“No need, it’s nothing important,” Wu Mangmang put away her phone.

Lu Sui raised an eyebrow slightly: “Your attitude reminds me of someone else.”

Wu Mangmang lifted her eyelids, waiting for Lu Sui to continue.

“My subordinates,” Lu Sui said.

In the past, he had been too overconfident to see clearly, thinking that her obedience and gentleness came from liking him. Later, Lu Sui realized that Wu Mangmang actually had an attitude of pleasing the boss because she was paid a salary.

In more serious cases, it was even an attitude of “too lazy to resist you,” because without expectations, she didn’t want to waste energy arguing or fighting for anything.

“Hitting is caring, scolding is loving” wasn’t really just a joke.

Wu Mangmang smiled: “So do you want me to call you Mr. Lu or Boss?”

Lu Sui said: “Since you don’t want to marry me, you really don’t need to please me.”

Wu Mangmang burst out laughing: “I’m not pleasing you, I’m just respecting you. This is called politeness, understand? Don’t be so narcissistic, Mr. Lu.”

“Oh, you’re quite well-mannered,” Lu Sui replied.

Although this was a compliment, Wu Mangmang felt unworthy of it. She somehow thought of her first meeting with Lu Sui—a girl who could say such things wasn’t well-mannered.

“Speaking of which, why were you so petty back then? Over such a small matter,” Wu Mangmang asked.

Wu Mangmang’s words were disconnected, but Lu Sui somehow understood. He leaned over: “Want to hear the truth?”

Hearing the truth came with a price.

Lu Sui’s car was parked by University A’s famous Lover’s River.

Places that could earn the “lover” designation were usually where the streetlights were rather dim, having the function that even campus discipline patrol teams with flashlights couldn’t see faces clearly.

Wu Mangmang’s lips and tongue were numb. Just pure kissing had created the breathless feeling of running an 800-meter race.

Wu Mangmang used the last bit of consciousness in her mind to push Lu Sui away. Lover’s Grove was just dim, but it wasn’t a deserted place. Although the couples were only focused on their own whispering and kissing, anything more excessive had to stop—no one wanted to perform live.

“Speak,” Wu Mangmang turned on the interior light and took out her compact mirror to check her makeup.

“Speak about what?” Lu Sui’s blood wasn’t in his brain at the moment, so his reaction was slow.

Wu Mangmang snapped the compact shut with a “click” and snorted coldly: “You don’t keep your word. You won’t be able to fool me next time.”

Lu Sui pulled Wu Mangmang back into his embrace: “At that time, I thought this little girl looked decent, just wasn’t too bright, which was a pity. I just wanted you to learn from experience and restrain yourself a bit.”

Wu Mangmang was a bit confused. After a moment, she understood: “So you were doing a good deed for the day?”

Lu Sui said: “I’m usually not someone who meddles in others’ affairs.”

Looking back now, it seemed destined by fate.

Because of a momentary whim, feeling that Wu Mangmang needed some discipline, he remembered her. Everything that followed naturally fell into place.

Wu Mangmang scoffed: “If there were more people like you meddling in affairs, I estimate I would have died young long ago.”

In the following days, Wu Mangmang and Lu Sui didn’t meet much, but somehow all three meals a day were guaranteed.

Annie punctually delivered breakfast, lunch, and dinner to Wu Mangmang’s dorm every day. Having a woman deliver food was convenient—they didn’t even need to go downstairs to get it.

“Hey, what’s Mr. Lu’s background? Why do I feel like your life is so capitalistically decadent?” Zeng Ruling asked while drinking her breakfast coffee. “This tastes much better than Starbucks coffee.”

Wu Mangmang took a sniff, then sent Lu Sui a WeChat message: “Don’t spoil Zeng Ruling, or her future boyfriend will curse you.”

“As long as her sexual orientation is normal, I can supply her with coffee beans for life,” Lu Sui replied.

“Are you sure you’re not trying to pursue her?” Wu Mangmang typed quickly.

Lu Sui ignored her.

When Wu Mangmang saw Lu Sui again, the enthusiastic girl from last week was sitting beside him again. Wu Mangmang walked over with a cold face: “Is Mr. Lu planning another good deed for the day?”

Lu Sui pinched Wu Mangmang’s cheek: “How come you’re not gaining weight?”

Actually, she was already over-nourished. Wu Mangmang had been to the gym three times this week. Zeng Ruling and Dai Tingting had it worse—their faces had gotten a whole circle fatter, and they were still oblivious.

Wu Mangmang slapped away Lu Sui’s hand and handed her phone to the enthusiastic girl: “Classmate, could you please help us take a photo?”

Wu Mangmang linked arms with Lu Sui and intimately rested her head on his shoulder.

“Thank you.” Lu Sui intercepted Wu Mangmang’s outstretched hand reaching for the phone and held it first.

Wu Mangmang wasn’t angry either. Having easily solved a small romantic rival, she was in a good mood.

“What are you planning to do?” Lu Sui held up the phone.

Wu Mangmang said: “Ning Zheng wanted me to take a photo of you saving me a seat. He promised me a million yuan. How about we split it fifty-fifty?”

Lu Sui sent the photo from Wu Mangmang’s phone to his own, then manually deleted the photo from Wu Mangmang’s phone: “Using it as a memento is fine, but selling it is out of the question. Are you short of money?”

Wu Mangmang didn’t speak.

She seemed to always be in a state of lacking money. She was the type who could spend however much she had. After experiencing financial difficulties alone at University A, she was determined to become an economically independent woman who could support herself—at least she should have a place that belonged only to her, right?

She could have a dorm room at school, but not after graduation.

Lu Sui was of no help to Wu Mangmang in this regard. He could certainly give Wu Mangmang money, but what Wu Mangmang lacked was a sense of security—the kind that could only come from money she earned with her own hands to buy her own little nest.

“I’ll find you another way to make money,” Lu Sui brought Wu Mangmang to the sixth floor of Litchi Garden after class.

Wu Mangmang immediately crossed her arms defensively upon entering: “Boss, this one sells art, not body.”

Lu Sui was critical: “With your dead fish skills?”

“I’m not performing anymore.” Wu Mangmang huffily sat down on the sofa, then saw Lu Sui take down a blue and white celestial globe vase from the partition shelf. Before Wu Mangmang realized what Lu Sui was going to do, she had already lunged forward to catch the falling celestial globe.

“What are you doing, Lu Sui?!” Wu Mangmang screamed.

Although this celestial globe wasn’t a treasure, it was still worth six or seven figures!

“Giving you a chance to make money, and practice at the same time,” Lu Sui said.

“Fine, can’t afford to offend a rich master!” Wu Mangmang said indignantly.

Whether it was the words “rich” or “master” that were wrong, Wu Mangmang didn’t make it back to her dorm that night.

Sometimes Wu Mangmang felt Lu Sui had changed, sometimes she felt he hadn’t—still as domineering, still as ruthlessly fierce.

Because beneath her was a soft big bed instead of a thin moisture-proof mat, Lu Sui’s movements were even more wildly uninhibited.

“Am I old or not?” Lu Sui lowered his head and asked by Wu Mangmang’s ear.

The chest covered with sweat drops let Wu Mangmang’s taste buds experience the salty, wet flavor. She could barely breathe.

But some people would never truly submit. After Wu Mangmang recovered the next noon, she squinted and provoked Lu Sui: “You should have been even more amazing when you were young, right?”

Lu Sui’s slender fingers were elegantly fastening his shirt cuffs. Hearing this, he didn’t get angry but turned his head toward Wu Mangmang with a faint smile.

A smile that made one’s heart chill.

Wu Mangmang missed her morning classes, but fortunately there were only two classes that morning, and even better, the teacher didn’t take attendance—truly a blessing.

But facing the two curious ghosts Zeng Ruling and Dai Tingting, Wu Mangmang had only one thing to say: “Doesn’t the school offer sex education as an elective? Why ask me?”

“If we could get into that class, why would we ask you?” Zeng Ruling said angrily.

This was another extremely popular elective course, also a sign of the times’ progress.

Since rolling in the sheets again, Lu Sui seemed to spend more and more days at Litchi Garden, and the times for fetching hot water and delivering meals completely disappeared. Later, even the sweet gesture of saving seats vanished entirely. Lu Sui simply gave Wu Mangmang a cloud account with recordings of that elective course.

Wu Mangmang lay in the bathtub with aching back and waist, cursing Lu Sui in her heart. Men were indeed extremely practical creatures—because there was a reward, time was squeezed out magically.

When there was no reward, Lu Sui flew to various places handling business, leaving Wu Mangmang with frantically busy final exam week cramming.

Dating was a very time-wasting activity. Wu Mangmang only deeply understood this painful truth during exams, and this pain her detestable boyfriend wouldn’t share at all. Instead, he only sent various unreasonable demands.

For example: Send a pajama photo, the pink bunny pajamas, the one with the tail.

Another example: Send a voice message saying “yamete.”

Yet another example: Go to Fushan Airport, come see me, fly back tomorrow morning.

Psycho!

Exam week was finally endured. After the first-year courses ended, the various work on graduation thesis officially began. Their school now allowed early graduation applications—as long as you had enough credits and passed the thesis defense, you could graduate in two years.

So Wu Mangmang didn’t hesitate to refuse Lu Sui’s suggestion to return to the city. Besides, she wasn’t prepared to announce to familiar people that she was with Lu Sui again—it would be particularly troublesome.

Wu Mangmang was sleeping in her dorm at midnight when Lu Sui called, so she had to shuffle downstairs in slippers.

The girls’ dorm locked its main door at night. If you wanted to go out for anything, you had to wake the dorm supervisor to open the door. Wu Mangmang walked to the entrance and looked outside through the transparent glass. Lu Sui stood outside, but separated by the glass door, they couldn’t even hold hands.

“Why did you come so late?” Wu Mangmang looked at Lu Sui’s slightly haggard expression with some heartache. “We could see each other tomorrow morning.” Wu Mangmang spoke into her phone through the glass door.

“I’m flying to Canada tomorrow morning, probably for a week. I just wanted to see you,” Lu Sui said.

“Didn’t you just return from England today?” Wu Mangmang asked. “Why didn’t you fly directly from England to Canada?”

Lu Sui didn’t speak. Wu Mangmang actually already knew the reason—he just wanted to see her.

But chatting through a glass door really wasn’t much different from video chatting online.

After enduring a week, Wu Mangmang’s time with Lu Sui was still rushed. Usually he would arrive in City A in the afternoon and have to fly back to the city the next morning. This was considered good—at least he could stay overnight. Sometimes Lu Sui would just fly over hurriedly for a lunch and then have to leave.

Wu Mangmang was full of anger about this romance, but seeing the fatigue between Lu Sui’s brows and his thoughtfulness in flying between cities just for a meal, Wu Mangmang could only swallow her anger. The result was two big pimples on her nose.

“I’ll come have breakfast with you tomorrow morning,” Lu Sui said on the phone.

Wu Mangmang could hear the noisy background from Lu Sui’s phone. She didn’t know what he was busy with. When they were together before, she had never seen him this busy at night. Who would dare to disturb Mr. Lu’s rest without tact?

“What about lunch?” Wu Mangmang asked.

“I have a meeting at two in the afternoon,” Lu Sui said.

“But I have something tomorrow. Do you have time to come the day after?” Wu Mangmang asked.