Chapter 44.1

“Poor thing.” Yao Chen held his cigarette in one hand, took Han Yanyan’s face with the other, and said sympathetically, “Follow behind me in the future, and you will shake off your past and be the master of the world.”

His answer shattered Han Yanyan’s hypothesis that “Yao Chen might be Ding Yao”. She couldn’t help but feel at a loss.

Had she been wrong?

Speaking of which, the two men were actually very different. Ding Yao was an educated man who had gone to university, and his management of the Thunder Regiment had the faint overtones of managing a large enterprise. He was a man whose every pore oozed ‘elite’.

Yao Chen was different. He had gotten his start through boorish means, and the little details on his body showed how he had pulled himself up by his bootstraps. His little habits, like his foul language or when he stuck the tip of his the tongue into his cheek,  were very reminiscent of a ruffian.

In truth, Han Yanyan had no evidence to prove that Yao Chen was Ding Yao. It was simply her hunch based on coincidences during times while they were intimate. In those moments, her heart would hammer in fright, but it was difficult to call it hard evidence.

If he wasn’t Ding Yao…

Han Yanyan suddenly lost interest. The momentum that had been stirring was lost. She reluctantly smiled and laid her head down on Yao Chen’s chest lazily, no longer saying anything.

Yao Chen had Han Yanyan move into his residence. He had his own large study, and another smaller one adjacent to the bedroom. He gave the smaller one to her, so that she might have a study of her own.

It could be said that he was very considerate.

Han Yanyan was his very first serious girlfriend. Any women before her were lovers at most. The difference was that before, he had slept with them simply to sleep with them, but when he slept with Han Yanyan, he did so to keep her by his side.

Sometimes Yao Chen looked at her and wondered what the difference was.

In the end it came down to the fact that he was getting old. Once one got old, even if you still went crazy, even if you still went wild, you would start thinking about settling down. And the most important part of settling down was marriage.

The reason why Yao Chen had so earnestly sought a girlfriend was that when Han Yanyan had told him seriously that she could not accept an improper relationship, an unexpected idea had emerged in his mind – marriage.

When they began living together, Yao Chen felt the monotony of Han Yanyan’s life up close.

“Aren’t you bored?” he once asked her, confused.

In his opinion, her life was just too dull.

Han Yanyan had stopped working ever since becoming his girlfriend. How could Yao Chen, in his role as boyfriend, allow her to worry about money any more? On the day she moved in, he had given her a card and told her, “Cash is in the safe in the small study.”

The smaller study did have a safe, and Yao Chen told her the password. Han Yanyan didn’t stand on courtesy and opened it to find hundreds of thousands inside in cash.

All in cash.

She knew that she had to be patient. This was still the first step in her plan to conquer Yao Chen. What she wanted, needed to get, was to gain his trust, and his trust could only be gained slowly.

She wasn’t worried. In these worlds, time might possibly be the least important thing of all. Even if she died of old age in this world, wouldn’t she be young and beautiful again in the next?

That is, provided Leo didn’t jump out and rush her along.

It was because she knew this that she lived life calmly, and just how she wanted.

‘Student Han Yanyan’ didn’t have the strength of ‘Apocalypse Han Yanyan’, nor did she have the elite education and business experience of ‘Eldest Miss Han Yanyan’. But ‘Student Han Yanyan’ was still in school. She was possessed of a clear mind and quick learning, and she as a truly gifted student.

Han Yanyan had once thought about furthering her skills, going back to school and learning something more, but thanks to life events or her own inertia, today had always been put off until tomorrow, and such ambitions had been dragged out, time wasted.

Now she never again had to work for money in this life. She had time, energy and brains. It was perfect.

“Not at all,” Han Yanyan answered him, sitting at her desk and turning her pen, “I just got a gym membership. In the future I’ll be making time for fitness, too.”

Her desk was covered with books, some of them in stacks. In one hand, Han Yanyan rested her chin on her palm, and in the other she turned her pen. After moving in, she had bought a few sets of clothes to wear around the house, all of them plain in colour but elegant in cut. They were not sexy at all, but instead gave off the impression of being fresh and pleasant.

She herself, in her entirety, was fresh and pleasant.

With such a woman at home, even the house felt cosy.