Chapter 27: Class Eight Grade One
After the principal’s stumbling speech ended, the students of Class Eight Grade One discovered that some curious peers from the same grade and even upperclassmen were walking back and forth in front of their class. Upon asking, they learned that their “glorious deed” of sneaking steamed buns during the principal’s speech had already gone viral throughout the school.
“Xiang—Chuan—!”
Some straightforward classmates immediately rushed up to Xiang Chuan. Although they knew they were at fault, they could have just put the steamed buns in their own food boxes to keep warm and eaten them after class. But for some reason at the time, seeing the white steamed buns in their hands, they couldn’t help but eat them.
One must take responsibility for one’s actions—this was the awareness of most people in the class, but the guy in front of them definitely had to bear secondary responsibility! This was the thought of everyone in the class.
“Alright, alright, it was my fault. I shouldn’t have taken them out before class.”
Xiang Chuan looked embarrassed. She hadn’t expected something like this to happen while she was losing her battle against sleepiness. This also refreshed her cognition of modern people’s zero resistance to 21st Century gourmet food.
In the end, Xiang Chuan “had to” provide buns and steamed buns to the whole class for three days before the classmates fully let her off the hook, but this also brought everyone closer together.
Everyone had sneaked snacks together, making them accomplices. What identity could bring more sense of closeness than being accomplices?
So, while other classes were still awkwardly doing self-introductions, everyone gathered around Xiang Chuan to chat. Before long, they basically knew each other’s names. After all, it was a class of only thirty-five people, and it was easy to recognize them.
“Xiang Chuan, your father is the chairman of Yue Xiang, right? Could this food be a new product that Yue Xiang is developing?”
A classmate behind her asked. This classmate, like Ouyang Yating, had noticed the Yue Xiang official seal on the appraisal certificate. Xiang Chuan, with the surname Xiang, and from Yue Xiang—anyone paying attention to the food industry could definitely guess her identity.
The crowd was stunned by Xiang Chuan’s identity, then suddenly realized: No wonder she could casually take out so much food they’d never seen before. It turned out she was the daughter of Chairman Xiang Weiguo.
“I can’t say much about Dad’s side, since he’s been pretty busy lately,” Xiang Chuan replied. Though it sounded a bit perfunctory, it was the truth. The yam-related application had just been submitted by Yue Xiang Group, and now they were starting to research the diet chain store plan, while also handling the communication meetings with the diplomatic mission. Xiang Weiguo and Secretary Xiao Ye had been so busy their feet barely touched the ground these past few days. If not for the company canteen only having solid food and liquid food, unable to satisfy Xiang Weiguo’s tongue spoiled by his eldest daughter and the kitchen AI recipe inventory, Xiang Chuan suspected Dad might as well live at the company.
“If it can be sold publicly, I hope the price is cheap. I accidentally broke Grandpa’s ornament last week, and this month’s pocket money was directly deducted by half.”
“Haha, that’s rough. Last week I helped Mom with housework and my pocket money doubled.”
“You brat, next time in the virtual game pod, don’t expect me to treat.”
“No way, loser pays.”
“Count me in. My meteorite hit rate is pretty good.”
“Great, tomorrow noon, let’s play a round together?”
Xiang Chuan was sighing over how adolescent boys were all social butterflies when suddenly a few female classmates came up to her.
“Xiang Chuan, this,” a girl took out her terminal. There was a familiar icon on the desktop. Clicking it open, it was indeed Xiang Xue’s live stream room, though it was currently offline. In the center of the window hung an announcement about adjusting the live stream time to evenings, and the comment section nearby had some of Xiang Xue’s classmates’ parents or government staff who got in through connections chatting. “This thing called ‘live stream room’ is an invitation I got from my sister two days ago. I occasionally see you in the kitchen making food in this sister’s live stream. Is that you?”
A live stream room with only over two thousand audience members, and she ran into an audience member offline just like that? Xiang Chuan thought in surprise.
“Yes, that’s something my sister and they fiddled with,” Xiang Chuan immediately distanced herself from it. Bringing dishes to school was already eye-catching enough. If people knew she had suggested this live stream room, they’d probably stare at her like a rare animal. “I didn’t expect someone in class to be watching too.”
“Too bad I found out too late and missed the first few days’ live streams.” The female classmate sighed. “People in the live stream room say you often make things in the kitchen for sister Xiang Xue to taste. I saw sister Xiang Xue in the live stream room say you often make delicious food with fruit. Can fruit be made into food too?”
Hearing about fruit, Ouyang Yating, who was chatting with someone nearby about steamed buns and buns, suddenly turned her head. But Xiang Chuan was blocked by most of her line of sight by the classmates and didn’t notice the situation at the seat next to her.
“Fruit is food itself, of course it can be used to make things, though not for main meals.”
Though there were recipes that could be dishes too. Xiang Chuan added inwardly. Before leaving home, Xiang Qi had instructed her to avoid letting school people know her identity as an information turbulence contactee if possible, so she silently swallowed many fruit-related dish ideas she couldn’t help wanting to blurt out.
The female classmates wanted to ask more about the live stream room, but the class bell rang just then, so everyone reluctantly returned to their seats.
Only then did Xiang Chuan notice Ouyang Yating in the seat to her left staring at her intently, making her involuntarily sit up straight.
What was wrong? Had she accidentally done something stupid again? Xiang Chuan wondered nervously.
Fortunately, with the homeroom teacher’s arrival, Ouyang Yating withdrew her gaze, letting her breathe a sigh of relief. Next came the explanation of the school curriculum, which immediately pushed this little interlude out of Xiang Chuan’s mind.
After the first period ended, Zhu Bingwen was called over by the principal and the grade director. The grade director harshly criticized him for not maintaining class discipline, while the principal, snapping out of the shock of the “whole class collectively sneaking snacks,” actually played the peacemaker.
“Teacher Zhu, go back and chat more with that student. Loving food is a blessing, but don’t eat during class or, cough, speeches.”
At the end, the principal’s face still showed a slight unnaturalness.
Finally, Zhu Bingwen used the excuse of “class is about to start, and it’s not good for the homeroom teacher to be late on the first day” to escape the principal’s solicitous concern and the grade director’s nagging.
Returning to the class, he saw the students obediently sitting in their seats, looking at him curiously, as if they weren’t the ones who had sneaked unknown food in front of the whole school just now. Zhu Bingwen’s frustration from being “cared for” in turn by the two leaders instantly turned into a sense of exhaustion.
It seemed the next three years would be anything but boring.
After a simple self-introduction, Zhu Bingwen began explaining the high school curriculum arrangements.
“Some classmates may already know this, but high school curriculum arrangements differ from junior high. High school uses a combination of classroom education and club education. Usually, mornings are for classroom education, with the same schedule as junior high. Afternoons are for club activities, and you need to submit activity results once a month.”
“The evaluation standards for club activity results are quite flexible and varied. Simply divided into literature and science departments: Literature department clubs need to submit text-based results, such as reading clubs submitting club magazines or book papers, dance clubs submitting new choreographies, etc. Science department clubs need to personally make self-made items for their club, such as programming clubs making a compliant and legal application program, handicraft ornament clubs submitting a self-made ornament, etc.”
As he spoke, Zhu Bingwen used the class terminal to send the school’s representative club introductions to the students. Besides the programming club and reading club just mentioned, there were some sports clubs, though few in number. At the end of the introduction was a list of all current clubs in the school.
Xiang Chuan glanced at it and didn’t find any gourmet food related ones. Thinking about it, it made sense—if modern students ran a gourmet food club, it would only produce mushy “mud water” or “charcoal” stuff…
“These three days, you can freely find clubs you like in the afternoons. If you have other questions, feel free to contact me anytime.”
With that, Zhu Bingwen crossed his arms and stood silently in the corner. As soon as he finished speaking, discussion erupted in the class.
