“That woman really isn’t easy to deal with! So just flap her lips, and whether there’s evidence or not, she can dump the blame on someone just like that? The man’s ex-wife only left behind this one daughter—and such an outstanding one at that. She has a miscarriage and immediately plans to send the girl to No. 9 Middle School? That’s Class A at the Affiliated High School— even paying a school selection fee wouldn’t get you in. And she can get little Jin Zhao sent to No. 9? What kind of place is No. 9? Good students are one in a hundred, but troublemakers come in droves. Jin Wenhui, as a father, is really something!”

“Exactly. Back then, little Jin Zhao was sitting right here, crying so hard.”

The old woman pressed a hand to her chest, calling her darling and treasure in a heartbroken voice.

Meng Yanxi raised his eyes. His handsome, pale face shifted slightly as his lips moved. “She sat here… crying?”

His voice was very light, very hoarse.

The old woman slapped her thigh indignantly. “Yes, crying terribly hard—no sound at all. She just kept her head down, tears falling patter-patter. We elderly folks asked and asked, and only then did she choke out one sentence: she didn’t want to transfer to No. 9, but there was no way. Ah… such a good girl. Lost her mother at such a young age, bullied by her stepmother…”

“Bang!”

Meng Yanxi’s fingers loosened. The skateboard hit the ground, its wheels crashing heavily against the concrete.

The two elderly women were startled badly and abruptly looked at him.

The boy wore a black windbreaker, the zipper pulled all the way up to his chin, making his complexion look unnaturally pale. An extremely handsome face, a pair of eyes dark beyond depth, cold as ice shards.

The two old women had originally wanted to scold him a bit, but upon meeting those eyes, neither managed to say a word.

“Sorry.” Meng Yanxi lowered his head, picked up the skateboard, and stood.

The boy was tall, slightly thin, his body carrying edges sharper than the bitter winter wind.

“I have something to do. I’ll be leaving.”

The old women watched him, momentarily stunned, when they suddenly noticed two figures not far away and immediately had their attention diverted. “Eh, isn’t that Lin Yao?”

Meng Yanxi whipped his head around.

The other old woman took a closer look and said, “It’s her. Who’s she with? Look—the woman beside her with the permed little wool curls.”

“Probably here to see the house? Their couple has been taking turns bringing people to look at it lately.”

“Doesn’t look like it. The two of them are talking and laughing, even linking arms—looks very close.”

Meng Yanxi narrowed his eyes.

He had a very good memory, completely unlike Jin Zhao, who never remembered people. Whether numbers or faces, he was almost photographic. He was just cold and didn’t speak, which made others think he didn’t remember.

So when Ji Haoxuan’s mother happened to glance at him, her face went pale with guilt in an instant. When his gaze calmly shifted away, she finally relaxed, letting out a breath of relief.

A princeling like Meng Yanxi—surely he wouldn’t remember a small fry like her.

She turned her head and continued chatting and laughing with Lin Yao.

Lin Yao said, “Thanks to your friend for helping introduce a buyer. Let’s go upstairs and wait.”

Madam Ji replied, “Don’t be so formal—we’re sisters.”

Lin Yao smiled, tactfully asking, “How have your son’s grades been lately?”

Madam Ji couldn’t hide her pride. “This monthly exam he moved up six places.”

Lin Yao said, “Boys in adolescence are easily influenced by the people around them. Once the interference is gone, their grades will rise in no time.”

The two exchanged a knowing smile, looking in very good spirits.

Meng Yanxi glided past them on his skateboard. The windbreaker sliced through the air, leaving behind a burst of bone-chilling cold.

That day, Jin Wenhui’s house was sold. A buyer introduced by a friend of Madam Ji’s friend—sharp-minded, too. In the end, they successfully bargained down fifty thousand, closing the deal at market price. Although Jin Wenhui felt his house was worth fifty thousand more than others, Lin Yao said to treat it as doing a friend a favor, and he was happy to do his little darling wife a favor.

Those were their last lucky days. From then on, both the Jin family and the Ji family seemed entangled by bad luck—wanting nothing, getting nothing; the more they wanted something, the less they could obtain it.

Jin Wenhui, who did business, began to lose orders frequently. Big or small, at the final moment they were always snatched away by someone else. Cash flow quickly became tight, and from then on the situation took a sharp turn for the worse, ushering in the farce where poverty brings endless troubles to a couple. Ji’s father, a senior executive at a major corporation, was anonymously reported for embezzling public funds; the police took him straight from his office.

Meng Shixu had once spoken to his son.

At that time, Meng Yanxi wasn’t yet eighteen. These matters naturally had to pass through Meng Shixu’s hands. If it was just about venting anger, Meng Shixu felt he could indulge it. He was a father who doted on his child, but total annihilation wasn’t his style.

“They’re all ordinary people. Why go so hard?” Meng Shixu said, stopping there.

Meng Yanxi curled up on the sofa, looking listless.

He had just beaten up Ji Haoxuan at school. Because he refused to make a self-criticism under the national flag, his guaranteed admission slot was gone.

But that wasn’t why he was in a bad mood. Perhaps it was simply because of Meng Shixu’s words—“ordinary people.”

They were all ordinary people. Jin Zhao was nothing more than an ordinary girl. Why did they have to be so ruthless to her?

Even though he later confirmed again and again that she ultimately hadn’t been transferred to No. 9 Middle School and had probably truly gone abroad—she must have exhausted every effort to secure such an outcome for herself. But along the way, the humiliation, pain, and despair she endured—who would repay them? And how?

Meng Yanxi lifted his eyes to look at Meng Shixu. “Dad, give me two years.”

Meng Shixu was taken aback. “What?”

Meng Yanxi said, “In two years I’ll be twenty. Before I’m twenty, you handle it for me. After I’m twenty, I’ll do it myself.”

-♥︎ ྀི◟ ͜ ◞♥︎ ྀི◟ ͜ ◞♥︎ ྀི

When Jin Zhao returned, Wu Guo was already gone. Meng Yanxi was on the phone.

At first, Jin Zhao thought it had something to do with Wu Guo. When she walked closer, she heard Meng Yanxi say to the person on the line, “The four-piece set has been washed too—the purple one.”

Four-piece set?

Meng Yanxi continued, “It’s been cold lately. Use the goose-down quilt—don’t use the silk one.”

Noticing her return, he didn’t say anything more and quickly hung up.

Jin Zhao didn’t ask about Wu Guo. Though she was a little curious about what exactly Wu Guo had run into—to show up on New Year’s Day, such a universally celebratory occasion, tracing a single post on Moments all the way here. She both disliked the Wu family and, at the same time, had a rare flicker of interest in them. But since Meng Yanxi didn’t bring it up, she didn’t ask.

Luo Heng and Si Tian came back around noon; both of them had to work the next day.

In the afternoon, the group set off on the return trip. Luo Heng drove the first half, Meng Yanxi drove the second.

By the time they reached Suiyi, it was already dark. After dropping off Luo Heng and Si Tian, Meng Yanxi said quite naturally, “Go to my place?”

Jin Zhao was lowering her head, typing on her phone. Without lifting her head, she said, “No, no need. Take me back to school.”

Meng Yanxi: “?”

“Your dorm was flooded, and you can still live there?” Meng Yanxi laughed in exasperation.

He’d been afraid she wouldn’t want to sleep in the same room as him, so early that morning he’d already arranged for the aunt to prepare things at his place—bedsheets, quilt covers, shoes, clothes. What hadn’t he put thought into?

And yet his girlfriend would rather go live in a waterlogged dorm?

Did she think he was some kind of beast?

Jin Zhao sent out her message, then turned to explain, “No—it’s just that the project I applied for two months ago has been approved. National-level.”

Her tone carried a faint excitement, her eyes shining.

“The teacher from the Asset Management Office just contacted me and said that now I have a national-level project, plus the SSCI paper I published before, my points are already enough to apply for a talent apartment. Talent apartments are different from faculty dorms—they’re commercial housing. Considering my dorm was flooded, she helped me go through the fast-track. They’ve already arranged an apartment for me. Once I go back, I can get the key from the building manager and move in.”

“Two bedrooms and one living room.” Jin Zhao lifted her phone slightly to emphasize it, looking at her boyfriend with a hint of pride.

Boyfriend: “……”

No one had told him that when a girlfriend was too capable, his inexplicable number of competitors would also increase.

One flooded faculty apartment—and now a talent apartment popped up.

She really hadn’t read all those books for nothing.

Seeing his expression as if he’d just swallowed a mouthful of bitter coptis, Jin Zhao struggled to hold back a laugh. Thinking of what he’d said that morning, she deliberately added, “If you’re a bit tight on money and can’t rent your place out for now, you can consider staying with me first.”

She was very generous. “No rent—free.”