A class reunion was always about the same few things.
Eating, singing, and chatting about how everyone had been doing since graduation.
As one of Shanghai City's finest five-star hotels, Yunzhong had every facility imaginable.
The rooms even provided drinks, fruit, and expensive wines.
You could say they had everything.
But one very important person still hadn't arrived, so after entering the room they'd booked in advance, most of the group simply chatted.
After the little incident earlier, some of the classmates couldn't help edging closer to Lu Yuan.
They wanted to know how he'd managed to drive a luxury car after just one year.
Some even hinted that they hoped he might give them a hand.
The female classmates, led by Li Sisi, went so far as to ask him outright whether he had a girlfriend.
Lu Yuan responded politely to each of them, but didn't want to say much about himself.
After all, he had other plans for attending the reunion. Getting along with his former classmates and the like wasn't on his list of considerations.
"Class monitor Li, look at all the girls crowding around Lu Yuan."
At the hotel,
Wang Zibo remarked as he watched Lu Yuan surrounded by the others, a hint of helplessness in his eyes.
Back in college, his outgoing, bold personality had made him popular with the girls. But that didn't work anymore. Now everyone had their eyes on money.
"So what?" Li Hansheng uncorked a bottle of wine and sneered. "He just rented a car worth a little over four million. Once Li Sisi and the others find out, let's see how Lu Yuan gets himself out of that."
He was naturally unhappy that someone else had stolen the spotlight, but he couldn't say anything just then, so he kept his head down and drank.
"How do you know Lu Yuan rented that car? It didn't look that way to me." Wang Zibo sounded puzzled.
"Let me tell you—"
Li Hansheng was about to explain, but a message on his phone suddenly made his eyes light up.
He stood up at once, raised a hand to quiet everyone, and called out, "Everyone, quiet down for a moment. Yunqiong is on her way. Let's order first; she'll be here soon."
At that, the classmates all fell silent and hurried over to the restaurant area to get things ready.
Zhou Yunqiong was not only the class beauty, but the beauty of the entire university.
More importantly,
her family's Wuzhou Group ranked among the major groups in all of Shanghai City. She was the quintessential rich, beautiful heiress—the goddess in the hearts of every guy at the university.
So her arrival was bound to draw everyone's attention. No one dared to be even the slightest bit negligent.
Seeing this, Li Hansheng's gloomy mood improved considerably.
After all, he was the only one who was in touch with Zhou Yunqiong now.
At the thought,
he couldn't help glancing at Lu Yuan, a trace of smugness in his eyes.
But Lu Yuan acted as though he hadn't noticed, ignoring him and heading to the restaurant with everyone else.
When it came time to choose seats, he didn't join the classmates from well-off families. Instead, he sat beside Chen Song and smiled. "Chen Song, long time no see."
"Ah, classmate Lu, long time no see."
Chen Song was taken aback, then quickly nodded in reply.
Because of his family's circumstances, almost no one at the reunion had struck up a conversation with him. He'd been quietly sitting off to the side the whole time.
So he was surprised when Lu Yuan chose to sit beside him. Especially after thinking of the luxury car Lu Yuan drove, he couldn't help feeling nervous.
His mind raced. He and Lu Yuan hadn't even been that close in college.
"Yeah, it's been over a year."
Lu Yuan naturally understood what Chen Song was thinking. In fact, the whole reason he'd come to the reunion this time was Chen Song.
Before long, everyone had finished ordering, and the group resumed chatting.
"Did you hear? They've found the two tour groups that went missing in the Taihang Mountains," Wang Zibo, the lively one of the group, said first.
"I saw the news too. Someone online said they all seemed to have gone mad, claiming they'd seen a talking tiger."
"Right, right! Someone else said they found an ocean in the mountains. That's ridiculous. How could there be an ocean in the mountains?"
The classmates perked up and began talking about some of the recent strange happenings.
"You know about the news that the sacred bodhi tree in Tianzhu was stolen, right? Hilarious. Who steals a tree these days? What a bizarre thing to do."
"What's so strange about that? I heard the Pope of the Vatican personally knelt before a boy in his teens and said he was an angel sent to save humanity. I've even got a video on my phone."
"And another thing—remember that ancient book that caused such a stir recently? The one they said was connected to the Classic of the Way and its Virtue?"
"Of course. Didn't they say Christie's would be auctioning it soon? What happened?"
"Some idiot bought it. Rumor has it he paid over thirty million."
"What? Over thirty million?"
"That's so stupid. Our country's experts already said it was a fake, and he still fell for it."
"You guys just don't get it. How else would you launder money if you didn't put up a price like that?"
Li Hansheng jumped in, convinced that most auctions were really just money laundering—especially when something obviously worthless fetched an astronomical price. If you thought about it, there had to be something shady going on.
"Right, right, money laundering," one of the classmates agreed.
Meanwhile,
Lu Yuan had heard their conversation and smiled.
As expected, when people didn't have all the information, some of them couldn't understand why you did what you did.
But that was no surprise. No one could imagine that the whole world would undergo a transformation in just two months, and that the things everyone laughed at would reveal their true wonders then.
Of course, Lu Yuan had no intention of explaining any of it. He simply held his wineglass and watched in silence.
As for Christie's complete version of the Classic of the Way and its Virtue, he was the one who'd had someone bid on it.
It had been taken care of two days ago, and by now it was probably already on its way back to the country.
But the conversation had made Lu Yuan even more certain that the global transformation might have already begun. Ordinary people just didn't know it yet.
The two tour groups in the Taihang Mountains, the Pope of the Vatican acting strangely, and the Loch Ness Monster sighting in the news earlier—
To an ordinary person, they were just a few amusing stories.
But to someone like him, who had lived through what was coming, they carried a different meaning.
Creak—
Just as the conversation was getting lively,
the door swung open, and a faint, delicate fragrance drifted in.
Everyone turned to look. Their expressions varied: some were delighted, some surprised, some dazzled, and some looked self-conscious.
A young woman in her early twenties stood there. She was tall and slender, with smooth, fair skin and her hair tied high in a ponytail. Her cool, distant air made people afraid to approach or profane her, like a celestial maiden descended from the moon palace.
Her breathtaking beauty surpassed Li Sisi and the others by who knew how much.
The instant she appeared, it seemed as if everything else had dimmed.
Every gaze in the room was drawn to her.
"Sorry I'm late."
Her voice rang out like a clear mountain spring, soothing to the soul.
"Classmate Zhou."
"Zhou Yunqiong is here."
"Yunqiong."
The different forms of address reflected how differently they'd known her in the past.
The last one was naturally Li Hansheng. Looking excited, he immediately stood up like a gentleman and went over to greet her.
But just as he was about to approach, his heart suddenly lurched, and he involuntarily stepped back twice.
Because
there was someone else behind Zhou Yunqiong.
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