"What do you mean? I told you I waited for all day, right? Well, not all day, I mean, blablabla..."Lin Guiying only heard the first two sentences before Zhou Lei"s voice trailed off her mind as he continued speaking.
"So he went back to the arcade?" She felt guilty for doubting him earlier and thinking he was lying.
"...blablabl"
"Stop," Lin Guiying interrupted Zhou Lei"s babbling, "I actually went to the arcade too."
"Really? Why didn"t I see you there?"
"Well, it"s because..." While talking, Lin Guiying twirled her hair, which made Zhou Lei think it was a bit cute... and familiar.
"Ying and Lin Guiying really are alike, huh. They both twirl their hairs habitually."
"I left when I didn"t meet you there." She didn"t mention the fact that she saw him at StarLars.
"I was probably in the café when you came..." After some thinking, this was the only possibility that appeared in Zhou Lei"s mind.
"Anyways, that"s not what I wanted to talk to you about. What I wanted to tell you is..." With slight hesitation, Zhou Lei continued, "How do you order coffee?"
"Coffee?" Lin Guiying only had coffee from time to time, so she wasn"t an expert on this subject. Nonetheless, she, of course, had more knowledge than her friend, who mentioned the fact that it was his first time entering a café yesterday. "I don"t know much about this, but I"ll try my best to teach you."
"Really? That"s great!" Zhou Lei"s enthusiasm shot off the roof, "Because let me tell you, that Vanilla Latte was really good."
"Vanilla Latte? That"s for normies," Lin Guiying sneered.
"So does that mean there are better tasting flavors?" Zhou Lei was immediately attracted to the likelihood of better tasting coffees.
Unlike food, the Taste category did not affect his taste for drinks and other liquids. That meant that he could enjoy ice cream if it was melted, but not if it"s still solid.
"This System really is weird."
.....
The scientist, after reading his mind a second ago, widened her eyes.
"What the f.u.c.k? Why does this Taste category not affect liquids?"
She stood up from her hovering chair and looked around for the files for this System chip.
"Ah, there!" On an old piece of paper, there were the words "Taste" next to some smudged word.
"This smudgy word probably says "Solid" then, so if I"m not wrong..." The scientist looked at the bottom of the paper...
"Aha! I knew it!"
She could barely make out words since the paper cut the letters in half, but she was certain that it said "Taste (liquids)".
When she developed the chip, she based it on these old papers from a millennium ago. She also added her own new features to the chip, making it hers.
"In the past, this was probably some sort of cybernetic enhancement, but now, it"s a system!"
She started typing down the new code to input the "Taste (liquid)" category in System.
.....
"Of course there are better tasting flavors!" Lin Guiying gave Zhou Lei a hard slap in the back of his head.
"Ow..." While he caressed his head, Zhou Lei was curious. "How are you gonna teach me?"
"We"re going there, obviously." Lin Guiying shook her head. "This matter is so clear that it"s not even funny!"
"So... after school then?"
"After school."
This particular conversation entered Fan Xinyue"s ears. "Th- th- they"re going on a date? So casually too!"
Her gaping mouth didn"t let out any sound. She stood up as quietly as possible and headed to the restroom. In her mind, there was a profound discussion to herself: "Oh my G.o.d oh my G.o.d oh my G.o.d"
The girl"s bathroom was on the floor lower than their cla.s.sroom, so she got there quite quickly.
Opening the door, she saw Ye Muqi, Lu Xi, and Ma Xiaoli all looking at her.
"...What?" Fan Xinyue felt quite pressured when three of her cla.s.smates stared at her.
The three"s faces were even wet! It seemed like they rinsed their faces.
Before Fan Xinyue got the chance to continue her sentence, Ye Muqi, the one closest to the door, spoke.
"You too?" A somber tone accompanied her voice.
"Ah... yes." Fan Xinyue knew exactly what she meant by that.
"Every one of us here eavesdropped in Lin Hanying and Zhou Lei"s conversation in the last second."
"We were just discussing something, mind if you join us?" Ma Xiaoli, the one who thought that doing anything was troublesome, thought differently this time.
"S- sure, I guess." Fan Xinyue didn"t have anything to do anyway since the job for Zhou Lei was still a week from now.
"So anyway, here"s the plan..." Ye Muqi had a scheming tone to her voice.
The three other girls perked their ears up. "What"s the plan?"
Ye Muqi opened her mouth, but halfway there, she closed it again. "...Actually, there"s still no plan."
The girls" eyes dimmed. All of them had no idea what to do about this situation. After all, bullying was so outdated!
It was then that Lu Xi imagined a lightbulb going off in her head. "Aha! I know what to do now!"
This grabbed the attention of everyone else inside the restroom.
"Okay, what we"re going to do is... we"re going to scout the situation first!" Lu Xi raised her eyebrow repeatedly, giving off a playful feel.
"Scout the situation?" A curious Fan Xinyue asked.
"Yeah, we"re going to follow those two secretly... If they give off a friendly atmosphere, we don"t need to do anything. Otherwise, we need to disrupt the romance!" Lu Xi declared.
"How would we disrupt the romance?" This time, it was Ma Xiaoli who spoke.
"We"re going to... create a ruckus in that place! That way, they have no choice but to leave." Lu Xi thought that her idea was genius.
"Create... a ruckus..." Ye Muqi muttered to herself in a low breath. She had always disobeyed her father, so she considered herself a rebel already. However, disrupting the business of an establishment? "That doesn"t seem like a good idea."
Lu Xi heard Ye Muqi"s calm voice. She turned her head to glare at her. The two gazes met mid-air, freezing the air inside the bathroom.
Ma Xiaoli couldn"t be bothered to alleviate the atmosphere. She yawned.
Fan Xinyue thought about Lu Xi"s plan as well. Everything about it was pa.s.sable, except for the last part. She felt like it was too disrespectful to just make a mess in a place just because they wanted to.
"Well, if all of you disagree with my plan, why don"t you think of your own, huh?" At this moment, Lu Xi"s eyes had a killing intent.
A delinquent through and through, this girl had experienced countless battles that she almost lost. Thankfully, none had succeeded in winning against her yet.
That was why her eyes had such an abnormal gaze even though she was at the young age of 17.
Of course, her piercing gaze had no effect on the three girls with her.
Ye Muqi, a second generation rich girl, had too much pride to even sense the dangerous aura.
Fan Xinyue, a girl that was unusually mature for her age, also had her own past experiences that allowed her to block the deliqnuent"s gaze.
And finally, Ma Xiaoli, the indifferent and smart girl, had no concern about the gazes of anyone or anything. Her whole life, she had been apathetic about everything except Zhou Lei, and this gaze was no exception.
Essentially, all Lu Xi"s shout did was motivate the girls to think of their own plans instead of coercing them to agree with her own.
Lu Xi pouted. She knew that what she just did had no effect on any of the girls inside here.
Soon enough, she brushed off her fury. "Fine, I"ll do my plan myself."
She left the restroom with her hands in her pockets. As she closed the door behind her, not one of them really paid attention to what she said before she exited.
Eventually, all three girls had formed their own plans and exited the bathroom with calm expressions, different from when they entered.