The fan above his head was spinning feebly, and in such a hot summer, it seemed to have no effect at all. Song Jun sat on the sofa, looking at the bright windows and the sunshine outside, and he felt his body temperature gradually rising.
This was his first day reporting to the Forensic Medicine Department at C University, or more precisely, not the official reporting day since it was only July; the official reporting time for the school should be in September. However, a week ago, he received a call from his mentor, instructing him to come to the school early for registration because they needed to arrange for him to start conducting experiments.
At that time, Song Jun felt too awkward to speak up. In fact, there was a letter tucked inside the envelope of his admission notice, advising new students not to report before September due to the ongoing renovation of the graduate student building, and there was no way to arrange accommodation if they arrived too early. But he didn’t have the nerve to refuse the mentor’s request. As a result, after arriving at school today, he went to the dormitory management centre, and they told him that he couldn’t live in the dormitory now and asked him to find a way on his own or rent a house first.
Song Jun didn’t have much money to rent a place outside, and he couldn’t think of a good solution. So, he had no choice but to turn to his mentor for help in finding a solution.
Song Jun was actually not familiar with this major. He applied for the graduate program at C University’s School of Medicine simply because of his admiration for the school, not because his undergraduate degree was in medicine. Consequently, he didn’t choose the clinical direction. Before reporting, he took some time to understand the research focus of genetics, realising it was essentially DNA identification, also known as forensic evidence. Therefore, he came without too many burdens in mind. However, when he stepped into the forensic identification building for the first time, he couldn’t help but feel a bit cold.
The building had a total of fourteen floors, designed in a cloverleaf pattern. He came in from the first floor and couldn’t find the elevator at first, so he walked around the corridor and found that there were only corridors on the east, south, and west sides, with rooms on both sides of the corridors. There was no corridor on the north side. He walked along the east and west corridors, and there were two doors at the end. Song Jun noticed that the signs of the autopsy room were hung on the two doors. The two doors were probably connected, and the whole north side was one big autopsy room.
However, when he arrived, the autopsy room was closed, and no one was there, but despite this, he was startled and hurried back. Eventually, he found the elevator and stairwell in the centre of the cloverleaf pattern.
The elevator and staircase were adjacent, located in the centre of the building and surrounded by rooms and corridors in all four directions. Being completely enclosed, it lacked natural light and relied on electric lighting. Once the lights were turned off, it became pitch dark.
Perhaps because it was summer vacation, Song Jun didn’t meet anyone else along the way when he took the elevator to the fifth floor and found his mentor’s office. He felt a chill down his spine until he entered the office and felt the bright light from outside.
However, since he entered, his mentor had been on the phone and hadn’t had the chance to welcome him.
Song Jun’s mentor was a woman with unquestionable academic credentials, but female mentors always had stricter requirements for their students. Moreover, Song Jun, a young man in his early twenties, felt a little awkward sitting in the office listening to his female mentor talking to his daughter on the phone.
After sitting for a while, the chill subsided, and he began to feel warm again. He couldn’t help but look up at the air conditioning on the wall. He didn’t understand why the mentor didn’t turn on the air conditioning but turned on the fan, which didn’t seem to be very effective.
After a while, the instructor finally finished the call and started talking to Song Jun.
Song Jun stood up and called out politely, “Teacher Zhou.” Then he took out the cover letter of the notice and told Associate Professor Zhou Yingchun the answer he got in the dormitory management centre.
Zhou Yingchun furrowed her brows as she read the letter and then called the dormitory management department. She received the same answer as Song Jun’s—there was no way to arrange a dormitory for him now.
Song Jun stood nearby and whispered, “I can’t afford to rent a place. The rent is too expensive.”
C University Medical School is an established university. The school is located in the centre of the city, and the nearby rent was exceptionally high.
Zhou Yingchun heard this and said, “Wait a moment.”
She was the one who called him. Song Jun’s luggage was still stored at the first-floor guard’s office, and it would be unreasonable to send him back. Moreover, Zhou Yingchun had arranged the experiment, and Song Jun needed to start preparations from now.
So Zhou Yingchun made another call to the graduate office of the college.
Song Jun heard her ask, “Does our school still have an old building where students reside?”
…
“Are there vacant dormitories?”
…
“Oh, one of my students has reported for duty, and there’s no way to arrange a graduate student dormitory in the school right now. Can you arrange one for him?”
…
“Fine, I’ll tell him to find you, okay, thanks.”
Zhou Yingchun hung up the phone and said to Song Jun, “I’ve arranged an old dormitory for you through the campus. Since it’s the campus’ own property, you can stay there temporarily. When school starts in September, you can approach the accommodation centre for a new arrangement. What do you think?”
Song Jun quickly said, “It’s great.”
Zhou Yingchun nodded and asked Song Jun to go to the second floor to find Teacher Xu, who was in charge of graduate students in the college, and said that the other party would help him make arrangements. Then she said to Song Jun, “You can take a break first and wait until Monday to come over and find me, and I’ll brief you on the preparation work for the experiments.”
Song Jun then said, “Thank you, Teacher Zhou.”
After coming out of Zhou Yingchun’s office, Song Jun felt a little tired. This was not the first time he met Zhou Yingchun, but he felt that Zhou Yingchun was a rather serious person, so he always dealt with him cautiously.
He inherently possessed a cautious personality, and at times, he found himself disapproving of how he lived his life, deeming it tiring.
He took the elevator down to the second floor, and Teacher Xu was obviously much easier to talk to. He gave Song Jun a key and then said, “Wait a minute, I’ll call a senior to take you there.”
Teacher Xu immediately called someone to come over.
After that, he told Song Jun, “Bu Hui also lives in that dormitory. If you have any questions, you can ask him.”
Song Jun waited for more than ten minutes. A tall and thin boy came in from outside. He first greeted Teacher Xu and then said hello to Song Jun with a smile.
The boy introduced himself to Song Jun, “My name is Bu Hui. I am in my second year of graduate school at the beginning of school. I am a graduate student in forensic psychiatry.”
Song Jun quickly greeted him, “Hello, Senior Brother Bu.”
Bu Hui was a person with a pleasant and cheerful personality, and he talked a lot. They went down to the first floor together, and Bu Hui took the initiative to help him carry his luggage.
Song Jun inquired about their accommodation situation.
Bu Hui said, “You meant the dormitory, eh? The conditions aren’t great, but it is cheaper than the school’s graduate dormitory. The campus only charges four hundred yuan in accommodation fees per year. However, there is no bathroom in the room, but the advantage is that you can boil water by yourself. You’ll know after you go and see it.”
Bu Hui explained as he took Song Jun to the dormitory.
The medical school of University C was lush and green, with tall trees. Because it was a century-old school, there were many old buildings that had become the school’s characteristic landscape. After strengthening the structure, they were still used as teaching buildings. In an effort to maintain a harmonious appearance, many of the school’s new buildings were built to look like ancient buildings, with carved railings and painted buildings, green tiles and red eaves.
However, the dormitory building that Bu Hui took Song Jun to was not an ancient building. It was a two-story building that was probably built in the 1970s or 1980s. It had cement floors, but the stairs were still wooden stairs and would make a crunching sound when stepped on.
On the first floor, several rooms were locked. Bu Hui said that they were for storing some miscellaneous items from the campus.
Song Jun thought that their campus was the School of Forensic Medicine and suddenly couldn’t help but find even these so-called miscellaneous items a bit eerie.
Coming up to the second floor, there were a total of four rooms. The two rooms faced each other on the right side of the corridor; one belonged to Bu Hui, and the other was empty. There were also two rooms on the left, with one occupied and the other empty.
At the end of the corridor on the left was the water room and bathroom.
Bu Hui asked Song Jun which room his room was.
Song Jun was a little confused and said that he didn’t know either.
Bu Hui put the luggage in the corridor and said, “Go get the key and try it.”
Song Jun first tried the room opposite Bu Hui and found that it couldn’t be opened, so he had to try the room on the left side of the corridor, and the door quickly swung open.
Bu Hui stood behind him and said, “Oh, it’s opposite Senior Brother Xia.”
“Senior Brother Xia?” Song Jun asked, glancing at the closed door opposite.
Bu Hui said, “Yes, Senior Brother Xia has a doctorate in pathology and is very capable. They’re all saying that he’s expected to stay on campus.” As he said that, Bu Hui helped him bring his luggage and urged him to go in.
This room was not big. Because there was a building on the opposite side, the lighting was not very good, but it was not too dark. There was a bunk bed, a table, a stool, and a wardrobe in the room, but nothing else.
The tables and cabinets looked old. At first glance, Song Jun felt that he was not so satisfied, but it was better than renting a house.
The bed was empty, there was nothing, and there was no fan in the room, let alone air conditioning.
The two of them were sweating after walking so far and carrying things, but Song Jun still had to roll up his sleeves and tidy up the room.
Bu Hui helped Song Jun put down his things and left, saying he had to return to the hospital. Only then did Song Jun find out that he was still interning at the mental health centre affiliated with the school.
Song Jun quickly thanked him, and Bu Hui left alone.
He cleaned up and packed his luggage. Luckily, Song Jun also brought a mattress and mat. He made the bed on the lower bunk, leaving the upper bunk free for luggage storage.
It took Song Jun a whole afternoon to clean up the entire dormitory, and sweat had soaked through his hair and clothes. However, there were still a lot of things missing. He had no time to rest and had to go to the large supermarket outside the school to buy some daily necessities.
After buying a loaf of bread for dinner, Song Jun went to the supermarket, resisting the pain of spending money, and bought a small table fan, a kettle, a thermos, and some miscellaneous household items. He returned to the dormitory and put the things on the floor. As soon as he put the things on the ground, he turned on the fan to blow cool air and lay down on the bed, almost exhausted.
Song Jun lay on the bed and fell asleep without realising it. It was almost nine o’clock when he woke up.
He climbed down, took a basin, a towel, and a pair of clean underwear, planning to go to the water room to take a cold shower.
The bathroom didn’t have a door. There was a row of sinks against the wall, and behind them were two small cubicles for toilets. There were no mirrors, and the lighting was dim.
Song Jun was now the only one in the whole building. He hesitated, pulled the water room’s window blinds, stripped naked and stood next to the pool, using a basin to take cold water and rinse it.
After taking a shower and drying off, Song Jun came out of the water room in his underwear and planned to go back to the room to get some laundry and wash it.
As soon as he walked out of the water room, he heard footsteps on the wooden stairs. Before he could return to the room, he saw a slender figure stepping up the stairs to the second floor and appearing in the corridor.
It was a young man dressed in a simple T-shirt and long jeans, but Song Jun was stunned for a moment when he saw his appearance for the first time. The young man’s facial features were very delicate, and his appearance could be simply described as handsome. It would not be an exaggeration to say that he had a picturesque appearance. But his character seemed a bit cold, and he hadn’t smiled since meeting Song Jun.
When Song Jun saw him walking in his direction, he was in a daze at first, then realized what he was doing and stuttered, “S-senior Brother Xia?”
The young man looked at him from top to bottom, walked to the door of his room, took out the key to open the door, and then said, “Put on your clothes.”
Song Jun’s face suddenly turned red, and he returned to his room.
The author has something to say:
It is still updated at 12 o’clock. Generally, changes to the text are made during other times.
Notes:
Yu huu~
I’m back with another JGQ novel, and this is some sort of Garfield prequel coz it’s about Senior Brother Xia and Song Jun~
I’ll post the first chapter first and will give regular update hopefully in next 1-2 weeks~
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