Awakening Elementary School System in University

Chen Lin: "..."

"Now that you’re all packed up, are you heading out?" Yunqing asked, curiously sizing him up. "Where are you going?"

"Oh, I didn’t get to eat on the way back, so I’m starving," Chen Lin said honestly, pointing toward the school gate. "I was planning to grab a bite at McDonald’s."

Yunqing’s eyes lit up. With a cheerful wave, she said, "Perfect timing. Let’s go!"

With that, she naturally moved to stand beside Chen Lin.

Chen Lin was a little baffled. He subconsciously asked, "You haven’t had lunch either, Senior? It’s not even four o’clock yet."

"Nope, I ate lunch a long time ago," Yunqing said, tilting her head to look at him with a sly smile. "I’ll just tag along and listen to the man himself tell me all about what happened. Is that okay?"

What else could Chen Lin say?

"Alright, then. Let’s go."

...

...

「Twenty minutes later, at a window seat on the second floor of the McDonald’s closest to Yannan University.」

Looking at the food piled high on his tray, Chen Lin couldn’t help but feel a pang of pain in his wallet.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten at McDonald’s. As far as he could recall, it was probably back in his first year of high school, after final exams with his classmates. That was four or five years ago.

Considering he would likely be eating off-campus for the next month or so and would have to frequent fast-food places, Chen Lin had even signed up for a membership card first while ordering on the Mini Program.

In the end, he ordered a "Member’s Exclusive Four-Piece Choice" combo: a Grilled Chicken Burger, medium fries, a pair of Spicy McWings, and a medium Coke. He also added a "Mix and Match" combo: a five-piece McNuggets with a chocolate sundae.

When he scanned the code to pay, the number "38.4" that popped up on his phone screen still made him wince.

Chen Lin almost subconsciously did the math in his head.

This price... with just a few more yuan, he could have gotten two boxed meals with two meat dishes and one vegetable dish from Aunt Wang’s Stir-Fry on the third floor of the school cafeteria!

He sighed silently, picked up his tray, and pushed the untouched chocolate sundae over to Yunqing.

Yunqing didn’t stand on ceremony. She accepted it with a grin, scooped up a big spoonful, and popped it into her mouth with a look of pure satisfaction.

"Senior," he said, his voice muffled as he tore open the burger wrapper and took a large bite.

"Hmm?" Yunqing looked up, a little white cream on her lip, looking like a little kitten that had successfully stolen a treat.

"You’ve got something on your lip," Chen Lin said, raising his hand and pointing to his own upper lip to show her where.

Hearing this, Yunqing froze for a second, and a faint blush flashed across her fair cheeks.

She subconsciously pressed her lips together, then quickly pulled out a couple of napkins and began wiping frantically around her mouth.

Still not reassured after wiping, she fumbled for her phone and used the black screen as a mirror, terrified something was still there.

This was the first time Chen Lin had seen this dazzling beauty, who was always so radiant and at ease in any situation, reveal such an endearingly clumsy and flustered side.

"Okay, okay, it’s gone now," Chen Lin said with a smile.

Yunqing breathed a sigh of relief and put down her phone.

To hide her embarrassment, she quickly changed the subject.

"So, you mentioned on the way here that Yanyan was the one who approached you about this trip to the Imperial Capital?"

"Yeah," Chen Lin said, taking a sip of his Coke and feeling completely satisfied. "But she said she’d give me six thousand yuan of the prize money after winning the championship. Getting paid to do a job is only fair. It’s perfectly reasonable for me to go and back her up, right?"

Yunqing gently stirred the sundae in her cup with her small spoon. She let out a laugh, her bright eyes curving into beautiful crescents as she studied Chen Lin with great interest.

"Junior, I’m finding that I’m getting more and more curious about you," she said, her voice tinged with amazement. "It was already surprising enough to know that you’re such a good singer and in such great shape. But now, it turns out you’re even amazing at math, and you’re a liberal arts major, of all things... Aren’t you a little too well-rounded?"

"Ahem. Let’s keep it low-key, low-key."

He waved his hand with feigned solemnity, but Yunqing’s undisguised praise was still very pleasing to him.

"But seriously," Yunqing’s smile faded a little as her tone shifted, growing more serious, "what you did today, stopping where you did on stage, was exactly the right move. This is the kind of thing the university should be handling."

She seemed to recall something, and a cautionary note entered her voice. "If you had gone to confront her privately, *that* would have been real trouble. That Yang Han might have acted all nice to your face, crying and saying she was wrong. Then, the moment you turned your back, she’d be writing a whole sob story on some social media platform."

"And then she’d get a bunch of weirdos to dox you and expose all your private information. By then, you’d be driven crazy just from dealing with all the harassing calls and spam messages every day."

Chen Lin was stunned as he listened, and he subconsciously sucked in a sharp breath.

’Isn’t that a little too vicious?!’

But on second thought, something didn’t seem right.

"Senior," Chen Lin asked with a frown, "I’ve heard my roommate mention that there are girls like this online. But aren’t they usually the ones who are all about ’girls supporting girls’?"

"So why would this Yang Han publicly accuse Shen Yan with no evidence? Isn’t she obviously trying to ruin Shen Yan’s reputation?"

After hearing Chen Lin’s question, Yunqing stirred her cup with the small spoon, mixing the last bit of melted sundae and chocolate syrup together before eating it.

Her beautiful eyes looked at Chen Lin, and her gaze held a sort of "you’re still too young" smile.

"That’s because you only know one side of the story."

She began to speak slowly:

"You’re not wrong. When these types of girls are attacking or confronting certain guys, they love to talk about ’sisters sticking together.’ They’ll band together online and offline for moral support."

Yunqing put down her spoon, leaned forward slightly, and lowered her voice. Her tone gained the clarity and playful cynicism of someone who’s seen it all. "But the moment they encounter a girl who is more talented, more beautiful, and makes them jealous, they’re a million times more ruthless than they are with guys."

Chen Lin was instantly stunned, so much so that he forgot to swallow the half-chewed Spicy McWing in his mouth.

’What... what kind of logic is that?’

Seeing his completely baffled expression, Yunqing couldn’t help but laugh out loud. She reached out a slender finger and tapped the table. "Think about it. When they band together to attack guys, that’s an ’external conflict.’ It’s to fight for the group’s interests or vent a shared emotion. But when they get jealous of another girl, the nature of it changes completely. That’s an ’internal conflict,’ and a cutthroat, life-or-death one at that!"

"She’ll think, ’On what grounds? Why are you better-looking than me, better at school than me, and more popular with guys than me?’"

This was a complete eye-opener for Chen Lin.

He had always thought that conflicts between people mostly stemmed from direct clashes of interest.

But listening to Yunqing, it turned out that simple ’dislike’ and ’jealousy’ could breed such immense malice.

It was like a whole new world had been opened up to him.

"Senior," he finally swallowed the food in his mouth and asked, bewildered, "how are you so knowledgeable about this?"

The smile on Yunqing’s face faded slightly, and a complex, hard-to-detect emotion flashed through her bright eyes.

"Because I’ve been through it before."

Her tone was calm. "During my freshman year, not long after I started, the other three girls in my dorm started to isolate me. Later, they even ganged up with some other girls in our class to spread rumors behind my back, saying I had a promiscuous private life, that I was juggling several guys, things like that."

Chen Lin’s brow furrowed.

Yunqing continued, "So, during the second semester of my freshman year, I applied to move off-campus."

Chen Lin nodded silently. ’He pretty much understood now.’

’Thinking about it, Shen Yan was actually pretty lucky. The fact that she was willing to let Li Zihan and the other two ride her coattails for the modeling competition meant that the four roommates got along quite well.’

"It was after that," Yunqing’s tone returned to its previous lightheartedness, and even held a hint of self-mockery, "that I seemed to develop some kind of radar. This morning, when I saw that Yang Han’s face and the way she talked in the forum post, I knew right away."

She curled her lip and said, "She’s exactly the type: always talking about ’sisters sticking together,’ but if she actually finds a girl she dislikes and can bully, she’ll be more vicious and cruel than anyone."