Chapter 4: Swapping Dorms Part 1

The notification tagging her in the group chat had only just been sent. Someone had forwarded a post titled: #A Quick Rundown of the Heavy Hitters in the Class of ’23#.

[Wait a second, isn’t the Xu Yinian mentioned here in our class? I knew I recognized that name from the chat list.]

[Didn’t we get to pick our own dorms this time? It looks like Student Xu must have known them for a long time. To think a legend was living right next to me!]

[No wonder she never spoke up before. As expected, the real big shots always keep a low profile.]

…

Connecting the dots with the conversation, she finally understood.

In the “Freshman Roundup” thread posted yesterday on X University’s anonymous forum, an insider had replied with a censored image of the dormitory assignment sheet. It leaked the fact that three of the most high-profile freshmen were all assigned to the same room.

It was the classic “Protagonist Shakes Up the Circle” trope. Xu Yinian didn’t even have to think to know that she was being caught in the collateral splash zone of the lead characters’ sheer presence.

Except… Xu Yinian’s sharp intuition caught a detail that differed from the original novel.

Presumably to make the romance more convenient, the original setting only had three people in their dorm. The fourth “extra” roommate was said to have applied for off-campus living from the very beginning and never appeared.

Where did this “three most high-profile students” thing come from?

Was it possible there was someone else who, like her, had gained self-awareness?

At the thought of this possibility, Xu Yinian braced herself and immediately went to find the original post.

The thread actually used a hidden link. The forum required students to verify their campus identity, meaning only X University students could view the content. After logging in, the interface felt like she was opening a door to a whole new world.

This was the first time Xu Yinian learned that X University had a “Hidden Forum.”

Aside from the special anonymous “water cooler” section, the rest of the site was filled with boards for various academic majors and research activities. Rather than just gossiping, most people used the forum as a platform for sharing information, academic exchange, and mutual assistance.

She first bookmarked the Department of Chinese and the Book Sharing boards before finally entering the legendary Anonymous Water Section.

As a dedicated space for confession walls, gossip, “calling out” people, and general student nonsense, the place was a mixed bag. It felt like walking into a crowded, boisterous marketplace. Its biggest feature was anonymity; no one would have their identity exposed here.

In the original book, the “cannon fodder” Xu Yinian had likely used this very board to anonymously expose the main characters.

Xu Yinian didn’t even have to search for the thread. She spotted it instantly thanks to a thumbnail of Shen Ruoshuang’s photo used as clickbait. Even in such a small, blurry image, it did nothing to diminish her otherworldly beauty. No matter the time or place, she was always the one who captured everyone’s gaze in a crowd.

The original poster (OP) had detailed every piece of information available online regarding the famous freshmen, even including citations like a formal academic paper to mark the exact source of each claim.

Even their gossip was rigorous. This was definitely something X University students would do.

It wasn’t until she reached the section on Shen Ruoshuang that Xu Yinian realized how foolish her earlier curiosity about whether Shen was a regular admit or a recruited student had been.

Shen Ruoshuang. Chemistry Department.

Double Gold Medalist in Mathematics and Chemistry at the China National Olympiad. One of the five students selected for the International Chemistry Olympiad (IChO) team, where she secured a Gold Medal with the highest individual score.

One should know that simply making the National Training Team guaranteed a spot at X University, let alone being adorned with such honors. What was originally a niche, elite award had exploded across the internet due to a candid short video of Shen Ruoshuang receiving her medal.

The OP’s description of Shen Ruoshuang couldn’t hide their sense of admiration, even attaching a link to the video that had once garnered three million likes on Douyin.

The girl in the video was still in high school.

Xu Yinian was all too familiar with that face, though it held a bit more youthful innocence back then. Shen Ruoshuang stood on the podium, face bare of any makeup, wearing the simplest of school uniforms. With a faint, calm expression, she held her medal in one hand and a bouquet of flowers in the other.

She didn’t look ecstatic over the supreme honor. Instead, she just quietly looked down at the daisies in her arms.

That sense of “a tiger sniffing a rose”—full of unspoken narrative—had propelled the previously unknown Shen Ruoshuang into the public eye in one fell swoop.

Yet, faced with such a perfect opportunity to become an influencer, Shen Ruoshuang had vanished. While netizens searched for her feverishly, she never appeared before the media again, remaining low-profile and mysterious.

Even as the wave of hype gradually receded, everyone who had seen that video could never forget the breathtaking shock brought by that “Ice Queen” who was always just out of reach. The aftereffects were so strong that Shen Ruoshuang was destined to be mentioned and reminisced about time and again.

Xu Yinian had been almost entirely cut off from the online world before university, so it was no wonder she hadn’t known Shen Ruoshuang was this famous.

The flood of “Goddess Shuang” comments below the post further proved that even within X University, she had countless followers. Indeed, no one could fail to be moved by such a perfect, excellent, and powerful personality.

Compared to Shen Ruoshuang, Ji Yan’s fame was largely attributed to her status as a “star second-gen.” Just as Jiang Ke had briefed Xu Yinian earlier, the level of attention and protection Ji Yan had received since childhood was unprecedented.

Many people usually turned their noses up at the messy entertainment industry. Who could have guessed that Ji Yan actually possessed genuine talent? The fact that she entered the Digital Media Department at X University with the highest score in the national art entrance exams was enough to silence the skeptics.

In fact, almost no one had seen a real, unedited photo of Ji Yan yet. Xu Yinian thought to herself that with that wicked, bewitching face of hers, it was only a matter of time before she set the forum ablaze.

Scrolling further down, Xu Yinian’s eyes went wide. This appeared to be her final roommate.

Compared to the two above, this freshman named Bai Ran was even more mysterious. As a freshman in Clinical Medicine who hadn’t even officially started classes, a private donation had already been made in her name to the X University Medical School—a massive sum of money to fund the construction of a new laboratory building.

That one simple sentence was enough to make everyone’s curiosity about the mysterious “Eldest Daughter” Bai Ran reach its breaking point. What kind of family did she come from? Donating a whole building just to go to school!

When these three names appeared together on the same dormitory list, the effect was three times as explosive. It was both absurd and strangely logical. After all, according to the rules for self-selecting dorms this year, there was no way three people from such different majors would end up together unless they already knew each other and had planned it.