But this story... is indeed more melodramatic than Gu Qingqiu could have imagined.

Zou Jingxi's parents divorced when he was less than two years old. The reason was that his mother had an affair and left with nothing. Since the Zou family was large and wealthy, Zou Jingxi lived with his father from a young age.

The father soon remarried a beautiful wife and had a son. He was no longer as concerned about Zou Jingxi. Instead, the mother would always secretly contact Zou Jingxi to show her concern. Zou Jingxi preferred his mother emotionally, but he always thought that his father was the "victim," so he dared not show it.

During his senior year of high school, Zou Jingxi overheard his father and his beautiful wife arguing and realized that he had been misunderstanding his mother all these years.

It turns out that the father and mother did not love each other back then. In fact, the mother had a boyfriend. However, the father raped the mother because of lust and got her pregnant. The mother's family was traditional, and the child was a boy. The Zou family did not agree to an abortion, so the two had no choice but to stay together.

But two people who don't love each other are destined not to last. Because the father couldn't have sex with the mother during her pregnancy and breastfeeding period, he cheated on her multiple times. The mother often cried, but was always advised, "You already have a child, just bear with it."

However, not long after, the mother seemed to have given up and got entangled with her first love, with whom she had been forced to break up, which eventually led to their divorce.

This time, the father got into another sex scandal. His secretary accused him on social media of being raped and having indecent photos taken of her. The scandal caused a huge uproar, and the Zou family's stock plummeted. The secretary refused to accept mediation or monetary compensation and was determined to make the matter bigger.

At that time, Zou Jingxi had just turned eighteen and become an adult who could make his own decisions. He was about to enter the new environment of university, so after much consideration, he decided to take his mother's surname and change his name to "Lin Yelan". He also moved out of the Zou family home to live with his mother.

However, because this name was often mispronounced, and because Gu Qingqiu happened to have Zou Jingxi's high school classmates at her university, everyone got used to calling him "Zou Jingxi," so over time, "Zou Jingxi" became the standard name at their university. It was a name that had been used for eighteen years, so it was quite familiar to everyone.

He probably couldn't be bothered to explain it again and again, since this past is somewhat embarrassing to talk about.

What was the engagement scene that Gu Qingqiu saw that day?

Before Gu Qingqiu could ask, the person in the know continued to reveal information.

It has to be said that Zou Jingxi's father really knows how to handle women. He somehow managed to win over the female secretary who made the whistleblower's revelation and even married her! He told the public that they were actually a couple, and the female secretary only made the revelation because of a fight. The onlookers, seeing that the two were already married, could only disperse even though they still felt there were many doubts about the matter.

This gossip shocked everyone. Gu Qingqiu took out her phone and checked some news from that time. She was surprised to find that the female secretary who broke the news was actually surnamed "Zhang". So the engagement banquet that day was actually Zou Jingxi's father and that female secretary.

Gu Qingqiu suddenly understood the panic in Zou Jingxi's tone at the time. After all, it was indeed a disgraceful scandal, and he probably felt that family scandals should not be aired in public.

Whether the "midterm exam" was an excuse to prepare for the engagement banquet or had another hidden reason, Gu Qingqiu didn't really care anymore, because she found the list of students majoring in network engineering that she had kept all those years ago, and found the name "Lin Yelan" on it.

Perhaps he really did use the changed name at his own school, which is why his classmates there didn't recognize "Zou Jingxi".

It's absurd! She actually severed all ties between them because of her own misunderstanding. Why didn't she take the initiative to ask him? Why couldn't she listen to his explanation? Now it's all too late.

It would be a lie to say she wasn't disappointed. Gu Qingqiu felt a pang of sadness when she thought about how tired the man looked earlier.

So much time has passed, could he have already started something new?