Chapter 21: Fractures in the SmokeThe private room at V Club was a haze of perfume, cigarette smoke, and neon light filtering in from the hallway beyond. The muffled bass of the club’s main floor pulsed faintly through the walls, like a distant, restless heartbeat. Inside, warmth clung to the air, mingling with the sharp tang of alcohol and the faint sweetness of fruit platters left half-eaten on the low glass table.Several guests had been leaning forward, anticipating the unravelling of a moment they shouldn’t have been witnessing, yet could not look away from. It was the kind of voyeuristic tension that thrived in these gilded cages of excess. But just as the atmosphere threatened to tip into scandal, the door swung open without warning.A slender figure stepped in.The interruption was abrupt enough to slice through the thick, flirtatious haze in the room, pulling every gaze toward the doorway. Some faces showed irritation at the intrusion, while others betrayed surprise. If it h

Chapter 23: Silent ResilienceThe atmosphere in the private room was thick with an uneasy stillness, the usual lively buzz of the club replaced by a tense quiet that clung like a heavy fog. The faint flicker of neon lights from the hallway outside cast shifting shadows against the glossy surfaces, and the faint scent of lingering perfume and spilled drinks mingled with the stale, smoky air, wrapping around everyone present like an invisible shroud.Ai Qian’s fingers gripped the microphone with such force that her knuckles turned pale, betraying the storm of emotions she desperately tried to suppress within her. Her gaze, however, was firmly averted, refusing to meet Leo Xu’s steady eyes as if by ignoring him she might erase the tangled history they shared.Liang Zhenlun sat back, cool and unmoved, choosing silence over confrontation as he studied the scene with calculated indifference. The tension between the two former acquaintances was palpable, yet

Chapter 25: Rainbound FatesThe storm did not arrive politely.It tore across the city as though the heavens themselves had thrown open some ancient floodgate, spilling a relentless wall of water that hammered asphalt, glass, and flesh alike.Water surged in dark rivulets along the curbs, swirling with oily rainbows from leaking engines, while streetlamps cast molten halos into the mist, their light refracted into a thousand trembling shards. In that blurred silver haze, cars hissed and roared, tires slicing through puddles with a sound like tearing silk.From the covered entrance of the V Club, Ai Qian stood unmoving, her figure haloed in that false warmth of golden doorway light. Only moments earlier, she had watched Liang Zhenlun’s crimson Maserati disappear, its taillights twin drops of blood vanishing into the vaporous night. He had not looked back, not even once, his passenger seat occupied by Zhao Ning’er, the woman who had been l

Chapter 27 — Gossip Like FireAt East Sea University, there were certain combinations that could ignite the student body’s imagination as quickly as dry tinder meeting a torch. One such combination was the school’s renowned art department beauty, and a luxury sports car so polished it looked as though it had rolled straight out of a high-end commercial. Alone, each was enough to stir up campus conversation, but together, the effect was explosive, a spectacle that could not be ignored and would inevitably spill into every whispered corridor conversation and every scrolling finger on the student forum boards.The revelation that Li Shuru had purchased a gleaming Panamera was like a psychic detonation across the campus’ invisible social web, the kind of news that bypassed any logical filter and simply embedded itself in every mind with a force all its own. Within hours, speculation metastasized into rumor, and rumor hardened into the sort of narrative that d

Chapter 29: Prosper or PerishThe dormitory door creaked open just as the dim ceiling light hummed to life, spilling its weak glow across the cramped room. Ai Qian’s steps were slow and deliberate, as if every movement carried the weight of something unsaid. Wei Chuyin, perched cross-legged on the lower bunk with her phone in hand, looked up immediately. Her eyes sharpened with concern, though the way she tilted her head suggested she had already braced herself for bad news.“How’s it going?” she asked, her voice carefully even, as though tiptoeing along the edge of someone’s temper.Ai Qian didn’t speak right away. Instead, she shook her head once, the movement quick and clipped, like she was cutting off the possibility of hope before it could form.Wei Chuyin’s eyebrows drew together. “Li Shuru didn’t agree? Don’t tell me…” She hesitated, lips parting as if the thought itself tasted bitter. “She couldn’t… actually be interested in Leo