Miss Xu Xiaoyan exited the family members’ yard and sat on the back seat of Yan Fei’s bicycle. She began to secretly grind her teeth and scratch against him.
The incident earlier was thoroughly humiliating, and Yan Fei, he only came a visit monthly unlike her who came to cook and eat every day. Now she had no chance to show her face.
Yan Fei followed up with a sheepish grin, obediently pedaling on his bike, now unable to afford crossing missy again.
Missy still grumbled, "Stinky Little Yan Fei, why are your muscles so tough, I can’t even twist them..."
Yan Fei took a deep breath, then tried his best to relax, in the hopes that Missy could twist him.
When they passed the school gate, Missy stopped her sneaky tricks and sat back with her head down, scared to be seen by her classmates.
On the other hand, Yan Fei looked curiously at the school gate, "What are your classmates doing setting up a table outside?"
Xu Xiaoyan peeped from behind, quickly hid back and whispered, "It’s a self-organized wildlife protection group for our classmates. They are spreading awareness about wildlife protection during lunch time!"
Yan Fei seemed to understand quite well, "We indeed need to protect the wildlife. Seems like you students don’t just go to school and do nothing else!"
Missy was surprised, "Yan Xiaofei, I didn’t expect your ideological awareness to be so high!"
"Of course." Yan Fei completely ignored the sarcastic tone in Missy’s voice and expressed his sentiment with a tone of sympathy for the world. "Without wildlife protection, wild chickens and rabbits are nearly extinct. In the future, it will be challenging to catch any for food!"
"So, you pretend to be highly conscious just for the sake of your stomach!" Missy burst out laughing. "Yan Xiaofei, you crack me up! I think you are the biggest adversary to wildlife protection. If we can’t find any wild chickens and rabbits, it must be your misdeeds!"
"So I hardly catch any now," said Yan Fei unconcernedly. "At least waiting until they reproduce. Later, I should go and support your classmates’ initiative. Do they accept donations?"
"Students are only promoting, they are not accepting donations. I guess they would be really happy if they knew you have this intent."
"Really? That’s a pity." Yan Fei sounded disappointed. "I even planned to a dime to support them!"
"Pfft..." Miss Xu Xiaoyan couldn’t hold it in any longer. She didn’t bother hiding and started twisting him again. "Can’t you say something seriously?"
"What’s not serious?" Yan Fei was perplexed. "What’s wrong with my intend of donating a dime? There are so many people in the Provincial City, it’s not a small amount if each person s a dime! Besides, didn’t I always a dime when I was at school?"
Admittedly, when Yan Fei was at school, he was notorious for donating a dime every semester. Unlike the other students who competed to see who could more, Yan Fei always stuck with a dime.
"My fellow student, I’ve noticed you have been looking at our promotional stand for quite a while. Would you like to take a look at our brochure? You seem genuinely supportive of wildlife protection." Before Miss Xu Xiaoyan could answer, one of their classmates, who was busy promoting, noticed Yan Fei and ran over to say.
With one foot supporting his bike, Yan Fei responded earnestly, "Absolutely! I think animal protection is utterly necessary, it’s everyone’s responsibility! I was even thinking about making a donation, but since you don’t accept one, I have some regrets."
The promotional volunteer giggled, her eyes a narrow slit, "Thank you! We are a student-organized group, and we haven’t had the right to solicit donations yet. Thank you again, here’s our brochure. Maybe you can learn more about wildlife protection if you are interested."
Yan Fei took the brochure and gave it a glance, thanked the enthusiastic girl, and continued to ride his bike.
Only when they were further away did Miss Xu Xiaoyan sigh, "Why do I feel wary even though what you said seemed reasonable?"
Yan Fei looked puzzled. "What do you mean?"
"You just said you’d a dime!" said Miss Xu Xiaoyan. "If everyone gave a dime, it would surely add up, but you saying you’ll only a dime, strikes me as being stingy. But then I think about how many people wouldn’t at all. I never planned on donating and was going to laugh at your stinginess..."
"Aren’t you tired, overthinking everything like that? What are you, a philosopher?" Yan Fei interrupted her ramblings, ready to share his own sentiments. "Why is it we have to protect every kind of animal now? We need to protect tigers and leopards, even pigs? And now we’re protecting fish, this fish looks familiar, isn’t it common...?"
"Let me see, let me see..." Immediately, the girl dropped her ponderings on life’s philosophy, grabbed the leaflet from behind him and began to critique, "Which fish is common? The giant salamander? Or the Chinese Sturgeon? Keep blowing smoke! If it were common, it wouldn’t need protecting..."
Yan Fei remembered where he had seen that fish before, at the mouth of the river in Dinosaur World. It looked similar to the Chinese Sturgeon the girl had mentioned, they all looked pretty much the same. He wasn’t sure if they were of the same species.
Hearing the girl accuse him of blowing smoke made him indignant, but he decided not to argue about that, changing the topic instead, "This leaflet is poorly printed, the picture isn’t clear. They could’ve at least printed it clearly for promotional purposes."
"This is already not bad, it’s organized by the students themselves. To be able to raise funds to print some leaflets is quite an achievement."
"Oh, then do you think I should go support them with ten yuan, as a gesture of gratitude for enlightening me about another delicious fish?"
"I’ve already told you they don’t want donations. What are you planning now? Every animal here is protected, which one are you thinking of eating?" The girl immediately became alert.
"Chinese Sturgeon of course! I’ve seen them in the Yellow River, plenty of them! With so many, there’s surely no need to protect them! It wouldn’t hurt if we caught a few less for meals. As for the giant salamander, forget it, I’m tired of eating those."
The girl couldn’t help but laugh again, "Blowing smoke, just keep blowing smoke! I have never heard of Chinese Sturgeon in the Yellow River. The most you could’ve seen would be something similar. Chinese Sturgeon are only found in the Yangtze. Our place doesn’t have any kind of river. There are giant salamanders near us, but only in the mountains. When did you get tired of eating them?"
This silly girl, she doesn’t even believe him after eating giant salamander meat so many times.
Yan Fei likes the innocently happy look on her face, purposely contradicting her, "Maybe there are Chinese Sturgeon in the Yellow River, I’ve seen them before, for real."
"Keep dreaming! You make it sound so real." She looked at him with disdain, while also laughing, "Yan Xiaofei, stop your nonsense. I just had a meal and now I can’t stop laughing because of you, my stomach hurts from laughing so much."
"Don’t believe me if you don’t want to. How about I bring you a Chinese Sturgeon from the Yellow River later?"
"Can you even talk without lying? Okay, okay, if you can catch one, I will never call you a braggart again!"
"No deal, I’m not doing it only for that. I don’t care if you call me names. Propose something else."
"Whatever I propose, you can’t catch one, so you name it! And what if you can’t catch one?"
"If I can’t catch one, I’ll agree with one of your requests. If I do catch one, you’ll have to agree to one of my requests. Deal?"
"Okay, okay! Any request is fine? So, if I say I want to continue doing business with Yangyang, that’s okay?"
"Of course, any request is fine. But remember, you’ll have to agree to any of my requests too, right?"