Lu Yichen was already outside by the time Xu Yan finished returning his tray, leaning under a gingko tree with one hand in his pocket. Students kept walking past, and none of them dared get close.
Xu Yan clocked this from a distance and muttered, "He's handsome enough to be a campus landmark at this point."
Then he heard himself say it.
[I said that out loud again.]
Thankfully Lu Yichen just glanced up.
"Finished?"
"Mm."
They started walking toward the Student Affairs Building, in silence. Before they even reached the building, a cluster of students hurried past.
"Did you hear? The Shen family's young master is here again."
"AGAIN? He was just here Monday."
"He's carrying lunch this time."
"For who?"
"No idea, that's the whole reason everyone's going."
Xu Yan slowed down. "...Shen family?"
Something about the name triggered something at his memory. He dug through what he remembered of the novel, and a few seconds later his eyes went wide.
[Wait. Isn't Shen Ming the second male lead's younger brother?]
[He's not supposed to show up until halfway through the semester.]
[Did the plot already move that much ?]
By the time they reached the Student Affairs Building, a small crowd had gathered outside the windows, everyone doing an extremely poor job of pretending to admire the hallway scenery. Xu Yan and Lu Yichen slid into a corner with a clean sightline, the way they seemed to naturally do now.
Inside, a tall guy in expensive-looking casualwear stood beside a desk, holding a lunchbox with both hands . Across from him, a student with glasses looked completely lost.
"I'm telling you," the guy with glasses said, "you have the wrong person."
"I don't."
"My brother's been asking about you for months," Shen Ming said. "He said you like braised ribs."
"I've never MET your brother! I don't even know your family! You clearly have the wrong person!"
A collective breath sucked in from the hallway.Xu Yan accepted a bag of chips that Lu Yichen and murmured a quick thanks before adding, under his breath, "Perfect snack timing."
"Wait, so it's not even him confessing,"
someone whispered. "It's on behalf of his brother?"
"Then who's actually into who??"
Xu Yan nearly choked on a chip. "Wrong," he mumbled. "Completely wrong. It's not a confession at all."
Lu Yichen glanced over. Xu Yan didn't notice at all.
"He's not confessing for his brother. His brother's not chasing him romantically." A quiet sigh. "They're twins. Separated at birth, hospital mix-up. The older brother's been quietly looking for him for years —
that's how he knows about the braised ribs, the allergies, all of it. This kid just misread the whole thing as a love confession."
The words were out before he registered saying them.Silence.Not from the classroom.From right beside him.Xu Yan turned his head slowly and found Lu Yichen already looking at him — quietly curious, like he'd stumbled onto something interesting and wasn't ready to look away from it yet.
"...How do you know that?"
Xu Yan's heart skipped a beat .
[Think. Think fast. Do not say "I read this in a novel."]
He scratched the side of his face. "...Lucky guess?"
Lu Yichen studied him for a few seconds without saying anything. "Mm." He didn't push it further.He also didn't look like he believed it.
Right then, a middle-aged woman burst into the classroom, marched straight up to Shen Ming, and grabbed him by the ear.
"I told your brother to wait for the DNA results before sending you here! He's been quietly searching for his twin for THREE YEARS and you just show up with a LUNCHBOX?!"
The hallway went dead silent.
Xu Yan slowly covered his face. "...Called it. Mostly."
Inside, Shen Ming was still protesting. "But he has the same mole Brother described! And the same allergy list!"
"That's called EVIDENCE, not an invitation to walk in uninvited!"
The hallway exploded.
"WAIT, TWINS?!"
"The forum had it completely wrong!"
Phones came out in unison, thumbs flying. Within a minute, a new post had already climbed to the top of the campus board:
BREAKING: Rich Young Master's "Secret Lover" Confession Was Actually a Long-Lost Twin Search??
Xu Yan let out a happy sigh, already scrolling the thread. "Now THIS is quality content."
Beside him, Lu Yichen pulled up the same post without a word. He read for a moment, then asked, , "Still a lucky guess?"
Xu Yan stiffened. "...Maybe my intuition's just unusually good?"
Lu Yichen didn't answer that . He looked at Xu Yan for one more second before going back to his phone.But the thought had already settled in somewhere in the back of his mind.
Xu Yan knew things he had no business knowing.