Chapter 56: Senior, What Happened to You?

Song Qingqing followed Zhang Yang into the office.

After Zhang Yang poured her a cup of tea, she sat in a chair and looked around the office with curiosity.

An LCD monitor, something usually only seen on television, sat atop a desk that still smelled of fresh packaging. The desktop was cluttered with a dense mess of various planning proposals and resumes.

Aside from these, a bookshelf nearby was neatly lined with a large collection of books by various famous figures. One look was enough to tell they had been recently purchased just for decoration. Lifting her gaze slightly higher, she saw a framed piece of calligraphy hanging crookedly behind Zhang Yang’s desk. It bore the words “Purple Qi from the East¹,” but the script didn’t look like running script, cursive, or official script²…

In short, the brushwork was extremely bizarre.

Staring intently at the signature on the calligraphy, Song Qingqing squinted for a long time before she finally made out the name: “Zhang Yang.”

“Senior… when did you change your name?”

“I saw a fortune teller. He said the name Zhang Lin clashed with my horoscope³ and that I’d be destitute my whole life, so I changed it to Zhang Yang…” Zhang Yang looked at Song Qingqing, answering her with a perfectly straight face.

In his hazy memories of four or five years ago, he had secretly spent his weekends and spare time running a private tutoring class, using his perfect math scores as his credentials.

Back then, his living expenses were all covered by the money he earned from those tutoring sessions.

He remembered having many students who looked up to him. It seemed one of them had indeed been named Song Qingqing.

However, the Song Qingqing in his memory was a somewhat timid, rustic little girl who dressed plainly – a country girl who always seemed a bit slow on the uptake.

She seemed like a completely different person from the lively, elegant, and seemingly fashionable girl standing before him now.

Zhang Yang kept searching his memory until their facial features finally overlapped.

The “eighteen transformations of a girl⁴” were one thing, but this much change in just four or five years was a bit excessive, wasn’t it?

Did she get plastic surgery?

“Oh…” Song Qingqing nodded. She looked at Zhang Yang again and asked a question that had been buried deep in her heart for years. “Senior, I’ve had a question all these years. Why did you suddenly stop going to school back then? Your grades were so good, and you were so smart and talented. We all thought getting into Yanjing University would be a breeze for you. We even thought you might become the top scorer in the county’s college entrance exam. Why did you suddenly drop out in your senior year?”

Song Qingqing took a sip of water.

Her memory drifted back five years.

Five years ago…

Zhang Yang – or rather, Zhang Lin.

At that time, Zhang Lin’s grades in every subject were monstrous. In every school exam, she would see his name in the top five; he never slipped.

Their little tutoring group didn’t even look at their own results when the rankings were posted. Instead, they kept their eyes glued to Zhang Lin’s scores. On math exams that everyone else found incredibly difficult, Zhang Lin never scored below a 140 out of 150. He was practically a freak of nature.

The children in their group idolized Zhang Lin, believing he was a god of literature descended to earth, someone incredibly impressive.

At the same time, they had fantasized about Zhang Lin becoming the top scorer in the college entrance exams. They thought they could share in his glory during interviews by saying, “This is my senior; he used to tutor us in math and English…”

However…

Just as they were entering their junior year and Zhang Lin was supposed to start his senior year…

Something changed.

She had taken the pocket money her parents gave her and followed the others to the small grove to find Zhang Lin for their math lesson.

But…

The grove was empty. They waited for a long time, but no one showed up.

That day was September 1st.

Song Qingqing ran to Zhang Lin’s classroom to ask his homeroom teacher about him, only to be told that Zhang Lin had withdrawn from school.

She still remembered the helpless, pained expression on the teacher’s face.

The teacher said he had spoken to Zhang Lin very seriously about the future job market and the importance of a degree. He had even said that if Zhang Lin couldn’t afford the tuition, he could apply for national poverty grants, or the teacher would even pay the tuition for him, letting Zhang Lin pay him back slowly once he had money.

In truth!

He desperately wanted Zhang Lin to attend his senior year!

But in the end, Zhang Lin had followed his father through the withdrawal process. While everyone else was arriving for the new term, Zhang Lin and his family left the school.

“Maybe he transferred,” the teacher had remarked with a sigh, his voice still carrying a flicker of hope.

But from that day on…

Song Qingqing never heard another word about Zhang Lin.

On weekends, she had gathered people to go looking for Zhang Lin’s village.

But there was no one named Zhang Lin in that village at all.

It seemed he had been lying to them the whole time!

The village he had talked about during their tutoring sessions wasn’t his village at all…

After that!

There was no news, as if he had vanished from the face of the earth.

To her surprise, years later, she saw a familiar shadow in the news.

However, his name was Zhang Yang.

With the mindset of just giving it a try, she had come to this technology company…

The morning sun was brilliant.

The clock on the wall ticked away.

Song Qingqing stared intently at Zhang Yang, seemingly waiting for his answer.

But Zhang Yang didn’t look at her. Instead, he wiped away some sweat.

“It’s a bit hot… I’ll turn on the air conditioning first.”

She watched as Zhang Yang turned to switch on the unit. When he turned back, the breeze caught his hair, and he looked at her with a beaming smile.

“Student Song… actually, how should I put it? Back then, I felt that studying was useless and wanted to start a business… In fact, look at Formalin (Gates) abroad; he dropped out in his sophomore year to start a business, and only then did he build the Micro-Invasive (Microsoft) empire… And then there’s the mobile industry giant, Hammer; he also discovered a new business opportunity and dropped out to start his company…” Zhang Yang laughed brightly, citing international business giants one by one. Then he pointed to his surroundings. “See? Look at how well I’m doing now. I have my own company, quite a few employees, and the future is limitless…”

“But, Senior, you said your dream was to become a lawyer. You said you wanted to master every clause of the law so you could put loan sharks behind bars. You were so serious back then. I thought you meant it…” Song Qingqing felt a sudden, sharp discomfort at being addressed as “Student Song.” Without realizing it, her voice grew strained.

“Haha, being a lawyer is such a high-class profession. If I hadn’t lied to you like that, how would I have convinced you to pay for my training sessions? A lawyer? How much money do they even make?” Zhang Yang chuckled, though it wasn’t a hearty laugh. He merely squinted his eyes with a smirk. “Student Song, I apologize for deceiving you back then. In fact, even that story about my village was a lie. Back then, I just habitually enjoyed tricking naive, adorable underclassmen like you. Seeing the way you looked at me with such trust and admiration… looking back now, I still find it quite amusing.”

“…” Looking at Zhang Yang’s playful, mocking expression, Song Qingqing found herself at a loss for words.

She didn’t know why, but she felt a surge of anger.

She wasn’t sure if it was because she had been deceived or for some other reason.

Ultimately, she simply shook her head and looked out the window.

“Being a lawyer isn’t just about the money. Besides, lawyers can make a lot of money!” She shook her head again, her tone remarkably serious.

“Making games makes even more! Student Song⁵, since you’re here for an internship and I happen to be free, I’ll show you around and get you up to speed on the company…” Zhang Yang stood up, still wearing that smile, prepared to give Song Qingqing a tour.

Song Qingqing followed behind him as he described future trends, the company’s thriving state, and various philosophical concepts behind their work.

But her mind was elsewhere.

She seemed deeply disappointed.

She remained silent through the entire process, simply observing.

Until the very end…

Once they returned to the office, Song Qingqing finally lowered her head.

“Senior…”

“What is it?”

“I feel like you’ve changed, but at the same time, you haven’t. I feel like… like you’re very tired, and you’re trying desperately to hide something.”

“Yeah, I am pretty tired. A new company comes with a lot of work.”

“Is there anything I can do?”

“If possible, I’d like you to help me draft some contracts. The company will definitely need a legal consulting team in the future. If you’re interested, I’d like to hire you. Don’t worry about the salary; we’ve known each other for years, so I definitely won’t mistreat you.”

“…”

Looking at Zhang Yang’s expression, Song Qingqing nodded subconsciously.

“Senior, can you tell me the truth?”

“About what?”

“Do you really dislike university? Do you truly think it’s useless? That a degree is worthless?”

“…”

Song Qingqing saw Zhang Yang’s expression freeze.

Then, he shook his head with a smile. “It’s useful. It’s definitely useful. Anyway, I need to start planning the content for our new game, God of Conquest. If you have nothing else to do for now, go ahead and familiarize yourself with the workflows of the other departments. Thanks for your hard work.”

After Zhang Yang finished speaking, he closed the office door.

The moment he stepped inside, his smile vanished instantly. A flash of sorrow crossed his eyes as he stared at the raindrops hitting the window.

“How could it possibly be useless?”

That evening.

After familiarizing herself with the work routines, Song Qingqing arrived at the dormitory the company had assigned to her.

When she turned on her computer to go online…

She saw two news headlines.

“Beat the Grass Mud Horse Reported by Parents… Contains Excessive Negative and Violent Elements, Affecting Children’s Growth…”

“Universe Technology Head Zhang Yang Exposed as a Dishonest Person Subject to Enforcement⁶…”

“…”

(End of Chapter)

Translator’s Notes