Chapter 316.<h4><b><strong>Chapter 316. An Unexpected Encounter.</strong></b><b> (3/6)</b></h4>


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Is there something wrong?” Zale followed up.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Huh? Uh… sorry… are you hitting on me, or are you asking a genuine question? I can’t really tell.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Hitting on you? Did you want me to hit on you?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“No.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Then I was asking a genuine question.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“I… see. Well… there’s no need for you to look any further.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“What do you mean?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“You’re in the engineering building.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Huh? Wait… really?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Yeah. Hahaha…”


    <span style="font-weight:400">A pleasant smile on her face, she quietlyughed together with her friend beside her in line.


    <span style="font-weight:400">Zale scratched the side of his head awkwardly and said, “I see. How absentminded of me.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Well, it’s not strange to be confused. The engineeringplex consists of three buildings that form an isosceles triangle; they used to bepletely separate from each other in the past. This central area is walled off by those three buildings. It used to be open to the outside here, but they built a ceiling over it to connect the three buildings together which created this enclosed area.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">Light from outside illuminates this area as there were windows along two of the buildings at the top a bit below the ceiling.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“I see. That’s pretty interesting.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Are you here for a campus tour?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Yes.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Then you can just wait on one of the couches here. When the guide arrives they’ll make an announcement.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Thanks. I’ll do that.” It seems Zale felt it was a bit too awkward to stick around and continue talking to her with me witnessing his little blunder.


    <span style="font-weight:400">He returned to the couch I was on, sat down beside me, and said, “It seems you got pretty lucky and stumbled across the right ce.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“I did? Haha. What a surprise, to think my random guess would turn out to be correct.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Yeah… you got lucky.” He repeated, putting extra emphasis on the luck part.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“You know, it could just be that you’re pretty unlucky.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Me? Unlucky? Never.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Never? I heard from Jass what happened at convocation. Sounds pretty unlucky to me. Ria was right next to you the entire time and you didn’t even realize it. Yet Jass somehow saw through her disguise. He was bragging a lot about his exploits.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">Of course, that never happened. He never told me anything about it since I hadn’t seen him since then, but that wasn’t something Zale would know. I’d been there to see it all y out in the flesh. It was still fresh in my mind too.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“The next time I see Jass I’m definitely going to kick his ass.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">Well, his reaction was only natural. Jass quite literally stole the bride on her wedding day from under the groom''s nose. It was a glorious sight to see; Zale’s ugly expression as he internally fumed over it when it happened. Aside from the victim in question, nobody in the gymnasium but me understood the sequence of events. Everyone thought Zale was simply furious that someone had shown such disrespect at convocation for his graduating ss.


    <span style="font-weight:400">The teachers weren’t able to react in time to block off the exits to stop Jass’s escape with Izora. Before Jass fled, he’d disrespectfully thrown Izora’s wig into Zale’s face as he turned tail. He grabbed Izora’s wrist, jumped off the back of the center stage, and pulled Izora along in tow. He dashingly ran straight out of the gymnasium doors and never looked back once.


    <span style="font-weight:400">As for what happened between Jass and Izora after that, I had no idea. The only thing I knew was Zale had lost our little bet horribly. When I saw him post-ceremony, I made sure to rub in his loss. He’d lost our little bet miserably since Izora never showed up again after that.


    <span style="font-weight:400">As for the other little detail I uncovered that day… the revtion that Izora’s elder sister was Ms. Gene. As soon as Ms. Gene let that bomb slip, I came to a shocking realization that shook me to my core. Somehow… I’d kissed both sisters. I mean, what are the odds! Likee on, give me a break here!


    <span style="font-weight:400">Contrary to me who’d been shaken by that world-shattering revtion, Ms. Gene didn’t seem to particrly care that her little sister had been dragged away from convocation by Jass. Though it didn’te across in her monotone voice, her words made it obvious she was envious her little sister got to bail on the event early.


    <span style="font-weight:400">I met their mother that day as well as soon as convocation was over. She approached Ms. Gene by the wall and was super curious about what happened. She wasn’t upset that her daughter had been snatched up, rather, she wanted the scoop. She knew Izora liked Zale, but it turned out there was some sort of love triangle with the introduction of this mysterious dark horse candidate that appeared out of nowhere. How could she not be dying to know?


    <span style="font-weight:400">There was one other conversation I overheard that day as well. Jass really did have an older sister who was graduating. Her friends were crowded around her and she was incessantly teased on the way out about her ballsy little brother who dared to crash their convocation and steal the show.


    <span style="font-weight:400">They were all light-hearted jokes, but she’d covered her face with both her hands as she blushed like crazy. Jass was definitely going to get an earful from his sister when she saw him at home. Aside from the teachers who didn’t find it funny, most of the students and attendees were amused. It spiced things up and turned convocation from a snooze fest into an interesting story they could gossip and specte about.


    <span style="font-weight:400">As for the biggest loser in this ordeal, he was now right beside me. His head hung low, his elbows on his knees with his palms supporting his forehead.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Haaaaaaah.” Zale let out a sigh.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Can you please not sigh like you want me to give a shit and ask what’s wrong?” I had shbacks to thest time this happened and I had to get Ang''s autograph for that fan of hers so he’d never visit the museum again.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“I’m not sighing for you to ask. Even if you did ask why would I tell you?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Oh? Really? Good. Then please don’t tell me because I don’t give a shit.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“So rotten people attract one another. I’ve truly learned something new.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“What? You’re calling my girlfriend rotten?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Yeah. You got a problem with that?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Not at all. I’m inclined to agree.” We’re rotten to the core. Corrupt bastards with little to no morals.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“You agree? Should you really be agreeing that your girlfriend is rotten? Shouldn’t you defend her? Actually, if you think she’s rotten, why are you even with her?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Why am I with her? That’s like asking why people like things that are bad for them.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“You’re trying to say those bad things taste good?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Sure.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“What about a rotten apple? You’re not going to tell me they taste good, are you?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Just because something is rotten doesn’t mean it can’t taste good.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“How?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Take cheese or aged beef for example. Making cheese is the art of controlling rot. Milk is treated with bacteria and enzymes to curdle it, then the curds are cut, formed, and given some TLC for days, weeks, or months until the cheese is ripe. In the case of dry-age beef, bs of it are allowed to sit in a temperature and humidity-controlled room for up to three weeks while it develops a crust, usuallyplete with mold. All of this is cut away after the dry-aging isplete, and you’re left with a steak that’s tender, minerally, and more concentrated in vor.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“So you’re suggesting under certain conditions rotten things can taste good.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Well, more or less.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“I see. What about a rotten soul? Do you think there’s any way for them to taste good?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“A… soul… you say?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“It’s a joke. Rosa’s definitely got a rotten soul.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Oh, that’s what you mean. Well, even if she did have a rotten soul, I’d still like it.” Though… I still haven’t found the chance to get her to sell her soul to me. So I don’t actually know.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“You struck me more as being the type to scoff when someone brings up stuff like souls.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“I am. Souls are utter nonsense. They definitely don’t exist.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“I see. Well, I guess if you’re more rotten than her, something less rotten than yourself would probably taste betterparatively. It’s a bit sad to see.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“What’s a bit sad to see exactly?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“That you’ll only ever know what low-quality goods taste like.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Low-quality goods, huh? Are you trying to discreetly call me a lowly peasant in a nice roundabout way?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Are you dissatisfied with my assessment?” He neither confirmed nor denied it.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“I don’t understand the appeal of things that are high quality. What’s so great about them? Who gets to decide what’s high quality and what’s low quality?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Ignorance is bliss I suppose. You don’t understand what’s so great about it because you’ve never feasted upon it. Once you taste something high quality, that low-quality junk you were once so satisfied with will never taste the same again. You’ll be hooked.”