Chapter 29: The Wet Stain on the Shirt, It Couldn't Be Chen Ye's... Right?!

"Zhao Qimin?" Su Siyun instantly frowned.

Hearing her voice, Chen Ye, who had almost reached Weng Jilin, naturally looked over and realized the speaker was their class monitor, Zhao Qimin. He was about 175 centimeters tall, dressed head-to-toe in designer clothes, and wore a watch on his wrist. His hair was styled with a side-swept fringe that covered one eye, and he sported an earring. He looked extremely trendy.

Beside Zhao Qimin was a short-haired girl wearing a yellow graphic T-shirt and a short black tulle skirt. Her hair was teased into an explosive volume and clipped with several colorful barrettes.

"She's a true product of this era's aesthetic," Chen Ye noted inwardly, offering an honest assessment. In truth, for anyone chasing trends these days, their outfits were pretty much identical to this girl's. On the contrary, Su Siyun's style—which resembled an ordinary female college student from a decade later—and Jiang Xin's simple solid-colored dresses were much rarer.

From what he knew, Zhao Qimin had also pursued Su Siyun, persistently chasing her almost until college graduation. This was despite the fact that Zhao had cycled through countless girlfriends in the meantime. However, Chen Ye only took one glance and decided not to meddle. Whether Zhao Qimin pursued Su Siyun had nothing to do with him, nor did he want to provoke the guy. After all, Zhao's father was a minor leader at a state-owned enterprise, essentially making Zhao a second-generation official of sorts. Chen Ye couldn't afford to offend him.

But clearly, Su Siyun—whose emotions were still slightly unstable after her recent crying spell—had no intention of letting him off the hook so easily.

"Yeah, Chen Ye and I came over to ride the Ferris wheel tonight and even had a candlelit dinner." She smiled, her tone relaxed, showing absolutely no trace of her earlier disarray. Just then, the waiters came over to clean out the cabin, carrying trays and rose candles as they walked past them.

Zhao Qimin's pupils contracted, surprise flashing across his face. It wasn't that he hadn't heard about the Ferris wheel's candlelit dinner option, but he also knew the price: one thousand yuan per person.

"Chen Ye treated you?" he asked, trying his best to maintain a composed expression.

"Of course not. Our Eldest Young Master Weng paid for it," Su Siyun said, looking toward Weng Jilin. Catching Chen Ye turning around at that exact moment, she even waved her finger at him.

Zhao Qimin's gaze naturally followed hers. He noticed that, aside from Chen Ye, who had just stepped down from the cabin, Weng Jilin and Study Commissar Yu Mengmeng were also there. As the class monitor, he might not know every single detail about his classmates, but he definitely knew more than most. One glance was enough to figure out what was happening tonight. Weng Jilin had booked two Ferris wheel cabins with candlelit dinners—one for his best buddy and one for himself—so they could both confess.

"He has more money than brains," Zhao Qimin sneered inwardly. "Money is meant to be flashed to women, not spent on them. I could treat a girl to a hundred-yuan Western meal downstairs, take a regular two-hundred-yuan Ferris wheel ride, and achieve an even better effect than Weng Jilin's thousand-yuan splurge. Sometimes, all it takes is a silver tongue."

Outwardly, however, he maintained his sunny, magnanimous class monitor persona.

"I'm going to say hi," Zhao Qimin told the girl beside him, then turned and walked toward Chen Ye.

Glancing dismissively at the girl Zhao Qimin had brought, Su Siyun let out a soft "HMPH" and followed him. How could she not know that Zhao Qimin had designs on her? But more importantly, she knew exactly what kind of person he was. He was a sanctimonious hypocrite. He claimed to like her, but privately, he never had a shortage of girlfriends. He also frequently abused his power as the class monitor. He only got by because of his sweet-talking and his father's status, which kept the teachers happy. Otherwise, the class monitor position should have belonged to Yu Mengmeng. She didn't even want to give a guy like him the time of day.

By the time she reached Chen Ye's spot, Zhao Qimin had already wrapped an arm around Weng Jilin's shoulders, laughing and chatting.

"You've got all this money, man! You should've invited me too. I could've lent you a hand, couldn't I?"

Weng Jilin didn't seem to be in very high spirits. His mood was a far cry from when he first arrived. Faced with Zhao Qimin's enthusiastic greeting, he merely offered an awkward smile. "Next time, next time."

When Su Siyun walked over, her first instinct was to look at Chen Ye. But the moment she met his eyes, she was reminded of the tear-soaked patch on the front of her shirt. Her almond eyes widened instantly as she shot him a silent, glaring warning. Only then did she look at Yu Mengmeng.

Yu Mengmeng was holding a beautifully packaged, flat box in her arms. Her expression was as adorably blank as usual, though with an added hint of nervous awkwardness.

She wondered what was going on here. One had given a gift and was now down in the dumps; the other had eaten a candlelit dinner, received a gift, and was now standing there at a loss? For a moment, Su Siyun couldn't make sense of the situation. However, it wasn't the right time to ask directly; she would have to wait until later to get the details.

Meanwhile, three seconds earlier, Zhao Qimin—seeing that he couldn't get much out of Weng Jilin—had prepared to confront his main target: Chen Ye.

"Who does this guy think he is, having a candlelit dinner with the woman I've already claimed?!" he raged inwardly. In all of Luzhou Sixth Middle School, only he—Zhao Qimin—was worthy of Su Siyun in terms of looks, family background, and ability. No one else measured up.

Yet, when he looked at Chen Ye and followed his line of sight, he was shocked to see Su Siyun pouting and glaring at Chen Ye. Moreover, it was painfully obvious that a small patch of Su Siyun's shirt was wet. Connecting this to the fact that the two had just come down from the Ferris wheel...

Instantly, a sickening thought grew wildly in his mind.

"Fuck, don't tell me that's Chen Ye's saliva!!!"

Zhao Qimin whipped his head back to Chen Ye, his eyes murderous. He hadn't even been able to touch the woman he had been fawning over for two years, and now some other guy was licking her directly?! He couldn't accept this reality!

So, he decided to test the waters.

"Chen Ye, the college entrance exams have been over for two days now. Why haven't you gone back? I remember your hometown is in the Ludong rural area, isn't it?" As he spoke, Zhao Qimin placed a hand heavily on Chen Ye's shoulder.

Chen Ye calmly removed Zhao Qimin's hand and replied with a polite smile, "I'm heading home first thing tomorrow morning."

He actually didn't know much about Zhao Qimin personally; everything he knew came from Su Siyun. Whatever she knew, he knew. Consequently, he had very little interest in engaging with him.

But Zhao Qimin immediately pressed on, "Siyun said you had a candlelit dinner with her. Even I can't afford something like that. You can't let Young Master Weng spend so much money just to help you pick up girls, right? I recall your family isn't doing too well financially. You should save up some money for college tuition."

As soon as those words left his mouth, the atmosphere took a noticeable turn for the awkward. Chen Ye might not be a social butterfly, but over a decade of adult life experience made it easy for him to read between the lines.

He was in the way.

"You're overthinking it, Class Monitor. I just tagged along for a free meal," Chen Ye said.

"Oh, is that so?" A smile surfaced on Zhao Qimin's face. "If it's just a free meal, no problem. Next time you're free, I'll invite you over to my place. My parents are always telling me to bring the classmates with good grades home so I can learn from them. They especially love students like you, who come from special backgrounds but study so hard."

He patted Chen Ye on the shoulder, his tone sounding incredibly earnest and warm, as if he were genuinely looking out for him.

But at this point, even the relatively dense Weng Jilin could taste the underlying flavor of those words.

Passive-aggressive and dripping with sarcasm!