Two days later, it was noon dismissal time.
A mighty army of diners sprinted toward the cafeteria.
But mixed into the crowd were a few unmotivated people, such as Gu Qiu, who looked exhausted.
For two days in a row, he had gotten up at the crack of dawn to stake out the office and wait for the person delivering breakfast, but the other party seemed to have anticipated it and left the stuff on the desk even earlier.
All that back-and-forth trouble, plus the four evening study sessions he had attended last night, had left him in poor shape today.
However, Gu Qiu had also figured it out!
Rather than stalking the other party’s trail like a cat after a mouse, he might as well leave it alone. The other side would show up sooner or later!
Worth mentioning was that the breakfast he had received over the past two days was still handed over to Qin Zhiyi to deal with. He did not know why, but he just felt like breakfast of unknown origin looked gross!
In the blink of an eye, Gu Qiu had already walked into the cafeteria.
Anyway, there were no classes today, so he planned to eat until he was full and then go back to catch up on sleep!
At the same time, several Class 9 students at the front of the line noticed him and quickly waved.
“Old Gu!”
“Over here, Old Gu!”
“…”
Gu Qiu raised a hand in response and walked over at a slow pace.
The second floor had a place specially set aside for teachers to eat, and the food was relatively more plentiful, but Gu Qiu did not like the atmosphere over there. Unless someone invited him, he usually ate with the students and just made do.
Because he got along well with the students, especially the enthusiastic Class 9 students, whenever someone spotted him, they would often call him over to cut in line.
But in fact, teachers were allowed to cut in line directly at the student windows.
However, Gu Qiu did not point that out. He just treated it as a little friendly interaction between him and the students.
He borrowed a student’s spot, got a meal, and then randomly found a seat to sit down.
Unexpectedly, after only two bites, his view was blocked by a figure.
Gu Qiu looked up, and the next second, he locked eyes with Qin Zhiyi, who was carrying a handbag.
Qin Zhiyi was wearing a fresh green-and-white checkered dress today. She tilted her head in a cute way and smiled softly.
“Teacher Gu, can I sit here?”
Gu Qiu chewed his food and glanced to the side, only to see that there were still plenty of empty seats around.
He felt a little helpless and complained inwardly.
“First the office, now the cafeteria. Do you really like sitting across from me that much?”
“Weren’t we supposed to keep our distance?”
Still, these were public seats after all. He had no right to monopolize them, so he could only nod and agree.
“Thank you!”
Qin Zhiyi responded gently and sat down across from him.
Then she took four lunch boxes out of the handbag one by one.
When she opened them in turn, each box was divided into two sections. They held salt-baked spare ribs, braised prawns, fried chicken cutlets, tomato scrambled eggs… a total of five meat dishes and three vegetable dishes, eight dishes in all.
The rich aroma quickly drifted into Gu Qiu’s nose, and he, who had deliberately avoided looking, could not help glancing over.
Looking at the four boxes of delicious dishes that looked and smelled amazing, he could not help feeling that what he was eating seemed like slop!
Qin Zhiyi noticed his gaze and smiled gently.
“Teacher Gu, I can’t finish all this by myself. Why don’t you help me with some?”
“No need, I’m fine with these dishes.”
Gu Qiu refused against his conscience, then asked back:
“If you’re eating so well, why did you even come to the cafeteria?”
Qin Zhiyi blinked.
“I only prepared the dishes, not the rice!”
Gu Qiu curled his lips.
He did not believe for a second that this woman had time to make so many dishes but not enough time to cook some rice!
Qin Zhiyi did not care whether he believed her or not. She picked up her lunch box and walked to the window, soon returning with a portion of plain white rice. Then, as if she had discovered something novel, she excitedly shared it with Gu Qiu.
“Just getting rice is actually free!”
“Don’t make such a fuss. Mine is free too. The school has a meal subsidy!”
Gu Qiu replied casually.
But inwardly, he wanted to say, “If food that awful cost money, heaven would not forgive it.”
Unfortunately, since he had just said these dishes were pretty good, he did not want to slap his own face.
Qin Zhiyi did not know what he was thinking and laughed playfully.
“I didn’t know! This is only my second time eating in the cafeteria. The first time was when Sister Yan treated me.”
After explaining, she sat down across from him.
She stared at Gu Qiu for a while and could not help picking up a piece of spare rib for him.
“Eat!”
“I really can’t finish it all by myself.”
“If you can’t finish it, then why did you make so much!”
Gu Qiu hurriedly said it while also putting the piece of spare rib back.
This scene happened to be seen by Xu Youtian, who was pretending to pass by.
Seeing the two sitting together, she thought they had made progress and wanted to come over and gossip. She never expected that Old Gu, this blockhead, still had not come around. It was one thing for him to keep refusing Teacher Qin’s breakfast, but facing such a lavish lunch table and still being completely unmoved!
At once, she decided to help Qin Zhiyi.
Her eyes rolled around twice, and after coming up with an idea, she immediately pulled her bestie over.
“Old Gu, Teacher Qin, what a coincidence!”
“There are no seats left. Let us squeeze in together!”
Hearing that, Gu Qiu raised his eyes again and looked to the side.
The surrounding area looked about the same as when he had just checked. There were still plenty of empty seats.
What is going on today?
The more crowded, the healthier?
Xu Youtian did not care about that at all. She sat down beside Gu Qiu and then turned her gaze to Qin Zhiyi’s lunch boxes.
“Teacher Qin, did you make all of these?”
“Not all of them. These two simpler ones were made by me.”
Qin Zhiyi pointed at them.
Xu Youtian nodded slightly, helping smooth things over.
“That makes sense. Spare ribs and chicken cutlets are troublesome and time-consuming to make!”
Qin Zhiyi smiled faintly and pushed the lunch boxes forward.
“I can’t finish it all by myself. Help me out, okay?”
“Then I won’t hold back!”
The moment she finished speaking, Xu Youtian immediately picked up a piece of spare rib and put it into her own bowl, then gave her bestie some prawns.
“A-Yu, here, your favorite prawns!”
Then, taking advantage of the moment when Gu Qiu lowered his head, she quickly piled a bunch of food onto his plate. Part of it was deliberately mixed with the dishes already there. She put on a look of good intentions and smiled.
“Old Gu, you should eat too!”
Gu Qiu looked up and stared at the extra food on his plate, stunned.
“I…”
“You don’t like it?”
“It’s fine. Then try some of Teacher Qin’s handmade dishes!”
After Xu Youtian finished speaking, she also took a few more bites of food from the other two lunch boxes for him.
Suddenly, noticing Gu Qiu glaring at her, she explained unhurriedly:
“Old Gu, I haven’t eaten yet. My chopsticks are clean.”
“But now that these dishes have been in your bowl, they’ve already gotten your saliva on them. Putting them back would be rude!”
Gu Qiu’s mouth twitched.
After all that, he had managed to guard against Qin Zhiyi, but not against this annoying young lady!