Chapter 30

Chapter 31: Exposed

Seeing the atmosphere suddenly turn awkward, Wang Xuebing was clever enough to give a dry cough at once, breaking the daze of quite a few girls. "Haha, I see. Xue Yiyang, this friend of yours is pretty nice. He's easygoing!"

So that was it, he thought. His earlier wariness of Su Can vanished into thin air. He could just carry on as usual; there was little to worry about now. After all, when you were on a date with your girlfriend, would you worry that a scavenger by the roadside might steal her away?

That disparity in their standing already said a great deal.

All at once, Wang Xuebing actually became warm toward Su Can. Sometimes, that sort of utterly unguarded warmth hurt the most.

"Oh, so you're a student at Third Middle School," Li Ai said with a hollow smile, then added, "No wonder you're so good at cards!"

With that, he instantly reduced Su Can's standing to rock bottom. The difference between being stylish and being a degenerate gambler really did depend on one's status.

With Li Ai slyly fanning the flames like this, the girls' expressions changed as they looked at Su Can.

Xue Yiyang and Liu Rui, on the other hand, could do nothing. Xue Yiyang had originally intended to conceal the fact that Su Can attended the city's No. 3 Middle School. After all, he knew there were some pragmatic snobs in this circle who would always judge anyone from a school beneath their own through a prejudiced lens. Although he usually looked down on Su Can's grades and school himself, that was limited to him alone. If so many people looked down on Su Can over it, he would be unhappy too.

Who could have known Su Can would reveal his own background first? Xue Yiyang's heart sank, and he actually felt rather upset. But when he looked at Su Can again, so open and at ease, seemingly unconcerned that being a student at No. 3 Middle School made him out of place among these No. 1 High School students, his own mind cleared instead.

Only, Su Can noticed that Chen Lingshan's once-bright eyes had suddenly turned gray and dim. She no longer looked his way as often as before, either.

Chen Lingshan's disappointment was inevitable. It was not that there was necessarily anything wrong with students at Third Middle School; they were not necessarily murderers or arsonists. But its name certainly carried far less weight than City First Middle School. Chen Lingshan herself was a little vain. Several of her close girlfriends had spoken favorably of Su Can, and this young man had a secret crush on her. It would have been a lie to say she felt no sense of superiority. His air of mystery, his speech and manner, his every smile and frown had formed the reasons he could move people at this moment.

Yet once a person's mystery was stripped away, once his background, which had invited tantalizing speculation, suddenly became concrete and clear, the boundaries of that anticipation and longing momentarily blurred.

"Su Can, Su Can..." a slightly chubby girl with glasses murmured, as though she had suddenly remembered something. "Oh! Does your mother work at Xiahai Trading Company? Is her surname Zeng?"

This caught Chen Lingshan's attention. She pricked up her delicate ears and looked at Su Can.

"Yes, that's right."

"Hey, my mom works there too! I was wondering why your name sounded so familiar! Auntie Zeng used to work in the same accounting office as my mom. My mom's surname is Huang. Everyone calls her Director Huang!" the chubby girl said excitedly. Her eyes grew interested as she looked at Su Can, with a touch more suggestiveness. Still oblivious, she nudged Chen Lingshan with her elbow. "Lingshan, Su Can's mom works at your dad's company too! Ha, what a coincidence!"

The smiles on Li Ai, Zhang Xi, Wang Xing, and Sun Ziyi's faces grew even broader. Whatever the case, with his mother working at someone else's company, the premise that he came from a wealthy business family was looking decidedly shaky.

Someone even blurted it out directly. "Oh, his mom's an employee at Lingshan's dad's company!"

Whether those words carried any other meaning was impossible to say, but Chen Lingshan's expression grew complicated.

Deceiving a beautiful girl was a dangerous business, because once the lie was exposed, everything directed toward her-whether desire, scheming, or painstaking devotion-would be repaid with the disappointment of falling from the sky and shattering!

Of course, Su Can had never intended to deceive Chen Lingshan in the first place. Rather, Chen Lingshan had wishfully mistaken him for someone else. Yet Su Can had no way of properly explaining all of this to her from the beginning, and he had already spotted ominous signs.

Chen Lingshan's brows knitted. Clearly, given the background she had attributed to Su Can, someone whose father had once discussed business with hers could not possibly have a mother working at her father's company.

Chen Lingshan was a beauty, and beauties could have muddled memories too. Of course, beauties were not brainless ornaments either. Even amid confused memories, they could sort things out piece by piece, especially now, when she needed to untangle her past recollections quickly.

Su Can felt that time no longer mattered now. Chen Lingshan needed time to think, and as she sorted through her memories, the enthusiasm of those around him cooled rapidly.

Su Can finally understood the pressure represented by this circle at No. 1 High School, and why many people could not even bear to continue studying there. Perhaps there were no violent fights every day, but the looks and gossip of those around you alone could readily destroy a person's life.

Despite possessing the hardened, impervious soul of a seasoned veteran from the future, Su Can still found the current situation a little hard to take. Everyone's gazes cooled. Even the occasional friendlier person looked at him awkwardly, as though they were his devoted friends, willing to disembowel themselves alongside him, yet his lie had made them share in his humiliation.

Unfortunately, the chubby girl still wanted to break the awkwardness. "Uh, I remember Mom saying that your family used to live in what had been their accounting office?"

The chubby girl had naturally taken in her mother's complaints that the company's assigning that accounting office to the family of three as a cramped home would create a bad impression.

Those words came at just the right moment to provide a clue for Chen Lingshan's memory.

In an instant, that dusky summer day, that Bohemian tiered skirt, that girl with a headscarf and flowing shoulder-length hair, and even the gray-toned scene before her-a boy in dirty, shabby clothes and an excited little mongrel-all overlapped before her eyes. Even the dirty boy's smile in her memory could be superimposed over the Su Can before her, like two overexposed negatives.

Just as Su Can would subconsciously forget the scene of his family clutching their heads and weeping bitterly after his failure in the high school entrance exam, Chen Lingshan would subconsciously forget being beaten by her father as a child, the jar holding her pocket money being smashed, her most beloved doll being shredded in the washing machine, or something like encountering a filthy admirer and his dog on an otherwise lovely afternoon.

But once she remembered, it was like biting into an apple and finding half a worm left inside. Somehow, her mood suddenly soured.

"You're the one who lived in the company quarters?" Chen Lingshan asked instinctively. Perhaps she could no longer remember exactly what the boy who had lived in the company basement looked like, but she had heard her father express his displeasure over the family's cramped living arrangements many times. Putting things together, she could more or less connect him to Su Can.

Su Can smiled bitterly and nodded. The thing he had least wanted to happen had happened after all.

"Oh." Without saying anything more, Chen Lingshan regained her air of indifference to favor or disgrace and turned her head away.

Perhaps her words were unintentional, but the listeners took them to heart. Li Ai, Zhang Xi, and the others could not help laughing. They had thought he was someone with an impressive background, only to find that his family were merely minor employees at Chen Lingshan's family company. He certainly knew how to put on an act; he had fooled the whole lot of them.

Some people gathered in little groups and began whispering. "So his family works at Lingshan's company..."

Perhaps Prince Charmings, whether on white horses or dark ones, had never existed in this world at all. With his veil torn away, Su Can stood naked before everyone's eyes. Xue Yiyang and Liu Rui regretted it so much that they felt like a pair of complete idiots, yet they could offer Su Can no help whatsoever.

Zhang Xi, Li Ai, Sun Ziyi, and Wang Xing looked toward the entrance of the barbecue plaza, their expressions turning serious.

A group of four or five young men of varying appearances, roughly their age but with distinctly more outstanding bearing, walked in. The one in the lead wore a black silk shirt and fitted Versace jeans. Handsome-featured, he looked at those beside him. "If you don't want to come in, wait for me at the entrance."

These people usually thought highly of themselves. They lacked the young man's friendliness and had no intention of having anything to do with the people in this barbecue plaza. Hearing the boy in the lead say that, they simply stayed outside.

As soon as the handsome young man came in, he spotted Zhang Xi and the others, laughed, and greeted them.

Zhang Xi and his companions went forward to meet him, all smiles.

The young man casually patted Zhang Xi on the shoulder, which already made him feel greatly honored. His friendliness was all the more precious. Zhang Xi, Li Ai, and the others knew that those standing outside were probably conscious of their status and did not want to associate with them. They took no offense; after all, the others' standing spoke for itself. "Young Master Zhang, a class reunion? It's lively. I was hanging out nearby with some friends today. Didn't you just text me? Since you happened to be here, I came over to see you. Quite a crowd. Have fun. It's my treat today-put everything on my tab."

A rustle immediately swept through the barbecue plaza. Everyone was stirred. This handsome boy in a black shirt had arrived like a prince, and the generosity of his sweeping offer to cover everyone's bills made them feel that today they had finally seen a so-called crown prince. In comparison, Su Can was just a fleeting little nobody.

Zhang Xi, Li Ai, and the others felt a surge of delight and an even greater sense of prestige. They thought that today they had broadened everyone's horizons and shown them what a true scion of a powerful family looked like.

The young man, who had originally intended only to stop by, say hello, and do them a favor, was about to take his leave when he happened to catch sight of a few familiar faces in the barbecue plaza.

Zhang Xi, Li Ai, and the others had been waiting to offer a few polite words as he said goodbye, only to see him walk farther in instead of leaving. He went straight to their table and held out a hand to Su Can. "You really had me fooled! Why couldn't I find you afterward, no matter how long I waited?"

After speaking, he saw the blank expressions on Su Can, Liu Rui, and Xue Yiyang's faces. Thinking the three had forgotten him, he added jokingly, "I'm Wang Weiwei-the Wang Weiwei you told off!"