Chapter 3

12 kilometers may sound like a lot, but it was merely a small matter of running your legs and lungs to the brink of death.

If it wasn’t because it was related to a matter of life and death, Mingxi wouldn’t understand why in the world was she trying so hard. She continued to run lap after lap with sweat barreling down her whole body.

When a boy from the International Class came over and said that he wanted to replace her, she rejected him nonchalantly.

The boy then ran back and repeated what had happened to the rest of the class.

The moment class ended, the whole of the International Class was in an uproar.

By the time it reached Fu Yangxi’s ears, it had already become the story of how the new transfer student had gladly volunteered to run laps for him. She was even running with a joyful smile on her face.

Never in Fu Yangxi’s 17 years of life had he ever seen a pursuer who was this passionate and obvious.

The small red bird in his heart puffed out its chest and happily shook its feathers. However, on the surface he still appeared annoyed. He slammed the table and yelled, “Are you all done with your gossip? What a bunch of nosy men.”

Fu Yangxi’s admonishment caused the noise in their class to pause for a short while.

Jiang Xiuqiu had been absent for the past few days as he was down with the flu. When a fellow student called him to share the gossip, he laughed so hard that he couldn’t stop coughing. In the end, he couldn’t help but to call Fu Yangxi.

“No way. You guys must be mistaken. Maybe the transfer student just has something to ask of you— You’re saying that she likes you?” Jiang Xiuqiu laughed. “What would she like about you? Your bad temper? Your resting b*tch face? Or could it be how your young urban migrant hairstyle reminds her of a dog? Also, aside from the fact that you’re rich…”

“If you don’t know how to speak properly then sew your mouth shut!” Fu Yangxi pulled a long face. After hanging up, he tossed his phone into his desk drawer angrily.

He was happy, and the transfer student was overwhelmingly passionate.

But Fu Yangxi didn’t naturally come to the conclusion that the transfer student was here for him.

He was 80% sure that she was here for the money.

F*ck.

Fu Yangxi kicked the chair beside him gloomily. After the transfer student returns, he plans to give her a sum of money and ask her to leave him alone.

*

On the other side, after Mingxi was done with the 30 laps, she felt utterly exhausted. Instead of returning to class, she headed straight to her dorm room, took a shower and went to bed.

It was almost 11.30a.m. when she woke up.

The moment she opened her eyes, she saw that there were three complete buds in her pot!

It was green, sparkling, crystal-clear and shaky as it swayed under the electric fan.

In addition to the little buds that Mingxi got from furiously inhaling Fu Yangxi’s luck, she had about 3⅕ buds now.

Mingxi quivered in joy. She quickly got out of bed and rushed to the bathroom to look at the mirror.

The small dark patch on the left side of her pale face had faded substantially. If she wasn’t looking at it so closely in the mirror, it was barely noticeable.

Mingxi said, “With this speed of recovery, I’ll be able to rid myself of the mask very soon!”

System: “Of course. The unfortunate things that you had to go through was related to the negative luck of being a female supporting character. The moment you absorb some positive luck, everything will go smoother for you.”

Mingxi felt inspired. So long as she worked hard enough, the fate of an evil female supporting character could be changed!

After burning a huge amount of calories due to all that running, Mingxi was hungry. On the way to the canteen, she was still thinking about what she could do to absorb the most amount of luck in the shortest time.

This Fu family’s young master was truly one to be reckoned with. She was lucky with the incident of their homeroom teacher punishing her to do laps, else he would have definitely asked someone to move her books away.

Without this incident, it was highly possible that her books would have been coldly thrown into the trash.

Mingxi wasn’t angry. After all, she did want to ask for a favor from him.

She just felt frustrated— What could she do to get closer to him?

Mingxi quickly thought of the one thing she was best at: cooking.

For the past 15 years before she was found by the Zhao family, she had always cooked and took care of her grandmother. It was a common occurrence for her to return the ingredients given to her by her neighbors in the form of delicious dishes.

From around the age of 7 to 8, there were already people complimenting her cooking.

After she was found by the Zhaos, in order to quickly assimilate into the family, she would often cook a few specialty dishes for them.

Although her mother was a picky eater, she never said anything about her cooking.

As for Zhao Yuning, he was always the one who wanted seconds. Sometimes he would even ask her to make more so that he could eat them at school the next day.

Looks like she was gonna have to go to He Yang’s shop to get some ingredients.

As Mingxi finally had an idea, her steps were lighter and quicker.

*

The gossip about the incident that occurred this morning at the International Class also reached the ears of Zhao Yuan and her friend E* Xiaoxia.

ray note: E is pronounced like ‘uh’

Zhao Yuning walked over from the side with Year Ones to eat with Zhao Yuan. He sat beside them.

While the siblings were shocked when they heard about this from E Xiaoxia, they didn’t think that Zhao Mingxi had truly changed her target of pursuit.

What kind of joke was this? Everyone knew that she liked Shen Liyao.

They have seen how she would always doll herself up and come down from the second floor with bright sparkly eyes whenever Shen Liyao came over to their house.

“Is she purposely doing this to aggravate Liyao ge?” While Zhao Yuning had a plate of food in his hands, he couldn’t bring himself to eat it. “The food from the canteen is so f*cking bad.”

Zhao Yuan gave him the meat on her plate. As she chewed, she sighed, “Sometimes Mingxi is just really childish. Be it the matter of being angry with Liyao gege or her sudden departure from home, Mom is actually really worried— Yuning, did she tell you when she would come home?”

“Who cares? She can return whenever she likes!” Zhao Yuning said in a fit of anger. “She did this multiple times, and was there ever a time when she didn’t come home?!”

“Don’t be angry,” Zhao Yuning advised. “You’re the closest to her, so why don’t you go and talk to her? If not, when she returns, we’ll just all admit that the matter of my allergy had nothing to do with her.”

Zhao Yuning huffed in annoyance, “I won’t go this time. Jiejie, don’t bother to do so too. Yesterday, I saw that her clothes were still in her closet. The clothes that Mom bought her were all left behind. This means that she never intended to stay in school for long. I just know that she’ll return after a few days with her tail between her legs!”

Despite his words, when Zhao Yuning glanced at the plain looking plate of food, he felt extremely anxious.

Previously, he would either sneak out of school to eat or he would eat from the lunchbox brought to school by Zhao Mingxi.

The food that Zhao Mingxi made was absolutely delicious. Everyday before the end of their fourth period in the morning, Zhao Yuning would rush to the canteen in anticipation of the good food from her.

It could be said that a day without Zhao Mingxi’s lunchbox meant a day without his soul.

Previously, when Zhao Mingxi argued with either their family or him— No matter how bad their fight was, she would never forget to bring the lunchbox.

After the siblings quarrel, they would sit together again in an awkward manner. Then by the end of the meal, their frustrations would have all disappeared.

But today, Zhao Mingxi acted out of the ordinary. She didn’t show up!

Zhao Yuning kept on looking toward the entrance to the canteen. However, he didn’t see Mingxi at all although it was already close to the end of lunch time!

Where did she go? Zhao Yuning thought.

Did she have something to do hence she didn’t come to have lunch? Did she forget to bring him lunch? Or she did remember, but purposely chose not to bring him his lunch out of anger?

All in all, it was too unusual!

Zhao Yuning was so dejected that he almost broke the plate with his chopsticks.

E Xiaoxia was still laughing beside them. “The gossip of her running laps has already reached us in the Evergreen Class. All this just to provoke Shen Liyao? But the line formed by the amount of people who are going after Shen Liyao could go all the way out to the other school. There is no way that he could possibly notice her! If she wants to pursue God Yao, not to say that she should have Yuanyuan’s visuals, but she should at least look like the neighboring school’s Kong Jiaze.”

“What nonsense are you spouting?!” Zhao Yuning couldn’t contain his anger any longer. He tossed his chopsticks to the ground. “You should take a piss and use it to look at your reflection first.”

E Xiaoxia was shocked. It was then that she realized that she had a slip of the tongue. Although the relationship between Zhao Yuning and Zhao Mingxi was so-so, he was still Zhao Mingxi’s younger brother.

“I’m sorry.” E Xiaoxia was quick to apologize.

Zhao Yuan said, “Don’t say such things about Mingxi. Let’s just eat.”

Zhao Yuning glared once at E Xiaoxia before going quiet.

As for Zhao Yuan, she couldn’t help but to think of Zhao Mingxi’s face— E Xiaoxia had never seen Zhao Mingxi’s appearance from two years ago when she first came to the Zhao family home.

She looked way better than Zhao Yuan did.

Zhao Yuan’s beauty was pure and pitiful, like that of a pretty daughter of a humble family.

As for Zhao Mingxi, her beauty could be clearly seen even from afar, and her features were amorous and delicate.

On that day when Zhao Mingxi came to their house, the instant everyone saw her, they found it hard to look away.

It was also at that moment when Zhao Yuan felt a slight sense of danger.

Of course, this all came to an end when she was burned a year ago.

As there was now a mark on her beauty, she was no longer perfect and this was a cause of relief for Zhao Yuan.

While she was lost in her thoughts, her ears picked up on Zhao Yuning’s words. “Zhao Mingxi?”

Zhao Yuan and E Xiaoxia turned to look.

Mingxi was walking into the canteen from the entrance. She still had a single-use mask on.

Zhao Yuning assumed that she was delayed by the running laps matter, hence she didn’t come to the canteen. His eyes first travelled to Zhao Mingxi’s hands— It was actually empty with no lunchbox in sight.

Zhao Yuning suddenly felt a little depressed.

This was the first time after a fight with Mingxi jie that she didn’t bring a lunchbox for him. Looks like Mingxi was really angry this time.

Zhao Yuning was wondering if he should be the first to apologize. After all, yesterday when Mingxi left home he did say some pretty awful stuff to her.

Their relationship was always the best out of everyone else. As the things he said yesterday were quite spiteful, it was no wonder that Mingxi was angry.

While he was hesitating, Mingxi walked closer.

Zhao Yuning was a boy who couldn’t just put his ego aside easily. Nonetheless, he grit his teeth and with a surge of bravery, he stood up.

“Mingxi jie,” he started. “You—”

However, before he could speak, Zhao Mingxi acted as if she didn’t see him at all as she walked straight past him.

?

Zhao Yuning felt as if someone had just given him a hard knock on the head. As he couldn’t react in time, the shock only came to him half a second later.

When he finally turned around, Zhao Mingxi was already by the window.

She took up a plate and filled it with food. When she turned back, their eyes met. However, she quickly averted her gaze and walked to another corner before sitting down alone.

Zhao Yuning’s expression went stiff.