“Shen Yi!”

Rong Qian suddenly jolted awake in the car, startling Zhang Hao beside her. He immediately asked, “Rong jie, are you all right?”

Rong Qian wiped the sweat from her forehead. She wasn’t sure if she still hadn’t adjusted, but the interior of the car — even with the air conditioning on — felt freezing cold to her, as though it were the middle of winter.

She remembered flagging down a taxi with Zhang Hao after pulling him to the roadside, then closing her eyes to rest. It seemed she had drifted off and had a dream. In the dream, Shen Yi, after discovering she had left, had been searching for her all along.

But she had been right there behind him the whole time — only no matter how she called out to him, Shen Yi could not hear her.

At the end, she had seen a car driving straight toward him. She had screamed at him to get out of the way — and then she had jolted awake.

“Where are we?” Rong Qian twisted open a bottle of mineral water and drained half of it in one go.

Zhang Hao glanced at the navigation on his phone. “About three kilometres from the school. Almost there.”

“Mm.” Rong Qian gave a short response, then took out her handgun to check the number of remaining rounds. Sure enough — one fewer than before. There was no avoiding the report now.

Zhang Hao looked at Rong Qian with something on the tip of his tongue, unsure whether he ought to say it.

“If you have something to say, say it. Stop hemming and hawing.” Rong Qian noticed his hesitation.

Zhang Hao had been holding it in the whole ride. Now that Rong Qian had given him the opening, he let it all out. “Rong jie, didn’t I tell you when I came — that seeing my Auntie Chen requires their consent first before I can arrange for you to meet? We should find somewhere to stay first, not go straight to the school.”

“I almost forgot about that.” Rong Qian said with a composed expression. “Tell me — who else did you tell that I was coming to Beijing? And that uncle of yours — who is he? Who else knows about him lending us that apartment in the Second Ring Road?”

Rong Qian’s expression was deadly serious, as though she were interrogating a suspect.

Zhang Hao was unsettled by her manner. He answered haltingly, “Not many people know about it. My uncle is just an owner of legitimate businesses — no criminal record, no bad habits. The fact that he lent us the place shouldn’t be known to anyone outside.”

“Don’t say ‘shouldn’t.’ I want a precise answer. Give me your uncle’s phone number — I’ll contact him directly and find out.”

Zhang Hao didn’t dare argue. He dutifully handed over his uncle’s phone number.

Only after she had noted it down did Rong Qian say to him, “There’s no need for prior consent. I already know them.”

“Hm? Rong jie, you know my Auntie Chen?” Zhang Hao felt like he had completely lost the thread.

Rong Qian gave a small nod. “Didn’t before. Do now.”

Zhang Hao blinked, feeling rather confused.

“By the way, Rong jie — I heard you call out the name Shen Yi just now. Is that the person we were looking into before?” Zhang Hao remembered and asked.

At the mention of Shen Yi, Rong Qian’s mood sank again. She sighed inwardly. She hadn’t expected to leave without saying goodbye yet again. She suspected Butler Fu was doing it on purpose — why did he keep snapping photos of her out of nowhere?

“Rong jie?” Noticing she had spaced out again, Zhang Hao called out to her.

Rong Qian said in a flat tone, “Why so many questions? You’d better think carefully about who else you told that I was coming to Beijing.”

With that, she closed her eyes to rest again.

Zhang Hao scratched the back of his head, sensing something wasn’t quite right, though he couldn’t put his finger on what. He didn’t know what had suddenly come over Rong Qian — first calling the Public Security Bureau out of nowhere claiming an illegal organization was targeting them (he had no idea where she had gotten that information); then saying she didn’t need to stay overnight and would go back the same day after seeing whoever she came to see.

Her attitude had been completely resolute. No matter what he said, it made no difference. In the end, Zhang Hao had simply given up and followed her.

Three kilometres wasn’t far, and they arrived before long.

After getting out of the car, they found two uniformed police officers standing at the school entrance. The moment Rong Qian stepped out of the vehicle, both officers came forward and explained that they had been dispatched from above to assist.

Rong Qian asked them, “Any findings? Have you turned up anything?”

Both officers were young. The one with finer features was called Zhao Qiguang, the slightly stockier one was Xie Dong.

In response to Rong Qian’s question, the two exchanged a glance. It was Xie Dong who told her, “We investigated. There were indeed suspicious individuals. Officers were dispatched immediately, but those people are cunning — their whereabouts are still being tracked.”

“Those people?” Rong Qian frowned. “There were many of them?”

Xie Dong nodded. “No fewer than five.”

So it wasn’t just one person. Thinking about this, Rong Qian was rather glad she had made the decision she did. Even with a gun in hand, those people were organized and disciplined — she might not have been able to come out on top.

Since having two police officers in tow would draw too much attention, Rong Qian asked them to wait somewhere nearby while she went to find someone. She entered the school with only Zhang Hao.

Both professors’ teaching schedules could be found on a timetable. Zhang Hao checked and found that his Auntie Chen had no classes today, while Professor Lu had two sessions — and quite conveniently, the last one was starting in about ten minutes.

“Rong jie, should we wait somewhere for Professor Lu to finish his class?”

Walking across the campus grounds, Zhang Hao asked Rong Qian — and if there was no rush, he was hoping to shoot some hoops.

Rong Qian had no patience to wait. She was desperate to find Lu Xuan and the others and ask what had happened to Shen Yi afterward — and whether Lin Feng was safe and sound. She turned to Zhang Hao and said, “We’re going to the classroom.”

“What?”

And so the two of them, with a completely natural air, blended into a group of university students and entered the classroom — finding seats in the very back row and sitting down with minimal fuss.

They had taken whatever seats were available. No sooner had they settled in than a young man wearing glasses wandered over. He had been drowsy and shuffling along without much energy — but the moment he caught sight of Rong Qian, his eyes immediately lit up!

He planted himself in the seat next to Rong Qian with a grin and stole several glances at her.

Then, with barely contained excitement, he said: “For a lecture on something as dry as linear algebra and analytic geometry, there’s actually a student this good-looking sitting in? Senior, which department are you from? You can’t possibly be from the Physics Department — because if you were, you would absolutely be the face of our entire department!”

Rong Qian had not intended to pay him any attention, but when she glanced at him and caught his features, she paused for a moment.

Noticing that the senior was looking at him without saying anything, the young man’s face fell, and he said dejectedly, “Don’t tell me you came with your boyfriend?”

He couldn’t hold back a pained groan. “This is outrageous! I’m supposed to be the best-looking guy in our Physics Department, and someone managed to get into a relationship before me — and found someone this good-looking too. I am sick with envy!”

“What’s your name?” Rong Qian asked.

The young man’s expression immediately turned peculiar, and he gave her a deeply suspicious look. “Senior, you’re not interested in me, are you? Just because I’m the most handsome in our department, you’re going to dump your boyfriend for me?”

Rong Qian rolled her eyes. Were young people this self-absorbed these days? And judging by his age, he had probably only just turned eighteen — most likely a first-year student.

As for his height and looks — he was genuinely not bad looking. Not quite campus idol material, but certainly handsome enough. After all, that face of “Lu Xuan’s” would hold up even now without looking dated.

That was exactly why Rong Qian had noticed him in the first place — this young man looked remarkably like Lu Xuan.

Although he was more bright and sunny than Lu Xuan, more casually outgoing, with a wide grin that showed off a row of white teeth — facially, he was about seventy to eighty percent similar to Lu Xuan.

With a little effort at disguise, one could make him look exactly the same.

“Senior, don’t be angry — I was just joking. My name is Lu Huaiyi.” Lu Huaiyi, banking on the chance that even if they couldn’t be a couple they might at least be friends, smiled and introduced himself.

And to make sure she knew which characters he meant, he even wrote out his name and showed her.

Rong Qian looked at it and raised an eyebrow slightly. “Your surname is Lu? Then what’s Professor Lu’s relation to you?”

“My grandfather, obviously. Nothing to hide there — everyone knows Professor Lu has a grandson who’s a physics genius. That would be none other than yours truly!” He drew himself up proudly with a thoroughly self-satisfied expression.

Rong Qian had only been guessing — she hadn’t expected to be right.

“Though my grandfather has never once praised me.” Lu Huaiyi suddenly looked deflated. “Even getting into university at sixteen — which is already pretty impressive — he uses some genius boy he knew back when he was a student to put me down. Says I don’t even come close. Obviously, he just doesn’t want me getting too big-headed!”

Hearing this, Rong Qian’s first instinct was that the “genius boy” he was referring to was Shen Yi.

So she deliberately asked, “Was that genius really so extraordinary? Could it be your grandfather made him up just to keep you humble?”

“I thought the same thing at first, but it turned out he really wasn’t making it up — my grandfather genuinely knew someone that remarkable. And more than that — the reason my name is Huaiyi is actually because my grandfather gave it to me in memory of him.”

Rong Qian was taken aback. So the name Lu Huaiyi — it was actually meant to honor the memory of Shen Yi?