There are many people you think you’ll never see again, yet they appear when you’re most unprepared.

When you feel nothing can stop your pursuit of happiness, fate always gives you a hard slap.

Wu Mangmang stood there, staring blankly at Cheng Yue.

Memories she had tried desperately to seal away now flooded over her like water bursting through a dam.

They had been classmates since middle school.

Cheng Yue came from very ordinary family circumstances, but he was a genius student. In sixth grade, he had already won a bronze award in the National Robot Creative Design Competition, so Wu Mangmang’s middle school specifically gave him a green light for admission.

Wu Mangmang was a rebellious underachiever at the time, wholeheartedly developing toward being a delinquent. She could fight and had money, so she got along well at school.

But even a small middle school had its own hierarchy, and as a seventh-grader, Wu Mangmang naturally couldn’t compete with the ninth-grade queen bee.

That night when she was cornered in an alley, Cheng Yue was the one who came to rescue her on colorful clouds.

Wu Mangmang, just beginning to awaken to romance, looked at Cheng Yue—godlike in studies and equally handsome in fights—and her young girl’s heart instantly melted into sugar.

What happened afterward was natural. Although Wu Mangmang was a wealthy young lady, she had no advantages whatsoever in front of Student God Cheng.

Because several very pretty girls in class liked him.

And boys matured later—Cheng Yue had no interest in girls at all.

Wu Mangmang racked her brains for Cheng Yue, barely managing to switch seats to sit beside him, but she couldn’t bring herself to say she liked him, while Cheng Yue’s desk received love letters every day.

The romantic stirrings of middle school girls should never be underestimated.

Wu Mangmang secretly watched Cheng Yue every day. Whatever books he read, she read. When he played basketball, she sat courtside cheering for him. When he liked playing with robots, she bought all kinds of robot books, hoping that one day he might borrow them from her.

When there was a national robot exhibition, Cheng Yue didn’t have money for a plane ticket, so Wu Mangmang flew there herself, took photos of everything she could, and sent them to Cheng Yue.

That feeling was truly pure, clean, and terrifyingly passionate.

But even so, Cheng Yue paid Wu Mangmang no attention.

Their relationship changed the day Wu Mangmang ran away from home in eighth grade.

Wu Mangmang couldn’t clearly remember why she ran away, but she clearly remembered that the weather seemed very cold that day, and she sat by the flower bed across from school like a stray puppy with her suitcase.

She hated winter break because it meant she had to go home.

Wu Mangmang was picked up by Cheng Yue when she was cold and hungry, and he took her to his home.

Cheng Yue’s house was public housing. His parents were migrant workers whose decade-plus of savings still couldn’t buy them an apartment in the city.

Wu Mangmang still remembered Cheng Yue cooking her a bowl of noodles topped with a beautifully golden fried egg.

Wu Mangmang ate the noodles while crying and sniffling.

“Aren’t you eating the egg?” Cheng Yue asked Wu Mangmang.

Wu Mangmang’s face turned completely red as she said, “I don’t eat runny eggs.” Such a wealthy young lady—even when running away and dizzy with hunger, she remained picky.

At that time, Cheng Yue said nothing and simply picked up her leftover fried egg and ate it in two bites.

Perhaps because they had shared an egg—like sharing each other’s saliva—Wu Mangmang felt their relationship suddenly became special.

Cheng Yue’s face grew redder and redder under her gaze, until even his ears turned red.

Wu Mangmang couldn’t remember how Cheng Yue had convinced her then, but she obediently let him escort her home.

Actually, thinking back now, even if Cheng Yue had given no reasons at all, as long as he spoke, she would have been willing to listen to him.

When Wu Mangmang returned home, aside from the servants, the family masters didn’t even know she had run away.

Wu Mangmang was naturally confused and pained, but that winter break was completely different.

Because she had her own little sun.

Wu Mangmang would wait for Cheng Yue at McDonald’s every day for him to help her with problems.

Each time Cheng Yue would bring his own bottle of water, firmly refusing to drink the Coke she bought or eat the hamburgers she bought. Eventually Wu Mangmang stopped buying things too, just bringing a bottle of mineral water, and the two would huddle in a corner of McDonald’s reading and doing problems together.

The summer before ninth grade, Wu Mangmang remembered the stars were particularly bright that night when Cheng Yue said to her: “If you want to be my girlfriend, then take the entrance exam to Seventh Middle School with me.”

Before this, Wu Mangmang had never thought of attending Seventh Middle School. It was the elite of elite schools, with graduation rates topping the charts year after year, where the top ten students could almost all be recommended to first-class domestic universities.

Wu Mangmang had always attended private schools, where taking high school or college entrance exams was never in this group of children’s consideration.

But to become Cheng Yue’s girlfriend, Wu Mangmang spent a year transforming from an underachiever to a top student, getting into Seventh Middle School with Cheng Yue.

The power of love, when directed properly, has extremely astonishing creativity.

Although high school girls wore bizarrely colored, old-fashioned uniforms, the transformation of youth couldn’t be stopped by anyone or anything.

Wu Mangmang began to grow taller and more slender, and her chest began to develop.

After just one summer, Wu Mangmang gorgeously transformed from a little girl no man would notice into a teenager so beautiful she had no friends.

At Seventh Middle School, Wu Mangmang—with first-class looks, superior family background, and excellent grades—quickly became a goddess-like existence, while Cheng Yue naturally became the undisputed study god.

Cheng Yue’s academic performance was excellent, but his athletic performance was even better. Basketball, soccer, badminton—no one in the entire grade could play better than him.

In this public middle school, teachers watched early romance very closely. Boss Wu and Ms. Liu didn’t care about Wu Mangmang, but Cheng Yue’s parents were single-mindedly hoping their son would succeed, so Wu Mangmang very consciously kept her romantic relationship with Cheng Yue low-key.

Because of this, there were far too many girls writing love letters to Cheng Yue.

High school girls probably all liked the same type of boy: good grades, good at sports. They never considered family background.

Cheng Yue excelled in both these areas.

Moreover, he was so good-looking.

Wu Mangmang fought with him often over his peach blossoms, but their relationship seemed to grow better through fighting, becoming sweeter and sweeter.

Wu Mangmang still remembered how she felt during her first kiss with Cheng Yue—her heart nearly jumped out of her chest. She truly experienced the “world spinning, breathless” situation described in novels.

To this day, Wu Mangmang still remembered how soft Cheng Yue’s lips were, how warm they felt.

His kisses were gentle and sweet, so tender, as if she were the most precious person in the world.

But misfortune always appears when you’re at your sweetest.

That incident happened in their second year of high school.

By sophomore year, Wu Mangmang had become so beautiful that people couldn’t look away.

That night, bad students from school conspired with hoodlums from outside to block them on the road when Cheng Yue was riding his bicycle to take Wu Mangmang home.

The situation was very chaotic. Wu Mangmang only remembered that feeling of fear. Cheng Yue fought bare-handed against knife-wielding hoodlums to protect her.

That was when the tendons in his right hand were severed, and he could never use it properly again.

But Cheng Yue didn’t blame her at all; instead, he kept comforting Wu Mangmang, who was consumed with guilt.

To put her at ease, he learned to eat and write fluently with his left hand in just over a month, joking that he was naturally left-handed but had been beaten by his mother into using his right hand. Now he was returning to his left hand, which meant both sides of his brain were getting exercise, ensuring great achievements in the future.

Wu Mangmang hugged Cheng Yue and made her lifelong promise: “I’ll be good to you forever, Cheng Yue. Forever, only you.”

Some might say young people’s promises aren’t trustworthy.

But for Wu Mangmang at that time, it was the most serious promise she ever wanted to fulfill.

She wanted to give her love to only one person for life, never sharing him with anyone, giving him everything completely—this was the most precious love she could offer.

“Me too,” Cheng Yue lowered his head, pressing his forehead against Wu Mangmang’s as he spoke.

Wu Mangmang felt those words made perfect sense then.

When God closes a door for you, He opens a window, and how fortunate she was to find her window in the first twenty years of life, letting sunshine stream in.

At seventeen, Wu Mangmang was already fantasizing about life after marrying Cheng Yue.

They would have two babies—a boy and a girl. Wu Mangmang even began consulting classical texts to name the babies.

They agreed that on her eighteenth birthday, they would take their ID cards to a hotel.

They also agreed that once they were of age, they would go to the civil affairs bureau to get their marriage certificate.

But everything changed after the college entrance exams.

The change was so sudden, yet so inevitable.

Boss Wu and Ms. Liu, who had never cared about their daughter, suddenly jumped out in her high school graduation year, becoming concerned about their future son-in-law.

The day Cheng Yue came to tell Wu Mangmang he was going to America, the sunshine was particularly brilliant, so bright Wu Mangmang could barely open her eyes.

“I’ll go with you,” was Wu Mangmang’s first response.

“I want to walk this path alone,” Cheng Yue moved Wu Mangmang’s hand away from his sleeve.

Wu Mangmang knew she couldn’t blame Cheng Yue. Her parents must have said many hurtful things, and Cheng Yue, who had always relied on himself, shouldn’t have to endure such insults.

“I hope that one day I can stand proudly before your parents and ask them for your hand in marriage, and they will nod in agreement,” Cheng Yue said.

Looking back now, Cheng Yue really wasn’t wrong.

If Wu Mangmang had been able to rationally accept this fact then, today’s meeting might have been a joyful reunion.

Her former first love had finally returned with honor, finally able to proudly say “Please give me your daughter in marriage.”

Unfortunately, people don’t remain unchanged, and feelings can’t be preserved, frozen solid.

“But you know I don’t care what they say. As long as I can be with you, I’m willing to do anything,” Wu Mangmang cried as she reached for Cheng Yue’s hand. She just wanted a lover who wouldn’t abandon her.

A lover who wouldn’t turn away and pretend not to see her crying.

“Mangmang, we’re both still young. We can’t really be certain what we want most. I love you, but I also love my dreams. Please give me some time,” Cheng Yue said, looking into Wu Mangmang’s eyes.

“You’re still young now and think love is everything, but life has many choices. When I return, if our feelings haven’t changed, I’ll honor my promise.”

If it were today’s twenty-seven-year-old Wu Mangmang, she would definitely agree wholeheartedly with Cheng Yue’s words.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t.

Wu Mangmang was just a little girl with an intense need for love then.

Wu Mangmang’s tears blurred her vision, making her unable to see Cheng Yue’s face clearly.

That time they parted unhappily.

Afterward, Cheng Yue refused to see her again. The last time Wu Mangmang saw him was the day he flew to America. After finding out his flight from other classmates, she rushed to the airport to see him.

Wu Mangmang could no longer remember clearly, or deliberately chose to forget, the situation that day—unwilling to recall how crazy and humble she had been in begging Cheng Yue.

Cheng Yue only pulled her up from the ground and said, “Mangmang, if I don’t leave today, someday I’ll hate you.”

Hate you for stopping me from pursuing my dreams.

Also hate you for making me face your parents without any self-respect.

Love was never a person’s everything.

Wu Mangmang watched Cheng Yue’s departing figure, unable to understand why.

Why could her parents ignore her love for them?

Why would her love for Cheng Yue make him hate her?

Why could parents who said they’d love her if she was obedient turn around and drop her hand for someone else, something else, or even some insignificant dinner party?

Why could Cheng Yue, who had promised forever, turn around and erase six years of feelings for his dreams?

Why was she always the dispensable person at the bottom of their priority list?

The destruction of a person’s spirit is both difficult and easy.

When she began questioning the meaning of her existence, her soul had already shattered.

Wu Mangmang had once forced herself to deny and suppress those memories, but when Cheng Yue reappeared before her, the truth told her that no matter how she tried to escape, she would always be the abandoned one—the dispensable person who shouldn’t exist in this world at all.

Past scenes flashed before Wu Mangmang’s eyes frame by frame.

But the person leaving the airport seemed like Cheng Yue, yet also seemed not to be.

That person turned back and said to her, “Mangmang, don’t make me hate you.”

This time Wu Mangmang saw his face clearly—it was Lu Sui.

The scene quickly shifted to the Christmas dinner at Lu Garden two years ago. In the second-floor hallway, Lu Sui looked at her just like that—coldly, disappointedly—then turned and walked away.

Everyone was destined to abandon her!

Wu Mangmang’s mental world collapsed the instant she saw Cheng Yue.

She rushed forward, pushed past Cheng Yue blocking her way, ran quickly to the elevator, frantically pressing the down button, then turned and rushed to the emergency stairwell door, pushed open the heavy door, and ran down the stairs.

At that moment, Lu Sui sat in his office, checked his watch, calculated the time, then opened his phone to see the little red dot marking Wu Mangmang’s location on the map.

Lu Sui’s lips curved upward—this girl loved playing “surprises” too much, practically addicted to it.

To accommodate her emotions, Lu Sui had to put on an expression of “How did you get here? I’m so happy I could fly!”—it was really too much of an acting challenge.

Actually, Wu Mangmang’s sudden appearance could indeed make Lu Sui feel unusually joyful.

But only if Lu Sui could resist checking the software on his phone that reported Wu Mangmang’s behavioral trajectory at any time.

The map showed Wu Mangmang was already at Lu Corporation Tower.

Lu Sui put down his phone and called Peng Ze, instructing him to fully cooperate with Miss Wu, who wanted to create a surprise for him.

Lu Sui waited about five minutes without seeing any sign of Wu Mangmang. He was about to call Peng Ze when Peng Ze’s internal line came through: “The front desk says Miss Wu just ran down from the stairwell.”

Of course, this was a diplomatic way of putting it—Peng Ze had omitted the front desk’s description of “like she was crazy.”

Lu Sui called Wu Mangmang, but no one answered.

Feeling somewhat uneasy, he stood up and walked out of his office.

Just as he left Lu Corporation Tower, he saw a large crowd gathered across the street.

“Is that woman completely insane? That driver is really unlucky,” passersby whispered.

Lu Sui immediately broke into a run.

This was the first time Peng Ze had seen his boss look so disheveled.

When Lu Sui pushed through the crowd, he saw Wu Mangmang kneeling on the ground in a daze, holding a motionless man in her arms.