Rebirth: Saving the Lovely Girl from the Start

In the hospital’s inpatient department.

Lin Ruoxi trotted into the hospital room, carrying a bowl of noodles.

Yu Minlan glanced at Xue Rui with envy. In the car on the way over, Lin Ruoxi had been constantly stirring the noodles, afraid they would clump together.

Xue Rui took the lunchbox and glanced inside. The noodles were unevenly thick, a clear sign that Lin Ruoxi had kneaded the dough herself. They were coated in a rich, thick sauce, with plenty of shredded pork and chili peppers.

"How thoughtful. You even mixed it for me," Xue Rui said, ruffling Lin Ruoxi’s hair.

Lin Ruoxi beamed, looking at Xue Rui with an expectant expression.

"Where’s yours?" Xue Rui asked.

The old lady’s meals were prepared separately. Lin Ruoxi had to cater to two different tastes, so she always made several dishes.

To be honest, even after spending so much time with Lin Ruoxi, Xue Rui still didn’t know what this girl liked to eat.

In Xue Rui’s memory, Lin Ruoxi was never a picky eater.

"I already had a bowl while Ruoxi was cooking. It was delicious," Yu Minlan said.

Lin Ruoxi’s noodles were smooth and chewy, and she could even taste the love they were made with;

Unfortunately, that love wasn’t meant for her.

Right now, she was setting out the old lady’s meal. The old lady was having multigrain rice.

"Who asked you?" Xue Rui said, speechless.

Lin Ruoxi said meekly, "We didn’t have enough lunchboxes at home. My portion is in there too."

Xue Rui looked at the lunchbox—at the soup container, to be precise. It was filled with a huge portion of noodles, definitely more than he could eat alone.

"I’ll just eat your leftovers," Lin Ruoxi said.

Xue Rui didn’t like eating leftovers, so she and Da Huang were always the ones to finish them. She didn’t mind eating what Xue Rui left behind.

Xue Rui said nothing. Lin Ruoxi hadn’t brought enough chopsticks, so they couldn’t even eat together.

He was genuinely hungry now. He slurped up the noodles in big mouthfuls. ’This girl’s cooking skills are truly one of a kind,’ he thought.

Lin Ruoxi rested her chin in her hands and watched Xue Rui eat. She loved watching him eat; it gave her a sense of peace.

The boy with the broken leg in the next bed was staring intently at Lin Ruoxi’s side profile. This girl was just too beautiful. He’d been looking at her for two days and still couldn’t get enough.

He turned to his own father, only to find that his dad’s focus was different from his. His father was staring at the noodles in Xue Rui’s hands.

"How wonderful," the man said wistfully.

"Dad, it’s just a bowl of noodles. What’s so wonderful about it?" the boy asked in a low voice.

"What do you know? You can tell just by looking that the noodles are hand-kneaded. They even added a couple of eggs when making the dough." The man was very particular when it came to noodles.

"So what?" the boy said dismissively. ’They’re just noodles.’

"So what? Your mom always uses those fresh noodles from the market. They’re tasteless, but it feels like a waste to throw them out."

"You’d better only say that to me. Be careful or Mom will beat you up."

...

The father and son each stared at their object of interest. No one in the hospital room was speaking. Almost everyone’s gaze was fixed on Xue Rui and Lin Ruoxi. The setting sun shone into the room, bathing it in a bright, warm glow.

Lin Ruoxi didn’t know how to hide her emotions. Her soft gaze rested on Xue Rui’s face, quiet and gentle. How could anyone around them not see what was going on?

A sense of serene bliss filled everyone’s hearts. No one wanted to break the atmosphere. Even the chatty boy with the broken leg fell silent.

"I’m full," Xue Rui said after a few bites, handing the rest of the noodles to Lin Ruoxi.

"Mm-hm." Lin Ruoxi ate the noodles in small bites. But she couldn’t handle spicy food very well, sticking her tongue out to cool it down after every few mouthfuls...

Xue Rui picked up Lin Ruoxi’s cup and took a sip. ’This girl is so frugal,’ he thought.

He liked to eat canned yellow peaches when he had a cold, so the girl had never bought a drinking glass; her cup was always an empty jar from the canned fruit...

She would give him the peaches to eat and keep the jar to use as her cup;

Or she’d make some chili sauce, seal it in the jar, and save it for cooking.

Xue Rui gazed quietly at the transparent glass jar. A few pieces of orange peel were floating inside...

Xue Rui took a small sip and savored it. There was the unique, fresh fragrance of orange peel, along with a slight bitterness. He smiled and said, "Little rich girls don’t drink water infused with orange peels."

Lin Ruoxi froze for a second as she took the cup. "I can’t?"

The girl’s expression was a little downcast. ’Does becoming a little rich girl mean I can’t drink orange-peel water anymore?’ she wondered.

"I’m just teasing you." Xue Rui reached out and pinched Lin Ruoxi’s cheek.

At his insistence, the girl wore lingerie that cost over a thousand yuan, yet on her feet were socks that cost a couple of yuan, the edges already pilling...

And because Lin Ruoxi was developing software, she held the latest iPhone in her left hand, while in her right, she held a glass jar filled with orange-peel water...

Poverty and wealth could actually coexist in the same person. He really didn’t know what to say.

The man in the next bed was now chatting with Yu Minlan.

"Young lady, you work at a bank, right? There’s something I’d like to ask you," the man asked with a smile.

Yu Minlan replied seriously, "What can I help you with, sir?"

"How much do you have to deposit for the bank to send you a fruit basket?" the man asked, pointing to the basket by the old lady’s bed. It had the Agricultural Bank of China’s logo on it.

Yu Minlan paused. She had expected a question about business procedures, not something like this.

’They didn’t cover this in training, did they?’

She said, a little uncertainly, "Ten or twenty million?"

The man’s face immediately fell. "Never mind. Forget I asked."

When he looked at Xue Rui, his eyes were full of astonishment. ’This kid wasn’t bragging after all!’

’So that means the girl really does have twenty million?’

’But they both look like high school students!’

’With that much money, why aren’t they in a private room?!’

At that moment, a middle-aged man’s perspective underwent a subtle shift.

As Xue Rui was staring blankly out the window, his phone rang.

"Boss Xue, we’ll be in the city in about half an hour."

"Secretary Hua, just go straight to Qunfang Tower in the city center..."

After a few more words, Xue Rui hung up the phone.

He looked at Lin Ruoxi, who was clearing away the dishes. "The people from your village helped you out today. You should go thank them."

"Mm, okay," Lin Ruoxi said obediently.

She didn’t know what had happened, but she knew that whatever Xue Rui did, it was for her own good.

The two of them went to a nearby wholesale supermarket and bought a few cartons of Furongwang and two cartons of soft-pack Chunghwa cigarettes.

"Can you not smoke, please?" Lin Ruoxi said in a small voice.

"I don’t smoke. These are for other people," Xue Rui said with a smile.

He had asked the people from Hua Village for a favor today. Giving money for something like this would be awkward; since they were all from the same village, no one would feel right accepting it.

But cigarettes were different. Smokers could smoke them, and non-smokers could exchange them for money. They were a form of hard currency.

Besides, a carton of Furongwang is only a little over two hundred yuan. If he gave them the equivalent in cash, it would seem stingy, as if he were just paying them for a job.

"Mm, okay," Lin Ruoxi nodded.

The adults in the village all liked to smoke. The last time she was in the village to pay back money, the adults were very happy when they saw she had brought cigarettes.

When it was time to pay, Lin Ruoxi paid the bill herself.

The shop owner was surprised. ’The girl is paying for the cigarettes?’ he thought.

"Young lady, shouldn’t the boy be the one paying?" the shop owner asked with a smile.

He glanced at Xue Rui. ’This boy’s really something else, making a girl pay for cigarettes,’ he thought.

He didn’t know what their relationship was. ’Buying so many cigarettes at once... their parents must have told them to, right?’ he mused.

He guessed they were brother and sister.

"I’m a little rich girl, and I’m going to support Xue Rui," Lin Ruoxi said with a straight face, speaking her mind. She thought for a moment and added, "Xue Rui is not a kept man."

The owner was stunned when he heard this. ’You really see all sorts of people these days...’ he thought.

His gaze toward Xue Rui became contemptuous. So, he was a moocher living off a woman.

Xue Rui’s face darkened when he heard that. ’What the hell is she talking about?’ he thought.

"Some things don’t need to be emphasized. The more you try to explain, the worse it sounds," Xue Rui said.

"I understand," Lin Ruoxi said softly.

The owner watched them leave and slapped the table in frustration. "Such a beautiful little rich girl! Why couldn’t I have met someone like that!"

A middle-aged woman with a fierce, fleshy face emerged from the back room. "I gave you the money to open this shop, and you dare to look at other women?"

"And what did you mean by what you just said? Are you saying I’m ugly?"

"Darling, that’s not what I meant at all..."

"How could a little brat like that compare to you? You have an intellectual, mature beauty. She’s nothing..."

Listening from outside, the corner of Xue Rui’s eye twitched. He, the fake, had just run into the real deal.

...

Xue Rui had already booked a table at his family’s restaurant. The dishes were almost ready, so they could be served as soon as the guests arrived.

He and Lin Ruoxi waited downstairs for a few minutes before a battered old van pulled up to the restaurant entrance.

The doorman frowned as he watched the out-of-place, battered van park among a row of luxury cars.

"Excuse me, this area is for..."

Xue Rui stepped forward and waved. "Secretary Hua, you’re finally here."

Lin Ruoxi was a bit confused. She and Xue Rui had only just arrived themselves. Why would he say "finally"? It sounded like they had been waiting for a long time...

"We got held up by traffic on the way," Village Chief Hua said with a smile.

"No worries, no worries. I just got here myself."

...

When the doorman saw that they were guests of the owner’s son, his expression immediately switched to a smile. "Welcome. This way, please."

A waiter led the group into a private room on the top floor.

Village Chief Hua pulled a few sheets of paper from his pocket. "Boss Xue, these are the written pledges they wrote."

’Xue Rui’s method is really something,’ he thought. ’We live in a society ruled by law now. To deal with people, you really need to rely on these educated folks... If I had gotten physical today, the result might not have been as good as Xue Rui’s method. When I watched those guys writing their pledges, their faces were filled with remorse. Some of them even had red eyes. They looked more miserable than if they’d been beaten up.’

Xue Rui took the papers and saw that they had written several full pages, and even stamped them with red fingerprints...

’Village Chief Hua sure is intimidating...’ Xue Rui thought.

Xue Rui skimmed through them, his expression gradually turning cold.

Their motives were about what he had guessed. Some of their true thoughts, when written down on paper, were truly disgusting.

He handed the stack of pledges to Lin Ruoxi. "Take a look for yourself. These are their true intentions."

Lin Ruoxi was an orphan, so she might place a lot of value on the relatives she’d had such a hard time finding.

He had unilaterally decided to stop Lin Ruoxi from contacting them, and he didn’t know if the girl would understand his good intentions.

That’s why he had asked Village Chief Hua to have them write a one-sided pledge—to pass the buck, so to speak.

But was this a pledge? It was a full-blown confession letter!

Now, with this signed confession letter, Lin Ruoxi should be able to understand their true intentions.