Chapter 7

The car was quiet.

After a long time, Jiang Dai spoke.

“What made you think of comparing yourself to a cockroach?”

I thought for a moment.

“They’re all bugs.

“If you’re an ant, someone can crush you without a sound or a single consequence.

“But a cockroach is different. Its very existence disgusts people. Even flattened, it might survive. And even if it doesn’t, its body can still produce eggs and more cockroaches.

“Don’t you find a creature that can retaliate like that appealing?”

He nodded. “There’s a point to that.”

He didn’t reproach me for everything I’d dared to say in front of Zhou Mingxi.

Which meant he had no intention of responding to that part of what I’d said.

Perhaps liking someone, or not liking them, meant nothing to a man like him.

At that thought, I laughed at myself.

Did it mean anything to me?

I thanked him and shut the car door.

He nodded and drove away.

“Su Ying.”

I turned to see Xu Lang surrounded by several friends, looking at me coldly.

“Don’t you owe me an explanation?”

“For what?”

“You’re my girlfriend, and you just got out of another man’s car. Doesn’t that need explaining?”

“Funny, Xu Lang. Why didn’t you remember I was your girlfriend when Zhou Mingxi was making my life hell? Is hiding in your shell like a coward really so much better than being a cuckold?”

He looked utterly stunned.

Fair enough. I’d always been gentle and understanding with him. I’d never shown him any aggression.

But I didn’t want to pretend any more.

Xu Lang wasn’t my grand prize.

Jiang Dai had been wrong.

Whether you were in show business or at university, you ought to read and study.

It was your own mind you needed to arm.

Back at my dorm, I sent Xu Lang a message ending things.

Don’t come crying to me later, he replied.

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes and blocked him.

Humiliated, he spread the story that we’d broken up because I’d cheated.

My roommates were indignant on my behalf.

“Bad-mouthing your ex after a breakup? What a loser!”

“Which of them always had girls fluttering around him, exactly? How does he have the nerve?”

“And he’s going on about her being in a man’s car. What, has he never taken a Didi ride?”

While dating him, I’d never stopped building my own life and friendships around my studies.

So when we broke up, I wasn’t left isolated and helpless.

The rumours about me soon died down.

I didn’t take them to heart anyway.

I had other things to think about now.

Zhou Mingxi had wrecked some important business competitions and internship opportunities for me. I probably wouldn’t get into a good company after graduation.

After thinking it over again and again, I decided to study abroad.

Even though I only had a few thousand in savings.

I drew up a list of universities to apply to and practically moved into the library, aiming for the highest scholarship tier.

At first, everything went smoothly.

Until I happened to run into Meng Yuan in the library.

Suddenly she was in front of me every day, like an NPC spawning on a timer.

I went out and bought a fingerprint-lock water bottle especially.

You couldn’t be too careful.

Meng Yuan looked at the bottle and took a deep breath.

“Can we talk?”

“Sure.”

I followed her out of the library.

She rummaged in her bag, took out a photograph, and handed it to me.

The girl in the middle of the group stood very straight, her expression impassive.

It was my graduation photo.

“I spent quite a bit of my allowance getting hold of that,” Meng Yuan said.