By noon, Lin Ran had already entered the information for more than thirty people. At this pace—honestly, even Lin Ran thought he was slow—he probably wouldn’t finish entering it all tonight. But there was no choice. The information couldn’t be entered incorrectly, so he had to enter it once and then check it all again.

When lunchtime came, Lin Ran had planned to finish entering the current person’s information, then call Su Shijie and ask him to bring over some food. But while Lin Ran was checking his work, Ye Qingqian came into the office carrying two lunch boxes. They looked like they were for lunch.

“Take a break. The work isn’t hard, but it takes time and energy. Lunch is on me. I don’t know what you like, so I brought wontons and a pancake. Eat them if you want; if you don’t, just leave them here.” Ye Qingqian set one of the lunches down beside Lin Ran and smiled.

Then, without another word, she sat off to the side and started eating. Lin Ran glanced at her. He hadn’t expected the goddess to be so unconcerned with appearances while eating. Judging by the way she was going at it, she must’ve been starving.

Lin Ran didn’t make a fuss either. He put his work aside and started eating. Whether he liked it or not didn’t matter—he wasn’t picky. If it was food and it wouldn’t kill him, he could eat it.

But when Lin Ran opened the lunch box, he was a little surprised. The wontons smelled amazing. Their wrappers were thin and the filling generous—and yellow. It didn’t look like the usual meat filling, and there was a hint of seafood in the smell. All in all, they smelled far better than the wontons sold outside. After one bite, Lin Ran didn’t know what to say.

All he could say was that rich people really lived differently. Even their wontons were filled with crab roe. And the pancake had crab meat and strips of meat with an incredible texture tucked inside.

“How many people’s information have you entered?” Ye Qingqian asked casually.

“Thirty-two. At this rate, I won’t finish today, so I was planning to take it home and work on it,” Lin Ran replied.

“Don’t go to the trouble of taking it home. If you don’t finish today, leave it for now and continue tomorrow. I’ll see how things go this afternoon. There’s just too much to handle here. If I can finish up early, I’ll come back and help you. If not, you can head home if you have something to do. This isn’t urgent—as long as it’s entered into the system before school starts, that’s fine.”

Lin Ran nodded.

Ye Qingqian soon finished lunch. She tidied up her lunch box and set it aside. As she went to get something from the cabinet nearby, she told Lin Ran to leave his lunch box there when he was done; she’d take it home with her that evening. Then she picked up her things and left.

Lin Ran shrugged, quickly finished lunch, and tidied up. He hesitated for a moment, then picked up Ye Qingqian’s lunch box and took the dish soap from the cabinet to the sink to wash it. As Student Council president, Ye Qingqian was usually busy helping the teachers with all sorts of things. She often brought lunch and dinner from home and ate in the office, so the dish soap was probably hers too.

After washing the lunch box and chopsticks, Lin Ran returned to the office, tore off a few pieces of paper, and wiped the water from the outside of the lunch box. He set the lunch box and chopsticks neatly to one side, then went back to entering information.

Lin Ran had only been working that afternoon for a little while when someone knocked on the office door. He was confused, but still called, “Come in.” Somehow, saying it felt a little strange.

The office door opened, but Lin Ran didn’t look up, so he didn’t notice that the person who came in was Lin Ruixue.

“Brother Lin Ran...” Lin Ruixue came over to his side and called out to him.

Lin Ran frowned and looked up at Lin Ruixue. “Why are you back again?”

“Brother Lin Ran, you haven’t eaten yet, have you? I-I brought you lunch.” Lin Ruixue spoke softly, then carefully set the lunch box in her hands down in front of him.

Lin Ran didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He’d just finished eating...

“Thanks. Just leave it here for now. I’ll eat after I finish entering these few people’s information.” Lin Ran smiled. He didn’t tell Lin Ruixue that he’d already had lunch.

“Okay!” Lin Ruixue nodded.

After hesitating for a moment, Lin Ruixue spoke again. “Brother Lin Ran, is there anything you need help with? I...”

“No need. If there’s nothing going on at school, go hang out with your friends. There’s nothing here you can help me with,” Lin Ran said flatly.

“Oh.” Lin Ruixue nodded again.

Lin Ran glanced at Lin Ruixue, then sighed. “I mean, this is a one-person job. If there’s another person, it’s actually easier to mess things up.”

“Okay!” Lin Ruixue replied.

“All right, go have fun.” Lin Ran waved her away, sounding a little impatient.

Lin Ruixue pressed her lips together. Lin Ran wasn’t looking at her, but she still bowed to him and said, “Thank you, Brother Lin Ran.”

“Mm,” Lin Ran replied casually.

Lin Ruixue didn’t bother Lin Ran any further. She left the office quietly and gently closed the door behind her.

Less than half an hour after Lin Ruixue left, Su Shijie showed up too. He’d brought Lin Ran lunch as well.

“Little Ran, Dad was afraid you’d starve, so I specially brought you some roast duck. Aw, no need to thank me. You’re too polite.” Su Shijie sauntered in carrying several bags. Lin Ran hadn’t said a word, but Su Shijie had already said everything he should—and shouldn’t—have.

Lin Ran glanced at Su Shijie. “This was supposed to be a job for both of us. Where’d you disappear to?”

“Oh, I was just getting to know the new Grade 10 students and showing them around the area near the school. I’m helping out too, right? Huh, looks like I was worrying for nothing. You managed to go out and buy lunch.” Su Shijie grinned.

Lin Ran shook his head helplessly. “I didn’t have time to go out and buy lunch. Lin Ruixue brought this for me.”

Su Shijie smacked his lips, then nodded. “All right, since you’ve got food, you don’t need mine. Good thing—I’m still hungry.”

As he spoke, Su Shijie sat down nearby and opened the food to eat.

Lin Ran really didn’t even know where to start. You brought this for me? And why did it look like there was half a duck in the package you opened? Had the sauce already been dipped into, too? Had he eaten half of it before remembering to bring some for Lin Ran?

After eating the roast duck, Su Shijie sucked the sauce off his fingers and asked Lin Ran if he needed help. Before Lin Ran could say a word, Su Shijie added, “I know this little bit of work isn’t hard for you. You definitely don’t need me. All right, I won’t bother you.”

Lin Ran had a headache.

But no one bothered him for the rest of the afternoon, and he managed to speed up his work quite a bit.

A little after four, Lin Ran started feeling hungry again, so he finally ate the lunch Lin Ruixue had brought. The food had gone cold, but he still finished it. The disposable lunch box could just be thrown away.

After eating, he went back to entering information.

By five-thirty, it was about time to call it a day. Lin Ran planned to copy the files and continue working at home. He found Ye Qingqian’s number, removed it from his block list, and called her.

Ye Qingqian walked into the office with her phone ringing in her hand.

“Didn’t you block me?” Ye Qingqian teased, giving her phone a little shake.

Lin Ran hung up and put his phone away. “Do you need the USB drive today? If not, I’ll copy the files and take them home to keep working. I’ll bring it back tomorrow.”

“I need it,” Ye Qingqian replied.

“...” Lin Ran was speechless.

“Don’t rush to finish. Just continue tomorrow. But I do have one more thing I need your help with. Could you make a copy of the students’ paper records for me?” Ye Qingqian smiled.

“...” Lin Ran frowned. Was she pushing her luck now?

Still, Lin Ran nodded. Doing a little extra wouldn’t kill him. But... “There are 289 students’ records here. I’ll need the same number of sheets of paper. At twenty cents a sheet, that comes to 57.8 yuan. You’re paying for it.”

Even Ye Qingqian, who was usually so composed, couldn’t keep her smile from stiffening at Lin Ran’s words. She’d thought he might refuse, or coldly tell her it wasn’t part of his job. She’d even thought he might agree. But she really hadn’t expected him to agree like this.

Ye Qingqian didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Why was he acting like he’d have to pay for it himself?

“Of course I’m paying.” Ye Qingqian fished a red banknote out of her pocket and handed it to Lin Ran, still looking amused and helpless. “I don’t have any change. Take this and go make the copies. You can give me the rest later.”

Lin Ran took the banknote without hesitation, picked up the folder, and left.

If he hadn’t needed to take the work home, Lin Ran would’ve preferred to enter more information. But since he had to make copies, he’d better leave early, before the copy shop closed.

After Lin Ran left, Ye Qingqian sat down at the computer to check the work he’d done that day.

When she opened the “Student Information Registration” folder on the desktop, she froze. It contained several folders named after classes. Each class folder contained a bunch of folders named after individual students. Inside each one was a photo and a student information form. The photo was named after the student, and the form was named “XXX Information Form.”

Every folder was organized the same way. It was very easy on the eyes, and the setup would make entering the information into the system much easier later. Ye Qingqian was genuinely surprised. She’d asked Student Council members to do similar work before, but not one of them had done it as well as Lin Ran—not the file names, not the folder organization, and not the information entered on the forms.

On the student information forms, Lin Ran had even put a space between the two characters of students’ two-character names. If there was too much information to fit in a cell, he’d reduce the font size so it would fit neatly. He’d also placed each student’s photo in the space for it in the upper-right corner. All in all, the forms were very easy to look at.

Looking at Lin Ran’s work reminded Ye Qingqian of when his year had first enrolled. She’d been busy with the start of the school year, so she’d asked the then-deputy head of the Student Council’s academic department to help enter the students’ information. The deputy had put everything into one combined spreadsheet. The job had been done, but there were no spaces between the characters in two-character names, and entries with more information varied in length and alignment. Ye Qingqian had specifically asked for the information to be neatly arranged, and while the result hadn’t been terrible, it was still a headache to look at. This time, she’d forgotten to give Lin Ran any instructions, but he’d not only entered everything completely and neatly, he’d used the information-form template too. When it came time to enter everything into the system, all she’d have to do was open each student’s folder and drag the form over.

Besides, Lin Ran had entered information for a third of the students all by himself that day. That proved he’d been taking the work seriously and hadn’t been slacking off.

Ye Qingqian immediately found herself thinking about recruiting Lin Ran into the Student Council to help her handle this sort of work.

She shut down the computer and packed up to go home. When she saw the lunch box and chopsticks, washed clean and arranged neatly, she was genuinely impressed by Lin Ran. With an attitude like that, it’d be a real shame not to bring him into the Student Council.

With her things in hand, Ye Qingqian went downstairs. The familiar white limousine was parked by the roadside, and Uncle Song, the driver, was waiting beside it. As soon as he saw Ye Qingqian, he came over to help carry her things.

“You’ve been pretty busy today, Miss,” Uncle Song said with concern.

“It’s been all right,” Ye Qingqian said with a smile.

“You seem to be in a good mood, Miss. Did something interesting happen?” Uncle Song asked with a smile.

“Definitely. Something very interesting happened—but it wasn’t a thing. It was a person.” Ye Qingqian smiled.

“As long as you’re happy, Miss. But your father asked me to remind you to get in touch with the eldest son of the Yang Family when you have time.” Uncle Song watched Ye Qingqian’s expression carefully as he spoke. Honestly, he didn’t want to bring it up. Whenever he mentioned the eldest son of the Yang Family, this young lady never took it well.

“Tsk. Uncle Song, you don’t need to pass messages like that along to me anymore. If he insists on making me contact that idiot, then I’ll just have a word with Grandpa. Let’s see who really gets the final say in this family.” Ye Qingqian’s expression hardened, and she spoke with disdain.

“Yes, yes. Please don’t be angry, Miss. I won’t pass along messages like that again,” Uncle Song said nervously.

The whole thing had ruined what had been a perfectly good mood. Ye Qingqian couldn’t understand why her dad had taken a liking to the eldest son of the Yang Family. That idiot was useless at everything and couldn’t learn a thing. He never picked up anything good, but he learned bad habits faster than a plane. To put it bluntly, he was a good-for-nothing wastrel who’d squandered the wealth his family had built over three generations.

Ye Qingqian had never seen anyone pull strings and pay money to get out of trouble, only to still be kicked out of school and have their enrollment revoked. The eldest son of the Yang Family was the first.