My System Forces Me to Live off Women-Chapter 178 - 167: Catching Each Other

Trinity Studio.

"Ah~choo!"

Li Peifeng was chatting and eating with everyone when he suddenly sneezed. He didn't think much of it, just went to the bathroom to wash his hands and came back to continue eating.

"What time does the meeting start this afternoon?"

"It's set for six o'clock. After dinner, we're going outside to shoot a video."

"Sister Yue, which one are we shooting? The three-pointer or the dunk one?"

"Let's shoot the mid-court three-pointer with the street dance first. The dunk one is a bit tough, maybe you guys can see if you can shoot it after class in the afternoon."

"Alright."

The room was full of people and quite lively. For some reason, Li Peifeng always felt a chill in his heart, and he wasn't really in the mood to eat, so he joined the conversation instead: "Do you have any officiating gigs lately? The 'Most Beautiful Referee' hype can start preparing now."

"No." Wu Wenyue shook her head and said, "The CUBA games just ended this October, and they won't start until next spring."

"What about the CBA? Or even the WCBA (Women's Chinese Basketball Association)?"

"I'm not qualified to officiate those kinds of games."

Wu Wenyue sighed, "You need international and national level referee certificates for that. I'm a first-level referee, and one of the conditions to qualify for the national level is to be a first-level referee for two years. I'm still more than six months away. Even if I got the national certificate, it doesn't mean I can adjudicate, you have to..."

Wu Wenyue pointed upwards and raised an eyebrow, "Got it?"

"You need someone up above?"

Li Peifeng was unsure, "Aren't I the one above you?"

Of course, he didn't say that with so many people around. Wu Wenyue had a thin skin and got easily embarrassed.

"If it doesn't work out, maybe start with a city-level game. Internal university competitions work too," Li Peifeng suggested, "The sooner we establish this persona, the better it'll work."

"I'm thinking the same thing. Recently, the sports institute's teacher told me there's a basketball game in early November organized by both the government and state-owned enterprises that needs referees. He might take me with him then..."

While they were chatting, Li Peifeng's phone rang. It was Bai Xiaoyang calling. After picking up and hearing what the other side said, he paused for a moment.

"You want me to be a judge for the poetry contest? Isn't it a bit inappropriate for me to be both a judge and a contestant?"

"No worries, there are more than ten judges. You obviously can't review your own work, just come over quickly, Room 205, 3rd floor."

"Hold on, let me check with my secretary to see if I can change my schedule."

"Secretary? You have a secretary now? Want me to send a car to pick you up?"

After the tease, Bai Xiaoyang hung up the phone.

Li Peifeng looked at Wu Wenyue, who didn't mind, "Go ahead, you wouldn't be much help with the video anyway, just be back before the meeting."

"Okay." Li Peifeng quickly finished his meal, while a few people in the studio laughed and said,

"Brother Feng, we submitted to the poetry contest too!"

"Pay some attention when you're giving comments, okay?"

"I heard if you win, the poem will be published in the club's journal, and there's a prize of fifty to a hundred. If I win, I'll treat you to a meal, Brother Feng!"

"Quit joking around, I'm impartial and incorruptible!"

Li Peifeng mumbled indistinctly, quickly finished his meal, and hurried to the school.

He was quite curious about what kind of poems contemporary college students could write. The charm of words is endless; regardless of the quality of the poetry, there's value in seeing them, maybe they could even spark some inspiration in his creations.

"Quite a crowd here."

Li Peifeng stepped into the classroom and found fifteen to sixteen men and women sitting at the front, heads down, pens in hand, marking their notebooks. It seemed the judging had already started.

"You finally made it?"

A handsome young man, about six feet tall, with a slim build and a jade-like face, walked over with a smile and handed Li Peifeng a booklet printed on A4 paper, "Here's the poetry collection, did you bring a pen?"

"Xiaoyang, you know me, I, the dashing Li Peifeng can leave the house without an overcoat but must always have a pen in my pocket!"

Without saying a word, Li Peifeng took the booklet with one hand and reached into his chest with the other, magically producing a pen.

"I get it, better to freeze than to look unprepared!"

Bai Xiaoyang, about six feet tall, wore jeans and a white shirt. True to his name, he had fair skin, a sunny disposition, and a naturally cheerful personality. Due to the "yang" in his name, people nicknamed him "Happy Goat."

"No kidding now."

Li Peifeng skimmed through the booklet quickly and seriously asked, "How's this going down?"

"This is the second review phase. The booklet contains fifty-eight poems; they each passed the preliminary round and are worth looking at. Each judge needs to nominate their ten favorite poems, note down either the poet's name or the poem's title, and then we'll discuss placing the top ten voted poems into the finals. They'll be posted online for students to vote on, and the final ranking will follow the vote count."

"Got it!"

"And hey, you can't nominate your own work." Bai Xiaoyang grinned, "Two of your poems passed the preliminary round."

"I'm honored."

Li Peifeng was not overly thrilled and nodded, took the booklet, found a seat, and saw Shen Liao and Bai Qingchuan sitting together. He decided to sit near them.

Both were members of the Literature Society, so it was just right for them to be judges for the contest.

"The big guy's here too. Do you have any favorites?"

"Yes."

Bai Qingchuan looked at the poetry collection with a serious expression and said nothing more.

Li Peifeng was surprised, "Seriously, are you just joking around?"

Shen Liao acted all righteous, "Be serious. What kind of event do you think this is? Reviewing and scoring is serious business, it's not time for discussion yet. Judges can't communicate with each other to prevent cheating!"

Li Peifeng responded, "Brother Shen taught me well... but can I still ask, were your poems all knocked out in the prelims or something? Otherwise, you'd surely be secretly asking me to help you out."

Shen Liao's face stiffened, Bai Qingchuan chuckled and answered for him, "Brother Shen wrote six poems, and none of them made it. Many students call him the 'Carriage Return Poet.' You can safely put your hands down now."

"Oh, that's too bad!" Li Peifeng exaggerated as he laughed and started flipping through the poetry collection.

Shen Liao was indignant, grumbling about how 'a carriage return poet is still a poet,' 'everyone hits return so everyone's a poet,' 'glorifying poetic titles should be punishable by death,' and with disdain, 'there are infinite personal tastes, how can poetry have rankings,' 'my poems weren't eliminated; they're just not appreciated by many.'

Li Peifeng chose not to pay attention, calmly entering the reading mode, and began reviewing the poetry collection from the start.

This time the love poetry contest's theme was open-ended. The so-called love could be love of nature, country, life, familial love, friendship, romantic love... naturally, most of the college students wrote about the latter, romantic love.

"Teacher says poems should have a beginning, turn, and conclusion."

"I look at the flowers swaying outside the window."

"Yet I ended up writing about you, you, you."

—— Michelin Tires

"The pale yellow light places our shadows on the ground"

"I reach out my hand"

"The shadow also reaches out"

"This is our only touch"

—— Wang Cai

"Silently following you"

"Besides the shadow"

"There's also me"

—— Number One Big Troublemaker of North China Normal

These hopeless romantics! Is one-sided love the only thing they can write about?

Li Peifeng showed no sympathy, flipping through the pages while sighing in disappointment: "Are all fifty-eight of these poems as sticky as a sauce? The whole world is focused on the economy, but we're still talking about love. This generation of university students is doomed!"

"Sauce?"

Whatever Shen Liao thought of, it made him shiver, feeling a chill: "You grossed me out!"

"Hiss~ Ha~"

Bai Qingchuan quietly took out a small flask from his pocket, sipped it, and sighed: "Campus heartthrob, look at the second poem on page eleven, I think you'll really like it."

"Really?"

Li Peifeng's interest piqued, he quickly turned to the specified page, glanced at it, and recited it in his mind.

"Hate that the mighty wind in the world never ceases"

"Hate that the jerks in the world never die"

"Go die quickly"

—— The woman who would personally blade Li Peifeng

"What the hell!"

Li Peifeng cursed inwardly, directly crossing out this poem, grumbling: "This won't do, regardless of the content's health, the pen name is against the rules, probably some scorned woman trying to threaten me, it should be eliminated in the preliminary selection!"

"I think it's pretty good." Shen Liao smirked devilishly.

"Good my ass!"

Li Peifeng snatched the nomination list from his table, glanced at it, then went to check Bai Daxia's list and saw the poem wasn't there, finally feeling relieved: "Good, fair judgment, no pranks, our literary society needs to maintain a normal literary aesthetic."

Bai Xiaoyang wandered over with his hands behind his back, knowing what Li was talking about, he laughed: "Don't worry, just pick your poem, get it done by five today."

Li Peifeng eyed him: "Smart little sheep, you deliberately put it into the second review just to see my lazy sheep joke, didn't you?"

"Hey, you got that right!"

Bai Xiaoyang laughed: "If you didn't come today, this poem might have even gotten into the top ten for students to vote on."

"Then our literary society would really have no face left!"

Li Peifeng waved him off, continuing to review the submissions, finding none that he particularly wanted to nominate. Some were quite well-written, but he felt something was missing, lacking that stunning first impression, simply put, there was no emotional resonance.

He kept on reading and reading, until it was past four in the afternoon, and Li Peifeng had finally reached the last two pages of the poetry collection, where he eventually found a poem that stirred his heart;

"We fall in love in a dream"

"Side by side on horseback, we experience the world"

"I wield the sword of the jianghu, you play the strings of tender love"

"By the lake, the clear water reflects the migrating butterflies"

"The campfire freely emits scorching flames"

"Seeing the stars fall into your eyes"

"The moon is moved by you, not only in the dream after waking"

Li Peifeng savored it a few times, the more he read, the more familiar the scenes depicted in this poem seemed. The emotions within were fully understandable!

Li Peifeng instinctively looked at the signature for the poem, two words: "Anonymous"

Playing hide and seek, interesting...

"Smart Sheep, Old Bai!"

Li Peifeng vaguely had an answer in his heart, but he still stood up and grabbed Bai Xiaoyang, holding the poetry collection in his hand, pointing at the poem and asking: "Do you know who submitted this?"

Bai Xiaoyang looked at him, then lowered his head to take a careful look at the poem, shook his head and said: "I don't know, of the fifty-eight poems, this is the only one without a signature, and there's no contact information either."

"Then how did she submit it?"

"TT mail." Bai Xiaoyang answered, then laughed: "I wanted to add her as a TT friend and ask for her name, so I could send the manuscript fee if it got selected, but she didn't seem to accept. Anyway, it doesn't matter, I think this poem is average, it probably won't make the top ten... why, do you really like it?"

Li Peifeng hesitated: "Not like, it's, it's a very special kind." He said directly: "Give me her TT number."

"Alright, let me check."

Bai Xiaoyang acknowledged, took out his phone, opened the TT mail app, scrolled for a moment, and opened it: "Here, this is the number."

"6850… Got it, go about your business." Li Peifeng quietly noted it down, turned back to his seat, and opened TT on his phone.

Clicked to add a friend.

Entered the account number.

Add…

No need to add, already friends!

"Yun Xin Yue Xing."

Li Peifeng looked at the search result on the screen, laughed silently, thinking so it turns out to be you, Old Zhao? Looks like I've caught you!

...

At the gate of Jintian City Apartments, it was the time for classes to end, and most North China Normal students living in the complex were returning to their rented apartments.

By the roadside, a white new energy BMW sedan was parked in an inconspicuous corner.

Zhao Qingge sat inside the car, scanning the passing crowd, eyes slightly narrowed, thinking to herself: "Unexpectedly, truly unexpectedly, you better not let me catch you guys."