Damn it, I'm surrounded by childhood sweethearts

On Monday, Xu Qingfan and Xia Xiaoxiao were waiting for the school bus at the entrance of the courtyard. "Kids, why no chee cheong fun today?" the rice noodle shop owner asked with a chuckle, looking at the two standing shoulder to shoulder waiting for the bus. "Good morning, Boss. We steamed buns at home," Xu Qingfan replied politely, lifting the bag of buns he was holding. The real reason was that his friend beside him had grown tired of rice noodles and wanted to eat soup dumplings instead. Early in the morning, she had disturbed his peaceful sleep, and after washing up, they dashed to the street corner to wait for a mobile NPC—a lady pushing a cart selling soup dumplings. A white cloth covered dozens of towering steamers. When lifted, the steaming mist was so hot it almost burned, and the thinly wrapped, generously filled soup dumplings were neatly arranged inside, their juices soaking into the translucent wrappers. The soup dumplings were one yuan per steamer, twelve in each, and Xia Xiaoxiao could only eat seven before she was full, leaving the rest on Xu Qingfan's lap: "Here, you eat them." "It's hot!" Xu Qingfan quickly moved them aside and flicked Xia Xiaoxiao on the forehead with his finger. "Sorry, I forgot," Xia Xiaoxiao said apologetically, taking two boxes of milk out of her backpack and handing one to Xu Qingfan. Upon seeing the milk brand, Xu Qingfan exclaimed, "Damn! Why did you buy this brand of milk? Stop drinking it!" He snatched the Four Deer Milk from Xia Xiaoxiao's hand, "When did you buy this, and you haven't drunk it before, have you?" Xia Xiaoxiao, startled by his outburst, looked puzzled but seeing his serious expression, replied earnestly, "My mom got it from school, just opened it today, and started drinking." Xu Qingfan cursed his former school under his breath, thinking of all things to distribute, why this thing? Was it necessary to drink this? Although drinking a small amount wasn't a big issue, as they both grew up healthy in his former life, but knowing a product had issues and still consuming it—wasn't that just reckless? "From now on, don't drink anything from this brand. If you want to drink milk, drink the Australian brand we had last time, not this one!" Xu Qingfan said seriously. Xia Xiaoxiao seemed indifferent, but seeing Xu Qingfan so earnest, she didn't brush him off and simply nodded, "Oh." "Humph! Worshiping foreign goods, our teacher said those who don't support local products are traitors!" a little boy sitting in front of them suddenly turned around, pointing at Xu Qingfan's nose and scolding. Xu Qingfan was left speechless and could only nod sheepishly. It was a good thing smartphones didn't exist yet, or this kid might have whipped out his cutting-edge phone to record Xu Qingfan's words and posted them online—refreshing the comments every few seconds to see how many people came to criticize this disgraceful act. Seeing Xu Qingfan criticized by an outsider, Xia Xiaoxiao instantly glared fiercely, "Of course, we should buy products that are good and affordable. If you love supporting local goods, go ahead, but don't bark here!" 'Bark' was a phrase she heard from Xu Qingfan before and found interesting, so she remembered it and used it now. Naturally, what Xu Qingfan actually said was 'dog's bark,' but Xia Xiaoxiao thought the middle words were inappropriate, so she omitted them. Xia Xiaoxiao was usually aloof, and now with a fierce expression, she looked every bit the young queen, intimidating the boy who had spoken, leaving him frozen on the spot. Especially the last phrase, "don't bark here." Reflecting on it afterward, the boy couldn't help but shiver, thinking to himself, "How could there be such vicious words in this world!" The minor episode on the bus passed quickly, and Xu Qingfan suddenly recalled his past life. Whenever he was bullied by his peers, Xia Xiaoxiao had always stood up for him like this. But thinking of what happened later, Xu Qingfan suddenly sighed; did he deserve to be her boyfriend in his past life? In his past life, his family was ordinary, his grades average, and his personality meek besides being handsome; he really had nothing else going for him. As the saying goes, having seen the blooming is good enough; why care about who owns the flower afterward. If Xia Xiaoxiao treats him just as a friend, then it's great to be friends for a lifetime, just as long as he doesn't go overseas to study! "Freedom United States, shootings every day!" Not long after, Xiao Ruawen also got on the bus and sat next to Xu Qingfan as usual: "Brother Fan, good morning, Xiao Xiao, good morning." "Yeah." "Morning." "Women's Day is coming soon. Shouldn't we prepare gifts for our teachers?" Xiao Ruawen asked. "Sure, we still have over three hundred yuan left from last semester's class fund." Since Zhang Yiyi was the life committee member, Xu Qingfan was very familiar with the finances of class sixteen. "I didn't ask you to agree with everything, I wanted your opinion!" Xiao Ruawen glared at Xu Qingfan reproachfully. Xu Qingfan leaned back, giving space to the two class presidents to discuss the idea of gifts for women, which he hated thinking about! "Let's send flowers and greeting cards; each of us can write a blessing on the card for the teachers." Xia Xiaoxiao suggested, recalling the gifts her mother received on Teacher's Day and Women's Day. "That's a great idea! All our classmates will write a message; the teachers will definitely be moved!" Xiao Ruawen clapped in agreement. [Each of us writing a message on the card, that's not bad.] Xu Qingfan thought about the backpack filled with snack cards he received on Christmas Eve. He had seriously looked at the ones from Xia Xiaoxiao and Lin Wanning, but the rest he only glanced over quickly and had no recall of their content. Once the details were agreed upon, the school bus arrived at the gate of Experimental Primary School. Back in the classroom, Xiao Ruawen took the opportunity before morning reading time to turn on the podium microphone, "Women's Day is coming up soon. We plan to collectively give a greeting card to each of the female teachers of class sixteen—Chinese, Math, Art, Music... a total of eight teachers. So everyone needs to think of eight blessings in advance to write on the cards after we buy them!" Since Zhang Yiyi could not hear, Xu Qingfan wrote down what the class president had just said on a piece of paper. After reading it, Zhang Yiyi raised her hand, seemingly having something to say. She looked at Xu Qingfan, then wrote on the paper: "What about the dormitory aunty and the cleaning aunty?" Xu Qingfan's pupils involuntarily widened, wondering why he hadn't thought of that. Could it be because he couldn't hear, his sight was exceptionally clear? Xu Qingfan smiled and ruffled the little girl's hair, giving her a thumbs-up, "You are amazing!" Zhang Yiyi, seemingly embarrassed by the praise, shyly smiled at Xu Qingfan. Lin Wanning, after seeing the content on the paper, also gave a thumbs-up and left a message, "Yiyi is an angel!" Xu Qingfan waved his hand, motioning to Xiao Ruawen, who was about to return to her seat, to come over: "Also, the cleaning ladies of our floor and the dorm supervisors." Xiao Ruawen also seemed to have just thought of that, gasped in surprise, nodded her head, and then turned the microphone back on, "To add on, we also need blessing messages for our dormitory aunties and cleaning aunties, making a total of twelve sentences for all students to prepare!" "Class president, what about the cafeteria aunty?" "Class president, what about my elective course teacher?" "Class president..." The classmates, as if a new thought had been sparked, began to speak out one after another. In the end, the class committee decided, in addition to the initially planned twelve greeting cards, to also send flowers to the rest, making sure that every woman could receive a gift on Women's Day.