In the afternoon, Shi Niannian went to B University for class. After finishing at 3:30, her advisor asked to see her, so Jiang Wang waited quite a while outside the college before she came out.

The young girl was wearing a white lab coat with her mask hanging from her chin. Worried that he had been waiting anxiously, she didn’t even have time to take it off before rushing out.

“You’ve been waiting for a long time, haven’t you?” Shi Niannian apologetically said, “My advisor needed to see me.”

“Is it over now?” Jiang Wang asked.

“Yes.”

“Then let’s go.”

Jiang Wang had told her at noon that he needed her to accompany him somewhere in the evening. She was rushing to class then and didn’t have time to ask for details. Only after getting in the car did she ask, “What are we going to do?”

“Accompany me to an evening party,” he answered casually.

Shi Niannian turned her head to look at him and repeated, “Evening party?”

She felt inexplicably nervous, not used to such occasions. “Will there be many people?”

“It’s okay, just stay by my side,” Jiang Wang smiled. “If you don’t want to say we’re married, just say you’re my girlfriend.”

For an evening party, one naturally needed to wear an evening dress. Jiang Wang had prepared in advance and arranged for someone to do simple makeup for her. Shi Niannian rarely wore makeup, only having done so a few times for college activities.

Her features were delicate, her skin fair and smooth, with willow-leaf eyebrows and beautiful, clear eyes that didn’t need much eye makeup enhancement. She had the kind of appearance that made people feel a tender itch in their hearts just by standing there naturally.

Jiang Wang sat to the side with his eyes closed, taking a short rest, while Assistant Zhao helped Shi Niannian put on her evening dress—a short tulle lace gown that revealed her proportionate, slender legs. Her skin seemed even fairer against it, the epitome of pure innocence.

Assistant Zhao inwardly marveled that CEO Jiang not only had unique business insight but was also formidable in his choice of partners.

Many celebrities would attend this evening party. As the chairman of Jiang Group, Jiang Wang had been the focus of the business circle since early morning. Countless people wanted to marry their daughters to him for an alliance. He had good looks, strong abilities, and no messy playboy scandals. More importantly, Jiang Chen had already passed away, so there were no entangled interests.

Jiang Wang’s decision to bring Shi Niannian to this party was to publicly declare his non-single status, thereby blocking those covetous gazes.

Assistant Zhao felt somewhat sentimental. At first, people in the company just thought their CEO had finally integrated into the rich second-generation lifestyle. In the business circle, keeping a beautiful woman at home was very normal; some exaggerated cases even kept more than one.

But later they discovered that CEO Jiang wasn’t approaching this with a playful attitude at all, but was very serious and devoted. He picked her up and dropped her off for classes. Everyone felt that Miss Shi was truly blessed by eight generations of good karma.

Until yesterday, someone in the company finally dug up legends about CEO Jiang’s past.

Everyone had heard this legend before—rumors said Jiang Wang had dated a scholarly girlfriend in high school. The two were sweet and inseparable, but unfortunately, she was unfaithful. Later, the girl went abroad without a word, abandoning Jiang Wang.

Legends are just legends; no one believed it until yesterday, when someone dug up several posts from Yi Zhong High School’s online forum from a few years ago. There were even photos of the two of them. Only then did everyone realize that this Miss Shi was the highly individualistic scholarly unfaithful girl who had abandoned CEO Jiang back then.

“Is this okay?” Shi Niannian asked, turning in a circle in her evening dress, and noticed that when she looked at Assistant Zhao, the assistant’s gaze seemed somewhat… admiring?

“Yes,” Assistant Zhao quickly put on a professional smile. “This is fine.”

Lifting the curtain, Assistant Zhao followed her out and called, “CEO Jiang.”

Jiang Wang opened his eyes, looked at Shi Niannian, and froze.

She was so beautiful that he couldn’t look away—pure and flawless. Her lips had a touch of lipstick, much more vibrant than her usual lip gloss, giving her a clear charm.

Jiang Wang indeed only realized at this moment some of the rituals required for marriage—proposal, diamond ring, wedding, honeymoon. They had none of these and had directly registered their marriage. It was fortunate that Shi Niannian was willing to marry him.

When he saw Shi Niannian at that time, sitting in the car, he just wanted to first truly bind her to his side, no matter what. After getting their marriage certificate, he had been filled with joy and anxiety, never having had time to think about whether the little girl would feel wronged by being brought home as his bride like this.

Although with Shi Niannian’s personality, she would be unwilling to have a wedding now, a ring was still necessary.

In the car, Jiang Wang sat casually, his body half leaning on Shi Niannian. He grabbed her hand and placed it on his leg to play with, his gaze lowered as he pinched her ring finger and asked, “Do you want a ring?”

“Huh?” She turned her head and repeated, “Ring.”

“Yes, do you want one?”

She blinked, paused for a moment, then shook her head. Her voice was very soft as she explained gently, “I’ll be interning at the hospital soon. Doctors always need to wash their hands and disinfect them, so wearing jewelry isn’t convenient. Besides, I’m afraid of losing it if I take it on and off all the time.”

She explained so much because she was afraid he would be angry. Jiang Wang hooked his lips in a light smile, his voice also relaxed, “You’ve changed. Before, when I gave you gifts, you said you wanted them.”

He was referring to the bracelet from that Christmas in his sophomore year.

At that time, they weren’t together yet. Shi Niannian wanted a gift from him and quite straightforwardly and honestly said she wanted it.

“I haven’t changed,” she spoke softly. “It’s just that rings are expensive, and I won’t be able to wear it often, so it’s not worth it.”

Jiang Wang smiled, his index finger hooking her chin, “Trying to save me money? Do you know who your husband is?”

She blushed and raised her eyes to look at the driver. Their gazes met in the rearview mirror, and Shi Niannian elbowed him, “What are you saying?”

She indeed didn’t truly understand what kind of status today’s Jiang Wang had. She only knew he was very busy with work, and even after coming home, he would be busy until late. It wasn’t until she followed Jiang Wang into the reception hall and heard the polite, respectful “CEO Jiang” from everyone around, and saw the undisguised scrutiny and admiring gazes directed at her, that she gained some understanding of Jiang Wang’s status.

She became constrained in this environment.

Jiang Wang reached out his hand to her, “Come.”

Holding hands, they walked inside. Many people with champagne glasses came to greet them, and eventually, the topic naturally turned to Shi Niannian at his side.

“My girlfriend,” Jiang Wang said concisely, not intending to introduce her seriously to people.

“Oh?” The man raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Which family’s daughter?”

“Mine,” Jiang Wang turned his head to glance at her, silently rubbing the back of her hand. “Sorry, she’s shy. We’ll go over there first.”

Shi Niannian was also holding a glass that an attendant had handed her earlier. She followed Jiang Wang to a corner table and placed the glass on the table.

“Tired?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Do you know all the people here?”

“More or less.”

“That’s impressive,” she looked around the hall. “I think they all look alike.”

He laughed, sitting next to her, holding his glass in his right hand, which encircled the back of her chair, his fingers loosely tapping the stem of the glass.

This posture brought them very close. If Shi Niannian leaned back, she would be against his half chest. She heard him ask softly in her ear, “Do you know why I brought you here?”

She turned her head, but before “Why?” could leave her mouth, he sealed her lips with his.

Her lipstick had a sweet taste. Jiang Wang licked his lips, released her again, and smiled with satisfaction, “In the future, more people will help me watch over you. If you get too close to other men, someone will notify me.”

He could lie so casually.

This time, Shi Niannian wasn’t fooled and even gave him a rare raised eyebrow, “You’re just using me as a shield because you’re too lazy to deal with other women.”

Sometimes her reactions were slow, but she wasn’t stupid. She couldn’t have missed the gazes around them since they entered.

“Not a shield,” Jiang Wang smiled. “The real deal.”

After all, it was a party linked to business and projects. Jiang Wang didn’t just bring Shi Niannian along to make an appearance for no reason. After chatting with Shi Niannian for a while and making sure she had eaten enough, he went to discuss business with others.

Shi Niannian didn’t follow him but remained in the corner. She was someone who was used to staying in her little world.

There was a magazine rack beside her, which seemed to have been forgotten as the magazines were quite old with curled edges.

With nothing to do, she casually pulled one out to read. It was a business magazine, quite recent. The first page was a broad commentary on the current economic situation.

Shi Niannian flipped through it and suddenly spotted a familiar face. The man in the photo was tall and handsome—it was Jiang Wang.

Those two pages were about an interview with Jiang Wang. Shi Niannian became interested and read on carefully.

Suddenly, there was a sound beside her. A girl came over, leaned on the chair, and sat on the high stool with an ice cream in her hand.

She wasn’t wearing an evening dress, just a simple dress, but it didn’t look out of place in the hall. She was a pretty girl.

Shi Niannian noticed she had extremely beautiful hands—slender, bony, with light pink nails, very long, though there were a few dried oil paint marks on her fingertips.

Noticing her gaze, the girl waved her hand, “Got dirty from painting.”

Shi Niannian smiled at her, “How old are you?”

“18.”

“So you’re a senior in high school?”

“Yes,” the girl nodded, licking her ice cream. “Art student.”

Shi Niannian complimented her, “That’s impressive.”

She shrugged indifferently and looked at the magazine Shi Niannian had opened, raising an eyebrow. She pointed and asked, “Is this your boyfriend?”

Are kids nowadays so precocious?

Shi Niannian asked, “How did you know?”

“I saw you two sitting here chatting earlier. I know your boyfriend; he’s quite familiar with my boyfriend,” the young girl said quite calmly.

“Huh?” Shi Niannian could no longer follow her train of thought and simply asked, “Who is your boyfriend?”

She didn’t answer but took the magazine from Shi Niannian’s hand and quickly flipped through it from beginning to end. She frowned, seemingly dissatisfied because she couldn’t find what she was looking for.

“Hold this for me, sister.” she handed over her ice cream while standing up to crouch in front of the magazine rack, muttering to herself, “This kind of trashy newspaper has my boyfriend in it.”

She pulled out a newspaper and threw it on the table.

Shi Niannian glanced at it and recognized it as a newspaper in the business world that specialized in various true or false gossip.

The girl opened it. The front-page headline was exactly what she was looking for. She frowned, made a “tsk” sound, muttered something like “scumbag” under her breath, and pointed at the large photo to show Shi Niannian.

“See, this is my boyfriend.”

The photo was taken from a hidden angle, so it wasn’t very clear, but it was enough for her to recognize who it was.

The photo showed a man and another woman getting out of a car. The man’s neat white shirt somehow looked less proper on him, with a habitual playboy smile at the corner of his mouth.

Shi Niannian numbly looked at the headline—”Young Master Xu Ningqing meets with young model, suspected of spending the night together.”

“…”

When they got home that night, Shi Niannian mentioned this to Jiang Wang. While talking with people, Jiang Wang had also been keeping an eye on Shi Niannian and had seen the two of them chatting for a while.

“A girl who’s been clinging to Xu Ningqing recently,” Jiang Wang explained lazily. “I heard she’s quite troublesome.”

“Isn’t she his girlfriend?”

Jiang Wang paused, “Did she tell you she was Xu Ningqing’s girlfriend?”

Shi Niannian nodded.

He gave a lazy, snorting laugh, turning his head to kiss her earlobe, “I feel a bit cheated.”

Shi Niannian sat on the bed, leaning back a bit to avoid his kiss, “Hmm?”

“Someone else’s girlfriend is living with them at 18, but I waited for you for how long?” Jiang Wang pressed her onto the bed, his fingertip circling her lips before leaning down to bite and grind them, “Little heartless one.”

Shi Niannian focused on the first half of his statement, thinking back to the girl she had just met and Xu Ningqing’s warning to her long ago that “men are quite despicable.”

“Brother and that girl are living together?”

Jiang Wang said lightly, “Yes.”

He didn’t want to dwell on this question about others with Shi Niannian. He held her chin and half-forcefully kissed her, giving her no further opportunity to speak.

With no one around, Shi Niannian was gradually getting used to his kisses, without the initial awkwardness and inexperience from when they first reunited.

She lifted her arms, found a comfortable position on the bed, raised her chin, and kissed Jiang Wang back, being quite obedient.

Jiang Wang had one arm around her neck, supporting her head, and the other hand cradling her face. Unlike usual, he didn’t let his hands wander. This kiss was also long and gentle, slowly parting her lips and deepening gradually. Shi Niannian could feel herself being soaked inch by inch—it was a kiss that could stir one’s heart.

Perhaps because this kiss was too delicate and gentle, she relaxed, and consequently, her sensations became more pronounced.

The sound of Jiang Wang’s hoarse breathing in her ear, his fingertips burning from tumbling emotions, and her body gradually developing a physiological response. The man’s essence came down like a tidal wave, burning her soul.

Shi Niannian moved slightly, tucking in her chin to avoid his kiss.

The man’s eyes were dark and deep. He stared at her from a distance for a while, and finally laughed hoarsely.

He relaxed his strength, pressing down on Shi Niannian, his face turned towards her neck. His voice sounded as if it had been scraped over sandpaper, but the end of his tone was drawn out long, like he was coaxing, “What should we do?”

“…”

Shi Niannian felt it.

Jiang Wang made a small movement with his waist, noticing her instantly stiffening reaction. He gave a lazy laugh. Since he had brought Shi Niannian to the evening party, she was probably tired. Not wanting to deliberately torment her, he was about to prop himself up to go to the bathroom and take care of it himself.

But just as he was getting up, the little girl raised her hand to grab his sleeve, her eyelashes fluttering like a small brush, “Do… do you want me to help you?”

Jiang Wang’s gaze fell on her open palm. He narrowed his eyes and leaned down again, saying hoarsely in her ear, “You know how to do this now.”

She blushed, feeling her eyes burning dry. How would she know this? Wasn’t it all learned from being pressed and teased by Jiang Wang these days?

Shi Niannian couldn’t be bothered to answer his deliberately mischievous question. The little girl coolly rubbed the corner of her eye and said, “Forget it then.”

“I want it,” Jiang Wang answered decisively.

How could he not want it?

Jiang Wang could feel that Shi Niannian was trying to get closer to him. Even though there were some things she wasn’t used to and found hard to adapt to, she was still using her methods to try her best to make their relationship more intimate, intimate enough to completely make up for the years they had been apart.

A top student indeed learns things quickly. This had only happened once before, but this time she was already quite skilled.

The two of them squeezed in front of the sink in the bathroom. Jiang Wang couldn’t help but laugh seeing her with eyes closed, afraid to look around. He leaned over and bit the corner of her lips.

When it was finally over, Shi Niannian felt her heart was about to jump out of her throat.

Thumping so hard it was unbearable. Jiang Wang took her hand and held it under the water flow to rinse, washing each finger clean, then dried it with a towel.

The man was now in an extremely relaxed state, exuding laziness from the inside out. His belt hung loosely at his waist, his shirt had long been crumpled, and a part of his abdomen had just been wetted, revealing vague muscle lines.

“Want to take a bath?” he asked, lowering his head.

Shi Niannian said, “You go first, I’ll do it later.”

Jiang Wang was in a good mood and no longer deliberately teased her. He straightened up and released her, but suddenly remembered something and asked, “Is there any place you want to visit? We can go out during the National Day holiday.”

She paused, “I don’t know where I want to go.”

It seemed like there wasn’t any particular place she wanted to visit.

Jiang Wang said, “Think about it in the next few days. If you’re too lazy to go out, we can just stay at home. It’s all fine.”

Shi Niannian went out and sat for a while, thinking about where they could travel. Traveling with Jiang Wang—something she had never experienced before.

Actually, she hadn’t been to many places. As a child, she lived in the south with her parents, then attended high school here, and then college in another city. She didn’t have what could be called travel experience.

Unable to think of anything, Shi Niannian decided to search online.

She told Jiang Wang and took her phone to search for travel destinations, using Jiang Wang’s phone to check flight tickets. The National Day holiday was 7 days long, so they could go somewhere a bit farther with more tourist attractions.

She lay on the bed, supporting her chin with her hand as she looked, when suddenly her gaze paused.

She had clicked into Jiang Wang’s flight records. The first two entries were round-trip tickets between Beijing and the city where she had lived abroad.

She froze, her fingers trembling as she scrolled down. It wasn’t just that one entry; there were many. She was struck by such immense shock that she couldn’t even react in time to count how many times Jiang Wang had gone to find her.

The fastest flight took 8 hours and 45 minutes, and there were others of 10 hours, 20 hours.

Over the years, Shi Niannian had looked at these flights countless times, almost memorizing every flight. Yet she still couldn’t come back, until now when she saw these all-too-familiar flights and numbers appearing in Jiang Wang’s phone.

He had gone to find her.

Jiang Wang came out of the bathroom after his shower to see the little girl with her head lowered, trying hard to open her eyes wider, not wanting her tears to fall.

He was taken aback and glanced at the phone screen in her hand.

“What’s wrong?” he crouched in front of her, his voice softening.

Shi Niannian pressed the base of her palm against her eyes, her voice heavy with choking emotion, “You came to find me.”

“Yes,” he smiled quite nonchalantly, raising his hand to wipe away her tears. “To see if my treasure was still able to get first place over there.”