Moving On from the Tsundere, I Choose the Perfect Sweetheart

"Hm?"

Noticing Su Qinghe had stopped, Gu Yifan paused as well.

He turned to her, looking puzzled. "What’s wrong?"

Su Qinghe bit her lip, hesitated for a moment, then said softly, "Maybe... we could eat off campus?"

Gu Yifan frowned when he heard her, but it didn’t take long for him to realize what she was thinking.

"Nah, it’s fine!"

"We have things to do later, so let’s just grab a quick bite at the school cafeteria."

Understanding her worries, he offered a small smile.

"Oh, okay..."

Since Gu Yifan had put it that way, Su Qinghe could only nod, though she was still reluctant.

By the time they arrived at the school cafeteria, it was nearly empty.

Naturally, there wasn’t much food left either, but fortunately, neither of them was a picky eater.

After a quick scan, Gu Yifan noticed a noodle soup stall was still open. They thought about it for a second and decided to just grab a bowl of noodles to tide them over.

After all, a bowl of freshly made, hot noodle soup was far better than cold scraps!

Once the woman had prepared their noodles, Gu Yifan and Su Qinghe carried their bowls to an empty table.

The moment they sat down, Su Qinghe turned to Gu Yifan and asked, "You’re the one who put money on my meal card, aren’t you?"

She was right.

When she’d swiped her card just now, Su Qinghe discovered an extra three thousand yuan on it!

Her immediate assumption was that Gu Yifan had added it.

With the cook nearby earlier, she hadn’t felt comfortable asking, so the question came tumbling out the instant they were seated.

"Yes."

Gu Yifan didn’t try to hide it, admitting it with a simple nod.

Hearing his confirmation, Su Qinghe fell silent.

After a moment, she pursed her lips, then looked up at him and shook her head. "I can’t accept this. It’s... it’s too much. I’ll talk to the staff in the support office and have them refund it to you."

"Er..."

Gu Yifan felt a bit exasperated; he had predicted she would react exactly like this.

"I never said that money was for you," he said, looking at her.

"Huh?"

Su Qinghe stared at Gu Yifan, utterly bewildered.

"I put that money on the card for me to use!"

Seeing her bewildered expression, Gu Yifan explained, "I’m going to be studying with you every day from now on, right? So I’ll be eating at the school cafeteria with you all the time. That money is my meal budget for this period!"

"And as for you... you’re tutoring me for free. It’s not unreasonable for me to treat you to meals in return, is it?"

Su Qinghe was speechless.

’His logic sounded so flawless.’ For a moment, she couldn’t find any grounds to refute it.

Still, something about it just didn’t sit right with her.

"Come on, don’t get hung up on it!"

"Aren’t we friends?"

"We’re just eating together. It won’t cost that much, so don’t sweat the small stuff!"

Gu Yifan pressed on, giving her no room to refuse.

"But..."

Su Qinghe truly didn’t know what to say.

"Alright, that’s settled then!"

"It’s getting late, so hurry up and eat. You still have to tutor me in a bit!"

"Listen to me."

Gu Yifan declared, laying down the final word.

SIGH~

Su Qinghe sighed to herself and silently lowered her head to eat.

’Gu Yifan saved my life, and he’s already helped me so much. Now he’s paying for my meals, too.’ The feeling of being indebted to him only grew stronger.

「6:40 PM.」

In a study room at the Mountain City First Middle School library, Gu Yifan was engrossed in a book, occasionally scribbling notes on a piece of paper. Every so often, he’d look up and ask Su Qinghe a question.

Su Qinghe sat quietly beside him, reading her own book. Each time Gu Yifan asked something, she would immediately put her book down and patiently explain it to him.

However, Su Qinghe was a little confused. The questions Gu Yifan was asking were all related to basic, first-year knowledge.

’Based on what I know about him,’ she thought, ’his grades are near the top of our year. Why is he asking about such simple, fundamental concepts?’

But despite her confusion, Su Qinghe didn’t dwell on it. ’Everyone has different weak spots,’ she reasoned. She simply concluded that Gu Yifan wanted to give himself a complete and thorough review of his high school material.

Time flew by, and Gu Yifan was completely absorbed in his studies, unable to pull himself away.

Before they knew it, it was already 7:20 PM, less than ten minutes before evening self-study was scheduled to start.

Seeing Gu Yifan still engrossed in his book, Su Qinghe gently poked his arm.

"Hm?"

His concentration broken, Gu Yifan snapped out of it. He turned to Su Qinghe, looking a little lost. "What’s up?"

"Evening self-study is about to start," Su Qinghe said softly.

Gu Yifan glanced at his phone and saw it was 7:21 PM. It really was time for class.

"Oh, right." He nodded. "I almost forgot. Let’s get going. We have to head back to the classroom for self-study!"

The two of them quickly packed their things and hurried out of the library.

On the way back to the classroom, an idea occurred to Gu Yifan. He felt that their current study session was far more productive than evening self-study in a noisy classroom would be. He turned to Su Qinghe, who was hugging a stack of textbooks. "Qinghe, do you think you could get permission from your homeroom teacher to not attend evening self-study in the classroom? I feel like running back and forth like this is a waste of time. If we could skip it, we could just stay in the library and study straight through from dinner. It’d be much more efficient!"

Su Qinghe paused, considering it for a moment before nodding lightly. "I think that should be possible."

She was, after all, ranked first in their entire grade. The school placed great importance on her, so her homeroom teacher would almost certainly grant a request to self-study outside the classroom.

"Great. Ask your homeroom teacher in a bit to see if he’ll approve it," Gu Yifan said with a nod. "If he agrees, we’ll just study here in the library for evening self-study from now on."

As for whether his own homeroom teacher would agree, Gu Yifan hadn’t given it a second thought.

The reason was simple.

His dad was the deputy director of the Construction Bureau.

Besides, his grades were already near the top of their year. A request to study independently in the library wasn’t a request to go out and cause trouble. What reason could his teacher possibly have to say no?

Downstairs at the third-year building, he and Su Qinghe parted ways. Gu Yifan had just stepped into his classroom when the bell for self-study rang.

He figured Su Qinghe probably hadn’t made it back to her own classroom yet.

But evening self-study was relatively relaxed. Being a few minutes late was no big deal; no one would care.

Just as Gu Yifan settled into his seat, he felt a pair of eyes watching him...