The experts and professors wiped sweat from their brows. When they first heard President Shen was offering a fortune to tutor him, they thought it would be an easy job. They never expected this student to be… utterly indescribable. After grading the exam, they waited for President Shen’s response.
The man in question hung his head in shame.
The professors all wore troubled expressions. “President Shen, with Mr. Meng’s current level, we truly cannot guarantee he would get into a good university if he took the Gaokao next June.”
Their meaning was clear: Meng Xinghui’s foundation was so poor that getting into a top university was an absolute impossibility.
“You all may leave,” Shen Qiu said, his gaze fixed on the test score. He was trying to fathom how Meng Xinghui had managed to get a trigonometry problem so spectacularly wrong. The student’s logic was… unique. The lines he’d drawn revealed his thought process: while the correct answer lay to the left of the straight line, Meng Xinghui had taken a new direction, leaping straight into the third dimension.
Once the professors left, only the two of them remained in the study.
A smirk involuntarily tugged at the corners of Shen Qiu’s lips as he began his sarcasm. “Tsk, tsk. You’re truly something else.” He flipped the test paper over, revealing a sea of red ink on both sides.
“You managed to avoid the correct answer for every single subject. Your scores are all perfectly aligned below 30 points.”
“Even I couldn’t have failed this badly.”
Meng Xinghui seized the rare opportunity to explain himself. “It’s been ages since I’ve been in school. Scoring this well is already a feat.”
“Sure, whatever.”
Meng Xinghui pressed his lips together.
“Again tomorrow!” Shen Qiu declared.
“Ah!” Meng Xinghui’s eyes filled with sorrow as he stared at the test paper placed right in front of him—Shen Qiu had gone out of his way to leave it there before he left.
That jerk… he’s just mocking me for being an idiot, Meng Xinghui thought angrily. The bright red scores glared back at him in mockery.
The muffled voice of a professor lecturing drifted through the doorway. In the living room, Shen Qiu was reviewing documents.
Lin Yi reported on the company’s situation. “Qingxiang Company has always been the industry leader. Their Best Actor and Best Actress award-winners control half of the entertainment circle. However, I’ve heard that our Best Actress, Lin Xiu, wants to terminate her contract.”
The document in Shen Qiu’s hand happened to be Lin Xiu’s. The stunningly beautiful woman exuded a captivating charm, with a distinctive beauty mark positioned between her eyebrows. Her striking looks were tempered by an air of cool detachment. The next page contained her personal resume.
“Terminating her contract now wouldn’t be in Lin Xiu’s best interest.”
“That’s true,” Lin Yi added, placing the file on her boyfriend’s background information next to President Shen. “I heard her boyfriend is clamoring to start his own personal studio, so he’s secretly trying to get Lin Xiu to break her contract.”
“After all, Lin Xiu is highly sought after by directors. She’s the go-to lead actress for many of the top names in the industry. Her acting skills are beyond reproach.”
Shen Qiu didn’t even look up. He reached for the file, flipped it open, and saw a man with a square face, ordinary features, and a height of only 1.7 meters. “He’s not handsome. What exactly is Lin Xiu after?”
Lin Yi couldn’t understand it. His high-IQ logic told him this was a guaranteed losing bet.
“A long time ago, Lin Xiu invested in her boyfriend’s finance business, only to be scammed out of every cent by a few bosses. Now, he’s Lin Xiu’s assistant. He’s repeatedly blocked the manager’s arrangements, rejected several major scripts, and even handed them over to the lead actress of a competing company. After those scripts were produced, that lead actress swept all the major awards over the past few years. This infuriated Qingxiang’s gold-medal manager so much that he quit. The current manager is just riding on Lin Xiu’s fame, doing as little as possible.”
“Lin Xiu’s boyfriend now completely controls her work.”
“What about Gao Cheng?” Shen Qiu didn’t think Manager Gao would fail to notice Lin Xiu’s problems. His senior alumnus was no simpleton. He knew, but he hadn’t intervened, allowing the company’s lead actress to ruin her career and harm the company’s interests.
“President Shen, what should we do?” Lin Yi asked. Should they ignore it or intervene?
Shen Qiu turned his head calmly, pulling his thoughts back to the faint sound of teaching in the background. “Have Gao Cheng announce the contract termination early.”
When doing a good deed, shake the tiger that eats soft rice in the mountains.
Lin Yi understood immediately, grasping President Shen’s meaning.
“Another hopeless romantic!” Shen Qiu sighed deeply. “One Meng Xinghui was already enough to deal with, and now another one comes along.”
A faint smile touched Secretary Lin’s cold features. The “hopeless romantic” President Shen was referring to was Meng Xinghui. “President Shen cares a lot about Meng Xinghui.”
“A little, but not much,” Shen Qiu retorted, his tone as sharp as a counterattack. “What about you and Yang Wenlun?”
He had heard that Yang Wenlun had caused a huge scene yesterday. Dr. Wang had even shared a post on his Moments circle, roasting his own first disciple. The photo showed Yang Wenlun black and blue, his elbow encased in a cast.
Look at this bastard, he’s completely disgraced me. Serves him right!
Secretary Lin’s smile vanished instantly. That bastard had done a lot of stupid things yesterday. The bite mark on his neck was disgusting and repulsive. “He’s in the hospital for rehabilitation,” he said, his voice turning icy.
A deep, knowing look flickered in Shen Qiu’s eyes. “Did you beat him up?”
“Half and half,” Lin Yi replied. “The other half was him being clumsy and falling. He broke his arm and leg, and now he’s blaming it all on me.”
Shen Qiu pursed his lips. “You don’t have to show me any face. Do whatever you want.”
“Don’t worry, I’ve never shown you any face,” Lin Yi said. He had always taken a decisive stance against harassers.
Clean and decisive, without a trace of lingering mess.
“Ah—! It hurts, Master!” Yang Wenlun grimaced. Lin Yi had only slapped his left cheek, but his OCD kicked in, and he swung again, landing a blow on the other side.
Now, the red and blue handprints on his face were perfectly symmetrical.
His handsome face, now a comic relief, cracked the nearby nurses up. Their laughter, uncontrollable, echoed through the ward.
Even Dr. Wang struggled to keep a straight face. “I’m telling you, stop causing trouble. Lin Yi is such an outstanding person; why do you have to provoke him?”
Yang Wenlun looked sorrowful. “You don’t understand, you single dog. I only took one bite of my wife’s neck. My drunk wife is just too irresistible.”
Dr. Wang showed no mercy, pressing down hard enough to make Yang Wenlun’s molars ache. “Hey, kid, you’re the one who got dumped. Complaining about your master? You deserve this. Let’s go, let’s go. Leave this kid by himself. Just looking at him is annoying.”
“Let’s go, let’s go,” Yang Wenlun muttered, pulling the covers over his battle-scarred face to sleep.
Shen Qiu understood. First, he symbolically threw a handful of dirt on his friend’s failed attempt at love, wishing him a smooth journey and a swift breakup. Then, he turned his attention to his capable assistant. “If you really find Yang Wenlun annoying, you can head back to the company and help Guan Zhidong.”
“No need. I can handle it,” Lin Yi said, pushing up his glasses as they slipped down his nose. His eyes behind the lenses glinted with a cold light. “Dealing with Yang Wenlun is easy for me. Besides, Professor Guan doesn’t need my help; he can manage.”
“You want Meng Xinghui to take the college entrance exam?” Lin Yi had passed by the garden on his way here, hearing the professor’s fluent American accent reading the news through the open window of the second-floor study.
“Yes, that’s right. Maybe if Meng Xinghui studies more, his brain will function properly and he’ll stay away from scumbags.” Shen Qiu signed the documents, the sharp nib of his fountain pen leaving bold, unrestrained strokes. The ink pooled as Meng Xinghui’s countless sorrows flashed before his eyes. He hoped Meng Xinghui would grow stronger and break free from the scummy top sooner.
The Weibo headlines were ablaze: Actress Lin Terminates Contract, Qingxiang Fails to Renew Contract with Actress Lin, Actress Lin Intends to Go Solo, and The Prosperous ‘Soft Rice’ Path of Actress Lin’s Boyfriend, and so on.
The early morning commuters were all excitedly discussing it—some just eating gossip, some stirring the pot, and some die-hard fans getting worked up.
No way, no way, what happened to Actress Lin? Everyone, let’s just calm down, okay?
That damn company too! Actress Lin has sacrificed so much for them, and yet they can’t even try to talk some sense into her boyfriend when he’s causing all this trouble.
Actress Lin, it’s not too late to turn back! You can still save your career! What’s so great about that man? If you like handsome guys, there are tons of them! You can’t let him ruin your future like this. Sob sob sob—Sister, please!
Countless fans of Actress Lin wept bitterly, their tissues and snot piling up in heaps. The scandalous details of Actress Lin and her boyfriend’s relationship were once again laid bare for the public to see.
The onlookers were equally speechless. Love-struck fools. This damn love-blindness.
Sigh—
“Sigh—” Shen Qiu scrolled through the fans’ compiled timeline of the couple’s relationship on Weibo. Lin Yi’s description that day had been too euphemistic. Lin Xiu was a patient with a severe illness, and she was about to seek her own death. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted someone secretly adjusting the alarm clock.
“Hey, hey, hey, pay attention! I’m not blind. Hurry up and finish the test.” Shen Qiu found Meng Xinghui’s slacking behavior utterly shameful.
Meng Xinghui chewed on the end of his pen, pleading pitifully, “I don’t know how to do it. The time limit is too short.”
“These are just elementary school problems,” Shen Qiu said, resting his forehead on his hand in exasperation.
“But I never paid attention in class growing up.”
Shen Qiu sneered. “What a tragedy for your teachers.”
Meng Xinghui lowered his head in despair and continued writing. Under Boss Shen’s ruthless, cold gaze, he stared at the problems he had no idea how to solve, lost in a new maze, wandering without direction.
When time was up, Shen Qiu didn’t even need to look at the answer key. He calculated the answers in the blink of an eye, his red pen sweeping across the paper and leaving behind a landscape of devastating red Xs.
Meng Xinghui’s sharp eyes caught sight of the carnage. His feet felt as if they were sprouting thorns, and he was desperate to take off running.
“Actually, I think I have a bright future in dishwashing.”
“I could even expand into new business lines, like on-call cleaning or convenient moving services.” Seeing Shen Qiu’s silence, Meng Xinghui continued to outline his grander ambitions. Each time Shen Qiu nodded in feigned agreement, Meng Xinghui grew more fervent.
“We could hire people, start a company, and just sit back and collect the money.”
Shen Qiu pressed his finger against the space between Meng Xinghui’s eyebrows, and Meng Xinghui instinctively recoiled.
“Should I say you’re ambitious, or not?” Shen Qiu couldn’t bear to look at the handwriting. “Even elementary schoolers write better than you.”
Meng Xinghui snatched the test paper away. “As long as the answers are correct, that’s all that matters! You can’t make fun of my handwriting—it’s actually quite good.”
Shen Qiu held the paper high above his head, out of Meng Xinghui’s reach even when he jumped.
The two scuffled over the test paper, their struggle moving toward the doorway. Shen Qiu, being the mischievous one, seized the opportunity and swiftly shut the door, locking Meng Xinghui out of the study.
The next day, a new picture frame appeared on the living room wall, standing out starkly from the others. Behind the glass, a test paper was displayed. The score was brilliant, but the handwriting was a chaotic mess of horizontal and vertical strokes, resembling a construction site with its rigid, blocky lines.
When Meng Xinghui saw it, he knew Shen Qiu must have secretly hung it up the night before. He shouted at Shen Qiu, who was just coming downstairs, “Take it down! Take it down right now! This is so embarrassing!”
Shen Qiu admired his masterpiece. “It’s great. Nothing to be embarrassed about.”
“Take it down, Shen Qiu, I’m begging you!”
Shen Qiu refused ruthlessly, leaving Meng Xinghui staring at the closed door of the study.
“Fine, I’ll do it myself,” Meng Xinghui declared, rolling up his sleeves and dragging a ladder over to the wall.
But Shen Qiu always managed to replace the paper with a new one whenever Meng Xinghui wasn’t looking.