12 Chapter 12: Spectacle girl

Wallance decided to have a lunch date with Qiao An at the Sun and Moon Restaurant. Since Wallance was not from City L, his knowledge of th best eating places was limited, and he refused to ask Shen Jun Shan so that he won't found out.

Wallance had a feeling that Shen Jun Shan didn't want him to have further contact with Qiao An. He couldn't explain why. The safest way would be doing everything by himself. He knew that if he asked Qiao An to choose a place, that girl would prefer not to go out with him.

To his surprise, Qiao An gave a positive response when he texted her about the meeting place. It's been a few years since Wallance was excited about a lunch meeting. He dressed up dashingly to the restaurant.

They decided to meet up at half an hour after twelve. Since its Sunday, the restaurant had a lot of customers, so Wallance had a difficulty to find a parking spot. He purposely came half an hour earlier, but by the time he reached the table he reserved, Qiao An was already there.

It was five minutes before their meeting time, and Qiao An was waiting for him. Wallance felt terrible for making her wait for him.

"Sorry, I'm late. It's quite hard to find vacant parking sport" Wallance took the seat opposite of Qiao An. Qiao An looked at him with a poker face, so it was hard for Wallance to know what was on her mind. Wallance took that time to assess Qiao An. She was not dressing up for the lunch date. She was wearing skinny jeans and a cream blouse. Her minimal makeup made her look fresh, and as if she was not trying at all.

But that was the problem – she was not even trying as if she was not interested at all. From Wallance's previous experience with girls, he could see that the girl will at least try to impress the guy they liked.

"I come earlier since I knew this area is busy during the weekend. I already order for myself" Qiao An looked at Wallance and she could see that Wallance was a good looking guy. She wondered if Wallance looked good all the time as it required a lot of effort to look good all the time.

The atmosphere between the two was pleasant. Wallance got to ask a lot of questions about Qiao An even though her answer was short most of the time. His conversation was interrupted by the vibration of Qiao An's phone.

Qiao An took her phone from her handbag and looked down at it. Wallance felt that Qiao An looked good today so it would be a pity if he didn't take any pictures of her. Wallance took out his phone and opened the camera app.

He rarely uses the camera app in his phone, but his niece always uses it to take cute pictures with the filters and false colours. Right when he opened the app, the history of the app was set on the spectacle filter.

Right at that moment, Qiao An looked up and saw that Wallance put up his camera in her direction. She was not impressed. "You will get into trouble if you take a picture of people without their permission."

Wallance saw Qiao An's face with the filter, and suddenly he remembered something. He put down his camera as Qiao An looked displeased with him.

"Qiao An, are you from Z University?" Wallance was pretty sure that he had seen Qiao An somewhere before, but he couldn't just remember where. After Wallance saw Qiao An with the spectacle filter, he remembered something, but he needed to confirm it first.

"Yes, how do you know?" Qiao An was surprised that Wallance knew where she studied during her university day.

"Are you from the Faculty of Education? And you have three best friends that always with you during your university day" Wallance was ninety per cent sure of his initial guess. When he saw Qiao An nodded her head slowly, Wallance felt excitement from his heart.

"Me and Jun Shan were from the Faculty of Engineering. We saw you and your friends all the time, especially during the final exam. At that time you were wearing spectacle, right? No wonder I could not recognise you when I first saw you last time."

Wallance believed in fate and destiny. If he met the same stranger for a few times for no reason at all, he felt that there might be some fate between them. He thought this applied with Qiao An too.

"Really?" Qiao An was shocked because of the revelation from Wallance. She never thought that Shen Jun Shan was in the same university as her. But she never saw him during her university day.

Since they have a common topic to talk about, Qiao An was not opening herself a little bit towards Wallance. She was not interested in him, but she figured out that maybe they could be a friend since Qiao An could count the number of a male friends she had by using her finger.

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The next day on Monday, Wallance went into Shen Jun Shan's office with a broad smile. He was excited to tell Shen Jun Shan about the piece of information he got from meeting Qiao An.

"Jun Shan, guess what I want to tell you" Wallance sat in front of Shen Jun Shan while tapping his finger on the table.

"You finish your part?" Shen Jun Shan did not think much of Wallance's question because he knew that his friend talked a lot.

"Yesterday, while I had a lunch date with Qiao An, I found out something. Do you remember during our university day, the group of…"

Before Wallance could finish his sentences, Shen Jun Shan cut him off.

"Why are you having lunch with An yesterday? Why didn't I know about this?" Shen Jun Shan was unhappy to know that Wallance did something again. "Don't play around with her. Why would you insist on pursuing her when you don't even have a crush on her?"

"Why are you tense all of a sudden? Don't worry, I have no intention to pursue her anymore. She told me specifically if she could befriend with me and she kept on mentioning the word 'FRIEND' while stressing on it. If I don't get what she means by that, I must be the stupidest guy in the world for not picking up the clue of friendzone".

Wallance rolled his eyes before continuing his excitement.

"But that is not important anymore. Listen to me. Do you still remember the group of girls during our university day? The group of four women and they always wear a knee-length skirt with a blouse?"

Shen Jun Shan nodded to indicate that he remembered those girls. Shen Jun Shan didn't know where the conversation was heading, but of course, he remembered the Short Skirt Group. The group was famous in their Faculty of Engineering, especially during the final exam session.

"You'll be surprised when you hear this" Wallance purposely paused to be dramatic, and then he inhaled a deep breath before talking and finishing everything in one breath. "Qiao An was one of the girls – She was the one with the spectacle – I asked about her other friends – one was taken and will get married next month, but the other two plus Qiao An are single, and they are ready to mingle – except for Qiao An of course."

That information was shocking. Shen Jun Shan was rendered speechless. Was Qiao An in Z University as well?

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Seven years ago.

"Our next paper will start at two. Where should we go while waiting for two o'clock?" Shen Jun Shan was leaning back at his seat while checking his phone. When he didn't get any response, he turned his body and looked at his three friends; Wallance, Lai Yi and You Ming.

Shen Jun Shan found it weird for his friends to be quiet as they were usually talkative. He tried asking once again."Where are we going hangout to kill time before…"

Before Shen Jun Shan could finish his question, Wallance covered Shen Jun Shan's mouth with his palm, and the other two make a 'shhh' sound. They pointed to a group of girls walking towards the car. The four men were quiet and looked at the four women approached the car cheerfully.

Then, they stopped by at the car and fixed their makeup, hair and outfit.

Shen Jun Shan's car was a yellow Volkswagen Beetle as he liked the Bumblebee in Transformer. Since his car was heavily tinted, the girls outside probably didn't expect that there were four men inside the vehicle, looking at them excitedly.

All of them looked different, and it was easy to differentiate them. Even though the girls looked different, all of them were equally attractive.

One of the girls, the one with the spectacle, was standing exactly beside the driver's seat. She removed her glasses and approached the window. She fixed her hair, and after that, she took out red lipstick and applied it to her lips. The girls treated the window as their mirror.

Shen Jun Shan felt as if the girl in glasses were staring right into his soul. The moment went by in slow motion for him as he stared at the girls while she was applying her lipstick and smacking her lips after that. All the guys froze in their seat.

It was only a few moments later after the girls left heading towards the building of the Engineering faculty that someone started speaking.

"I bet that those girls were not from our faculty. The girls in our faculty won't wear skirt THAT short" You Ming stressed on the word "that" while he was still staring at the direction where the girls disappeared. "Damn, the one with the curly hair is so hot".

"The one with the short hair belongs to me," Wallance said.

"Mine is the spectacle one" Lai Yi was smiling wide.

Both You Ming and Wallance picked the girls who stood next to them. By right, Shen Jun Shan should have chosen the spectacle girl, but he said nothing. In his heart, the girl with the spectacle was the prettiest. Also, he felt that the girl looked familiar, but he didn't know where he could have seen the girl before.

That was the first encounter he had with the group dubbed as the "short Skirt Group" by the male students of the Faculty of Engineering at Z University. Of course, that wouldn't be the last time he saw them as he would see them every time during the final exam in the Engineering building.