Chapter 103: Chapter 103: Less Bullshit, Go After Her

The next morning, Xue Rui was woken by the alarm from his phone by his pillow.

He shut it off within a few seconds of it ringing.

Xue Rui yawned. He was about to get up and go pick up Lin Ruoxi when he suddenly remembered he was already at her house.

At that thought, he relaxed. ’Lin Ruoxi will definitely come get me,’ he thought, deciding to snooze for a little longer.

As he subconsciously reached down with his left hand to scratch his balls, he suddenly found it wouldn’t move.

"Huh?" Xue Rui forced his eyes open to find Lin Ruoxi slumped over the side of his bed, fast asleep. Her small hand was clutching his left one.

In a daze, he remembered having another nightmare last night.

It was probably a case of his daytime worries bleeding into his dreams, because he had once again dreamt of Lin Ruoxi jumping off a building.

But... it seemed that every time he jolted awake from the horror, he would see Lin Ruoxi, safe and sound, smiling at him. And then he would peacefully fall back asleep.

"So, last night wasn’t a dream? She was really here?" Xue Rui murmured, reaching out to gently stroke her head.

Lin Ruoxi’s long eyelashes fluttered. She groggily looked up at Xue Rui and gave him a faint smile.

"You’re awake? Oh... I’ll go make breakfast." Lin Ruoxi sat up, tilting her head. A pained expression crossed her face as she clutched her neck.

Xue Rui smiled and gave her neck a gentle squeeze.

"Ngh... hurts," Lin Ruoxi cried out instinctively.

"Sleeping hunched over all night. You’ve got a stiff neck, don’t you?" Xue Rui chuckled.

For Xue Rui, the fact that Lin Ruoxi was alive and well was the best news he could ask for. Nothing else mattered.

"I’ll tell the school you’re taking the day off. You should get some proper rest," Xue Rui sighed.

They only had a half-day of classes today before a long weekend started in the afternoon. There was no reason for Lin Ruoxi to push through the discomfort just for that.

Xue Rui was confident no teacher would mind Lin Ruoxi skipping, since her grades were so good she didn’t really need to attend the lectures anyway.

"But I have to get breakfast for our classmates," Lin Ruoxi said, starting to get up to change her clothes.

"I’ll go." Xue Rui picked up Lin Ruoxi’s backpack, quickly washed up, and headed out.

Before Lin Ruoxi could even react, Xue Rui had shut the door and gone.

She stood in the room, head tilted, a sense of emptiness welling up inside her.

After a moment’s thought, she did as Xue Rui had told her and crawled back under the covers to sleep.

Feeling the lingering warmth Xue Rui had left behind, she felt much more at ease, and her eyelids grew heavy.

"Phew!" Xue Rui exhaled deeply.

The morning air was exceptionally crisp. Each breath felt like a new lease on life.

The worry in his heart vanished completely. ’I don’t think I’ll have any more nightmares,’ he thought, feeling remarkably light and refreshed.

He glanced down and saw that the rip in his clothes from yesterday had been sewn up by Lin Ruoxi. If you didn’t look closely, you could hardly tell it had ever been torn.

’She knows how to sew, too?’ Xue Rui clicked his tongue in wonder.

Arriving at school just in the nick of time, Xue Rui handed out the breakfast to his classmates.

"Hey, where’s the chili?" a male student asked with a frown.

"Just eat it. Lin Ruoxi took the day off. How am I supposed to remember what all of you like?" The corner of Xue Rui’s mouth twitched.

"Sigh. Sister Xi is still the best. She always knows what I want without me even having to ask," the student lamented.

"Yeah, she has a great memory." Xue Rui had to agree; Lin Ruoxi’s recall was truly astonishing.

He used to think a photographic memory was just an exaggeration, but Lin Ruoxi had proved to him that it was a real thing.

He had originally planned on getting her a second monitor. With a dual-screen setup, she wouldn’t have to keep switching windows, which would improve her efficiency.

But Lin Ruoxi only needed a few quick glances to commit all the code to memory, saving him the money he would have spent on a monitor...

"Here, this is for you." Xue Rui had also brought breakfast for Qiu Mengze.

After glancing around, Qiu Mengze lowered his voice and asked, "Why’d Lin Ruoxi take the day off?"

Seeing Qiu Mengze’s smarmy look, Xue Rui decided to mess with him. He raised an eyebrow. "What do you think?"

"Did it really happen?" Qiu Mengze’s eyes widened.

"It’s whatever you think it is," Xue Rui said nonchalantly.

"So tell me, what was it like?" Qiu Mengze asked, his face a mask of curiosity.

"Ah, that’s something you have to experience for yourself. It can’t be put into words," Xue Rui said, feigning profound wisdom.

"Brother Rui, I’m begging you," Qiu Mengze pleaded, practically dying of curiosity.

Xue Rui was speechless. ’Boys this age have nothing but girls on the brain.’

And since they had no "battlefield experience" themselves, they held any peer who did in particularly high esteem.

"I didn’t do anything. She just got a stiff neck from how she slept last night, so she took the day off," Xue Rui said earnestly.

He knew Qiu Mengze’s mind was in the gutter; he thought Xue Rui had done something to Lin Ruoxi that prevented her from coming to school.

"Tsk, who’s gonna believe that?" Qiu Mengze sneered. "If you didn’t do anything, how did she get a stiff neck?"

Qiu Mengze assumed "stiff neck" was just Xue Rui’s euphemism for something else.

"That’s... a good point, actually." Xue Rui was suddenly taken aback.

’Wasn’t Lin Ruoxi sleeping in her grandmother’s room last night? How did she end up next to me this morning?’

’Sewing my shirt wouldn’t have taken all night.’

Seeing Xue Rui’s genuinely confused expression, Qiu Mengze instantly understood. He really hadn’t done anything. "Tch, pathetic."

Xue Rui let out an exasperated laugh. "Oh yeah? You’re so capable? Then where’s your girlfriend?"

"I..." Qiu Mengze was suddenly reminded of yesterday, and it felt like a thorn twisting in his heart.

"I ran into her yesterday. The way she looked at me..." Qiu Mengze looked utterly miserable.

"Who is this girl, anyway?" Xue Rui asked, cutting straight to the chase.

After waiting for a while, Qiu Mengze was still just hemming and hawing, not saying a word.

Xue Rui was so frustrated he could grind his teeth. Of course, the kid would clam up now.

"I won’t make fun of you, I swear." Xue Rui honestly felt that his childhood friend was being spineless.

It was just like in his past life. The guy never even dared to confess his feelings before graduation, leaving him with a lifetime of regret.

Xue Rui decided it was time to give his friend a hard push. He said coldly,

"You just keep waiting. Wait until she marries someone else, then you can go give them a big fat red envelope."

"Or you could wait until she gets a boyfriend and buy her a tube of lipstick. That way, when they kiss, you’ll have a small sense of participation."

"You could even give her some Dure—"

Qiu Mengze’s face was beet red. "That’s enough!" he cut in.

He felt that Xue Rui’s words were just too vicious. If he had to listen to any more, he was going to cough up blood.

"Well? Are you still not going to say it?" Xue Rui said, his eyes narrowed.

"Her name is Qin Tong. She’s an art student in the Year Two, Liberal Arts Class 6," Qiu Mengze whispered, leaning close to Xue Rui’s ear.

"Qin Tong?"

Xue Rui repeated the name, thinking. That name...

It didn’t ring a bell at all. Sounded like a total nobody.

"You don’t know her?" Qiu Mengze was surprised. "She’s considered the class beauty."

Guys were chasing her from both inside and outside the school.

He was just scared people would laugh at him and say a toad was lusting after a swan.

And yet, Xue Rui had absolutely no memory of the girl.

’Does that mean I’ve just been building her up in my own head?’

"I’m going to go take a look for myself," Xue Rui said with a smile, already heading for the floor where the liberal arts classes were.

"Hey! Don’t go!" Qiu Mengze knew he couldn’t stop Xue Rui, but he didn’t have the courage to follow, either. He could only pace back and forth in a panic.

"Wimp!"

Xue Rui cursed under his breath.

These introverted types always devalued themselves into worthlessness before they even did anything, imagining vivid scenarios of being shot down and humiliated.

But how would you know if you never tried?

Most of the time, the swan ends up with a toad anyway.

Xue Rui arrived at the doorway of Liberal Arts Class 6 and peeked through the window for a moment, but he couldn’t spot any girl who looked particularly stunning.

’Maybe she went to get breakfast and hasn’t come back yet.’

"Xue Rui! What a rare sight. What brings you to the liberal arts classes?" someone asked with a laugh.

"I heard you guys have a class beauty named Qin Tong, so I came over to have a look," Xue Rui said with a grin.

"That’s her, over there!" The boy pointed with a grin.

Following the boy’s finger, Xue Rui saw a girl with dyed-brown hair.

Just then, the girl happened to look up, met Xue Rui’s gaze, and gave him a polite smile.

Qin Tong wasn’t what you’d call gorgeous. She was above average at best, with features that were just barely passable.

So why was she the class beauty?

Because at their age, not many girls dyed their hair, and very few knew how to put on makeup.

The boys’ sense of aesthetics was also pretty basic; they just went by a general impression.

So this girl, with her skin that seemed better than everyone else’s and her brown hair, gave off a different sort of vibe.

If she took off her makeup, she’d be just as plain as the other girls and would probably just blend into the crowd.

Compared to Lin Ruoxi or Gu Muxue? Even with a full face of makeup, she wasn’t half as pretty as they were with none.

She was too generic, just like the "TikTok beauties" of the future.

Pretty at first glance, but you’d forget her the moment you looked away. Her look was too cookie-cutter.

"Tsk, she’s just average," Xue Rui said with a frown, his assessment brutally low.

The boy from Class 6 shook his head. "You get to see the school beauties every day, plus you’ve got Lin Ruoxi in your class. Of course you’d think she’s just average."

"Seriously! This year is so damn weird. All the pretty girls ended up in the science track. If I’d known, I would’ve picked science, too," another boy complained.

Xue Rui nodded. In theory, that’s how it should be.

The liberal arts track had far more girls, nearly two or three times as many as the science track.

With such a large pool, the probability of having beautiful girls should have been higher.

But this year was an exception. Gu Muxue and Lin Ruoxi were so dazzling that they had completely overshadowed all the liberal arts girls before they even had a chance to learn how to dress up.

"Qin Tong, I think I heard Xue Rui asking for you," a girl said as she walked over.

"Xue Rui was looking for me?" Qin Tong was surprised. ’Why would he come looking for me?’

’We’ve barely ever spoken before.’

Qin Tong got up and headed out of the classroom, but Xue Rui, sensing her approach, had already made his exit from the liberal arts floor.

When he got back to his seat, Qiu Mengze immediately started hounding him. "So? Did you see her?"

"Average. You’ll find a dime a dozen like her in college. She’s not even as pretty as the waitresses at my family’s restaurant," Xue Rui said, shaking his head and speaking his honest opinion.

Once they’re out of high school, girls like Qin Tong are everywhere, both in college and in the real world. She’s just a face in the crowd.

"You!" Qiu Mengze didn’t know how to respond. It stung to hear the girl he liked being put down like that.

But what Xue Rui said was, in all likelihood, the truth.

"If you like her, then go after her." Xue Rui wasn’t mocking him.

You don’t have to fall for someone’s looks. Sometimes, a single glance or a few simple words can leave a lasting impression on your heart.

Although Xue Rui had never experienced that feeling himself, he respected everyone’s emotions.

"I made a fool of myself in front of her yesterday," Qiu Mengze said, his head hung low.

"Cut the crap. If you like her, go after her. And do it today."