Chapter 323 - 140: The Last Underling in the World

Chapter 323: Chapter 140: The Last Underling in the World

’So that’s what went wrong!’

’Wait a minute...’

Zhang Shutong thought he’d figured out where the problem lay.

He had subconsciously treated it as a single incident when asking about it, but in reality, it was clearly two!

Right now, neither Qingyi nor Ruoping seemed very reliable in his eyes. Before he knew it, he had walked to the back door of Class 3. Zhang Shutong took the opportunity to knock on the doorframe and quickly called out:

"Du Kang, come out for a second!"

"What’s up? What’s up?" Du Kang was chatting with someone and came jogging over when he heard the call.

"I need to ask you something, so think carefully." Zhang Shutong knew that back in the first year of middle school, it was actually Du Kang who was closest to Ruoping. "Did Ruoping give Gu Qiuyan a bag of chocolates back then? The gold coin ones?"

"I think... she did?" Du Kang said, confused.

"So was it a yes or a no?" Zhang Shutong’s tone grew heavy as he instinctively gripped Du Kang’s shoulders.

"Yes, yes, she did, I remember now!" Du Kang sucked in a sharp breath. "Why are you suddenly asking about this?"

Zhang Shutong ignored the question and quickly recounted:

"Was it because Gu Qiuyan complained that they tasted bad, refused to eat them, and then said something like ’If you guys like chocolate, I’ll bring some good ones tomorrow’? It was super tactless and made Ruoping really mad, right?"

"Yeah... I think so?"

"And then what?"

"I remember Gu Qiuyan actually did what she said she’d do the next day. She brought a bag of imported chocolates, the super expensive kind. She asked Ruoping if she wanted some, and then... what happened next? Ugh, it was so long ago, I really can’t remember clearly..."

Du Kang was still scratching his head, trying to recall, while Zhang Shutong stared intently at his mouth. If he wasn’t mistaken—

The next moment, Du Kang pumped his fist.

"Oh, oh! I remember! Ruoping took it! You have no idea, I complimented her later for being so magnanimous and she pinched me for it..."

’Just as I thought!’

Zhang Shutong’s heart sank.

The chocolate incident was never a single, isolated event; it had aftershocks.

This was the point of divergence where history began to change.

Zhang Shutong remembered it very clearly. In the original version of events, Ruoping should have treated Gu Qiuyan like she was thin air, not even bothering to look up. A rift formed between them from that moment on, and it lasted for three years.

’But this time, Ruoping actually took it?’

It seemed like such a small change, yet it had invisibly altered so much.

Zhang Shutong tried hard to sort through his chaotic thoughts, forming a rough chain of logic:

Because the second half of the chocolate incident played out differently, Gu Qiuyan never had a falling out with anyone. On top of that, she had a likable personality and was very generous, frequently launching snack offensives. So, over the four years of middle school, she gradually integrated into the island kids’ social circle and made many friends. Judging from lunch today, it wasn’t just a matter of making a few friends—she had become the most popular person in the entire fourth year.

Thinking back, the people at the lunch table mentioned visiting Gu Qiuyan’s house, traveling off the island, and using the library as their base... But they were all in the same grade; these things shouldn’t have happened.

But after all this analysis, he was even more confused. First of all, this was the first time a change in the timeline had occurred without his knowledge, rather than him triggering a rewind himself.

And the change itself was both small and large. It was small because it was merely Ruoping being magnanimous enough to accept Gu Qiuyan’s chocolate. But it was also large because this tiny butterfly had completely altered Gu Qiuyan’s social life at school.

Aside from that, however, nothing else had changed. The scarf incident, the murder case, even Li Yipeng and Zhou Ziheng, as well as the avalanche and the clay figures—all these important nodes remained the same.

A few seconds ago, Zhang Shutong had confirmed with Du Kang that, for some reason, his own relationship with Gu Qiuyan was the same as before.

He still remembered being a stubborn kid back then. That day, it happened to be his turn for classroom duty. A red-eyed Gu Qiuyan had run into him and asked if he wanted a chocolate.

Feeling he couldn’t betray his friend for a girl, he said no. She then threw the chocolates into the trash and walked away without looking back. From that day on, he had thoroughly offended the rich young lady and earned himself the title of "traitor."

Since Ruoping had accepted the chocolate, logically, he shouldn’t have been branded a traitor. But according to Du Kang, after Ruoping took a piece, Gu Qiuyan started offering the chocolate to others nearby. He happened to be passing by and still tactlessly declined:

"I don’t really like chocolate. You should keep it for yourself."

Everyone else accepted, but he didn’t. As a result, Gu Qiuyan still saw him as the class traitor and glared at him for years.

Zhang Shutong arrived at a startling conclusion—

’Because...’

’This was actually a positive change?’

No one knew why it had changed, and no one had suffered any loss because of it. In fact, thinking it over, it had actually helped Gu Qiuyan make a lot of friends.

Just then, Ruoping came out too. Just in case, Zhang Shutong went over everything with her one more time. Ruoping nodded strangely.

"Did all that seafood go to your head?"

"Not really, just curious..."

Zhang Shutong went to find Qingyi next.

He could hear her asking Xu Zhiruo behind him:

"Why’s he going into detective mode again?"

"Uh, I have no idea..."

Zhang Shutong found Qingyi and recounted the entire story once more. Qingyi nodded in realization.

"Oh, right, I think that did happen."

"How could you forget?" Zhang Shutong asked, perplexed.

"I wasn’t there at the time, so I don’t remember much about those gold coin chocolates. But when you mentioned the imported ones, it rang a bell. Don’t you remember? You told me about it later... You said Gu Qiuyan offered you a chocolate and you refused. I told you that you should’ve just taken it, but you said you had to go somewhere and they were in your way, so you just wanted to get out of there quickly."