CA | Chapter 2

◎A Girl’s White Moonlight.◎

Since she had seen him, she couldn’t help replaying the whole stretch of road on the way to school.

If a girl had to have a white moonlight in her youth, then Shen Yicheng would have been exactly that.

Good-looking, rich, decent enough, and very tasteful.

According to Ning Guoqiang, when Ning Jiazhou drew lots as a child, she ignored the bright red bills and the pretty dolls, and with one slap of a hand, grabbed Shen Yicheng’s jade Guanyin.

That Guanyin was something special, a piece of mutton-fat white jade from Hetian jade, a flawless slab of it.

The Shen family did jade business, and Shen Yicheng, the second son, was also the youngest in the family. It was normal for him to wear something so precious, but with that one grab, Ning Jia nearly yanked it right off him.

Shen Yicheng didn’t get angry. He was famous for his good temper too, and he let her play with the jade Guanyin.

Ning Jia kept it in her mouth for a whole day before giving it back to Shen Yicheng.

Of course, she couldn’t possibly remember any of that. It had all been told to her by her parents.

Thinking of that, she reached the classroom.

The moment she stepped inside, everyone in the room looked at her at once. Ning Jia pretended not to notice and went back to her seat. The classroom resumed its reading.

To make it to school on time, she had gotten up very early, and now she was so sleepy she could see stars. She kept reciting aloud while nodding off. Someone tapped the edge of her desk, and she jerked her head up to see the homeroom teacher’s tightly packed face.

The teacher probably wanted her to stand up and recite.

Ning Jia looked at her, about to stand, when the teacher left instead. It seemed that even as a teacher, she knew this was not the best time to call Ning Jia up.

Ning Jia let out a long breath. She focused on her textbook for a while, and when the dismissal bell rang, she buried herself in her arms and fell sound asleep.

It was as if nothing had changed, as if everyone and everything still got along with her in peace, until dinner time.

During Ning Jia’s three years of high school, by her own description, it had been the kind of glamorous campus life people saw online, full of flowers, applause, and an Instagram filter over everything.

Everyone loved her, adored her, even if it was only on the surface.

This high school gathered the top rich second-generation heirs of Bei City. It was the affiliated school of Bei City’s number one university. These kids had been paying tuition in the tens of thousands since kindergarten, and by the time they were raised to this point, it would take several million to stop.

Ning Jia was no different.

She was her mother’s most successful work, the model young lady of Beijing’s elite circles. There was no need to mention piano, painting, or flower arranging. She had also taken skiing and rock climbing classes, and Ning Jia had a language talent no one knew who she had inherited from. She learned foreign languages extremely fast, and her mother, He Hui, made that a key focus. At home, there was a foreign tutor from one country on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, then a different one on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, and they changed again every month. It was lively beyond words.

Ning Guoqiang used to say that all the money he earned had been fed to his little Jiajia.

Ning Jia knew those days were already gone forever.

She quietly stood in line for food. No one spoke to her. She had never been this bored in her life.

Every so often, she lifted her eyes and saw Zhou Yi not far away. Every time, he avoided her gaze.

Normally, Zhou Yi was her boyfriend. Some girls at school had caused trouble for her over that more than once, but back then Ning Jia had been the young miss of the Ningyuan Group, and anyone who wanted to make trouble had to consider the fallout.

Times had changed. When the tiger fell to the plains, even the dogs bullied it. If anyone gave her trouble again because of Zhou Yi, she probably would have to swallow the humiliation and blood together.

Ning Jia shook her head, added the food she liked to her tray, then sat by the window and ate dinner quietly. She also took two cartons of milk to stockpile. She would drink some at night. It was not as good as medication for sleep, but Ning Jia still felt it was useful.

The people around her kept their distance, but Duan Jingjing hurried over. Just as she opened her mouth, Ning Jia said, “Don’t come bother me.”

Her voice was even and unhurried, cold to the extreme, and it cut Duan Jingjing off right in the middle of the road. See, right after she said that, someone really did come looking for trouble.

Ning Jia looked at Zhou Yi again. He immediately turned his head away.

Zhou Yi had already been offered admission to two American universities. Coming here was probably pure playfulness.

He was the one who had pursued Ning Jia. At their age, seeing everyone else with boyfriends and girlfriends, it was hard not to feel some stirrings of springtime. After the two of them worked together on an opening ceremony, Zhou Yi showed strong interest in her. Ning Jia still remembered him telling her, “I’ll protect you.”

In hindsight, that promise was absurd. When the Ning family fell, everyone kept their distance and refused to wade into those muddy waters. The people who had once been beneath her climbed onto her head to bully her, and the one who had once said he would protect her had become a coward hiding in his shell.

Seeing the surrounding noise and clamor, Duan Jingjing suppressed her anger, turned, and left. The reason she had come was simple. Ning Jia had actually dared to keep looking at Zhou Yi so many times. Was she still acting like his girlfriend?

After Ning Jia finished eating and left, she saw Zhou Yi waiting for her at the entrance, and it was even when there was no one around.

“Jiajia…”

Ning Jia put away her smile. “I don’t want to hear your voice.”

Zhou Yi had wanted to make up with her privately and have the two of them part peacefully, which would have looked better if it got out. But when he saw her throw him a cold face, his expression changed too. She heard him shouting behind her, “What the hell are you so cocky about?”

She had a temper too. When she was unhappy, the gentle smile vanished completely from her face, and she became a blade with poison-tipped thorns. Whoever came to provoke her, she stabbed them.

Of course, in ordinary moments, Ning Jia still wore a faint smile, though it carried a certain keep-your-distance feel.

She and Zhou Yuyan were not in the same teaching building, so they usually did not run into each other. But when school was over, they did meet. Zhou Yuyan was waiting for her, ready to take her home.

Ning Jia shook her head. “Go back. I can just take the subway.”

“It’s this late. Are you sure you’ll be okay?”

Ning Jia nodded. “I’ll be okay. Besides, I have to get used to it sooner or later. Yuyuan, thank you. Really, you’ve been so good to me.”

By the end of her sentence, her voice had a faint choke in it.

Zhou Yuyan’s eyes reddened as she hugged her tightly.

Ning Jia followed the route she had taken on the way in and walked toward the subway station. She took out her transit card and was ready to tap in, but after searching for a long time, she still couldn’t find it.

The cash in her backpack had disappeared too.

The summer uniform was only a skirt, with no pockets. Ning Jia had put everything she owned in her backpack. Tonight was the first time she had ever gone home from school after dark, and even though she had made complete preparations, she had never expected the things she prepared to go missing.

She opened her phone, only to find that today happened to be the day her service had run out. She couldn’t get online, and she couldn’t make calls either.

If she had known, she would not have cared so much about face and gone home with Zhou Yuyan.

Embarrassed, she walked out of the subway station and wandered back along the original route in a daze. As if to underline her misery, a heavy rain began to fall from the sky.

Ning Jia had brought an umbrella. She opened the pink canopy and instinctively walked in the direction of home.

This high school was only two streets away from the Ning family home. When Ning Jia was craving snacks, she would walk back and buy some food from the street stalls along the way.

Now the stalls had long since closed. Ning Jia stood blankly at the intersection. She could see the three-story villa, dark and empty in the distance.

Ning Jia stood there like a little wooden post. People occasionally passed by, glanced at her school uniform, and left.

The sudden rain of early summer was fierce, and the wind swept through with it. Her umbrella was instantly battered apart by the storm, and Ning Jia was knocked backward by the force, falling hard onto the ground with a thud.

Could it get any worse? Ning Jia asked herself. How much more miserable could a person be after falling to the bottom? It seemed like she no longer had any space left to go down.

Her hands and knees were instantly scraped open. She lifted them to look and saw blood everywhere.

Ning Jia had once seen her little dog lie in the rain like this, unable to make a sound, only panting over and over. After a long, drawn-out agony, it was completely buried under the earth.

At this moment, she actually found herself missing her little dog.

Ning Jia’s eyes burned hot, tears surging up. A curtain seemed to fall from the sky, and she looked up in terror, thinking it was that handful of thin soil.

Rich sandalwood mixed into the mud.

The deus ex machina in a novel was probably exactly this. Without any reason, without any warning, he appeared here and covered her, hunting in the same boring way one might catch a fish stranded on the beach.

Shen Yicheng reached out and lifted her off the ground with ease. His suit coat could almost wrap her from head to toe. Ning Jia staggered once, then poked her head out from his outerwear, her face deathly pale and her body shaking from the cold. Still, she tried to keep her tone normal when she said to him, “Thank you… Uncle.”

Shen Yicheng lowered his head and looked at her bloodless lips. Then he tightened his arm and lifted her off the ground. The next second, she was set safely in the back seat. Ning Jia struggled to make room for one person. He sat down, and she immediately shifted toward him, bumping heavily into his chest.

He raised an arm, his gaze skimming over her wounds, and gave a soft laugh. “Little princess, this miserable?”

It was the first thing he had said to her in years.

What had their last conversation been? He did not come back often. When he occasionally came to her house, he would only be there by himself, hand her a red envelope, then drink and chat with her father. Shen Yicheng seemed to love smiling. Back then, he would call her “little princess.” He had once given her a jade Buddha, and Ning Guoqiang said he had carved it himself. Ning Jia was so grateful she practically enshrined it.

The thing she said to him most often was “thank you.”

Thank you for his gifts. Thank you… for his help.

Ning Jia wiped at her tears and sobbed quietly. Shen Yicheng patted her shoulder. They passed by the home she used to live in, and Ning Jia did not lift her head to look. Shen Yicheng remained silent the whole way. The car twisted and turned through the neighborhood until a two-story villa appeared before her.

She seemed to have heard that Shen Yicheng also had a house over here, but Ning Jia did not know where it was, and she had never been here before.

It was a small house with a slightly English style. The garden on the first floor was planted with all kinds of flowers that bloomed in every season, and roses climbed the railings. If not for this cruel weather, it would have been beautiful like a fairy tale when the sun was shining.

The assistant sitting in the front passenger seat helped her out of the car, and someone held an umbrella for Shen Yicheng too. He opened the gate, walked to the front door, entered the password, and after a string of musical notes, the door opened.

The interior was elegant and minimalist. At the entrance stood a black-and-gold metal sculpture. Ning Jia walked in with hesitant steps, and Shen Yicheng patted the chair in the dining room, so she had no choice but to sit.

Her skirt and top were both dripping wet. Ning Jia hugged his coat tightly. The servant auntie who looked after Shen Yicheng hurried over, and when she saw Ning Jia, her expression changed.

“Auntie, bring the medicine box.”

“Okay…”

The medicine box was brought over. Ning Jia obediently spread out her hand. Shen Yicheng went to find cotton swabs and did not look up as he said lightly, “Auntie, why are you just standing there?”

The assistant looked anxious. Ning Jia looked like she was about to be drenched half to death, and yet no one even helped fetch a towel or bring a cup of hot water. She had at least served Shen Yicheng for more than ten years. How had she become so slow now?

Shen Yicheng held her wrist and soaked a cotton swab in alcohol. Ning Jia’s entire body tensed up. The moment the alcohol touched her skin, pain spread through every cell in her body. She could not help letting out a low cry, but she did not pull her hands back.

Shen Yicheng picked out the little stones with little pity and very fast movements. Then he sat to the side, lifted Ning Jia’s calf, and wiped at her knee.

Ning Jia hurt so badly she almost fainted.

He dealt with it very quickly, wrapped it in a bandage, and also covered it with a layer of waterproof plastic film along the way. Then he asked her, “Can you go take a shower?”

Ning Jia said, “Yes.”

“Drink some hot water.”

She picked it up and drank half a cup, then steadied herself and finished the rest. During this time, the assistant had already left, and only the three of them remained in the dining room.

After Ning Jia finished the water, she wanted to return his suit coat to him. When he saw the drenched state of her clothes, he gathered the two lapels together with one hand and said to her, “Keep wearing it.”

Ning Jia obeyed his command without question.