Wei Zijin's past

Their laughter echoed down the quiet street, sounding a little out of place.

Wei Zijin stopped laughing first. She wiped the tears of laughter from the corners of her eyes and looked at Wang Xiaoliang.

"Was that joke your way of calling Zhou Qiang a pig?"

"That's... not very nice, is it?"

Wang Xiaoliang shook his head, the smile fading from his face.

"That's not what I meant."

He paused to gather his thoughts.

"I wasn't laughing at Zhou Qiang."

"I was laughing at Zhao Shengkai and Ouyang Hai."

Wei Zijin looked puzzled.

Wang Xiaoliang decided to tell her part of the truth. He didn't want her to think he was mocking someone for no reason, much less let this give her a bad impression of him.

"Back at the restaurant, I overheard something when I went to the restroom."

He deliberately left out what Zhao Shengkai and the others had said about Wei Zijin and him.

"I heard Zhao Shengkai and Ouyang Hai talking in the restroom. They said Zhou Qiang was a little runt who wasn't good enough for the dashing Li Lanxiang."

"They said I was even less worthy of you, and that when we went singing later, they were going to force drinks on me and make me embarrass myself."

"So when Zhou Qiang stepped out of that Maybach, Zhao Shengkai's and Ouyang Hai's faces automatically popped into my head."

"Two conceited rich kids went to all that trouble to ridicule someone they thought was poor, only for reality to turn around and give them the hardest slap in the face."

"Don't you think that's dramatic?"

"I'm just a reader, a spectator. When I saw such a brilliant twist, I couldn't help laughing. It had nothing to do with Zhou Qiang himself. I was laughing at the story."

After hearing Wang Xiaoliang's explanation, Wei Zijin fell silent.

Only after a long while did she look up again and gaze steadily at him.

"He's not a pig."

She spoke clearly, with an inexplicable solemnity.

"He's a true Marshal Tianpeng."

Wang Xiaoliang froze, not understanding what she meant.

Wei Zijin didn't explain immediately. Instead, she said, "Director Zhang came to see me earlier because he wanted me to put in a good word for him with Zhou Qiang."

"Director Zhang told me that Zhou Qiang was a star entrepreneur who graduated from our university two years ago."

"When he was in college, he used the university's business incubation resources to develop a project. A large company later acquired it, and that gave him his first pot of gold. Since graduating, he's been running a cross-border e-commerce business, and it's grown enormously."

"He came back to his alma mater this time to give something back. He donated a building to the university."

"A building?" Wang Xiaoliang's voice rose involuntarily.

That was already beyond anything he could imagine.

"Yes, a laboratory building." Wei Zijin's confirmation made the fact all the more concrete.

"And because his business mainly serves the North American market, he also set up a special fund this time to sponsor a hundred outstanding students for six months of study visits at Ivy League universities in the US. He's covering all the expenses."

A hundred places.

The Ivy League.

All expenses paid.

Together, those words delivered such a powerful shock that Wang Xiaoliang's brain nearly froze.

"Director Zhang was so polite to Zhou Qiang today, practically fawning over him, because he wanted to secure a few more of those hundred places for our department."

Wang Xiaoliang was utterly speechless.

He had thought that driving a Maybach made Zhou Qiang, at most, a wealthy kid from a rich family.

But from what he was hearing now, Zhou Qiang was nothing of the sort. He was a legendary tycoon straight out of a webnovel, returning in triumph to repay his alma mater.

"This... this is more wish fulfillment than a wish-fulfillment novel," Wang Xiaoliang murmured.

Didn't that make Zhao Shengkai and Ouyang Hai a pair of jokes?

The man they had mocked was someone they would have to look up to-a truly important figure they weren't even qualified to look up to.

The two walked silently down the street, neither saying another word.

Their earlier lighthearted amusement had been replaced by the heavy weight of reality.

They reached the shore of East Lake.

East Lake was even more enchanting at night than during the day. The lamps along the shore cast long ribbons of light, while couples sat scattered across the benches, cuddling or laughing and talking. There were arguments, too, with people struggling to hold back their sobs.

In graduation season, parting was the final compulsory course.

Wei Zijin found an empty bench and sat down.

The evening breeze blew across the lake, carrying damp air and lifting the loose strands of hair over her forehead.

Only now did the alcohol seem to truly hit her, bringing an unusually bright flush to her cheeks.

"Wang Xiaoliang," she said suddenly.

"Mm?"

"You know, when my dad was still alive, I was a princess."

Her voice was soft, drifting away on the wind.

"My family was well-off, I did well in school, and my looks were... decent enough. Everyone around me praised me as I grew up. I'd never even heard a harsh word."

"I thought that world was reality."

Wang Xiaoliang listened quietly without interrupting. He could sense that she had a very, very long story to tell.

"But then my dad suddenly passed away."

"When he died, my whole world came crashing down. Everything changed."

"Overnight, all these so-called creditors appeared at our door with IOUs, demanding money. My mom had no choice but to sell the house and the car. She sold everything she could turn into cash to pay off the debts."

"But the really ridiculous part was that the people who actually owed my dad money-the ones who called him their brother and were always hanging around him-all vanished. They wouldn't answer their phones, and we couldn't find them anywhere. When my dad died, those debts died with him."

"My mom and I moved out of our big house and into a tiny rented room. It was only twenty square meters, dark and damp."

"My mom completely fell apart during that time. She developed severe depression and spent every day staring into space and crying. But I was still too immature to understand. All I knew how to do was cry and complain."

"Luckily, I still did pretty well in school, and my teachers took good care of me."

"Then, after I finished my college entrance exams, my mom... finally couldn't hold on anymore. She collapsed. She wasn't in the hospital long before she followed my dad."

Wang Xiaoliang felt as though an invisible hand had clenched around his heart, making it hard to breathe.

"Only then did I have no choice but to grow up."

"I had no money for college tuition, and no way to cover my living expenses. I remembered an uncle who used to be close to my dad. He still owed our family two hundred thousand yuan. I gathered every bit of courage I had and went to see him."

"I begged him to pay back even part of it, just enough for my tuition."

At this point, Wei Zijin suddenly laughed. Her smile was filled with boundless coldness and contempt.

"Guess what he said?"

Wang Xiaoliang didn't answer. He didn't dare guess; the worst possibility had already formed in his mind.

"He invited me into his lavishly decorated office, told me to sit down, and poured me a glass of water. Then he looked at me and said it, without even trying to hide what he meant."

"He said, 'Zijin, you're so beautiful. Spend one night with me, and forget two hundred thousand-I'll give you four hundred thousand.'"

Wang Xiaoliang felt blood rush straight to his head.

He couldn't imagine the despair a girl would feel hearing those words just after losing both her parents, with nowhere left to turn.

"I threw that glass of water in his face and rushed out."

"I really wanted to die then. I thought the world was so filthy, so disgusting."

"I just kept walking down the street, walking and walking. I don't know how long I walked. Eventually, I ended up outside the building where my high school homeroom teacher lived."

"She saved me."

"She took me home and made me a bowl of hot noodle soup. She told me there were plenty of bad people in the world, but plenty of good people, too. She also told me there was such a thing as a student loan."

"She said, 'Zijin, this is heaven testing you. As long as you make it through, there's no limit to what your future can hold.'"

"She ran around helping me complete all the paperwork. She even acted as my guarantor."

"Before the semester started, a few distant relatives heard about my situation and pooled some money for me. It wasn't much, but I believe there are still more good people than bad in this world."

"So I came to this university to register all by myself, dragging a suitcase."

"Back then, I swore I would make something of myself. I would seize every opportunity I could."

"So for the welcome gala, I volunteered to help organize it. I offered to host and to sing. When I was little, my parents had signed me up for public speaking and vocal lessons. I never imagined I'd end up using all of them under those circumstances."

She stopped there and took a deep breath, as though trying to calm some intense emotion.

"But before the show started, I made a serious mistake."