Lu Yicheng had known this would cause a stir — he just hadn’t quite been prepared for the stunned expression on his classmate’s face. It gave him a slight headache.

He tightened his grip on the breakfast bag and tried to keep his voice calm and even. “Excuse me?”

The girl snapped back to herself, quickly responding: “Oh, Lu-tongxue, who did you say you were looking for? I didn’t catch that just now.”

Lu Yicheng: “Jiang Ruoqiao. Jiang Ruoqiao from the foreign languages department.”

She thought: *I definitely heard right the first time.*

First day back and she’d already gotten the freshest gossip imaginable — this was going to shake the entire school, she could feel it. She was going to be the first witness to history. How proud.

“Is that alright?” Lu Yicheng asked again.

She nodded vigorously. “Of course, of course — I actually know which room she’s in.”

Jiang Ruoqiao. Oh, she knew her.

Not that they were personally acquainted — rather, Jiang Ruoqiao was someone almost no one at this school could claim to not know about.

The campus’s most beautiful girl. Boys adored pretty girls, but girls adored them even more — every time she spotted Jiang Ruoqiao, her day got a little brighter. And women were far better at noticing these things than men: they could clock a new haircut, a different lipstick shade, a changed perfume in an instant.

Could men? Never.

The girl turned and bolted up the stairs of the dormitory building with barely concealed excitement — she was in a different building from Jiang Ruoqiao, but she didn’t let that slow her down. She scrambled up the stairs in record time, huffing breathlessly as she arrived at the door of Jiang Ruoqiao’s room and knocked.

This was right around the time the four resident sleepyheads were just beginning to stir.

Jiang Ruoqiao had just come out of the bathroom and was sitting at her desk, spraying her face with toner, preparing to put on a simple layer of makeup.

Yun Jia had just climbed down from her bunk. She was nearest the door, and she opened it to find a short-haired girl she didn’t recognize. “Can I help you?” she asked, puzzled.

Still flushed with excitement from her sprint up the stairs, the girl kept her voice carefully restrained. “Someone downstairs is looking for Jiang Ruoqiao.”

Afraid she wasn’t being fast enough, she immediately added: “It’s Lu Yicheng from our department — Lu Yicheng is here for Jiang Ruoqiao, and he says he brought her breakfast!”

Yun Jia: “??”

She’d only just woken up and was still half-dazed. A few seconds later it registered, and she turned stiffly toward Jiang Ruoqiao by the window. “Ruoqiao, someone’s here for you — Lu Yicheng is downstairs, he says he brought you breakfast…”

By the time she got to the end of the sentence, she’d fully woken up, and let out a shriek: “WHAT!! Lu Yicheng brought breakfast?!!”

The short-haired girl was deeply gratified.

See — some things were simply too extraordinary to react to with anything less than alarm. Not a single person who heard this wouldn’t be shocked.

And indeed — Jiang Ruoqiao herself, sitting at her desk with a fluffy hair band pushing back her bangs, toner only half applied, was stunned.

What was happening? She had no idea. Lu Yicheng was here looking for her, and he’d brought her breakfast? It felt completely surreal.

Jiang Ruoqiao stood up. The short-haired girl watched her with shining eyes.

She smiled and gave a small nod. “I’ll be right down, thank you.”

The girl’s internal monologue: *Even fresh-faced she’s this beautiful!! Truly the campus beauty~~*

“Not at all!” She wanted desperately to stay and overhear the story firsthand — but clearly everyone here had only just woken up, and she was just a messenger. Standing here loitering like a doorstop was obviously not an option. With deep reluctance she turned and left — and the moment she was around the corner, she pulled out her phone and began typing at maximum speed, fingers flying across the screen, sharing the news with her dorm group chat and her best friends.

【OKAY!! You will NOT believe this!! So I was going to the cafeteria to get some mixed noodles on my way back, and side note, the noodle chef’s skills are STILL unmatched, absolutely incredible — okay okay getting back on track. I was buying noodles and on my way back I ran into Lu Yicheng. Yes you read that right. The genius of our department, our department’s treasure, Lu Yicheng-tongxue — he was standing outside the girls’ dormitory building. Want to guess who he was there for? He was there for JIANG RUOQIAO. And he was bringing her BREAKFAST!! (Also when you share this, please make sure to let people know I was the first one with this information — I dug this well.)】

Jiang Ruoqiao, meanwhile, did not go straight downstairs.

She needed a moment to think.

Under the excited, burning stares of her three roommates, she remained perfectly composed — she sat back down at her desk and went through her skincare and makeup with practiced, unhurried movements.

As she patted and smoothed, she turned the situation over in her mind: *What is Lu Yicheng’s game here?*

And then, gradually, it clicked. Their situation was inevitable — the two of them were bound to be in close, frequent contact going forward. She and Jiang Yan were just-broken-up exes, and he and Jiang Yan had been best friends… however they handled it, they were going to attract attention. So he must have weighed everything and decided to “sacrifice” himself — in a classic self-sacrificing move: *if not me, who else?* — choosing to absorb the full weight of the public narrative. Letting it look like he had betrayed a friend’s trust, that he had gone after her behind Jiang Yan’s back, taking all the criticism onto himself.

Yes. This was exactly the kind of thing Lu Yicheng would do.

She wasn’t surprised.

But — if he was doing this much for her, she couldn’t just sit there and do nothing.

They were, after all, on the same side.

Her three roommates had completely abandoned their own business and were standing in a row behind her like a trio of solemn sentinels.

Once she’d applied a light coat of lip gloss, Jiang Ruoqiao finally deigned to get up. She turned to her friends: “Darlings, the plan may have shifted slightly, but we’re still running with the original outline — right?”

She deliberately put on a playful, exaggerated bow. “Sisters, I’m counting on you. Even if each of you orders ten bubble teas a day — I’ll cover it.”

The three roommates had pure excitement written all over their faces. “Don’t worry~ But that’s not all — there’s one more condition: we want details. You know what kind of details we mean.”

“I don’t know.”

“Yes you do.” Yun Jia rubbed her hands together eagerly. “Forgive us for being uncultured, but we really can’t imagine Lu Yicheng… emmm, like, when he kisses someone, what style does he prefer? And his hands…”

Jiang Ruoqiao made a face of utmost seriousness: “Stop. You are polluting my ears.”

With that, she fled the room at a brisk walk, not looking back.

The moment she stepped out, the three remaining roommates dove into an enthusiastic discussion.

“Lu Yicheng actually brought breakfast. Looks like he really is pursuing Ruoqiao.” Yun Jia rubbed her chin. “But I wonder — do you think Lu Yicheng brought four portions?”

Come to think of it, it had been a long time since they’d gotten a free breakfast.

Every time Jiang Ruoqiao was single, there would be people competing to win her favor — all of them perceptive enough to bring snacks or breakfast in sets of four, a roundabout way of getting on the good side of her friends. Jiang Yan had sent breakfast for a long stretch too, though like all men, he’d grown lazy after locking things down officially. They hadn’t eaten a Jiang Yan-provided breakfast in a very long time.

Luo Wen said: “I’d guess no. I mean — Lu Yicheng just doesn’t seem like that smooth, socially calculated type. From what I know, he’s never dated anyone, zero experience whatsoever. The fact that he even brought Ruoqiao breakfast is already shocking. I can’t see him thinking to bring four.”

Gao Jingjing pushed her glasses up her nose. “Incidentally, if we eat breakfast brought by the department genius, will we not fail our exams?”

……

By the time Jiang Ruoqiao finished putting on her makeup, practically the entire girls’ dormitory building knew that Lu Yicheng had brought her breakfast. As she walked down the corridor, doors cracked open along the way with curious eyes peeking out.

For some reason — maybe because the whole atmosphere had been building toward it — even Jiang Ruoqiao found herself in the unfamiliar grip of something resembling bashfulness.

She made her way quickly downstairs. Before she’d even stepped outside, she could see Lu Yicheng standing under a tree, spine straight, both hands full of bags.

She paused.

At that exact moment, Lu Yicheng also looked up in her direction.

Their eyes met.

Jiang Ruoqiao pressed her lips together. Then, almost as if on purpose, she slowed her pace, walking toward him with an air of practiced composure.

Up on the balconies above, girls had appeared all along the building under the guise of hanging laundry or retrieving it, all of them angling for a look at what was happening below.

A handsome guy bringing breakfast for a pretty girl wasn’t unusual in itself.

But when that handsome guy was Lu Yicheng and that pretty girl was Jiang Ruoqiao, the effect was doubled.

“Why are you here?” Jiang Ruoqiao asked.

Lu Yicheng was a little embarrassed.

After all, this was the first time in his life he’d bought breakfast for a girl and brought it to her.

He was a bit awkward about it, and his voice came out sounding slightly strained. “I’ll explain by text in a moment.”

Jiang Ruoqiao tilted her head. “Then why didn’t you text me first, or call me and ask me to come down? It’s not like you don’t have my number.”

Lu Yicheng: *Well, this…*

He tightened his grip on the bag in his hand and tried to keep his voice steady. “Don’t you know?”

Well, now.

Lu Yicheng had apparently picked up a new trick.

He was deflecting her question with a question.

Who had taught him that?

Never mind — that question could be skipped.

Jiang Ruoqiao decided to let him off the hook, and let herself off it too. She changed the subject. “So you brought breakfast — what did you get?”

Lu Yicheng held out the bags for her to see.

She leaned in.

Lu Yicheng caught that floral scent again. Sweet and clean.

Without thinking, he held his breath a little. Jiang Ruoqiao was looking through what he’d bought.

In its own way, this was quite an intimate gesture — only people who were genuinely close did this, casually rifling through each other’s breakfast. Strangers simply didn’t.

Jiang Ruoqiao looked at what he’d gotten and was genuinely surprised. He’d bought a coffee and a croissant — which were exactly what she’d ordered last time. His memory was extraordinary — he had remembered precisely what she’d been drinking. But then, he’d only bought one of everything. The coffee was a single cup, just one croissant. And separately, three portions of soymilk and buns from the cafeteria.

The coffee and croissant were, without question, for her.

The soymilk and buns were for the other three roommates.

Men apparently had an instinct for this kind of thing.

Jiang Ruoqiao looked at him with a smile that was part amusement, part teasing.

Lu Yicheng felt obliged to explain honestly: “It was a bit expensive.”

Jiang Ruoqiao burst out laughing, eyes bright.

Lu Yicheng had no defense — it was the truth. That morning he’d gone to the place she’d bought coffee from before, and ordered the same set she’d gotten: an Americano and a croissant, somewhere around thirty yuan. One portion was manageable; four portions… he hadn’t bought four. He figured the cafeteria soymilk and buns were perfectly good, and bought three of those instead.

“So you’ll keep bringing it tomorrow?” Jiang Ruoqiao asked, eyes still curved with amusement.

Lu Yicheng paused. “Yes.”

If you were going to do this, you had to go all the way.

He knew she wasn’t easy to win over.

You couldn’t do it with just one breakfast delivery. Take Jiang Yan — even he had kept at it for over two months.

If it was him — one time clearly wouldn’t be enough.

Jiang Ruoqiao drew out her words: “Still coming? Then let me transfer you the money.”

Lu Yicheng: “?”

He shook his head. “No need.”

He could afford it.

There was no way he was taking her money. He wasn’t a delivery service. In any case, he didn’t want to.

Seeing his insistence, Jiang Ruoqiao suppressed her smile and let it go — she’d find another way to make it up to him later. They were both in the same boat at the moment, and she suspected he was internally aching a little with every breakfast purchase too.

“The soymilk and buns are really good?” Jiang Ruoqiao said after a moment. “Then that’s what I’ll have tomorrow.”

Lu Yicheng looked at her in surprise. “But you always drink coffee.”

Jiang Ruoqiao replied: “I feel like something different for once.”

Lu Yicheng furrowed his brow slightly, hesitant. “It’s actually not that expensive.”

Thirty yuan was fine. She liked the coffee — didn’t she?

Jiang Ruoqiao gave him a sideways look. “Tomorrow I’m having buns and soymilk. Do you have a problem with that?”

Lu Yicheng: “……No.”

—