Chapter 166: Chapter 166: 166: Different from you rich people

Ji Yuqiao had thought their mention of a late-night snack referred to some random street food stall, but following them to their destination and seeing the resplendently lavish clubhouse, she was surprised for a moment.

The interior of the clubhouse was exquisitely decorated, the luxurious environment exuding an aura of glittering preciousness everywhere.

As soon as their group entered, three or four waiters came over to greet them with bows.

This display hardly seemed like they were there for a casual late-night snack.

“Everyone, feel free to order whatever you want, and feel free to use the facilities here. I’m treating everyone tonight,” the inviting boy said with a grand gesture. His classmates, like wild horses unleashed, immediately cheered loudly and rushed to play on the arcade machines.

Of course, there were a few students who sat reservedly, not daring to touch anything in the place.

Xiao Yu glanced around, seeming like Ji Yuqiao to have misunderstood the nature of this late-night meal, his eyebrows tightly furrowed.

He must already be regretting agreeing to come here for a late-night snack.

For such occasions, Ji Yuqiao was very familiar; she casually ordered a few dishes that seemed to have a good appearance and then, holding a pad, walked up to Xiao Yu.

“Xiao Yu, what would you like to eat? I’ll order for you,” she offered the screen to him, very eager to help him choose.

The prices displayed for each dish on the menu were followed by three or four zeroes.

Xiao Yu glanced at the dishes she had ordered, which had already cost fifty to sixty thousand.

“No need,” Xiao Yu looked away.

“Oh,” Ji Yuqiao passed the pad to other classmates to order and then stealthily glanced back at Xiao Yu, “Are you not hungry yet? How about we go over there and play some games?”

Xiao Yu didn’t speak, just glanced at the gaming area with a lack of interest.

Ji Yuqiao seemed completely accustomed to being repeatedly rejected by Xiao Yu, suppressing the sadness in her heart and undiscouraged, she continued to engage Xiao Yu in conversation as if persistence would eventually yield a response.

However, even as her stomach growled, Xiao Yu remained silent.

She could only turn to the food the waiters brought over, preparing to fill her stomach first.

Ji Yuqiao had just spread the napkin from the cup onto her laps when she heard a burst of laughter next to her ear.

She saw a few classmates misusing the napkins, stuffing them into their collars, which elicited a round of laughter from everyone.

“Silly Lin, it’s supposed to cover your legs, take it off ha ha ha…”

“Damn, it’s my first time eating in such a fancy place; who knows how to use all these things, stop laughing!”

“No worries, hang out more with your dad here, and you’ll get it.”

“Screw you…”

They teased each other, and the atmosphere immediately became lively; even Ji Yuqiao couldn’t help but laugh with them.

Xiao Yu’s lips, tightly pressed into a rigid straight line, relaxed in the midst of everyone’s laughter; he pulled the napkin from his collar and abruptly stood up, “I’ve just remembered I have something to do, I’m going back to the hotel.”

Watching his figure recede into the distance, Ji Yuqiao hastily stood up and chased after him, “Xiao Yu, wait a second, where are you going? I’ll go with you…”

“Can you not follow me?” His tone was tinged with annoyance.

Ji Yuqiao was startled by his angry voice, her body trembling, “Fine, I won’t follow you. Where are you going? I’ll call a cab for you.”

“I’m not a cripple; I’m perfectly capable of hailing a cab,” Xiao Yu’s expression grew even darker, “or do you think that we who can’t even use napkins properly need someone else to teach us how to call a cab?”

“Do you rich kids, pampered from birth, find it amusing to mock us commoners who lack any kind of experience?”

Ji Yuqiao’s eyes widened slightly, disbelief flickering in her pupils, “I have never thought that way.”

It wasn’t just her who lacked this thought, everyone who had just been jeering probably never entertained it either.

Everyone was only joking for a few sentences, and the topic quickly shifted elsewhere.

However, it was such an unintentional joke that hit Xiao Yu’s fragile self-esteem.

His face cold, his brows and eyes dark with gloom, “Who knows what you really think.”

“Student Xiao, we were just horsing around with a friend, if our words just now offended you, we truly apologize. As for what you mentioned, none of us ever thought that way.” Zhao Jiayan also walked out of the private room, unheard of by what, and after hearing their conversation, he began to apologize and explain to him.

Xiao Yu looked at him, silent.

He knew this person.

The young master of the Zhao Family, Xiao Yu would encounter him in the competitions every year, where his scores always ranked among the top.

From the very beginning, he received all kinds of fine education, a starting point that Xiao Yu could never match.

No matter how hard he tried, he was always unable to surpass him.

Sometimes, Xiao Yu thought.

These wealthy people, with their vast family fortunes, still insist on competing with him for that competition prize money.

Even if they don’t need the honor or the money, they can live comfortably while that prize money means a semester’s tuition for someone like him.

What he strived so hard and desperately to earn, was merely a plaything for their amusement in their eyes.

Xiao Yu clenched his hand at his side, his usually serious face seemed to be covered with a layer of cold frost.

“Xiao Yu, everyone really didn’t mean any harm,” Ji Yuqiao said, grabbing his arm, urgently trying to explain.

“The competition is over, don’t look for me anymore,” Xiao Yu said coldly, “I am not like you, rich people with nothing to worry about, just of better birth, you never understand the hardships we go through, I don’t have time to waste on these emotions.”

Ji Yuqiao was stunned for a moment, “How do you know I haven’t experienced…”

Ever since she had memories, her family had always been living off relatives’ charity.

While they had a huge inheritance, they never enjoyed it when they were young.

The three children lived off a pitiful allowance every day, even the money for her school notebooks was saved up by her older and second brothers through frugality.

She never discussed those times of suffering with Xiao Yu, and now he lumped it all into one category with the phrase “rich people with nothing to worry about.”

As for the Zhao Family.@@novelbin@@

Although she didn’t know them well, she had heard that Zhao Jiayan’s father was self-made.

They too had gone through difficult times, enduring days of just eating steamed buns to make life better for their family in the future.

Xiao Yu dismissed all their efforts and struggles with the single phrase “of better birth” as if it were nothing.

This too was a form of discrimination.

Ji Yuqiao’s face turned ashen, her heart sinking abruptly; her grip on Xiao Yu’s arm loosened, slowly falling away.

Xiao Yu did not notice her change in expression and, with a cold glance at Zhao Jiayan, turned and walked out of the club’s main entrance.