At dinner time, the cafeteria was buzzing with noise. The aroma of various foods mixed with the clamor of voices, forming a hot, sticky cloud.
Long lines stretched in front of the counters, and stainless steel trays clanged against each other.
Ruo Xiaozhen half-pushed, half-dragged Yan Yu’s wheelchair inside. Familiar with the layout, she found a corner against the wall, settled Yan Yu in place, and then rushed into the crowd to grab their meals.
“Wait here, Xiao Yu! They’ve got sweet and sour pork ribs today! You’ll love ‘em!” Her voice cut through the noise, brimming with energy.
Yan Yu leaned back in her wheelchair, watching Ruo Xiaozhen’s agile figure weaving through the crowd, feeling a bit dazed.
She remembered her final days in that hospital bed, mostly eating bland liquid food.
This chaotic, steaming-hot scene felt both foreign and vividly alive.
Soon, Ruo Xiaozhen returned with two trays piled high, slamming them onto the table with a thud that made the soup slosh.
“Here! Yours: sweet and sour pork ribs, stir-fried broccoli, mapo tofu—mild spice—and steamed egg! Mine, hehe, braised pork belly, spicy chicken, and tiger skin green peppers!” She proudly counted off on her fingers, eyes sparkling. “Today, the auntie didn’t skimp! The meat portions are solid!”
Yan Yu stared at the mountain of food in front of her, silent for a moment.
The sweet and sour pork ribs were glistening with sauce, the broccoli was a vibrant green, the tofu was silky, and the steamed egg was smooth as a mirror.
Everything matched the flavors Yan Yu remembered liking.
Ruo Xiaozhen… remembered clearly.
“Eat up, eat up!”
Ruo Xiaozhen had already picked up her chopsticks, shoving a big mouthful of rice into her cheeks, mumbling as she started complaining, “Hey, let me tell you, that homework Old Chen assigned on three-dimensional composition is totally inhuman! ‘Use a single material to express contradiction and harmony,’ and it has to have a ‘sense of flow’! I’m about to tear my hair out! Paper? No good! Wood? Too heavy! Wire? Too stiff! Ugh, so annoying…”
She gestured wildly as she spoke, her expression vivid and exaggerated, as if the biggest problem in the world was that assignment.
Yan Yu picked up her chopsticks and took a piece of pork rib.
The sweet and sour sauce coated the tender meat, the flavor rich. She ate in small bites, occasionally letting out an “mm-hmm” to show she was listening.
Under the bright cafeteria lights, Ruo Xiaozhen’s round face was flushed, with fine beads of sweat on her forehead.
These trivial complaints somehow gave Yan Yu a strange sense of peace.
At least for this moment, she didn’t have to think about role-playing or scheming.
“…So yeah, studying design is basically a death sentence!” Ruo Xiaozhen concluded, gulping down a big sip of the free seaweed egg drop soup, letting out a long sigh.
Then, as if remembering something, she pulled her phone from her pocket, unlocked it, and habitually scrolled.
At that moment, Yan Yu’s phone vibrated lightly on the table.
The screen lit up, showing a short preview of a message.
Sender: Su Qinghan.
Yan Yu’s fingers, holding the chopsticks, paused almost imperceptibly.
Ruo Xiaozhen’s gaze also flicked over, and when she saw the name, her smile instantly faded. Her brow furrowed, and her eyes held undisguised wariness and disgust.
Yan Yu put down her chopsticks, picked up the phone, and unlocked it.
The message was short, just one line, carrying Su Qinghan’s usual icy brevity:
[Don’t make things hard for Mu Yun. She just came back from abroad and needs time to adjust.]
Yan Yu stared at the line for two seconds.
Making things hard for Jiang Muyun?
She tilted her head slightly, a hint of confusion flashing across her pale face.
Other than getting “crushed” in class and being “ignored” by the lake today, what had she done that could be called “making things hard” for Miss Jiang?
Had she breathed the same air, contaminating the fresh aura around Miss Jiang?
Her fingertips tapped a question mark in response and sent it.
Almost immediately, Su Qinghan replied, the message longer this time, laced with impatience, as if scolding a misbehaving child:
[Yan Yu, stop pretending in front of me.]
[I heard from other classmates that you had some complaints about Mu Yun coming back, saying inappropriate things behind her back, which made some classmates have a bad impression of her.]
[Yan Yu, that’s enough. It’s over between us. I don’t want you causing Mu Yun any discomfort at school because of your actions. She’s innocent, not like you.]
Yan Yu’s fingertips hovered over the cold screen.
Saying inappropriate things behind her back? Making classmates have a bad impression of Jiang Muyun?
Her mind quickly flashed back to the afternoon by the lake, Bai Yan’er’s sharp rebuttal hitting the mark, and Jiang Muyun’s face struggling to keep her smile, almost crumbling.
Oh.
Got it.
So Miss Jiang’s “innocence” meant she didn’t directly complain when she was hurt, but instead took a detour, running to Su Qinghan with that all-purpose phrase “I heard from other classmates,” tattling with an invisible hand.
And Su Qinghan, this cold-hearted female lead, lived up to expectations. Without checking the facts, she slapped the label of “backstabbing and making things hard for the real lead” right onto this substitute.
“Not like you.”
Those three words were used perfectly, masterfully.
Light and casual, they nailed her to the pillar of shame as “scheming and narrow-minded.”
A wave of bitter laughter, laced with sarcasm, rose from her stomach and hit her throat.
Yan Yu could even feel the residual instinct of this body, the rejection from her heart as she read those words.
But now, it was her in this body.
She took a slow breath, suppressing that physiological discomfort.
When she looked up again, her eyes—always carrying a hint of illness and distance—quickly glossed over with a thin layer of tears.
She bit her lower lip, her fingers trembling slightly as she typed on the screen.
[Qinghan, how could you think that of me? I didn’t… I never said anything bad about Jiang. This afternoon during sketching, I was painting on my own, and only Yan’er came over to talk for a bit. I was far from everyone. Could it be… could it be a misunderstanding?]
[And it’s normal for Yan’er to come to me, since she’s my sister…]
She sent it.
She put down her phone, raised her hand, and pressed the back of it against her forehead, her shoulders slumping slightly.
Ruo Xiaozhen had been watching her closely. Seeing her like this, both anxious and angry, she clenched her fists, lowering her voice to a furious whisper, “What did she say to you again? Is it because of that Jiang Muyun? Yan Yu, ignore her! She’s just a—”
“Zhenzhen,” Yan Yu interrupted her, lowering her hand. Her voice was very soft, and her eyes seemed redder. “I’m fine… Maybe I really did something wrong that made her misunderstand.”
As she spoke, she picked up her chopsticks again, trying to grab a piece of the now-cold pork rib. She deliberately made her chopsticks shake, failing twice.
Finally, she gave up, slowly setting down the chopsticks, her gaze blankly drifting toward the bustling crowd in the cafeteria.
Her act of forcing herself to hold back sadness while making excuses for the other person struck Ruo Xiaozhen like a blunt knife, twisting in her heart.
“You…” Ruo Xiaozhen’s chest heaved with anger. She wanted to curse, but she was afraid of upsetting Yan Yu. In the end, she could only pound the table in frustration, making the dishes rattle. “…Just eat! It’ll taste bad cold!”
She grabbed a big piece of braised pork belly from her own tray and dropped it into Yan Yu’s bowl, growling fiercely, “Eat it all! Don’t leave a bite!”
Yan Yu looked at the extra piece of meat in her bowl, then at Ruo Xiaozhen’s face full of worry.
She let out a soft “mm-hmm,” picked up her chopsticks again, and took small, slow bites of the braised pork belly.
It was plain.
But solid.
The phone screen went dark, lying quietly at the edge of the table, never lighting up again.
Su Qinghan didn’t reply.