Realizing what was happening, Xia Wenbin quickly grabbed a tissue to wipe off the table in front of him, then looked at Lin Yanran with an embarrassed expression and said, "How could that be! With the campus belle sitting right across from me, I wouldn't even dare to imagine it!"
After sitting down, Lin Yanran didn't touch her food. She pushed the tray forward, rested her chin on her hands, and looked at Xia Wenbin with a smile. "So what were you just laughing at?"
"I—I was just thinking..." Xia Wenbin felt a wave of nervousness. He couldn't possibly tell her that he was laughing because his affection rating with her had gone up so much, and he was planning to hug her in a moment to farm some Points!
"Tomorrow's the weekend, and we can finally get some proper rest! Anyone would be happy about that!" Xia Wenbin casually made up an excuse and prepared to get up and run away.
"Classmate, I heard that some guys act very bold these days—they'd even dare to break into the girls' restrooms for a girl they like. But behind closed doors? They don't even dare to sit down and have a meal with the person. Don't you think that's strange?"
With that, Lin Yanran just looked at Xia Wenbin, a faint smile playing at the corners of her lips.
Xia Wenbin, who had originally planned to get up and leave, froze when he heard her mention someone breaking into the girls' restroom. Wasn't that person him?
He immediately sat back down, terrified that Lin Yanran might expose his ID number in the next second.
He had no desire to farm Points by becoming the public enemy of the entire school. There were plenty of ways to farm Points; wasn't showing affection in public with the campus belle much better?
So Xia Wenbin decided not to leave after all. He wanted to hear what Lin Yanran was going to say next, so he replied, "I haven't heard about that. Did it happen today?"
"You haven't heard about it? I just heard some passersby talking about it. Since even you guys don't know, it's probably just a rumor."
Lin Yanran covered her mouth and chuckled, giving Xia Wenbin a playful wink with her left eye.
Xia Wenbin was instantly thrown off balance by her little gesture.
For a second, he thought Lin Yanran was drop-dead gorgeous, especially that wink, which was both flirtatious and adorable.
Then a second thought hit him, and something felt wrong. Panic surged through him:
*What the hell, good grief, System! Why do I feel like I've already been exposed? And to think I even covered my face with my clothes when I went into the girls' restroom—how did she recognize me?!*
"The host is advised to use his own imagination..."
The System dropped that single line and went radio silent.
"Oh, classmate, your shoes are a bit dirty! Have you been somewhere you shouldn't have?" Just as Xia Wenbin was standing there in a daze and feeling completely helpless, Lin Yanran lowered her head and pointed at his shoes.
"So it turns out you recognized me by my shoes! Classmate Lin, you're amazing."
Xia Wenbin raised a hand to scratch his head, his face burning red. Since he'd been found out, he figured there was no point in keeping up the act, and he never imagined Lin Yanran would be so observant.
"Giving up the act? Done pretending? Hmph, you've got some nerve actually running into the girls' restroom..."
With a smug look on her face, Lin Yanran let out a soft huff. She was about to keep teasing Xia Wenbin, but remembering that he had only gone into the girls' restroom for her, the harsh words stuck in her throat.
Xia Wenbin looked away in embarrassment and muttered:
"Don't get me wrong, I really didn't mean to! It was just an emergency, that's all, and I kept my eyes covered with my clothes the whole time. But the fact that you recognized me just by looking at my shoes—that's seriously impressive!"
Lin Yanran didn't bother pressing him on how he knew which restroom she was in or that she needed a sanitary napkin. Since he wasn't bringing it up, there was no need for her to mention it either, as long as she knew he wasn't trying to harm her.
She just curled her lips into a smug smile.
"Actually, the shoes were only part of it. The real reason is that when I walked into the cafeteria just now, almost every guy looked up at me. But you were the only one who didn't! You didn't even look up when I walked right past you. So if you were in my shoes, wouldn't you find that strange?"
Hearing Lin Yanran's explanation, Xia Wenbin slapped his own forehead. He suddenly felt so stupid—the clown who had completely exposed himself was none other than him.
Taking advantage of the fact that Lin Yanran was still hiding a smile behind her hand, Xia Wenbin secretly opened the System interface. The notifications were still flooding the screen, and double-value ones at that.
Xia Wenbin ignored them. Now that he had the campus belle serving as a human tool to continuously supply him with Emotion Points in real-time, he couldn't be bothered to check the prompts.
What mattered right now was that his intelligence seemed somewhat lacking, so he needed to add some attributes.
"System, use 100 Points to add +10 to Spirit!"
"Understood. 100 Points consumed. Attribute upgraded. Spirit: 25."
Before exiting the System, Xia Wenbin took a quick glance at Lin Yanran's attribute panel.
Name: Lin Yanran
Age: 21
Height: 172cm
Weight: 47kg
Physique: 11
Appearance: 92
Affection: 18
She actually had 18 points of affection already. Not bad at all, keep up the good work.Seeing Xia Wenbin staring at her in a daze, Lin Yanran suddenly felt a wave of shyness. She waved her hand in front of him and said,
"Classmate, I ordered way too much food today. It'll be a waste if I can't finish it. Why don't you help me eat it?"
Just snapping back to reality, Xia Wenbin hurriedly waved his hands upon seeing that Lin Yanran was offering to treat him to a meal.
"No, no need! Classmate Lin, I'm already pretty much full. You haven't eaten anything yourself, you should eat it!"
At that moment, Xia Wenbin's heart almost jumped out of his throat.
—Campus Belle Lin, what are you trying to do here? Not only are you sitting across from me, but you're also treating me to dinner?
—Even though I'm about to step into the ranks of the God-tier Tycoon, I can barely handle this right now!
Seeing that Xia Wenbin was still standing there frozen without moving, Lin Yanran couldn't help but speak up.
"Hey, what's wrong? Classmate, do you think my food isn't to your taste, or are you worried it's unhygienic? Don't worry, I haven't touched this food yet."
With that, Lin Yanran gave a lazy stretch, displaying her perfect figure to the fullest.
Yet, seeing that Xia Wenbin was still standing there blankly without moving, Lin Yanran looked him over with a puzzled gaze, and then continued softly:
"If you don't want to eat it, then I'll just give it to some other classmate. Look at those guys in the back, they all seem pretty hungry!" As she spoke, she even jerked her chin toward the several rows of guys behind her.
Sure enough, following the direction she pointed, Xia Wenbin saw several rows of boys holding their meal basins, staring fixedly at their table. Some were so shocked by Lin Yanran's offer to treat him that their jaws practically dropped to the floor.
"No… no! It's not that I mind, not at all. Thank you, Classmate Lin. But I can't finish all this by myself either, let's eat together! Even a campus belle shouldn't be wasteful." With that, Xia Wenbin picked up some food and placed it in Lin Yanran's bowl.
At this point, Xia Wenbin couldn't care less about all that. As the saying goes, free food is free food—since the campus belle was taking the initiative to treat him, why should he feel embarrassed?
Besides, this campus belle was his bound "points-farming tool."
Watching Xia Wenbin start eating heartily without any scruples, Lin Yanran finally relaxed her mind, and she too picked up her chopsticks and began to eat gracefully.
She herself had no idea why she had agreed to eat together. Originally, she had just specially come to treat Xia Wenbin to a meal to express her gratitude, and she hadn't planned on eating herself.
Yet somehow, she suddenly had an appetite and even started chatting merrily and laughing with Xia Wenbin.
"Classmate, eat slower, there's no rush. By the way, what's your name?" Lin Yanran asked curiously, taking a bite of the food Xia Wenbin had put in her bowl.
Although those dishes were originally ordered by herself, the ones Xia Wenbin picked out and put in her bowl somehow tasted just a little bit better, though she couldn't explain why.
If Xia Wenbin were to check the favorability stats at this moment, he would find that Lin Yanran's original favorability of 18 had now reached 28.
While eating the delicious food, Xia Wenbin mumbled with his mouth full: "My… name… is Xia Wenbin. Xia as in summer, Wen as in literature, Bin as in refined and courteous. I'm from the Computer Science Department."
If anyone else introduced themselves to the campus belle like that, they would definitely find it humiliating.
As for whether Xia Wenbin was afraid of losing face? Not a chance! Anyway, he had already lost all the face he possibly could—was there anything more embarrassing left?
As the saying goes, a shameless person is invincible! Since he, Xia Wenbin, already possessed the System and was a God-tier Tycoon, so what if he lost a little face in front of a goddess? At worst, he could just farm the favorability back up next time.
"I'm from the Economics and Management Department, Lin Yanran. Nice to meet you, Classmate Xia Wenbin." Lin Yanran generously gave her formal self-introduction to Xia Wenbin, then stood up and extended her right hand to him in a friendly manner.
Just as Xia Wenbin also stood up, intending to reach out and take Lin Yanran's tender, fair hand, however...
A furious roar suddenly echoed from afar:
"Punk, how dare you touch the woman I've got my eyes on!"
"If you dare to hold her hand, see if I don't get people to chop off your whole arm and feed it to the dogs!"
Xia Wenbin turned his head to look toward the cafeteria entrance, where a tall, thin man with a gloomy and furious expression stood, flanked by a group of punkish students acting like his lacklings.
Xia Wenbin shook his head with a look of utter contempt, then grasped Lin Yanran's little hand without a second thought. The moment he held it, Xia Wenbin felt as if he were holding a piece of soft jade—her skin was delicate and smooth, boneless and tender, feeling truly wonderful.
Yet just as he was about to let go, a dinner tray came flying straight toward him and Lin Yanran.
In his anxiety, Xia Wenbin had no choice but to pull Lin Yanran forward into his embrace, and then slapped the incoming dinner tray away with his palm.