F3 Initial Interaction
Lin Xue didn't say anything, but just turned around and glanced at him.
Just then, an unexpected change occurred.
Colored confetti was sprayed from the top of the entire mall.
"Surprise!"
Anru gripped a steel wire tightly with one hand and leaped from the 20th floor. The rapidly falling silver wire bounced in a smooth parabola in the air. At the same time, the umbrella in his other hand opened, turning into a parachute, allowing him to fall gently like a dandelion seed.
The people below started cheering and screaming in excitement.
Under everyone's watchful eyes, he walked up to Lin Xue, ripped off the mask with a single blow that made everyone's smile extremely uncomfortable, drew a circle in front of him, bent his arms and brought them together, knelt down and pointed to his feet, slightly lifted his cloak with one hand, and bowed. Then, in perfect Chinese that would make people suspect he was an Easterner spy in Shilan, he said:
"Lin, hello, I am Anru from the Fydo family. I will be your classmate for the next three years. I hope we can get along well."
"I thought we wouldn't have a chance to get to know each other." Lin Xue smiled distantly yet politely.
A standard, formulaic smile, without even extending a hand.
"Did you come all this way just to say these things to me?"
"No, I have another gift for you," Anru said with a smile.
“Please accept this; it is the highest courtesy I can offer as a businessman.” Anru handed over an exquisitely crafted box that was itself priceless. “This is the prized necklace of the Sogmat Department Store, and you are a perfect match for its value.”
"This is the first betrothal gift I've given to the person I've chosen."
"As long as you wear it, no one will bother you when you arrive in St. Leah."
“As you know, the lower class of St. Leah is a group of greedy and fierce hyenas. It’s not easy for a gentleman like you to live among them.”
"No need. I can't accept such a generous gift without having done anything right."
"Don't those celebrities who accept votes from fans also receive a lot of money from them? You have enough value to deserve my gift."
"Measuring one's own value is a mindset that only commodities have."
Anru, however, said with distress, "Are you saying, don't objectify yourself?"
"But in this world, who isn't selling themselves?"
"Some people sell their physical labor, some their brains, some their dignity, and some their lies. Even the strong, or those at the top, sell their sense of superiority."
"A person cannot survive in this society without self-objectification."
"No matter who someone is, if they lose their value, they become worthless trash."
"I thought you would know that perfectly well."
"But it's okay, I'll keep waiting."
“In St. Leah, it’s not easy to live without selling yourself.”
"Actually, I was going to give you something extra when you smashed the golden egg. Are you worried about being punished? I won't punish you too severely. I'll just let you get sprayed with colorful confetti."
"Why don't you do it if you get such a big reward for such a small punishment?"
"Perhaps it's because I no longer want to play any games with you guys," Lin Xue said coldly.
Even the smallest and gentlest constraint is still a constraint.
"I will not leave my destiny to be controlled by others."
Anru seemed to have anticipated that her aloof prey would say such a thing, and confidently maintained her polite, squinting smile:
“Don’t you Easterners love subtle art and say things like, ‘There’s plenty of time in the future’?” Anru smiled meaningfully. “In a wonderful place like St. Lean’s, we’ll always have a chance to meet and play some games together.”
"Then, goodbye, my Lilith [Note 1]."
After speaking, he casually pulled at the air, and the elaborate noble robe on his body immediately unfolded like a dried flower that had been soaked in water, and then shrank back to the top layer in an instant.
Lin Xuele's figure became a tiny dot like an ant in sight.
Even after Lin Xuele's figure had disappeared, Anru still looked down with great interest and asked the waiter beside her:
"How much of a stake do you think he's worth betting on?"
"Young Master is very wealthy; spending even a little on him is a reward."
"You're wrong about that."
"I was the first to discover this gem."
"He's a very worthwhile investment product," Anru said with a confident smile.
"I need to place more bets when no one else is looking."
"Otherwise, his value will be taken away by others."
Anru's appearance did not dampen Lin Xue's spirits. He continued to stroll around the mall.
On his way to the cinema, he happened to pass by a designer shoe store. Many customers were inside selecting and trying on shoes.
Suddenly, a young man, his face flushed with anger, roared, "I was here first, why should he try it first?"
The sales assistant, who had been working non-stop, apologized repeatedly, but couldn't quell the other party's anger: "Sir, I'm sorry, we were asked to serve the St. Ria students first."
"Students of Saint Ria, humph. Aren't all the people who come here to try on shoes with me specially admitted? They're all commoners, how are they any more noble than me? Just because they have better grades, they get special privileges?"
"Or do you think they'll definitely have a higher social status than us after graduation, and you're discriminating against us?"
The sales assistant nodded repeatedly, not daring to say more.
"Get your manager over here, I need to talk to him!"
"Sir, please be understanding. We are just following the rules and regulations. We are just ordinary workers and can't make decisions about these things."
"You prioritized letting the students of St. Leah try on the clothes, but did you consider the feelings of us other customers? They're just a cut above us, aren't they? And it's us, the customers who pay to support you, who are the ones who actually spend money to buy your clothes!"
"Those parasites who only know how to suck blood from the people, the students recruited by St. Riat deserve to be played to death by the nobles!" the young man cursed viciously, veins bulging on his forehead.
The students from Saint-Lia were furious, feeling mocked, and started arguing with the young man, vehemently arguing that they were destined for high society and to become social elites, making them superior to academic underachievers like him.
The scene was chaotic.
Lin Xue quickened his pace, leaving this place of trouble. He was also wearing his school uniform.
Getting into trouble is a small matter, but missing out and having to wait for the next movie is a big deal.
He went to the cinema, glanced at the movie titles at random, and chose an arthouse film, "Lily and Her Mother," which was tucked away in a corner.
The ticket seller gave us a full set of movie-going snacks as a special bonus. It was obvious that Aru had arranged it.
Pudding, drinks, cakes, and fruits—everything was prepared with great care, taking into account Lin Xuele's tastes and preferences.
If it weren't for the information they gathered revealing that Lin Xue wasn't particularly interested in eating, Anru might have moved the entire dessert shop over.
Lin Xue didn't eat a single bite, leaving the fruit platter, cake, and other items exactly as they were.
With more than half an hour to go before the start of the event, Lin Xue sat on the sofa and took a short nap, with the five little toys she had just won sitting in a row in her lap.
Lions, crocodiles, tigers, leopards, and black bears are all fierce predators.
A pair of emerald green eyes stopped in Lin Xue's arms.
Lin Xue opened her eyes precisely five minutes before entering the theater, just like an alarm clock, and walked towards the screening room.
The story tells of Lily, a 7-year-old Western girl with light blonde hair and gray-blue eyes, who was abandoned by her father while still in her mother's womb. Her mother, who was a drug addict and sold herself into prostitution, beat her every day to vent her anger, forced her to earn money, and called her a filthy and lewd bad girl.
Unable to endure this life any longer, she ran away from home, only to be caught and sent to a children's welfare home, where she was bullied by a group of self-righteous boys. Enraged, she grabbed a hammer that a construction worker had forgotten to take with him and smashed it over the head of the ringleader, ending up in a juvenile detention center.
As an adult, she mistakenly believes she has found love that heals her childhood wounds, but in reality, the other person is just a scumbag who wants to trick her into prostitution in the red-light district and live off her.
She always wanted to make a living, but life never treated her kindly.
In her painful fate, she suffered betrayal from friends and the passing of her kind benefactor, her grandmother.
She lost family, friends, and love throughout her life. Fate always gave her a glimmer of hope, only to cruelly extinguish it.
In a fit of rage, she opened fire on the entire bus, killing a little girl who looked exactly like her. She was sentenced to life imprisonment and spent the rest of her life in prison.
As she lay dying with her hair turned white, Lily had a hallucination: she became a pregnant mother, but when she touched her belly, she found that her perspective had shifted to that of a fetus.
She was pregnant with herself.
With a burst of light, she was born again. She saw her mother, with her own face, gently stroking her and rocking her in her swaddling clothes.
In this life, she is still poor, but under her mother's protection, her life is full of hope, and many things from her previous life have changed.
When she went to the mall with her mother to buy donuts, she brushed past the bad boys who had bullied her in the orphanage.
As she grew up, she had plenty of love and didn't fall for the scumbag who hit on her at the bar.
Her grandmother, who was her benefactor in a previous life, also survived the car accident thanks to her information, and made apple pie with her during the festival.
The one who betrayed her could only share the good times, not the bad. Because her life improved slightly, he betrayed her friend, and she never went back to him because of her people-pleasing personality.
Although she remained poor and without love, she opened a small shop in the town. Although she did not live a life of great wealth, she was very happy.
I don't know when it started, but that imaginary mother disappeared.
She no longer hissed at cats and dogs like she did in her previous life. Instead, she adopted a lame old stray dog named Tom, who would fetch her the day's newspaper every day.
She treated the old dog with the same love and care she would show it when it died, and even put a wreath on its tombstone.
Having been loved before, she now possesses the ability to love others.
The fantasy ended, and Lily died in an extremely distorted posture.
She hugged herself tightly, as if trying to strangle herself in her embrace, like a mother holding her daughter tightly. Her face overlapped with her younger self, and her ideal mother was inseparable from her.
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