Xiao Rou was different from other hostesses.
She was gentle and delicate, always calling him “Brother Yong,” treating him like a real older brother, and always proper in her behavior. To Liu Yong, she didn’t seem like someone trying to seduce him.
“Brother Yong, I have a boyfriend back home.”
Why would someone with a boyfriend come to Peng Cheng to do this work?
Liu Yong didn’t ask for details. After all, every girl trying to strike gold with men had a tragic story, and he was wary of being manipulated.
Xiao Rou was brought in by Liu Tianquan, and her reluctance to pursue Liu Yong surely put her under great pressure from Liu Tianquan.
Once, when Liu Yong was drunk and catching his breath in the bathroom, he overheard two other girls whispering:
“Xiao Rou is just stupid, not listening to Boss Liu. I don’t think she’ll last long here.”
“What will happen if she doesn’t last?”
“Hehe, what else? She’ll be sent somewhere else.”
The two laughed maliciously, leaving that “somewhere else” to the imagination.
Liu Yong came out of the bathroom and squatted down to smoke two cigarettes.
Damn, these Hong Kong businessmen’s schemes run deep. Should he get involved or not?
Xia Xiaolan had no idea her uncle was facing such a challenging test of character in Peng Cheng.
After the English competition preliminaries, news of how Beijing Normal College handled the tutoring situation spread through several Beijing universities, deterring many students who wanted tutoring jobs. While Huaqing students weren’t much affected, at Beijing Normal University, the country’s most prestigious teaching college, “Xia Ziyu” became a name to curse.
Originally, students secretly tutored off-campus, earning several to ten yuan a day, and accumulating significant monthly income. For struggling students, they could use school subsidies for living expenses and send their tutoring earnings back home.
The Beijing Normal College tutoring program had been quite high-profile, making headlines and attracting attention, but its sudden fall from grace made other universities cautious, especially Beijing Normal University, which banned students from paid off-campus tutoring.
Xia Ziyu not only lost money herself but also cut off everyone else’s income stream.
Beijing Normal University students hated her most intensely, while Beijing Normal College students completely avoided her.
The “probation” punishment was severe, leaving Xia Ziyu’s roommates speechless. They hadn’t known her “business” outside school was so large, reportedly having hundreds of students at its peak.
How much money must Xia Ziyu have made?
Yet at school, she maintained the image of a modest student receiving living subsidies.
Did she need that monthly 20 yuan?
In short, Xia Ziyu’s “persona” completely crumbled.
Previously, her roommates had pitied her devotion to Wang Jianhua, but now they realized they had been the foolish ones.
Xia Ziyu was a female student bold enough to run a business outside school. Her dedication to her boyfriend surely wasn’t without calculation.
It was all to secure Wang Jianhua, a high-ranking official’s son. Without being good to him, how could she have pushed aside competitors like Senior Liu… In the 1980s, university students in their ivory towers were most competitive only when it came to job assignments near graduation. Generally, they were quite innocent, without much scheming or calculation. They studied for their ideals, and though many came from poverty, they held lofty aspirations, truly embodying the spirit of “studying for China’s rise.”
In such an environment, even Xia Xiaolan’s harmless, non-aggressive approach was considered too utilitarian by Tang Hongen.
Tang Hongen believed Xia Xiaolan wasn’t pure enough as a student.
After the school’s public criticism of Xia Ziyu, people around her became wary, and their opinion of her sank even lower. She had drawn many people into the tutoring program, none of whom escaped “warning” disciplinary actions. After investing so much time and effort only to have to return their earnings, none of these Normal College students had anything good to say about her.
Two-faced and frighteningly calculating—people could only keep their distance. This was how those around her now viewed Xia Ziyu.
With her roommates all wary of her, Xia Ziyu finally felt afraid.
No one can live in isolation; there’s no absolute vacuum in society—one must always maintain relationships.
Xia Ziyu had, in one stroke, destroyed all the relationships she’d carefully cultivated at Beijing Normal College for over a year.
She could only cry to Wang Jianhua.
Wang Jianhua felt sorry for her, but what could sympathy do?
Wang Jianhua had lost his sure position as an outstanding university student, and his plans to transfer to Huaqing next year seemed increasingly remote.
Xia Ziyu’s stay at school became strained. With probation on her record, even with Wang Guangping’s connections, he couldn’t arrange a transfer for her—no school would accept her.
Moreover, Wang Guangping wouldn’t use his connections for Xia Ziyu.
The Wang family had already reciprocated Xia Ziyu’s efforts for them. Wang Guangping was even angry—if Xia Ziyu had put as much effort into actual work as she did into talking, the tutoring program wouldn’t have caused such trouble.
Only Wang Jianhua truly sympathized with and acknowledged Xia Ziyu’s efforts.
But while Wang Jianhua might have a bright future ahead, he was currently just a university student in his twenties, without any real power to help his girlfriend resolve her troubles.
Xia Xiaolan had heard the rumors too, surprised that this was how Xia Ziyu had become notorious.
While visiting Zhou Cheng at his workplace, she couldn’t help remarking, “I dislike these two people. Before coming to Beijing, I was constantly thinking about dealing with them. But now I have this feeling that I don’t need to act—they’ll destroy themselves!”
Zhou Cheng played with Xia Xiaolan’s delicate fingers, “You don’t need to dirty your hands.”
If He Yaojun, just a section chief, could cause such trouble for Wang Guangping, someone must be helping behind the scenes. It seemed that even though Wang Guangping had been reinstated, he was struggling in Beijing. His wife was already having a hard time—why waste energy on irrelevant people?
Her hands were still very soft, with a thin callus on the middle finger of her right hand from frequent writing.
What worried Zhou Cheng about Xia Xiaolan was Liu Yong.
As soon as Kang Wei went to Peng Cheng, he discovered that Liu Yong had been entangled with a deeply manipulative woman.
“I think Uncle Liu is about to be trapped!”
Though Kang Wei had never dated, he was rich in theoretical knowledge.
Growing up, he had seen many calculating women desperately trying to enter their social circle. In Kang Wei’s words, this woman’s approach showed deep sophistication. Men easily develop love from pity; what starts as sympathy might become something else that even they can’t distinguish. If Liu Yong fell for such a woman, it would be hard to extricate himself.
Though Kang Wei was close to Liu Yong, what could he say?
He couldn’t tell Xia Xiaolan either—how could he ask her to handle her uncle’s romantic troubles? He could only tell Zhou Cheng.