CH 18

“Siming?” Lu Yi was startled for a moment when someone suddenly sat down at their table. 

“Senior Lu, what a coincidence, you don’t mind if I sit here, do you?” Jin Siming bared two rows of white teeth with a graceful smile. 

“Ah? Of course…I don’t mind.” 

Didn’t she refuse when he called out to her in the classroom earlier? Why is sh….

Lu Yi was quite confused by her actions but he didn’t pry any further and decided to treat it as a sudden whim on her part. 

“Why didn’t Classmate Jin ask for my opinion?” 

Yao Jin turned her head, those bright eyes no longer glazed over with boredom as a hint of interest entered her eyes, and her red lips raised upwards in a smile. 

Hearing these words, Jin Siming instinctively opened her mouth to argue. 

But then remembering her original reason for coming here, her expression changed as she forced out a smile, “With how close we are, this kind of question doesn’t need to be asked between us, right? Hahaha….” 

Yao Jin’s gaze became even more interested at the fake show Jin Siming was putting on, “En….based on the relationship between us, I should wholeheartedly ask you to eat with us.” 

Ah, few people know that the dish I ate the most is braised pork. Thank you for so kindly helping me eat it~” 

Jin Siming opened her mouth and then froze up. 

Damn it….did she accidentally make a fool of herself and fall into Yao Jin’s trap again? 

“Uh….I’m sorry, I didn’t know you didn’t like this….” Lu Yi said in embarrassment as his ears started to redden. 

Only now did Yao Jin realize that her words may have hurt the Lu Yi sitting in front of her and hurriedly explained: “Sorry senior, I didn’t mean….” 

“Aiya, Senior Lu, don’t mind her. She is always this picky, and quite particular about everything. There are too many foods she won’t eat, so don’t mind it too much~” 

Jin Siming quickly interrupted her and even took the opportunity to discredit Yao Jin in front of him. 

Yao Jin stared at her through her charming fox eyes, watching passively as Jin Siming talked nonsense right and even discredited her right in front of her. However, she didn’t get annoyed and instead chuckled lightly. Then, without any further words, she lowered her head and continued to eat. 

“No, no, it was my fault for acting without thinking and forgetting to ask for her opinion. It’s all my fault, and Yao Jin…..is all good.” Lu Yi secretly glanced at Yao who had her head lowered and continued to reproach himself. 

Jin Siming sighed secretly in her heart at his self-blaming appearance. She can only hope that her friend, Senior Lu, can see the truth soon. Yao Jin had been treating him so coldly and indifferently during their entire lunch date. It is clear that she has no interest in him. 

“By the way senior, how are you feeling? The college entrance exams are coming up soon…” 

Since Jin Siming took the initiative to start the conversation and the two of them were already quite familiar with each other, the conversation quickly fired up. 

As the two chatted happily, Yao Jin, who was sitting at the same table, was left to her own devices. Eating in silence with her head lowered, she cut quite the lonely figure. 

She quietly ate her meal, the sound of Jin Siming’s happy laughter entering her ears from time to time. Her smile slowly disappeared and finally, she raised her head. 

“Jin Siming.” 

Meanwhile, Jin Siming was feeling smug that Su Xiaohang’s method was actually effective, but she immediately turned her head when she heard Yao Jin calling her name. 

“Since Classmate Jin has such a good relationship with me, you don’t mind sharing your stir-fried vegetables with me, do you?” After she finished speaking, she raised her slender eyebrows as she gestured toward Jin Siming’s tray. 

“….Ah?” Jin Siming glanced at the stir-fried veggies dish on her tray. This was her favorite dish and the lunch lady only ever gave her a spoonful. She hasn’t even taken a bite of it yet. 

“W-Why should I?” She was quite reluctant. 

“Doesn’t Classmate Jin know my tastes very well? I like these stir-fried vegetables the most and isn’t it normal to share delicious food with close friends?” Yao Jin blinked innocently up at her. 

Jin Siming looked at the dish on her tray and then at Yao Jin. She hesitated. 

“It seems the vegetable dishes line is still open. Let me go take a look and see if I can grab you another dish.” Lu Yi stood up. 

“No need!” Jin Siming shouted through gritted teeth, scaring Lu Yi with her loud volume. 

“Close friends should of course share delicious food with each other, hahahaha.” She forced out a smile that was uglier than her crying face, as her trembling hands placed some vegetables on Yao Jin’s plate. 

“Ah~ So little, that’s not enough.” Yao Jin stared up at her with a pout. 

Jin Siming glared down at her. 

Yao Jin turned her head, “Senior Lu…”

“Hey, you-ahem, I mean, here you can take them all~” 

Jin Siming gave her another portion of her veggies until there were only a few single leaves left on her plate. 

“Thank you~” 

Yao Jin picked up a vegetable and placed it in her mouth, her eyes narrowing as she smiled. 

“….”

Seeing the basically empty plate in front of her, Jin Siming took a little damage. However, after comforting herself that it was just a few vegetables, she didn’t take it to heart. 

Meanwhile, Lu Yi helplessly scratched his head as he watched the two of them interact. Since Yao Jin no longer needed him to grab some vegetables, he sat down again and continued the topic he and Jin Siming were talking about earlier. 

As they talked, they heard a “Pa-ta!” sound. It was the sound of a chopstick hitting the ground. 

When Jin Siming heard this sound, she turned her head only to see Yao Jin holding only one chopstick in her hand while the other one had already fallen to the ground. 

Yao Jin said a quiet “excuse me” as she bent down.

Lu Yi immediately stood up when he saw this, “I’ll go grab you another pair.” 

After he finished speaking and moved to leave, Jin Siming quickly grabbed his arm, “No need senior! I’ll go!” 

Yao Jin, who had just picked up her fallen chopstick, watched as Jin Siming ran off to grab her a new pair of chopsticks. The corners of her lips lifted upwards and she started laughing as she thought of something. 

Her beautiful eyes flashing with mirth were like stars twinkling in the sky, and those rosy red lips were raised in such a beautiful smile that Lu Yi couldn’t help but smile back, “What’s made you so happy?” 

Yao Jin simply looked at him and gently shook her head.”  

Jin Siming quickly came back with a new pair of chopsticks, and placed them harshly on Yao Jin’s plate as she said angrily, “Hold them properly. You’re not a kid anymore, how can you drop your chopsticks like that.” 

At the same time, she comforted herself again in her heart. She was only doing this for her friend, Senior Lu, and she could only hope that Senior Lu would wake up and escape Yao Jin’s demonic claws already. 

But what she didn’t notice was the complicated gaze Lu Yi directed at her. 

When the three of them had almost finished, he looked at the two people and said, “If we’re done eating, how about we return to the classroom?” 

Jin Siming was waiting for those words and coughed dryly as she said with a smile, “Senior, you can go first. Yao Jin and I still have some things to say to each other.” 

“Oh…..” 

Lu Yi glanced between the two of them and then finally reluctantly left. 

As soon as he left, the smile on Jin Siming’s face collapsed and she turned to glare at Yao Jin, “You did that on purpose, right?” 

“Did what on purpose?” 

Yao Jin took out a small handheld mirror and began applying some lipstick. 

Jin Siming narrowed her eyes and leaned forward to tower over her, “We discussed this matter just last Friday. Yet you’ve agreed to have lunch with him in the cafeteria today. Don’t tell me you two are just friends and have a close relationship, because otherwise why haven’t you eaten lunch with him here before? Why only today? You are doing this on purpose simply to make me upset!” 

Yao Jin’s movements stopped and a look flashed in her eyes. It was too fast for Jin Siming to catch and Yao Jin smiled playfully, “If you say it like that, I’m going to misunderstand and think you’re jealous of me.” 

Jin Siming rolled her eyes but kept her mouth closed. She’s already suffered many losses to Yao Jin’s vicious tongue today and had already prepared herself for a protracted battle. 

So she patiently kept her face calm as she continued staring at Yao Jin without saying a single word. 

“If not…then are you jealous of him? Do you really like him that much?” Yao Jin closed the lid on her mirror and placed it back into her makeup pouch. Her freshly painted lips gave off an alluring and seductive feeling as she smiled smugly. 

Seeing that the other party was refusing to talk seriously with her, JIn Siming leaned back with her arms crossed and her long and narrow phoenix eyes filled with a frigid coldness. 

“I’m trying to have a serious conversation with you. Do you think your rotten admirers are easy to deal with? They dared to even start trouble with me. Lu Yi is just an ordinary person who won’t ever differentiate. If you get too close to him, sooner or later those people will notice him. If you’re trying to target me, then fine I’ll come. But there is no need to involve other people.” 

Yao Jin’s expression finally turned serious: “Who tried to start something with you?” 

“How would I know any of your many rotten admirers?” Jin Siming frowned in thought and then remembered something, “I remember hearing them mention a Qin-jie.” 

Yao Jin’s long and luscious eyelashes trembled slightly, a dark look flashing in her eyes, “You are an S-rank Alpha with rough and thick skin. No matter how you look at it, you should be fine.” 

“Hah, that’s a given. Your group of rotten admirers is like a group of small fish and shrimp, of course, they can’t do anything to me.” 

Jin Siming raised an eyebrow. Perhaps it’s because she’s been talking to Yao Jin for a long time now, so despite her anger increasing, she didn’t explode like before. 

“Alright, I understand.” 

Yao Jin spoke one sentence and got up to leave. Jin Siming didn’t expect her to answer so firmly and subconsciously reached out to pull on her clothes. 

“Wait, you…what do you mean by this? You actually agreed?” 

Yao Jin lowered her head and glanced at the hand clutching at the corner of their clothes, “Of course. Didn’t you just accuse my ‘rotten admirers’ of doing wrong? I don’t have any other choice as I can’t control them. So, I can only minimize my contact with Senior Lu, but….you must know that I am not very good at refusing people’s requests. I don’t want to make things awkward either. So if he takes the initiative to come to me, I can’t do anything about it.” 

Jin Siming jumped up and glared at her angrily, “Why do you mean you can’t refuse other people? Don’t you have quite the sharp teeth when it comes to refusing me anything? Why don’t you ever think about how it would make things awkward for me??” 

Yao Jin snorted and then smiled, “That just means Classmate Jin is not a normal person. After all, everyone else seems to be able to get what they want easily. So, maybe you should be proud of yourself?” 

Jin Siming’s mouth turned to the side and she looked like she was going to vomit in disgust. Yao Jin simply gave her a smile and then turned to walk away. 

After everyone had left and only Jin Siming remained sitting at the table, Su Xiaohang, who had been sitting not far away, hurriedly came over, “So, how did it go?”

Jin Siming smiled at her and snapped her fingers, “Your method actually works! I’ve won the battle!” 

“Ah? Really? But I was sitting beside you guys just now and all I saw was you serving Yao Jin food and then getting her chopsticks. I thought you were suffering losses from her again.” Su Xiaohang said with a concerned and worried face. 

The corners of Jin Siming’s mouth twitched when she heard these words. 

“Aiya, don’t sweat the small stuff. Isn’t our main task to protect Senior Lu? Now that I have successfully messed up their ‘date’, and Yao Jin has promised not to approach them, I can say we have succeeded!” 

“And….I’ve decided.” 

Su Xiaohang looked at the confident person in front of her who seemed to have made up her mind about something big and quickly asked, “What did you decide on? What….are you going to do?” 

“I’ve decided that since her herd of rotten admirers was the one to provoke me first and she herself said she can’t control them, I’m going to help her out and weed out each rotten flower one by one by myself!

Author’s notes: 

How to say this….if you think Yao Jin is a Green Tea B*tch then I must clarify that she is only like that with our Siming. Perhaps it is because I’ve written mostly from Jin Siming’s POV and the relationship between the two of them in the early stage is one of rivals, the type where they can’t stand the sight of each other. So from Jin Siming’s POV, Yao Jin will naturally be painted in a bad light. In terms of Yao Jin’s personality, there is a lot of foreshadowing that will come to light in the future. Mainly her family environment has led to some minor flaws in her character and well I won’t say too much about this now as I will expand on it later. I just wrote this because I wanted to say she is not an evil seductress or anything like that, don’t be influenced by Jin Siming’s POV!!!!