Gu Muxue's reminder made everything come flooding back to Xue Rui.
CLACK.
He lost his grip, and his chopsticks fell to the floor.
His carefully crafted persona had shattered.
Gu Muxue was picked up from school every day in a rotating fleet of Audis and BMWs. What boy without a wealthy family would dare pursue a goddess like that?
So, faced with such immense competition, what did Xue Rui do?
He took a different path, creating a tragic persona for himself to stand out from the homogenous crowd of other "second-generation rich kids."
In reality, it was also because he couldn't compete with them. With the pittance he had in his pockets, he had to save up his allowance for days just to go online. How could he possibly compare to the other rich kids?
But, as it turned out, his strategy was a huge success. Gu Muxue was exceptionally tolerant of him.
"Muxue, you've just misunderstood. I never lied to you."
Xue Rui picked up his chopsticks, wiped them, and said with a perfectly straight face, "My dad really is a chef. He just also happens to be the owner of the restaurant, and he has to entertain clients every day, so he's never home."
"My mom is unemployed and spends her days socializing with friends over mahjong. You know—drawing, shuffling, stacking, and flipping tiles... There are so many techniques involved. She practices so hard her fingers get blisters from shuffling the tiles. How is that not a type of manual labor?"
"As for my grandparents, they can't sit still. When they came to the city, they were either collecting cardboard or polishing things. They weren't comfortable, and it was hard for us to watch. So, they had no choice but to go back to the village and pass the time by reluctantly farming."
Xue Rui's logic was flawless. He provided a perfectly plausible explanation for every one of Gu Muxue's doubts.
Gu Muxue had imagined Xue Rui's family as the type where the father worked from dawn till dusk, the mother was a full-time housewife who did needlework like embroidery at night to supplement their income, and their finances were extremely tight.
The reality, however, was a world away from what she had imagined. Xue Rui was a bona fide rich kid.
And not only had Xue Rui not apologized, but he was also still spinning tall tales to fool her.
"Liar!" Gu Muxue's eyes welled up with tears.
Most of the people who pursued her were rich kids who seemed to think that the more money they spent, the more they liked her.
But Xue Rui was different. His family was supposedly ordinary, yet he had the courage to approach her. Plus, they had been friends since elementary school, and she had grown used to having him around.
Although Xue Rui was unreliable, he seemed more genuine compared to the other boys.
She had never accepted his advances, but she hadn't pushed him away either. After all, with Xue Rui around, other boys didn't bother her.
Now that she knew the truth, Gu Muxue felt so wronged.
But faced with a scoundrel like Xue Rui, she didn't know what to do.
'Beat him up? He's so thick-skinned, that would be letting him off too easy!'
'Yell at him? But he's even more shameless.'
"You big liar!" The more Gu Muxue thought about it, the angrier she got. She grabbed Xue Rui's arm and sank her teeth into it.
Xue Rui's pupils contracted violently, his eyes filled with utter astonishment.
'A girl like Gu Muxue, whose every move is like that of a celestial fairy, is actually biting me?'
The key point was that this girl was showing no mercy. A row of pearly white teeth sank deep into his flesh.
"Ow! Let go!" Xue Rui pushed at Gu Muxue's head, but the harder he pushed, the tighter she bit down.
He had been hoping something would happen during their classroom rendezvous today, preferably some kind of intimate contact.
And now, while they couldn't possibly be any closer, Xue Rui was in too much pain to appreciate it.
"We've known each other for over ten years, and you're biting me this hard?"
"Muxue, I really realize my mistake now. I apologize."
...
No matter how much Xue Rui begged for mercy, Gu Muxue showed no sign of letting go. She even ground her teeth against his arm, as if she wanted to tear off a piece of his flesh.
Mei Lili stared blankly, the shock in her heart beyond words.
'Gu Muxue actually bites people?'
'How could her goddess do something so unladylike?'
Gu Muxue's image in her mind suddenly began to waver, tainted by a hint of "lowly" mortal air.
'No, no, no, this is all Xue Rui's fault!'
She shook her head, and the image of the pure and holy Gu Muxue in her mind became clear once again.
"Xue Rui, let go of Muxue!" Mei Lili yelled, grabbing his arm.
"Why are you taking her side? Are you saying my arm is stuck in her mouth?"
"You should be telling her to let go, dammit!" Xue Rui was sweating bullets from the pain.
If anyone else were biting him, he would have thrown a right hook without hesitation. But this was Gu Muxue. He couldn't bring himself to fight back; he could only grit his teeth and endure.
He raised his hand and gently pinched Gu Muxue's nose, hoping she wouldn't be able to hold her breath and would have to let go.
But unexpectedly, Gu Muxue abandoned her image and started breathing through the corners of her mouth, her glistening saliva trickling down Xue Rui's arm.
"Xue Rui! Let go of her!"
"I fucking want to!"
The scene was utter chaos.
Finally, in a flash of inspiration, Xue Rui said, "Muxue, actually... I haven't showered in eight days."
The moment Xue Rui said this, Gu Muxue let go with a look of disgust, spitting "Ptooey, ptooey, ptooey" to herself several times.
"Hiss~"
A deep set of teeth marks was left on Xue Rui's arm. It was reddish-purple and had broken the skin slightly. It would probably take a week or two to fade.
Xue Rui gave a wry smile. If her other suitors saw how angry he'd made Gu Muxue, they would definitely come looking for trouble.
In everyone else's eyes, Gu Muxue was an untouchable goddess, but Xue Rui didn't see her that way.
After all, they had been in the same class since they were six or seven. After teasing her for so many years, was there any "goddess filter"? Not a chance.
He could still remember her in elementary school, crying and calling him "Big Brother" just so a caterpillar wouldn't get her.
"Heh heh." Thinking of this, Xue Rui suddenly felt much better. He picked up his chopsticks and said, "Hurry up and eat. The food's getting cold."
"Hmph!" Gu Muxue wiped her tears, picked up her bowl, and started eating.
Having had a good cry, and with the "bite mark" still fresh on Xue Rui's arm, her appetite returned with a vengeance.
If it had been any other boy, Gu Muxue wouldn't have gotten this angry, let alone resorted to biting them.
Let alone be able to sit and eat peacefully at the same table after such a huge conflict.
Only this "big liar," who made her both angry and helpless, could stir her emotions like this.
Only, Gu Muxue herself hadn't realized this yet.
"Young Master Xue, so you really are a young master... Then who was that picking you up on a tricycle back in middle school?" Mei Lili asked.
"A tricycle?"
Those two words stirred up some bad memories for Xue Rui.
He had also had his days of youthful recklessness. When he was in middle school, his family bought a BMW 730.
When winter break came, he specifically told his dad to drive the 730 to school to help him with his luggage, planning to show off big time in front of his classmates.
But on the day of the break, he saw his dad, Xue Jianfeng, approaching from a distance, riding a tricycle.
Why "riding"? Because it was a pedal-powered tricycle, even more shabby than the ones other old folks used, which made it particularly conspicuous.
No one knows a son better than his father. Xue Jianfeng had done it on purpose.
He came to pick up Xue Rui dressed in a worn-out cotton jacket with peeling fabric and yellow rubber shoes, looking completely rustic.
Even the other parents who knew Xue Jianfeng didn't go up to talk to him that day.
Because this father, who looked astonishingly poor, couldn't possibly be the owner of Qunfang Tower. They just assumed he was someone who looked a lot like Boss Xue.
Xue Jianfeng tossed Xue Rui's luggage into the tricycle's cargo bed and, without a care for how dirty it was, told Xue Rui to sit inside, just like a scrap collector picking up junk.
Xue Rui followed Xue Jianfeng home with a dark expression on his face, getting lectured halfway on grand principles like "you shouldn't compare yourself to others."
Eventually, Xue Jianfeng got tired of pedaling and made Xue Rui take over. Because he had no experience, and because he was simmering with frustration...
...Xue Rui pedaled the tricycle incredibly fast.
The 730 had a speed limit, but the tricycle didn't.
On the final turn down a big hill, the tricycle flipped, and they were both sent flying.
"That was my dad," Xue Rui said with a helpless expression.
After his dad pulled a stunt like that, even if he had told his classmates, "My family is actually quite rich," no one would have believed him.
After that incident, whenever his middle school class voted for students to receive financial aid, Xue Rui's name was always among the top candidates.
Of course, he didn't accept the financial aid.
Because he never even filled out an application form.
He didn't even know how his name ended up on the list of candidates...
All in all, it wasn't that Xue Rui was trying to be low-key; it was that he was never given the chance to be high-profile.