Chapter 1

After a long silence, Liang Moyang lifted his eyes to look at me.

“When I said a hundred, I meant a million yuan.”

“And I’m not being your dog. Real or pretend. Read fewer novels.”

My face went hot.

That wasn’t how it happened in novels!

Wasn’t he supposed to agree, let me train him, and gradually fall for me until he really did become my dog?

I scratched my nose awkwardly.

“O-okay, then. Give me the million first.”

Liang Moyang flatly refused.

“You seem pretty clueless. I doubt you can do anything about that childhood friend of yours.”

“Forget it. I’m not wasting my time. I’m leaving.”

How did rich people change their minds so fast?

Watching the million I’d practically had in my hands fly away, I nearly cried in desperation.

“Hey, don’t go! We can negotiate. A hundred thousand will do.”

“Whatever it takes, I’ll get Xie Lindao away from Ren Cen!”

Liang Moyang looked me up and down.

“Oh? How? Let’s hear it.”

Without thinking, I said, “Pester him. I’ll annoy him to death if I have to.”

Liang Moyang nodded.

“So you mean nothing to him, and the only way you can get his attention is by pestering him.”

I was already grieving my lost two million.

Hearing him put it that way made me feel even worse.

“That’s… not quite fair. We’ve known each other so long. I think I do mean something to him.”

Liang Moyang pointed at my phone.

“Tell him you’re sick and ask him to take you to the hospital. Let’s hear his reaction.”

I quickly took out my phone and called my childhood friend, Xie Lindao.

The first call was rejected.

So was the second.

He answered the third.

Pretending to be in pain, I said, “Xie Lindao, my stomach really hurts. Will you come to the hospital with me?”

“Busy,” he said coldly.

“…But I really don’t feel well.”

“Chi Anhao, do you know how annoying it is when you can’t take a hint?”

Then he hung up.

I stared blankly at my screen.

The two million that had been consuming my thoughts suddenly didn’t seem so important.

I knew all the sensible advice.

A girl had to respect herself, or people would only look down on her.

I ought to give Xie Lindao a vicious piece of my mind, block him, and never speak to him again.

But I couldn’t forget how, all those years ago, when my parents’ fights turned the house upside down, Xie Lindao had taken me to hide at his place.

Across the narrow corridor, my parents hurled vile insults at each other.

We could hear every word.

Xie Lindao would sit opposite me with a book, listening to it all with me.

I was so, so ashamed. I wanted the ground to swallow me.

But he acted as though he couldn’t hear a thing.

He brought me milk to drink and red-bean buns to eat.

As I ate and cried, he comforted me.

“Don’t worry about grown-up problems. Just focus on your studies.”

He even gave me an old phone his mother no longer used, so I could message him when I needed him.

But I needed him so often.

Like so many people, my parents were two ordinary people trapped by their circumstances.

Even accidentally buying rotten eggs could give them a reason for a screaming match.

So I downloaded lots of novels onto that phone and read them whenever I felt bad.

In those stories, however much the main character suffered, they always found happiness in the end.

My younger self believed, utterly, that I would too.

When had Xie Lindao started to change?

Perhaps when adolescence came and he began receiving more and more love letters.

In his eyes, I stopped being the little girl from next door.

I became someone people questioned and teased him about. Someone who caused him a lot of trouble.

He stopped walking home with me, refused the snacks I brought him, and wouldn’t speak to me at school.

I didn’t know what I’d done wrong.

So I worked hard to lose weight, learned to put on makeup, and bought new clothes.

Oh, and most importantly, I studied hard.

That way, I could apply to the same university as a top student like him.

But today, there was no way left to fool myself.

He’d been so brutally clear, with someone else right there to hear it.

And I’d just lost two million.

I really couldn’t help it. Right in front of Liang Moyang, I burst into great, messy sobs.