carved on it was a line that said, "Respect the absolute authority of the teachers." As soon as she got to the front of the stone, she raised her head and saw Edwin! The two of them were only a few steps away from each other.

This was the first time that she saw him since her rebirth. When their eyes met, her heart sank and she suddenly felt her fatigue drain away.

His eyes were just as cold as she remembered. Born with deep eye colors, he looked enchanting when he squinted. His frigid look made him appear very handsome. She could almost swear that he was the masterpiece of a sculptor. In her previous life, she had uncontrollably fallen for those eyes. But she also spent every one of her days futilely looking for love in them.

Now that she met him again, her heart still shook with intense longing. She found that she was still crazy about him. She lowered her head and smiled bitterly as she realized this. He had not changed one bit. His handsome features were still intact. But Caroline knew she couldn't repeat her past mistakes.

Edwin stood still on the other side of the big stone. His eyes swept over Caroline. Instinctively, she took to her heels.

She ran until she was sure that he couldn't see her anymore. The attraction she felt for him was so strong that even when she was away from him, she could still feel his peering eyes on the skin of her face. She desperately clenched her fists and took quick breaths. She should have already given up her love, shouldn't she? Why was she so vulnerable to him? Even after everything, she still felt affected by the man. Caroline tried to calm herself and slowly began to walk back to her dormitory, looking like nothing had happened.

She had no idea that the moment Edwin saw her, his normally calm eyes had become suddenly ignited, much like a wild flame, desperate and unruly. He had turned around stiffly and watched her run off without himself moving an inch.

Caroline's dormitory was on the third floor of the old building. The dormitory building was built in the 1970s with red bricks. It had five floors altogether. The green iron windows were not big, and there was no balcony. There were green poplar trees downstairs.

In the dormitory building, there were rooms on both sides. The corridor was not very bright, and there were bathrooms at the east and west ends where students washed and took their baths. Each room was only ten square meters in size. Each of them had four loft beds. Under each of the beds was a desk. And a small table was placed in a corner for the general use of the roommates.

Caroline was the only local in her dormitory.

Shelia Gu's bed was next to hers. As far as she was concerned, Shelia was a completely different person from her. Shelia was born to live for men and different men at that. She was good at pretending to be coquettish and cute to lure men. She didn't like the old-fashioned Caroline. Caroline in turn didn't like Shelia's flashy lifestyle. The two of them thus often kept their distances from each other.

When Caroline returned that day, Sheila was the only person around in the dormitory. She was applying a face mask. She ignored Caroline and continued to examine her face in the mirror.

At that time, mobile phones couldn't be connected to the internet and Caroline used an old phone model. After she entered the dormitory, the first thing she did was to turn on Kristi Qian's computer so she could watch the stock market news online.

Kristi Qian's family was not in this city. She was rich and very generous. She had never quarreled with her classmates because of material things that she counted as trivial. She had a lot of business acumen and often embarked on small-scaled businesses while in school.

As Caroline looked at the rising curve of the stock market on the screen, her heart, which had just taken a hit from Edwin, warmed up.

That was when the phone rang. Caroline sat still in her seat and didn't move. Shelia was closer to the phone so she expected her to pick it up. But Shelia just left the room with the mask still on her face. Caroline was surprised at her behavior. 'Is she deaf or something?' she wondered. The phone kept ringing. She stood up and picked it.

"Hello, this is Blake Li."

"Ah, Mae is not here. You can call her later," explained Caroline.

"No, thanks. Please just deliver a message for me. Tell her that I don't think we are right for each other. So I'm breaking up with her." He then hung up the phone.

It took Caroline a while to make sense of what just happened. Why did he ask someone else to convey his breakup? 'What should I do? Should I tell her about this?' she thought. Before she could decide, Shelia came back.

'I see, she just went out to avoid taking the message. Whatever. It doesn't matter why she went out, ' she thought.

In the evening, Mae came back in anger. As soon as she pushed the door open, she shouted at Caroline, "Caroline! What did you say to Blake?"

"He said he wanted to break up with you," Caroline responded impulsively, caught off guard by her yelling roommate.

"It's none of your business whether we break up or not! Who do you think you are to meddle in my affairs?" Mae shouted. "You make me feel sick!"

"Are you out of your freaking mind? He called to leave a message. What goes on between you two is none of my business. Should I have covered his mouth?" Caroline was not a coward. She fought back without hesitation. "Don't take your anger out on the whole world. Do you understand me?" she added.

Mae Zhou yelled back at her, "Shame on you! You must be so love-starved! You want to steal my boyfriend! Don't flatter yourself! He doesn't even like you!"

"No, you shut up! Shame on you and your small mind! Do you think everyone else has the kind of weird taste that you have? I couldn't be you, so save it!" Caroline shouted back.

The noise increased and soon, the girls were throwing curses at each other. Some girls in other rooms also came here to watch the drama. All the while, Shelia just calmly lay on her bed and looked at her face in the mirror. It was not until Kristi returned that she stopped the quarrel between Caroline and Mae.

That night, Caroline was very angry. She left the dormitory and went home. She didn't want to sleep in the same room with the crazy girl. She was afraid that she wouldn't be able to stand Mae and would hurl her out of the window in anger.

She also wanted to discuss business with her father.

She didn't return to school until the afternoon of the second day. As soon as she entered the school gate, she was stopped by Ted.

He looked very anxious. He was sweating all over and his gray T-shirt was soaked in sweat at the front and back. He held her hand. "Hey! The final is starting at 3 p.m. I called you, but your phone was switched off!"

It was at that moment that Caroline remembered that there was a debate competition that day.