For the first twenty years of her life, Zheng Miaomiao had been utterly unremarkable. Born into a poor family, she threw herself into studying like a typical small-town grind student, and scored well enough—not top-tier, but respectable—to get into a 211-level normal university, where she spent her first two years in uneventful peace.
Starting in her junior year, however, men began appearing around her out of nowhere. They had the most stunning looks, wore shirts that cost more than her family earned in a year, and belonged to a world beyond anything Zheng Miaomiao could have imagined even in fiction.
At first, she was astonished and intimidated, doing her best to avoid these men from a world nothing like her own. But as they appeared in her life more and more frequently, she gradually grew used to it.
The way they treated her differently was impossible for anyone with functioning senses to miss. Faced with their breathtaking looks and heaven-defying wealth, how could Zheng Miaomiao not be tempted?
Yet for two years she was entangled with them, and they still only toyed with her carelessly—unwilling to leave her, but unwilling to truly be with her either.
She had tried, again and again, only to humiliate herself each time.
It wasn’t until graduation drew near that Zheng Miaomiao finally came to her senses.
She and these men simply were not from the same world.
It was time for her to return to her own.
So she cut off all contact and went home alone.
…………
Zheng Miaomiao saw Shen Xu again while trying on wedding dresses with her fiancé, Lin Qin’an.
They had already chosen a dress, and Lin Qin’an had gone ahead to deal with other wedding preparations. Zheng Miaomiao was about to take off the gown she was wearing and have the staff wrap it up for delivery home.
They had bought this wedding dress. Zheng Miaomiao thought there was no need to buy something worn only once, and it was far too expensive, but Lin Qin’an felt it was a garment worth commemorating. Even if it was worn just that once and never again, when he and Zheng Miaomiao grew old, opening the old wardrobe and seeing this dress would bring them joy.
Since it was Lin Qin’an paying, Zheng Miaomiao let him have his way. Lin Qin’an had far more of a sense of ceremony about the upcoming wedding than she did—he wanted every detail done perfectly. Zheng Miaomiao didn’t share that mindset, but she chose to cooperate with him and respect his wishes.
Just as Zheng Miaomiao was heading to the fitting room to change out of the gown, someone she never expected walked into the shop.
The moment he entered, he drew the eyes of everyone in the store. He was a man of about twenty-six or twenty-seven, very tall—easily over 190 centimeters—with broad shoulders, a narrow waist, and long legs. His black hair was loosely swept back from his forehead, revealing emerald-green eyes and a face that was strikingly handsome and sharp.
Zheng Miaomiao vaguely heard the murmurs of admiration around the shop. Even the staff member beside her, the one who was supposed to be taking her to change, stood frozen in place.
This was probably as vivid an encounter as any ordinary person would ever have with phrases like “weaponized beauty” or “blindingly gorgeous.”
Zheng Miaomiao was stunned too—not by his looks, but by her shock at running into him here.
This was nothing but a remote little county town. How could she possibly run into Shen Xu here?
In the blink of an eye, as she stood lost in thought, Shen Xu covered the distance with his long strides and came straight up to her.
His posture was remarkably upright. He seemed unhurried, yet his pace was startlingly fast—like a cheetah closing in on its prey.
By the time Zheng Miaomiao came to her senses, Shen Xu was already less than a meter away from her.
Up close, Zheng Miaomiao only barely reached his chest, and he blocked most of the light. She didn’t look up and couldn’t quite make out his expression, but she could clearly feel that burning gaze on her body.
An unease like being locked onto by a predator.
Zheng Miaomiao’s hand, hidden behind the hem of her dress, clutched at the delicate lace—yet she still lifted her head to face Shen Xu directly.
Two years had passed, and Shen Xu’s appearance hadn’t changed much, but he was very different from the Shen Xu in Zheng Miaomiao’s memory.
The Shen Xu of the past had always worn a languid, careless look, as if nothing concerned him, with the arrogance and coldness of his class baked into his bones.
But now, the gaze Shen Xu fixed on her was so scorching it nearly burned her.
He stared at her intensely, greedily, hungrily, tracing her features inch by inch. But when his gaze traveled down and landed on the wedding dress she wore, his expression turned cold and pained.
It didn’t seem wise to keep up this standoff—and besides, she was no longer the Zheng Miaomiao of the past.
Before Shen Xu could speak, she said to him, her expression flat, “What a coincidence.”
By saying “what a coincidence,” she was hoping she and Shen Xu could pass as nothing more than a chance encounter.
But Shen Xu seemed to read the subtext, and he cut off that possibility outright: “It’s not a coincidence. I came here specifically to find you.”
Seeing Zheng Miaomiao at a loss for words, he added, “I’ve been looking for a long time.”
“…”
Zheng Miaomiao fell silent.
But when she glanced around and noticed the gazes that were, faintly but unmistakably, gathering on the two of them, she could only say to Shen Xu, “This isn’t the place to talk. Let’s go somewhere else.”
They walked to the sofa in the corner of the shop and sat down. Though they still couldn’t completely escape the stares, at least it was less conspicuous.
Zheng Miaomiao also sent the shop assistant beside her off to her other work.
Once seated, Zheng Miaomiao looked at Shen Xu, who kept his eyes fixed on her, and didn’t quite know what to say.
It was Shen Xu who spoke first. His voice was hoarse, as if the words had been rolling around in his chest and throat for a long time.
“…You’re getting married?”
He looked at the wedding dress she wore.
The dress was beautiful—elegant in cut and silhouette, yet still full of design.
Though Lin Qin’an wasn’t from a wealthy family, he had long since achieved financial freedom. This wedding dress had cost 830,000, and on Zheng Miaomiao it lent even her unremarkable figure an air of nobility and beauty. Her face carried the brightness of someone about to step into a new stage of life.
She was completely different from the girl of the past, who always kept her head half-lowered, lost and at sea.
Zheng Miaomiao nodded, an unconscious hint of a smile appearing on her face.
“Mm, the wedding is next month,” Zheng Miaomiao said.
She looked genuinely looking forward to this marriage.
Shen Xu thought so, bloodshot threads surfacing in his eyes.
But there was little sign of it on his face. Zheng Miaomiao had never been an observant person, and she didn’t notice.
Though she was a little surprised that Shen Xu said he’d “been looking for her,” she didn’t think too deeply about it.
She used to be prone to “flattering herself,” always assuming these people found her special, that they all liked her. But after humiliating herself one time too many, Zheng Miaomiao had largely broken herself of that bad habit.
What could Shen Xu want with her? Surely he couldn’t still have lingering feelings for her.
Before she left back then, she had sought Shen Xu out and confessed to him.
But Shen Xu only gave her a faint sideways glance, then lifted her onto his motorcycle and sped around the mountain racetrack for several laps.
When he finally stopped, he took off Zheng Miaomiao’s helmet and studied her messy hair and her eyes, reddened from nervousness.
He said, “What makes you think I would be with someone plain-looking, from an ordinary background, shallow-minded, petty, and not particularly smart?”
His voice grew softer, light yet distinct: “Which one of those qualities do you actually have to offer?”
Shen Xu curled his lips and gently blew a breath toward Zheng Miaomiao’s reddened eyes.
Zheng Miaomiao remembered that the mountain wind that day wasn’t very cold, but it carried a light chill—just like Shen Xu.
In the end, when he saw her lower her head helplessly, at a loss, trying to hide her red eyes, he drew the girl into his arms.