Ten people, dozens, even over a hundred, banging and shouting, each wave of noise louder than the last—such a lively scene hadn’t been seen in years. Chad Bennett watched with great excitement, but unfortunately all the rice bowls were in Victor Smith’s hands, so he had nothing to bang on. His heart itched like a cat scratching, wishing he could find a big drum to beat for real effect. He hurried to squeeze to the cafeteria entrance, went up to Victor Smith to ask for a bowl. Victor Smith was reading a big-character poster, but when his bowl was snatched, he glared and scolded, “What are you doing?”

“Everyone’s banging bowls, give me one to bang.” Chad Bennett said cheerfully, trying to snatch a bowl. Victor Smith dodged, didn’t give it, pushed him and said, “Don’t make a fuss. Don’t think you can get away with it just because the boss isn’t here. You have to listen to me, or the Student Affairs Office will keep a record.”

Apparently, the mention of the boss carried some weight. Hearing this, Chad Bennett quieted down a bit. Victor Smith pointed into the distance, and when Chad Bennett looked, his blood instantly cooled. Far away, several people from the Security Department, Political Education Office, and Student Affairs Office were hesitating. That really killed the mood for making trouble. He followed Victor Smith to look at the big-character poster, and after a few glances, found it quite interesting. The poster read:

【…Classmates, are you hungry? Have you had a single good meal this semester? Every day, what we do isn’t eating, it’s suffering. The bean sprouts in the veggie buns are raw, the noodles in the braised noodles are moldy, the radishes and cabbages are muddy, and with such poor-quality food, we even find cockroaches in it… And yet, with such poor-quality food, they shamelessly raise the prices… Classmates, what’s wrong with you, how much longer will you endure? … For our health, for our poor stomachs, and for the hard-earned money of our parents, let’s unite…】

The handwriting was ugly, rivaling Chad Bennett’s looks, and the writing style was mediocre. So blunt and radical, Victor Smith shook his head. After a few glances, it was all denunciations of the cafeteria. Several posters were put up. Chad Bennett looked back and saw Victor Smith was quite into it, and said disdainfully, “What’s there to see? Come on, let’s go shout with everyone. It’s rare for someone to dare stand up, we have to support them. No, not just support, we have to show solidarity.”

“Don’t get involved in the commotion. I’m trying to see who organized this.” Victor Smith had the calm demeanor of someone sitting alone fishing, as if pondering something. Chad Bennett suddenly thought of someone, nervously leaned in and whispered in the literary brother’s ear, “Bro, could it be the boss who organized this?”

“No way.” Victor Smith said confidently, pointing at the poster and commenting, “The handwriting is too bad. The boss is a perfectionist and would never tolerate such scribbles, so it’s not our boss. And the writing is mediocre, those doggerel poems don’t even rhyme, so it’s not from our Chinese department.”

“Right, definitely not. If it were from our department, they’d be all pretentious. If they couldn’t show off a few lines, it’d kill them.” Chad Bennett said.

“Heh heh… you’re right.” Victor Smith laughed. “I don’t think it’s the English department either. Too many petty bourgeois girls there, best at scheming and worshipping foreigners, this isn’t their style… Not the biochem department either, those guys have been formulaic for ages, they’d never come up with something this passionate. And it shouldn’t be the history department, those guys are lifeless and not even united among themselves. Doesn’t seem like the math department either, they’re too busy with their own calculations. As for the art department, doesn’t seem like them either, the girls there are all busy sacrificing for the sake of RMB art… so…”

Victor Smith ruled out several departments in a row. Chad Bennett’s eyes rolled as he bit his finger, thinking hard, but clearly couldn’t figure it out, so he asked curiously, “So, do you know who it is?”

“Of course.” Victor Smith nodded, ready to leave, and whispered, “It should be those blockheads from the PE department. Their handwriting looks like wild cursive, and they act without thinking. The signature is even from a hungry girl… Look at that writing, like a crooked willow blown by the wind—does that look like a girl’s handwriting? Even if the gender is female, it’s definitely that shrew from the PE department.”

After a few comments and another look at the messy writing, Chad Bennett was already grinning so hard his eyes were just slits. Apparently, great minds think alike. After a few steps, he looked around at a few big guys, and Chad Bennett felt the analysis was unnecessary—sure enough, a few blockheads from the PE department were scattered in the crowd, stirring things up.

Outside the crowd, more than a dozen people from the Political Education Office, Student Affairs Office, and Security Department had already gathered, shouting for everyone to disperse, promising the school would handle things properly. The more they explained, the more excited people got. Some even took the opportunity to shout about corruption in the cafeteria’s outsourcing, and with so many girls watching, chattering and asking questions, the officials were left awkwardly standing there, not knowing what to do.

Such excitement was rare in college. Usually, at most you’d see a couple kissing in a corner, someone doing splits on the lawn, or two girls fighting over a guy. But this kind of large-scale commotion was almost like a cultural festival. By the time they squeezed out, the crowd was packed three layers deep, heads bobbing everywhere—much livelier than regular mealtimes. Victor Smith dragged the reluctant Chad Bennett all the way out of the crowd, while Chad Bennett still grumbled unhappily, “Don’t pull, don’t pull… let me watch a bit longer.”