The group chat went dead silent.
If Zhiwei hadn’t posted the screenshot, nobody would have believed it. Sure, Xu Ye’s other subjects had always been decent enough — but English had been his anchor, dragging him to the bottom of the class every single time.
So how had he scored over 120?
Plenty of people had the same unspoken theory — that he’d somehow seen someone else’s answers. But in the end, what did it matter? After the gaokao, the only question anyone ever asked was your score. Nobody asked how you got there.
Of everyone in the class, the person most blindsided by the news wasn’t Zhiwei, or Li Nan, or even Xie Hong and Jiang Lei, who were both now very conspicuously quiet.
It was Gu Mengyao.
She genuinely hadn’t seen this coming.
The gaokao was a dividing line. The university tier system — the elite 985s and 211s at the top, then first-tier, second-tier, vocational — worked like a pyramid. The higher you landed, the more doors opened. [TL: 985 and 211 are Chinese government programs that designate China’s top universities for special funding and prestige. 985 universities are the most elite tier, with only 39 institutions; 211 covers a broader group of roughly 116 top universities. Together they represent China’s equivalent of the Ivy League.]
Lately, Gu Mengyao had convinced herself that Liu Qian was right — university would bring better options, more accomplished guys, and losing Xu Ye was no great loss. One less person to provide emotional support. One less person to pick up the bill.
But now.
Staring at his score, she felt something she hadn’t expected: regret.
She’d assumed that when results came out, the gap between them would widen in her favor. Her scores had always put her near the top of the class. She’d been confident of that.
What she hadn’t accounted for was Xu Ye placing above her. Not by a little — by a lot.
Her 492 would get her into a respectable public university, but nothing impressive. Xu Ye’s 558 cleared the top-tier cutoff.
The positions had reversed. And Gu Mengyao found she couldn’t quite accept that — not the score itself, but what it implied. That Xu Ye, after walking away from her, might end up living better than she did.
From half past ten onward, Xu Ye’s parents didn’t stop making calls. Relatives, colleagues, neighbors, anyone they had contact with — the news went out to all of them. The apartment buzzed with excitement for the entire morning.
Xu Ye was the calmest person in the building.
At lunch, he waited for a lull in the celebration and said, matter-of-factly: “Mom. You made me a promise.”
“What promise?”
“Money. You said if I made it into a top-tier school, you’d give me money.”
Zhang Hong glanced at her husband. “Look at your son. Obsessed with money, just like you.”
His dad was in too good a mood to be deflected. Xu Ye’s score had earned him a tremendous amount of face, and he felt generous.
“A deal’s a deal. I’ll put five thousand down for a new laptop and phone — you’ll need them for university anyway. And anything your grandparents or aunts give you as a gift, keep it all.”
“Dad — about the graduation celebration dinner. Can we skip it?”
“Why?”
“Too showy. If you’re going to spend the money anyway, just give it to me.” Xu Ye paused. “Or if we have to do something, just our family. Nobody else.”
His parents exchanged a look. That actually seemed reasonable. They agreed without much fuss.
Xu Ye was quietly thrilled.
One step closer to a million.
He was still in the early capital-building phase — two months of summer left, and if he could get his hands on fifty thousand to put into the market, he’d have real room to maneuver. His parents’ money helped, but working a bar wasn’t going to get him there. Which meant there was one other option he’d been turning over in his mind.
The little heiress, Chen Qingqing.
He finished lunch quickly, went to his room, and opened WeChat.
Xu Ye: results came out, right?
Qingqing: yeah.
Xu Ye: “yeah” as in you got in?
Qingqing: yes.
Xu Ye: congratulations.
Qingqing: expected. you?
Xu Ye: not bad. cleared the top-tier cutoff.
Qingqing: what did you want?
Xu Ye: nothing, actually.
Qingqing: you don’t have friends either?
Xu Ye: not many.
Qingqing: I’m going to a recording studio this afternoon. want to come?
Xu Ye: yes.
Qingqing: weren’t you learning to drive?
Xu Ye: going there is basically free labor for the driving school. what time are we leaving?
Qingqing: send me your address. I’ll have Auntie Wang pick you up.
Xu Ye: OJBK
Qingqing: what does that mean?
Xu Ye: it means OK. my fingers slipped. [TL: OJBK is a Chinese internet slang abbreviation — O (哦), J (就), B (不), K (可) — meaning roughly “oh, that’s just not okay,” used sarcastically or as a reaction to something absurd. Xu Ye claims it means “OK” here, which it absolutely does not.]
Qingqing: oh.
Xu: Zhiwei.
Social Anxiety Patient: get to the point.
Xu: skipping driving practice this afternoon.
Social Anxiety Patient: why?
Xu: girlfriend asked me out.
Social Anxiety Patient: what?
Xu: I said my girlfriend asked me out. I’ve got a date this afternoon.
Social Anxiety Patient: you’re unbelievable.
Xu: hang on. I’m just slightly better-looking than you, slightly taller than you, scored slightly higher than you on the gaokao, and found a girlfriend slightly faster than you. Why have you been insulting me all day?
Beep beep beep.
Xu Ye sighed. “Young people these days have no resilience.”
Around three in the afternoon.
Wang Ruxue pulled up outside the complex with Qingqing in the back. Xu Ye was already waiting. He got in and sat down beside her in the second row.
“You’re not going to record the song I gave you, are you.”
Qingqing said flatly, “Why else would I have bought it?”
“You’re putting it online after?”
“I haven’t decided.”
Xu Ye laughed. “Then what’s the point?”
“I feel like it.”
“Alright, but — if this goes online and blows up, are you going to give me a cut?”
“No.”
“Why not? I wrote it.”
“I bought the rights outright.”
“You’re ruthless.”
In the front seat, Wang Ruxue listened to the two of them and felt something she hadn’t quite felt from them before. This wasn’t ordinary friend banter. There was a rhythm to it — the kind that usually only developed between people who’d spent enough time together to find each other’s frequency.
She wasn’t sure what had changed in the past few days, but something had.
The car stopped outside a professional recording studio. Qingqing walked in with the ease of someone who’d been there many times before. Xu Ye followed.
Inside the booth, she started recording If One Day I Become Very Rich without ceremony or explanation.
It was an odd song for someone like her. The lyrics were loose and playful and a little ridiculous. And yet, watching through the glass, Xu Ye found that the cold, composed girl he’d come to know sounded almost unbearably charming singing them. Something about it didn’t fit the image — and that was exactly what made it work.
He sat outside with his headphones on, one hand propping up his chin, the other tapping the beat. At some point, without realizing it, he was smiling.
Not a calculated smile. The kind that just arrived on its own.
Qingqing was a perfectionist. One line slightly off and she’d start the whole thing over. She went through it again and again, her voice patient and unhurried, until every note sat exactly where she wanted it.
Xu Ye sat in the air conditioning and listened and didn’t find it boring at all.
Time drifted past.
By evening, the audio file was on a USB drive. They came out into the warm air, and Xu Ye checked the time.
“No point going home first. We’ll have to eat out.”
Qingqing hesitated. “Barbecue?”
“Too heaty.”
“Hotpot then?”
“Hotpot actually — too much of it is bad for your skin, clogs pores, causes breakouts, and also—” [TL: 海底捞 (Hǎidǐ Lāo) is China’s most famous hotpot chain, known for its premium service and theatrical customer experience — servers who dance, birthday serenades, free snacks, and so on.]
Qingqing cut him off. She’d already figured out where this was going.
“I’m paying.”
Xu Ye pivoted instantly. “But then again, the occasional hotpot is completely fine. Qingqing, don’t get the wrong idea — I’m genuinely not the type to let a girl pay. This time’s an exception, but next time is absolutely on me.”
“What did you just call me?”
“Qing… qing?”
Qingqing lifted her foot and brought it down firmly on top of his.
“Ow — ow—!”
She looked deeply satisfied. “That’s what you get.”
(End of Chapter)