To Zhong Siji’s surprise, the two of them quickly settled on what they wanted to eat.
Xu Runhui chose cold cucumber salad, while Yan Yanyan picked a rolled omelet.
They both looked like fairly ordinary home-style dishes. If it was these, there shouldn’t be much of a problem…
Looking at the cucumber and eggs he was holding, Zhong Siji suddenly remembered something.
“By the way, don’t you both really like bitter melon? Why aren’t you buying any?”
Xu Runhui scratched her head.
“Ahaha, well, even if you love something, you still have to eat it in moderation.”
She was joking.
The amount she had eaten at noon was already her limit.
Besides, now that she had the chance to eat Classmate Siji’s bento, of course she would choose something she liked.
Yan Yanyan said, “I can’t bear to make Classmate Siji, who hates bitter melon, personally cook ingredients he dislikes.”
Hearing that, Xu Runhui finally couldn’t help rolling her eyes.
In just one short noon and afternoon, her filter for this first-year idol prince had completely shattered.
“Eh… You were clearly snatching it off my chopsticks at noon, but whatever. In the end the three of us will be eating it together anyway. It’s best without bitter melon.”
What!?
There was dessert after the main course! He had thought the set meal had been permanently taken off the menu, but it turned out to be just a feint.
“Classmate Siji will also eat the bento he makes himself?” the two asked in unison.
“Ah? Isn’t that obvious? If I don’t eat it, how will I know what it tastes like? Besides, didn’t we already eat together at noon?”
“Classmate Siji is an angel.”
Xu Runhui put her hands together, speaking with a pious gaze.
“Agreed.”
Yan Yanyan gave a slight nod, agreeing with Xu Runhui’s opinion.
“What are you two talking about? That makes no sense at all.”
Were they like this from the beginning?
But Zhong Siji felt a lot more relaxed, as if he was a bit happy… It had been a while since he felt this happy, right?
It really lifted his spirits.
Deciding to eat bento on the rooftop back then had been the right choice after all…
But this slight distraction caused him not to notice a figure approaching from the front right.
Thud! With a muffled grunt, Zhong Siji collided head-on with a middle-aged man who looked around thirty or older.
The man was dressed fashionably, his hair tied in a high ponytail, and his face was clean-shaven.
Zhong Siji staggered slightly, but the middle-aged man was knocked onto his butt.
In the brief moment of contact, Zhong Siji caught a strong scent of perfume from the other man.
“Tsk! How do you walk?!”
“Sorry! Sorry! I was spacing out just now and didn’t notice. I accidentally bumped into you. Are… are you okay?”
The other man radiated an unapproachable aura from head to toe.
Moreover, it was indeed his fault first.
Zhong Siji hurriedly squatted down and reached out a hand to help the man up.
The middle-aged man didn’t refuse, but he kept muttering, “I don’t know what you’ve been eating to grow so tall. If I had your height, I’d have become a model long ago. Yet here you are, randomly bumping into people in the supermarket. What a waste of those looks!”
“Sorry, big brother, I’m really sorry. How about I take you to a nearby clinic to get checked?”
“Do I look that old?! Does my body look that fragile? Need to go to some clinic?! Go, go, go! Just looking at you young people annoys me!”
“Eh, eh, eh, as long as you’re fine, then we’ll be going first.”
Seeing that the other man really seemed fine, Zhong Siji and the two girls felt as if they had been granted a great pardon and turned to leave.
But after only a couple of steps, they were called back. “Wait!”
Zhong Siji thought to himself that this was bad. It seemed like there would be no good end to this.
But since he was indeed in the wrong, he couldn’t just ignore it and walk away.
He could only steel himself and turn back. “Big brother, is there something else?”
“What’s with all the ‘big brother, big brother’? Don’t call me that randomly! Do I look that young?!”
“Then, uncle, is there somewhere that hurts? How about I take you to the hospital for a full checkup.”
Seeing that Zhong Siji was at a loss with the middle-aged man, Yan Yanyan felt she had to step in.
“Do you think you’re some cool hero saving the beauty? Is this any of your business? Stay out of it.”
Yan Yanyan was already over.
Then their soft and glutinous Runhui was even less reliable.
The middle-aged man closed the distance in a few strides, stopping in front of Zhong Siji, who was more than a head taller, and tilted his head up to examine him closely.
Being observed from such a close distance made Zhong Siji feel a bit uneasy. What… what was this about?
“Big brother… no, uncle…”
But before he could finish asking, the middle-aged man spoke first.
“Where did you get this hairstyle done?”
Why was he suddenly talking about this? Zhong Siji was a bit confused.
“No… no one did it for me. I… I’ve always been like this.”
Tsk!!!
…………He just clicked his tongue, right? He absolutely just clicked his tongue, right?
“Your family has always let you go out with this hairstyle?”
Zhong Siji touched his short, fine hair. Grandpa and Grandma had indeed always said he didn’t look like a proper boy like this. “Not… not exactly.”
“Then why are you still keeping this hairstyle?!” The middle-aged man actually had a bit of the “hate iron for not becoming steel” tone, drawing glances from the surrounding people for a moment.
Even a clay figurine has three parts of temper. Although I was at fault first, I’ve already apologized as I should and made the necessary amends.
It’s just that you yourself refuse to accept it. Besides, say what you want, but why are you meddling in my hairstyle?
“This doesn’t seem to have anything to do with you, uncle, does it?”
Zhong Siji’s youthful temper also flared up.
And his indifferent attitude completely enraged the middle-aged man.
“Do you know what you’re doing to yourself?! You’re degrading and wasting yourself! You could have become a photobook idol, then advanced into the entertainment industry, until you became the brightest star in the entertainment world, you know?!”
Photobook idol? Entertainment star? Is that something you can just become if you want to?
This uncle must be having a hysteria episode, right? And if he became a photobook idol…
“But his figure is really good, you know. Look at that faintly visible collarbone. Can you still say something so shallow?!”
The scene of the girls in class loudly discussing the figures of photobook idols in magazines was still vivid in his mind.
If it were him instead… What a joke! He’d throw up!
“Ah? Who wants to be some photobook idol? There’s not a single bit of manliness in that. I don’t want to!”
Hearing that, Xu Runhui sighed, which drew a look of disdain from Yan Yanyan beside her.
Now it was the middle-aged man’s turn to be confused.
“No manliness?! Is the manliness you understand just keeping messy hair like yours and being rough and crude?! You’re simply a disgrace to us men!”
Zhong Siji also knew he couldn’t debate with the other side on the topic of what manliness was. He could only steel himself and say, “This still doesn’t have anything to do with you, uncle, right? Besides, my little sister has praised this hairstyle of mine as the most handsome.”
“Ha? It should be beautiful, not handsome, right? If your little sister isn’t as lacking in common sense as you, then her taste is just as bad as yours!”
That was stepping on the tiger’s tail. “What! What did you say about my little sister?”
“I said that for your little sister to let her older brother go out with this kind of hairstyle, she has already failed as a little sister! Failed!”
“You! What did you say? Are you looking for a fight?!”
“As a man, the moment words don’t go your way you want to fight? Do you even understand what elegance as a man is?”
A handsome young man with a short crew cut and a fashionable mature young husband arguing—it immediately became the focus of everyone’s gazes present.
Gradually, a crowd began to gather around the two of them.
And outside of this disturbance, two girls wearing Taogu High School uniforms were still closely watching Zhong Siji and the other two.
“Young Miss, why aren’t we continuing to use the telescope?”
“Dummy! We’re so close to the target now. Using a telescope would make him notice.”
“But I think holding a phone and using the camera’s zoom function to look is so dumb.”
“What did you say?”
“Nothing, Young Miss.”
“Continue serving, A-Yu.”
“…Yes, Young Miss.”
There are still many people with bitter fates in this world.
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