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Fortunately, although Cheng Yu looked refined, his fists and kicks were anything but soft. After half a year of repeated clashes and sparring, Cheng Yu finally convinced his new schoolmates of the false premise that all Chinese people really knew kung fu. He successfully seized power and became president of the student council at his new school, joining Chinese international students within a hundred miles to establish the High School Students' Overseas Study Association. The following year, he was admitted to BJOP Jewelry College.

Come to think of it, although Cheng Yu had exceptional talent in jewelry design and production, his original reason for applying to BJOP had only been to let Chen Lingyun and her husband see his talent and hard work, so they would accept him again. Cheng Yu was active by nature and disliked stillness. Making him sit properly at a desk to draw a blueprint or read a book was more unbearable than killing him.

When his maternal grandparents were still alive, every time Chen Lingyun forced Cheng Yu to study, he had a hundred and eight ways to evade it. His grandparents always protected him, too. But after they passed away, Cheng Yu forced himself to study until two in the morning every day in order to earn Chen Lingyun's forgiveness. Even if he read while drinking, speeding, and doing extreme sports to chase thrills and fuel himself onward, he never once slackened his academic standards.

Unfortunately, all his desperate effort brought him was the news, on the day of his graduation ceremony, that Cheng Kaiyun and his wife had died in a plane crash. Then came the news that Pei Zhennan had kicked him while he was down, joining forces with several other jewelry and jade companies to maliciously acquire C&C Jewelry.

Cheng Yu felt that in the half of his life he had lived, his luck had never been good. There was no need to mention the established fact that he had little affinity with family. He had finally wrested C&C Jewelry back from a pack of starving wolves, then spent six years turning it into a top international jewelry brand. The company's market value had multiplied more than tenfold, yet Cheng Shao had exploited his mental state. Not only had the company changed hands, but Cheng Yu himself had been locked in a sanatorium. Halfway through his treatment, he had started suffering from delusions, having nightmares every day and unable to wake up.

Expressionless, Cheng Yu stared at the red brick wall outside the school. A former chairman and executive president of a jewelry group worth nearly a hundred billion, reduced to climbing over a school wall after developing bipolar disorder—just to watch a high school student perform a chemistry experiment?!

What the hell was this—moral decay or the distortion of human nature?!

"Ah Yu?" Pei Yan, sitting atop the wall, watched Cheng Yu stand motionless outside it for a long time and tilted his head in confusion. "What's wrong? Hurry up and come up."

Cheng Shao, seated opposite Pei Yan, bent down and held out a hand. "Does your hand hurt? Can't get any leverage? I'll pull you up."

Cheng Yu slapped Cheng Shao's hand away resentfully and finally confirmed it: this had to be idiot assimilation!

The three climbed over the wall and entered the school. Since it was summer vacation, the entire campus was deserted. Blue skies, white clouds, green shade, the sports field, and the colored rubber track formed a classic scene. Cheng Yu shielded his forehead with one hand and narrowed his eyes at the Five-Starred Red Flag fluttering above him. He had stood there for less than three seconds before Pei Yan grabbed his wrist and dragged him away.

Cheng Yu expressionlessly looked at the huge paw gripping his right wrist and felt that Pei Yan was getting a little too bold.

"Don't think that just because you have a concussion, I really won't beat you up." Cheng Yu finally snapped and shouted, "Let go of me."

As he spoke, Cheng Yu jerked his arm hard. Pei Yan stumbled forward, then somewhat disappointedly clenched and unclenched his empty palm.

"Don't be mad. I was just worried you wouldn't know the way to the lab." Pei Yan grinned as he apologized. "By the way, do you want some water?"

Pei Yan took a bottle of mineral water from his backpack, his attempt to change the subject exceedingly unsubtle.

Cheng Yu accepted the water. Having just recalled the past, he was in a rather poor mood. A nameless irritability rose from deep within him. Worried that he might have an episode, Cheng Yu took another dose of medicine with the mineral water. Pei Yan watched him, his swordlike brows tightly furrowed, always worried that taking medicine like this would cause some side effects.

"Can't you use some other treatment?" Pei Yan asked. "Taking handfuls of medicine all the time can't be good for your body, right?"

Cheng Yu said nothing and casually stuffed the mineral water bottle into Cheng Shao's arms. Cheng Shao accepted the bottle without the slightest complaint and sighed to Pei Yan. "Don't bring it up. Given our family's current situation, it's already good enough if Ah Yu's condition can be kept under control."

Pei Yan said nothing more. After a moment of silence, he suddenly suggested, "How about we board at school starting next semester?"

Pointing at Cheng Shao, Pei Yan said to Cheng Yu, "The three of us can share a dorm room. It'll save commuting time, and your brother and I can help tutor you. You'll also be able to get away from home. What do you think?"

"Sounds terrible." Cheng Yu did not even blink before refusing without hesitation. He had only just graduated from college; there was no way he wanted to repeat his high school years in a dream. Weren't Chinese high school students supposed to be the most miserable students in the world?!

Cheng Yu was only mentally ill, not intellectually disabled. Why would he make things harder for himself?

"I'm not going to school anymore," Cheng Yu emphasized. "I want to create my own brand."

Pei Yan and Cheng Shao exchanged looks, both feeling that Cheng Yu had been seriously traumatized.

Without saying a word, Pei Yan walked ahead and led Cheng Shao and Cheng Yu to the laboratory. Pei Yan was their class's chemistry representative. Before summer vacation, the chemistry teacher had left the chemistry lab key with Pei Yan. The teacher had originally planned to have Pei Yan return it after the holiday, but never expected Pei Yan to misuse public property and come up with the stunt of performing chemistry experiments to cheer someone up.

"So, what experiment do you want to do for me?" Back when Cheng Yu was still C&C Jewelry's chairman and executive president, he had established C&C Group's own experimental research institute, specifically to research new jewelry adhesives and other synthetic materials needed in jewelry setting. His institute had gathered the world's foremost jewelry specialists and related materials experts. While consuming tens of billions in C&C Jewelry research funds, it had also created nearly a hundred billion in profits for C&C Jewelry.

The C&C Jewelry Research Institute had once been one of Cheng Yu's proudest projects. Though in the end, it was also because he had focused too heavily on that research, spreading himself too thin until the company could no longer operate properly and its cash flow broke, allowing Cheng Shao to exploit the opening...

Cheng Yu curled his lip. Who would have thought that after so much time had passed, he had not dreamed of his crowning achievement, but instead of such a plain and unadorned laboratory.