The pretty little follower gets targeted by the crazy guys at the elite academy

"Can you guys stop arguing?"

Li Ruo took a deep breath and slowly exhaled: "Aren't you hungry?"

Six opposing, eccentric critics: "Not hungry."

Li Ruo: "..."

She looked around, her gaze sweeping across everyone's faces.

Zhou Si's stubbornness, Lu Xingzhou's composure, Lu Ran's righteousness, Pei Qingrang's earnestness, and Guo Yiling's seriousness.

She suddenly found it a little funny, and also felt like sighing.

This group of people wields considerable influence outside.

On this island, not even a meal can be cooked.

She put her hands on her hips, exuding an air of authority:

"Alright, everyone, come to the kitchen!"

"I'll give the orders, you do the work. Anyone who disobeys me won't get dinner today!!"

Six lunatics: "..."

No one moved.

Li Ruo narrowed her eyes: "One!"

Zhou Si straightened up.

"two!"

Lu Xingzhou turned his head to look.

"three!"

Everyone walked towards the kitchen at the same time.

[This is hilarious! These men are all ruthless outside, but they're all incredibly obedient in front of Li Ruo.]

These aren't six lunatics, they're clearly six well-trained little mad dogs!

[Li Ruo: I'll give the orders, you do the work. Anyone who disobeys me won't get dinner today. The madmen: Charge!]

In the kitchen.

Li Ruo stood in the middle, like a conductor, holding a wooden spoon as a baton.

The six men were scattered in different corners of the kitchen, each with their own tasks.

Zhou Si was assigned to wash vegetables.

He stood in front of the pool, holding a bunch of green vegetables in his hand, rinsing them expressionlessly.

The water flow was strong, splashing everywhere and soaking a large area of ​​the front of his T-shirt.

His movements were rough, as if he had a grudge against those vegetables, rubbing them hard, breaking them hard, and shaking them hard!

Li Ruo walked over, took the bunch of vegetables that had been crumpled and mangled from his hand, and placed them on the cutting board:

"Zhou Si, are you washing vegetables or killing someone?"

Zhou Si looked down at his soaked T-shirt, then at the pitiful pile of vegetables on the cutting board, and said coldly:

"...Wash the vegetables."

"The way you wash vegetables is the same as the way Lu Xingzhou conducts business—it's either you die or I live."

Lu Xingzhou was chopping vegetables nearby when he heard this, and his knife paused for a moment.

His movements as he chopped vegetables were elegant, with the knife rising and falling in a steady rhythm, like he was slicing sushi.

But his knife skills clearly couldn't keep up with his aesthetic sense.

The potato shreds that came out were of varying thicknesses and lengths, a real mess.

Li Ruo walked to his side, glanced down at the pile of shredded potatoes, and remained silent for a moment.

"Senior Lu, are you cutting potato shreds or potato strips?"

"French fries".

Lu Xingzhou remained unfazed: "I deliberately cut them thick; thicker pieces taste better."

Li Ruo picked up the thickest one: "The thick ones...can they taste good?"

Lu Xingzhou paused in his chopping, meeting her bright, watery eyes:

"Don't you know whether the coarse ones taste good or not?"

Li Ruo: "You...you...we were clearly talking about shredded potatoes."

Lu Xingzhou: "I was talking about shredded potatoes, could it be... what you're thinking...?"

Li Ruo: "...Stop!"

Looking at the calm and composed expression on his face, Li Ruo suddenly felt that this guy really deserved a beating.

However, she didn't hit him.

Instead, she took the knife from his hand and quickly turned the pile of potato strips into real potato shreds.

They are uniform in thickness and each strand is distinct, as if they were cut by a machine.

-

After an hour of busy work, a table of dishes was finally ready.

The dining table was a long table with a white tablecloth, on which seven dishes were laid out.

Grilled fish, pan-fried steak, vegetable salad, hand-pulled noodles, stir-fried bok choy, and scrambled eggs with tomatoes.

The seven people sat down around the long table, and who sat where became a silent contest.

The final seating arrangement is as follows:

Li Ruo sat at one end of the long table, Zhou Si sat to her left, and Lu Xingzhou sat to her right.

Pei Qingrang sat next to Zhou Si, and Lu Ran sat next to Pei Qingrang.

Guo Yiling sat next to Lu Xingzhou, and Jiang Wu sat next to Guo Yiling.

There was an empty chair opposite Li Ruo.

No one sat down, and no one asked who the chair was reserved for.

Li Ruo picked up her chopsticks, took a piece of scrambled eggs with tomatoes, and put it in her mouth.

It's too salty; too much salt was added.

But she didn't say anything, chewed and swallowed, then picked up another piece.

The others also picked up their chopsticks.

Halfway through the meal, Lu Ran spoke first.

"Li Ruo," he placed his chopsticks on the rim of his bowl, looking at her, "how long do you plan to... stay here?"

Li Ru chewed her food and mumbled, "I don't know."

Zhou Si removed the bones from a piece of fish and placed it on her plate:

"You can stay here as long as you want; it's safe here."

Lu Xingzhou elegantly cut the steak:

"Safety does not mean freedom; she cannot stay on this island forever."

Zhou Si glared at Lu Xingzhou, but did not refute him.

Pei Qingrang picked up a piece of bok choy with his chopsticks and placed it on Li Ruo's plate:

"Where do you want to go?"

Li Ruo: "I..."

He looked at Li Ruo, his eyes behind his gold-rimmed glasses were very serious:

"Wherever you want to go, I'll go with you."

Lu Ran frowned: "You're going with her? Aren't you going to take care of your lab?"

"Remote work is possible."

"What about the follow-up research on your international biology award?"

"It can be postponed."

"Your..."

"Lu Ran".

Pei Qingrang interrupted him:

"I've been growing strawberries for three years, but not just for the sake of growing strawberries. I've published papers, but not just for the sake of publishing papers. I've been researching spacetime theory, but not just for the sake of researching spacetime theory."

"I did all these things... all because of the same person."

"She's sitting here now, why should I do those things?"

Lu Ran opened his mouth, wanting to say something, but couldn't say anything.

He lowered his head, looked at the mushy clump of noodles in the bowl, stirred it with his chopsticks, but didn't eat it.

Guo Yiling took a folded piece of paper out of her pocket, placed it on the table, and slowly pushed it over.

The paper was A4 size, folded twice, with deep creases, as if it had been folded repeatedly.

His fingers pressed on the paper for a long time before he released them.

Li Ruo glanced down.

Admission letter from St. Lia College.

Her gaze lingered on that headline for a long time.

Then he looked up at Guo Yiling.

Guo Yiling sat very upright, looking at her.

His expression was very serious, as if he were presiding over a school-wide assembly.

But his eyes are different.

There was something very soft in those eyes that always scrutinized everything like the director of the academic affairs office.

"Li Ruo, classmate."

His voice was steady, and his eyes were gentle.

"Your appearance and personality haven't changed at all in these five years. I finally believe that the spacetime theory that Pei Qingrang and Lu Xingzhou researched before is true."

He looked into Li Ruo's eyes:

"So, Li Ruo, who is still nineteen years old, would you be willing to accept my invitation to return to St. Lia to continue your studies?"

The reception room fell silent after these words were spoken.

It was so quiet that you could hear the sea breeze rustling through the palm trees outside the window, the waves crashing against the rocks in the distance, and the breathing of six people, each breath varying in intensity.

Lu Ran's chopsticks fell on the table, rolled around, and stopped on the edge of the plate, but he didn't pick them up.

Zhou Si's fingers slowly caressed the handle of the folding knife, his thumb tracing the metal surface, making a soft friction sound.

Lu Xingzhou leaned back in his chair, his fingers interlaced on his lower abdomen, his expression unchanged, but his fingers were twisting together, his knuckles turning white.

Pei Qingrang took off his glasses and slowly wiped them with the corner of his clothes. He wiped them very carefully, and there was no dust on the lenses at all.

Jiang Wu rested his chin on the table, his amber eyes peeking out from above the rim of the bowl as he looked at Li Ruo.

Li Ruo stared at the admission notice for a long time.

She was very familiar with the words on the notification letter.

The emblem of St. Lia's College, with its dark blue background and gold lettering, is exactly the same as the one she received five years ago.

The only difference is the date.

These five years have passed in the blink of an eye for her.

From nineteen to twenty-three, those seven years should have belonged to her—to the classroom, to books, to dreams, to youth.

But those five years were stolen, stolen by that Rose Manor, stolen by that man named Fu Chenzhou.

She stayed at the manor for five hours, and when she came out, it had been five years since she last saw it.

Li Ruo looked up at Guo Yiling and looked away from the notice.

She tilted her head, a sly smile playing on her lips.

"Senior Guo, you're not making this request out of personal revenge, are you? After all, you've been waiting for five years for your self-criticism, and I haven't submitted a single word to you."

Guo Yiling paused for a moment, then slowly began to smile.

The smile was very faint, almost invisible, but his eyes curved like two crescent moons.

"No, I will never make you write a self-criticism again."

His voice was very serious: "This time, it's my turn to protect you."