The cafeteria hit him with a different kind of noise than the concourse had—louder in some ways, softer in others. Fewer whispers about rankings, more clatter of trays and the hiss of something frying behind the long service counter that had no business existing inside a System-run safe zone and yet somehow always smelled like actual food.
Lin Yue followed Bai Wuyin through the crowd, tray in hand, and tried to remember the last time he'd eaten something that wasn't scavenged, rationed, or laced with the particular dread of not knowing if it would poison him.
He couldn't.
"You're staring at the rice like it's going to move," Bai Wuyin said, sliding into a seat at a corner table, back to the wall, eyes already tracking the room out of habit.
"Old habit."
"Good habit, where we've been." Bai Wuyin picked up his chopsticks. "Doesn't apply here. Nothing in this Hall has ever tried to kill anyone. As far as I know."
"As far as you know."
