GDRG CH2

Chapter 2: The Green Tea Schemer’s Candle Gift

Shi Xueqing was in bed, filled with painful regret.
—His hand had trembled. While preparing to switch screens to search on Google, he had accidentally clicked “follow.”

On that JensenX.

In the end, it was all the fault of shaking milk tea all afternoon, which had made his hand tremble. Shi Xueqing clutched his phone, agonizing for a long time. He thought, if he unfollowed now, wouldn’t that just make it more obvious?

Besides, maybe—just maybe—when he woke up, this JensenX would have followed him back?

Wouldn’t he then be able to peek at his homepage?

Right, all international students are one big family, after all!

Shi Xueqing convinced himself and was now too embarrassed to search on Google. He painfully dragged himself to take a shower, then collapsed back into bed and fell asleep, dead to the world.

Before he slept, he saw that JensenX had not followed him back.
When he woke up, he saw that JensenX still had not followed him back.

The follow-back notification didn’t arrive, but the apartment bill did. Shi Xueqing looked at the email and despairingly transferred over a thousand dollars from his card.

As soon as he stepped out, the rich aroma of Indian spices wafted down from upstairs, along with the sounds of Indian people, arms around each other’s shoulders, heading home to party. Shi Xueqing’s mood worsened.

The final exam week had just ended. Shi Xueqing had entered the summer break, but he had to start working constantly. His family had cut him off, and he had to earn enough for the next semester’s living expenses before September. Thankfully, the tuition for the next semester had already been paid for him in advance; otherwise, the deficit would have been truly and utterly hopeless.

Moreover, with his student visa, he couldn’t take on many official jobs and could only secretly work shaking milk tea at a Chinese-owned shop. Although the university’s offices offered some student work opportunities at twenty to thirty dollars an hour, the positions were hard to get. Besides, Shi Xueqing didn’t want others to know his family had cut him off.

For one, as that girl had said yesterday, the school’s social atmosphere wasn’t great, and his financial status would determine how people treated him.

For another, how could a bankrupt “green tea” who couldn’t even package himself properly find a wonderful rich woman?

Shi Xueqing went to shake milk tea for another day, fully armed in his disguise. After finishing his shift, he bumped into someone on the street.

“Yo, long time no see. Why didn’t you go out and have fun during the break?” the person said with ill intent.

Shi Xueqing didn’t want to bother with him. But the person continued to block his way, his expression mocking. “Your family ran out of money, right?”

Shi Xueqing finally, slowly, looked back at him.

The person blocking him was dressed head-to-toe in Balenciaga, so much so that when Shi Xueqing first met him, he had only mentally noted him down as “Balenciaga Bro.” It took him over half a year to remember that this person’s name was Li Yuan, and his name really did contain the character for ‘Li’.

They had attended the same American high school in the same city and had been accepted into the same university. The international student circle was small. This guy’s family had a bit of money, and he had looked down on Shi Xueqing since high school, thinking he was a poser. After getting into the same university, he was even more relentless in his efforts to expose Shi Xueqing’s facade.

The rumor that Shi Xueqing’s family had possibly cut him off was spread by him.

“Why aren’t you out having fun either?” Shi Xueqing said leisurely. “Did you spend all your money on Balenciaga?”

Li Yuan: …

Shi Xueqing: “I heard your mom froze your supplementary card half a month ago in a fit of anger. What, did the card get unfrozen? Back to your old act again?”

Li Yuan was choked up for a moment, then sneered after a while. “You’re dressed so shabbily. Everything you’re wearing must have been picked from Zara’s clearance rack.”

This time, Shi Xueqing was stung. He also sneered, “What do you know? This is called the ‘artsy style’.”

He adopted the artsy style precisely because it saved money. Shirts, sweaters, jeans, solid-colored T-shirts, knitwear—the simpler, the more artistic. What did Li Yuan know?

He took two steps, and Li Yuan caught up again. “I heard you’re pursuing Xing Wei recently?”

Pursuing? A true “green tea” never does anything obvious. Shi Xueqing glanced at him and gave a subtle smile that said, “How can you be so crude?”

Li Yuan really seemed to be here to compete. He added, “You have quite the beautiful dream, trying to climb the social ladder and break into the upper circle? Why would she ever be interested in you? She is…”

Shi Xueqing’s phone rang.

He opened his phone and gave Li Yuan another subtle smile. Li Yuan felt a chill run down his spine from the look and asked him, “What are you smiling about?”

“She invited me to a Dragon Boat Festival party. She said her brother said he hoped to invite all his friends.” Shi Xueqing looked at him sympathetically, emphasizing the word “friends.” “Did you get an invitation?”

…He really hadn’t.

Xing Wei’s brother was such a good person, a timely rain. Before leaving, Shi Xueqing delivered a final blow to Li Yuan. “You should be more careful with your money this summer. Are you going to have to pay to retake two courses next semester? I heard you failed two more classes.”

“Shi Xueqing!” Balenciaga Bro was incensed. “You just wait!”

Shi Xueqing turned back and gave him a faint, dismissive smile.

“I don’t need to wait. I’m a straight-A student.” He delivered the flex in the most nonchalant tone.

Shi Xueqing was very good at his studies. He just lacked money and liked luxury goods.

He couldn’t afford luxury goods. In the evening, he went to the park and picked up a beautiful fallen leaf, on which he wrote a poem.

“May the tumultuous summer bind me to the lucky chariot.”*

He had beautiful handwriting, a skill that was nothing short of a miracle for an international student who had been abroad since middle school. Soon, he held the leaf, changed angles a few dozen times, and deliberately placed it next to an expensive scented candle to take a photo.

After taking the photo, he quickly blew out the candle. He would need it for the next shoot.

If you can’t post luxury goods, posting something artsy can also bait people. This is the power of art.

When Shi Xueqing posted on his Moments, Xing Wei happened to be scrolling through hers. She had added many fan-sisters on WeChat and, besides showing off her life on Instagram, she also posted about her fan activities on Moments. After seeing the melancholic leaf under her idol’s cover photo, and thinking of Shi Xueqing’s face, she casually gave it a like.

Xing Jun’s WeChat call came in right at that moment. Xing Wei answered, “Brother, why are you calling again?”

“I’m leaving the day after tomorrow. Just wanted to chat with you,” Xing Jun said, feigning nonchalance. “How many people have you invited?”

“About a dozen! It’s quite a lot. We’ll have to use the activity room on the top floor of the apartment.”

The apartment Xing Wei lived in was nothing like Shi Xueqing’s. She lived in the most luxurious apartment in the area, a luxury apartment.

“Oh,” Xing Jun continued. “Who’s coming?”

He looked at his screen. For the past few days, whenever he had a spare moment, he would glance at the account called Cyan_S.

He had also searched for this ID on Google but hadn’t found anything.
The profile picture was indeed very beautiful—even if it was Photoshopped.

“My two best friends, some friends from school, XX, XXX…” Xing Wei listed a few names. “Shi Xueqing, XXX…”

Shi Xueqing. When he heard this name, Xing Jun’s heart skipped a beat.
Cyan, surname S.

“Who is this Shi Xueqing? The name is quite special,” he probed. “A girl?”

“He’s a guy, haha, he’s quite pretty.”

Xing Jun’s fist tightened. He asked, “Pretty? Do you have a photo?”

“It’s on my Instagram. He came with us when we went to Seattle. You can take a look. He had a bad cold those few days he was traveling, so he looks much better in person. I never thought our rural northern area could produce such beauty…”

Xing Jun missed the second half of the sentence again. He gripped his phone tightly.
It really was him! He really was invited! He was really in his sister’s circle of friends!

“What’s he like?” Xing Jun probed again.

“He’s quite interesting, very artistic. He shares niche songs late at night, plays with collage poetry, hand-grinds his coffee… Oh, and he often writes poetry on fallen leaves. Let me send it to you.”

In a flash, Xing Wei sent the photo Shi Xueqing had shared on his Moments to Xing Jun.

Xing Jun looked at the verse on the leaf: …

“You sent him the invitation this afternoon, right?” Xing Jun said.

“Yeah, how did you know, brother?”

The lucky chariot… Xing Jun didn’t understand poetry, but he understood the word “lucky.” He paused and said, “What’s his family’s financial situation like?”

“I don’t know. Why are you curious about that, brother?”

“Nothing. I was just thinking that the trip you all took to Seattle last time was quite expensive. I remember… you treated, right?”

“Yeah, I invited him. Since I invited him on the trip, how could I let him spend money?” Xing Wei felt it was no big deal.

“Did he offer to split the cost?”

“Nope. He just said we should hang out again next time we have the chance.”

Xing Jun: …

“Brother, why did you stop talking?”

“Nothing, something suddenly came up at the company,” Xing Jun said faintly. “I’ll be flying over the morning after tomorrow.”

He hung up the phone and continued to stare at that profile picture. Then, he scrolled through Xing Wei’s Seattle trip photos one by one again.

In one group photo, the young man named Shi Xueqing was dressed thinly. He faced the camera, his smile faint and distant, as if he were very detached and carefree.

His waist is so thin.

Just then, Xing Jun saw the logo on the sneakers he was wearing. He searched the official website and found that the brand had never released that color.

Fake. As expected.

He looked at the photo again.
His waist is so thin.

…His sister probably Photoshopped the group photos for everyone, right?

Xing Jun lay in bed but couldn’t fall asleep for a long time. After five years of ruthlessly fighting for the family inheritance, kicking out his stepmother and biological father, and finally reclaiming a living space for himself and his sister, he had once again entered a high-alert battle state of paranoia.

Shi Xueqing, is it.
Trying to gold-dig my sister? Just you wait.

…

For some reason, after posting the photo, Shi Xueqing’s right eyelid had been twitching non-stop.

A twitching left eye means wealth, a twitching right eye means disaster. The twitching made him scared. He was very careful when he went out to buy things, afraid of losing his bank card.

He didn’t lose his bank card. But he was short a few dozen dollars.

He couldn’t go to Xing Wei’s Dragon Boat Festival party empty-handed, right? That would be too impolite.

Adhering to the principle of spending big money on small things, Shi Xueqing bought a scented candle. He then did some DIY, modifying the candle, and using his special skill, he engraved some musical scores on it.

“Für Elise.”

A green tea gold-digger’s baiting is bone-deep; he can cast a line at any time.

But after carving the notes, he felt a little wistful. He remembered the printed capelet he had seen in the Burberry window that afternoon. The more he looked at it, the more beautiful it was.

He was born to love shiny luxury goods, from collecting cups to collecting various decorations.
If the family fortune wasn’t controlled by his stepfather, he would have been a carefree young master too.

Before going to bed, he wrote another scholarship application to the international office. On the day of the Dragon Boat Festival, he got dressed, neat and tidy, and left home with the candle in hand.

Before leaving, he glanced at himself in the mirror.

A loose but waist-cinching linen white short-sleeved shirt, beige trousers, a black leather belt, and slightly long black hair falling on his shoulders and collarbone.

And the semi-permanent silver collarbone chain and ear stud.
Stylish, fresh, and beautiful.

Shi Xueqing was originally full of fighting spirit, but he felt a little pained after seeing the Uber price to Xing Wei’s apartment. In the end, he decided to walk a bit, take the bus, and then walk the rest of the way.

There was no need to pretend by taking a taxi for the last leg of the journey. What’s wrong with us artsy types liking to walk a little? Appreciating some summer scenery.

Thankfully, he didn’t sweat much and had no body odor.

…

This was Xing Jun’s first time in the small city where his sister was studying.

The school had a very good world ranking, but the area around the school was like a large countryside, and the closer you got to the school, the more rural it became. He sat in the Uber, still thinking about that artsy gold-digging man.

In New York, in Los Angeles, such men were countless. But he had never expected that his sister would come to study in a village and still run into one.

And a Photoshopped version at that. To be honest, thanks to a playboy friend, Xing Jun had seen several internet celebrities both online and offline. That gold-digger’s looks were such that even after being Photoshopped, they seemed a bit exaggeratedly so.

“It’s raining,” he heard the driver mutter.

The windshield wipers started working. The car stopped at a red light. Xing Jun casually looked out the window, and his gaze suddenly stopped at the crosswalk.

A person was standing there.
A white short-sleeved shirt, beige trousers. He seemed out of place with his surroundings, with a sense of detachment as if he had stepped out of a vintage pictorial from the last century. The person’s slightly long black hair was wet from the rain, and he was covering his head with one hand, looking a little disheveled.

The arm extending from the short sleeve was very slender, his skin strikingly white.

Xing Jun’s breath hitched. The green light came on. The person ran across the street, splashing through the water, pulled a newspaper from a shop, and then used the newspaper to cover his head as he continued to run. He was very tall, and the black belt cinched his waist very thin. His legs were also very long.

He kept running to the other side of the rain.

But the car started moving at that moment. The driver said, “Finally green. Let’s go.”