Urban System in America
Chapter 166 - 165: Unthinkable

Chapter 166: Chapter 165: Unthinkable

Soon Daisy returned with Sophie, Hannah, and a few other friends in tow. The moment they stepped into the classroom and caught sight of the odd atmosphere—people whispering, a few still laughing, others looking suspiciously well-behaved—they paused for a second, exchanging confused glances before heading to their seats.

Sophie, never one to ignore potential gossip, immediately leaned toward a group of familiar girls and whispered like a cat who just smelled spilled milk.

"What’s going on?" she whispered, loud enough for half the class to hear. "Why does it feel like I missed a K-drama episode? Did someone confess? Fight? Die?"

After a few exchanged sentences and widened eyes, she perked up, turned to Rex, and blurted loud enough for half the class to hear, "Wait—you guys missed the whole drama! Rex showed up looking like he walked off a Vogue shoot and now everyone thinks he’s secretly rich."

Sophie’s eyes sparkled with evil interest. "No way."

"Oh, and," the girl added, grinning wide, "he’s buying lunch for the whole class."

Sophie gasped so hard she practically choked on air. She whipped around, eyes locking on Rex like a missile.

"What? When? Why? HOW?" She fired off a rapid stream of questions like a machine gun in a livestream chat room full of simps thirsting over some half-naked streamer. "Is this some kind of charity campaign?! Or are you bribing us for silence?! And are we talking real lunch or sad vending machine snacks?"

It was the kind of high-speed commentary usually seen in the bullet screen of a livestream—except instead of a bikini-clad influencer, it was Rex... who honestly could pass as one if he tried.

Even Daisy blinked in surprise, clearly unaware of any such development. She glanced at Rex, just as he happened to look her way. He gave a small, casual smile—cool, charming, effortless.

And this time... instead of blushing and looking away like usual, Daisy met his gaze and returned the smile. It was small, soft, but it made his heart skip—just a little.

He quickly averted his eyes, scratching his cheek as if the classroom lights were suddenly too bright. Nope. Not blushing. Just—heatstroke. Emotional heatstroke.

Meanwhile, Sophie was still mid-rant, interrogating the girls like a caffeine-fueled detective. ""Hold on, did I enter an alternate timeline? You’re buying lunch? Since when do mysterious broody types feed the masses?"

"And let me get this straight. He shows up in designer clothes, gets swarmed by boys like some celebrity boyfriend reveal, and now he’s buying lunch? Is this some PR stunt? Rex, blink twice if you’ve been kidnapped by a fashion cult."

"I never said I was buying lunch!" Rex protested, raising his hands in mock surrender, voice half-laughing, half-panicked. "That was these guys’ propaganda. I’m just a humble student, falsely accused of being rich."

Samuel, who was seated a bit away, immediately shouted hearing this. "Don’t lie, Rex. Your coat’s worth more than my entire GPA. You owe us lunch by moral obligation."

Even though he already knew that the coat was counterfeit, he didn’t care and joined in the fun.

"Since when does fashion come with financial penalties?" Rex groaned.

"Since you rolled up looking like the final boss of a luxury brand," Sophie chimed in, hands on hips.

"You’re all just jealous," Rex muttered, leaning back in his seat. "If looking decent is a crime, then I plead guilty."

Hannah leaned over with a grin. "Yeah, well, your sentence is ten sandwiches and a large pizza. No parole."

Even Joe cracked a smile. Elara peeked up from her notebook, then immediately looked back down, cheeks pink.

"Fine," Rex muttered, dramatically slumping in his seat. "Next time I’m showing up in my dad’s old pajamas and slippers."

"Too late," Sophie said, tapping her chin like a scheming villain. "Your fate is already sealed. Lunch or public humiliation. You decide."

Rex sighed deeply, sending one last glance Daisy’s way.

She was still smiling, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, cheeks faintly pink.

Well... maybe lunch wouldn’t be the worst investment.

With the chaos slowly dying down and no actual lunch plans being enforced—yet—Rex finally opened his notebook, flipping through the pages with a thoughtful hum.

Time to pretend to be a responsible student.

The content looked... familiar. Sort of. A bit blurry, like someone had smeared Vaseline over his memories. That’s what he got for spending extended time in the system space. Reality always came back a little fuzzy, like waking up from a vivid dream where he’d been a ninja, billionaire, or rockstar—or all three.

Thankfully, the system wasn’t completely evil. Before booting him out, it had thrown in a complimentary service—compressing and syncing his system-space memories with real-time learning. Like a data refresh. Kind of like cloud backup, but for his brain.

[System: Memory realignment complete. Retention boosted. You’re welcome.]

It had also smugly announced that it would "help with re-adaptation to the academic environment," which really just meant Rex didn’t have to relearn everything from scratch. A win was a win.

He squinted at the formulas, letting the newly re-lit pathways in his brain spark back to life. Slowly, the concepts began snapping into place again.

"Nice," he muttered, nodding to himself. "Still got it."

Meanwhile, Elara quietly flipped through her notes, her study routine as precise and sacred as a monk’s daily rituals in the holy temple of textbooks. Everything was color-coded, perfectly aligned—organized chaos only she could understand.

But if someone happened to zoom in a little closer—say, with the lens of divine gossip—you might catch her cute little nose twitching slightly.

Unbeknownst to anyone (hopefully), she’d just caught a faint trace of Rex’s scent.

It was oddly refreshing today. Like a crisp sea breeze right after a summer rain. Without thinking, she twitched her nose again, stealing another whiff—then immediately froze, face turning a suspicious shade of pink.

Peeking sideways, she caught a glimpse of Rex’s profile.who was fully focused on his notes, brows furrowed in concentration, hair falling just slightly over his brow. Somehow, that made him look even more unfairly attractive. As he looked annoyingly handsome, like a model pretending to study in a coffee commercial. The kind of look that could probably be on the cover of some college romance manga titled "The Boy Who Solved My Equations and Stole My Heart."

Elara blinked, then mentally facepalmed.

What was she even doing?

She laughed at herself, quietly and a little bitterly.

She didn’t have time for this nonsense. Not like other students. Her life was already packed with enough responsibilities to crush someone twice her size. She wasn’t someone who got distracted easily. She had goals. Expectations. A very limited tolerance for daydreams.

Besides, she and Rex? Two completely different worlds.

It was impossible. Unthinkable. Ridiculous.

...Something that never even crossed her mind.

(End of Chapter)

Search the lightnovelworld.cc website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.