Lin Jiaxin snapped back to her senses and suddenly realized someone was standing in front of her.
She instinctively looked up at the person.
The young man was carrying two cafeteria trays and gave her a shy smile.
“Um… hello, classmate. May I sit here?”
“Sure. My name isn’t written on the table.”
Lin Jiaxin answered casually and lowered her head, ready to continue eating.
But soon, she seemed to remember something.
She slowly raised her head again and narrowed her eyes at the boy who had just sat down across from her.
Isn’t this… the guy who insisted the goose leg was actually a duck leg?
Can one person really eat that much?
“Oh, it’s you.”
She nodded at him as a simple greeting.
“Hello.”
The boy grinned.
“I actually wanted to thank you earlier, but you left too quickly.”
As he spoke, he pushed the trays closer to her.
“I wanted to thank you… but I didn’t know what you liked to eat, so I just bought a little bit of everything…”
“Here. It’s just a small token of appreciation. Please have some.”
“…What exactly is this supposed to mean?”
Lin Jiaxin stared at the mountain of food in front of her, momentarily stunned.
“You’re saying… all of this is for me?”
She frowned.
After two seconds of silence, she slowly reached out.
Like an elder patting a younger relative on the shoulder, she casually patted his shoulder and asked,
“Young man… how much do you get for monthly Living Expenses?”
“Huh? Me?”
The boy clearly wasn’t expecting the question.
After freezing for a moment, he answered instinctively,
“I… get fifteen hundred yuan a month. Why?”
“Only fifteen hundred?”
Lin Jiaxin looked at him and sighed, shaking her head.
“These dishes weren’t cheap, were they?”
“Did you spend one hundred? Two hundred?”
“It’s only the beginning of the month, and you’re already spending money like this with only fifteen hundred for the whole month?”
“You treated a complete stranger to all this.”
“Are you planning to starve at the end of the month?”
“No, I…”
Lin Jiaxin frowned and cut off his stammering.
She tapped the table lightly with her finger and spoke in the tone of someone who had been through it all.
“What do you mean ‘no’?”
“I’m asking you a question.”
“Have you ever thought about how hard your family works to earn this money?”
“You’re an adult now.”
“It isn’t easy for your parents to support your education, you know?”
“Money should be spent where it matters.”
“Spend it on improving yourself.”
“Study hard, become stronger, and repay your parents.”
“Understand?”
“Uh… huh?”
The boy was completely dumbfounded.
Seriously?
Lin Jiaxin’s reaction was nothing like what he’d imagined!
He had prepared himself for acceptance.
For rejection.
Even for being ignored.
But he had never expected her to lecture him!
Especially with that strange tone…
It was exactly like his unmarried Little Uncle back home.
His uncle wasn’t even that old, yet he always loved lecturing younger people.
But…
The girl sitting across from him looked like nothing more than an 18-year-old college student.
Besides…
He hadn’t really done anything wrong, had he?
He just wanted to thank Lin Jiaxin by buying her something good to eat.
Although…
The real reason was definitely because of her adorable face.
He wanted an excuse to get to know her.
“Then… should I just take all of this back?”
Lowering his head, he looked at the food on the table, his voice lacking confidence.
Lin Jiaxin’s overwhelming lecture had shaken his confidence.
He couldn’t even tell what she was actually trying to say anymore.
So all he could do was study the nearly empty tray in front of her and try to interpret her intentions.
“You’ve already paid for it.”
“So why would you take it back?”
Lin Jiaxin’s expression darkened slightly.
She knocked on the table again.
“Besides, can you even finish all this by yourself later?”
“If you can’t finish it and end up throwing it away, wouldn’t that be wasteful?”
“The School Rules have repeatedly reminded students not to waste food.”
“What is waste?”
“Waste is a crime!”
“So aren’t you deliberately trying to make me break the rules with you?”
The boy’s hand froze halfway toward the tray.
For a moment, he had absolutely no idea where to put it.
He didn’t even know what he was supposed to do anymore.
“I… no… then… what do you think?”
He looked at Lin Jiaxin cautiously.
Without realizing it, he had even started using respectful language.
Lin Jiaxin didn’t answer immediately.
She picked up the seaweed soup beside her and took a slow sip.
Her eyelids were half lowered.
She lazily glanced at him.
“Fine…”
“Just this once.”
“Don’t let it happen again.”
The boy stood there in a daze, staring blankly as Lin Jiaxin picked up another piece of food with her chopsticks.
His vision gradually became blurry.
Through the haze…
It no longer looked like a cute, innocent college girl was sitting across from him.
Instead…
He seemed to see a thirty-something Office Veteran.
The man sat there with one leg crossed over the other.
Eating leisurely while contentedly rubbing his round beer belly.
He might even have been a little bald…
The boy instinctively rubbed his eyes.
The slightly balding middle-aged man disappeared.
In his place sat the genuine, adorable Lin Jiaxin.
Her feet rested loosely together beneath the table.
She leaned forward slightly.
Her chopsticks hovered over the tray for half a second before accurately picking up a piece of pork rib and stuffing it into her mouth.
She happily narrowed her eyes.
Her cheeks puffed into a round little ball.
She looked exactly like a hamster crouching in front of its food bowl, holding food with both paws while nibbling tiny bites.
She was obviously unbelievably cute…
But…
That overwhelming sense of déjà vu refused to disappear.
No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t shake it off.
“Ah… ah… aaah…”
The boy opened his mouth desperately, trying to say something.
But only breathy sounds escaped.
His eyes turned vacant.
He grabbed his hair hard until it became a complete bird’s nest.
“Um… I still have clothes hanging out to dry.”
“I… I should go collect them!”
With that, he turned and ran.
His retreating back looked as determined as someone who had made an irreversible decision.
He never looked back even once.
“Isn’t it blazing hot outside right now?”
“What clothes are you collecting?”
Lin Jiaxin frowned.
She sucked lightly on the tip of her chopsticks, pointed them absentmindedly through the air, and shook her head.
“Sigh…”
“Kids these days really have fewer and fewer manners.”
As she muttered to herself, a glistening strand of saliva followed the tip of her chopsticks from the corner of her mouth.
It dropped neatly back onto the tray.
Lin Jiaxin didn’t care in the slightest.
She calmly picked up another bite of food and continued eating with great satisfaction.
After all…
The school rules clearly said not to waste food.
She was a good student.
She couldn’t go around breaking the rules.
Meanwhile…
The boy hurried out of the Cafeteria and made his way to the Sports Field.
The blazing sun scorched the ground overhead.
The students walking past radiated youthful energy.
Only then did he finally let out a long sigh of relief.
Finally… this feels like sunlight again!
Damn it, that was terrifying!
The more he thought about it on the way here…
The creepier it became.
How could an 18-year-old beautiful college girl give off such an overwhelming sense of maturity?
Only now did he finally remember the perfect word for it.
It was…
Dad energy.
Lin Jiaxin gave off way too much ‘dad energy.’
It was the kind of presence…
That only middle-aged men accumulated over years of life.
If Lin Jiaxin knew what he was thinking right now…
She would probably just smile it off.
[‘Well… I was already 29 in my previous life. After working for so many years, getting a little greasy is perfectly normal, isn’t it?~’]