24: Chapter 24 – I’m Bringing You Food_1 24: Chapter 24 – I’m Bringing You Food_1 Yan Fei arrived at County No.1 Middle School in good time.
Classes weren’t out yet, but he knew it wouldn’t be long.
He found a secluded spot in Sancha River, filled a small pot with still-warm rabbit meat, and then made his way to the school gate.
It was only then he realized how many parents show up at the end of the school day to deliver meals to their children.
Seeing these parents carrying lovely thermos boxes, Yan Fei felt somewhat embarrassed about his own crude iron pot.
With a sigh, he turned around and left.
When he returned, Yan Fei had wrapped up the small pot in an old but reasonably clean cloth.
The white fabric was adorned with little flowers.
This was a bedsheet he used in winter and a quilt cover in summer, from which he had torn half.
Fortunately, it had been washed frequently in the summer so it was quite clean.
Then he realized yet another issue.
It was still too early for the school to let out, so the old man at the gate wouldn’t let anyone in.
After glancing around, Yan Fei quietly walked along the wall and soon reached a secluded spot by the fence.
He put the pot in the cave at Sancha River, took a deep breath, and then ran headlong towards the top of the wall.
Seeing no one on the other side of the fence, Yan Fei agilely hopped down.
A moment of disorientation hit him as he landed, but he quickly recovered and picked up the pot again.
Once he found the main teaching building, he chose a spot hidden behind a flower bed and a tree.
Fortunately, classes ended soon enough.
Xu Xiaoyan was in Class One of the top high school, with her classroom located at the far end of the second floor.
From his spot downstairs, Yan Fei could perfectly see the students as they came out of the school.
Unable and not wanting to wait until after school, he couldn’t let Xu Xiaoyan know about his surprise visit.
How else would he locate her in the crowd after school?
Only after the majority of students had left did he see Xu Xiaoyan emerge from her classroom.
He watched her go downstairs and engage in conversation with two female classmates, then he came out from behind the tree, calling out, “Xu Xing.”
The second Xu Xiaoyan turned her head she saw Yan Fei, whose attire was unusually fresh today, standing on the other side of the flower bed.
In his hand was a cloth bag with small flowers on it, and he was grinning from ear to ear.
It took Xu Xiaoyan several seconds to gather her thoughts, “Yan Xiaofei, what are you doing here?”
With a triumphant air, Yan Fei held up the bundle in his hand, “Brought you some food!”
The life of a third-year high schooler is always hectic.
Xu Xiaoyan and her two classmates hastily got their meals and reappeared a while later, each carrying a container.
As soon as Yan Fei lifted the lid off the pot, the warm rabbit meat inside released a delicious aroma, making the three girls let out a unified gasp.
Xu Xiaoyan grabbed a large piece of meat and didn’t forget to urge her two friends, “Xiao Wen, Jingjing, this is real wild rabbit meat that isn’t easy to come by.
Come on, let’s eat together.
Hurry, before I finish it all myself…”
Yan Fei noticed that the elite students’ lives weren’t all rosy as he had imagined.
All three girls had gotten themselves some watery porridge.
The two other girls at least had a bun shared between them and a tiny bowl of veggies.
However, the stir-fried vegetables looked more like stewed vegetables.
He suspected these vegetables were probably cooked in the same big pot as the porridge.
Xu Xiaoyan was smart.
She just had a bowl of porridge, seemingly relying on the meat Yan Fei brought as her main meal.
True to her nature, Xu Xiaoyan gobbled down the meat before anyone else could take a bite.
Only after she was on her third piece did she think to ask Yan Fei, “Yan Xiaofei, you haven’t eaten yet, have you?”
Yan Fei glared at her and replied tersely, “It took you long enough to realize that there’s a thing called empathy!”
The two girls burst into giggles, and Xu Xiaoyan blushed, “I thought you ate before you came here!”
Yan Fei made an even darker face, “I ran straight here after school.
If I’d eaten first, I wouldn’t have made it in time for your school letting out.”
Xu Xiaoyan immediately stopped eating, “You came straight from school?
Not from your home in the county?”
“We have two more classes on Saturday afternoons!”
“How did you get here so fast then, if school only ended a while ago?”
“Of course, I ran here using shortcuts.
How could I make it in time by bus?”
The two girls were so absorbed in the conversation that they forgot to eat.
After a while, Xu Xiaoyan finally sighed, “Yan Xiaofei, you are so nice!”
If you said I was nice without any meat in your mouth, and the chopsticks in your hand not getting any food from the pot, then I would really appreciate it!
Yan Fei muttered to himself.
He didn’t want to embarrass her in front of her classmates by revealing her lack of consideration.
He also sighed in relief; if this naive girl remembered that the rabbit meat was still warm and asked about it, he would have to act mysterious again.
The two girls gradually learned from the conversation that this pot of rabbit meat was brought all the way from Sancha River town by Yan Fei.
They were already feeling bashful and now they dared not touch it at all.
They kept urging Yan Fei to eat with them.
Before Yan Fei could reply, Xu Xiaoyan said for him, “It’s ok, have you guys not seen him eating at home everyday?
He has got to have it with pickles or else he can’t swallow it.”
In his anger, Yan Fei thought: When did I ever do such a thing?
The two girls didn’t care if Yan Fei really ate meat with pickles or not.
At this point their gaze towards Xu Xiaoyan was gradually morphing from envy to jealousy, and they were only a tiny bit away from hating her out of jealousy.
The girl named Jingjing sighed, “Xiao Xingxing, your brother is so nice, bringing you meat all the way here.
If I had a brother like him, I’d worship him like a god every day!”
The other girl, Xiao Wen, interjected, “Aren’t you silly?
You’ve forgotten that Xiao Xingxing has no brothers?
Plus, one has the last name Xu and the other Yan!
You don’t know who this is, do you?
“Don’t say it!” Xu Xiaoyan, with her big eyes glaring, interrupted Xiao Wen before she could finish.
Xiao Wen chuckled, “Then give me your piece of rabbit meat, and I’ll shut up.”
Xu Xiaoyan stared at the rabbit meat for a long time, worked up her courage, shoved the meat into her mouth and muttered with her cheeks puffed out, “Go ahead and say it.
It’s just people talking nonsense anyway.
Say whatever you want!”
Seeing this, Xiao Wen remained silent.
After a pause, Jingjing couldn’t help but softly ask her, “They are not relatives?”
Unable to hold back, Xiao Wen whispered in her ear, “This is Xiao Xingxing’s…
childhood sweetheart!”
Yan Fei has keen eyes and ears, how could he not hear their whispers right in front of him?
Seems girl is also from Sancha River town, otherwise she wouldn’t have heard the rumor of their “childhood betrothal”.
This girl also has some conscience.
After eating the rabbit meat he brought, she replaced “childhood betrothal” with the nicer term “childhood sweetheart”.
“What!?” After hearing what Xiao Wen said, Jingjing looked utterly disbelief and was stunned.
She looked at Xu Xiaoyan, then at Yan Fei, and didn’t snap out of it until Xiao Wen stole the meat from her bowl.
The three girls laughed and teased each other.
Yan Fei found out, what these girls acted like privately was simply not the same as what he had seen in public.
He clearly heard the two girls calling him Xu Xiaoyan’s “little lover”.
Are these really the female students of a key class in the key high school?
A bunch of crazy girls.
Sitting nearby, Yan Fei’s had to pretend he didn’t hear anything as the two girls whispered increasingly risqué comments about him.
He couldn’t stand it after a while.
Once they finished eating, Yan Fei didn’t let Xu Xiaoyan help with the dishes.
He had already noticed from afar that there were several layers of people surrounding the sink outside the cafeteria.
He had only walked a few steps with the pot when he heard Jingjing, the girl behind him, saying in a deliberately exaggerated tone of regret, “Ah…
Xiao Xingxing, if I had a little lover like him, why would bother going to college?
I’d stay home and take good care of him, and marry him as soon as he grew up…”
Unable to bear the laughter and teasing of the three girls, Yan Fei checked that no one was paying attention, took a few long strides to the wall, and surprised the three girls by stepping on the wall, grabbing the top with one hand while holding the pot with the other, and leaping over the wall and out of sight.
Once outside the wall, Yan Fei didn’t know that a stunned Xu Xiaoyan, who had recovered from the surprise, was now ominously warning her two friends, “Did you see that?
My Yan Xiaofei is a martial arts master who can effortlessly scale walls.
If you keep teasing me, be careful I might have him come and climb into your window at night!”
Unyielding, Jingjing retorted, “Yeah, with his skills of scaling walls, he could be sneaking into people’s windows at night.
Who knows what else he could do?
Xiao Xingxing, you went for your little lover while he’s still so young?”
Xiao Wen chimed in: “Yes, Yes, if Romeo had these skills, he would have eloped with Juliet ages ago, and we wouldn’t have the great love story to read…”
As expected, they are a bunch of crazy girls.