Chapter 56: Dormitory Conflict

On Monday at noon, after finishing his classes, Lin Hexi had a sudden urge to return to the dormitory to grab something.

His dorm mates, who presumably didn’t have classes, were still in the dorm and hadn’t gone out. Lin Hexi stopped outside the door, and he could clearly hear the noisy commotion coming from inside.

He didn’t raise his hand to knock but chose instead to lower his head and search his bag for the key.

When the dorms were assigned in his freshman year, Lin Hexi wasn’t very lucky and ended up in a mixed dorm. Besides him, the other three were all classmates from the same section; they usually came and went together, attending classes and eating meals as a group. Lin Hexi’s schedule happened to be the opposite of theirs, so he naturally became more of a loner.

Moreover, at that time, the rumors about Lin Hexi within the department were growing increasingly intense, which also caused his relationship with his roommates to gradually become distant and strained.

After inserting the key into the lock, Lin Hexi turned it to the left, but the key got stuck in the lock slot and wouldn’t budge.

He tried the right side with the same result. Suspecting that he might have inserted the key incorrectly, he pulled the key out, flipped it over, and inserted it into the lock again.

The key still wouldn’t turn.

Realizing what the issue was, Lin Hexi’s expression turned indifferent. He pulled out the key and raised his hand to knock on the door.

The knocking echoed inside, and the noisy commotion gradually quieted down. Shortly after, footsteps approached from afar, growing closer.

After the door opened, the person who answered the door froze for a moment when he saw Lin Hexi standing outside and instinctively stepped aside to let him in.

The person wasn’t one of Lin Hexi’s roommates. Lin Hexi walked past him and glanced around the entire dorm room.

The air was filled with a strong spicy aroma, and many people were sitting around in the middle of the dorm room, eating hot pot. Even his desk nearby was covered with plates of food and sauce dishes.

When they saw him walk in, everyone fell into a brief silence.

With his fingertips hooked around the key ring, Lin Hexi shook the key slightly toward the three roommates sitting in the center and said blandly, “You changed the door lock?”

The buzz-cut guy who slept across from him was the first to stand up, showing a nonchalant expression. “Aren’t you not staying here anymore?”

Lin Hexi casually curled his lips, “Even if I’m not staying here, my things are still here. I paid for this bed as well.”

“Would a young master from a wealthy family care about these little things and this bit of money?” The buzz-cut guy pretended to ponder, then suddenly looked as if he had just remembered something. “Oh, I almost forgot. You’re not the legitimate eldest young master of the Lin family, so naturally, you don’t get as much pocket money as Lin Tong.”

His words were blatantly mocking, but Lin Hexi acted as if he hadn’t heard a thing and turned to walk toward his desk.

He found what he needed on the bookshelf and put it in his bag, then glanced down at his desk.

The chair had already been pulled away for someone to sit on, and the once clean and tidy desk was now covered in greasy stains from sauce dishes. There was even blackened grease, indicating that these people had used his desk and chair for hot pot meals more than once.

The practice notebook he had casually left on the corner of the desk was also stained with plenty of hot pot red oil.

The hot water card, which should have been stored in the drawer, was inexplicably tossed on top of the practice notebook by someone.

Lin Hexi picked up the hot water card and went into the bathroom. When he placed the card against the reader, it showed a balance of zero. He clearly remembered that two months ago, when he returned to the dorm to sleep, the balance on the card was still in the triple digits.

Clutching the card, Lin Hexi walked out of the bathroom and looked coldly at the three sitting around the hot pot. “Which one of you used my hot water card?”

The other two remained silent, while the buzz-cut guy across from him sneered, “Who would use your hot water card?”

After stating the original balance on the card, Lin Hexi turned his gaze towards him. “Whoever used up the money on my card knows very well who they are.”

The buzz-cut guy replied with a disdainful tone, “Sorry, I really don’t know. The card is yours. You can say whatever you want about how much money was on it. Do you really think we’re that stupid?”

“Is that so?” Lin Hexi nodded calmly, as if he was no longer pursuing the matter, then shifted his gaze to his desk. “Whoever dirtied my desk, clean it up now.”

No one moved.

Lin Hexi said, “If you don’t clean it, I’ll just consider everything on the desk as trash and throw it away.”

He reached out to pick up the plates of food that were still waiting to be cooked on his desk.

Only then did the other two roommates get up to stop him, pulling tissues from the box and half-heartedly wiping the desk for him.

The buzz-cut guy impatiently scolded them, “Why are you cleaning it? Let him clean it himself.”

Lin Hexi carried the plate of shrimp paste to the trash can, his left hand slightly tilting downward.

The buzz-cut guy sneered coldly and effortlessly snatched the plate from Lin Hexi’s hand, the contempt in his gaze growing even more pronounced.

However, Lin Hexi’s focus was never really on the plate of shrimp paste. At that moment, he suddenly exerted force, raising his hand to grab the back of the buzz-cut guy’s neck, pressing his face straight toward the boiling hot pot.

Caught off guard by the unexpected strength in Lin Hexi’s grip, the buzz-cut guy was unable to break free from the hand clamped around his neck.

The others in the dorm, who initially intended to stay out of the conflict, finally realized what was happening and rushed forward to intervene.

Lin Hexi’s movements didn’t slow in the slightest. Only when the buzz-cut guy’s face was almost level with the edge of the pot, hovering just above the rising steam, did Lin Hexi abruptly halt his actions.

The buzz-cut guy broke into a cold sweat, struggling to get up.

Lin Hexi pressed his face down a little further, his indifferent eyes sweeping over those gathered around. In a calm tone, he asked, “Who used my hot water card? Can someone tell me now?”

The boiling bubbles from the pot splashed onto his face, both scalding and spicy. The buzz-cut guy squinted, his gaze darting over the folding table that held the pot. Sweat began to bead on his forehead. “I’ll tell you.”

Lin Hexi lifted his face slightly.

The buzz-cut guy took a light breath, reaching a hand toward the edge of the pot, his tone slightly hostile. “You don’t live here, and the money on the hot water card would just go to waste. We might as well use it for you.”

He spoke the first half of his sentence slowly, but as soon as his fingers grasped the fruit knife lying next to the pot, his speech sped up abruptly. He quickly flipped his hand to grip Lin Hexi’s arm for leverage and thrust the knife toward Lin Hexi.

The change happened in an instant, catching most of the people around off guard. Some, fearing accidental injury, quickly retreated, but no one stepped forward to intervene.

Lin Hexi reacted swiftly, turning his face to the side and watching as the knife tip lightly grazed past his cheek. Seizing the moment when the buzz-cut guy’s body leaned forward due to inertia, Lin Hexi lifted his leg and kicked him to the ground.

The fruit knife flew out of the buzz-cut guy’s hand and clattered onto the floor, instantly snapping everyone back to reality. Someone hurriedly went over to pick it up, sheathing the knife’s tip back into its cover.

Lin Hexi crouched down, grabbed the buzz-cut guy by the collar, and punched him in the face.

In the end, the buzz-cut guy was carried to the school’s infirmary. Lin Hexi rummaged through his desk for anything useful, took what he needed, and decided he wouldn’t be coming back to the dorm again.

Before leaving, Lin Hexi vaguely recalled that the tip of the fruit knife seemed to have a trace of red on it. He pushed the door open and went into the bathroom to check in the mirror. Sure enough, there was a shallow cut on the side of his face, with tiny beads of blood oozing from the wound.

It wasn’t a serious injury. Lin Hexi washed it off with tap water, found a baseball cap in the corner of his wardrobe, and pressed it down on his head. He grabbed his backpack from the chair and walked out.

His good mood was utterly ruined. Lin Hexi skipped the step of going to the supermarket to buy band-aids and headed straight towards the south gate of the school.

While crossing the open area in front of the gymnasium, he noticed a steady stream of students entering the gym. He overheard two people behind him mentioning a basketball game that had already started inside. He couldn’t help but slow down his steps and accurately caught the words “Polytechnic Institute” from their conversation.

You Chong was a student at the Polytechnic Institute, and Lin Hexi also remembered that You Chong played basketball.

With a slight turn of his steps, Lin Hexi’s lips curved into a small smile as he headed towards the gymnasium, leaving all the previous unpleasant events behind him.