From bright sunshine to the fall of night, their daytime date flew by.
The VR arcade, the skating rink, the cat café—their happiness in all kinds of places throughout the Commercial Kingdom seemed to have been put on fast-forward. By the time they looked back, the entire day had already passed.
They said goodbye to that black-haired young man just as the streetlights came on. Even after they had gotten into the car and driven far away,
the image of him forcibly stopping that sports car still lingered in their minds.
Having accepted the invitation to spend the night together, they sat in the backseat of the black business car, surrounded by shopping bags and a giant orca plushie.
All the way there, Xia Yao and Shui Lianxin laughed and chatted endlessly about everything that had happened that day.
Then the driver took them all the way back to the estate on the northern outskirts of Beijing.
"Lian Xin, is this your home?"
As they drove toward the gates, Xia Yao looked out through the car window at the European-style walls and fences in the night and asked in surprise. There was an estate-sized stretch of land and a grand villa at its center.
With a girlfriend like Ming Ling by her side, she knew better than anyone what it meant to have a residence like this near Beijing.
Either rich or powerful—or both.
Though Xia Yao had already guessed from various things about this girl that her family was far from ordinary, she now realized they were even more impressive than she had imagined.
"Mm, yes. Mom and Dad come back often too, but usually it's just Grandma and me living here."
Looking at Xia Yao before her, Shui Lianxin answered with a smile.
The business car entered the