When they reached the outside of the auditorium, Yu Buqi exchanged a blank stare with the driver. After casting a glance back at his uncle and receiving a signal, he very consciously and proactively got into the front passenger seat.
Jiang Yuchi had originally assumed that once they got to the car, Yu Qinghuai would put Yu Buying down. Unexpectedly, he simply continued to hold Yu Buying as he sat down.
The back seat was quite spacious, but Jiang Yuchi still instinctively felt that the scene was somewhat subtle. She said in a joking tone, "I remember the passenger seat used to be your dedicated spot."
After their marriage, Yujie often took her out to have fun, and at those times Yu Qinghuai would always pop up from somewhere and muscle his way in.
Without a word of explanation, he would open the passenger seat door and sit straight down. Naturally, the driver wouldn't dare make a move against this second young master, so he could only cast a plea for help toward Yujie.
Yujie had a very good temper, especially toward this younger brother. Everyone in their circle knew that he had doted on his brother since childhood and let him have his way in everything, but Jiang Yuchi felt there had to be more to the story behind that rumor.
Whenever he encountered someone deliberately coming to disrupt their date, Yujie's expression wouldn't change, but once inside, he would completely treat his younger brother as if he were air, acting as though no one else was around while being all lovey-dovey with Jiang Yuchi right in front of him.
The air might have been fine, but once, while she was kissing Yujie under the fireworks on the terrace of the amusement park, Jiang Yuchi accidentally turned around and caught sight of Yu Qinghuai's gloomy expression.
At that moment, he looked rather comical. Not only was he holding several gift bags all over his body, but he was also wearing three cute cartoon headbands on his head.
These were all things Jiang Yuchi had bought on a whim along the way, lost interest in, and casually tossed to Yujie, who in turn tossed them to this volunteer who had joined in to suffer as a "love bodyguard."
Even so, Yu Qinghuai still threw himself into it with unflagging enthusiasm—right up until that banquet.
Her train of thought was cut off right there.
"What you liked in the past isn't necessarily what you like now," Yu Qinghuai said meaningfully. "I didn't use to like you, either."
Jiang Yuchi choked slightly, and could only pretend she hadn't heard. Alternating between looking out the window and tapping away at her phone, she put on an air of being extremely busy.
As soon as she opened WeChat, a message popped up that made Jiang Yuchi knit her brows.
Xin Su: The driver asked for leave to attend a wedding banquet. I'll come pick you up tomorrow night.
After Jiang Yuchi spent a full three minutes editing and revising the text within the message box, she finally slowly sent out a "Okay."
She tapped on Xin Su's WeChat avatar, which showed a brilliant starry sky.
For a very long time, her attitude toward Xin Su had been one of avoidance—especially after she learned that the reason Xin Su hadn't replied to her letters during the summer vacation after the gaokao was because he was the "sole survivor" of the massive mudslide that had submerged a village in the news.
The darkest period of her life had begun to gleam with light because she met Xin Su.
Back then, the other students on the island secretly called her "Young Miss," and it was the kind of nickname tainted with a sense of mockery.
Haishi No. 1 High School was already the best high school on White Gull Island, but that was all it was. Placed in the context of the entire province or even the entire city, it actually didn't rank at all, and anyone on the island with real capital would send their children away to study.
Therefore, Jiang Yuchi—who lived alone in a luxury villa, was picked up and dropped off by a driver for school, and spent money lavishly—drew plenty of private criticism and controversy. If her family were truly wealthy, why would they leave her to study in such a small place as White Gull Island? Could it be...
When she had first entered Haishi No. 1 High School, Jiang Yuchi was still completely innocent and bright-eyed, actively trying to fit in. But gradually, Jiang Yuchi became more and more silent.
By the end, with her indifferent gaze and solitary habits, she truly resembled the arrogant, looking-down-on-everyone Young Miss that the others talked about.
She sat in the corner of the back row, lying prone on her desk while secretly scrolling through her phone. She happened to see a video channel introducing how luxurious a prison in Iceland was, and at the end, it jokingly said: How can someone get locked in? Online waiting! Urgent!
Jiang Yuchi's fingertips lightly tapped "Not interested," thinking to herself, no matter how luxurious it is, in the end it's still just a caged bird denied its freedom.
That was until the first day of school, after classes ended, in her first semester of high school, when the housekeeper brought Xin Su before her.
"Those two people in Jing City received your grades from last semester and were very dissatisfied. They told me to arrange for a tutor to bring your grades up."
Hearing this, a flash of mockery crossed Jiang Yuchi's eyes. What? Once she got into a good university, could they rebel against that stubborn old man and make him let her "out of prison"?
Those two people were wealthy and overbearing. Their initial idea was to throw money around to hire an outside tutoring tutor, buying out three whole years so the person could move into the villa on White Gull Island and tutor Jiang Yuchi full-time.
However, any tutor with a bit of a reputation nowadays wasn't short on money, and once they heard those terms, more than half of them were scared off.
As it turned out, the villa's driver overheard the housekeeper mentioning this matter and proactively suggested that his distant nephew, Xin Su, could do it.
Xin Su... Jiang Yuchi wasn't the least bit unfamiliar with this name. Every monthly exam last semester, he firmly sat on the throne of the top rank in their grade, and his Chinese compositions were even photocopied and distributed to all the students in the school to study together after every exam.
Xin Su was in Class 1, and she was in Class 13. Even though they were in the same school and the same grade, the two of them had actually barely crossed paths. There was no room to talk of hate, let alone like.
Jiang Yuchi had originally wanted to refuse, but when she read a hint of nervous apprehension in the driver's gaze—as if he really hoped Xin Su would get this job—she slowly nodded instead.
The next day after dinner, Jiang Yuchi met Xin Su in the study.
The boy was sitting at her desk, frowning as he flipped through her mess of a final exam paper from the previous semester. His school uniform, washed thin, exuded a fresh scent of soap. When he turned his head and saw her, there was a momentary flash of astonishment.
After a long pause, Jiang Yuchi heard his thin lips part slightly as he called her "Young Miss."
Perhaps because the boy's expression and tone were far too natural, for the very first time, Jiang Yuchi didn't feel offended by the term.