Back to the Internet Cafe

Lin Er had packed a portion in a lunchbox beforehand. When Ying Yuechi looked over, she only said she was taking it to a friend.

He turned back to his own food.

Sipping drinks Ying Yuecheng had brought back from who knew where, the group strolled toward school with their little gift bags. There was no hope of a nap today; they were all stuffed.

Lin Er had eaten two softshell turtle shells.

There was only one at each table. Grandma Lin and her maternal grandmother's table had saved theirs for her, and her maternal aunt's table had done the same.

She suddenly felt she had been unbearably melodramatic, always thinking she had never felt any clear expression of love from her family.

But what stranger would remember what she liked to eat?

As they walked, the Ying brothers began to slow down.

Lin Er and Yan Jingting glanced at them curiously.

"Did you forget something?"

Ying Yuecheng looked at the two girls and hesitated, but Ying Yuechi had already peeled away from the group.

Lin Er turned to look. Well, what do you know? There was an internet cafe in this alley!

"You two head back first. We'll be back in a bit!"

Yan Jingting wasn't blind. She knew exactly what was going on. She glanced at Lin Er, looking a little tempted herself.

Lin Er couldn't understand it. "There isn't even half an hour left. Can you finish a game in that time?"

"I'm not playing games." Yan Jingting hesitated. "I just want to harvest my crops."

Lin Er looked at Ying Yuecheng, who nodded too.

Right, she had forgotten these were the people who would keep watch at the classroom door while using the computer for the classroom's multimedia teaching system to steal crops.

Only students with good grades dared pull something like that. Otherwise, how could the homeroom teacher have dealt with two of his biggest headaches by assigning just two seats?

The three went inside. Ying Yuechi had already booted up a computer. Sure enough, they raced through stealing crops. Once Ying Yuechi was done, he gave up his seat to Ying Yuecheng. When Ying Yuecheng finished, Yan Jingting sat down and began, muttering under her breath.

She blamed the two of them for stealing her crops, even though they were all friends. That wasn't surprising, since they seemed to have gone to the same elementary school.

Finally, the three looked at Lin Er. She logged in without a change of expression. Six radishes grew miserably on six plots of land.

"Tsk, tsk. We should've let you harvest first. At least you could've stolen some of ours."

Even Yan Jingting pitied her, nodding in agreement beside her.

"That's enough! I've only played for one day, and I don't have any of you as friends!"

The three looked everywhere but at her. In the end, Ying Yuechi was the first to give her his number, making Lin Er glance at him several times.

By the time the four of them finished stealing crops, almost half an hour was gone. Lin Er had only been there to make up the numbers.

They returned to school just in time to hear the bell for class.

The four exchanged glances and took off running. As long as they reached the classroom before the teacher, they wouldn't be late.

Now that she had told her family about the magic book, she no longer had to hide it under her pillow.

Her young pen pal had joined her for the feast, then sent the softshell turtle shell back to her in disbelief, along with a message.

[Ingredient?]

Lin Er collapsed laughing and replied with an affirmative [Yes.]

Speaking of which, what was so unbelievable about it? Was a country that had invented stargazy pie supposed to be normal?

After searching for ages, Lin Er still didn't know how to write "softshell turtle," so she sent another reply: [fish.]

Her young pen pal silently went offline, refusing to accept that this was part of a fish.

After Lin Er finished evening study, the magic book projected a dried flower. Lin Er drew a question mark.

Once her pen pal had confirmed someone was in front of the book, a slice of strawberry cream cake came through.

Then the person on the other end pretended no one was there.

Lin Er laughed for a while, took out the cake, and sent the little gift bag across.

The bags used to contain little cakes decorated with red flowers and green leaves, but this time her maternal grandaunt's family had put in crunchy instant noodles and milk instead.

Lin Er didn't much like plain milk, so she had given him the school milk she'd been handed before. He hadn't wanted it at first.

But after Lin Er sent him a [grow taller], he never refused again.

No matter the country, what child could resist growing taller?

Back at the dorm, the cake was so sweet it made Lin Er's teeth ache. It took four or five people to finish it.

Wang Juan waited in line to brush her teeth, looking utterly done with life.

"Cake this sweet-did the bakery beat the sugar seller to death?"

Lin Er huddled under her blanket, small, pitiful, and helpless.

Who could have seen that coming? She had exaggerated when she said the sweetness made her teeth ache, but the classmates who had tried a bite were in real pain.

What could she say? It fit her stereotype perfectly: desserts in the world of Harry Potter were super sweet.

Who wrote fanfiction without having Professor Snape brew Dumbledore a tooth-strengthening potion?

That man was the real king of candy, the White Dark Lord!

Early the next morning, Lin Er got more feedback: the cake helped people sleep!

[Really, I was hurting and hurting yesterday, and then suddenly I fell asleep. I slept straight through until morning, and now it doesn't hurt anymore!]

Lin Er didn't know whether to laugh or cry as she looked at the note. She had seen Wang Juan tossing and turning as though she was in too much pain to sleep, so she had cast Stupefy.

But it turned out the pain mattered less to Wang Juan than not being able to sleep. She kept asking Lin Er which shop had sold the cake, saying she wanted to try it again.

[I don't know either. Didn't I take time off yesterday to go out for a meal? A relative gave it to me.]

[All right.]

Wang Juan took the note back in disappointment. Two classes later, another note came over.

This one had taken a roundabout route, passing through the fourth group.

Lin Er opened it and looked. Ha, little Xu Chao had quite a few schemes.

[Lin Er, can you ask your relative where they bought the cake?]

Lin Er tossed the note onto his desk. Xu Chao opened it, then turned red in the face and tore it to pieces, throwing them into the trash bag beside his desk.

Ha, the little brat had only been found out by her, and he was already blushing that hard. How was he going to win her over?

But what did that have to do with her? Lin Er paid close attention in class.

There was only a little over a week until the midterm exams. If her grades still didn't catch up, she wouldn't even feel comfortable sitting here.

Yan Jingting glanced behind her, then at Lin Er, practically bursting with curiosity.

"Ask."

"What's going on with those two desk mates? Why do they keep passing you notes?"

Lin Er smiled and glanced at her. "How would I know what's going on with those two desk mates?"

Nothing had even happened between them yet. What business did she have spreading gossip?

"Fine, fine. Don't tell me, then."

Lin Er didn't understand why she loved hearing gossip about who was dating whom so much. It wasn't as though Lin Er had ever seen her take a liking to anyone herself.

"You'd better stop asking around about these things. If word gets to the homeroom teacher one day, people might think you were the one who snitched."

She had always thought they were still young, so there couldn't be many students dating.

But only after getting this desk mate did she learn that the reason she had never known anything before was simply that her sources of information were limited.

Some students in their class had even dated in elementary school. There were all too many dating in the class now, and some of the girls who hardly studied even had boyfriends outside school.

Oh, right. Their homeroom teacher's luck in this regard was something else, too: the troublemaking boys and girls in their school year were all in their class.

The sixty students in their class fell into three groups: those who studied, those who did poorly at school, and those who ran with people outside school.

In terms of range, their class was far ahead of the rest of their year.