Less than a week later, everyone at Shuimu University knew that Sun Jin, the transfer student from New York University in his sophomore year of the Food Science department, a sun-kissed hottie, was pursuing the campus belle and top student, Liu Chen.
Moreover, he was relentlessly pursuing her, with great patience.
Liu Chen sat at a dining chair in a corner of the cafeteria, using her right hand to scoop up scrambled eggs with tomatoes from the two dishes and one soup she had just gotten, while her left hand held her iPhone 3GS, sliding the screen upwards with her thumb.
The screen clearly displayed the school's online forum, where a post discussed speculations about how Liu Chen would react to the exchange student's fierce pursuit.
Liu Chen scrolled through five or six pages, spotting the speculation about herself.
'Of course, she won't react! Senior Ren Yu is so successful in his entrepreneurship at such a young age, she'd be a fool to choose that exchange student!'
'Not necessarily? I heard this exchange student's family owns a chain of supermarkets in America, and he's worth hundreds of millions of US dollars! Plus, the exchange student is more like a university student our age, right?'
'Holy crap, upstairs, are you saying Senior Ren Yu isn't like a university student?'
'I think Senior Ren Yu is much more handsome than that exchange student.'
'I actually prefer the exchange student's type, a sun-kissed hottie?'
After finishing the posts, Liu Chen let out a cold scoff of "Heh," then exited the post, turned off her phone screen, and placed it on the dining table.
Sang Ling, sitting opposite Liu Chen, heard Liu Chen's mocking laughter and looked up at her.
"Did you read the posts?"
"Yeah, it's a real shame our current forum doesn't display IP addresses. Otherwise, we'd definitely see the IP addresses of those people bragging about Sun Jin coming from overseas."
As soon as Liu Chen finished speaking, she saw Sun Jin, acting like a horny rooster, enter the cafeteria. After scanning the room, he raised his hand and signaled towards the table where Liu Chen was sitting.
Seeing this, Liu Chen withdrew her gaze, furrowed her brow slightly, and looked at her food tray, calculating if she could finish eating and leave within ten seconds.
The answer was clearly no.
Seeing Liu Chen's movement, Sang Ling followed Liu Chen's gaze and saw the exchange student with dyed blond hair. Then, looking at Liu Chen's furrowed brow, she couldn't help but tease,
"I think this Chinese exchange student doesn't quite understand how to read people's expressions."
Liu Chen smiled upon hearing Sang Ling's words.
"Perhaps it's due to his upbringing abroad? I've indirectly rejected him a few times, but this person seems not to understand Mandarin."
Moreover, the more this happened, the more uneasy Liu Chen felt, because Liu Chen knew very well that this exchange student named Sun Jin's Mandarin was likely fluent.
She had once seen him wear a sickeningly lewd smile on his face when he heard the words 'Jin Ping Mei'.
For a sophomore student in the prime of youth, being repeatedly and subtly rejected, or even directly told no by the girl he pursued, Sun Jin would only show disbelief and then continue his pursuit as if nothing had happened.
As if nothing could stop his passionate love.
If it were an ordinary 20-year-old girl, she might have been swayed by such persistent pursuit.
But Liu Chen would not. She had witnessed numerous news reports of on-site proposals forcing girlfriends to agree in her previous life.
In fact, Liu Chen sincerely felt fortunate that she had announced her relationship with Ren Yu earlier, otherwise such a persistent pest would be truly annoying and disgusting.
As she was thinking, Sun Jin, who had finished getting his food, walked over to Liu Chen's table with his tray and sat diagonally opposite Liu Chen, next to Sang Ling's empty seat.
"Hi! My goddess!"
Sun Jin greeted her while his gaze swept from head to toe over Sang Ling.
Then his gaze paused on Sang Ling's flat chest, visible in her summer short-sleeved shirt, and he pursed his lips slightly.
Sang Ling naturally felt that disgusting gaze, and her face immediately darkened. She then turned her head to look at the exchange student with dyed blond hair.
"Classmate, can you have some consideration for public hygiene? How many days has it been since you showered? You smell of body odor!"
After speaking, Sang Ling gripped her tray with both hands, stood up, and moved to an empty seat at the next table with a look of disgust.
Liu Chen followed her and moved as well. She had not missed the way that greasy man looked at Sang Ling, and she began to ponder how to make him hurt enough to back down.
She understood now that for someone like Sun Jin, who had an inflated sense of self-importance, no amount of rejection would work. In fact, in their minds, your rejection might just be a tactic to make them pursue you more.
With that thought, Liu Chen lost her appetite. She placed her tray at the collection point and returned to the dormitory with Sang Ling.
In mid-May, opening the dormitory door, a stuffy heat hit them. Liu Chen found the remote control on the coffee table, turned on the wall-mounted air conditioner in the bedroom, and opened the bedroom door.
While waiting for the room temperature to drop, Sang Ling hesitated for a moment before sharing her feelings from earlier, because she believed Chen Chen wouldn't think she was jealous and making things up.
After listening to Sang Ling, Liu Chen nodded affirmatively, using the boiling water from the kettle to dissolve the milk tea powder in Sang Ling's cup. "So, I said this Sun Jin is a bit strange."
"I don't think a guy who could get into NYU, come from a well-off family, and has a sunny appearance should behave like this. Chen Chen, you know, outward appearance reflects inner character. His behavior simply doesn't match his appearance."
Hearing this, Liu Chen looked at Sang Ling with great admiration.
"You're right. I suspect Sun Jin's background is fake. A few days ago, I asked an uncle I met in Los Angeles to help me investigate, but I haven't received a reply yet."
As soon as Liu Chen finished speaking, her phone on the coffee table vibrated.
Liu Chen saw the email notification, got up, and took her phone to the bedroom. Sang Ling sat obediently on the living room sofa, sipping her milk tea while replying to comments on Weibo.
Liu Chen sat in her chair, looking at the identity and background investigation of Sun Jin, along with his photos, displayed on the laptop screen, and fell into deep thought.
Zhang Jiawang was a local influential figure in Los Angeles, and he had always wanted to repay her life-saving kindness. Therefore, the authenticity of this investigation was unquestionable.
But…
Was Sun Jin really just superficially sunny with a perverted inner self?
Liu Chen sighed.
"Even if he is just a simple, perverted young Chinese man, I'll still give him some trouble, so he doesn't buzz around me like a fly."
As soon as she finished speaking, the phone on the desk rang. This somewhat surprised Liu Chen, as both her business partners and people from Meimei Company would choose to communicate with her via QQ.
This was because it allowed communication to be recorded, preventing disputes over responsibility if something went wrong in the future.
She picked up the phone, slid to unlock it, and put it to her ear.
"Hello? Hello."
-
This mysterious phone call lasted for a full five minutes. When Liu Chen hung up, she only felt lucky that she had gone to the bedroom to check her email earlier, otherwise she wouldn't have been able to keep it secret.
With that thought, a triumphant smile spread across Liu Chen's face. She placed her hands on the keyboard and opened the chat window with Ren Yu on QQ.
-
In mid-May, the temperature felt like a warrior climbing a peak. Seeing that the weather had already reached 38 degrees in May, even though Liu Chen's constitution had changed and she no longer sweated constantly, she still felt a bit irritable.
In the classroom, the ceiling fan whirred noisily overhead, but Liu Chen never felt any coolness from it. Apart from blowing waves of warm air into the corners of the classroom, the fan was useless.
If Liu Chen felt this way, it was even more so for her classmates in the same classroom.
Sun Jin was clearly one of those suffering from the intense heat. Since Liu Chen's friend had mentioned his body odor last time, Sun Jin now carried a heavy scent of perfume to class every day.
As the object of Sun Jin's relentless pursuit, Liu Chen was naturally not spared from this strong scent of tobacco-infused perfume.
Seeing Sun Jin walk towards her, Liu Chen lowered her eyes, controlling herself to remain calm. She heard Sun Jin say,
"Liu Chen, can we talk?"
Liu Chen hesitated, which gave Sun Jin a glimmer of hope.
"At a restaurant outside the school. After eating, I'll drive you back!"
Upon hearing "outside the school," Liu Chen shook her head. However, this time, Liu Chen did not refuse Sun Jin's lunch invitation.
"It just so happens that I also have some things I want to make clear to you."
Sun Jin, however, didn't hear Liu Chen's words at all. At this moment, his face was filled with smug pride. If the seats around Liu Chen weren't already filled, Sun Jin would have immediately sat next to her.
But it didn't matter now. Sun Jin slicked back his hair from his forehead and returned to his seat with a beaming smile.
The girls sitting next to Liu Chen saw Sun Jin's reaction and were amazed. One girl with black-rimmed glasses, who had her hair neatly tied back, couldn't help but grumble,
"This Sun Jin, I feel like his brain doesn't seem like it could get into NYU. Or is the quality of NYU students this poor?"
Upon hearing this, the surrounding classmates couldn't help but laugh.
Indeed, any classmate who had overheard Liu Chen's words could vaguely guess that Liu Chen was about to very directly and seriously reject Sun Jin's pursuit.
At noon,
The Shuimu University cafeteria. Actually, due to the hot weather, the number of students eating in the cafeteria had decreased significantly recently. But today was different. Even before the mealtime, students were already queuing up to the entrance.
They were all well-informed and knew that the campus belle and top student was going to 'cruelly' reject the exchange student's suitor today.
The cafeteria uncle, who had been educated about today's sensational event, was now also intently watching the table in the corner.
He was so focused that he even forgot to use his usual signature move, the 'shaking ladle' technique.
Liu Chen, sitting at a corner table in the cafeteria, kept glancing at the wall clock in the cafeteria behind Sun Jin.
Seeing Liu Chen's gaze, Sun Jin couldn't help but feel disdain.
'Heh, this slut. She says she doesn't like me, she doesn't want me, but isn't she still falling for me? Heh, women are all the same. As long as a man is handsome and rich, they can't control themselves.'
As Liu Chen withdrew her gaze from the clock, she saw Sun Jin's undisguised look of disdain.
"Classmate Sun Jin, I've already told you, I have a boyfriend, and we have a very good relationship. Your pursuit has caused trouble between my boyfriend and me. I hope you can..."
Before she could finish speaking, everyone's gaze in the cafeteria collectively shifted to a man who had just entered.
Ren Yu quickly strode into the cafeteria, unbuttoned the cuffs of his shirt sleeves, rolled them up, and then unbuttoned the top two buttons of his shirt.
If one had good eyesight and the right angle, they could even see his faintly visible pectoral muscles beneath the shirt.
Ren Yu finished this and stopped precisely at the corner table, standing behind the seated Sun Jin.
Ren Yu's face was cold. He reached out and patted Sun Jin, who was eloquently expressing his passionate love.
"Who the hell are you?! Huh!"
Ren Yu threw a punch at Sun Jin's disgusting eyes. Sun Jin, not to be outdone, slapped the dining table and stood up abruptly.
"You motherf***er, you dare to hit me?!"
This authentic foul curse echoed clearly throughout the restaurant, where everyone had stopped their movements in unison due to the fight.
"Holy crap? This Chinese guy curses without any accent?"
"Exactly! Oh, look, look! I always thought Senior Ren Yu was a frail CEO-type, but look at him pinning that exchange student to the ground and beating him. He's so cool!"
"Heh, didn't you guys just say you liked that sunny type of guy?"
"We like sunny guys, not guys who curse! Besides, look at this guy's muscular physique, yet he can't fight back when Senior Ren Yu pins him to the ground. His muscles are probably like watered-down chicken, just for show."
While the students were discussing, no one actually stepped forward to stop the fight. After all, when you brazenly try to poach someone's girlfriend, you should expect a day like this.
However, while the students didn't intervene, school teachers couldn't just stand by and watch this exchange student from America get beaten on the ground.
Liu Chen, at this moment, seemed to have just snapped out of a daze. She rushed forward, hugging Ren Yu and trying to persuade him,
"Stop hitting him, stop hitting him!"
The teachers who rushed over quickly pulled the two apart. One of them was Liu Chen's sophomore year academic advisor.
He glanced at Sun Jin, who was bruised, swollen, and bleeding from his head, and said,
"I'm taking you to the affiliated hospital now. Go! Liu Chen, regarding the matter of you causing a fight among students on campus, we'll discuss it later! We don't want students like you in our class who only have academic achievements but lack good character!"
Saying that, the advisor helped Sun Jin up and walked towards the door.
Liu Chen pursed her lips upon hearing this, looking troubled. Sun Jin, seeing Liu Chen's distressed expression, curled his lips.
"Teacher, ask Liu Chen to accompany me. I won't blame her. It's all a misunderstanding."
Liu Chen looked at Sun Jin, who was gazing at her with a seemingly affectionate expression. She suppressed her discomfort, patted Ren Yu, and then followed the advisor's steps.
Ren Yu, seeing this, furrowed his brows and followed them.
As the parties involved walked out of the cafeteria, the students finally burst into discussion.
"Wow, they three went to the affiliated hospital. Will they fight again?"
"Probably not? Liu Chen's expression just now looked very grim."
"Oh no, Senior Ren Yu was so impulsive. That exchange student's head is bleeding so badly, and he's still speaking up for Liu Chen. Will they break up?"
Upon hearing this, everyone in the cafeteria fell silent. They were all thinking the same question.
Senior Ren Yu was indeed too impulsive today!