Feng Jiayou, you are truly wicked beyond repair. (Seeking monthly tickets)

The remittance slips were all from Yanjing Literature to Feng Jiayou, and each one clearly stated that the payments were for the manuscripts of The Horse Herder and The Tender Grass Beneath the Sun.

And the most direct proof of all was the recipient’s name printed on the slips: Feng Jiayou.

It was undeniable.

The mysterious old Xu, the Horse Herder whom everyone at Yan University had been gossiping about and guessing at until they were frantic, was actually Feng Jiayou, the girl in their own dormitory.

What a joke this had become.

“Exactly! And you even wrote me all those disgustingly sweet reader letters, then secretly asked me out to the movies!”

“Just look at these—how many tickets do you think this is? Do you really think I could keep up with all of you by myself?”

Feng Jiayou lifted her brows, spread out the movie tickets in her hand, and teased them with a laugh.

They stared at one another, all of them dumbfounded.

Whether it was Huang Beijia and Zhai Jianying, or the other girls in the dorm, every face was filled with disbelief as they looked at Feng Jiayou in a daze.

How could this woman be so infuriatingly hard to deal with?

“Feng Jiayou, you’re terrible! If you’re old Xu from The Horse Herder, why didn’t you tell us earlier?”

Huang Beijia was so aggrieved she nearly burst into tears, and at that very moment she wanted nothing more than to give this girl a good pounding. Too wicked, far too wicked.

She had clearly been old Xu from The Horse Herder all along. She had clearly known that they were all searching for old Xu from The Horse Herder. Yet Feng Jiayou had been able to hold out this long, pretending so well, only now finally revealing the truth.

“Yes, Jiayou, you you you… that was just too much! Give me back the letter I wrote to you!”

Zhai Jianying was even more flustered and ashamed, stomping her feet in embarrassment, insisting that Feng Jiayou return the letter to her. She truly had no face left to show anyone.

“And mine too!”

The other girl in the dorm who had also written a reader letter, though without a movie ticket tucked inside, Liu Xuehong, chimed in at once.

Old Xu from The Horse Herder was actually a girl, and worse still, she was Feng Jiayou, who lived in their dorm. What kind of absurdity was this?

If word got out, every girl in all of Yan University would go mad.

“Hee hee, I’m going to tell Yanzi and the others! The old Xu from The Horse Herder they worship and admire is actually our Jiayou!”

One of the impatient roommates could no longer sit still and rushed out of the dorm, eager to spread the news at once.

She wanted all the classmates who had heard of it, and all the girls who had written to old Xu from The Horse Herder openly or in secret, to know it too.

The author of The Horse Herder was Feng Jiayou, a girl, and she had made fools of every single one of them.

“Ah? Come back, come back! I was only joking, only joking—are you really taking it seriously?”

This time, the tables were turned, and Feng Jiayou was the one left staring foolishly. She hurriedly called after them, but how could they possibly come back?

In less than ten minutes, the girls from the entire building would surely swarm over here.

“Still pretending?”

“Jiayou, if you keep pretending, you’re going too far! The remittance slips are right here. You’re still saying it’s not you—who would believe that?”

Huang Beijia fixed Feng Jiayou with a sour, sidelong look, then asked in complete bewilderment, “Jiayou, how did you suddenly become so brilliant?”

“Before this, one of your manuscripts was rejected again and again by my mother, and you still couldn’t revise it enough to get accepted!”

“How did you suddenly figure it out all at once? You published two manuscripts in a row in Yanjing Literature? And both of them were front-page headlines—how did you even write them?”

“Yes, Jiayou, how on earth did you write them? Either they don’t get accepted at all, or once they do, you go and drop such a huge bombshell on us?” Zhai Jianying said as well, still staring in disbelief.

“In truth, I didn’t write them. They were written by my husband, Cheng Xuemin! Don’t be fooled by the name on the royalty slips—the manuscripts were all written by him.”

“That’s why you all wrote to me and asked me out. I was too embarrassed to make it clear to you.”

Feng Jiayou was anxious, so she hurriedly laid everything bare.

“The Horse Herder was written by your husband?”

“Jiayou, your husband is the real old Xu, the author of The Horse Herder?”

Huang Beijia and Zhai Jianying were once again struck dumb. This was even more exciting than the idea that The Horse Herder had been written by Feng Jiayou herself.

If Feng Jiayou had gotten into the Chinese department at Yan University, it made sense—her family was steeped in books, with literary roots in the household. With that foundation, if she could write The Horse Herder, Huang Beijia and the others might believe it by seven parts out of ten.

But if it was written by her husband, Cheng Xuemin?

No, not even a single part could be believed.

That would be far too crushing.

Feng Jiayou’s husband was only a man from northern Shaanxi who had not even finished middle school. To put it bluntly, calling him illiterate would not be an exaggeration.

You were telling them The Horse Herder was written by Feng Jiayou’s illiterate husband?

They would never believe it, not even if they were beaten to death.

“If not, then what?” Feng Jiayou said with a grin. “Otherwise, why would Dening and Bai Ling be running over to our Yan University so often?”

“Why, every time they came to Yan University, did they first ask about Xuemin? Or make some excuse to slip away and go to the library to find him?”

“That’s because Xuemin had another novella in hand, and Dening had her eye on it. She was afraid my mother would snatch it away, so she kept coming to Yan University to keep watch on the manuscript.”

Feng Jiayou finished in one breath, spilling everything.

Huang Beijia and Zhai Jianying looked at each other after hearing this, and only then did it finally dawn on them.

Just as Feng Jiayou had said, the editors Zhang Dening and Bai Ling from Yanjing Literature would come to Yan University whenever they had the chance, and each time they would end up finding the three of them.

They had always assumed that Yanjing Literature valued these new writers and came over now and then to exchange ideas and maintain ties.

But in the end, it turned out they had all been coming for Feng Jiayou’s husband.

No wonder Zhang Dening and Bai Ling had come together last time to deliver sample copies and the royalty slip to Zhai Jianying. They had been puzzled then.

They had never seen those two personally deliver sample issues and royalty slips before.

At the time, they had even felt a tiny bit flattered.

Now that they understood, it was all nonsense.

Pure self-delusion.

And that was not the worst of it.

What made them even more ashamed was that the secret admiration for old Xu from The Horse Herder had somehow ended up being aimed directly at Feng Jiayou’s husband.

How were they supposed to face each other after this?

Would the four of them still be able to eat together happily in the future?

“Beijia, Jianying, come on, let’s go. I’ll treat you to dinner tonight as an apology. If we stay here much longer, we may not be able to leave.”

“Xuehong, all of you come too. Tonight I’ll invite you all to dinner and formally introduce my husband, old Xu from The Horse Herder, so that he can relieve the longing you’ve all been suffering from these past days.”

They could not linger any longer, or else the other girls in the dorms would surely come storming over.

Realizing things were turning bad, Feng Jiayou hurriedly dragged Huang Beijia and the others along and made a quick retreat.

“What longing? That idea must have been yours, Jiayou! I don’t think your husband would do something like that.”

Huang Beijia cast Feng Jiayou a teasing, reproachful glance, her tone half-annoyed and half-amused.

“Come on, come on, let’s go see the legendary old Xu from The Horse Herder! So he’s really Jiayou’s husband after all. Truly, a man of talent does not reveal himself until the moment he does, and then he gives us all a fright.”

Now that old Xu from The Horse Herder had shown his true face, how could Liu Xuehong and the others possibly sit still? Even if Feng Jiayou had not said a word, they would still have followed her downstairs to join the excitement.

“Don’t forget to bring your copies of Yanjing Literature!” Zhai Jianying called as she casually snatched up the latest issue from the bedside table.

“Bring Yanjing Literature for what?”

“So old Xu from The Horse Herder can sign it!”

“Right, right, autographs! Where’s my copy of Yanjing Literature? Who took it?”

Feng Jiayou and Huang Beijia went out first, and they also called along the one who had just run out to spread the news for Feng Jiayou.

“What on earth is going on?”

When Cheng Xuemin saw Feng Jiayou coming downstairs with a huge crowd of female students behind her, he felt a little alarmed.

“Feng Jiayou, old Xu from The Horse Herder, don’t run! Give me back my letter!”

“Old Xu from The Horse Herder, you liar! Give me back my movie ticket!”

“Old Xu from The Horse Herder isn’t Feng Jiayou—it’s Feng Jiayou’s husband, Cheng Xuemin!”

“Stop crowding, she’s pregnant! Don’t shove into Jiayou!”

Hearing this, Cheng Xuemin could no longer stand by. He hurried forward and shielded Feng Jiayou out of the press. Were these girls not a little too wild?

It was fortunate there had been no mishap, or they truly would have played it too far.

...

“You’re laughing again. How was I supposed to know they’d get so excited once they found out I was old Xu from The Horse Herder? They didn’t even give me a chance to explain!”

On the way back, Feng Jiayou was still shaken as she complained, “But now you’ve really become famous all over our Yan University.”

Those girls had been utterly unable to stay calm when they first learned that Feng Jiayou was old Xu from The Horse Herder. The fact that old Xu was actually a female student had shocked them on the spot.

Especially the girls who had written reader letters and tucked movie tickets inside them—the embarrassment on their faces had been impossible to hide.

Old Xu from The Horse Herder was actually a girl, and they had written love letters to a girl. They all wished they could snatch the letters back immediately and burn them to ashes.

Later, when it was explained that old Xu from The Horse Herder was Feng Jiayou’s husband, a man and not a woman, they finally felt a little more balanced.

But then, upon hearing that old Xu from The Horse Herder was already married, and that his wife’s belly was even round with child, their disappointment returned all over again.

In any case, they were blocked for a long while beneath the girls’ dormitory building. Later, the boys’ dormitory was stirred up too, and crowds came over as well.

They dragged Cheng Xuemin to ask him about the craft of writing, and before long he had ended up giving away the content of the paper he was preparing for Wednesday’s discussion forum, turning the area below the girls’ dormitory into a rather unusual symposium.

Only after he had comforted everyone who needed comforting and signed everything that needed signing did they finally seize the chance to slip away and go home.

“And now it’s my fault again?”

Cheng Xuemin laughed softly. Foolish woman—she had tried to show off in front of so many people and ended up being outdone instead, and now somehow it was all his fault.

At first, had they not meant to tell Huang Beijia and Zhai Jianying first, then let the news spread gradually through them?

But after Feng Jiayou went upstairs, she blew up the whole dormitory building at once. Cheng Xuemin was truly astonished by the power of this woman—she was formidable.

“Your fault, your fault, your fault. I’ve been hungry all this time because of you! I’ve been hungry all night, and your son is protesting too.”

Feng Jiayou wrapped one arm around Cheng Xuemin’s broad waist and used the other to rub her growling belly, sounding aggrieved.

“Uh... that really is my fault. Hurry home. I wonder whether Mother left us any food.”

At Feng Jiayou’s reminder, Cheng Xuemin’s own stomach began to rumble as well.

When they parted in the afternoon, they had told their family that they might not be coming home for dinner, since they would eat over at Yan University first and then head back.

But who could have guessed that the boys and girls at Yan University would be so enthusiastic they were willing to skip a meal just to talk with him, the author of The Horse Herder?

Cheng Xuemin had gotten caught up in it too and forgotten all about dinner, leaving Feng Jiayou to go hungry with him.

Fortunately, even though there had been no food left for them, Mother had already prepared tomorrow’s midday dishes in advance that evening.

So they ate first and spoke later.

After that, Yan University remained lively for quite some time. Once old Xu from The Horse Herder had shown his true face, there was still the author of Female Students’ Dormitory, Kuang Yalan, who kept playing hide-and-seek with everyone and refused to appear.

This made the boys all the more frantic, each of them driven nearly mad by curiosity and admiration.

They kept trying to guess who Kuang Yalan really was.

It was worth noting that this time, the three Chinese-department girls—Feng Jiayou, Huang Beijia, and Zhai Jianying—were also suspected by boys from other departments and schools of being the author Kuang Yalan, the one who had written Female Students’ Dormitory.

Especially Feng Jiayou.

As the saying goes, where there is a husband, there is a wife; surely the two of them were playing the same kind of game.

That gave Feng Jiayou and the others a sense of proud delight even as they tried to explain themselves. It was proof enough that, in everyone’s eyes, they were the kind of writers who could get their work published.

Soon afterward, as the literary magazine Yellow Soil Plateau began to make its entrance into the major universities of Yanjing, leading with a front-page headline, the symposium on the Yanjing Literature side also arrived on schedule.

...