A Secondhand Car and a Late-Night WeChat Message

"I have a car."

Those simple words were like a little pebble tossed without much force, floating lightly down onto the floor of dorm room 504.

But to Chen Ziang, they landed with quite a crash.

He had been holding his phone, preparing to message his family's driver, when his finger froze on the screen. He looked up, clear astonishment in his eyes, and looked Lu Chuan up and down as he sat in his chair.

A gray cotton T-shirt with no discernible brand.

A perfectly ordinary pair of casual trousers.

Chen Ziang simply couldn't associate this low-key roommate of his, who even split the bill when they ate, with someone who owned a car.

At Jiangcheng University, what freshman who drove himself to school didn't wish he could hang his car keys around his neck and parade them through the streets?

"You have a car?"

Chen Ziang couldn't help asking.

"What kind?"

Lu Chuan turned off the phone screen on which he had just been watching overseas market trends.

He picked up the cup on his desk, his expression unchanged, his tone as casual as if he were discussing some insignificant piece of dorm-room clutter.

"Just a secondhand car I bought to get around."

"For convenience."

So it was a secondhand car. Never mind, then.

The sense of crisis he had felt at nearly being outdone vanished without a trace.

The sense of superiority belonging to a young master of Jiangcheng once again seized the high ground.

"Oh, a secondhand car."

Chen Ziang tossed his phone onto the desk and leaned back, his tone once again carrying the composure of someone in control.

He waved a hand and spoke in a natural, consultative tone.

"A secondhand car's fine too, but the western suburbs are a long way out this weekend. What condition is it in? It'd be a nuisance if something went wrong on the road."

Chen Ziang thought for a moment and offered what he considered a more thorough solution.

"How about this? Listen to me. Leave your car at school tomorrow. I'll have my driver bring the Mercedes-Benz S-Class over. It's roomy and comfortable, and it'll save us the hassle."

Lu Chuan raised his cup and took a sip.

He didn't hesitate for even half a second.

"No need."

Lu Chuan set down his cup and refused outright.

"I'm used to driving myself."

Rejected to his face, Chen Ziang twitched the corner of his mouth.

He could ride in a Mercedes, but insisted on driving his own secondhand car? Chen Ziang couldn't quite understand Lu Chuan's logic, but he didn't press the matter.

"All right, suit yourself."

Chen Ziang stopped trying to persuade him and turned to Han Dong.

"Dongzi, you can ride in my 718 tomorrow."

Han Dong was still excitedly looking up the computer specs at the hot spring club's internet café, nodding like a pestle pounding garlic.

"You got it, Boss Chen! I've never ridden in a sports car in my life. Tomorrow I've got to take a few pictures and post them on my Qzone."

With Han Dong taken care of, that naturally left Zhao Yifan.

Lu Chuan turned to look at Zhao Yifan, who was sitting in the innermost corner.

"Yifan."

Lu Chuan asked calmly.

"Are you riding in the Mercedes tomorrow, or in my car?"

Sitting nearby, Chen Ziang sent his family's driver a WeChat message arranging for the Mercedes-Benz S-Class tomorrow, secretly amused.

Did that even need a choice?

On one side was an executive car worth over a million yuan, complete with a dedicated driver. On the other was an ordinary secondhand car that had passed through who knew how many owners. Anyone whose brain wasn't waterlogged would know which to choose.

He was already prepared to hear how Zhao Yifan would politely turn Lu Chuan down.

But Zhao Yifan and Chen Ziang were on entirely different wavelengths.

Zhao Yifan sat in his chair.

He slowly pushed up the blue-light-blocking glasses on his nose.

Chen Ziang thought Lu Chuan was putting on a brave front to save face, but everything was as clear as a mirror in Zhao Yifan's mind.

A man who could casually toss out a leather charm from Aethel, an item not for sale and exclusive to the most elite circles, as if it were a little toy.

A man who could casually correct someone with the most authentic Victorian-era slang while reading an English erotic novel.

A man who didn't even blink at the mention of the Shen Family, Guangdong's top financial magnates.

The "secondhand car" someone like that spoke of.

How could it possibly be a heap of scrap metal worth a few tens of thousands of yuan?

Watching Lu Chuan's understated, even overly casual manner, Zhao Yifan was already a hundred percent certain. There was definitely more to this so-called "secondhand car for getting around" than met the eye.

Even taking ten thousand steps back.

Even if it were a beat-up Xiali.

Zhao Yifan would never ride in Chen Ziang's ostentatious Mercedes-Benz S-Class.

When it came to choosing sides and making connections between social circles, it was never about a momentary show of wealth, but about the person.

"No need to trouble the driver."

Zhao Yifan looked at Lu Chuan, a faint smile in his eyes, and made his choice without hesitation.

"Lu Chuan can pick me up tomorrow."

Crisp and decisive.

The hammer came down, settling the matter.

Chen Ziang's finger stopped dead on his phone.

He turned to Zhao Yifan in disbelief, looking at him as if he were some strange creature whose brain had suddenly short-circuited.

Passing up a Mercedes-Benz S-Class to ride in a beat-up secondhand car? Has Zhao Yifan studied himself stupid?

Lu Chuan wasn't surprised by Zhao Yifan's choice.

He nodded.

"All right."

"I'll go pick up the car tomorrow morning. We'll meet at the school gate."

The travel plans were settled at last.

The night gradually deepened.

The cicadas outside grew quieter, and the sounds of freshmen visiting one another and washing up in the corridor slowly died down.

With a sharp click, the dorm supervisor pulled the power switch.

Room 504 sank into darkness.

Han Dong had been exhausted by military training that day. Less than two minutes after his head touched the pillow, his steady breathing filled the dorm room.

Chen Ziang tossed and turned in bed, his head full of plans to make a grand showing at the hot spring club tomorrow and take a few handsome photos for his Moments. It was a long while before he finally managed to fall asleep.

Lu Chuan lay flat on his bed.

Cool air from the air conditioner drifted over him, carrying away the last trace of the early autumn night's stuffiness.

Just as he was about to close his eyes and rest.

The phone screen beside his pillow abruptly lit up in the darkness.

It gave a very faint vibration.

Lu Chuan picked up his phone and unlocked the screen.

An unread message had popped up on WeChat.

The sender's profile picture was a minimalist, solid-color landscape, and the contact name was the one he had just added after military training that afternoon.

Shen Zhiyi.

It was half past eleven at night.

Jiang University's widely acknowledged aloof beauty had actually taken the initiative to message him.

Lu Chuan opened the chat.

The first message was a document.

[This is the confirmation form for checking today's military training information. Please look it over for any entry errors. If there are any, let me know before ten tomorrow morning.]

Every word was strictly business, without a thing to fault.

It was exactly what a conscientious and responsible school media officer would do as part of her job.

Lu Chuan glanced over the form and was about to reply, "No problems."

Immediately afterward.

A second message popped up on the screen.

[You still haven't filled in the final section about where you're from completely.]

[Your file only says Capital.]

[Which high school in the Capital did you graduate from? I need to complete the information on my end.]

Lu Chuan looked at the two lines, his finger hovering above the virtual keyboard, and gave a short laugh.

It was a clever, highly skillful probe.

Clearly, Shen Zhiyi was still hung up on his calling her "Senior Shen" by the washbasin that day.

The social circles of a young lady from a prominent family of her standing were actually very fixed. There were countless threads of connection between the elite circles of the Capital and Guangdong.

She was asking about his high school.

It had nothing to do with any damn freshman information check.

She was trying to use his high school background to figure out whether Lu Chuan belonged to some circle of family friends she had overlooked.

If Lu Chuan named one of the Capital's elite private schools attended by the rich and powerful, or reserved for their children, half his hidden background would be laid bare before Shen Zhiyi in an instant.

She was perceptive.

And her approach was natural enough.

Lu Chuan watched "The other person is typing..." flash on the screen, without the slightest hint of feeling flattered that the campus belle had taken the initiative to strike up a conversation late at night.

He knew all too well how he had stumbled over such probes in his previous life.

In his previous life, faced with a question like this, he would have racked his brains to invent a prestigious-sounding international school, or deliberately played mysterious and given an ambiguous answer, trying to raise his perceived worth with an air of mystery.

But the present Lu Chuan was long past the stage of needing to brag to gain acceptance.

He had no intention of using this late-night opportunity to shower Shen Zhiyi with attention and keep the conversation going.

He typed.

And sent.

[Capital No. 74 Middle School.]

A perfectly ordinary district key high school, the kind one could find by the handful in the Capital.

No association with power or privilege.

No special background.

Lu Chuan casually tossed the answer over, as if a door that had just opened a crack had been shut tight with a bang, right in Shen Zhiyi's face.

Leaving all her meticulous probing and curiosity outside.

The women's dormitory area.

Shen Zhiyi sat at her desk in cotton pajamas.

The desk lamp cast a soft glow.

She stared at the name of the school that had appeared on her phone screen and visibly froze.

Capital No. 74 Middle School?

She quickly searched through what she knew of the Capital's social circles.

She had never heard of it.

It was no more than an utterly ordinary public school.

Shen Zhiyi lightly bit her lip.

She had thought she might uncover some hidden clue, but the answer he gave was so ordinary that it left her feeling helpless.

It was like thinking someone had concealed a legendary sword, only for him to pull a little pencil-sharpening knife straight out of his pocket.

He wasn't playing by the usual rules at all.

But for some reason, this ordinary answer not only failed to dispel Shen Zhiyi's doubts, it instead drove her curiosity to its peak.

How could a boy who had graduated from an ordinary district key school possess such unfathomable composure?

And how had he recognized her at a glance?

Shen Zhiyi stared at the chat window and hesitated for a while, typing and deleting, then typing again.

In the end, she gave up on questioning him further.

[All right, everything checks out.]

[Get some rest early.]

Buzz.

Her phone vibrated.

Shen Zhiyi looked down at the screen.

In the chat window, Lu Chuan's reply was crisp and direct, without a single unnecessary punctuation mark.

[Good night.]

Minimalist.

Utterly crisp.

There was no unnecessary entanglement.

Shen Zhiyi looked at the two characters, the light from the screen falling on her cool, aloof face. She slowly turned her phone face down on the table and took a deep breath.

Frustration.

An unprecedented sense of frustration welled up in her heart.

She realized that, before this freshman, all her probing and all her attempts to set the pace had been effortlessly dissolved into nothing by his casual sense of boundaries.

Dorm room 504.

Lu Chuan casually turned off his phone screen.

He set the phone beside his pillow, pulled the thin blanket over himself, and closed his eyes.

His breathing gradually steadied.

He had cast all the suspense and probing completely out of his mind.

Tomorrow was the weekend.

That secondhand runabout that had been sitting quietly in Quiet Garden's underground garage all this time.

It was time to take it out for a drive.