[Central Plaza Restaurant, September 15 – 12:14 PM]
While Zhang Tingting stood frozen in confusion, Su Qingxue's mind was already working.
Wait.
Why am I panicking? Why does any of this even matter?
She took a breath, and her thoughts began to steady.
They weren't dating. They had never been in a relationship. She had never made him any promises—not real ones, anyway. So what if she studied with Long Tian? So what if she accepted his help?
Lin Feng is just jealous. Yes, that's right! That's all there is to this. He's throwing a tantrum because I've moved on.
And besides, Long Tian was better. More handsome. More charming. More attentive. More everything.
I've done nothing wrong.
Something cold and calculating clicked into place behind her eyes, and she lifted her chin as she forced confidence back into her voice.
"Are you jealous, Lin Feng?"
Her tone shifted to something almost teasing now, like she was humoring a child's tantrum. She spread her hands in a gesture of wounded reasonableness, letting the watching melon-eating crowd see exactly how unfair he was being.
"Yes, I received help from Long Tian this morning. Because YOU didn't show up when I needed you."
She let that land before continuing.
"I messaged you. Multiple times. I told you I needed help with our group project—we're partners, remember? But you ignored me completely." Her voice took on an edge of hurt and offense that she'd practiced in mirrors since middle school. "What was I supposed to do?"
She gestured toward Xiao Yue, still tucked against Lin Feng's side.
"And now I find out you've been here flirting with another woman this whole time?" She pressed her hand to her chest, and her face glowed with what looked like genuine pain. "What does that make me? How do you think I feel?"
A murmur rippled through the melon-eating crowd. Some of them were nodding now.
Good. They're listening.
"We're not even dating, Lin Feng." Her voice softened, becoming reasonable and sad. "You're being ridiculous. Acting like I betrayed you when we never had that kind of relationship."
She paused, letting the silence stretch just long enough.
"It's not like I wasn't interested in you. I am."
Another pause. Perfectly timed. Perfectly vulnerable.
"But I need time. I need to focus on my studies, on my future." She looked down at the marble floor, the picture of modesty and humility. "I can't handle a relationship right now. I need to be at the top of my class—perfect grades, perfect reputation. If I want to be worthy of the Lin family, I have to be the best."
She lifted her eyes to meet his again, and they glistened with what might have been unshed tears.
"You understand that, don't you?"
She took a small step toward him, closing the distance he had created.
"Once I graduate, I promise—I'll give you a proper answer then. But not now. Not yet."
Her voice dropped to something soft and intimate, meant just for him but pitched loud enough for everyone to hear.
"Can't you wait for me? Can't you understand?"
She delivered every word perfectly, as if each one came from the depths of her heart.
--------------------
Lin Feng stood there, motionless, listening to every word that came out of Su Qingxue's mouth.
On the surface, he looked impassive. Unmoved. But behind that calm exterior, his mind was working at full speed, dissecting her speech with the cold precision of someone who had spent years analyzing enemy communications.
And then something clicked.
Wait.
This speech. This reasoning. This logic...
This wasn't in the novel.
He had read all ten thousand chapters of "The Beauty Records." He had memorized every manipulation Su Qingxue ever used, every lie she ever told, every scheme she ever deployed against the original Lin Feng on her way to becoming Long Tian's woman.
But this? This specific framing?
This is new.
He ran through it again in his mind, and the more he examined it, the more impressed he became—in the way one might be impressed by a beautifully engineered weapon pointed at their chest.
She wasn't denying that she had received help from Long Tian. She had acknowledged it openly, which immediately disarmed the accusation. But then she had reframed everything completely, turning herself from the villain into the victim.
"You didn't show up when I needed you."
"What was I supposed to do?"
"I'm working hard to be worthy of the Lin family."
"Can't you wait for me?"
Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.
It made her look principled and ambitious rather than exploitative. It made HIM look unreasonable and jealous if he didn't wait for her. It implied a future together while keeping him on the hook indefinitely, dangling hope like a carrot in front of a donkey.
And most impressively, it turned four years of blatant exploitation into a noble narrative of self-improvement: "I was building myself up to be good enough for you."
This is unbelievable.
Lin Feng glanced at Xiao Yue, still tucked warm and solid against his side, and in that moment he understood exactly what had happened.
Su Qingxue felt threatened. Genuinely, viscerally threatened by Xiao Yue's presence—by her beauty, by her devotion, by the very real possibility that her ATM was about to walk out the door and never come back.
So she had brought out her absolute best game. The manipulation she had never needed to use on the original Lin Feng, because the original Lin Feng had been too stupid and too desperate to require it.
If I hadn't read the novel...
If I hadn't seen chapter 9,987, where she held me in place while Long Tian ran us both through...
Even I might have taken the bait.
The thought sent a chill down his spine that had nothing to do with the restaurant's air conditioning.
Dangerous.
She's far more dangerous than the original novel ever portrayed.
And then another thought struck him, one that made his blood run cold.
This is a two-star heroine.
Just a two-star.
If someone at the bottom of the hierarchy can pull out manipulation this flawless when she feels threatened...
He felt Xiao Yue shift against his side, warm and trusting, and his mind flickered briefly to Lin Weiwei—probably watching this unfold, analyzing everything with that terrifyingly sharp mind of hers.
What are the seven-stars truly capable of?
What happens when THEY get serious?
For the first time since transmigrating into this world, Lin Feng felt something that might have been genuine unease.
I need to be very, very careful.
--------------------
Zhang Tingting stood a few steps behind Su Qingxue, listening to every word her best friend spoke.
And it all sounded so sincere. So reasonable. So perfectly logical.
Part of her wanted to believe it—wanted to nod along, wanted to support her friend the way she always had. Su Qingxue was working hard, trying to be worthy, focusing on her future. That was admirable, wasn't it?
Right?
But something felt wrong.
Her stomach twisted with a discomfort she couldn't name, and her hands clenched slowly at her sides. The words sounded perfect—beautiful, even—like a speech rehearsed a hundred times until every syllable landed exactly where it was supposed to.
But the numbers.
The numbers didn't match the words.
2,847 messages sent. 323 responses returned.
1,154 coffees bought. Zero given back.
Forty thousand yuan spent on birthday gifts every year. Three birthdays forgotten completely.
"Working hard to be worthy."
But she had needed emergency help with a group project this morning—from a stranger she had just met. From this Long Tian person that Zhang Tingting had never even heard of.
"Can't handle a relationship right now."
But she had two hours to spend at the library with someone new.
"I don't want to keep taking from you."
After fifteen million, three hundred thousand yuan over four years.
Zhang Tingting's nails dug into her palms as the math played out in her head.
She had worked three part-time jobs at fourteen years old. She knew what hard work looked like. She knew what sacrifice meant—real sacrifice, the kind that left you exhausted and aching and wondering if it was all worth it.
This didn't feel like sacrifice.
This felt like something else entirely, and she didn't have a word for it yet, but it sat heavy and ugly in her chest.
The reasoning is perfect. Flawless. Impeccable.
So why does my chest feel so tight?
Why does my throat want to close up?
Why does everything Qingxue just said feel so wrong when it sounds so right?
And underneath all of that, another question surfaced—smaller but sharper, like a splinter working its way under her skin.
And again, who is this Long Tian?
--------------------
Su Qingxue saw the hesitation rippling through the crowd, felt the uncertainty wavering in their faces. Some of them were nodding along with her words. Others still looked skeptical.
She needed to push harder. She needed to seal this completely.
So she stepped closer to Lin Feng, close enough to smell his cologne, and reached out to take his hand in both of hers. The gesture was gentle and intimate and affectionate—the kind of touch a girlfriend might offer when seeking reassurance from the man she loved.
Her eyes lifted to meet his, soft and vulnerable and pleading, and she pitched her voice to something quiet and tender. Just for him.
But loud enough for everyone in the restaurant to hear.
"Lin Feng."
A pause. Perfectly timed.
"Will you wait for me?"
The restaurant seemed to hold its breath. The physical contact, the vulnerable question, the public confession of sorts—it looked romantic. It looked genuine. It looked like a woman laying her heart bare in front of hundreds of witnesses.
Some people in the crowd softened immediately.
"Oh..."
"She does care about him."
"That's actually sweet."
"Maybe she really is just focused on her studies?"
"Poor girl is trying so hard to be worthy."
But others weren't convinced.
"She's touching him NOW? After everything we just heard?"
"Wow... how convenient."
Zhang Tingting watched Su Qingxue's hands wrapped around Lin Feng's, and her stomach churned harder than ever. Her best friend looked so sincere, so genuine, so vulnerable standing there in the afternoon light.
But that touch. That question. That timing.
Why now? Why like this? Why does it feel like she's performing?
Everything about it felt wrong, and Zhang Tingting couldn't shake the feeling that she was watching a play rather than a real confession.
--------------------
Lin Feng's eyelid twitched. Just once, barely visible, but Xiao Yue felt him tense slightly against her side.
Then something shifted in his expression—a flicker of cold amusement that came and went so fast most people would have missed it entirely.
She wants to play games?
Fine. I'll play.
But not the game she's expecting.
He looked down at Su Qingxue's hands holding his, but he didn't pull away immediately. He didn't reject her outright.
He just studied them for a long moment, examining them with the detached curiosity one might give to an interesting piece of furniture or an insect that had landed on the tablecloth.
He never looked at her face.
Not once.
In the whole exchange, he never looked into her face. The most he has seen of her was an arm and parts of her shoulder.
The silence stretched out between them, uncomfortable and tense, as the entire restaurant waited for his answer. Su Qingxue's hands trembled slightly in his, though whether from nerves or something else entirely, even she couldn't say.
--------------------
Su Qingxue's breath caught in her throat.
He was looking at her hands. Not her face—her hands. Like they were objects resting on his arm. Like she was an object, something to be examined and then set aside.
Look at me.
He didn't.
LOOK AT ME.
He still didn't.
Yet...
Something twisted low in her stomach—hot and confusing and completely nameless. Her pulse raced beneath her skin, and she could feel heat crawling up her neck and spreading across her cheeks.
It's fury. That's all this is. It's the outrage of being dismissed so completely, so publicly, so—
But her body wasn't listening to her explanations. There was a warmth spreading through her that had nothing to do with anger, pooling in places she refused to acknowledge, and she shoved the sensation down hard before it could surface any further.
She didn't understand it. She couldn't name it.
So she buried it. Immediately and completely.
--------------------
Then Lin Feng moved.
He didn't answer Su Qingxue's question. He didn't reject her, didn't accept her, didn't engage with anything she had just said. He simply turned away from her, took Xiao Yue's hand in his—gentle but firm—and spoke two words.
"Let's go."
It was simple. Final. Absolute.
And then he walked away with Xiao Yue at his side, leaving Su Qingxue standing there in the middle of the restaurant with her hands still hanging in the empty air where his had been.
No explanation. No argument. No engagement with her manipulation at all.
And then he was gone, leaving her with the ultimate non-answer.
--------------------
The melon-eating crowd lost its collective mind.
"Did he just... LEAVE?"
"He didn't even answer her!"
"The absolute POWER move!"
"He never looked at her face once—did you notice that?!"
"Not a single glance! The whole time!"
"That's COLD. Ice cold."
"Brother Lin is my new idol!"
All around the restaurant, social media was exploding in real-time. Posts were uploading, videos spreading, commentary multiplying faster than anyone could possibly track. The campus gossip networks had already picked up the story, and within minutes it would be everywhere.
--------------------
But Su Qingxue heard none of it.
She stood frozen in the middle of the restaurant, her hands still hovering in the empty air where his had been just moments ago. Her face cycled through emotions she couldn't control, couldn't hide, couldn't even begin to understand—shock and humiliation and something else.
Something darker and more confusing that she shoved down before it could take shape.
Through the haze of her confusion, she watched Lin Feng and Xiao Yue walk toward the door. Hand in hand. Unhurried. Like they had all the time in the world and she was already forgotten.
He didn't look back.
He didn't even looked at her.
Not even once.
The midday sunlight caught them as they reached the entrance, turning them into silhouettes—the reformed villain and the hidden goddess, walking away together while the campus belle stood alone in their wake.
Su Qingxue's hands dropped slowly to her sides. Her whole body was trembling, and she told herself it was rage. Pure, justified rage at being dismissed so completely.
She wasn't entirely wrong.
But she wasn't entirely right either.
He never looked at me.
The thought surfaced, cutting through the noise and the chaos and the hundreds of eyes still watching her.
Not once. Not even when I was standing right in front of him. Not even when I was holding his hand. Not even when I asked him to wait for me.
He never looked at my face.
Her throat tightened around something she couldn't swallow.
Why does that bother me so much?
Why does it feel like...
She couldn't finish the thought. She didn't dare finish it. Because whatever came at the end of that sentence was something she wasn't ready to face—not here, not now, not with hundreds of phones still pointed at her face.
So she buried it with everything else, deep down where she wouldn't have to look at it.
But the thought didn't go away.
--------------------
Zhang Tingting stood apart from Su Qingxue now, a gap of several feet between them that hadn't been there before.
She hadn't even noticed when she'd stepped away. It had just... happened. Like her body had made a decision her mind hadn't caught up to yet.
She watched Lin Feng and Xiao Yue disappear through the restaurant's glass doors, two silhouettes walking hand in hand into the warm September sunlight. They looked right together, she realized. Like puzzle pieces that had finally found their match.
Then she turned and looked back at Su Qingxue.
Her best friend stood alone in the center of the restaurant, frozen and pale and surrounded by the soft clicks of phone cameras still capturing her humiliation.
Three years of friendship. Three years of support. Three years of believing every word that came out of that beautiful mouth.
I abandoned a practical exam for her.
I've always answered her calls. Always taken her side. Always believed in her without question.
And I didn't even know about Long Tian.
The distance between them felt like more than just a few feet now. It felt like a canyon that had opened up without warning, and Zhang Tingting wasn't sure she wanted to cross back over it.
She didn't know what to believe anymore.
But she knew—with a certainty that settled cold and heavy in her gut—that something was very, very wrong.
--------------------
The restaurant buzzed with noise and speculation and barely contained excitement. Campus history had just been made, and everyone knew it.
The bootlicker who had chased the campus belle for four years had walked away without a single backward glance. The ghost girl in the oversized hoodie had turned out to be a goddess hiding in plain sight. And Su Qingxue—the untouchable campus belle, the woman who had rejected a hundred confessions—stood alone in the center of it all, hands empty, face pale, utterly defeated.
Zhang Tingting looked at her best friend one more time, then at the door where Lin Feng had disappeared, then back at Su Qingxue again. The cracks in her worldview spread a little wider with each passing second.
And then, as her gaze swept across the crowded restaurant, she saw her.
A woman standing near the back entrance, half-hidden in the shadows by the service corridor. She was young and devastatingly beautiful—just as beautiful as Xiao Yue, in that same impossible, otherworldly way.
Zhang Tingting recognized her instantly.
Wait... isn't that Lin Feng's...
The woman wasn't looking at Su Qingxue or the chaos or the gossiping crowd. She was staring at the door where Lin Feng and Xiao Yue had just walked through together.
And she did not look happy at all.
Her hands were clenched at her sides, knuckles white, trembling with something that looked like barely restrained fury.
Why is she here? Why does she look so...
Then the woman's gaze shifted, and their eyes met across the crowded restaurant.
Zhang Tingting froze.
The woman held her gaze for a long, measured moment. Her expression was unreadable—calm, composed, yet somehow terrifying in its stillness.
Those eyes pinned Zhang Tingting in place—cold and sharp and impossibly beautiful. Then, slowly and deliberately, she raised one elegant finger to her lips.
Shhhh...
The message was clear.
Before Zhang Tingting could react, the woman turned and slipped through the service corridor, disappearing as silently as she had appeared.
Zhang Tingting stood there, heart pounding, her mind racing through everything she had just witnessed.
First Xiao Yue... and now her?
How many women are watching him?
Just how many secrets is Lin Feng hiding?
What else have I been blind to?
Nothing about today makes sense anymore.
This day just keeps getting stranger.
--------------------
[End of Chapter 10]