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[Chapter 068] If I Don’t Like Him, You Won’t Be His Friend Anymore?
“Xiao Yuan, remember this. Don’t go towards people who don’t need you. You just need to have people who need you. You don’t need people who don’t need you in your life.”
Bian JinYuan raised his head, confused by the multiple strings of ‘need’ in her words, and obediently nodded. He never asked Bian Ting this question in the future, and got used to the fact that he only had his mother as he grew older. His father had somehow become someone whom he didn’t need in this way.
Bian JinYuan’s growing up years didn’t have anything to do with his father. Under such circumstances, he felt that he didn’t need the role of a father in his life. However at this moment, he wondered just what kind of person his father was that received his mother’s love.
This curiosity was irrelevant to his father as a person, but connected through the love of his mother.
Bian Jie waited for him to finish his prayers before taking Shuang Shuang over. She spoke of the things that had happened over the past year, and bent down to place the flowers that Shuang Shuang had given her in front of her grave. After that, she led Bian JinYuan and Shuang Shuang down the mountain.
Lu YunFei looked at the calendar and wondered if he should say something to Bian JinYuan seeing as it was his mother’s death anniversary. But what would he say? He thought for a long while and felt that nothing was appropriate. Eventually, he could only ask simply, have you finished visiting your mother’s grave?
Bian JinYuan answered, finishing shortly.
Lu YunFei asked, how are you feeling?
“I’m doing okay,” Bian JinYuan gave him a call, “I visit every year, so my emotions are now steady.”
“That’s good.”
“What about you, how are classes?”
“Quite good,” Lu YunFei said, and then remembered Dai HanSen, “I made a new friend, Dai HanSen from class three. He’s quite interesting. I’ll introduce you two when you come back.”
Bian JinYuan heard this and couldn’t help but get a little startled.
“A new friend?”
“That’s right,” Lu YunFei didn’t beat around the bush, “there weren’t a lot of people for the training classes, so we were all grouped in one classroom. There was no assigned seating, and we knew each other when he sat next to me.”
“You’re sharing a desk with him?”
“Mmm.”
Bian JinYuan nodded, “So I’ll have to find a new deskmate when I go back?”
“Of course not,” Lu YunFei refuted, “you’ll naturally sit with me when you come back.”
“Then what about your new friend?”
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“I had already told him that I had someone sitting beside me, and that he’d have to change seats when you came.”
“Your new friend agreed?”
“Mmm,” Lu YunFei replied.
Bian JinYuan chuckled and muttered, “That may not be the case.”
“Don’t worry, it will be the case, I guarantee it.”
“Then you must be quite capable,” Bian JinYuan said unhurriedly, “training classes have only gone on for three days, yet you’ve already made a new friend.”
Lu YunFei heard this and felt a tinkling that Bian JinYuan seemed to be making a statement within a statement. He mulled over it and asked, “Are you unhappy? Or you’re unwilling to?”
Bian JinYuan didn’t expect him to get straight to the point. He remained silent for a while, and then said gently, “That’s not it, I was just casually mentioning it.”
It was true that he didn’t like the fact that Lu YunFei could make new friends so easily. However, he didn’t have the right to interfere with him doing so. Lu YunFei wasn’t him; Lu YunFei was someone who was surrounded by lots of friends.
“Xiao Yuan, time to eat,” Bian Jie called out.
Bian JinYuan answered her, and said to the phone, “My small aunt is calling me to eat, I’ll hang up first.”
Saying this, he hung up the phone.
Lu YunFei heard the dial tone emitting from his phone and was stunned for a bit. He couldn’t help but feel that Bian JinYuan had seemed to be slightly unhappy.
Lu YunFei waited for an hour before he gave him a call again. Bian JinYuan answered it, and continued to chat with him in his usual gentle manner. Lu YunFei asked, “Were you unhappy just now?”
“No,” Bian JinYuan denied.
Lu YunFei didn’t press the matter, and only said, “Then I’ll wait for your return. Bye~”
“Bye.”
Bian JinYuan hung up the phone and couldn’t help but sigh.
After two days, Bian Jie was finally done with her side of things in their old home and brought the two kids back.
The class was in a slight frenzy the day that Bian JinYuan appeared. He was someone who had entered First High as the top student, and had secured his position at the peak since year one. While the second position changed hands, he had remained unmovable, and had continued to be the recipient of the scholarship each semester so regularly that it was almost as if he was clocking in to work.
Even if the students from that year hadn’t met him, they would still hear of him from the teachers of any subjects, and would inevitably be curious about him. Now that they were studying in the same class, they couldn’t help but steal a few looks.
Wen MingYi was very perceptive. Seeing him here, he greeted him and packed his bag to sit next to his class representative. The class representative was now the recipient of the envious stares of the girls in the class, and could only lower her head to pretend that she didn’t notice them.
Lu YunFei moved the notes that he had made over the past few days to Bian JinYuan, “The teachers talked about these. Take a look and let me know if you have any questions,” he said, and then added, “but I think that you won’t have any.”
Bian JinYuan wasn’t in a hurry to look at his notes, but took out some snacks for him, “Snacks from there, try them.”
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Lu YunFei didn’t expect that he would bring back some souvenirs from visiting his mother’s grave. He smiled as he happily received this pleasant surprise.
Bian JinYuan scanned the classroom of year three class one and thought, this classroom would be his class from this moment on.
Lu YunFei intended to treat Bian JinYuan to a good lunch after receiving his souvenirs. He thought of the private diner that Dai HanSen had brought him to and took Bian JinYuan and Wen MingYi there.
“It’s really delicious, I guarantee it.”
“You had both eaten together after school too?” Bian JinYuan asked calmly.
“He said that no one was home and wanted to eat out, so he asked if I wanted to join. No one was at my home either, so I agreed.”
“He acts quite familiar with you,” Wen MingYi commented, “Having a meal together on the first day you met, how enthusiastic. Tch, trying to get into your good books with an ulterior motive.”
Lu YunFei laughed, “I’m not a girl, he’ll get nothing out of being in my good books.”
“We’ll see about that,” Wen MingYi looked at him, “Perhaps he’s into you.”
“Then he might as well be into you instead.”
“Not me,” Wen MingYi said laughingly, “I’m not as popular as you. At least nobody has asked me out for a meal after school.”
“Who said there’s nobody, am I not someone, aren’t we going for a meal right now?”
Wen MingYi laughed in response. He looked at Lu YunFei and clapped for him, “You win.”
Bian JinYuan was silent throughout this exchange, as he thought about what Wen MingYi had said — get into your good books with an ulterior motive.
The three of them enjoyed their meal happily. Lu YunFei asked Bian JinYuan and Wen MingYi, “How is it, not bad right?”
Bian JinYuan actually didn’t enjoy this meal. The reason lay not with him, but with Dai HanSen. He was frustrated at the thought of Lu YunFei and Dai HanSen sitting alone eating together. It was only because he considered Lu YunFei’s feelings that he nodded his head, “Mmm.”
Wen MingYi was a much more picky eater than the both of them, “It’s okay, average.”
“No food for you! I’ll just call Bian JinYuan out to eat next time, not you.”
Wen MingYi said blandly, “A couple’s world huh? Then I wish you both enjoy your date.”
“You enjoy your date,” Lu YunFei threw a peanut at Wen MingYi.
Wen MingYi immediately threw some back in retaliation. Bian JinYuan watched these two children enter a battle of peanuts and quietly stood up to settle the bill. It was only that Lu YunFei was one step ahead of him and paid for the bill instead, before pulling him out of the diner.
This meal had taken quite a while. By the time Lu YunFei and Bian JinYuan returned to the classroom, Dai HanSen had already arrived and had taken his seat next to Lu YunFei in a habitual fashion.
Bian JinYuan looked at him from afar as he climbed up the steps with Lu YunFei.
“Dai HanSen, this is Bian JinYuan. Bian Bian, this is Dai HanSen,” Lu YunFei introduced the both of them.
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Dai HanSen heard the familiar way of calling Bian JinYuan ‘Bian Bian’ and thought, Lu YunFei and Bian JinYuan’s relationship seemed to be better than he had thought.
He politely said, “Hello.”
Bian JinYuan coolly said, “Mmm”, and made no indication of wanting to chat further.
Dai HanSen saw this and didn’t continue either.
Lu YunFei saw how the conversation between them had ended, and said to Dai HanSen, “Now then, as we agreed, this seat was reserved for him. Now that he’s here, you’ll have to switch your seat.”
Dai HanSen smiled kindly and nodded saying, “It may be so, but I’ve already settled in today. How about this, I’ll switch seats tomorrow, so could student Bian sit somewhere else today?”
Lu YunFei looked down to see that he had already taken out his stationery and notebook.
This training class was set up at the last-minute, and so everyone didn’t trust each other as strangers. In addition to the fact that the morning Mathematics training class and the afternoon Physics training class were not the same batch of people, the students usually packed up their bags for lunch instead of leaving them in the classroom.
Lu YunFei saw this and turned to look at Bian JinYuan, “Why don’t we change our seats then?”
He may have been used to sitting by the window at the last row, but it wasn’t as if he had to sit there. Since this was free seating, anyone had the right to any seat.
Bian JinYuan sensitively grasped the main point of his words, “We?”
Lu YunFei nodded, “If not? Or are you going to abandon me.”
Dai HanSen was stunned, “YunFei, you’re not going to sit here?”
“You sit,” Lu YunFei said generously, “me and Bian Bian will sit somewhere else.”
Bian JinYuan heard this and couldn’t help but lower his head to smile.
Dai HanSen hadn’t expected this situation to turn out this way. He pointed at the seat beside him, “You can sit here. Aren’t you used to sitting here?”
“I have to sit with Bian Bian,” Lu YunFei stated.
Dai HanSen was speechless, “He could sit in front of us. It’s not as if he can’t sit by himself. Furthermore, today is the last day that the both of us will be deskmates. You’ll be sitting next to him from now on, so this is the last time. You still don’t want to sit next to me?”
Bian JinYuan noted these words internally, and his gaze towards Dai HanSen grew cooler by a few degrees.
Lu YunFei shook his head, “Of course not.”
Dai HanSen’s expectations rose and he was about to continue persuading him when he heard Lu YunFei continue, “Today is not the last day, yesterday was. We had already agreed that you’d have to give up your seat when he came back, and now he’s back. But it doesn’t matter, these seats aren’t a done deal. Since you’re already seated, there’s no need to trouble you, so we’ll just move somewhere else.”
Bian JinYuan saw how Dai HanSen looked like he wanted to say more and couldn’t be bothered to continue listening to his nonsense. He pulled Lu YunFei to the last row of the other side of the classroom.
“He’s got a lot of nonsense,” he criticised.
Lu YunFei rarely heard him criticise someone, and so he asked, “You don’t like him?”
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“Somewhat.”
“Why? Because he spoke a lot of nonsense?”
“You like him?” Bian JinYuan turned the question around.
Lu YunFei shook his head, “It can’t be considered ‘like’, but I find him quite interesting and thought that we could be friends.”
“Well I think he’s uninteresting.”
Lu YunFei

Lu YunFei held his head as he thought about this, and considered that Bian probably didn’t like Dai HanSen due to him not giving up his seat earlier. Bian JinYuan usually didn’t care for a majority of people. Now that this had transpired, Bian JinYuan not liking him was normal.
“Why aren’t you saying something, are you angry because I don’t like your new friend?” Bian JinYuan asked.
“Am I this sort of person?” Lu YunFei said, “I was just thinking that if you don’t like him, then we’ll just steer clear from him in the future.”
“We?”
Lu YunFei nodded.
“Isn’t he your new friend?”
“But don’t you dislike him?”
Bian JinYuan was tickled into laughter by his words, “If I don’t like him, you won’t be his friend anymore?”
Quack Notes
The smell of vinegar is very strong in this chapter!