Yu Xiaxing suddenly remembered a rule that had been proven time and again:
Before the dust has completely settled, never celebrate too early.
Make a bold prediction, and sooner or later it’ll come back to bite you.
She was so out of options that she decided to give superstition a try.
Full of confidence, she told Yu Zheng, “I’m definitely taking first place this time. Let’s go celebrate.”
Yu Zheng didn’t suspect a thing. He just assumed his sister knew what she was doing, and perked right up. “Then I’ll come with you.”
Yu Xiaxing turned and looked him up and down. “What are you celebrating? Are you taking first place too?”
Yu Zheng: “…”
Yu Xiaxing encouraged him. “Come on, big bro, get competitive! Start grinding right now. If you can’t think of anything else, go read up on management courses. Get to work! Only people who take first place deserve to go out with me!”
With that, she walked off without looking back.
Yu Zheng: “…”
Damn it. I’m going back to study right now!
—
Yu Xiaxing drove away from the Yu residence.
Had those two clueless reporters been sent by Yu Suisui?
In her previous life, Yu Suisui had used smear tactics against her before.
Thinking back, she and Yu Suisui had been closest before she left. They’d never had a single falling-out.
Back then, they were practically inseparable, skipping class to go out and have fun every day.
And whenever they got into trouble, someone was always there to clean up after them.
Those had been the easiest days of her life. She barely went to school at all.
Until one day.
Her mother called and said that she and her father were in another country and missed her terribly. They wanted her to come visit.
As it happened, Huo Mian’s situation had also caused trouble at home, and Yu Xiaxing didn’t particularly want to stay there. Her uncle promptly arranged for someone to take her abroad.
Only after she arrived did she discover that her parents had already taken care of her school enrollment.
They stayed with her for a while, and once she’d settled into life there, they headed back to the war zone.
Now that she was older, she could see what they’d been up to: they didn’t want her spending any more time with Yu Suisui.
So they’d tricked her into going abroad.
Yu Suisui was the kind of person who really needed friends around her. At first, even after Yu Xiaxing left, they stayed in close touch.
But gradually, Yu Suisui made plenty of new friends, and the two of them drifted apart naturally.
In her previous life, after Yu Xiaxing returned home, she and Yu Suisui had become rivals. They went after each other as competitors.
Their most frequent weapon was public opinion: they smeared each other’s businesses.
In the end, Yu Suisui went to prison for murder and was out of the running for good.
That was why Yu Xiaxing suspected Yu Suisui had hired the media to smear her.
Half an hour later, Yu Xiaxing’s car pulled up outside a mansion built back in the Republican era, along the banks of the Pujiang River.
The entrance on the ground floor was discreet. A row of luxury cars in subdued colors was parked out front.
Yu Xiaxing got in using facial recognition and took a private elevator straight to the top floor.
The moment the elevator doors opened, a deep, pulsing beat mingled with a heady fragrance and washed over her.
One entire side of the bar overlooked the river.
Beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows lay the dazzling jewel of Pu City.
Skyscrapers blazed with light across the river, while cruise ships glided slowly along its surface.
Yu Xiaxing glanced at her phone.
Not long ago, Yu Suisui had posted on her social media:
“Ran into a fragile little white flower today. A freshman at Pu University.”
The photo showed the night view by the river.
Following the angle of the picture, Yu Xiaxing quickly spotted Yu Suisui.
She was sitting by the bar.
Yu Suisui wore a red dress from a luxury label’s latest collection, along with a headband worth tens of thousands of yuan. The bag at her side cost as much as a car.
Her long hair spilled casually over her shoulders. Her red lips were vivid, and she sat on a tall stool with her chin resting in one hand, watching the young man in front of her with interest.
He looked about twenty, dressed simply in a clean white T-shirt and jeans, with a pair of slightly worn sneakers on his feet.
He was handsome in a fresh-faced sort of way, with a distinctly college-student air about him—completely out of place amid all the glitz and excess.
He really did have a bit of that fragile-little-white-flower look.
Sigh… Yu Xiaxing let out a long, quiet breath.
Of their generation, only Yu Suisui and Yu Yuanchen were living the true rich-kid lifestyle.
Her parents had given up on inheriting the family fortune early on, so she and Yu Zheng lived like ordinary office workers beneath the umbrella of a wealthy family.
As for her uncle’s three children, they lived the life of a scholarly family. One studied law, one medicine, and one journalism. They all attended prestigious schools, were top students, and had respectable careers ahead of them.
Yu Xiaxing felt a pang of envy as she thought about it.
Mostly because her second aunt was so willing to spend money on her two children.
Yu Xiaxing found an inconspicuous seat and decided to watch for a while.
…
The young man had been talking for some time. His father drank heavily, his mother gambled, and he had a younger sister who was seriously ill but still in school. He was already deeply in debt.
Now that he’d finished, the young man gave a bitter smile. “A young lady like you has probably never had to worry about money in your life.”
“That’s true,” Yu Suisui admitted frankly.
The young man was momentarily at a loss, but soon regained his composure.
“I’ve always envied my classmates. If they wanted something, all they had to do was ask their parents. I had to save for ages just to buy a pair of sneakers I liked.”
He lowered his eyes to his shoes, a trace of bitterness on his face. “There’s a collaboration pair that came out recently. I’ve liked them ever since they were announced, but they cost over twenty thousand yuan.”
Yu Suisui sighed. “That’s so cheap.”
The young man waited a full minute, but she didn’t say anything else.
He had no choice but to continue. “I’m sure that seems cheap to you…”
Yu Suisui looked puzzled, as if she couldn’t understand. “Then why don’t you buy them? They’re so cheap. If you want them, just buy them.”
The young man fell silent for a moment, then gave a bitter smile. “I told you my family can’t afford it… I get good grades and work part-time, but I still can’t afford the shoes I want. If someone were willing to buy them for me, I’d remember her for the rest of my life.”
…
Yu Xiaxing couldn’t hold back a laugh when she heard that.
Were fragile-little-white-flower types really casting their hooks this bluntly these days?
She took out her phone and started recording.
She wanted to see whether this little white flower could con money out of Yu Suisui.
If he managed it, she’d try conning money out of her too.
And if he couldn’t, well, she could still get money out of Yu Suisui herself.
