The young man pretended not to hear.
Mu Anxiao frowned and nudged the young man’s shoulder, saying, “Get up.”
Annoyed by Mu Anxiao’s push, the young man opened his eyes and asked, “What are you doing?”
Without a word, Mu Anxiao turned, took the elder’s arm, and gestured toward the young man, saying, “You sit there.” She pointed at the young man.
Immediately, gazes from nearby people shifted to the young man’s face.
The young man, feeling awkward due to Mu Anxiao’s actions, stood up and offered a fake smile, “Oh, I’m truly too tired. I didn’t see you. Please, have a seat.”
At the station, Yan Ruoruo looked astonished at the bus Mu Anxiao had boarded, muttering, “Uh, she actually got on the bus I was supposed to take.” She then began to hope Mu Anxiao would get off at the next stop.
On the bus, Mu Anxiao and the young man stood side-by-side. She held onto the back of a seat with one hand, staring straight ahead without saying a word.
The young man cautiously glanced at Mu Anxiao’s profile and then deliberately moved a little closer to her, saying, “You spoke to me just now, I heard you.”
Mu Anxiao frowned, turned her head to look at the young man, but said nothing.
The young man’s lips curved upwards slightly, and he said, “I have a girlfriend, you’d best not have any designs on me.”
“This person is truly conceited,” Zhang Yan said, standing on Mu Anxiao’s other side.
“I think so too,” Mu Anxiao replied softly.
The young man, thinking Mu Anxiao was talking to him, said, “You think so too? Then why did you strike up a conversation with me?”
Mu Anxiao, having gained a new understanding of the young man’s series of narcissistic behaviors, lowered her head to look at the elder who had closed her eyes to doze, and whispered, “I wasn’t talking to you. I just couldn’t stand you pretending to be asleep. Any normal person would yield to an elder; it’s only natural. As for just now, I wasn’t talking to you, I was talking to myself.”
At that moment, the bus stopped.
“Keep up your pretense, young lady,” the young man said, holding onto the railing and smiling.
Mu Anxiao rolled her eyes at the young man. Just as she was about to follow the flow of people off the bus, the doors closed.
Zhang Yan said helplessly, “We’ll just have to wait for the next stop.”
Mu Anxiao sighed and retreated to her original spot.
The young man looked down at Mu Anxiao and smiled, saying, “You’re not old, why aren’t you in school today?”
Mu Anxiao completely ignored him.
The young man smiled again, “If it were anyone else, they certainly wouldn’t bother with you, but I’m different. My only good quality is that I hold a grudge.”
In the few days she had been here, Mu Anxiao had never met anyone who spoke to her so actively. Now, listening to the young man’s incessant nonsense, she was getting annoyed.
Zhang Yan watched Mu Anxiao’s slowly clenching fist and said, “Ignore him. The more you engage with people like this, the more they think you’re easy to talk to. Ignore him, we’ll get off at the next stop.”
Mu Anxiao nodded, swallowing the words that had reached her lips.
After waiting for a moment, the bus stopped.
This time, the second the bus stopped, Mu Anxiao squeezed off through the back door with the crowd ahead.
Unexpectedly, the young man also got off the bus.
Mu Anxiao stood on the sidewalk and looked in both directions.
Zhang Yan said, “Wait a bit longer. The buses from that stop all pass through here.”
Mu Anxiao looked at Zhang Yan and thought, What if I don’t have change?
“This…” Zhang Yan hesitated, then turned to look at the nearby newsstand, saying, “Go buy a bottle of water over there to get change.”
Can I? Mu Anxiao worried that the people there wouldn’t have change either.
“Don’t worry, the person selling water will surely have change,” Zhang Yan said with full assurance.
“Okay, I’m going,” Mu Anxiao blurted out.
Beside them, the young man, who had stopped talking, was startled. He turned to look at Mu Anxiao and started laughing again, “See? You said you weren’t talking to me. Just like on the bus. Also, I already told you I have a girlfriend, so this isn’t good, is it?”
Mu Anxiao didn’t look at him. Instead, she took out a hundred-yuan bill from her pocket, walked around him, and headed straight for the newsstand.
The young man looked at Mu Anxiao’s back from the side, let out a dismissive snort, and turned to look at Yan Ruoruo, who had just alighted from the bus, saying, “You’re Yan Ruoruo, right?”
Because they had both seen each other’s photos, the young man recognized her at a glance.
“Hello,” Yan Ruoruo said shyly, raising her hand to greet him.
“You look better than in your photos,” the young man said sweetly.
“You’re also more handsome than in your photos,” Yan Ruoruo replied in a soft voice.
In front of the newsstand, Zhang Yan inadvertently saw Yan Ruoruo talking to the young man. He then nudged Mu Anxiao’s arm with his finger and said, “That rude man from before is Yan Ruoruo’s online friend.”
Mu Anxiao didn’t pay attention to Zhang Yan, took the change from the newsstand vendor, and turned to look at Zhang Yan.
Zhang Yan quickly pointed at the two people still standing at the bus stop, saying, “Look.”
Mu Anxiao looked in the direction Zhang Yan was pointing and clicked her tongue, thinking, As expected, people of a certain type meet people of a certain type. They’re quite a pair.
“I agree,” Zhang Yan said, blinking his eyes and asking, “So, should we still follow them?”
Of course, we have to follow. This was Shi Momo’s arrangement. If something happened, then the second evil spirit would succeed. Mu Anxiao thought, then stepped towards Yan Ruoruo.
Zhang Yan hadn’t expected Mu Anxiao to be so blatant and quickly followed, saying, “Going up to her like this might not be appropriate.”
Mu Anxiao completely ignored Zhang Yan’s words and walked quickly to Yan Ruoruo, saying, “Congratulations, you failed.”
“Why are you here?” Yan Ruoruo asked, pointing at Mu Anxiao in surprise.
Mu Anxiao glanced at the young man, who looked surprised, and said, “Thanks to your boyfriend, I couldn’t get off at the previous stop.”
“Do you know each other?” Yan Ruoruo asked, pointing at both of them separately.
Mu Anxiao glanced at the young man and was about to reveal his bad behavior on the bus when the young man suddenly reached out and covered Mu Anxiao’s mouth, saying, “We don’t know each other.”
“You don’t know each other,” Yan Ruoruo said, pointing at the young man’s hand, “then why are you covering her mouth?”
Hearing this, the young man quickly withdrew his hand.
Mu Anxiao wiped her mouth roughly with the back of her hand and said, “He didn’t give up his seat to the elder just now and pretended to be asleep, so I woke him up.”
“Just that?” Yan Ruoruo didn’t take it seriously.
Mu Anxiao had anticipated Yan Ruoruo’s reaction and said, “Alright, you’ve met your online friend. Can we go home now?”
“No, what do you mean?” Yan Ruoruo’s eyes widened in displeasure.
“I mean, I’ve accompanied you to meet your online friend, and now we can go home,” Mu Anxiao stated bluntly.