"That's your house?" Xue Rui asked in surprise.
The mud-brick house was dilapidated. Some of the roof tiles were missing—it was hard to tell if it leaked—and the walls were faintly cracked.
Dry firewood was stacked neatly under the eaves, and a chicken coop sat in the corner. A rooster and a few hens were strolling leisurely around the yard.
Mud-brick houses were actually quite common in the countryside. They were usually left vacant by families who had bought a home in the city with no intention of returning.
But for that mud-brick house to be Lin Ruoxi's home? That was completely beyond his expectations.
"It's my home," Lin Ruoxi mumbled, her face flushing with embarrassment.
Xue Rui's surprised reaction was just what she had expected.
"I've heard houses like this are warm in the winter and cool in the summer. Perfect for living in."
Xue Rui offered a casual platitude. 'This silly girl,' he thought, 'she must have taken a huge leap of faith to bring a classmate home.'
He strode into the dirt yard, but before he could even put the things down, a big yellow dog rushed at him, baring its teeth.
"WOOF WOOF WOOF!"
The yellow mongrel barked furiously at Xue Rui, its body rocking back and forth as if it was ready to take a bite out of him at any moment.
"Da Huang, quiet!"
Lin Ruoxi scolded it gently. Her voice had no bite, but Da Huang's eyes suddenly cleared up. Its tail started wagging furiously as it subserviently rubbed against Lin Ruoxi's leg.
'I'm treated worse than a dog.'
Xue Rui did as Lin Ruoxi said and put the things in the kitchen.
The kitchen was a separate room in the corner of the yard. To be more precise, it should have been called a hearth room, as it contained a wood-burning stove. A strong, smoky smell hit you the moment you walked in.
"Xixi is back," a raspy voice called out from inside the house.
The old woman was wearing a simple undershirt. Her back was bent at nearly a ninety-degree angle, and she walked with a pronounced limp. Wrinkles covered her face.
"Grandma, I'm Xixi's classmate. I came especially to see you."
Xue Rui greeted her enthusiastically, his voice deliberately loud in case the old woman was hard of hearing.
The old woman looked to be over seventy and wasn't in good health. Sickness and death were a natural part of life, but… 'Could this old woman's fate be tied to Lin Ruoxi's?'
But the old woman could walk and smile now. How could her fated day be this year's Mid-Autumn Festival?
"Grandma, go sit and rest. I'll make dinner," Lin Ruoxi said, the corners of her eyes crinkling into a smile when she saw the old woman.
'So she can smile.'
Lin Ruoxi's smile seemed to brighten the entire world.
It was the first time Xue Rui had ever seen Lin Ruoxi smile. She was pretty to begin with, but her smile made her even more beautiful. He leaned in to get a better look, staring until her cheeks turned bright red and she lowered her head, scurrying into the kitchen…
"So it's a boy," the old woman muttered.
Xue Rui's hearing was perfectly fine. "Something wrong with a boy, Grandma?" he retorted good-naturedly. "A girl couldn't have carried that fifty-pound bag of flour."
"Yes, yes, yes, a boy is good."
The old woman hobbled over, carrying a chair, and lowered herself into it with great effort. Xue Rui wasn't picky. Since he was just wearing his school uniform pants anyway, he plopped down on the bluestone steps next to her.
"Grandma, why don't you go to the village entrance and sit with your friends?" Xue Rui asked casually.
"It's the same no matter where I sit. It's all just waiting for death," the old woman said, shaking her head.
Xue Rui was speechless. She was right.
The old folks at the village entrance were like NPCs that respawned in the same spot every day.
They sat there without any real purpose, just to while away their remaining time. To put it bluntly, they were waiting to die, because there was simply nothing else to do.
"TSK TSK TSK."
Bored, Xue Rui tried to call Da Huang over, using the time-honored clicking sound that every dog's ancestors had passed down, hoping to pet the pup.
Da Huang was loitering by the kitchen door. Upon hearing the sound that awakened its very genes, it instinctively turned and started wagging its tail. But when it saw Xue Rui was the one calling, its eyes filled with disdain, and it instantly whipped its head back around.
'Damn, is it sentient?'
Xue Rui clicked his tongue in amazement. Da Huang's expression was just like a person's.
Not long after Lin Ruoxi went inside, white smoke began to curl from the chimney on the roof. The rising smoke, combined with the mud-brick house and dirt yard, painted a quaint, rustic scene.
In another decade or so, scenes like this would be all but extinct.
As the smoke continued to rise, Lin Ruoxi came back out, holding the plastic bag with the items she had just bought. There was a smudge of black ash on the tip of her nose, which was utterly adorable.
"I… I bought you a toothbrush, toothpaste, and a towel. This is the best the village has to offer. I hope… I hope you can make do."
Lin Ruoxi said, blushing. She knew Xue Rui came from a wealthy family and wondered if he'd be able to use such simple things.
"For me?" Xue Rui asked, surprised. 'Is this silly girl asking me to stay the night?'
At the thought, Xue Rui couldn't help but get excited.
"The last bus will be gone by the time we finish dinner," Lin Ruoxi explained. "And you can't hail a taxi out here."
"Well that's just… a real shame!" Xue Rui said with a look of regret, acting as if he were terribly disappointed. In reality, he was blooming with joy on the inside.
'This silly girl,' he thought. 'Has she never heard of a phone? You can call a taxi company and get a cab, even way out in the countryside.'
Then again, he considered, Lin Ruoxi was still living in an age of cooking over a wood fire. It was perfectly normal that she wouldn't know.
'Such a pure, adorable girl. Just a little dense.'
Xue Rui deliberately put on a pained expression while trying to stifle his laughter, shaking his head until his face was all scrunched up.
Seeing how "miserable" he looked, Lin Ruoxi thought he was truly reluctant to stay in a mud-brick house. She said timidly:
"You can sleep in my room. It's very clean."
"Well then, I suppose I'll reluctantly accept," Xue Rui said, struggling to keep his lips from smiling.
'How could something this good actually be happening?'
Both Gu Muxue and Lin Ruoxi were S-Class beauties, but when it came to their clear-difficulty…
One was a hell-level raid, and the other was the beginner's tutorial.
To this day, Xue Rui still hadn't managed to get anywhere with Gu Muxue, and he even had the bite mark on his arm to prove it.
As for Lin Ruoxi? A little sweet-talking and she'd already hugged him on her own initiative, and was now even offering him her room for the night.
If he tried to pull the same moves on Gu Muxue, he was afraid she'd figure out he was up to no good before he even opened his mouth.
"What are you making?"
Xue Rui had just eaten an apple and a tomato, so he wasn't very hungry.
But he was still curious. What did Lin Ruoxi normally eat? Why was her dog, Da Huang, chubbier than she was?
The truth is, country dogs often hunt for themselves, catching field mice and the like for an extra meal.
"Noodles."
With that, Lin Ruoxi went back into the kitchen.
Xue Rui poked his head in curiously. A large pot of water was boiling in the kitchen. Lin Ruoxi came out holding a mixing bowl, and the two of them ended up crowded in the doorway.
"You've got some ash on your face," Xue Rui said. Since her hands were full, he took the opportunity to give her little nose a pinch.
And with that, he smeared the black ash from the tip of her nose across her face.
Two long finger smudges now streaked across Lin Ruoxi's face, making her look like a little kitten…
Her slender arms were buried in the mixing bowl, rhythmically kneading the dough. Every so often, she would use her wrist to gently wipe the beads of sweat from her forehead, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear as she did.
The process looked a bit unhygienic. She wasn't wearing a hairnet, and she was wiping away sweat; a few drops might have even fallen into the dough. But Xue Rui didn't care.
A beautiful girl with ash on her face, kneading dough by hand… if this were in Japan, a bowl of noodles made like this could probably sell for an exorbitant price.
"Handmade noodles?" Xue Rui asked, his anticipation growing.
Jin Province was famous for its noodle dishes, but as times changed, most restaurants had started using machine-pressed fresh noodles. They just weren't the same as handmade ones. You could usually only get purely handmade noodles like this at home.
How many girls were even willing to cook these days? And one who knew how to knead her own dough? She was an absolute keeper.
Lin Ruoxi's hands paused mid-knead. She had been eating so well at school these past few days, she suddenly thought. How could she serve Xue Rui something as simple as noodles?