Volume One, Chapter Ninety-Five: Have You Found a New Backer?

“It should have been this way long ago.”

Chu Yue lit a cigarette. “These past few years, Qin Minshu has only become more and more outrageous. The last trending scandal nearly ruined Ye Sheng, and all of it was because you spoiled her.”

Huo Mingting pressed his thin lips together. He struck a lighter and lit a cigarette of his own, his brow furrowed tight. “You don’t understand.”

“How do I not understand? Isn’t it just because you owed Qin Minshu a favor for donating bone marrow to Cong’er two years ago?”

Chu Yue said, “Ever since then, you’ve acted as though you were always one step beneath her, yielding to her in everything and spoiling her until she became lawless. You’ve more than paid back what you owed over the years. You can’t really support her for life, can you? You’re not her father.”

He gave a mocking laugh. “Let the Qin family keep making trouble. Chairman Qin has plenty of ambition. Over the years, you’ve sent the Qin family a lot of real money. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Feed something too well, and it will surely turn into a calamity.”

Huo Mingting narrowed his eyes and exhaled a stream of smoke without saying a word.

“All right, I’m off on assignment.”

Chu Yue slapped his backside and sauntered away. Today, two criminals were meeting at the Donglin Grand Hotel, and he had to lie in wait to catch them.

Huo Mingting told him to be careful. Chu Yue looked back with a cigarette between his teeth and tossed him a flirtatious glance.

“Relax. I value my life more than anyone.”

—

After work, Ye Sheng changed clothes and went with Meng Juan to the venue for their class reunion.

Compared with Meng Juan, who had even dressed herself up specially, Ye Sheng was plainly dressed, not even wearing makeup. Meng Juan had originally planned to ride over in Ye Sheng’s luxury car, only to find that Ye Sheng had no car at all.

The two of them took a taxi to the Donglin Grand Hotel.

That made Meng Juan start to wonder whether she had misread things.

Maybe Ye Sheng didn’t actually have much money, and was just like her, a working woman from an ordinary family?

Quite a few people had come to the reunion. By the time Ye Sheng and Meng Juan entered the private room, many were already seated inside, and they immediately began shouting and greeting them as they walked in.

The class monitor, Li Yu, was a smooth operator, nimble and tactful. “Well, well, well, if it isn’t the first and second place in our class. Now that you two are here, this reunion finally feels like it has some class!”

Meng Juan stood beside Ye Sheng with a shy smile on her face.

Everyone praised Meng Juan for being more beautiful than before, slimmer too, and said her temperament was beyond compare. She was almost unrecognizable.

Meng Juan’s face turned red, and she waved her hands with a smile. “Not at all, not at all.”

As for Ye Sheng, everyone who saw her seemed to have the same reaction. “Ye Sheng, how is it that you haven’t changed at all? You still look just like you did in college.”

“Really?” Ye Sheng smiled faintly.

What had she been like in college, exactly? Ye Sheng herself was not entirely sure.

Medical students had heavy coursework. Back then, because she had only just switched from go to medicine and had no foundation, there was too much she needed to learn.

She spent her days in the library, reading and memorizing, leaving early and returning late, always feeling as though there was never enough time.

Her deepest memory of college was the rising sun and the hazy moonlight: calm, full, and satisfying. Her only worry was that her brother ignored her over the matter of changing majors, and it took a long time before she could speak to him even once.

...Not all that different from now, really.

Ye Zhun had a terrible temper. Once he got angry, he could stay angry for a very long time, and Ye Sheng simply did not have the skill to coax him back.

She could only wait for him to work through it himself.

But in her classmates’ eyes, Ye Sheng still carried the air of a top student: quiet, restrained, slender, and beautiful.

The private room had the heating on, and the temperature was high. Everyone had taken off their coats. Ye Sheng hung up her overcoat as well, and when she returned to her seat in a black turtleneck sweater, all eyes fell on her.

Beauty was sometimes a feeling, a certain bearing.

Ye Sheng wore no accessories at all, and her hair was simply pinned into a bun, but even sitting there she seemed to glow. Noble and elegant, her proportions were almost absurdly perfect.

“Tsk. As expected of Ye the goddess. I’ll be honest: I had a crush on you all through college. One year at the school sports meet, you won first place in the three-thousand-meter race, and you completely had me hooked. So cool!”

As soon as the sports committee member spoke, everyone else started to join in, recounting Ye Sheng’s glorious deeds from her college days.

Ye Sheng had not attended a class reunion since graduating, so she was not very used to having every topic revolve around her. But disliking it did not mean she felt awkward. On the contrary, Ye Sheng was generous and composed, with a faint smile. She could always steer the conversation elsewhere without drawing attention to herself.

As the conversation went on, people began discussing what their classmates were doing now. Most of the talk inevitably circled around the pharmaceutical and medical field.

Before long, the subject turned to Qin Minshu. Li Yu said, “Minshu said she’d be coming tonight. Let’s wait for her.”

Snap.

The cup in Meng Juan’s hand slipped, hit the floor, and shattered. Her face went white in an instant.

While Li Yu called a server in to clean up and then answered a phone call before heading out to pick Qin Minshu up, Ye Sheng looked up at Meng Juan.

Her body was visibly trembling, as though she were terrified to the extreme.

Ye Sheng’s brow furrowed almost imperceptibly.

“Meng Juan, you and Qin Minshu got along well when you were in school. Have you still kept in touch after graduation?” someone asked casually.

Meng Juan’s smile was forced to the point of strain. “No, not really. We’re all busy.”

Everyone exchanged knowing looks. Graduation was a watershed. Even brothers and sisters from the same dormitory, no matter how good the relationship had been, would automatically return to different social classes once they stepped outside the school gates.

Qin Minshu had been known in school as a decorative beauty, forever at the bottom in academic performance, yet after graduation she still went abroad for further study and later entered Haiqi Hospital, the place countless medical students dreamed of joining.

All of that was thanks to her family background. Being born well was a skill in itself.

Qin Minshu was personally brought in by the class monitor, Li Yu. She wore a custom Chanel ensemble, her hair in loose waves cascading down her back, her beauty dazzling beyond words.

The moment she appeared at the doorway, she drew everyone’s eyes at once. Only two people did not look at her.

Meng Juan did not dare, and Ye Sheng could not be bothered.

Qin Minshu walked to stand between the two of them and, in front of everyone, picked a fight with Meng Juan. With a cold laugh, she said, “You’re having a class reunion and not inviting me? Meng Juan, you’ve really made something of yourself after graduation. Found yourself a new backer, have you?”