Chapter 39 Regret

"If I had known first love would be so unforgettable, I shouldn't have argued with him for so long."

"roll!"

Lin Yujing rolled her eyes at Chen Jingshu, brushed the weeds off her clothes, and walked forward without looking back.

Chen Jingshu strode after her, teasingly saying, "Just kidding, are you angry?"

Lin Yujing glared at him reproachfully again. Rather than being angry, she felt more like she was seeing Chen Jingshu in his youth.

As a teenager, Chen Jingshu wasn't exactly a traditional good kid. He would tease girls in a cheeky way, which would cause them to chase him around the classroom and beat him up.

They would also spend the entire summer playing wildly in the sea, and then hide under the covers in the last two days to frantically finish their summer homework.

There was even an instance where he led a group of boys to skip class and go to an unlicensed internet cafe to play games.

Finally, the homeroom teacher reported it to Chen Xuan, and Chen Xuan inevitably received a severe beating.

Later, after returning to the Chen family, the seemingly unattainable and extravagant lifestyle that outsiders perceived became apparent.

Beneath the glitz and glamour lies nothing but paleness and emptiness.

At this very moment, he shamelessly acted like a scoundrel.

That is the most authentic picture that can be seen as the gears of fate turn.

He followed the typical growth trajectory of any ordinary teenager, not the innate class distance inherent in those born into high positions.

What she could not forget, what she could not resist, was precisely this Chen Jingshu.

"Are you really angry?" He grabbed Lin Yujing's sleeve, forcibly stopping her.

Lin Yujing stopped, a hint of helplessness mixed with a touch of coquettishness in her voice, "No, I just hope you can be more serious."

Although the engagement is now just a formality, it doesn't mean there are no obstacles between them.

Chen Jingshu let go of her, put his hands in his pockets, and walked forward beside her, muttering under his breath as if complaining, "It's not like I haven't done anything proper."

Lin Yujing nodded, looking at the tips of her shoes.

Thinking back to when the two had just reunited, he was indeed incredibly serious, like a perfectly disciplined work machine.

He always wears a suit and gleaming shoes. He is always followed by a "think tank" and is a serious and unsmiling CEO, both in public and in private.

But she knew deep down that she didn't like Chen Jingshu like that.

His businesslike attitude and meticulous manner were like invisible daggers repeatedly dissecting that darkest memory of the past.

"What I'm saying is, be more serious," Lin Yujing said, pursing her lips.

He was probably at his most serious when he had just decided to win her back.

Instead of wearing a matching black suit every day, she changed into an elegant and simple knitted sweater. Her hair also changed from a meticulous Hong Kong-style slicked-back style to a fluffy, slightly parted style that lay flat on her forehead.

Like a hedgehog removing its protective shield, he surrendered to her as well.

"Okay, let's get serious." Chen Jingshu put his hands in his pockets and followed her aimlessly. Before they knew it, the two stopped in front of the red and black list next to the main teaching building.

"The red and black lists are still there." Lin Yujing looked up, as if she had returned to their student days.

Pengzhen No.1 Middle School: Red and Black Lists.

The honor roll displays outstanding students from each grade and class.

The blacklist is a public trial for students who violate school rules and regulations and are considered troublemakers.

Back then, Chen Jingshu always managed to have his name appear on two lists simultaneously.

The flag-raising ceremony often begins with the student reading a self-criticism, followed by a speech to a student representative, who is ranked first in the entire school.

Looking back now, the red and black lists are like the clearly defined Chu River and Han border, and it's impossible to find a student like Chen Jingshu who made teachers both happy and worried.

Lin Yujing shifted her gaze to the right and saw a new school newspaper column right next to the red and black lists, densely covered with the names of outstanding alumni from previous years.

She quickly found their place in the class, and unsurprisingly, Chen Jingshu was ranked first.

His name is followed by his MIT Master of Finance degree and founder of JING Capital.

And right below his name was hers.

Lin Yujing holds a Master's degree in Art Management from the Academy of Fine Arts, Tsinghua University, and is a core member of the Hundred Schools Alliance.

She thought this must have been done in the last two years, and then suddenly remembered something, squatted down and saw the donor's name engraved on the side - Chen Jingshu.

"When did this come about?" Lin Yujing asked curiously.

Chen Jingshu looked at her and replied calmly, "The year I returned to China after graduation, I donated money to my alma mater along with the investment in Penghu. The principal suggested creating an alumni list..."

That's true; it had been a long time since he last heard her name.

“At that time, you probably hadn’t forgiven me yet.” To her surprise, Chen Jingshu was willing to let her name be listed after his back then.

“Back then, Pengzhen No. 1 Middle School was holding its anniversary celebration, and all the students who made the list of seal engravers would receive an invitation.” Chen Jingshu touched her cheek with the tip of her tongue and squinted at her. “My news was all over the world. I thought you knew about it and that you would come to attend.”

Lin Yujing twitched the corners of her mouth, recalling that she had indeed received an invitation letter from Pengzhen No.1 High School that year, but at that time she was deeply mired in trouble and had no courage to attend the school anniversary celebration, let alone have the guts to come and see him.

"Jingjing, you're so stubborn!" He kept trying to wait for her to give in, and then he would immediately forgive her and give them a chance to start over.

On the day of the school anniversary, he arrived earliest and didn't leave until sunset, but he still hadn't seen her.

He even flipped through the sign-in book for that day twice.

There are several classmates with the surname Lin, but none of them are named Lin Yujing.

He got extremely drunk that night, and his chest felt so tight and painful.

All the flattery he had received during the day faded away, and for the first time, he felt the withdrawal symptoms of breaking up with Lin Yujing were so endless. The regret of loving someone he couldn't have, and the entanglement of wanting to be with someone until death, spread to every vein in his body.

But it seemed that fate couldn't bear to let him give up completely, and like an immortal destiny, it kept turning and turning.

The following day, he returned to Beijing to attend a meeting at Chen Jinyi's company, and happened to pass by the Huaqing Academy of Fine Arts.

Even though it was a weekday rush hour, his car was still stuck at a red light in front of the school.

The person who had been looking down at business reports the whole way suddenly looked up and spotted Lin Yujing sitting in the red tent at the school gate.

She was wearing a red volunteer vest, her head resting on Qi Woxue's shoulder. They were laughing happily, and it was unclear what they were saying.

At that moment, he felt an indescribable bitterness in his heart.

In her imagination, she would spend her time in longing and regret, and upon seeing his message, she would likely experience uncontrollable emotional fluctuations.

But it seems that he is the only one trapped in his memories.

However, at the subsequent Huaren CEO meeting, while everyone was proposing various investment plans, he changed a charity project in ten minutes.

At that time, Chen Rongqing was campaigning, and all the directors expressed their support and approval after seeing the news.

Therefore, Hua Ren established a special charity because of him.

This is why it became possible for the 100 Schools Alliance's charitable donation project to be invested in Huaren Group.

Everyone thought it was luck, a coincidence. Even Lin Yujing thought for a long time that it was because she was lucky and bold.

But in reality, it's just a person's obsession with letting go of past relationships.

"Ah Shu." Lin Yujing's eyes were already burning after hearing this, and her voice was choked with sobs. Many secrets that had been weighing on her heart could no longer be hidden. "I actually secretly went to Tsinghua University and looked for your name in each department."

During the seven years they were apart, she did struggle with her inner thoughts, and she wasn't always so clear-headed and carefree.

When she first entered university, she tried hard to change herself, learning from Chen Jingshu to make friends, and quickly established a friendship with a girl in her dormitory.

However, the appearance of a senior from the same department unexpectedly caused a rift in their friendship.

Lin Yujing has always cherished the friends around her, so when she realized that her friend liked the senior, she immediately tried to distance herself from him.

However, the senior's sudden confession finally led to a complete breakdown in their relationship.

After losing a close friend and then losing her work documents from a week of overtime work due to an old computer, she finally broke down and went to Tsinghua University.

However, Tsinghua University admits around three thousand students each year, excluding those admitted through special admissions programs.

Lin Yujing could only start by searching through Chen Jingshu's favorite department, the mathematics department, and then the School of Economics and Management. She searched for almost a week, covering almost every department at Tsinghua University.

I just received a reply from a senior student at my school: "Yu Jing, there is no student named Chen Jingshu in our school's information network for first-year undergraduates."

Her first thought was that Tsinghua University was, after all, a promise they had made to each other. Since she had hurt him first, Chen Jingshu naturally had the right to give up.

Just when she was feeling utterly hopeless, someone told her that there was a boy named Chen Jingshu in the Peking University School of Medicine.

Although she knew that Chen Jingshu was unlikely to study medicine, she still decided to give it a try. After going through a lot of trouble to find the boy, she realized that her efforts were just to prove how ridiculous her previous ideas and actions were.

Online, the Chen family has been extremely protective of Chen Jingshu.

Apart from the news about him when he first returned to the Chen family, there was no information about him whatsoever.

She even mustered up the courage to bother Chu Yan and Qu Xi, only to find that they had already blocked her.

Only then did she finally experience the incredibly vivid and heart-wrenching pain of losing the person she loved most.

After that, during the days when there was no news from him, Lin Yujing had actually developed the habit of paying attention to everything that happened to him.

I remember one Spring Festival, she was kicked out of her home by Lin Daguo for refusing to marry her. With nowhere to go, she wandered onto Chang'an Avenue.

Because it's the safest and most lively place.

She sat on a stone bench by the roadside, listening to the gossip of the crowd waiting for the flag-raising ceremony. They said that the rooftop of the Huaren Wanxiang Hotel next door was surrounded by a green net, and that some kind of private courtyard was being built.

Others were still marveling, "How is that possible? The top floor of the Wanxiang Hotel is known as the heart of the Huaren Group."

Who will be allowed to build a private courtyard in the heart of the city?

Lin Yujing didn't care about the news about the Sky Garden. She just sniffed and suddenly turned her head to ask, "Do you know anything about Chen Jingshu, the young master of Huaren Group?"

The group looked at each other and shook their heads. "The Chen family protects him very strictly. We really didn't know that."

Lin Yujing exhaled, her breath filled with sorrowful white smoke.

Looking at the dazzling fireworks and the joyous celebrations, she could no longer hold back the tears welling up in her eyes. So she buried her face in her arms, trying to hide her tears and her longing for Chen Jingshu.

But longing cannot be hidden; it is as difficult to conceal as love.

Even though she covered her mouth, tears still streamed down her face.

Fortunately, longing can enter dreams, and in the remaining days and months...

She relied on her daytime thoughts and nighttime dreams, and used two ounces of bitter longing wine at dusk to save herself from the inevitable darkness of tomorrow.

Even amidst the bustling crowds and family reunions of the holiday, she still longed for Chen Jingshu to be by her side.

"The next thing I heard about you was that you graduated with a master's degree in finance from MIT. Photos of your father and grandfather attending your graduation ceremony in the United States were released by the media." But at that time, she looked at the spirited Chen Jingshu.

He had already realized that there was an impossible distance between them, like an insurmountable barrier.

"Ah Shu, you say I'm stubborn and unwilling to back down, but I don't even have the right to back down in front of you." The two are worlds apart, like heaven and earth, and she didn't even have the chance to talk to the security guard at the entrance of Huaren Building.

After hearing her story, Chen Jingshu's eyes reddened, and his heart ached. "Jingjing, I didn't go to Tsinghua University because of you. I was in a car accident shortly after returning to Beijing and missed the freshman registration. After I recovered, the Chen family simply arranged for me to study abroad."

"At that time, I was also very disheartened. I thought going abroad might be better..." His lips trembled slightly, "But later, I regretted it every single moment..."

Chen Jingshu's next interaction with her was when he randomly picked 20 out of 2,000 tender documents, throwing the rest into the trash can.

With that same movement, he caught a glimpse of the character "林" out of the corner of his eye.

No one knows the overwhelming emotions that welled up in his heart when he saw those three words pieced together before his eyes again.

He spent two days in New York before the bidding process began.

On the way back to China, we encountered heavy rain, and the flight was forced to make an emergency landing in another city.

When he arrived, travel-worn and dusty, before he could even enter the inner area, he was stopped at the door by a group of people exchanging pleasantries.

At that very moment, he met a burning gaze and saw the person etched into his heart.

When he first met her, he also hated her.

That night, Yuan Shu drove his car, following her at a distance that was neither too close nor too far.

Seeing her being threatened, looking helpless yet stubborn.

He gave up clinging to the past; after all, life is long, and all he wanted was this person.

Whether she's good or bad, whether human nature is selfish or kind, he can always give her everything she wants now.

In particular, after he saw Zhang Jiale's appearance and learned that he would often accompany Lin Yujing to classes, work, and meals...

The regret in my heart grew even stronger.

"Regret what?" Lin Yujing asked in a low voice.

"I regret it. If I had known that first love would be so unforgettable, I shouldn't have argued with you for so long." Chen Jingshu rested his hand on the alumni list, his fingertips gently caressing her name. "I should have stuck to Tsinghua University as my goal. I guess I would have come to find you in the second year after we broke up."

"Then, through seven years of intertwined regrets, we will completely heal and erase the hurt we have suffered. I will pick you up from class every day and take you back to your dorm at night." Like millions of ordinary campus couples, we will spend every moment we want to spend the rest of our lives together.

Most importantly, she wouldn't have to suffer for another seven years.

A note from the author:

Happy National Day!

good evening!

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Thank you to all the little angels who voted for me or watered my plants with nutrient solution between 2023-09-30 23:38:47 and 2023-10-01 23:32:20!

Thank you to the little angel who watered the nutrient solution: One bottle from Fragrance Rose;

Thank you so much for your support! I will continue to work hard!