Though it had been a close call, fortunately Chu Hang was clearly troubled, brow furrowed and expression grim, apparently with some heavy matter weighing on his heart that he needed to pour out to Xu Yu in the rain — and in the end, he really did manage to drag Xu Yu out of the shower room. Tan Yin let out a sigh of relief, though she didn’t dare shower anymore either — she hurriedly slipped back to her room while still invisible from the storm.

A while later, the thunderstorm finally stopped, and the water pipe was successfully repaired — hot water was restored to the rooms, and Tan Yin finally got her shower.

But the storm had dragged on so long that Tan Yin no longer felt like going back out to eat, drink, and have fun. Instead, she pulled out her camera and laptop and began organizing the photos she’d taken during the fieldwork trip — buildings, as well as design details from the five-star hotel like elevator lobbies, railings, front desks, and so on.

Since the rain had stopped, plenty of people had gathered again on the lawn downstairs for barbecue and fun. Now Tan Yin’s ears were filled with waves of laughter and people calling out to each other; Jiang Yilu was probably out there too, enjoying the last night of the trip. But once Tan Yin settled into focus, all that noise seemed to fade away for her. She carefully analyzed the material she’d collected, and began sketching out, in her mind, the rough outline for the next design assignment.

Unfortunately, book knowledge only takes you so far, and before long Tan Yin hit a wall. With the fieldwork trip about to end — everyone would set off back to school first thing the next morning — Tan Yin seized this last chance to walk around a few nearby hotels once more, studying the essence of their design.

Tan Yin had a stubborn streak — once she decided to do something, she threw herself into it a hundred percent, no matter what. Because she had this urge weighing on her, wanting to prove to Chu Hang that she wasn’t some hopeless case incapable of good design, Tan Yin found herself calming down instead, forcing herself to grind through the course material she’d always been weak in.

The better part of the day went by like this, but it felt productive.

The next morning, everyone reluctantly packed their bags, sighing all the way as they headed back to school.

After days of letting loose during the fieldwork trip, Jiang Yilu had gotten a bit too used to it — back at school, she still hadn’t quite settled back into the routine, feeling somewhat lazy and unfocused, practically glued to her bed every day. Tan Yin, on the other hand, got busy the moment she got back — she had a huge backlog of coursework to catch up on, and right after returning, it also happened to be Dezhiwei’s weekend delivery promotion. Since she’d already agreed to help out before the trip, Tan Yin wasn’t about to bail now.

Tan Yin had anticipated that the discount promotion would bring in more delivery orders than usual, but she hadn’t expected quite this many. From the morning on, she barely had time to even take a sip of water. After finishing the orders near the restaurant, she moved on to the farther district orders — nearly all of which were for Qingjiang Garden.

This time Tan Yin carefully double-checked the address — it wasn’t Chu Hang’s house, nor Duan Yingfei’s, but another villa entirely. Except this single villa alone had placed a total of twelve orders!

Did rich people really get this excited over a small discount? Jumping on every deal like that the moment it appeared?

Fortunately, thanks to her sweet talk, Tan Yin had gotten friendly with the security guards at Qingjiang Garden through her deliveries, and seeing her carrying twelve orders at once, they made an exception and let her ride her electric scooter into the compound, only reminding her to leave right after the delivery.

But once Tan Yin arrived at this villa carrying twelve orders of food, she realized something — this villa was actually the one directly across from Chu Hang’s house. Previously it had been vacant when she’d delivered there, but now it was under renovation, and the ones who’d placed the orders were the construction workers inside. Seeing the delivery arrive, they gathered around noisily to collect their food.

Tan Yin was just about to leave when she heard the sound of a door slamming shut heavily behind her. She turned around and saw Chu Hang, holding a bag of trash, looking at her with an expression like he was constipated.

She didn’t even need him to speak — Tan Yin could already read the “how old are you” in his eyes: Why is it always you? Why is it you again?!

Tan Yin wasn’t the least bit embarrassed, and cheerfully called out a greeting: “Hey there…”

Before she could even get “Chu Hang” fully out, the target of her greeting had already turned his head away and gone off to dump the trash without a word.

Given how cold he was being, he clearly didn’t want to acknowledge her.

Tan Yin wasn’t about to waste warmth on someone giving her the cold shoulder either — she was busy anyway! She wiped some sweat off her brow and hopped onto her electric scooter, ready to leave. But just as she did, because of the villa renovation, apparently a truck delivering building materials hadn’t been careful and some rocks had rolled out into the road. Tan Yin’s scooter, moving at full speed, hit the rocks while turning a corner and lost its balance — before she could react, she was thrown off, flung quite a distance away.

When she got up and checked, she found her elbow and knee both badly scraped, the wounds now bleeding rather dramatically — a shocking sight.

Because she’d let out a pained cry from the fall, and it had been quite a loud crash, Chu Hang, who had just finished dumping the trash and was heading back inside, couldn’t help but frown and look over at Tan Yin.

Chu Hang had originally intended to ignore Tan Yin — she really did seem to show up in front of him with excessive frequency. This string of coincidences was making him more and more suspicious — could it be that Tan Yin had researched his movements and deliberately engineered these encounters? And his increasingly severe auditory and visual hallucinations were probably also just psychological trauma caused by her relentless, all-permeating presence.

If Chu Hang had merely been suspicious before, then upon seeing Tan Yin’s sudden fall, he now felt he had a definitive answer.

Chu Hang sneered inwardly — it really was all a scheme, just as he’d suspected.

Deliberately get hurt right in front of him first, then naturally ask for his help — either she’d shamelessly insist on coming into his house claiming she needed to treat her wound, or cling to him demanding he take her to the hospital.

This was practically a next-generation staged-accident scam.

Chu Hang looked at Tan Yin, who was still sitting on the ground crying out softly, her features scrunched up in pain, giving off a pitiable, delicate impression that really did tug at the heartstrings a bit.

It seemed she had no intention of getting up until he came over and picked her up.

This woman, Tan Yin, was truly a clingy, inescapable pest — she’d even mastered faking a fall this convincingly just to get him to pick her up. Chu Hang felt both resentment and frustration; he should have just turned around and walked away, ignoring her no matter how loudly she cried out. But in the end, by the time he snapped back to reality, he’d already walked right up to her.

Chu Hang’s face remained cold, but inwardly he’d resigned himself to it — he was almost certain that, given this woman’s determination to achieve her goals by any means necessary, from the looks of things she’d already decided to latch onto him, and there was no escaping it, so struggling against the inevitable and pretending not to notice was pointless…

Chu Hang pressed his lips together, and was just about to bend down and pick her up when Tan Yin, still on the ground, suddenly scrambled to her feet on her own. Only then did Chu Hang get a clear look — she really had fallen badly. Her clothes were torn at the elbow and knee, revealing large patches of scraped skin, blood oozing out, the wounds mixed with dirt and sand — quite a gruesome sight.

Chu Hang paused, then looked away: “I have a medical kit at home, do you want to…”

But to his surprise, Tan Yin, who could have easily gone along with this, waved her hand instead: “No need.” As she spoke, she bit her lip from the pain, but didn’t change her answer at all. “I still have a few more deliveries to make.”

Even just watching, Chu Hang felt this must hurt quite a bit, yet aside from grimacing in obvious pain on her face, Tan Yin showed no sign of wanting to cry — she hadn’t even let out that instinctive whimper from before anymore.

Unexpectedly, Tan Yin turned out to be the complete opposite of her appearance — instead of being delicate and fragile, she was actually quite tough, tough almost to the point of stubbornness.

Tan Yin had no idea what Chu Hang was thinking. As for this fall, she could only describe it as a bolt from the blue. She figured that lately, about eighty percent of her unlucky moments seemed to have Chu Hang as a witness — no matter how strong her nerves were and how composed she managed to appear on the surface, inside she was mortified enough to want to dig a hole and hide in it. Right now all she wanted was to get as far away from Chu Hang as possible, so she limped over, intending to pick up her scooter.

But misfortune never comes alone — after this fall, something had apparently gone wrong with the scooter, and it wouldn’t start no matter what.

Meanwhile Chu Hang, who moments ago had been pretending not to see her, was still standing there casually, his expression cold, his tone as flat and icy as ever: “Never mind the deliveries, deal with your wounds first.”

That was just the kind of person Chu Hang was — a bit cold and aloof, indifferent toward people in general. But his upbringing and manners still showed through — even someone he disliked as much as her, seeing her injured, he’d still ask out of basic courtesy, especially since she was a classmate, and a girl at that.

Except if you actually took that kind of polite, obligatory inquiry seriously, that would be missing the point entirely.

Tan Yin prided herself on being tactful, and waved her hand again: “Chu Hang, don’t worry about me. I might look like a girl on the outside, but inside I’m iron-willed. My favorite piece of literature is How the Steel Was Tempered — crippled but unbroken in spirit, I can handle this!”

Chu Hang stood still, glancing coolly at the broken scooter in her hands: “Can that junk heap even still be ridden?”

Feeling genuinely mortified under his gaze, Tan Yin still put on a brave face: “It can be ridden. You should go back inside — I still have a few more orders to deliver. Don’t stand there getting in the way of me making my fortune and reaching the pinnacle of life.”

The moment Tan Yin finished speaking, Chu Hang, sure enough, said nothing more. He glanced at her once, then turned and went back inside.

See, Tan Yin thought, that’s how the rich show courtesy — it’s like when someone asks you “have you eaten yet,” it’s not actually an invitation to dinner, just idle small talk without real meaning.

She crouched down and started fiddling with the scooter again, until a black Porsche sports car drove past her.

Though Tan Yin had never had much interest in cars, she couldn’t help glancing at it a few times — she had to admit, this car really did look impressive.

But she hadn’t expected this impressive-looking car to stop right beside her, the window rolling down to reveal Chu Hang’s cold expression, his brow furrowed as he looked at Tan Yin.

Life really was unfair — Chu Hang got to drive a Porsche at such a young age, while she only had a beat-up electric scooter…

Faced with Chu Hang’s glaring look, Tan Yin belatedly realized he must think her broken-down scooter was blocking his way, and quickly limped over to push it aside to clear the path: “Hold on, let me move it out of the way…”

“Where’s your next delivery?”

“Yujingyuan, over by the riverside road, why?”

“Get in.”

“Hm?”

Chu Hang clearly had little patience left, his handsome brow furrowing further. “I’ve got someone to meet, it’s on the way.” He glanced at the electric scooter. “That junk heap of yours won’t be fixed in time, your delivery’s going to be late.”

Tan Yin found herself torn.

Chu Hang pressed his lips together: “I still haven’t hit my daily good-deed quota for the day. Keep hesitating and I’ll drive off — straight to go give charity to the beggars on the overpass instead.”

“No, no, no!” Tan Yin thought it over — the scooter looked done for — and decided to be pragmatic about it. “Then pop your trunk!”

“What?”

“Pop the trunk, I’ll load my scooter in there.”

If it weren’t for his good upbringing, Tan Yin felt Chu Hang might have actually rolled his eyes at her. He glared at her instead: “Does my car look like a scrap collector’s truck to you?”

“Then…”

“That thing of yours is stone cold dead. What good would putting it in the trunk do?”

“I still need to take it somewhere to get it fixed, don’t I?”

“Leave it here.” Chu Hang said coldly. “Our compound’s property management has someone who can fix it. Come get it yourself once it’s repaired.”

Tan Yin thought it over and figured that would work — as long as Chu Hang gave her a ride along the way to drop off the rest of her deliveries in that area, she could manage the rest on foot.

So she quickly opened the car door and got in.

Cars this expensive really did ride smoother — Tan Yin was about to offer a few flattering remarks about it, when Chu Hang tossed a bag straight at her face. She opened it up to find hydrogen peroxide, gauze, purple medicine (gentian violet), cotton swabs, and band-aids inside.

“Deal with your wounds.” Chu Hang said, not even glancing at her, his tone unyielding. “Don’t keep bleeding all over and dirtying my car.”

Fine, when someone’s holding all the cards, you go along with whatever they say.

While driving, Chu Hang kept an eye on her: “Buckle your seatbelt.”

“We’re both in the back seat, why bother?” Tan Yin didn’t think much of it. “It’s not like I’m in your passenger seat.”

…

Once she’d cleaned up her wounds, Tan Yin relaxed, and only then did she notice the car’s speed. She glanced cautiously at Chu Hang: “Chu Hang, aren’t you driving a little slow?”

Chu Hang pressed his lips together and ignored her, though he did pick up the pace a bit — from thirty kilometers per hour to forty…

Tan Yin looked out at the currently quite empty road and the speed limit sign showing eighty, thinking Chu Hang’s safe driving was a bit excessively safe. She thought it over, then probed carefully: “How long have you had your license?”

“Two years.”

Just as Tan Yin was about to relax, Chu Hang added, calm as ever—

“This is my sixth time actually driving on the road.”

“…”

Without another word, Tan Yin immediately buckled her seatbelt: “I think you’re absolutely right! Sitting in the back seat, of course you should still wear a seatbelt too — a lot of accidents actually put back-seat passengers at risk just the same, and buckling up really can save a lot of lives and prevent a lot of tragedies!”

Having said that, Tan Yin then carefully chose her words: “But Chu Hang, why did you pick this particular car?”

If his driving skills were this bad, why drive such an expensive car? What if it got scratched or dented in an accident — wouldn’t that hurt to see?

Chu Hang glanced at Tan Yin, his tone cool and detached: “This is the worst car my family owns.”

Oh. Well then, never mind.