Meng Yan's Transformation

Chapter 575 Mistaken for Hui

"Sister Yue'er, are you really convinced? After my explanation, do you feel like eating soy sauce rice right now?"

As Zhan Mengyan spoke, she looked at Zhan Yue with a smug expression.

"No."

Zhan Yue shook her head as she spoke.

"Oh no, it seems my language skills are terrible. All those weak words were useless—I didn't even make you want to eat rice with soy sauce. Sigh, I'm such a disgrace to being a liberal arts student."

When Zhan Mengyan spoke, she looked dejected.

“Mengyan, what you said is quite good, but I don’t understand. If soy sauce rice is so delicious, then the cafeteria doesn’t need to cook. Giving each student a bottle of soy sauce would be so much easier. I’ve noticed you have an Ah Q mentality—if you can’t eat delicious food, you say your soy sauce rice is better than anything else. That’s just self-comfort and self-conquest. In this kind of tough learning environment, having an Ah Q mentality is also a way of survival.”

As Zhan Yue spoke, the two crossed the last road.

Zhan Mengyan gently took Zhan Yue's arm. A car drove past, its headlights briefly illuminating their intertwined figures before disappearing into the night. The outline of the school gate's stone pillars came into view ahead, and the school's mailroom still shone with warm light, like a beacon that had always been there for them in this city.

The next morning, Zhan Mengyan didn't sleep in. Since she didn't have to attend morning exercises or morning self-study, she got up a little later than usual. Some classmates had gone home for the weekend, so the large dormitory where people slept face-to-face and back-to-back was less crowded.

Zhan Mengyan quietly got up; Zhan Yue and the other classmates were still sleeping. As she dressed, she was somewhat amazed by the colorful bedding on the communal bed—the patterns were intricate and breathtakingly vivid! The Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea, the God of Longevity and Peach, Dragons and Phoenixes Bringing Auspiciousness, Qilin in the Mist, a Hundred Flowers in Full Bloom, Peonies and Butterflies, Puppies, and Clouds… The bedding was haphazardly crammed together, with a majestic Qilin stepping on the ruddy forehead of the God of Longevity; a soaring dragon chasing butterflies; and a puppy happily carrying a phoenix tail swaying in the wind… It was truly imaginative and beyond compare.

Zhan Mengyan went to the cafeteria and got a hot bowl of sorghum rice. She mixed it with soy sauce, and the reddish-brown sorghum rice turned into a dark red and black color. She stirred it with a spoon and stood in a corner of the cafeteria to enjoy her meal.

Soy sauce-mixed rice is softer and tastier than regular rice, while sorghum rice is coarser and less flavorful. For Zhan Mengyan, being able to fill her stomach was already a wonderful thing.

"This girl never eats the food in our cafeteria. Is she Hui?"

"She never eats vegetables, only rice. How can she possibly swallow it?"

“She had a small bottle on the windowsill. I saw that it contained something that looked like soy sauce. She would pour a little into it every time she ate and mix it with her food.”

"Today our cafeteria made pickled potato shreds and pickled cabbage shreds, without any lard. Can someone go and take some to her?"

"..."

The chefs in the cafeteria were whispering among themselves at a distance from Zhan Mengyan.

Finally, they pushed Zheng Huaiyong out.

Zheng Huaiyong held a bowl in each hand. One bowl contained shredded potatoes, and the other contained shredded cabbage.

"Try my side dish! There's...no...lard in it..."

As Zheng Huaiyong spoke, his hands trembled slightly as he placed the two bowls of food on the windowsill in front of Zhan Mengyan, next to her soy sauce bottle. His voice was so soft it was almost drowned out by the roar of the oil pump, and his ears were flushed. When Zhan Mengyan looked up and smiled, he was hurriedly turning his face away to straighten his apron, the faded apron unconsciously rubbing it into countless wrinkles.