When Mu Yuwei saw Bai Shinan serve food to that ugly duckling Zhu Yuyou, her emotions became a mess—like someone had knocked over a bottle of mixed spices in her heart. It felt as if her favorite toy had been snatched away by another child.
All along, Bai Shinan had been extremely cautious about his interactions. He knew he was quite popular with the girls, but to prove his sincerity to Mu Yuwei, he never even joked around with other girls, let alone spoke more than a few words to them.
“How could he serve food to another girl? That’s so disrespectful to you, Yuwei,” Liu Tiantian said, pulling Mu Yuwei as if about to confront him.
“Forget it. He’s just trying to get my attention with this kind of stunt. Let’s go,” Mu Yuwei said, shaking her head. She didn’t believe Bai Shinan would actually like someone as plain and dull as Zhu Yuyou. So, the only explanation was that Bai Shinan was doing this to provoke her.
If she went with Liu Tiantian to question Bai Shinan now, that would be falling right into his trap. After all, she and Bai Shinan weren’t in a relationship. If she rushed over so eagerly, wouldn’t that just prove how much she cared about him?
That would put the initiative in Bai Shinan’s hands. If he pressured her into becoming his girlfriend, should she say yes or no?
“Yeah, scumbags like him don’t deserve you anyway.” Since Mu Yuwei had made up her mind, Liu Tiantian could only continue fueling her resentment.
In the end, the two of them simply packed their food and returned to the dormitory. Before leaving, Mu Yuwei glanced back at Bai Shinan—she wanted to see how long he could keep this up.
“Classmate Bai, aren’t you going to greet Mu Yuwei?” Zhu Yuyou asked carefully. In the past, whenever they ran into her, Bai Shinan would always rush up first to shower Mu Yuwei with concern.
“Why should I be the one to greet her? She came later than us anyway,” Bai Shinan replied indifferently.
Zhu Yuyou looked at Bai Shinan strangely. He was acting really weird today. First, he approached her out of nowhere, and now he ignored Mu Yuwei completely.
She took a bite of the fatty meat he had given her, chewing carefully, thinking to herself—maybe he really just didn’t like eating it…
After dinner, Bai Shinan and Zhu Yuyou parted ways. He still had to return to the dorm and take a shower—self-study time would begin at eight.
Before showering, Bai Shinan looked in the mirror and gave himself an approving nod. During high school, he really was ridiculously handsome. Too bad his brain had issues. Surrounded by so many beautiful girls, yet he insisted on tying himself to the tree that was Mu Yuwei.
He noticed his bangs were a bit long, nearly covering one eye. But back then, the emo look was trendy—only showing one eye was considered cool.
But now that Bai Shinan had been reborn, he had only one thought: if you don’t need your eyes, donate them to someone who does.
“Dorm Leader, do you have scissors?” Bai Shinan turned to ask the tall and burly Wang Jian, their dorm head. Despite his rough appearance, he was the most meticulous among them, nicknamed “Mom.”
“Scissors? What do you need scissors for?” Wang Jian jumped up from his bed the moment he heard that. “Old Fourth, listen to me—there’s plenty of fish in the sea. Don’t do anything foolish!”
“I just want to trim my bangs, how is that ‘doing something foolish’?” Bai Shinan looked at him with a ‘man on subway staring at phone’ expression. He remembered the dorm leader being naggy, but not this hysterical.
“Really? You’re not spiraling because your confession failed?” Wang Jian asked cautiously, afraid of setting him off.
“What? How do you know I got rejected?” Bai Shinan was even more confused now. He had only told Li Pengfei, and Li Pengfei wasn’t the gossiping type.
“It’s not just me, we all know. Look for yourself.” Wang Jian handed him a phone. On it was a recent post from Mu Yuwei.
[Peach blossoms bloom in clusters, yet none are claimed. Do I love the deep red, or the light?]
Below the caption was a photo of a solitary figure under the moonlight.
The post was made twenty minutes ago. The date—it was March 14, White Day—said it all.
Mu Yuwei rarely posted updates. At most, two or three a year. Yet here she was, posting something so full of meaning on such a specific day. Every word subtly declared that she was now an unclaimed flower.
And with Liu Tiantian spreading the word, now the entire class knew that Bai Shinan’s confession had been rejected.
“Such a petty need to win.” Bai Shinan lost interest after one glance. Honestly, rather than say Mu Yuwei rejected him today, it was more accurate to say he flipped the table halfway through. But clearly, Mu Yuwei didn’t see it that way.
He didn’t even know what had attracted him to Mu Yuwei in the first place. Maybe it was just that the sunlight was nice that day, and he happened to glance her way in a crowd. Love, without warning, had taken root.
To put it plainly—he got interested because she looked pretty.
After calming Wang Jian down, he got a pair of scissors. Facing the mirror, he gave a few quick snips. Strands of hair fell to the floor as he trimmed his bangs, and just like that, he looked brighter and more energetic—less gloomy and dreary.
“Old Fourth, you know how to cut hair? It actually looks good!” Wang Jian had assumed Bai Shinan would butcher it into some jagged mess.
“Sigh, don’t even ask.” Bai Shinan looked reluctant to explain. It was all because of Mu Yuwei.
Whenever Mu Yuwei got a bad haircut, she’d sulk for days. To cheer her up, Bai Shinan had learned how to cut bangs.
Of course, that was after she became his girlfriend in his past life. As for this life? Not even a chance.
When evening study began, Bai Shinan sat at his familiar high school desk and pulled out an old set of college entrance exam papers. He had chosen the science track back then.
Later, he and Mu Yuwei got into the same university, majoring in computer science. He had a chance to develop further in the imperial capital, but Mu Yuwei decided to return to Jinling to work at a tutoring institute. He followed her back, and ended up working at the same company—doing a job that had nothing to do with computer science.
You could say he gave up everything for Mu Yuwei. In the end, he even gave up his life.
He couldn’t think of a better word than ‘deserved’ for himself.
Shaking off the negativity, Bai Shinan smoothed out the test paper, picked up a marker, and started working through it.
In his past life, he was a senior-year cram school teacher. Since the company was just starting out, he had to take on multiple roles. He was responsible for teaching comprehensive science and math. That was probably the only useful thing Mu Yuwei ever contributed to his life.
As for English, he had taken both TOEFL and IELTS in university—it was child’s play now. Chinese was the only weak subject. Most of the ancient poetry he memorized was already forgotten. But he still remembered the essay topic from that year’s college entrance exam (cue dramatic lean back).
His first small goal in this reborn life—become the top scorer in the college entrance exam, just for fun.