Chapter 7

Qiao Rui had just left, and Wang Li and Sun Yan walked in shortly after.

Yu Na was one of the youngest teachers at the school and still new, so her colleagues were quite accommodating towards her. Meeting this kind of situation now, she was inevitably not immune from some teasing.

Sun Yan taunted her, "Not bad for Teacher Yu, just came for a few days with people constantly coming to ask questions and bring breakfast, going all out, huh."

"There's no denying that," Wang Li added. "Our office has never been this lively before." Since Yu Na didn't have as much rapport with these relatively senior teachers, she just smiled shyly and politely responded, "No, I should learn more from you."

After chatting with them for a few sentences, Yu Na's gaze shifted to the convenience store bag in front of her.

Immediately afterwards, Qiao Rui's words kept playing back in her ears as if on a loop — "I'm just doing someone a favor."

"Actually, my cousin is a very nice person."

Isn't this meaning obvious enough?

This breakfast was clearly bought for her by Xiao Chen.

But all the evidence was staring her straight in the face, yet she didn't dare truly believe it.

She didn't want to, nor did she dare give herself such hope.

Afraid it would be like before again.

She had barely managed to slowly fade that feeling a bit before reuniting with him.

Now wasn't this good, returned to liberation in one night.

"......"

Yu Na frowned, looking vexed as she opened up the sandwich.

It was still hot.

This bastard man, a peerless bastard man.

She took a big bite of the sandwich and chewed aggressively. She was attacking it as if the sandwich was Xiao Chen himself.

Although she didn't have the habit of eating breakfast, her stomach was indeed a little hungry now.

After finishing breakfast, she felt a little more spirited than before. She wondered if it was psychological.

Yu Na finished the sandwich in three or four bites, drank two gulps of milk and water, then hurried back to class to prepare for the flag raising ceremony downstairs.

The flag-raising procedure on stage was carried out in an orderly manner. Below, the students, half-hearted in their standing, were just killing time.

Yu Na stood at the back of Class 3's formation, listening absently to the speech above while utterly bored.

It had been scorching hot for the last few days.

From early morning, the blazing sun clocked in, raring to go. Yu Na checked the weather forecast, temperatures predicted to reach 35 degrees Celsius over the weekend.

She clutched her forehead in anguish, hardly able to accept that this was weather still occurring in September.

But heavy rain would come on Sunday. After the downpour temperatures would plunge steeply, straight back down near 20 degrees.

She was already silently looking forward to the arrival of this Sunday.

...Yu Na was adapting to her new environment faster than she could have imagined. At least living here now gave her a sense of anticipation, and there was no more endless oversight.

She could do whatever she wanted without anyone interfering.

On Friday at a teachers' meeting, they mentioned that starting next week, the high school Grade 2 students would have night study hall, and no casual absences were allowed.

Because some teachers would set aside time during night study to teach exam questions.

If a student truly could not attend night study hall, their parent would need to notify the teacher to excuse them.

Teachers had to send the night study hall notices to the parents' chat group.

When Yu Na got home that night, she edited the notice for night study hall and sent it to the parents' group.

Out of personal interest, after sending out the message, she deliberately added one more sentence — [Please reply upon receipt]. In fact this sentence was totally superfluous. Most parents would reply to any message from a teacher.

She added this sentence for Xiao Chen to see.

Because there was an extremely high possibility that guy would see it and not reply, and if asked would claim he had already mentally replied.

As for last time, the oddly polite reply he gave in the group, that must not have been from himself.

After Yu Na sent out "Please reply upon receipt", she stared fixedly at her phone.

The chat interface of the parents' group was instantly flooded with messages after she sent hers.

[Received] [Teacher, we live too far, how do we ask for leave?] [Is there night study hall on Sunday night?] [Received! Teacher Yu, thanks for your hard work!] "......"

Yu Na scrolled down one by one, answering parents' questions while thinking to herself that he still hadn't replied.

It wasn't until after she had finished responding to the last parent question that she gave her hands a shake, and was just about to put her phone aside when a new message abruptly popped up on screen.

Big Brother Qiao Rui: 【1】 "......" Yu Na: ???

Seeing this reply, she was so angry she swore at her phone, 1 your grandpa, can't you just say you received it?!

But then another parent also replied back with "1" and she didn't react much.

On the contrary it felt normal.

"......"

She was sitting on the sofa patiently answering parents' questions when the lights in the living room suddenly went out.

In a split second the room was pitch black.

Yu Na was so frightened her body twitched.

In the dark, she fumbled for the light switch, flicking it up and down — no movement.

Just then, there were also posts in the community group: 【Blackout?】【Our home is blacked out too】【@Property management, what's going on】【Isn't this nonsense, blackout in the middle of summer heat】 With temperatures freakishly high the last two days, everyone was waiting for a cool change in weather.

The group said maintenance was being done on something and for everyone to remain calm.

As if anyone could relax. Dark bumbling around in the sweltering heat.

She turned on the flashlight function on her phone and changed into a dress in her bedroom.

Then she went out.

The weather was hot and she didn't have much of an appetite, only buying a chilled bottle of mineral water from a small shop. Then she aimlessly roamed the streets.

Across the street was a lively and bustling open-air food court, filled with all kinds of small eateries.

Bursts of fragrant barbecue smells wafted over from the grills across the road.

Yu Na touched her stomach. The open-air court looked good so she walked over.

She picked a packed and prosperous-looking barbecue vendor.

The server handed her a menu then rushed off again to his own tasks.

Yu Na sat on a plastic stool with elbow on thigh, trying to figure out what to order.

When she still lived with her family and hadn't moved out to live independently, she had her own nutritionist and chef, dictating exactly what to eat for all three meals throughout the day.

Barbecue and this sort of thing weren't something she even dared to contemplate before. She could say she never had it from childhood to adulthood. Though she did often see open-air street barbecues in TV shows and pictures on the web, and it looked delicious.

Yu Na wanted to order everything.

Just checking out the images on the menu and inhaling those drifting barbecue aromas was enough to make her salivate.

Right then, a tall looming figure slowly approached her.

Yu Na didn't notice, still focused on the menu.

Until a not too friendly grip landed on her shoulder.

Yu Na put the menu down and looked up to see a red-faced man.

One of the skinhead guys laughed at her, "Babe, you alone? Let brother accompany you."

He flashed a yellow grin.

Even sitting Yu Na sensed an overwhelming stench of alcohol.

Caught off guard she didn't control herself, covering her mouth and nose to suppress an urge to vomit.

The cueball man ignored it, saying again: "Come on, brother will play with you."

"......No need." Yu Na saw he was of similar ilk to street thugs and she was afraid, deciding to leave immediately.

She had taken a few steps after getting up, but found the cueball man stick to her. Finally he gripped her arm tight and she couldn't shake off his coarse paw no matter how she struggled.

Her expression darkened and she slowly enunciated a warning, "Let go of me."

The skinhead belched alcohol, "Pretending you don't know me, brother is very friendly, let's go!"

Yu Na's arm remained firmly held. Anger and fear came flooding up. Her gaze was mocking as she looked him up and down, "With your looks, do you deserve to speak to me?"

The cueball man was incensed by her words, "Hey you little slut, wearing that just to seduce men? Don't fucking—"

Before he finished speaking, a sudden sharp pain transmitted from his wrist with no forewarning.

Simultaneously, a deep voice imbued with threat rang out from behind him, "Watch that dirty mouth."