Chapter 2
Chapter 2
I still remembered freshman year.
Yang Jingzhi had stood apart from the other new students in clothes washed almost white with age.
You could tell at a glance that she was poor.
You could also tell at a glance that she was lovely.
I liked her soft, cool voice. I liked the way her long lashes lowered whenever she looked at me.
She desperately needed money, and even her financial-aid place had been stolen by a counselor’s well-connected favorite.
So after an evening class, I seized her small, delicate hand with all the subtlety of a starving wolf.
“Yang Jingzhi, I like you. Be my girlfriend. I’ve got plenty of money—we can share my allowance. If that doesn’t work, I’ll even pay you for every kiss.”
Naturally, she refused.
But life had always gone my way. I did not yet understand defeat. The more she rejected me, the harder I chased.
Then the grandfather who had raised her became critically ill. Without blinking, I paid his hospital bill.
At last, Yang Jingzhi bowed her head to me.
Like an idiot, I thought I had saved the day.
Only much later did I understand: I had won her, but I had also broken something inside her.
Even after we started dating, she worked every day to cover her living expenses. She barely touched my money, yet everything grew worse.
Rumors spread through campus. People said she had sold herself for cash.
The way our classmates looked at her changed. Some gave her vicious nicknames.
Still sheltered and blindly optimistic, I held her hand and said, “Ignore them. They’re just jealous.”
I lived in an ivory tower, never realizing Yang Jingzhi was fighting alone.
In senior year, my family went bankrupt.
I did not tell her.
I simply asked her to meet me and said, “Let’s break up.”
“Why?”
“I’m bored with you.”
“All right.”
And that was the end.
I assumed she must have been relieved to finally regain her freedom.
That same day, I snapped my SIM card, deleted my WeChat account, and boarded a train to another city to work off my family’s debt.
I did not return until three months ago.
Yang Jingzhi looked as if life had treated her well. She had always been the kind of prodigy who made the rest of our department look like children. Only four years after graduation, she was already a young CEO featured in financial magazines.
Xu Wanxing had been the heartthrob of our class. He debuted as an entertainer in junior year.
I never expected the two of them to get together.
Good for them. Really.
I pressed a hand to my chest and forced down the ache.
I finished my shift at four in the morning. I was the last one out. Thinking everyone had left, my coworkers had already turned off the lights and shut down the elevator.
I jabbed the call button in frustration, hoping it would light up.
“Call someone,” Yang Jingzhi’s voice said behind me.