After Becoming a Cannon Fodder Side Character, I Became the Group’s Favorite (GL) - Chapter 4

After treating the injuries, Wen Mubai watched Xu Chacha from a nearby rocking chair, making sure she didn’t shift in her sleep and press on her wounds.

As the evening deepened, the room slowly grew dark. Wen Mubai didn’t turn on the light, afraid of waking Xu Chacha.

It was almost 7 PM when Xu Chacha slowly woke up.

The area around her was completely dark. Being newly awake, her head was still a bit foggy, and Xu Chacha didn’t immediately register where she was.

Could it be that her transmigration was just a dream she had after fainting from working too hard?

“Auntie, are you there?” Xu Chacha called out to test the waters.

After her parents passed away, she was temporarily staying at her aunt’s house. Their financial situation wasn’t great, and raising a son was already a struggle. They probably couldn’t afford to call an ambulance for her, so she should be at home now.

“Shhh—”

Xu Chacha heard the sound of someone turning a newspaper, followed by a voice laced with a smile.

“Just one nap, and Sister has become Auntie?”

In the darkness, Xu Chacha slowly blinked. Oh, so it wasn’t a dream. She really had died from overwork.

“Chacha was dreaming just now. I wasn’t calling Sister,” Xu Chacha explained softly, adopting a child’s tone.

Wen Mubai didn’t mind at all. She stood up and turned on the light. “It’s fine, call me whatever you like.”

It seemed that girls their age were particularly sensitive about being called “Auntie” or similar terms. For instance, Jiang Panpan would always earnestly correct children, telling them to call her “Sister.”

“That won’t do. All girls under forty must be called Sister,” Xu Chacha said, narrowing her eyes and smiling at Wen Mubai. “For someone beautiful like you, Sister, you need to add ‘beautiful’—Beautiful Sister!”

“Alright, beautiful little sister,” Wen Mubai echoed her tone, then walked over and picked her up. “Time to eat.”

Xu Chacha obediently hugged her neck. “What about Sister? Has Sister eaten? Did Chacha sleep for a long time?”

“Sister wasn’t hungry, so I waited to eat with you.”

She carried Xu Chacha to a chair, sat her down, and then went to reheat the food. She ran into Jiang Panpan on the way back.

“Is little Chacha awake?”

“She’s awake.” Wen Mubai wiped the spilled soup from the edge of the plate with a napkin.

Jiang Panpan was used to her extreme compulsion for tidiness. “Perfect, I’ll join you. I bought a lot of pretty little dresses and I can’t wait to see her wear them. She’ll be super cute!”

Wen Mubai: “…”

When the two returned to the room, Xu Chacha was sitting on the chair Wen Mubai had prepared for her. The chair’s legs were a bit high, and her feet couldn’t reach the floor. Since Wen Mubai had applied ointment to her feet, she couldn’t wear shoes and couldn’t easily get down, so she just waved her small hand at them from a distance.

“Sister!”

Jiang Panpan walked over with the bag, squatted in front of her, and looked her over from head to toe. When she saw the shocking scars, her nose started to sting.

“How are you doing? Does it still hurt? I’m so sorry, Sister didn’t realize you were asking for help earlier. You almost suffered because of us.”

Xu Chacha shook her head and patted Jiang Panpan’s shoulder with her small hand, comforting her in a sweet, childish voice. “It’s okay. Pretty girls shouldn’t cry.”

“Pretty girl?” Jiang Panpan pointed at herself, turned back, and laughed loudly at Wen Mubai. “Hahahaha! She said I’m pretty! Kids don’t lie, so she’s right!”

Wen Mubai silently arranged the dishes on the table, pretending not to hear.

Jiang Panpan then took Xu Chacha’s hand and began to bait her. “Now, tell me, who’s prettier: me, or that Sister named Wen over there?”

Xu Chacha’s tone was sweet and obedient, but she stabbed a dagger into the woman’s heart without hesitation. “Of course, that Sister. That Sister is the most beautiful in the world.”

“Sister bought you many pretty little dresses, you know,” Jiang Panpan took out the clothes and waved them in front of Xu Chacha. “Come on, Chacha, say it again, which Sister is prettier?”

Xu Chacha was unmoved, her finger pointing firmly in Wen Mubai’s direction. “That Sister is prettier.”

“You can’t even be bribed with a little dress.” Jiang Panpan chose not to seek further humiliation.

“The little dresses aren’t as good as Sister,” Xu Chacha swung her feet and said in a very innocent tone, “I like Sister the most in the whole world.”

Wen Mubai, who had her back to them, lowered her head and let out a soft chuckle, but by the time she turned around, she had returned to her calm, unperturbed demeanor.

She lowered her voice, concealing the amusement in it. “Hurry up and eat.”

“Coming right away!” Xu Chacha wiggled her bottom, about to slide down, but Wen Mubai had already walked over and lifted her, chair and all, placing her next to the dining table.

The guesthouse owner prepared four dishes and one soup for them. The two meat dishes were placed right in front of Xu Chacha, and her rice was piled high like a small mountain.

“Are you trying to feed her into a fatty in one sitting?” Jiang Panpan, who had already eaten, didn’t pick up her chopsticks and teased Wen Mubai from the side.

Wen Mubai was busy stuffing meat into Xu Chacha’s bowl. Hearing her remark, she nodded earnestly. “Mhm, I’m hoping to feed her ten pounds overnight.”

Xu Chacha, whose cheeks were puffed up with food and couldn’t speak, immediately looked up when she heard this. Her round eyes stared at Wen Mubai. Her slightly pouted mouth, combined with her stunned expression, was endearingly silly.

“Huh?”

Wen Mubai reached up and took a grain of rice from her mouth. “You’re too thin. You don’t have any meat on you.”

Jiang Panpan spoke up as if she had discovered a new continent. “So you can say that many words at once, too.”

Wen Mubai: “Hmm?”

“You don’t know what people in school say about you,” Jiang Panpan was excited about this topic. “They say you’re so taciturn that you don’t even use more than five words to reject a confession. Later, those boys who confessed to you weren’t hoping you’d say yes; they were aiming to get you to say a few more words! Hahahaha, I’m dying!”

Xu Chacha ate her rice, her eyes darting between Jiang Panpan and Wen Mubai, then nodded in agreement, listening very seriously to the gossip.

Indeed, with a face like that, it would be abnormal not to be confessed to a few times a semester.

“And don’t you think those boys are gluttons for punishment? The more you ignore them, the more they like you. What’s the point?”

Wen Mubai lowered her eyes dismissively. “If they’d put some of that effort into their test papers, which are full of red X’s, they wouldn’t have this kind of energy.”

“Mhm, yes, exactly.” Xu Chacha responded vaguely to Wen Mubai, holding the bowl with both hands and putting it down, then trying to push back her annoying bangs, which were interfering with her eating.

Wen Mubai glanced sideways at the little sweetheart struggling with her hair and reached out a hand. “Stop. Sister will tie it up for you.”

“Okay.” Xu Chacha grinned, her eyes curving into crescent moons.

Wen Mubai found a hair tie, stood behind Xu Chacha, combed her soft hair twice with her fingers, then gathered the bangs, which hadn’t been trimmed in ages, and tied them into a little tuft.

“Too tight?”

Xu Chacha shook her head, and the tuft on top wiggled with her. “Not tight. Thank you, Sister.”

With her bangs tied up, Xu Chacha’s smooth, full forehead was revealed. Combined with her slightly pink, baby-fat cheeks, she looked like a peach plump with juice—irresistibly tempting to take a big bite out of.

Jiang Panpan rested her chin in her hands. “Wuwuwu, this little sweetheart is too cute. Can I steal her and raise her myself?”

“No, you can’t,” Wen Mubai and Xu Chacha said in unison.

“Ouch, I’m hurt…” Jiang Panpan clutched her chest.

“Chacha needs to go with this Sister.” Xu Chacha pulled Wen Mubai’s finger and held it.

Wen Mubai’s finger twitched, and her expression froze for a moment, but she quickly recovered and softly agreed, “Yes.”

“Sigh, you two have only just met, but you’re as close as sisters,” Jiang Panpan sighed. “When you were tying her hair, I even saw a maternal halo glowing around you.”

Eighteen-year-old Wen Mubai: “…”

Xu Chacha picked up a chicken wing and offered it to Jiang Panpan’s mouth, smiling sweetly. “Sister, try this chicken wing! It’s super delicious!”

Food should definitely shut her up.

Jiang Panpan thought Xu Chacha was comforting her. They say a child who shares food with you treats you as their own. She bit into the chicken wing, instantly forgetting her earlier minor pain and injury.

Today’s chicken wing is so damn delicious! And the little girl who gave it to me is so damn cute!

“Oh, right. After dinner, Sister will help you cut your hair,” Jiang Panpan said. “Your hair looks like it hasn’t been taken care of for a long time. It’s uneven.”

“Can Sister cut hair?” Xu Chacha was a little unsure.

“Of course! Sister cuts her own hair,” Jiang Panpan flipped her bangs. “How does it look? Pretty, right?”

Xu Chacha observed seriously, giving her critique like a little adult. “It’s pretty.”

“Naturally. Girls in our class don’t just cut their own hair; they dye it too. Who goes to a hair salon these days?” Jiang Panpan was quite proud.

This sparked Xu Chacha’s curiosity. “Are both Sisters classmates?”

“We’re… kind of classmates, but not in the same class,” Jiang Panpan pointed to herself. “I’m an art student. Your Sister Wen is a science student and a big academic ace.”

“Oh, I see.” Xu Chacha nodded.

Wen Mubai raised her palm and placed it on her head. “What about Chacha? What do you want to study in the future?”

“Chacha…” Xu Chacha scraped her chopsticks in her bowl. “They said that since Chacha is a girl, she doesn’t need to go to school. They also said that if I marry someone random later, they can get a lot of money, and it’s less effort than raising me to go to college and then earning money.”

Jiang Panpan’s expression stiffened. Although her family wasn’t as wealthy as Wen Mubai’s, she was an only child who had been cherished since birth. She had always thought all parents in the world were as kind and gentle as her own and couldn’t imagine the things Xu Chacha had endured.

“Don’t believe them,” Wen Mubai gently rubbed her head, her tone soft. “They are bad people, and bad people talk nonsense.”

“Okay! Then Chacha wants to become the same as Sister!” Xu Chacha repeated Jiang Panpan’s words, syllable by syllable. “A-ca-dem-ic Ace!”

In reality, Xu Chacha just spoke too quickly at the time. It wasn’t until she was later pinned down by Wen Mubai at her desk and “motivated” with those very words that she realized some things were truly regrettable.

Why did she have to have a mouth?