Chapter 20: A Meal to Remember

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“Y-you two... you’re together?!”

Li Yu’s voice rose sharply.

Qin Ruowei glanced at him. The next second, she turned Lin Bai’s face toward her and kissed him on the lips in front of them both, making everything perfectly clear through her actions.

Clap, clap, clap...

Applause broke out. Li Yu and Chen Shuya turned toward Fu Rao in unison.

Fu Rao’s eyes darted away. Her clapping gradually slowed until it stopped altogether.

“I’m eating. You two carry on.”

Fu Rao lowered her head and continued eating. Li Yu looked up at Qin Ruowei again.

“Ruowei, you...”

“Who gave you permission to call me Ruowei?”

Qin Ruowei’s expression was icy as she cut him off.

Li Yu looked embarrassed. “Classmate Qin, what does he have that makes him worthy of you? I’m better than him in every way, aren’t I?”

At his words, Qin Ruowei’s expression grew even colder.

“Lin Bai is more handsome than you, taller than you, more ambitious than you, healthier than you, more socially capable than you, drives a more expensive car than you, earns more money than you, and lasts longer than you. So tell me, in what way is he unworthy of me? What do you have that can compare with him?”

After Qin Ruowei’s merciless barrage, not only Li Yu and Chen Shuya, but even Lin Bai was left dumbfounded. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he secretly wondered whether she even knew about something that private.

Li Yu’s face turned ugly, and Chen Shuya immediately joined in.

“Qin Ruowei, you really have no shame, do you? Taking advantage of my absence to seduce someone else’s boyfriend? You shameless vixen! I’m going to expose you and make sure everyone knows what kind of person you are!”

As she spoke, Chen Shuya pulled out her phone and aimed it at Qin Ruowei and Lin Bai, preparing to film them.

Lin Bai snatched the phone from her hand and frowned at her.

“Chen Shuya, are you out of your mind?”

Chen Shuya stared blankly at him and pointed at herself. “Me? You’re insulting me?”

“What’s wrong with insulting you? Do you even know what you’re doing right now?”

“And you still call yourself my boyfriend? Is that all I am to you?”

“Let me make this perfectly clear, Chen Shuya. From the moment you abandoned me to travel with him for four days and four nights, taking pictures and flaunting your affection, we stopped having anything to do with each other.”

“And another thing: you were the one who sent me that message, Chen Shuya. Open your eyes and read it carefully! We’ve already broken up. Whoever I’m with has absolutely nothing to do with you! Do you understand?”

Lin Bai showed Chen Shuya the breakup message she had sent him, his tone more forceful than ever.

Chen Shuya panicked, shaking her head and waving her hands.

“No, no, that’s not it! It wasn’t like that! Listen to me, Lin Bai. It was her! Yes, that night she drove a wedge between us, and that’s why I sent that message!”

“Qin Ruowei, you shameless bitch!”

Smack!

Lin Bai could no longer restrain himself. He struck her across the face.

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The crisp sound brought Chen Shuya back to her senses and made every student nearby hold their breath.

Fu Rao, who had been eating with her head down, suddenly snorted a green bean out of her nose and hurriedly rummaged through her bag for tissues.

“That’s enough, Chen Shuya. I don’t want to discuss this anymore. A breakup is a breakup. From now on, you can walk your broad road and I’ll cross my narrow bridge. We have nothing to do with each other!”

With that, Lin Bai returned Chen Shuya’s phone, took Qin Ruowei by the hand, and stood up. He looked at Fu Rao.

“Sorry, Senior. I didn’t mean to make you watch all that. I owe you this meal. I’ll treat you next time.”

Then Lin Bai led Qin Ruowei away hand in hand, with Fu Rao following close behind.

All along the way, the students in the cafeteria turned to watch them pass. The silence was strangely profound.

Qin Ruowei looked down at the hand Lin Bai was holding. He was gripping it tightly, and she smiled, radiant with sweetness.

Once the three of them had left, the cafeteria returned to its usual clamor.

Chen Shuya sat there in a daze, her eyes vacant and unfocused.

Li Yu picked up the disposable cup in front of him and splashed its contents over Chen Shuya.

“You pathetic excuse for a woman!”

With that, Li Yu turned and left as well.

Chen Shuya did not react at first. By the time she came to her senses, Li Yu was already more than fifty feet away.

“Li Yu! Darling, wait! I was wrong, darling, wait for me! I’m sorry! Sob...”

...

Downstairs, Lin Bai drove Fu Rao and Qin Ruowei home.

“Sweetheart, that was one hell of a meal. Absolutely thrilling. I enjoyed every bite. Hahaha...”

Lin Bai was utterly speechless. He first drove Fu Rao back to her dormitory.

Fu Rao was not a student of the School of Foreign Languages; her dormitory was in the north district.

After arriving at her dormitory, Fu Rao got out and tapped on the driver’s-side window.

Lin Bai lowered it, and Fu Rao leaned against the window, lifting her chin at him.

“I have plenty of experience dealing with girls like Chen Shuya. Call me anytime you need help, little brother.”

With that, Fu Rao turned and walked away with great ease.

Lin Bai shook his head, taking her words seriously. He started the car and drove toward his own dormitory.

“Sorry, Ruowei. I...”

Lin Bai had intended to apologize to Qin Ruowei for allowing his personal affairs to affect her.

Today’s incident had been entirely unprovoked as far as she was concerned.

Qin Ruowei interrupted him. “It’s fine. I’m actually quite happy. At least you chose to stand firmly on my side.”

Lin Bai took her hand.

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“I will always stand by your side.”

Qin Ruowei smiled happily and clasped his hand in return.

“By the way, Lin Bai, now that Chen Shuya knows about our relationship, should we still bring her to the dormitory mixer?”

It was indeed a question worth considering. Lin Bai pursed his lips and thought for a moment.

“It doesn’t matter. You decide. She’s no longer important to me.”

“All right.”

...

After returning to his dormitory and taking a shower, Lin Bai completed his daily check-in of 280 sit-ups.

Beep! Congratulations, Host. You have completed today’s check-in task. Your current progress is 6/7. Please keep up the good work. Victory is within reach.

He had already completed six days of check-in tasks.

Looking at the perfect contours of his muscles in the mirror, Lin Bai could hardly believe that all of this had been achieved in less than a week.

This was not a mere change. It was a transformation!

As long as he completed tomorrow’s check-in task, Side Quest One would be finished. By then, he would have the latest Huawei folding phone in hand and could finally replace the old phone he had been using for three years.

That was not all. His system balance had now reached five hundred. Apart from withdrawing one hundred on the first day, Lin Bai had left the rest in the system.

“Keep it up!”

Lin Bai encouraged himself in the mirror, his face brimming with youthful energy.

...

Meanwhile, in Qin Ruowei’s dormitory.

By the time Qin Ruowei returned, Chen Shuya was already there, crying incessantly. Her other two roommates, Zhou Min and Wang Xiaoli, were comforting her.

When they saw Qin Ruowei return, Zhou Min and Wang Xiaoli immediately went over to her.

“Ruowei, you’re finally back. What on earth happened?”

Seeing the concern mixed with curiosity in their expressions, Qin Ruowei cast a cool glance at Chen Shuya.

“She brought it upon herself.”

With that, Qin Ruowei put down her bag and turned toward the bathroom.

Behind her, Zhou Min and Wang Xiaoli exchanged a glance before gathering around Chen Shuya again.

Chen Shuya was in a foul mood. Not only had she failed to win Lin Bai back today, but she had also lost Li Yu. It would be no exaggeration to say that she had lost both the battle and the war.

Women could be such strange creatures. They might cast Lin Bai aside as worthless, yet the moment another woman drew close to him, hostility would flare up.