21-year-old girl

What was it like for Qinggui (a Buddhist monk) as a child?

The annual Asia-Pacific Outstanding Young Leaders Banquet was held at the Lancheng Hotel.

Since university, Xue Lu has almost never fallen off this list, but this is the first time he has attended a banquet.

He didn't attend before because he didn't think the meeting was valuable.

The list of young leaders is compiled by the Organization for International Economic Cooperation and covers multiple fields—culture, sports, arts, education, science and technology, finance, industry, and more.

The idea of ​​a banquet is commendable, encouraging cooperation across various industries. But frankly, it's simply a social occasion for expanding one's network.

With Xue Lu's abilities and wealth, attending banquets would only be a matter of dealing with all sorts of flattery. He could use that time to close several more legitimate business deals.

Furthermore, in addition to the official list drafted by the organization, there is a supplementary list of outstanding young leaders, which individuals can apply for by submitting their resumes to the organization. This further increases the likelihood of inflated figures.

When people struggle in society and want to elevate themselves, they can always find a few titles.

Many people believe that as long as they get a ticket and step into high society, they can achieve upward social mobility. But in the arena of fame and fortune, everyone can see clearly who truly has the resources.

Some scions of wealthy families are willing to have fun, hanging out with speculators and becoming fair-weather friends. But Lawyer Xue doesn't have that kind of hobby; he believes in hard work.

Standing on the second floor of the banquet hall, looking down at the people on the first floor who were gathered in twos and threes, clinking glasses with champagne, he felt extremely bored.

As the sun set and the sky outside turned a golden hue, the banquet hall gradually filled up with people.

Yan Fengqian led Xu Xiaofeng in, creating a small climax.

Xu Xiaofeng's film just won an award in the competition section of the Venice Film Festival. Although she didn't win Best Actress, she was still proud of the film's success and has since been considered a potential Best Actress in the entertainment industry.

The allure of beauty is invigorating. She used to always appear humble next to Yan Fengqian, but today she was the center of attention, and even the dashing playboy standing beside her seemed like a mere foil.

Yan Fengqian looked around and finally spotted Xue Lu on the second floor. He nodded to his old friend.

Xue Lu thought to himself that Yan Fengqian had matured a bit, and raised his glass to him as well.

Soon after, Cheng Wuliang arrived, accompanied by a female friend, a blonde, blue-eyed foreigner.

He first met with Yan Fengqian, and then, under Yan Fengqian's guidance, looked at Xue Lu.

Xue Lu and he exchanged a smile.

At this moment, Cheng Cheng, the owner of Lancheng Hotel, walked up to Xue Lu and joked, "Why didn't you bring your wife today? I really want to see some excitement. If Song Qinggui were here, with his ex and current wife combined, wow, it would be like the Khan mustering a large army!"

Xue Lu wasn't in the mood for jokes and downed the champagne in one gulp.

Chengcheng got him a new cup: "Brother, I was just kidding, don't take it to heart. But I'm quite surprised you came today, don't you dislike joining in on these kinds of fun activities?"

“There’s someone I want to see,” Xue Lu said frankly.

"Oh." Chengcheng was surprised: "Who is it that has such a big reputation?"

At this moment, someone walked into the banquet hall, and Xue Lu's lips curled into a bitter smile: "They've arrived."

As soon as Xue Lu finished speaking, Luo and others downstairs turned their gazes over. Unlike Yan Fengqian and Cheng Wuliang, who took the initiative to show goodwill, Luo and others had a deep look in their eyes, which was a strategic posture.

Chengcheng noticed the spark between the two: "Who's this? Did they have a grudge against you?"

Xue Lu did not speak, but silently stared at Luo and the others.

After a long silence, the host announced the chairman's speech, and the banquet officially began. Luo and others curled their lips into a provocative smile, finally averting their gaze.

Xue Lufu attracted a lot of attention as soon as he arrived. Those who knew him admired his family background and abilities, while those who did not know him felt humbled by his appearance and aura.

As the summit chairman delivers his address, he remains firmly standing on the balcony.

Anyone who sees him dares to show such disrespect to the organization and the chairman knows that he is no ordinary businessman.

After the speeches, it was time for everyone to socialize.

Many people came up to the second floor one after another to chat with Lawyer Xue and try to exchange contact information, but Lawyer Xue politely declined them all.

He was waiting for Luo Deng. After that eye contact, he was convinced that Luo Deng would come to find him.

As expected, Luo and others brought two glasses of red wine and walked over to him.

"I've tried it." Luo handed the wine glass to Xue Lu: "It's a good vintage."

Xue Lu took it and clinked glasses with Luo and the others.

The red wine was still lingering in Xue Lu's mouth when Luo asked, "When do you plan to divorce Qing Gui?"

Attorney Xue looked at Luo and the others with a sharp gaze: "Attorney Luo, don't you think your question was too offensive?"

Luo Deng laughed. He had a gentle appearance, and even though his laugh was sarcastic, it didn't show much malice. But Xue Lu could read the condescension in his smile and felt a surge of anger in his chest.

“Lawyer Xue.” Luo’s smile faded, and his tone became more admonishing: “You and Qinggui are not from the same world. Some things cannot be forced.”

Xue Lu's nerves were on edge all day. He knew that when confronting people like Luo, whoever revealed their emotions first would be the loser.

But he was already exhausted from the cold war with Song Qinggui and had no time to care about his dignity in love. He looked directly at Luo and asked, "Who do you think you are? What right do you have to interfere in my relationship with Qinggui?"

"Based on my understanding of her," Luo said calmly. He had clearly come prepared for this day. "To be honest, Lawyer Xue, I really look down on you all. You, Yan Fengqian, Cheng Wuliang, I look down on none of you."

After saying that, Xue Lu suddenly calmed down. The fact that Luo and the others could put his name together with the other two proved that...

"Have you investigated Song Qinggui?" Xue Lu asked, frowning.

Luo and others did not hide anything: "Qinggui is the kind of person who swallows her pride and suffers in silence. After all, we haven't seen each other for ten years. She is unwilling to talk about it. I want to understand her, so I can only do my best."

"If the rules and regulations knew you were using this method..."

Before Xue Lu could finish speaking, Luo interrupted him: "Ha, how are you any more noble than me? To compete with Cheng Yan, you entered into a marriage of convenience with Qing Gui. Knowing her professional abilities, you used your position as her superior to force her to give up clinical work. And now, to guard against her, you've signed a prenuptial agreement with her. If President Xue wants to criticize me, he should consider whether he has the right to do so."

Xue Lu's face was cold and stern. Luo Deng's ability to conduct background checks was truly surprising.

Xue Lu disliked Luo and others' excessive concern for Song Qinggui, but he could not deny that everyone around him, including himself, had been unfair to Song Qinggui, even if many of these things were not his intention.

Putting everything else aside, just based on this one property agreement, he will forever be morally indebted to her.

After a long silence, Xue Lu lowered his posture somewhat.

He asked Luo and others, "What were the rules like when you were a child...?"

“The rules…” Luo’s smile held a hint of bitterness: “She really has guts.”

"Has a kind of spirit" is a rather unexpected adjective.

Xue Lu looked at Luo and the others with curiosity.

Luo's gaze gradually became distant, and his memories flashed back to ten years ago.

Luo was a well-known child prodigy in Cangcheng. On his first day of high school, he met a classmate of the same age at Yucai Middle School.

But unlike his lively and cheerful self, his new deskmate was as quiet as a mute, and a very beautiful one at that.

Pretty people are often given preferential treatment, but not Song Qinggui, the little mute. Her classmates gradually noticed her strangeness.

She slept through Chinese class, stared intently at the blackboard with wide eyes during math class, making the teacher uneasy. When the physics, chemistry, or biology teachers asked her questions, she stood up and knew absolutely nothing...

English was the only subject she spoke in.

Every time the teacher called on a student to read the text aloud, she would raise her hand high, but when she opened her mouth, it was full of Cangcheng accent. Her sophisticated English sounded incredibly rustic, and the students burst into laughter.

But Song Qinggui was passionate about English. During recess, she would always hold a vocabulary book and memorize words as she ran.

She never shouted the slogan "Today I am proud of Yucai, tomorrow Yucai will be proud of me," and instead focused on her "abandon," which caused the class to lose a lot of moral education points from the head of teaching.

The homeroom teacher, unable to bear it any longer, indirectly criticized her, saying, "Some students have such poor English grades, yet they still pretend to memorize vocabulary during morning exercises, sacrificing the class's honor. I don't know who they're trying to impress."

Song Qinggui toned it down, only muttering some English sentences between shouts of slogans.

Luo and others ran beside her. Besides her increasingly fluent English, he also heard her murmuring, "Song Qinggui, escape Cangcheng. You must try your best to escape from Cangcheng. You must escape from Cangcheng."

In the first monthly exam, Song Qinggui's grades dropped significantly compared to the high school entrance exam. He was talked to by all his teachers, but it had little effect.

In the second monthly exam, she completely fell from her throne as a child prodigy who skipped three grades in elementary and middle school. In a class of thirty students, she ranked twenty-second. Only her English score was barely acceptable; she failed math and physics, and barely passed the other subjects.

"I don't know how you skipped grades when you were little." The homeroom teacher looked at her with disdain during class meeting. "Your family must have spent money on you. But seeing how dirty you are all the time, how could your family have that kind of spare money? I wonder what methods they used... But what's the point of all this fancy stuff?!"

Song Qinggui kept her head down and didn't speak. She looked at her monthly exam paper in her hand, but there was no sadness in her eyes. Instead, there was a certain determination.

Luo and the others watched from the side, stunned by her gaze.

After the class meeting, a boy walked up to Song Qinggui and "accidentally" poured the nutritional drink he was holding onto Song Qinggui's school uniform, instantly covering her clothes with milk stains.

The boy gave a sly smile: "Oh dear, I'm so sorry, it was an accident."

After saying that, he leaned his entire upper body on Song Qinggui's desk: "Little mute, stop studying and be my girlfriend. My family owns a shipyard. If you marry me, you'll live a life of luxury. They say in TV dramas that this is called... this is called a child bride! Hahahaha, come be my child bride!"

Everyone in the class laughed. This boy was a notorious troublemaker. He relied on his family's wealth on Changli Island to try and become friends with any pretty girl he saw. If she disagreed, he would ambush her on the street, grope her, and cause her trouble.

Upon hearing this, Song Qinggui looked up at him expressionlessly: "Do you still want that bottle?"

"What?" The boy didn't understand.

“I said, if you don’t want the bottle anymore, you can give it to me, I’ll take it back and sell it for money,” Song Qinggui said seriously.

The boy thought it was absurd: "I said, I want to date your boyfriend! Kiss him! Sleep with him! Do you understand?"

Song Qinggui remained indifferent: "I only want your bottle; the bottle is worth more than you."

"Fuck your mother!" the boy roared, grabbing Song Qinggui's hair.

Just as Luo was about to pull the boy away, Song Qinggui struggled to pull a pencil sharpener from his pencil case and held it to the boy's neck.

The boy felt a slight pain in his neck, then felt a small amount of liquid trickle onto his school uniform collar. He reached out and touched it, only to find it was blood, and he immediately panicked.

Song Qinggui stared at him, his gaze like that of a little wolf, and said, word by word, "Don't mess with me."

Most of the delinquents in the small town are just paper tigers. Although the boy's family is rich and he often harasses girls, he doesn't have the guts to do anything illegal or criminal.

Moreover, Song Qinggui's appearance really frightened him; this little mute seemed to have really wanted him dead just now.

This time it was just a small cut on the neck, but who knows where the knife might stab next time.

The boy chickened out, and everyone in the class chickened out.

From then on, everyone only dared to talk about Song Qinggui behind her back, and at most they would make a fuss when the teacher scolded her, but they dared not confront her directly.