Page 8

"Then please clear away the remaining missing-person notices from the school bulletin board. Thank you." As Lu Chi spoke, Athletes' March began playing over the sports field after the morning exercises. Keeping his hands in his pockets, he turned to head back to the teaching building—

"You actually treated my heartfelt work as missing-person notices?" Hearing Lu Chi summarize the sketch she had spent two sleepless nights drawing and the sentence she had agonized over, revising again and again, as missing-person notices, Qiao Shiyu felt both wronged and angry. Still, Lu Chi's attitude confirmed once again that her savior truly wanted nothing more than to avoid her—

Qiao Shiyu blinked and tried hard to calm her emotions before flashing him a radiant smile. "Now that I've found you in person, those sheets on the school bulletin board really don't need to stay up any longer. But aren't you curious why I could draw you so accurately after seeing you only once? And... if classmates ask why I made such a big fuss looking for you, what am I supposed to say?"

Lu Chi froze at that. Looking at Qiao Shiyu in confusion, he asked seriously, "Didn't you say this was your own business?"

"I like you. It has nothing to do with you! So you have no right to reject my feelings!"

Those words still rang in her ears. Qiao Shiyu felt as though she had been slapped hard across the face, unable to even maintain a basic smile.

Yue Bin, who had been squatting on the ground watching the entire exchange, nearly burst out laughing. He simply shifted into a sitting position on the basketball, stretched his long legs out in front of Lu Chi, tilted his head, and asked eagerly, "Hey, you're Lu Chi, right? Which class are you in? How come I've never seen you before? Can you play basketball?"

Lu Chi lowered his eyes to glance at Yue Bin's legs, expressionless, then stepped right over them.

Ignored from beginning to end, Yue Bin curled his lips. Scooping up the ball, he rose from the ground and chased after Lu Chi. "Hey, don't think staying silent will get you out of this. Since I know your name, I can find out which class you're in. I think you seem like a pretty decent guy. We should play sometime..."

Lu Chi returned to the classroom expressionlessly and received another wave of covert stares. His deskmate Pan Tianbo zipped over at a speed utterly at odds with his chubby build, waggling his eyebrows as he said, "You actually skipped the morning exercises with the school beauty and the school hunk. Hurry up and tell me—what did you talk about? Why did the school beauty draw your portrait? Did the school hunk give you trouble? Did he tell you to wait after school..."

Lu Chi gave Pan Tianbo an indifferent glance, and Pan Tianbo immediately fell silent.

Lu Chi pulled out his math textbook and monthly exam paper from his desk drawer and said, "No."

No what?

Pan Tianbo blinked, then suddenly realized Lu Chi was probably saying Yue Bin had not given him trouble or told him to wait after school...

Pan Tianbo gloomily glanced at his miserly-with-words deskmate and muttered sulkily, "...What a closet show-off!"

The next two classes were math and English. After the fourth class of the morning ended, the English teacher dragged the lesson out for another seven minutes before finally dismissing them.

The whole class charged toward the cafeteria like maniacs. Lu Chi followed the crowd out of the teaching building, but instead of going to the cafeteria, he left the school.

Yue Bin, who did not want cafeteria food and was about to take his friends to KFC, spotted Lu Chi leaving through the school gates with his sharp eyes. Having just showered in the gymnasium, the school hunk suddenly remembered his image. He changed direction and instinctively followed behind Lu Chi.

Several of his basketball team friends asked suspiciously, "Yue Bin, what are you doing? Isn't that the wrong way?"

"It's not the wrong way!" Yue Bin waved a hand, saying matter-of-factly, "I'm following someone first!"

"Who?" The group followed Yue Bin's gaze ahead. One particularly well-informed friend suddenly understood. "Oh, it's him. I know—Little Hero's older brother. He transferred here through Huaxia Entertainment connections. Why are you following him? Did he offend you?"

"What Little Hero?" Yue Bin was utterly confused. "I'm following him because of Qiao—because he said I stink!"

Yue Bin had originally wanted to mention Qiao Shiyu, but after their conversation in the pavilion, he had also sensed Lu Chi's desire not to attract trouble—though this guy did have a pretty thick skin. Still, Yue Bin considered himself a considerate good kid. Under normal circumstances, he would not deliberately do things that annoyed people.

Although Yue Bin had only said the word "Qiao," his well-informed friends pieced together the whole story in a flash. They all drew out a meaningful "Oh," becoming intensely interested in this mysterious classmate who had received a confession from the school beauty only days after transferring in. One of them said with a grin, "Accusing our Binbin of being smelly is a very serious matter. We can't just let it slide. We have to follow him, explain things clearly, make him deeply realize that our Binbin doesn't stink at all, and then have him sincerely apologize to our Binbin—can't let it damage our school hunk's image, right?"

As soon as he finished speaking, the group erupted in agreement. No one was in a hurry to eat anymore. Three or five of them sneakily followed behind Lu Chi—all the way to the gates of Yanda Affiliated Primary School.

Watching Lu Chi enter the elementary school section with their own eyes, the group looked at one another. "What's going on? Are we still following him?"

"How are we supposed to follow him? Are we really going to stroll around the elementary school section after him? Isn't that embarrassing?"

"But we've already followed him all this way. Wouldn't giving up halfway now be too pathetic?"

Yue Bin blinked, then said decisively, "Wait. We'll wait for him to come out."

Lu Chi, who had accompanied Lu Miaomiao to top up her meal card and sampled a specialty from the elementary school cafeteria while he was there, had no idea that a whole group of people outside the gates were hungrily waiting for him out of sheer boredom.

With a finally "ample" balance on her meal card, Miao Miao was incredibly excited. She insisted on treating her older brother to the mala tang she thought was delicious but outrageously expensive. Lu Chi did not want to spoil her fun, but he was worried that a bowl of vegetables would not fill him up, so he also ordered two liang of rice. In the end, after only a few bites, the extremely numbing, spicy bowl of food left him unable to even close his mouth—if not for the four yuan he had spent, Lu Chi would have put down his chopsticks. Yet as he forced himself to keep eating, he instead began to find it indescribably delicious—if he had to describe it, it was probably both torturous and satisfying.