Chapter 21: Shen Huai, You Have No Heart

Me? A hooligan? I just wanted to buy a power adapter, how did I become a hooligan?

Shen Huai refused to take the blame: "Beauty, this habit of yours of pinning labels on people is not good."

"Where did I pin labels? You clearly spoke rudely." The girl placed the feather duster heavily on the checkout counter, hands on her hips, in a posture of not letting it go.

Shen Huai looked at this master of mishearing before him, who was both ashamed and annoyed, and was left completely speechless.

"I'm asking, do you have some kind of serious illness? I just wanted to come buy a power adapter, a power adapter!"

Shen Huai pointed at the computer power adapter hanging on the wall and retorted directly.

In an instant.

A trace of panic flashed through the girl's angry eyes.

The arrogant posture of her hands on her hips also seemed less justified.

She turned her head to look at the charger, then turned back to glare at Shen Huai: "A computer charger is a computer charger, why say power adapter? How would I know if you were trying to harass me."

"And wearing a mask, trying to cover it up, you don't look like a good person at all."

Upon hearing this, Shen Huai was so angry he didn't know where to start.

Good grief, shifting the blame?!

"Do you have persecutory delusions? You're the one who misheard, and you blame others?" Shen Huai felt his patience was reaching its limit.

The whole day today.

He had been revolving around various ex-girlfriends, the string in his brain pulled tight at every moment, fearing some mishap.

As it turned out.

In the time it took to buy a power adapter, he was labeled a "hooligan" again.

It simply shattered his cognitive boundaries regarding human diversity.

Shen Huai decided that this weekend, he must go to a temple to pay his respects properly.

Everything he experienced today was so magical it made him wonder if he had eaten hallucinogenic mushrooms.

Seeing Shen Huai retort, the girl was about to continue speaking.

At this moment.

A cheerful and light voice suddenly appeared between the two.

"Sister Luo Xiaoya, I'm back."

Shen Huai turned his head to look and saw a petite girl wearing a supermarket uniform standing between the two, looking at Shen Huai with confusion.

"What are you two... what's wrong? Sister Luo Xiaoya, who is he?"

The young girl's gaze was fixed on Shen Huai's face, her eyes faintly shining, seemingly full of interest in Shen Huai.

Shen Huai's gaze fell silently onto the young girl's chest, and he couldn't help but frown.

He saw the words 【Cashier】 clearly hanging on her name tag.

Could it be...

The girl who came later is the actual supermarket cashier? Then who is this woman who misheard everything and argued with him? "Don't know him, but wearing a black mask in the company in broad daylight, he doesn't look like a good person at all," Luo Xiaoya said coldly with sarcasm.

Shen Huai was completely dumbfounded and was about to retort.

Unexpectedly.

Luo Xiaoya didn't give him a chance to speak at all.

She immediately stuffed the feather duster back into the young girl's hand and instructed, "Since you're back, I'm going back. I still have work to finish."

"Received, Sister Luo Xiaoya, you are truly the best." The girl laughed happily, "Only you, Sister Luo Xiaoya, have no airs; even as a Team Leader, you're willing to cover my shift."

"Don't say these useless things. Oh right, there's a lot of dust at the front desk, it needs cleaning. If the boss catches you, your performance review for this month will suffer again."

After Luo Xiaoya finished speaking, she looked up and glared fiercely at Shen Huai again.

Only then did she open the front desk drawer, take out a work badge, hang it back around her neck, and then swaggered out from behind the front desk.

Shen Huai's gaze was immediately drawn to the name on the work badge—

【Administrative Department Team 4 Team Leader, Luo Xiaoya】

Luo Xiaoya.

Luo Xiaoya...

Hm? Luo... Luo Xiaoya?! No, wait a minute.

Shen Huai felt as if he had been struck by lightning on the spot; he stood there stunned, even forgetting to breathe.

Luo Xiaoya, Luo Xiaoya.

Dead memories suddenly surged up.

Ever since Su Meng's family moved abroad, Shen Huai had been in a daze during that time, like a walking corpse.

Having tasted the bitterness of love for the first time, Shen Huai felt that every day was extremely boring.

During this period, there was one person who had been silently accompanying him.

Perhaps the word "accompanying" is not quite accurate.

Perhaps it should be "coincidence after coincidence."

She would always appear by the side of the dead-drunk Shen Huai at very "coincidental" times.

And it would always be very coincidental that she appeared in the same restaurant, the same library, the same shopping mall as Shen Huai...

This person was a girl named Luo Xiaoya. Just like Shen Huai and Su Meng, she was a classmate.

It's just that whether it was grades or looks, Luo Xiaoya was at a level in class that no one cared about.

So throughout high school, Shen Huai had never noticed this girl who existed like a transparent person in the class.

Until after graduation, the brilliant Su Meng suddenly said goodbye.

One "coincidental encounter" after another.

Only then did this unremarkable girl gradually enter Shen Huai's field of vision.

Luo Xiaoya.

It was a name Shen Huai had given her on a whim while they were watching a variety show after they had gotten together.

Shen Huai remembered that he had said at the time that he felt the two characters for "Xiaoya" were too lowly.

The two characters "Xiaoya" were much more elegant.

Shen Huai vaguely remembered that Luo Xiaoya's expression had seemed very complicated at the time, and she had even uncharacteristically fallen into deep thought.

Afterwards, as that relationship came to an end, the matter of the name was left unsettled.

He never expected.

That Shen Huai would be able to see this name again here.

Could it be another coincidence?

Just the same name and surname?

Shen Huai strode to catch up, grabbed Luo Xiaoya, and stared fixedly at her face.

"You... what are you doing?" Being suddenly grabbed by Shen Huai, Luo Xiaoya's expression was extremely angry.

Yet Shen Huai did not care in the slightest.

He looked at Luo Xiaoya with deep eyes.

The face in his memory gradually overlapped with the person before him.

"... I really didn't see wrong." Shen Huai's heart skipped a beat.

They say a girl changes eighteen times as she grows.

He never expected that the once unremarkable, lowly, and lusterless face would grow up to be so overbearing.

But no matter how much she changed.

Those clear, limpid eyes.

Were still exactly the same as when she was 18.

"What didn't you see wrong? I knew you were up to no good with me—"

Halfway through her sentence.

Luo Xiaoya suddenly froze.

She walked closer to Shen Huai, eyes meeting, without the slightest retreat.

Looking into Shen Huai's deep eyes, Luo Xiaoya's gaze first revealed a hint of confusion, then suspicion, and finally, her pupils erupted with a flash of shock.

Immediately following.

She directly raised her hand and ripped off Shen Huai's mask! The moment she saw Shen Huai's true face.

Luo Xiaoya's pupils suddenly constricted, and her breathing abruptly hitched! "It really is you!"

Luo Xiaoya's face turned livid, she bit her lower lip, and angrily cursed in a low voice.

"I didn't expect it either."

Shen Huai spoke with surprise, but his tone was much calmer than Luo Xiaoya's.

There had been too many bizarre things happening today; he was almost immune to them.

How could the recruitment standards of this Star Shine be exactly the same as his standards for choosing a girlfriend? Otherwise, how could they have recruited all of his ex-girlfriends into the company?

"You've become prettier." Shen Huai let go of Luo Xiaoya's hand and greeted her with a smile.

"Oh? Is that so? Prettier than those you dated after you broke up with me?"

Luo Xiaoya said in a low, sour voice.

Although Shen Huai had blocked all her contact methods directly after breaking up with her, and he never attended high school reunions.

But there is no such thing as an airtight wall in this world.

She could still catch some of the scandalous gossip about Shen Huai from idle chatter.

"Each has their own beauty," Shen Huai answered truthfully.

Hearing this, a trace of resentment flashed in the depths of Luo Xiaoya's eyes.

"Shen Huai, you truly have no heart."

Luo Xiaoya's voice grew deeper as she spoke, as if she were choking back sobs.

"Isn't it just that I installed tracking software on your phone? I only did that because I loved you."

"And because of this reason, you disappeared from my life without a word."

"Now you even praise your girlfriends as pretty right in front of me; is your heart truly made of iron, Shen Huai?"

(End of this chapter)