The Orphan Chen Rongrong

Looking back, Zhou Yuwen had been lucky enough to catch the right wind.

It had started with a bet with a classmate. He registered an account on a small website and began writing a novel. Just three days later, an editor from the site contacted him, asking to sign him.

Zhou Yuwen was only seventeen at the time, and he was delighted. He happily told his mother that a fiction website wanted to sign him.

When his mother heard that, she merely told him not to believe that nonsense on the internet. Studying hard was the proper path!

Zhou Yuwen wanted to study hard too, but the problem was that studying was too painful.

Meanwhile, he had written only a few tens of thousands of characters of his novel, and thirty or forty people had already left comments online, saying things like, "Great One, your writing is so good!"

"Are you really just a high school student, Great One? Your writing reads like a successful man in his thirties recounting his life."

Those comments gave Zhou Yuwen an immense sense of satisfaction.

So Zhou Yuwen simply picked a time, printed out the contract himself, and mailed it off.

He vaguely remembered that it was 2013. Delivery services were already well developed, but Zhou Yuwen rarely used them, so he sent it the traditional way, through the post.

He stuffed all the contracts into an envelope, bought a stamp, and mailed out his first contract, spending a total of 1.2 yuan.

Then he pestered the editor every day: "Has it arrived?"

"Has it arrived?"

"Still not there?"

Luckily, the small website had been short of writers back then. If it had happened today, what editor would have been that patient? Zhou Yuwen's dream of becoming a writer would probably have died before it even began.

After nearly nine days, Zhou Yuwen's contract finally arrived.

Then he signed and put the novel up for paid release!

Zhou Yuwen still remembered that his first month's royalties came to 1,300 yuan.

He had happily gone to show off to his mother, saying, "Look, your son's earning money too!"

When his mother saw those bright red banknotes, she had been pleasantly surprised. "Oh, not bad! You can earn money now!"

That was all she said. She didn't interfere with Zhou Yuwen, much less think of claiming the fruits of his labor for herself.

It had to be said, writing novels for a small website really did pay back then. Zhou Yuwen could only squeeze out an hour a day to write, but even so, he earned three or four thousand yuan in royalties every month.

During winter and summer breaks, he updated six thousand characters a day. With the website giving him a major promotional slot, his royalties for the month could reach thirty thousand yuan.

He remembered that in 2013, teachers of every subject would look out at the last two rows of the classroom, where students were sprawled in every direction. They pitied their misfortune but were angry at their lack of effort, and simply stopped teaching to give them lectures on their attitudes instead.

They told the students that money was hard to earn these days, and if they didn't study hard now, they wouldn't even be able to find a job paying three thousand yuan later.

Back then, Zhou Yuwen sat in the back row feeling rather smug, thinking that he hadn't even graduated high school yet and already had seventy or eighty thousand yuan in his bank account.

That was true enough, but Zhou Yuwen didn't dare spend money lavishly in his daily life.

The main reason was that the website he wrote for didn't seem reliable. It felt as though someone there might get invited in for tea at any moment.

So Zhou Yuwen planned to make a quick pile of money first, then figure out how to spend it after the website went under.

Who could have guessed that after all these years, the website not only hadn't gone under, but had grown more and more popular?

During the summer after he graduated high school, Zhou Yuwen's novel reached three million characters. The website gave it a major promotional slot for a week, and his royalties for that month alone came to fifty thousand yuan.

Over their three years of high school, some people got into the universities they had set their hearts on.

Some had their first time in a small hotel.

Only Zhou Yuwen had nothing to show for it but the 150,000 yuan sitting in his bank account.

Now, ten years later, Zhou Yuwen regretted his past when he looked back on it. If he had known finding a wife would cost so much later, he would have been better off spending a little money back then to accomplish something big!

"A flight attendant sounds great! You'd be perfect for it!"

As soon as Chen Rongrong said that, Shen Ding grinned from ear to ear.

Chen Rongrong was full of fantasies too, saying that once she became a flight attendant, she could wear all kinds of pretty clothes!

Several classmates nearby chimed in, agreeing that being a flight attendant really would suit Chen Rongrong.

Chen Rongrong's figure really was top-tier. She was 170 centimeters tall, with huge breasts and long legs. If she put on a flight attendant's skirt suit and showed off those long legs, who knew how many people she would charm to death!

Just as everyone was full of fantasies about the future.

At that moment, the class monitor, Sun Yue, suddenly walked in and said to Chen Rongrong in front of everyone, "Chen Rongrong, you're the only one in class who still hasn't paid the 420 yuan for textbooks and miscellaneous fees. When are you planning to pay?"

Chen Rongrong had been beaming a moment ago, but her face instantly went pale when she heard that.

The girls who had just been praising Chen Rongrong, saying how beautiful she would look in a flight attendant's uniform, exchanged glances. Each could see the smile at the corners of the others' mouths.

"Oh no, I forgot to tell my family. Could you wait another couple of days? I'll definitely pay next week." Chen Rongrong boarded at school and had to wait until she went home to get the money.

Sun Yue's face was expressionless. "You're the only one in the whole class who hasn't paid. The teacher said everyone has to pay by today. Why don't you call home now?"

Chen Rongrong found herself at a loss.

"Is it that urgent? Can't you wait a couple of days?" Shen Ding spoke up for Chen Rongrong.

"Then why don't you pay it for her?" Sun Yue had little fondness for this clique in the class and spoke very coldly.

"..." Shen Ding fell silent too. The little group that had been chatting so happily a moment ago now seemed ready to scatter at the first sign of trouble. A few of them were even waiting to laugh at Chen Rongrong.

At that moment, Zhou Yuwen remembered it too. He didn't know whether it was because the high school he had attended was so poor or for some other reason.

In any case, during high school, Zhou Yuwen felt that the people around him were generally very poor.

Most of his high school classmates came from working-class families. In that small county town in Northern Jiangsu, people generally earned three or four thousand yuan a month. Even more students had parents working away from home, returning only a few times a year.

What he heard most often back then was that people scrimped and saved to put aside more money for their children's college education.

Then, after Zhou Yuwen went to college, those people seemed to have vanished all of a sudden. It felt to him as though everyone around him was rich, casually spending four or five hundred yuan on foot baths and massages, driving luxury cars and wearing designer watches.

It gave Zhou Yuwen a profound sense of disconnection. He even felt as though the high school he had attended had been a fake one.

As for Chen Rongrong, her case was even more outrageous. She was strikingly beautiful, tall and long-legged, and well liked by teachers and classmates at school. She was also good at reading people, acting naturally innocent and cute in front of boys, but cold as ice in front of girls.

It wasn't until their family circumstances were being recorded in their final year that someone accidentally saw Chen Rongrong's file and found out.

Chen Rongrong had it even worse than Zhou Yuwen. At least he had a mother; Chen Rongrong was an orphan, living with her uncle and aunt.

For a time, rumors flew in every direction, saying all sorts of things. Quite a few girls gossiped about every aspect of Chen Rongrong's private life.

Now, seeing Chen Rongrong standing there, embarrassed and unable to come up with the money,

Zhou Yuwen said without thinking, "I'll pay it for her."