Chapter 141

Chapter 141

Wen Miao turned around and saw that the girl who had chased after her and grabbed her was none other than Cheng Jiamin, the same girl she had just run into outside Director Wu’s office.

Nan Mu saw her too. Once he got a clear look at her face, memories he had long forgotten suddenly came flooding back.

He remembered now. Cheng Jiamin had been his classmate in college!

However, although he and Cheng Jiamin had been in the same class, the two of them had barely ever spoken, so Nan Mu’s impression of her was not particularly deep.

The reason Nan Mu still remembered her was because the name “Cheng Jiamin” had been a frequent topic during late-night discussions in the boys’ dorm.

Only…

Usually, whenever her name came up, what followed was never anything good. In other words, Cheng Jiamin did not have a good reputation.

It was said that Cheng Jiamin came from a poor family and had to rely on the national poverty subsidy every year just to cover her living expenses for the semester. On top of that, she also had a work-study position at the school cafeteria. At night, she worked part-time as a temporary employee at a restaurant by the school gate.

Because the campus of A University of Science and Technology was quite large, it took nearly seven or eight minutes by electric scooter to get from the school gate to the dormitory buildings. Students in their class were unwilling to walk that far, so they would call the restaurant for takeout and have the owner deliver it to campus.

Cheng Jiamin’s part-time job was delivering those meals to the dormitory buildings. She earned one yuan for each delivery.

Logically speaking, someone like Cheng Jiamin, who was poor but hardworking and determined, should have had a good reputation among the students. Yet for some reason, there were countless rumors circulating among them, including gossip that Cheng Jiamin had willingly slept with school administrators for money and status.

Later, the rumors only grew more numerous. Some even claimed that Cheng Jiamin did not actually meet the requirements for the national poverty subsidy at all, and that she had only received the funding because she was involved with a school administrator and had used connections to get it.

And the person whose name had been tied to Cheng Jiamin’s, the one rumored to have an improper relationship with her, was none other than the director of the biology department-Director Wu!

===

“You… You’re Wen Miao, right?”

Cheng Jiamin held Wen Miao’s arm, her gaze timid.

Wen Miao nodded warily. “Yes. You know me?”

“Mm.” Cheng Jiamin nodded hard. She seemed a little hesitant, and also a little envious. “I know about you… You’re Wen Tangtang’s younger sister, the youngest winner of the National Physics Award in the country, and the genius girl in the eyes of the materials department teachers.”

Wen Miao: ?

Had this girl run over specifically to compliment her?

Cheng Jiamin probably realized that she was acting a little strange and quickly added, “I came to find you because I wanted to ask if you know where Wen Tangtang went.”

Wen Miao froze, then asked in return, “Why? Do you know?”

Cheng Jiamin nodded, but before Wen Miao and Nan Mu could be happy, she immediately shook her head again.

What was that supposed to mean?

Wen Miao grew anxious watching her. “Do you know or not?”

Cheng Jiamin did not answer. Instead, she asked, “So you went to see Director Wu because of Wen Tangtang?”

Wen Miao carefully looked Cheng Jiamin up and down, making the other girl shrink back despite herself.

Anyone who could get into A University of Science and Technology was no fool, but for some reason, Cheng Jiamin looked pitiful, weak, and helpless.

Wen Miao decided to be upfront with her. “Yes, I went to see Director Wu because of Wen Tangtang. Since last night, neither Wen Tangtang nor Wen Xin has been reachable. I went to ask the dorm supervisor, and the supervisor said Director Wu had helped the two of them request leave, which is why I went looking for him. So, can you tell me now why you came running over to ask about this?”
When Cheng Jiamin heard that Wen Tangtang had been missing since last night, her face suddenly went pale.

Wen Miao had been watching her expression closely. Seeing her reaction, she already had her answer. “You know what happened, don’t you?”

Cheng Jiamin nodded.

Wen Miao grabbed Cheng Jiamin’s hand, her voice edged with agitation. “Please, can you tell me what exactly happened?”

Cheng Jiamin opened her mouth and was just about to speak, but after glancing at Nan Mu, who was wearing a hat and a mask, she shrank back a little and closed her mouth again.

Nan Mu understood immediately. Lowering his voice, he said, “You two talk. I’ll wait for you over there.”

===

Before Cheng Jiamin told Wen Miao about it, Wen Miao had never imagined that something like this could exist in the shadows of her own school-and that it had happened so close to her.

And Wen Tangtang had never told her that she had been dragged into an incident like this.

Cheng Jiamin was a student who had made it out of the mountains. Her family really was desperately poor.

Her father had died young, and her mother had raised her all by herself. Cheng Jiamin studied with everything she had because she hoped that one day she could get a good job and change her family’s circumstances for good.

Perhaps heaven truly rewarded hard work. She was gifted academically, and in high school she tested into the best school in their county. Although she couldn’t afford the tuition, her middle school teachers voluntarily pooled money together just to send her there.

After she got into university, her high school awarded her a scholarship. Once she arrived at university, with the national poverty subsidy she applied for and the wages from her part-time jobs, she managed to scrape through four years of college.

Although Cheng Jiamin spent a great deal of time working part-time, her credits and grades never fell behind. After all, when she wasn’t working, she didn’t use that time for fun-she spent all of it studying.

So in their senior year, when Cheng Jiamin was held back by the school, Wen Tangtang, as her classmate, was extremely surprised.

“Actually, over those four years of university, Wen Tangtang and I weren’t close. She was like a little sun, the kind of person all our classmates liked. But I wasn’t…” Cheng Jiamin lowered her head. “That year, in senior year, some of our classmates were taking postgraduate entrance exams, and some were graduating… I was the only one forced to stay behind and retake courses because my grades supposedly weren’t good enough.”

It was from that year onward that Wen Tangtang and Cheng Jiamin became close.

“Because she thought it was strange. Wen Tangtang said that even though she hadn’t had many chances to interact with me, she knew my grades had always been in the upper-middle range of the class. How could even the boy at the very bottom have graduated, while I was the one who couldn’t?” Cheng Jiamin’s eyes reddened. “Maybe someone like you could never understand what that felt like… Back then, when Wen Tangtang asked me about it, she was… she really was the first person in my entire college life who ever cared about how I was doing.”

Wen Miao understood. “Tang Tang has always been warmhearted and kind.”

“Yes. Because she cared, I couldn’t hold it in…” A few crystal-clear tears slid from the corners of her eyes like pearls from a broken string.

Cheng Jiamin covered her eyes with both hands and began to sob. “It was all because of me… I’m the one who got her hurt.”