Chapter 20: Three Breakfasts, One Doomed Morning
Chloe’s piercing scream instantly pulled everyone’s attention to her violently buzzing phone screen.
“What trending post?” Vanessa asked, curiosity drawing her closer.
On the Halewick University campus forum homepage, one post had been pinned, featured, and highlighted in red by an administrator with top-level privileges. It dominated the page with an almost tyrannical presence.
The title was inflammatory, dramatic, and clearly designed to jab right into the audience’s most sensitive nerves.
[Heartbreaking! New Campus Goddess Tessa Vale Suspected of Being Bullied by Demon Coach. Starved to Collapse After Training, Found Sitting Alone by the Roadside!]
The OP was clearly a skilled photographer. The photo attached to the main post had impeccable composition and lighting.
In the picture, Tessa was slumped weakly beside the tree-lined path leading to the dining hall, her back against the thick trunk of an old plane tree. Afternoon sunlight filtered through the leaves, casting mottled light and shadow across her pale, bloodless face. Her rare amber eyes were unfocused from low blood sugar, glistening with moisture and full of confusion and helplessness, like a trembling little creature abandoned by the whole world.
The most lethal part was that she had rushed out of the dorm in a simple white T-shirt and a pair of light-blue denim shorts. Because of the way she had collapsed, the hems of the shorts had ridden upward, revealing her flawless, long, snow-white legs and that tantalizing stretch of Absolute Zone near the tops of her thighs without reservation.
The entire photo fused weakness, helplessness, and pity with extreme sensuality and visual impact in a way that was both contradictory and devastating.
The destructive power of this photo was nuclear.
Since it had been posted that afternoon, only a few hours of fermentation had been enough for the comment section to completely fall. Thousands of replies had stacked up, turning it into the ultimate battlefield for the third world war between rival shippers.
[1234F: I knew it! I knew this would happen! Riley Summers, that muscle-brained athletic potato! She doesn’t understand how to cherish delicate beauty at all! Tessa is such a fragile work of art. How could she treat her so roughly?! I demand Riley Summers make a public apology!]
[1235F replying to 1234F: Bullshit! Riley did it for Tessa’s own good! Do you even know what tough love means? She’s trying to give Tessa’s heavenly voice an equally strong body!]
[1236F: Both sides, stop fighting. Facts speak louder than words. Riley only makes Tessa sweat until she collapses. Only Seraphina can truly give Tessa happiness! Didn’t you see how obedient Tessa gets every time she’s in front of Seraphina? That’s true love!]
[1237F: Stop arguing, all of you. I just want to say… those legs… whew… I could stare at those legs for a whole year…]
“It’s over, Tessa. Now the whole school thinks Riley committed domestic violence against you,” Chloe said, looking at the comment section with genuine concern.
Vanessa, on the other hand, was enjoying herself immensely. She zoomed in on the photo and carefully admired Tessa’s long legs, which seemed to glow white through the camera. Her eyes turned languid and seductive as she sighed. “My, my. Look at that poor little thing. It really makes you want to scoop her into your arms and bully her until she cries.”
Bzzzz. Bzz, bzz.
Just as Tessa was about to explode on the spot from Vanessa’s outrageous words, the phone on her desk suddenly began vibrating like it had lost its mind. A flood of new message notifications rushed onto the screen.
Tessa instinctively picked it up. The first thing that popped up was a voice message from [Healing Angel Molly].
She tapped the voice message. The next second, Molly’s sweet voice, clearly thick with tears and full of guilt and heartache, rang through the quiet dorm.
“Tessa! A-are you okay? I saw the photo on the forum. Waaah… It’s all my fault. It’s my fault I didn’t meet you sooner! You must have overtrained and skipped breakfast today, right? Listen to me. I am not letting you go hungry tomorrow morning! I made soup dumplings for you. At seven-thirty sharp, I’ll bring them to the front of your dorm. You have to wait for me!”
At the end of the voice message, they could even hear the girl’s tiny, suppressed sniffle from sheer distress.
Warmth surged through Tessa’s chest. She was just about to reply when a second message popped up immediately after.
The sender was [Moonlit Upperclassman Seraphina].
The message was still gentle, but carried Seraphina’s usual quiet force that allowed no refusal.
[Tessa, I saw the forum. Don’t be afraid. I won’t let you suffer like that again. Are you free tomorrow morning? I’ll take you to Wisteria Pavilion for brunch and help you recover properly.]
Wisteria Pavilion was the most exclusive tea house in Halewick City. The average bill was four digits per person, and even money did not guarantee a reservation.
Before Tessa could recover from Seraphina’s absurdly expensive pampering, a third message forced itself into view with an extremely blunt and domineering style.
Sender: Demon Coach.
The message contained only one short sentence.
[Tomorrow at 6:30, I’ll bring you breakfast.]
It was not a question. It was not a negotiation. It was an order.
Tessa stared blankly at her phone screen. Three different women had sent messages at almost the exact same time, and every single one was an invitation to breakfast tomorrow morning. Her brain buzzed as if three heavy hammers had struck it at once.
One wanted to feed her downstairs at seven-thirty.
One wanted to take her to a ludicrously expensive tea house to restore her body.
One wanted to provide “energy replenishment” at the training field at six-thirty.
Just as Tessa wanted to perform a disappearing act on the spot, the familiar, outrageously flashy chibi devil UI slowly popped up in her mind with an exaggerated burst of sparkly effects, wiggling its matchstick waist.
[Ding! Heeheehee~ Congratulations, my dear Host. You have successfully triggered a limited story event~]
[Limited-Time Quest Updated: Tomorrow Morning!]
[Quest Name: Master of Time Management!]
[Quest Objective: Safely survive this triple-booked morning, and feel basically satisfied with how you handle it.]
[Quest Reward: Affection Points +200!]
[Failure Penalty: For the next 24 hours, once every 10 minutes, you will uncontrollably turn to the nearest person and, with the purest and most innocent eyes, say in a soft, sweet voice, “Mister/Miss, you’re so nice~”]
“…”
Looking at that failure penalty, Tessa felt her blood pressure shoot straight up. She could already imagine what would happen if this punishment activated near Vanessa. That woman would be thrilled enough to ascend.
“What’s wrong, Tessa? You look like you’ve been constipated for two weeks,” Iris said.
Noticing the spectacular expression on Tessa’s face, which had gone from heaven to hell in seconds, Iris calmly walked over and took the phone from her hand.
She glanced at it once and immediately grasped the core problem. Then, in her emotionless tone, she analyzed it with surgical precision. “Three different people invited you to the same breakfast tomorrow morning. Riley Summers is at the athletic field. Molly Sweet is downstairs. Seraphina Frost wants to go off campus. The times conflict, and the locations are far apart. Tessa, good luck.”
After that, she patted Tessa sympathetically on the shoulder and returned the phone.
After hearing Iris’s summary, Vanessa’s beautiful eyes lit up at once, sparkling with the excitement of someone who lived for chaos. She licked her red lips, leaned beside Tessa’s ear, and laughed wickedly, her breath warm and fragrant.
“My, my. Our little Tessa is so popular.”
But Tessa’s eyes were no longer unfocused. Her brain was running at an unprecedented speed. She stared hard at the three messages on her phone screen. Times, locations, people. Countless fragments of information collided and rearranged themselves inside her mind.
There!
A flash of inspiration split through the chaos like lightning.
Tessa abruptly raised her head. Her eyes shone with wisdom. No, with the hope of survival.
She could do this. She could actually do this. She could use this perfect time gap to complete the impossible quest.
First, Riley’s message had clearly said that tomorrow’s training plan was “core activation and recovery training,” and she had even thoughtfully pushed the time back from six to six-thirty. That meant tomorrow morning’s exercise load would definitely be light. At most, it would be yoga and Pilates. There was no way she would get wrung dry like today. She could arrive at the athletic field on time at six-thirty, accept Riley’s “gentle version” training, and eat the first lovingly prepared breakfast Riley brought her.
Once training ended, it would probably be around seven-twenty. Running from the athletic field back to the dorm only took five minutes. That gave her a full five minutes to rush back to Room 407, take the fastest combat shower of her life, and change into a clean, fresh daily outfit.
She flipped through her closet and locked onto a simple white crewneck T-shirt and a pair of washed-blue jeans. This outfit would not smell sweaty like workout clothes, and it would not be inconvenient like a dress. It was fresh, casual, and perfect for meeting the gentle and adorable Molly.
After washing up, she could get downstairs before seven-thirty and meet Molly, who would be waiting there. Then she would eat her second lovingly prepared breakfast, the soup dumplings.
Finally came Seraphina. Her invitation was off campus, so the timing was the most flexible. Tessa could deal with the first two, then calmly contact Seraphina afterward and tell her she had just finished morning training and breakfast before going with her to enjoy the most luxurious final breakfast.
Plan complete!
Although this meant she might have to eat three breakfasts in one morning until her eyes rolled back, this was already the only way she could think of to escape intact.
“Hah…”
After making this perfect plan, which could only be called the breakfast version of a triathlon, Tessa let out a long breath and felt herself come back to life.
She looked at her phone, her gaze turning incomparably firm.
Wasn’t it just three breakfasts?
For survival.
For avoiding social death.
She, Tessa Vale, would eat them all.