The Promise of a 718 and the Daughter of Guangdong's Top Tycoon

The evening air at Jiangcheng University still held the lingering heat of a day spent baking under the sun.

Room 504 in men's dormitory building five reeked of sour sweat and the rubber of plastic shoe soles.

The newly installed air conditioner was turned up to full blast.

Military training was enough to drain the strength from the freshmen, but it could do nothing to curb the excess hormones of eighteen-year-old boys.

Han Dong hadn't even bothered to shower. He sprawled in his chair, his mind full of the figure holding a DSLR camera on the athletic field that afternoon.

"Guys."

Han Dong stared fixedly at the ceiling, breathing heavily.

"I feel like I've wasted the last eighteen years of my life."

"That senior in the white shirt on the field—her aura, her figure, everything about her was incredible. I hereby declare that the start button on my spring has officially been pressed."

He abruptly sat up straight and slapped both thighs.

"Which department do you think she's from?"

"I want a passionate, earth-shaking romance so badly!"

Across from him, Chen Ziang sat carefully wiping the sweat from his neck with a disinfectant wipe.

Normally, he looked down his nose at everyone, yet this time he didn't mock Han Dong for being so green.

He tossed the used wipe into the trash with perfect aim, put on his young-master airs, and offered his assessment at a leisurely pace.

"Give up on that idea while you still can."

"You can't raise a girl with an aura like hers without piling on money and connections from the day she's born."

Han Dong pursed his lips in disagreement.

"What, ordinary people aren't even allowed to dream?"

Chen Ziang's lips twitched as he leaned back in his chair.

"Dream all you want. Pursuing her is out of the question."

He reached out and fiddled with the car key on his desk, his voice carrying an undisguised swagger and confidence.

"Ordinary tricks won't break through to a girl of that caliber."

"Still, if I really could date her, I wouldn't mind spending a fortune."

Chen Ziang paused and laid his cards on the table.

"The year I got into Jiang University, my dad rewarded me with a Porsche 718."

"If I could win that senior over, I'd be willing to give her the car as a present."

A Porsche.

For an ordinary freshman, those words hit with the force of a depth charge.

Han Dong's eyes turned green with envy, and he swallowed reflexively.

Just as he was busy calculating how many servings of pork rib rice a 718 could buy, the sound of running water came from the washroom.

Lu Chuan stood in front of the sink.

He lowered his head, scooped up a handful of cool water, and splashed it over his face, washing away a day's heat and fatigue.

Then he grabbed a towel and gave his face a couple of careless wipes.

As he walked back into the middle of the dorm room, Lu Chuan didn't even deliberately stop to join the discussion, which was full of the air of peacocks spreading their tails.

He simply draped the towel over the wardrobe rail and casually chimed in, his voice utterly flat.

"Shen Zhiyi."

"Journalism department, second year."

The words fell ever so lightly.

As lightly as if he were listing what the cafeteria had served for lunch that day.

The room's lively atmosphere instantly ground to a halt.

Han Dong froze with his mouth open for two seconds.

Then he let out an exaggerated howl.

"Holy shit!"

Han Dong sprang out of his chair and pointed at Lu Chuan, his face a picture of anguish.

"Old Lu, you bastard, you hid that way too well!"

"You usually act so quiet and never give a girl a second glance, but it turns out you've already dug up everything about her? You've even memorized her name and major!"

Clutching his chest, he stepped back twice and struck a pose of magnanimous surrender.

"It's over. Chuanzi's got his sights set on the beautiful senior."

"I, Han Dong, will do anything in this life except fight my own brother over a woman. I'm out!"

Lu Chuan pulled out his chair and sat down, not even interested in arguing with this bear from Northeast China.

On the other side of the room, Chen Ziang tapped his fingers twice on the desktop.

His heart sank slightly when he heard Lu Chuan rattle off Shen Zhiyi's information.

It really didn't feel good to have someone beat him to the punch.

But on second thought, he decided it was no big deal.

What was so impressive about knowing her name? Anyone could find it out by asking a second-year student at the campus media office.

When it really came down to a contest of wealth and ability, what did Lu Chuan have to compete with him?

Chen Ziang touched the watch on his wrist.

He had a 718 as his trump card.

This invisible contest had only just begun. He privately resolved to test the waters, and in the process considered Lu Chuan his first potential rival at university.

Meanwhile,

in the innermost corner of the room,

Zhao Yifan had been sitting at his desk the whole time.

He held a thick original-English dirty book and hadn't taken any part in the discussion from beginning to end.

Yet his gaze hadn't moved an inch across the page for a long time.

Only he knew what towering waves that brief exchange had stirred up in his heart.

When Chen Ziang was making his grand pronouncements, Zhao Yifan had nearly burst out laughing.

A Porsche 718?

As a gift for Shen Zhiyi?

Because his own family's business empire was so vast, Zhao Yifan regularly had access to information from a number of elite circles.

He knew all too well who Shen Zhiyi was.

She was no ordinary pretty senior from a family with a little money.

She was the only daughter of the Shen Family, Guangdong's top tycoon family!

The Shen Family's giant hand of capital reached across manufacturing, real estate, foreign trade, and numerous other fields. Its cash flow was terrifying beyond belief.

Before a financial leviathan of that caliber, a Porsche 718 worth seven or eight hundred thousand yuan was fit to be nothing more than a plastic toy car.

To Zhao Yifan, Chen Ziang's boastful declaration of wealth had sounded ignorant and utterly ridiculous.

However,

the person who truly made Zhao Yifan's scalp tingle wasn't Chen Ziang at all.

It was Lu Chuan.

Zhao Yifan looked over the edge of his book, his gaze settling steadily on Lu Chuan's unruffled face.

Not only had Lu Chuan recognized this daughter of a top Guangdong tycoon at a glance.

Even more frighteningly,

when Lu Chuan casually said the name "Shen Zhiyi," there had not been the slightest trace of awe, agitation, or deliberately suppressed excitement in his voice.

He had been too calm.

As calm as if he were naming the most ordinary passerby.

After learning the identity of a top tycoon's daughter like her, an ordinary person could never have reacted so indifferently. They would have been awkward or obsequious, or at the very least instinctively curious.

There was only one possible explanation for how readily the words had left Lu Chuan's mouth.

He not only knew all about the enormous power behind Shen Zhiyi, but also, deep down, had never considered the Shen Family to be on a level he needed to look up to.

It was an absolute sense of looking down from above that could only come naturally to someone standing on the same level, or someone with the confidence that came from an even higher plane.

Zhao Yifan's fingers tightened slightly as he turned the page, his fingertips pressing into the paper.

His mind raced.

Overseas commodity markets, luxury-industry secrets dropped casually into conversation, and now this utter disregard for Guangdong's top tycoon family.

What was Lu Chuan's background?

At the other end of the room,

Han Dong was still gesticulating wildly as he planned his route to finding a girlfriend in his first year at university.

Chen Ziang, meanwhile, had taken out his phone and started asking about Shen Zhiyi of the journalism department in several local rich second-generation group chats.

Lu Chuan listened to all the chattering noise around him.

He smiled faintly.

He offered no explanation, nor did he correct Han Dong's nonsense.

In his previous life, he too had been like Chen Ziang was now, foolish enough to try to measure the price of entry to a relationship in material goods with logos on them.

Looking back now,

he found this dorm-room night talk, full of one-upmanship, showing off, and ignorant arrogance, childish and a little funny.

Yet it also carried an unmistakable breath of genuine youth.

Lu Chuan hung up the dry towel.

He looked down at his feet.

The soles of the camouflage rubber shoes issued for military training were hard and thin, and after a whole day trapped inside them, the bottoms of his feet ached from the pressure.

He clearly couldn't keep forcing himself to wear these shoes as they were, or over the next dozen or so days, they would rub a layer of skin off his feet.

Lu Chuan made up his mind.

He picked up his phone and keys from the desk and slipped them into his trouser pocket.

He turned and called out to the others in the room.

"I'm going out to buy something."

Han Dong was leaning over the side of Chen Ziang's chair, looking at his phone screen.

"Where are you going, Old Lu? Bring me back a bottle of iced Coke!"

"Sure."

Lu Chuan answered.

He pushed open the door and stepped outside.

The old wooden door closed behind him with a soft click.

Lu Chuan's figure disappeared down the corridor.

Inside the dorm room,

Chen Ziang was still daydreaming about what excuse he could use to arrange a seemingly accidental encounter.

But in the corner, Zhao Yifan slowly closed the English book in his hands.

He raised his head.

His gaze passed through the room's dim light and rested for a long time on the firmly closed door.

He sank into deep thought.