Private Screening

While having dinner with Zheng Shiwei and Fu Liang, Liu Shang received some good news. Jiang Ruolin would be leaving home early tomorrow at noon and asked what he wanted to eat for lunch, then where they should go afterward.

Perhaps prompted by Li Huaiyuan's earlier hint, Liu Shang quickly gave his answer: "Then let's go see a movie together."

At that moment, Jiang Ruolin was lying on the large bed at home. When she saw his message, she subconsciously scratched the little decoration on her pink phone with her fingernail and secretly grumbled to herself:

Liu Shang, you big idiot. I finally managed to leave home early to spend time with you, but you want to watch a movie.

There'll be so many people at the cinema on the weekend. We won't have any privacy at all, and the reward I wanted to give you today will be off the table...

The next day, after working only half the day, Liu Shang left the company early and arrived at the agreed-upon mall ahead of time to wait for Jiang Ruolin.

But to his surprise, Jiang Ruolin had come early as well, arriving almost at the same time as him.

"Good thing I came early, or you'd probably have had to wait a long time."

"Come on, let's eat first. What do you want to eat? My treat."

As she spoke, Jiang Ruolin affectionately took the initiative to hook her arm through Liu Shang's. Yet Liu Shang did not move at all, merely lowering his voice to whisper in her ear, "I want to eat you!"

"You're awful!"

Jiang Ruolin shot him a coquettish glare, then pulled him into a refined, stylish Chinese restaurant.

Just as they finished ordering, Liu Shang's phone suddenly rang. It was Li Huaiyuan.

After greeting Jiang Ruolin, Liu Shang left the restaurant alone and met Li Huaiyuan, who had hurried over.

"How is it? No problems, right?"

In response to Liu Shang's question, Li Huaiyuan made an OK gesture.

"Don't worry. If I promised you something, I'll definitely get it done!"

"The VIP screening room has over 140 seats in total, and I've reserved the whole thing. Since we have a service agreement with the school, we can reserve it first and pay afterward."

Liu Shang nodded and took an envelope from his person, handing it to Li Huaiyuan.

"One hundred fifty seats, thirty yuan per ticket. There's exactly 4,500 yuan in here."

"If there's anything left over, treat everyone in your department to some cold drinks."

"Think of it as a small token of appreciation from me."

"Oh, and remember to keep this confidential."

Li Huaiyuan took the envelope and looked at him irritably. "I know you've got money, kid, but I already told you, we reserved the place under the school's name, so we got the student price."

"So we won't even need half of this."

"And your thanks make even less sense. You helped us complete this event ahead of schedule."

"If anyone should be thanking someone, it should be us thanking you for your generous help."

Liu Shang smiled. "That's from your perspective. From mine, even if I spent this much money, I still couldn't have reserved the entire theater."

"So consider the extra my thanks. If you really don't want to arrange anything, then treat it as future event funds for your department."

Li Huaiyuan shook his head with utmost determination. "Then you're really underestimating me, Li Huaiyuan."

"That's not how I do things. If I did that, there'd be no point in me being in the Student Union."

"And honestly, I don't care about this little bit of money. Once I've paid the bill, I'll return the receipt and the remaining money to you."

"Oh, right. Reserving the entire theater took six or seven people from our department working together all morning."

"So keeping this confidential will probably be difficult."

"And maybe they were moved by your grand gesture, but several girls in our department specially prepared a little gift for the two of you. You'll see it once you enter."

As he spoke, Li Huaiyuan handed Liu Shang the two movie tickets with the best seats.

"These are your tickets. Use them to get in."

"As for the others, they were useless, so I destroyed them."

By the time Liu Shang returned to the restaurant after parting with Li Huaiyuan, all the exquisite dishes had been served.

"Was something wrong? You were gone so long."

Liu Shang smiled. "Didn't we agree to see a movie? I asked a friend to help buy two tickets."

"Look, the seats are pretty good, aren't they?"

As he spoke, Liu Shang handed the tickets over. Jiang Ruolin looked at them, then smiled and nodded.

An hour later, as Liu Shang held Jiang Ruolin's hand and the two passed through the cinema ticket checkpoint, several people from Li Huaiyuan's department were watching them intently from a railing in the distance at the mall.

"Tsk, tsk. Looks like there really is a reason Liu Shang managed to win over Jiang Ruolin, the goddess of the year above us."

"Heh. Just to take his girlfriend to a movie, he reserved the entire theater. Ordinary students can't compare to that kind of boldness and financial power."

Hearing the two of them, several girls beside them sighed enviously. "That's so romantic."

"And I'm really curious what it'll be like when the two of them walk into a movie theater that belongs only to them, then see the little surprise we prepared."

"If it were me, I'd be touched to death. I'd probably want to offer myself to him, right?"

At that moment, the two male students added sourly, "And then there'll be one more room booked at a hotel outside campus tonight, and another innocent girl at school will fall, right?"

"Hey! Why does everything turn dirty once it gets into your heads?!!"

"Can you not be so vulgar?"

"Besides, so what if they go to a hotel? They're already old enough, okay?"

"If you had the ability, you could've gotten Jiang Ruolin before Liu Shang did!"

Seeing them like this, Li Huaiyuan smiled and stopped their argument.

"Look at you all. You're already sophomores. What's there to argue about?"

"But speaking of which, Yuan Yao, you really wronged Chen Han just now. None of you are from Wind City, so you don't know how much courage it takes, or how difficult it is, to win Jiang Ruolin over."

"From the two times I've interacted with him, I can say for certain that Liu Shang is absolutely not someone ordinary people can compare with."

As he spoke, Li Huaiyuan waved the envelope before everyone. "I already told him roughly how much it would cost, but he still gave me nearly twice that amount."

"He said that from his own perspective, this was what he ought to spend."

"It's true that pursuing a girl requires financial support, but for someone his age to be so indifferent and open-minded about money is truly remarkable."

"Of course, as usual, I'll return every last bit of the extra money to him."

"Come on, let's go have dinner and celebrate the successful completion of this event!"