Jiang Yan did indeed want to buy a bag for Jiang Ruoqiao.

When he saw it at the counter, he was immediately certain she would love it. The retail price was over thirty thousand yuan — far beyond what a student could reasonably afford.

Jiang Yan had a part-time job at school too. He was excellent at gaming, and through a friend’s introduction, he had started coaching a few people with money to spare, which brought in some income. Beyond that, he had also joined a gaming company. He wasn’t in any decision-making role yet — his experience was too thin for a planning position, and he was only working in an ordinary department for now. He was still young, and being given this chance at all was already quite good.

To make real progress, he’d need to keep training, and that training process required both time and money.

No one was going to guide him step by step. He had to figure things out on his own while also spending money to learn.

So while combining his two income streams was enough for a university student to live quite comfortably, he had too many goals and too many expenses. By this point, his total savings amounted to only around twenty thousand yuan.

When he was out with his mother and the others, he hadn’t dared to buy the bag right then and there.

But now that he was back, the more he thought about it, the more he regretted not buying it.

Someone like Ruoqiao deserved to have everything given to her, no matter how much.

Having borrowed three thousand from Lu Yicheng, he figured he could put the rest on his credit card and it should just about cover it.

In good spirits, Jiang Yan was just about to video call Jiang Ruoqiao when someone knocked on his door.

He got up to open it. Standing in the doorway was a delicate, pretty young girl.

She was around 160 centimeters tall, wearing a white knee-length sleep dress, her long hair smooth and silky.

“Kexing, is something the matter?” Jiang Yan asked.

Lin Kexing had just turned eighteen this year. There was still something youthful and slightly unpolished in her features — she was the eldest daughter of the Lin family of Jing Shi. The Lin Group was a name most people would recognize: a well-established jewelry enterprise that, despite the rise of newer competitors in recent years, still stood firmly at the top of the industry.

Director Lin had two sons and a daughter.

This youngest daughter was born to his second wife, pampered and cherished without limit. Yet Lin Kexing had been raised well — she wasn’t spoiled or willful, and could even be described as gentle and accommodating.

Her eighteenth birthday had been celebrated with great fanfare by the Lin family.

The original plan had been for Lin Kexing to go directly to a prestigious university abroad, but with the international situation having grown tense recently, her mother couldn’t bear to let her go, so she had stayed in the country instead.

Lin Kexing looked at Jiang Yan, then, as was her habit, dropped her gaze and held out her phone to him with a smile. “Jiang Yan-gege, I noticed you kept looking at that bag at the counter today — were you thinking of giving it to your girlfriend? Here, I just saw this on my Moments feed — a classmate of mine bought an extra one by accident and is asking if anyone wants it. She said she can let it go at a discount.”

Jiang Yan took the phone.

Sure enough, the screen lit up to a Moments post.

Someone had posted —

【I can’t even deal right now — just had someone pick up this bag for me, and it hadn’t even gotten warm in my hands before my dense boyfriend decides to be romantic for once in his life and buys me the SAME bag behind my back… So now I have two of the exact same bag. Anyone want one? I’ll sell it at a major discount! Spent way too much lately, running out of allowance, trying to buy my boyfriend a nice pair of shoes~】

The attached photo showed the exact bag Jiang Yan had wanted to buy.

Jiang Yan looked at Lin Kexing in surprise. “Your friend wants to sell it?”

“Mm.” Lin Kexing nodded. “I could tell you really wanted it, so just buy it from her — I asked about the price too. It’s a whole ten thousand cheaper than the duty-free counter. Do you want it?”

Jiang Yan didn’t hesitate for a second. “Yes.”

In that moment, he seemed to have overlooked something. The circles a young lady like Lin Kexing moved in meant that her friends were almost all from extremely wealthy families. Why would any of them actually be short on money, or mind having one extra bag in a wardrobe full of them?

Lin Kexing pressed her lips together in a small smile. “Then I’ll let her know — do you want to add her directly, or should you send the money to me and I’ll pass it along?”

Jiang Yan smiled easily. “Go ahead and be the middleman, please.”

He was self-aware about these things.

If he could avoid adding a girl’s contact, he would.

He had a girlfriend now, after all.

Lin Kexing blinked, caught off guard for a moment, then teased, “Does your girlfriend check your phone?”

As if worried the remark had come out wrong, she quickly added what sounded like a joke: “I didn’t realize Jiang Yan-gege was the type to be ruled by his girlfriend.”

Jiang Yan laughed. “I love hearing that. Oh — Kexing, thank you. I’ll treat you to a meal sometime.”

Lin Kexing pouted. “You always say ‘sometime.’ Let’s make it tomorrow — I want coconut chicken hot pot.”

Jiang Yan: “Sure! I’d even take you for coconut duck hot pot if you wanted.”

Lin Kexing didn’t linger. Once they’d finished chatting, she headed back to her room. Her heart rose and fell, alternating between warmth and cold. What did it feel like to have a secret crush? She had known that feeling since she was twelve years old.

All these years, she had watched him drift through life aimlessly, powerless to do anything.

She had always stayed by his side, but one day, she watched him find his footing again — and she hadn’t felt as happy as she’d imagined.

Because it was someone else who had put the spark back in him.

That person wasn’t her.

*As long as you’re happy, that’s enough.*

—

Jiang Ruoqiao had returned to school nearly half a month early. She hadn’t gone to the dormitory — instead, she was staying in an apartment under the name of the traditional clothing shop owner.

The shop owner was a thoroughly delightful wealthy woman. After working together for this long, Jiang Ruoqiao found their relationship genuinely pleasant.

Early that evening, the shop owner brought over a bottle of red wine.

After they wrapped up their business talk, the owner asked idly: “Third year starts with this semester, right? Have you thought about what you want to do after graduation?”

The shop owner thought very highly of Jiang Ruoqiao, and more than once had considered poaching her outright.

Jiang Ruoqiao was the kind of person who knew how to navigate any situation. She had outstanding personal capabilities, a clear head, excellent judgment about when to advance and when to hold back, and was tough enough on herself when it counted. The first time the shop owner met Jiang Ruoqiao, she knew immediately — this girl would go far.

“Graduate school,” Jiang Ruoqiao said. “A’Da’s postgraduate recommendation rate is pretty high. I’ve asked a professor, and it shouldn’t be a problem.”

The shop owner looked vaguely disappointed. “I was hoping you’d go straight into work or start something of your own.”

Jiang Ruoqiao smiled. “More education is never a bad thing. Besides, I still haven’t figured out what I want to do.”

Over these past two years, she had come to understand one thing deeply: in this life, the best path was to take whatever you were good at and pursue it to its highest possible level.

Forget stepping out of your comfort zone — being able to live your whole life within it was itself a kind of mastery.

What was her defining quality right now? What drew people to follow her? Was it the title of campus beauty? Certainly not — every school had one of those.

The *A’Da* campus beauty — now that was something.

The key was the A’Da part.

How did her followers describe her? As an academic goddess.

Without the “academic” part, being a pretty girl meant nothing. These days, there were far too many attractive young women.

Having worked together long enough, the shop owner could see that underneath it all, Jiang Ruoqiao carried a kind of pride that bordered on arrogance.

She believed she was different from ordinary internet influencers.

And it was precisely that pride that led Jiang Ruoqiao to almost never accept advertisements. She couldn’t stand the idea of people saying she shamelessly hawked garbage products — that would bother her more than being called ugly.

Accepting trashy sponsorships said something about a person. It said they had no self-respect, that they were greedy in the most unattractive way, that they had no vision.

She was absolutely going to earn money — but she wanted to earn money that wouldn’t bring negative consequences.

“You’ve always had your head screwed on straight,” the shop owner said. “Honestly, if I’d been half as clear-headed as you at your age, I’d be more than just this today.”

Jiang Ruoqiao gave a noncommittal smile.

She simply felt the timing wasn’t right yet.

She wanted to build an account with an exceptional reputation — one that would never blow up in her face. She was only twenty, still so young, with so much of life ahead. Why rush? She wasn’t desperate for money, and she was still in school. So until she knew what she wanted to pursue, the natural thing to do was to keep building quietly.

After the shop owner left, Jiang Ruoqiao opened her account dashboard.

Even though she posted almost no advertisements, viewership still generated traffic, and in this era, traffic could be monetized.

Every month there was some income from the dashboard — though compared to the influencers who were actually making serious money, hers was barely worth mentioning.

Out of habit, she withdrew her dashboard earnings and set aside half to donate to the school lunch public welfare program.

After placing the order, she screenshotted the receipt and posted it casually to Weibo.

She didn’t post every time she did this. Once or twice was fine, but doing it too often risked making it look like she was building a persona.

So she only posted about it every few months.

This time, though, things were slightly different from before.

In the past, she would set aside sixty or seventy percent of the earnings. This time she only put in half — entirely because, right before confirming the order, she’d suddenly thought:

*Wait. She might be raising a child in the future?!*

She’d better start being a little more careful with money.

Lin Kexing had always followed Jiang Ruoqiao’s account under an alternate account, and naturally saw the Weibo update too.

Jiang Ruoqiao had posted ten minutes ago —

【Wishing all the little ones full bellies and good sleep ^_^】

Attached was a screenshot.

Ever since Lin Kexing had found out that Jiang Yan had a girlfriend — and that his girlfriend was the A’Da campus beauty — she had been quietly following Jiang Ruoqiao. She had watched all of Jiang Ruoqiao’s videos multiple times, read through her Weibo posts, and even gone so far as to look through the Weibo accounts of Jiang Ruoqiao’s past and present boyfriends.

Why had she done all that?

She wasn’t entirely sure herself.

But from looking through Jiang Ruoqiao’s social accounts, she could see clearly — this was a genuinely, truly, deeply good person.

Not only sharp and academically accomplished, but remarkably beautiful.

Truly worthy of being A’Da’s campus beauty.

And most importantly, her character was exceptional.

She was kind-hearted. Despite posting almost no advertisements, she consistently used her monthly dashboard income to fund the school lunch program. She didn’t post about it every month — it seemed like she just posted when she occasionally felt like it — but anyone with eyes could tell that she did this every single month. It had become a habit.

She was warm and patient. When fans vented their frustrations in the comments, she would always find her own way to comfort them, treating her followers like friends.

She was too good.

So good that Lin Kexing, even as the person who quietly carried a torch for Jiang Yan, felt she had to concede.

She was convinced. Only someone like Jiang Ruoqiao deserved to be the light in Jiang Yan-gege’s life.

Lin Kexing felt a heavy pressure in her chest.

Unable to stop herself, she messaged the one friend who knew about her secret feelings: 【She’s really so wonderful.】

Her friend replied after a moment, as blunt as ever: 【Sour grapes again? Then go fight for him.】

Lin Kexing: 【But I just want him to be happy, even if the person by his side isn’t me.】

Her friend: 【……】

Her friend: 【🤮】

Lin Kexing didn’t mind. She laughed quietly to herself.

—