Noon

In the shadows of the aisle, Izuku Midoriya nervously looked at Shoto Todoroki, who had called him out. After a while, he couldn't help but ask, "Todoroki-kun, what's up? The cafeteria must be packed right now, and if we go late..."

"Midoriya."

"Here!" Midoriya swallowed nervously, cold sweat beading on his forehead.

Shoto Todoroki's silent indifference, unlike Bakugo's rudeness and Jilan's gentleness, put a lot of pressure on him.

After a moment of silence, Shoto Todoroki spoke up, "Actually, you're All Might's illegitimate son, aren't you?"

"... Huh?"

Jilan Jiyu pulled Ibara Shiozaki through the crowd and arrived at the entrance of the Hero Course building. What usually takes only five minutes took them a full fifteen minutes, even though there weren't many people around.

"There are so many people..."

Jilan Jiyu shielded their eyes from the sunlight with their arms and squinted as they spoke.

U.A. High School is renowned as the nation's premier cradle of heroes, but Jilan Jiyu has never felt that the school is significantly different from other schools. At most, it's more luxurious and has a higher level of teaching staff. In comparison, any random private elite school could easily surpass the environment here.

But today he realized that the school had really protected the students too well before, never letting them be examined by the outside world.

Just now, he had seen no fewer than ten reporters interviewing students participating in different Sports Festival, asking them about their feelings. But this had never happened before; no reporter had ever been able to get past the U.A. High School Wall.

The reporters must have done a lot of preparation for this open day, as they bombarded the audience with questions non-stop.

Jilan also spotted Tetsutetsu laughing heartily while touching his head during an interview with a female reporter. When he saw Jilan, he gave her a smug look.

Even though I lost to you, I still got to be interviewed by reporters. How about that? Are you envious?

Yes, that's roughly the idea.

Jilan Jiyu looked at Ibara Shiozaki's hands, while the other hand was holding a piece of apple candy and licking it with small bites, her warm lips were stained red.

Looking at her increasingly fair hands beneath the red apple candy, Jilan Jiyu couldn't help but swallow.

Although it was somewhat vulgar, he...

Ibara Shiozaki looked up, somewhat confused, at Jilan who had suddenly stopped. He glanced back and forth between the apple candy and Yoshiran's gaze, then said warily, "Are you hungry? I'm not giving you any."

Who cares about the apple candy you licked... Jilan Jiyu rolled their eyes and said helplessly, "I gave you this candy, didn't I? If I wanted to eat it, I wouldn't have given it to you."

As they passed a food stall, Jilan Jiyu spotted Yuta Togashi, the class representative of Class 2 -Class A, acting suspiciously behind Secretary Nakiri on patrol.

Jilan Jiyu greeted him in a spirit of friendship and mutual assistance, but he hurriedly turned around, covered his mouth, and squatted behind a stall. He only let go of the mouth after the suspicious Secretary Nakiri turned around.

"Togashi- senpai, are you stalking him?" Jilan Jiyu asked.

Yuta Togashi's expression shifted several times before he gave an awkward laugh, "Oh, it's Jilan- kun. Congratulations on advancing. I was just passing by and was about to buy something to eat."

"Is that so? I remember you seemed to have said you wanted to confess your feelings to the Party Secretary, right?"

Under Jilan's scrutinizing gaze, Togashi was defeated, hanging his head dejectedly and saying, "After the competition, I heard from my classmates that the red-haired hedgehog who was locked up in the Student Council had escaped and seemed to have returned to this stall. Now, the secretary is looking for him alone so as not to trouble the other Student Council members. I was afraid the secretary would get hurt, so I secretly protected him."

Jilan Jiyu didn't quite understand what he was saying. He had always been slow to understand matters of the heart; otherwise, he wouldn't have never had a girlfriend since birth.

Having already given the initial greeting, Jilan felt it was time for him to retreat. As Jilan Jiyu stood up, they saw Ibara Shiozaki, whom they were holding onto, staring intently at the apple candy stall in front of them.

"... Hey, we don't have any money on us, can we stop looking?"

Jilan Jiyu tried to pull her away speechlessly, but they couldn't budge her. Turning around, they saw that several strands of her hair were tightly wrapped around the stall's frame, and it looked like the stall was about to fall apart.

Seeing the stall owner's increasingly terrified expression, Jilan Jiyu sighed, looked at Yuta Togashi, and placed his hand on his shoulder.

"Senior, you don't want the secretary to know you were following him, do you...?"

Yuta Togashi's body stiffened.

In short, Jilan used threats to force Yuta Togashi to hand over the money for the candied apples, but frankly, shouldn't he have been able to pay for them in the first place?

Jilan Jiyu led her to the door of Class A's classroom, took out their student cards, and opened the door.

The room was naturally empty; everyone else had probably gone to the cafeteria, instead of having to rush to the classroom in their limited hour like I was. By the way, the cafeteria was quite close to the stadium.

"Here, ten thousand yuan." Jilan Jiyu took out a banknote from their wallets, went to the classroom door, and stuffed it into her hand.

After the transaction was completed, Jilan Jiyu closed the door and turned to leave without saying much to her. They didn't have much time left to rest, and he wanted to go get some food.

Ibara Shiozaki watched his retreating figure, hesitant to speak, clutching the banknote tightly, and looking down at the half-eaten candied apple.

Actually, she...

Jilan Jiyu bought a bowl of fried noodles and leisurely walked towards the stadium while eating.

It has to be said that although the red-haired senior was hiding under the table the whole time while making the food, only peeking out a few times and stirring the noodles with his outstretched hands, his cooking skills were really quite good.

... Although it's unclear why he immediately hid when he saw a blonde girl.

Jilan Jiyu saw the white tent at the entrance of the stadium. After hesitating for a moment, they finished their fried noodles in a few bites, wiped their mouths with a tissue, and walked towards the tent.

As soon as Jilan lifted the curtain, she was greeted by the smell of disinfectant. A pink-haired girl in a white coat was sitting at the table, earnestly asking the student next to her a question while taking notes.

Her name is Rui En Banigel, the granddaughter of the Recovery Girl, and the head of treatment for the first year.

Although Jilan Jiyu still had doubts about the constantly changing grammar of the Recovery Girl, at least at this moment he did not notice any problems.

The boy, who had been covering his fingers, stood up, his face flushed, bowed excitedly to Rui En, and then ran out of the tent.

"How are you feeling? Is this job still busy?" Jilan asked.

Initially, both the Recovery Girl and Shota Aizawa highly praised Rui En's abilities, but Jilan felt that the job was too much of a burden for a first-year girl.

Rui En was taken aback, and a charming smile gradually appeared on her calm face. She stood up, walked to Jilan, tossed her hair, and said with a smile, "I didn't expect the class monitor, who has advanced to the finals, to ask such a question. Can I take it as concern for me?"

To provide timely assistance to the injured, she was only a few meters away from the stadium gate, and could easily hear the cheers from inside the stadium. She naturally heard Jilan Jiyu's announcements of being shortlisted.

Jilan Jiyu didn't answer directly, "After all, your grandmother asked me to look after you."

Rui En's smile remained unchanged as he placed his hands on Jilan's arms, "Are you very tired after the competition? Would you like me to give you a full body check-up?"

Jilan Jiyu raised an eyebrow. Although they vaguely sensed that she seemed to be somewhat interested in them, this sentence was no longer a hint, but a blatant provocation.

"Doctor, sorry to bother you!" A bristling green-haired man burst into the tent. "I'd like you to take a look at my arm..."

Midoriya froze halfway through his sentence, surprised to see Jilan struggling with a girl. Had he arrived at the wrong time?

"Will I be silenced?" This was the only thought in Midoriya's mind.