Chapter 10 The Past of the White Moonlight
At 11 p.m., Huo Yanli sat alone in his study.
He had already reviewed the group's third-quarter financial report and annotated several merger and acquisition proposals on the table, but he showed no sign of leaving. The city lights outside the window were bright, and his slightly weary profile was reflected in the floor-to-ceiling glass. A cigarette was between his fingers, a long ash about to fall.
He rarely smokes. Only on rare occasions when he is struggling to cope will he light one up and watch the smoke slowly rise and dissipate in the air.
Just like now.
Ji Yun's words that afternoon, "You used to be with that guy from the Lin family..." were like a fine needle, inadvertently piercing a long-forgotten corner. Those scenes he thought he had long forgotten surged up uncontrollably in the quiet of the night.
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Five years ago, in Tsinghua University, in autumn.
At that time, Huo Yanli was a graduate student in the School of Economics and Management, twenty-three years old. He had shed the naiveté of his undergraduate days, but had not yet been completely hardened by his family and business background. He wore a simple white shirt and jeans, carrying a shoulder bag, and walked across the main road lined with ginkgo trees. The golden leaves covered the ground, making a soft rustling sound underfoot.
He met Lin Wei at an inter-school debate competition. The opposing team was from the School of Foreign Languages, and Lin Wei was the fourth debater. The topic was globalization and cultural identity. In her closing statement, Lin Wei quoted two lines of Byron's poetry in fluent English, her voice clear and bright, her eyes intense. She wasn't exceptionally beautiful, but she had two shallow dimples when she smiled. During the debate, her logic was clear and sharp, and she was like a sunflower growing towards the sun—vibrant and radiant.
During the post-match discussion, she took the initiative to shake his hand: "Huo Yanli, your data analysis is very solid, but I think the third point about the cultural trade deficit is still open to discussion."
Her hands were soft, and her palms were slightly sweaty.
They became close friends. They participated in activities together, spent time in the library together, and ran together on the playground. Lin Wei came from an ordinary family; her father was an ordinary businessman, and her mother worked in the community. But she was never ashamed of her background; on the contrary, she had a kind of open pride: "My parents are both very good people, and they have taught me a lot."
She was indeed very knowledgeable. Not just in her major, but also in a wide range of other subjects, from the Renaissance of art to postmodern philosophy, she could talk about anything. She liked to take him to those inconspicuous little shops in Wudaoying Hutong, to eat a bowl of braised pork that cost a dozen yuan, or to sit on the terrace drinking cheap beer and watching the old men and women in the hutong play chess.
“Your high-end clubs are exquisite, but they lack a down-to-earth atmosphere,” she once said, her eyes curving into crescents. “Life has to be grounded in reality.”
Huo Yanli enjoyed being with her. It was relaxed, genuine, and he didn't have to constantly maintain the airs of the Huo family heir. When he was up late writing his thesis, she would sneak over the wall into their graduate student apartment—her undergraduate dorm locked at 11 p.m.—to bring him a bowl of steaming wontons. When he was stressed about family pressure, she would drag him boating on Houhai Lake, singing loudly on the swaying boat, not caring at all if he was off-key.
That period was one of the few times in his life when he was purely happy because of one person.
He even seriously considered the future. He thought about how to convince his family to accept her, and how he would deal with it if they objected. He was young then, believing that sincerity could conquer all, and that as long as he was determined enough, nothing could separate them.
Until the spring of Lin Wei's senior year of college.
That day, Lin Wei suddenly asked to meet him at the school's coffee shop. She was pale, and her eyes were red and swollen, as if she had been crying. Her hand holding the coffee cup was trembling slightly.
“Yanli,” she said softly, “your mother… came to see me today.”
Huo Yanli's heart sank: "What did she say?"
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