I turned reality into a romantic comedy.

Just kidding. Before his rebirth, he was eating instant noodles while scratching his head at his desk, struggling with his manuscript. Now that he's been reborn, if he's still eating instant noodles, wouldn't that be a waste of his rebirth?

However, he could understand why Duan Xin would suddenly make such a suggestion. After all, when he was Duan Xin's age, he was also addicted to the taste of instant noodles. Although he hadn't reached the point of wishing to eat instant noodles every day, he would still eat breakfast at the instant noodle shop near the school gate a few times a week.

In fact, they were basically targeting the current enthusiasm of primary school students for instant noodles. That's why there were two stalls selling instant noodles near their primary school. Chen Junqian remembers that the two shops later fought a business war to grab the business from the primary school students. One expanded its store area to provide a temporary place for students to do their homework, while the other launched a promotion to give away a free bowl of seaweed soup. In the end, the latter failed miserably.

After all, catching up on homework is really important for elementary school students, and compared to seaweed soup, everyone is chugging instant noodle soup.

"No, I'll just buy a couple of pies today."

"Alright, I'll head over there now."

Because they chose different breakfasts, the two had to part ways temporarily.

Looking around at the breakfast shops, Chen Junqian stroked his chin, somewhat dazed.

Just as he said before his rebirth, neither Tujia-style savory pancakes nor Taiwanese hand-pulled pancakes actually existed in their small, third-tier county in the south. According to his impressions from his previous life, these two things were actually quite popular in their area for a while. If there was an opportunity in the future, he could consider them as a way to make his first fortune.

Thinking this, Chen Junqian leisurely finished the two meat pies and one shumai he had bought on his way to the bus stop, successfully saving one yuan and accumulating his first real pot of gold in his life. Then he took the bus and arrived at the gate of the Experimental Primary School again.

The elementary school was just as lively in the early morning as it was after school. Everywhere you could see students holding styrofoam bowls and disposable chopsticks, happily eating instant noodles. It was probably because it was almost time for the bell to ring for the morning reading class. Students who had just arrived and hadn't eaten breakfast had no choice but to buy a purple rice bread or a hamburger bun from the small shop in front of the shop and stuff it into their pockets to take to school.

Along with bread, another popular item that many primary school students find somewhat resentful is the red scarf.

As a symbol of primary school students, this is a mandatory requirement for entering the school. The two rows of "discipline officers" standing near the school gate are essentially doing this job. Under their watchful gaze, primary school students who forget to bring their red scarves have no choice but to obediently buy them on the spot at the small shop near the school gate.

In order to save money, everyone basically bought the cheapest five-cent red scarves. Chen Junqian himself had bought them before, and he was deeply impressed by their quality. They were crudely made, thin to the point of being almost transparent, and had a terrible feel. They could be easily torn into strips with just a little force.

Fortunately, he was wearing his red scarf today, so he was spared that trouble and walked straight into the school with his schoolbag on his back.

He arrived at a moderate time today, neither too early nor too late, before his deskmate, the boy Zhong Yu, had arrived in class.

It's quite a coincidence that Experimental Primary School isn't the kind of school that cracks down on early relationships and doesn't allow boys and girls to sit together. After all, it's only a primary school. But because there were more boys than girls in their class, a few boys ended up sitting together, and he and Zhong Yu were one of the victims.

As a victim of the same name as Xun Yu, my good classmate has, in a way, educated the whole class on the pronunciation of the character "彧" before the Three Kingdoms Kill game became popular, so that the embarrassing situation of "苟或" will not occur again.

Thinking of the name, Chen Junqian unconsciously looked up and glanced at the two people in front of him. If he remembered correctly, there was another student in the class who had left a deep impression on him because of his name.

Chen Junqian quickly found his target, but because the other person had her back to him, he could only see a flowing ponytail and a back view that was undoubtedly smaller than the other girls in the class.

Because girls develop faster than boys, girls are usually taller and stronger than boys during elementary school. But Lin Mu was an exception. Chen Junqian remembered that when they exchanged yearbook messages after graduating from elementary school, Lin Mu was even shorter than him before he started growing.

However, height was the key issue. What impressed Chen Junqian most about his elementary school classmate, besides the fact that they were in the same after-school care program, was actually her name.

Elementary school students' sense of humor and their quirky sense of humor are actually quite simple in a sense. Especially when reading aloud, if they read a word that sounds similar to the name of a classmate, they will naturally suppress their laughter or even burst into laughter. Lin Mu is the one who is most often the target of this.

After all, the name Lin Mu sounds quite nice at first glance, and it's also very easy to write. It's the kind of name that you wouldn't feel too bad if your teacher made you copy it a hundred times. But it's just too easy for it to collide with all sorts of homophones, whether it's "Lin Mu" (林木) or "Ling Mu" (陵墓), which has a nasal sound.

Especially the latter. Chen Junqian clearly remembers that this word appeared with an extremely high frequency in a Chinese class, to the point that everyone would secretly laugh whenever the Chinese teacher mentioned the word.

Thinking this, Chen Junqian propped his head up and observed her for a while longer. Suddenly, he noticed that she seemed to be frantically rummaging through her schoolbag looking for something. Her movements were so hurried that she almost knocked over the Weigang milk she had placed on the table.

Faced with this situation, Chen Junqian's first thought was naturally that the other person had forgotten to bring their homework, since this kind of thing is all too common. But after looking for a while, the other person stopped what they were doing and then handed in their homework smoothly when their group leader came to collect it.

"What are you looking at?"

Before long, Zhong Yu also came over, swinging his schoolbag. His desk drawer was always an unusual mess. After rummaging around for a while, he finally cleared a space for his schoolbag. As he asked, he couldn't help but yawn.

"Nothing, what time did you go to bed last night?"

"It's midnight... My brother called me to go play demolition, I'm exhausted."

Zhong Yu rubbed his eyes, handed the homework to the group leader who had come over, and then simply and decisively slumped onto the table:

"Call me when the teacher comes over, I'll catch up on some sleep first."

Chen Junqian knew that the "bombing" he was referring to was the bombing mode of CrossFire, also known as CF. It could be said that most of the boys in his class were playing this shooting game that had 300 million mouse clicks, but Zhong Yu was definitely the most addicted one. On the one hand, it was because he actually had a personal computer, and on the other hand, this guy was indeed a complete internet addict.

The "brother" he mentioned earlier wasn't a biological brother, but an online friend he met in the game. Besides "brothers" and "sisters," he also had a lot of "younger brothers" and "younger sisters" in his life, and I remember he even formed a team or guild later on.

The two actually kept in touch until junior high school, but by then Zhong Yu had started an online relationship. It seems he even did something like staying up all night for several nights in the Giant City ruins to farm the golden M249 from the crystal box for his online girlfriend, which made Chen Junqian grit his teeth when he heard it.

A few minutes later, almost all the students in the class had arrived, and the group leaders had also collected the homework. Chen Junqian, seeing the homeroom teacher coming over, quickly woke Zhong Yu up. Zhong Yu immediately perked up and began to read aloud the required passages aloud with feeling from the open Chinese textbook in his hand.

The homeroom teacher had only been gone for a short while when he seized the opportunity to pull a piece of candy from his pocket and stuff it into his mouth. His facial features contorted slightly before he let out a sigh of relief, and then he gave Chen Junqian another one.

Upon closer inspection, it was indeed the incredibly sour "Showdown" drink. Chen Junqian, who saw no need to rely on this to stay awake with his deskmate, didn't eat it and casually stuffed it into his pocket.

As a perennial champion of staying up late, Zhong Yu's desk was always filled with all sorts of candies that he claimed were very effective at stimulating his senses. Of course, Chen Junqian believed that the other party simply wanted to eat candy. After all, in elementary school classrooms, the only snack that could be secretly eaten during class without being easily discovered by the teacher was candy.

Moreover, those bags of candy were, in another sense, the king of cost-effectiveness. Five cents or a dollar was enough to eat them all day, and they were also easy to share with classmates.

A quick glance at Zhong Yu's desk reveals a huge pile of cheap candies, such as Xiudou, Chenpi, preserved plum, and sour fruit soda.

Besides eating candy to pass the time, this kid also bought a lot of stationery for slacking off in class. As soon as the first class started, he immediately started playing with the winding maze that came with his toy ruler, swaying it left and right to control the little beads inside to slide from one end to the other and then back again. He was having a great time playing with it.

The various courses from elementary school are naturally nothing to Chen Junqian now. Before he knew it, he had started to slack off for two classes, just like yesterday. Finally, the long break arrived. Led by the homeroom teacher, the students filed out and were led to the playground to do their morning exercises.

Today wasn't Monday, so there was no flag-raising speech or ceremony. Instead, the morning exercise began. Watching Zhong Yu kick another boy's butt during the third leg-kicking exercise, Chen Junqian found it a bit funny. He imitated the movements of the students leading the exercise, stretching his body and enjoying the warm morning sunlight.

Before the third period in the morning, it was time for eye exercises. Chen Junqian heard Zhong Yu muttering to himself while doing the exercises:

"Sigh, I really want to be the eye exercise monitor. I can run around freely while everyone else is doing the exercises. Qian, why don't you come with me to ask the teacher? I remember they change the monitor every year at the beginning of the semester."

"You just don't want to do eye exercises, do you...?"

The two had only been chatting for a short while when they heard two loud "Hello, teacher!" coming from the doorway. Knowing that it was the committee member checking the eye exercises, they immediately shut up, as it wouldn't be good to lose points for their class.

"Thank you, teacher!"

The two inspectors walked around the classroom, solemnly marked the scores in their notebooks, and then left, making Zhong Yu envious once again.

However, Chen Junqian knew that this kid was only enthusiastic for a short time, because in the following two years, his internet addiction had grown even stronger. He had learned to press his Jingming acupoint while doing eye exercises and fall asleep at the same time. The time spent doing eye exercises became precious rest time, so he no longer thought about going out.

Before we knew it, the remaining two classes of the morning were finally over.

Like most children of dual-income families, Chen Junqian was enrolled in a daycare program for lunch. He would eat lunch there, watch TV, take a nap, or go out with friends to play tag or blind man's bluff.

Just as Chen Junqian was preparing to return to after-school care after more than ten years, he suddenly noticed that Lin Mu was still sitting alone in his seat, and was pursing his lips and persistently rummaging through his desk drawer and backpack compartments, even deliberately turning the pages of each textbook one by one.

"What are you looking for?"

After all, they were classmates, a student in after-school care, and acquaintances, so Chen Junqian paused for a moment and casually asked the other person this question.

"……money."

After hesitating for a moment, the petite girl tilted her head slightly upwards and spoke to him, then immediately added pitifully:

"Two, two hundred yuan."

Chapter 4: The Wild Young Lady (crossed out) Appears

Before Lin Mu mentioned the number two hundred, Chen Junqian thought that the other party had only lost five or ten yuan. He was surprised to find that the other party had asked for two hundred. After all, for elementary school students of their age, apart from the New Year's money, they usually don't have the opportunity to receive so much money.

"To be precise, it's one hundred and ninety-three yuan and fifty cents, almost two hundred..."

This one is almost the price of my breakfast for two mornings!

"So how did you come to school with so much money? Today isn't a day to pay any fees, and you don't need this much money to buy supplementary teaching materials, stationery, book covers, etc."

Faced with Chen Junqian's question, Lin Mu continued to carefully turn each page of the book, hoping that his money would suddenly appear on the next page, while earnestly explaining:

"Because my parents are not home this week, they went back to their hometown in the mountains to harvest walnuts. The two hundred yuan they left me is my food money for this week."

After Lin Mu's explanation, Chen Junqian immediately understood and realized that it was indeed the season for hickory nuts to ripen.

As the only relatively well-known and economically profitable specialty product of their small, third-tier county, Guoning's walnuts have been on a fast track of development since the beginning of this century, giving rise to nut brands such as Zhan's. In a few years, one of the sales directors from the neighboring county of Guoning will leave to start his own business, Sanzhixiongxu, and seize the last opportunity of e-commerce to soar to new heights.

Of course, these things are still quite far away for him and Lin Mu, who are two young children. Or rather, for some of his relatives and Lin Mu's parents, who are pecan growers, they only earn money from the raw materials. However, in 2009, this income is still quite substantial. The local TV station even broadcast a report titled "Peanut Trees Are Money Trees?"

That's why, every September, many migrant workers take a leave of absence, which local companies usually approve. As for their children who have already started school, the options are either to give them some money to make do for a few days or to put them in full-time daycare.

Clearly, Lin Mu's parents chose the former approach. In fact, most children would choose the former in this choice, since their parents being away from home is like having a holiday, and they can also get money to eat whatever they want. Is there anything better than that?

"...I can't find it. I have no idea where I lost it."

After searching high and low, Lin Mu slumped onto her desk, looking dejected. She sniffled a couple of times, feeling like she was about to burst into tears. Losing two hundred yuan would upset even an adult, let alone a child, especially since it was her dinner money for the next week.

So you don't have a single penny on you right now?

"And there's still nine and a half yuan left over from buying breakfast this morning."

Lin Mu pitifully pulled out a handful of bills and coins from his pocket, then counted on his fingers:

"Even if I buy all bagged instant noodles... there are still six days left in this week, it's not enough no matter how you calculate it."

The after-school care they attended only provided lunch. At most, the students could do some more homework there in the evening, but they didn't cook, so there was no way for them to have an extra meal there temporarily.

"Isn't there still nine yuan and fifty cents? That's enough. Let's go back to the after-school care center and have lunch first. I'll take care of dinner for you, okay?"

Perhaps because of some system that had been constantly reminding him of something, or perhaps simply out of a desire to help his classmate, Chen Junqian thought for a moment before speaking. Lin Mu, however, remained skeptical, shrinking back like a little animal and refusing.

"I don't want to eat at your house."

Although the two could be considered classmates and acquaintances, Lin Mu didn't think they were that close. Moreover, the thought of going to a male classmate's house for dinner and meeting his parents made her blush, so she quickly said this to make her stance clear.

"When did I invite you to my house for dinner? Rather, I'd say I'm going to your house for a while, on your turf, is that alright?"

"...Why, why are you suddenly coming to my house again?"

"You'll see when the time comes. Come on, come on, or the after-school care auntie will really send someone to our class to find us."

After saying this, Chen Junqian left the classroom first, and Lin Mu followed closely behind him, keeping a few steps away. It seemed that she wanted to say a few more words to him, but also that she didn't want other students from their class to see them. It wasn't until they returned to the after-school care center and got their food that she finally came closer again.

After all, in after-school care, which is a hodgepodge of students from first to sixth grade, it wouldn't be a problem for two students of the same grade and class to get together, but it would be strange in the classroom.

Having convinced himself of this, Lin Mu reached out and nudged Chen Junqian's elbow, asking softly:

Why are you coming to my house, hey—

"Cooking? Your parents are only gone for a week, so there's definitely rice and oil at home. They might even find a couple of eggs in the kitchen. Just go to the market and buy some vegetables, and you can make a few dinners for them. If you can't finish today, cover it with plastic wrap and put it in the fridge. You can reheat it tomorrow... Wait, do you know how to do this?"

Lin Mu tilted her head in confusion, blinking her eyes, her gaze filled with nothing but clarity and naivety, in response to Chen Junqian's long, self-righteous statement.

"Cooking?"

"Okay, I can't tell at all. I don't know if you have a microwave at home, since I've never been to your house before."

"You... of course you've never been to my house. Nobody in my class has ever been to my house. You really can cook?"

"At least it's not bad to eat."

"But before my mother left, she told me not to play with fire or electricity when I was home alone."