Watching the retreating, disheveled backs of Hawke and his companions, Yu Xin curled her lip and turned back around.
"What a buzzkill, wasting our time for nothing. I really thought he'd dare to hit me."
Liu Yutong glanced in the direction where the foreign youths had disappeared and offered a bland assessment: "They're nothing but clowns."
Although those foreign men were tall and burly, the three women weren't necessarily afraid of them.
After over a year of training and guidance from several masters, Liu Yutong's skills were quite formidable, though she had never truly fought anyone—there was never a need.
The training was for self-defense, not to prove a point.
Although Yu Xin had trained a bit less, she still had the ability to protect herself, not to mention Lan Die, who was always ready to step in.
Moreover, their ages and appearances were highly deceptive, easily lulling others into a false sense of security.
A moment's carelessness, and someone would end up eating dust.
This minor incident didn't affect the trio.
Yu Xin took out her phone, made a call, and said to Liu Yutong, "Teacher Su will be here soon."
Liu Yutong nodded, then asked the server for another iced Americano.
Not long after.
A waitress who had just started her shift brought over an iced Americano.
"Here's your iced Americano, miss."
"Thank you!"
As the waitress set down the coffee and prepared to leave with her tray, she paused for a moment upon looking up.
"Yu Xin?"
"Liu Yutong?"
Liu Yutong and Yu Xin looked up simultaneously at the girl wearing a cap and an apron.
"Fang Yaqiong?"
"What a coincidence, do you work here?"
Fang Yaqiong was their high school classmate. They had gotten together once after graduation.
Back then, in Wushui County, they had a conflict with the local hoodlum Crazy Dog Brother and almost got into serious trouble at a KTV.
A year had passed in the blink of an eye, and so much had changed.
Now, Liu Yutong was the chairwoman of several companies, managing billions in capital, and Yu Xin had become an executive at the Wanlonghui Group.
Though only nineteen, they were noticeably more mature than their peers, unlike their high school classmate Fang Yaqiong, whose face still bore the youthful innocence of adolescence.
Fang Yaqiong seemed a bit embarrassed, instinctively tugging at her apron with the shop's logo. "Yeah, I work here part-time while studying. I'm at Nan Da Normal University, it's close by."
As she spoke, her eyes swept over Liu Yutong and Yu Xin.
Her two former classmates were clearly around the same age, yet they gave off a completely different vibe.
Yu Xin, once a very introverted girl, now appeared poised and graceful. The clothes she wore were obviously expensive.
Liu Yutong was even more remarkable. She carried an undeniable, powerful aura—calm, composed, as if everything was under her control.
It was a quality Fang Yaqiong had never seen in any of the students around her.
"What about you guys? Here in Da Nancheng for fun?" Fang Yaqiong asked curiously.
Yu Xin and Liu Yutong exchanged a knowing look. "You could say that. We're here to take care of some business and meet a friend."
Fang Yaqiong uttered an "Oh," looking at the two extraordinary figures before her and comparing them to her own situation as a working student. A subtle sense of distance inexplicably arose in her heart.
She felt that Yu Xin and Liu Yutong had both changed so much. She couldn't pinpoint exactly how, but it felt like they were no longer from the same world as her.
"Well, you two enjoy your drinks. I have to get back to work."
"Alright, go ahead." Liu Yutong smiled and nodded.
Watching Fang Yaqiong hurry away with her tray, Yu Xin sipped her coffee, a trace of imperceptible emotion in her tone. "Fang Yaqiong still seems quite innocent."
Saying this, she seemed to recall her high school self—that introverted, timid, shy, and cowardly girl.
It wasn't until Liu Yutong stepped in to teach the school bully Zhao Zhu a lesson, and until she herself had faced death, that she slowly began to change.
Hearing this, Liu Yutong turned her head to look at Yu Xin and teased, "We're only nineteen, why do you sound so world-weary?"
Yu Xin first pouted and laughed at Liu Yutong's words.
"Not at all!"
Then she composed herself, looked seriously at Liu Yutong, and said what she had long wanted to say: "Sister Yutong, really, thank you."
That "thank you" contained so much.
Thanks for stepping in to help back on campus, thanks for leading her out of the gloom, thanks for giving her a completely different future full of infinite possibilities.
Without Liu Yutong, perhaps she would still be that timid, introverted girl, easily bullied, with no chance of having the life she had today.
Liu Yutong naturally understood the meaning behind her words. She just smiled gently, saying nothing more. Some things were understood without words.
Lan Die sat quietly to the side, watching the genuine affection between Liu Yutong and Yu Xin. A faint ripple stirred unexpectedly in her heart.
The feeling was strange, like someone who had long dwelled in darkness catching a glimpse of a warm campfire. Knowing it didn't belong to her, yet instinctively wanting to draw closer.
Truth be told, it was precisely because the environment she grew up in was filled with schemes, survival of the fittest, and absolute obedience, devoid of experiences like friendship or familial love, that forged her current icy demeanor.
She couldn't fully comprehend how bonds like the one between Liu Yutong and Yu Xin were formed, but the scene before her seemed to confirm what Liu Yutong had once told her.
"What I need isn't just a bodyguard, but a partner."
Perhaps this was what it should be like between partners?
This thought flashed through Lan Die's mind only briefly before she quickly reined in her emotions, minimizing her presence once again.
Meanwhile, Fang Yaqiong, busy working not far away, perhaps excited from seeing her old classmates, kept glancing toward Liu Yutong's table even as she worked.
Just as Fang Yaqiong was carrying a coffee to deliver to a table inside the cafe, an accident happened.
The customers at that table were none other than Hawke and his group, who had returned.
Fang Yaqiong carefully carried the tray, about to set it down, when the shorter, brown-haired guy deliberately shifted his body, his arm bumping backward "unintentionally."
"Ah!" Fang Yaqiong exclaimed as coffee spilled from the tray.
At the same moment, she could clearly feel a lecherous hand groping her buttock forcefully.
"Ah!"
Fang Yaqiong jumped back like a startled rabbit, her face instantly flushing crimson, looking at the foreign exchange students with a mixture of shame and anger.
"Oh, sorry, it wasn't on purpose."
Hawke and the others offered an apology on the surface, but the smirking, laughing expressions on their faces showed they weren't sincere.
By the time Liu Yutong and the others noticed the commotion in the cafe, the situation had already escalated further.
