When Zhang Jingchan recalled the past, he actually felt he owed Li Weiyi something. Specifically manifested in: because of him, she had eaten too much unfounded jealousy.
After Fu Ming went bankrupt, for a while, the number of girls chasing Zhang Jingchan decreased quite a bit. But later, everyone gradually discovered that the Zhang family wasn’t as miserable as they’d imagined. Rumors said Zhang Moyun had already made a comeback and was beginning to train Zhang Jingchan to take over the business. Plus, Zhang Jingchan himself was truly extraordinarily handsome and outstandingly talented. Very quickly, those pursuing him resumed their endless momentum.
Zhang Jingchan rejected them all and claimed he already had a girlfriend. Of course, no one believed him. They didn’t see anyone by his side except a few brothers, with Li Yunmo following him most closely. Surely Li Yunmo couldn’t be his girlfriend, ha ha ha.
During that period, a bit of fanfiction about a Zhang-Li couple even circulated on the campus network for a while.
Until September of the following year, when the famous Zhang Jingchan brought a freshman girl from the Academy of Fine Arts to eat in the cafeteria and study in the library, and often stood guard under the girls’ dormitory building at the Academy of Fine Arts, shocking countless people.
For those one or two years, the two of them really loved each other very intensely. The young man no longer had any constraints, nor was there any distance in time or space. After more than a year of “tutoring,” the two had long since reached deep emotional intimacy, inseparable and unable to part.
Zhang Jingchan had never had such a feeling before. Just mentioning her, just seeing her, he couldn’t help but want to smile. He felt she was usually silly and naive, yet at critical moments smart and open-minded. He both wanted to tease her constantly and especially wanted to possess and own her. The affection between these two young people was like a spark falling on lushly overgrown grass—in an instant, the fire spread across mountains and fields, heat soaring to the sky.
They wanted to be together all the time. When he had no classes, he would wait outside her studio for several hours with a textbook from his major. Eventually, the Academy of Fine Arts teachers even added a round stool for him at the back of the studio. Everyone at the Academy of Fine Arts knew that was Zhang Jingchan’s seat. She had more free time and would accompany him to specialized courses she couldn’t understand at all, accompany him to his father’s office to work overtime. At that time, Zhang Jingchan, who was only twenty years old, even experienced the feeling of “sharing weal and woe.”
They kissed wildly in dark corners of movie theaters; in the Zhang family villa pool on afternoons when no one was around, they could swim all afternoon without getting tired, instead becoming increasingly addicted; they also went into the school’s small grove a few times… At that time, holding such a girlfriend, what did Zhang Jingchan feel? He wanted to dig out his heart and give it to her. He only hoped that the vow of “a lifetime together” made at this time could really last a lifetime. Words as ordinary as “I love you” had to be said by both of them every day, as if only through repeated confirmation, repeated expression, could such intense feelings find release and comfort.
Their first quarrel was after Zhang Jingchan, busy with his graduation thesis, hadn’t had time to see her for over a week straight.
During that period, Li Weiyi was also very busy with her studies. But she still slipped out of school on Friday evening after a long class to come to Zhang Jingchan’s university to find him.
It was very cold that evening. Li Weiyi stood outside his advisor’s workshop, looking at the lit room inside, where only he and a female student were present.
The girl was very pretty. Li Weiyi also knew her—she was a classmate from his year but different class, ranked third in the entire department. Zhang Jingchan’s eyes stayed fixed on the computer, his fingers striking the keyboard. The girl stood by his desk, smiling and saying something the whole time, then patted his shoulder. Zhang Jingchan looked up, smiled at her, and said something as well.
Li Weiyi was about to explode right then.
Actually, she knew Zhang Jingchan wouldn’t do anything. He was so good, so fond of her. His mind was full of developing smoothly with her until 2022, with the two timelines perfectly converging. Without exaggeration, Li Weiyi felt he was practically dating her with the heart of a monk cultivating the Way.
But understanding was one thing, emotions were another.
There were many things she hadn’t told him, but that didn’t mean they weren’t buried in her heart. When she walked beside him, many people’s surprised looks clearly wrote “unworthy,” and although facing such looks, Li Weiyi would roll her trademark eye roll at them; also at her school, some people made snide remarks openly and covertly about her “latching onto” the son of the former richest man, even spreading rumors that she had used her body to hook Zhang Jingchan in high school. Although at the time she cursed them out, cursed them so badly that later those people didn’t dare make passive-aggressive remarks to her face anymore… but after all, she was only eighteen years old. She would also cry from anger, would also complain in her heart that Zhang Jingchan was too much of a target.
As Zhang Jingchan approached graduation, he took on more and more company matters. She watched him gradually mature bit by bit, growing into a mature man who didn’t show his emotions. He would be so stressed by company matters that he couldn’t sleep all night. At that time, Li Weiyi couldn’t help at all, couldn’t even truly understand or keep up with many of the things he did. Like how the Zhang father and son, in the second year after bankruptcy, worked together to earn back one hundred million—this was something completely unimaginable to an ordinary sophomore girl.
Li Weiyi’s pressure was equally great, only her pressure wasn’t as clear-cut and concrete as Zhang Jingchan’s. It came in threads and bits, entangled in anything related to Zhang Jingchan. Even she herself didn’t understand what that pressure was.
But on this evening, seeing him with an equally excellent classmate, a man and woman alone, looking at each other and smiling, Li Weiyi’s pressure instantly burst to its critical point.
However, Li Weiyi had never been the type to run away or foolishly charge ahead. She tried her best to compose her expression, walked in with a smile on her face, and called out: “Achan.”
Zhang Jingchan turned around. Seeing her, he smiled, pushed away the keyboard his hands hadn’t left all day, and reached out one hand toward her: “How did you get here? You didn’t say anything. I would have picked you up.”
Li Weiyi smiled somewhat stiffly, walked over and held his hand, then nodded at that girl.
That girl was even more stiff than her. When the two girls’ eyes met, both understood something. However, the girl was much more experienced than Li Weiyi, still maintaining a perfectly sweet and bright smile on her face: “Your girlfriend is here. I won’t disturb you. We can discuss the remaining problems tomorrow.”
Zhang Jingchan said: “Okay.”
The girl left. Zhang Jingchan said: “Can you wait for me a little longer? There’s still a bit I haven’t finished.”
“Okay.”
After a while, Zhang Jingchan had to push the keyboard away again and look at the girl beside him who was keeping her head down in silence. Something was wrong with her.
But his heart was actually very anxious. Tomorrow this part of the thesis had to be submitted to his teacher. He was really too busy; time had to be squeezed out bit by bit. And his train of thought had been interrupted twice in a row—he also felt somewhat irritable inside.
Zhang Jingchan touched Li Weiyi’s hair and asked: “What’s wrong?”
Li Weiyi asked: “Why were only you and her here?”
Zhang Jingchan was stunned for a moment, then laughed: “No way, you’re jealous about this too? She’s just a classmate. We’re working on analyzing this data together.”