Time in a dream always passes quickly.
In the blink of an eye, it was lunchtime.
"Xue Rui, time to eat!" Qiu Mengze shook Xue Rui awake and asked with a serious expression, "Be honest. Did you sneak off to the internet cafe behind my back last night?"
"None of your damn business," Xue Rui cursed. After stretching, he noticed half the classroom was already empty, and Qiu Mengze had already left with a few other boys from their class to get food.
He looked around. It seemed no one was planning on going to the cafeteria with him.
After the classes were reorganized for the second year of high school, most people still stuck to the cliques they had formed with classmates from their first year. That was why everyone was laughing and chatting with their friends.
Only Xue Rui stood there alone in a daze. He subconsciously looked for Lin Ruoxi, but the girl who looked like she was wearing someone else's uniform was gone too.
'Am I being ostracized? Did I forget to tell her not to leave after school?' Xue Rui scratched his head, feeling that something wasn't quite right. He shouldn't be at the bottom of the food chain.
"Brother Rui, why aren't you going to find Gu Muxue? I just saw her heading to the cafeteria," someone shouted, running back into the classroom to tell him.
Xue Rui was speechless. 'So, you're telling me I spent every single day of my old high school life revolving around one person?' No wonder Qiu Mengze hadn't bothered to wait for him.
But he had no intention of looking for Gu Muxue. He strode over to Qiu Mengze's group and forcefully slung an arm over Qiu Mengze's shoulders, pulling him down.
"Who's that?!" The force of the impact made Qiu Mengze's chest tighten. He turned his head and, seeing it was Xue Rui, said in astonishment, "Did the sun rise in the west? You're actually eating with us?"
Hearing the young Qiu Mengze speak a full sentence so smoothly, without coughing or pausing, Xue Rui couldn't help but sigh with emotion. 'A young body really is a wonderful thing.' With a serious face, he said, "You should smoke less in the future. Otherwise, you won't even be able to speak properly."
"Are you going to tell me to play fewer video games next?" Qiu Mengze leaned back slightly. He could already guess what Xue Rui was going to say.
"Yes."
"Who are you trying to fool, acting like a good kid? Let me ask you, are you going to cut in line for food later or not?" Qiu Mengze asked a very practical question.
"I never cut in line."
Xue Rui spread his hands, a faint smile on his lips. The sun shone down from above, and his smile was so sincere and kind that he looked like an angel descended to earth.
He was going to set a good example for his childhood friend.
Qiu Mengze suddenly thought Xue Rui had lost his mind. It was very possible that after being rejected by Gu Muxue too many times, his psyche had finally started to crumble. He sighed internally.
The group arrived at the cafeteria. Xue Rui looked at the sea of heads and the line that stretched out of sight, and he suddenly regretted his earlier boast.
"You said you don't cut," Qiu Mengze said smugly. He then spotted an acquaintance in the line, shamelessly squeezed his way in, and jumped at least a few dozen meters ahead.
Xue Rui was left standing there, utterly dumbfounded.
'I don't even know the names of my own classmates. Whose spot am I supposed to cut?' Xue Rui thought, looking at the line that would take at least half an hour to get through. He felt a wave of irritation as he watched people constantly squeezing their way to the front.
This wasn't enough to stop him, though. As long as you were shameless enough, what did it matter if you didn't know anyone? The important thing was that other people knew him, right?
It was like those scam calls: "Brother Wang, it's me, your elementary school classmate Zhang Wei! What have you been up to lately?"
Someone is bound to have an old classmate named Zhang Wei. Maybe the person on the other end would fall for it. And even if they didn't, there was no harm done.
Cutting in line worked on the same principle.
Xue Rui scanned the cafeteria. He followed the gazes of many of the boys toward the far end of the line and spotted a tall, beautiful figure.
It was the back of a girl with a high ponytail. She was about half a head taller than the girls around her, and she carried herself with confidence, composure, and grace.
Suddenly, she turned her head as if looking for something. Her gaze paused for a moment in Xue Rui's direction, meeting his eyes, before she quickly looked away.
Even though it was just a glance, Xue Rui saw her clearly.
She had an oval face with soft, clear contours and perfectly balanced features. Her eyelashes were so thick they looked like natural eyeliner. Her peach-blossom eyes seemed to hold a constant, faint smile, and her nose was straight and elegant. Her fair skin glowed with the unique radiance of youth.
The girl laughed and chatted with her friend, her red lips parting slightly to reveal pearly white teeth and shallow dimples.
Xue Rui felt that hers was a face that could never look bad in a photo, no matter the time or angle.
He had to admit, beautiful people just had a different aura. Even though they were all wearing the same school uniform, on her, it looked vibrant and youthful, as if she were constantly viewed through the filter of a teen drama.
In contrast, the greasy-haired guy in front of him, who was hunched over memorizing vocabulary, had oil stains on his white uniform and messy hair. He looked like a goddamn homeless person.
"She looked at me!" a well-mannered male student with rimless glasses exclaimed in delight, waving at the girl.
"One of life's great delusions," Xue Rui muttered, shaking his head as he strode toward the beautiful girl.
If he was going to cut in line, why pick someone unattractive? With his wealth of social experience, Xue Rui knew very well that unattractive girls were the most difficult to deal with.
Pretty girls, on the other hand, were used to receiving preferential treatment, so they tended to have a better attitude and wouldn't fly into a rage over someone cutting in line.
"Keep your voice down! Didn't you see Xue Rui was just over there? Be careful he doesn't come looking for trouble," his companion whispered.
"I heard he and Gu Muxue had a fight. Besides, a student from their class told me that Xue Rui said he's giving up on her. He didn't go to Class One at all this morning." The well-mannered student felt his opportunity had arrived.
His companion forced an awkward smile. 'Xue Rui isn't bad-looking,' he thought, 'and he chased her like a madman for four years without success. Even if he gives up, what makes you think you have a chance?'
A moment later, the well-mannered young man saw the direction Xue Rui was heading, and his expression darkened. "Didn't he say he was giving up? Why is he going after Gu Muxue again?"
Xue Rui walked up and saw that the beauty was only a few spots away from getting her food.
He hurriedly quickened his pace to get closer. Before he could even speak, the heart-stoppingly beautiful girl took a small step back, making room for him.
"You're as kind as you are beautiful. You're the one who should be the school beauty, not Gu Muxue. She doesn't deserve it."
Xue Rui thought he had laid on the flattery perfectly, but he suddenly noticed the people around him were giving him strange looks. Even the beautiful girl before him, this Bodhisattva, now had a hint of anger in her eyes.
He took a closer look. On the meal card hanging from her chest, the name was written in plain sight: Gu Muxue.
'Shit, I really put my foot in it. No wonder she looked so familiar up close,' Xue Rui thought, sensing trouble. He gave a few awkward coughs.
Before he could explain, the cafeteria lady started banging on a plate and urged him along.
"Kid, what do you want? There's a line behind you."
"I'll have this, this, and that one," Xue Rui said, pointing randomly at a few dishes.
The cafeteria lady said impatiently, "Card!"
Xue Rui felt his pockets. He hadn't brought his meal card. He pulled out a fifty-yuan bill, but the cafeteria lady just frowned.
He was about to give up and just not eat, but a slender arm suddenly snaked out from behind him, brushing gently past his ear.
BEEP! The sound of a successful card swipe rang out. Xue Rui dazedly accepted his food, then turned his head and said:
"A school beauty is a school beauty for a reason. Your magnanimity is truly vast."
"Muxue, Xue Rui is calling you a big eater!" the girl behind her suddenly said.
Xue Rui shot the short girl a glare. 'How could she twist my words like that?' But he didn't say anything else and strode away.
His main goal now was to find Lin Ruoxi.
The aura Lin Ruoxi gave off was the complete opposite—quiet and secretive. But to the Xue Rui who had experienced the "Crimson Moon," it was an aura of utter, desolate despair.
'Where would someone like that sit?' Xue Rui thought carefully, then headed toward the most remote corners of the cafeteria.
After scanning every corner several times, Xue Rui muttered to himself, "Did she crawl into a utility closet to eat? Where is she?"
Suddenly, he noticed the door to the fire escape was cracked open. It led to the stairwell, which was hot and stuffy, a place almost no one ever went.
Xue Rui quietly pushed the door open a little wider and, just as he suspected, found Lin Ruoxi squatting on the stairs, eating.
Lin Ruoxi was already unnaturally thin, practically skin and bones. Peeking through the crack in the door, she looked even more fragile, like a scrawny stray cat secretly eating in a corner, terrified of being discovered by a predator.
'What is she eating…?'
Xue Rui hadn't been overly shocked, even when he learned he had been reborn into his second year of high school.
But when he saw the food in Lin Ruoxi's hands, his pupils contracted violently.
Her long, slender fingers, with their clearly visible knuckles, were like chopsticks, holding a large, yellowed steamed bun and carefully dipping it into seaweed soup.
Lin Ruoxi hadn't bought a single dish. To be more precise, she hadn't even bought a staple food. She had just gotten a bowl of the free seaweed soup. The yellowed bun was clearly not from the cafeteria.
Only when the seaweed soup had softened the outer layer of the bun, dissolving it slightly, did she slowly bring it to her mouth to gnaw on the soaked part.
Xue Rui kicked the door open, startling Lin Ruoxi so badly that she spilled the seaweed soup all over the floor. It trickled slowly down the steps to his feet.
"What the hell are you eating? You don't have a meal card either?"
The sight of it made Xue Rui lose his appetite. He put his own tray on the ground, snatched the bun from Lin Ruoxi's hand, and slammed it against the stainless steel handrail a few times. CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!
The stainless steel handrail was dented, but the bun remained intact, showing only a few white marks on its surface.
The summers in Hedong were so dry they could give you a nosebleed. A steamed bun left out for half a day would become hard enough to be used as a hammer and could be preserved for months without spoiling.
But if sealed, it would quickly grow moldy and rot. There was no telling how long this bun had been left out; it was completely air-dried.
"Harder than a brick," Xue Rui said with a frown.