"Yo, it's Theresa. As the principal of the academy, you don't have your own private chef and still come to the cafeteria to fight students for food?"
Seeing Theresa appear in the cafeteria, Shun was quite surprised. In his memory, school leaders never showed up in the student cafeteria. Even if they ate there, they used windows that students couldn't access.
He hadn't expected Theresa to be so down-to-earth. It really caught Shun off guard.
"I was thinking this cafeteria doesn't even have bitter melon. Why would you come to the student cafeteria to eat?"
Before ordering, Shun had checked every window and confirmed there was no green organic bitter melon — Theresa's favorite.
As for Old Yang, whom Theresa called "whoever that is," he chose to stay silent. He still didn't know that Theresa's memories of the Second Honkai Impact had been wiped by Otto.
Although he was hiding in plain sight, he hadn't even seen the academy principal during his interview. Who knew if Theresa would suddenly recognize him if he stood out?
To be honest, Old Yang quite liked it here. There weren't many classes each day, the salary was high, and it was a quiet and good place — very suitable for recuperating. Most importantly…
He could temporarily escape from a certain red-haired telegraph machine constantly bombarding his ears. Although he had some complicated feelings toward his foster mother, no normal person could tolerate having a telegraph machine beside them for long…
"You don't think that just because I like bitter melon, I have to eat it for every single meal, do you!" Theresa felt dizzy from Shun's stereotyping.
So cold, so miserable. Could this world be a little kinder to her? She just liked eating bitter melon, drinking bitter melon juice, and eating all kinds of dishes made with bitter melon. She had even used her grandfather's pension to invest in an organic bitter melon planting base.
Did that mean she had to be stereotyped by the world as "Theresa Apocalypse only eats bitter melon in her entire life"?
"Although I don't eat vegetables other than bitter melon, I still eat other things!"
"Uh… uh…" Shun was rendered speechless. True, bitter melon couldn't be eaten as a staple forever. At most, it was just Theresa's hobby.
"Move over a bit. I want to sit too." Theresa carried her tray over to Shun's side and grumpily squeezed him aside a little.
"Why is it all meat?" Shun glanced over and quickly looked away.
"Because I brought my own vegetables." Theresa said as if it were obvious, then somehow produced several bitter melons and a cup of green bitter melon juice.
"Your stereotype isn't without reason." Seeing Theresa's series of actions, Shun could only say this.
"Theresa, you always stay up late. Eat more fruits and vegetables besides bitter melon."
For some reason, Shun's very ordinary sentence caused both people present to instantly get goosebumps.
Old Yang almost had a DNA reaction and nearly released a simulated black hole. Theresa shivered and glanced at Shun.
"Why does it feel like there's something weird about the way you said that? It's like…" However, no matter how long Theresa thought about it, she couldn't connect Shun with Otto.
"Hehe, who knows? Maybe I'm just reminding you from the standpoint of an elder."
"Hey, you're not even half my age!" Although Theresa looked only about twelve, she was actually over forty this year.
"Let's not talk about that. Right now, the person sitting across from me is your academy's history teacher. You can't even call out his name — isn't that a bit hurtful? Don't you think so, Teacher Yang?"
Seeing that the fun was over, Shun immediately decided to turn the fire toward Old Yang, who was quietly observing from the sidelines.
Wait… why bring me up again? Old Yang thought things were getting bad and quickly prepared a draft in his mind.
"Maybe it's because the Principal is so busy with a myriad of affairs that she really can't spare any time? After all, the Far East Branch's jurisdiction isn't limited to just St. Freya."
Shun raised an eyebrow and glanced at Theresa. "Is that so, Principal?"
Theresa stammered in response, "O-of course! This Principal is very busy!" Mm, so busy that she didn't even have time to read Homu comics during the day, which was why she could only read them while working.
"However, so you're actually Teacher Yang. I heard from Himeko that your teaching level is very high and the students really enjoy your classes." Theresa quickly changed the subject.
"Yeah, Teacher Yang knows a lot about Anti-Entropy's history. Even his name is very similar to the leader of Anti-Entropy — one is Welt Joyce, the other is Welt Yang. Wow, Old Yang, you wouldn't happen to be a fan of the Anti-Entropy leader, would you!"
Shun, never one to miss a chance to stir trouble, continued to poke at Old Yang's fragile nerves.
But unexpectedly, Old Yang, who had been quite tense, actually calmed down somewhat after hearing the name of his idol, Joyce.
"Shun, you're right. Joyce is indeed my idol. But the more I understand the history of Anti-Entropy's founding, the more I dislike the current Anti-Entropy."
Shun fell silent. Was this Old Yang's true inner thoughts? He loathed the current Anti-Entropy, which had expanded by any means necessary to fight Schicksal and had tainted Joyce's will and the will of the original founders.
In the current Anti-Entropy, the radical faction's power far outweighed the conservative faction. And even within the conservative faction, how many could truly be called inheritors of Joyce's will?
"The current Anti-Entropy is nothing more than the evil dragon that the boy who slew the dragon eventually became…"
He hadn't expected that in Old Yang's heart, the current Anti-Entropy was viewed this way. It really surprised Shun. It seemed reality was quite different from the plot he had played in the game. In the plot, there had never been any discussion about how Old Yang viewed the current Anti-Entropy.
"We suddenly started talking about all this. Forget about Anti-Entropy or whatever — can we eat first?" The conversation between Shun and Old Yang didn't affect the thick-skinned Theresa at all.
"True. But Teacher Yang, these matters are all too far away from us men who can't go to the battlefield. Let their Valkyrie forces and Titan troops handle whatever is going on between Anti-Entropy and Schicksal. We're just ordinary people…"
Yes, ordinary people — just ordinary people standing at the very top of this world… People who could reach the heavens under the vast sky.
"Theresa, let me have a sip of your bitter melon juice!" Shun grabbed the bitter melon juice that Theresa had just taken a sip of and poured it into his mouth.
In the past, as a Theresa fan, he had actually tried bitter melon for the sake of his oshi. How should he put it? Shun took two sips.
The first sip was a test, the second was to confirm whether his taste buds were broken. There was no third sip, because after two he would have fed it to the dogs.
He had also tried bitter melon juice before. It was slightly more acceptable than the melon itself, but still had a strange aftertaste…
However, after snatching and tasting Theresa's bitter melon juice today, Shun indeed found it much better than what he had tried before.
Was it the difference in vegetable quality? Theresa definitely used the highest-grade bitter melons.
"Mm… surprisingly not bad?" Shun shared his honest impression.
"? Mm! Really?!" Theresa said in pleasant surprise. There was actually someone in this world besides her who could accept bitter melon? This was wonderful!
Old Yang looked at the two of them and silently pushed up his plain glasses, hiding his emotions behind the lenses.