Chapter 4

In the afternoon, Nan Ge was still in a daze when the alarm clock rang. In her half-asleep state, she opened her eyes and glanced at the time.

It’s only one o’clock. She turned off the alarm and wanted to sleep more.

When she closed her eyes, Nan Ge suddenly could not fall asleep. She felt that she had forgotten something…

Did her roommate, Su Hui, say something before she left this morning?

If she remembered correctly, Shen… Shen Yanqing was giving a lecture today!

“Oh God!”

Everyone in town knew about Shen Yanqing. It was said that he was the object of competition for several key universities in the country back then. Eventually, he skipped a grade and was guaranteed admission to Huai University’s business school. In the end, he went overseas to study.

He had started his business when he was still in school. At the age of 28, he was already one of the young entrepreneurs in the country. He rarely appeared in public. Today, he was invited by his alma mater to specially come back to give a lecture.

Many people were waiting to see this mysterious big shot with their own eyes, and Nan Ge was no exception.

Speaking of which, she had some history with Shen Yanqing… To be precise, their fates had intertwined in a doomed way.

Back then, when she was applying for her university, her father forced her to apply to a local one. However, she insisted on going to another city, so she had a huge fight with her father.

The day she ran away from home, she inadvertently heard a phone interview with Shen Yanqing in a taxi. Since it happened during the university application season, he was probably helping to do some publicity for his alma mater.

The cheap speakers in the taxi occasionally made some static.

Even so, it was impossible to conceal the man’s gentle voice. It was like a breeze blowing from the mountains, neither light nor heavy, hitting her eardrums.

The host asked about his alma mater, Huai University. He was very patient and answered them one by one.

At the end of the interview, his voice fell silent for a few seconds before he spoke again.

“I’m Shen Yanqing. I hope everyone applies for Huai University.”

His name Shen Yanqing meant peaceful and clear.

She took note of the name.

On that midsummer evening, she chose to apply for Huai University’s business school and submitted her application on the dot to become Shen Yanqing’s junior.

In hindsight, she had been tortured quite badly in the past two years and she had the big shot to thank for it.

Tears trickled down her face whenever she studied. She was paying back for the stupid decision she had made in the heat of the moment back in the day!

This man kept bragging about Huai University’s business school and made it sound like a piece of cake to study there during the interview. She was just an ignorant innocent girl, but he had fooled her badly.

——

“Wait, wait, wait!”

Nan Ge sprinted all the way to the school building, but the elevator door opposite her had already closed.

As she watched the gap become increasingly small, Nan Ge closed her eyes in frustration.

Just as she wailed, she heard a gentle voice suddenly say, “Hang on.”

“…” This voice was very familiar. Nan Ge subconsciously looked up.

A hand reached out from the elevator and blocked the door. The elevator doors sensed it and opened automatically.

The figure inside gradually became clearer.

Their eyes made contact.

The man in the elevator was dressed in a suit and his short black hair was combed neatly. His lips were pursed slightly and he wore a pair of silver-framed glasses on the bridge of his nose, making him look cold and strict.

However, in the next second, Nan Ge saw a smile suddenly appear in his eyes.

“Aren’t you coming in?”

As he spoke, his voice pulled Nan Ge back to reality.

Seeing the faint smile in the man’s eyes, she quickly ran in. “Oh. Thank you.”

The man nodded slightly and pressed the button to close the door.

It was winter, but Nan Ge’s forehead was covered in sweat. It was obvious she came in a mad rush.

She searched her pockets. Since she came out in a hurry, she did not bring any tissues with her.

As if there was telepathy between them, a well-defined hand slowly reached out to her.

Nan Ge blinked and looked at the handkerchief he handed her. When she came back to her senses, she thanked him again.

She wiped her sweat with a handkerchief. Just as she approached her face, a faint fragrance entered her nose. It was like the fragrance of wood from the forest after a rain in the mountains. It was refreshing and not overpowering.

Before long, the man asked again, “Which floor?”

She seemed to have heard this voice somewhere before…

Nan Ge had just woken up, and her head was still a little dizzy, so she did not think too much about it.

She answered the sixth floor, only to find that the button for number six had already lit up.

Recalling there was only Shen Yanqing’s lecture on the sixth floor happening today, Nan Ge took the opportunity to ask, “Are you here for today’s lecture?”

“Yes, I am.”

Shen Yanqing was delayed by a meeting at the last minute and people were probably waiting for him.

“Since you’re here so late, there are probably no more seats inside. My roommate has already gone to reserve a seat.”

Shen Yanqing looked at her and asked with a faint smile, “Is it that bad?”

Nan Ge nodded and explained patiently. “You don’t understand how popular Shen Yanqing is. He’s now the mascot of Huai University’s business school.”

After the elevator opened, the two of them walked out together. As they walked, she said, “I estimate that half of the people in the business school in the past two years have been tricked by that interview of his. Most of them are seeing him in person for the first time.”

“This is just like when the terracotta soldiers were first unearthed. Everyone wanted to take a look. It’s completely understandable that people are a little excited.”

To put it bluntly, this was what it meant to be able to see anything once you lived long enough.

The man lowered his eyes when he heard that. His long eyelashes cast a dark shadow. After two seconds, he smiled and asked, “Are you the same?”

Seeing that Shen Yanqing had stopped the elevator for her just now, Nan Ge was quite patient. “Yes, I am. Shen Yanqing caused me a lot of trouble when I was filling in my application form. I naturally came today to make him take responsibility, right?”

Just as Nan Ge had said, the classroom was packed to the brim.

As soon as she entered the classroom, Nan Ge saw Su Hui waving at her. Nan Ge reached her hand out and waved back. She had just taken two steps forward when she seemed to have thought of something and turned around. “Why don’t you…”

Go over and squeeze with them?

Before she could finish her sentence, Nan Ge saw that the man who had followed her in had already stopped at the door. The school leaders, who had been waiting for a long time, had surrounded him.

The dean of the faculty known as the cold-faced King of Hell who never smiled was currently laughing around him as if he had seen his long-lost father.

Under her puzzled gaze, the man was escorted to the podium. As if on purpose, he looked up and scanned the classroom with his cool gaze before stopping at her accurately.

He reached out and gently adjusted the microphone on the table. His thin lips curved into a perfunctory smile.

Then, a familiar voice echoed in the classroom.

“Hello, everyone. I’m Shen Yanqing, a year 11 graduate of Huai University Business School.”

This voice coincided perfectly with the voice she heard in the taxi a year and a half ago.

“…” Nan Ge could almost hear a cracking sound from above. She felt as if a bolt of lightning had struck her.