The Cinnabar Mole of a Beijing Circle Tycoon

The fire crackled in the fireplace inside the house, while snowflakes drifted down outside.

Shen Qingyao sat on the bed watching skiing tutorial videos on her iPad.

Her fingertips swiped across the screen, pausing repeatedly on the key points of the turning maneuver.

Half an hour later, the iPad screen was split in two, one half displaying a psychology course and the other half showing lecture notes.

Shen Qingyao adjusted the cushion, propped the iPad on her lap, and ran her fingertips over the theories about cognition and emotion, pausing occasionally to type notes in her memo app.

The fire in the fireplace gradually dimmed, leaving only a soft crackling sound, while the snow continued to fall outside the window.

After an unknown amount of time, the sky outside gradually darkened, and the blues began to appear.

Shen Qingyao took a photo and sent it to Lu Ying, captioned, "Switzerland's Blues moment!"

A moment later, Shen Qingyao's phone vibrated. It was a short video sent by Lu Ying. The camera was shaky, but you could see the figures moving around the dance floor. In the background, her voice mixed with the drumbeats could be heard: "Beijing's rock moment!"

After studying all afternoon, Shen Qingyao was a little hungry. She closed her iPad and prepared to go downstairs to the restaurant for dinner and take a stroll around the neighborhood.

She changed her clothes and went downstairs. The restaurant was warm and cozy, and the aroma of food wafted over her from the heating.

Shen Qingyao looked up and saw Su Wan sitting by the window.

Their eyes met, they both paused for a moment, then smiled at each other.

Shen Qingyao walked inside, and Su Wan waved to her: "Want to have dinner together?"

Shen Qingyao hesitated for two seconds, thinking that refusing would be too deliberate, after all, they were "acquaintances," so she said, "Okay!"

She walked over and sat down. The waiter handed her the menu, and Shen Qingyao ordered a ribeye steak, almond chicken wings, spicy cream shrimp, and cream of mushroom soup.

"Is Lu Linchuan not here this afternoon?"

"Yes, he went to meet with his business partner!"

"Oh~" Shen Qingyao took a sip of the hot water poured by the waiter.

"Won't Mr. Meng be here this afternoon either?"

"Yes, he went out to meet with his business partners too!"

The two of them didn't say anything more after talking about something else, and the atmosphere became somewhat awkward.

Shen Qingyao broke the silence, "How was your skiing this morning?"

"It took a little getting used to at first, but it got much better later, and I'm skating very smoothly now!" Su Wan also took a sip of hot water. "How about you? How was your practice this morning?"

"It's so-so, I feel it's too difficult!"

Having found a topic to talk about, the atmosphere between the two became much more comfortable.

"Skiing requires a lot of practice. You've only just started, so it's normal to find it difficult!"

"It takes time to adapt to new things!"

"And my legs were so sore in the afternoon," Shen Qingyao complained.

"You can apply a hot compress and get a massage! After we finish skiing tomorrow, we can go to the spa together to relax!"

"I think it's a good idea."

The waiter came to serve the food, and the exquisite dishes were placed in front of us. "They look very good!"

"The taste is pretty good too, Ah Chuan and I have eaten there before!"

Su Wan slowly cut the steak on her plate and said, "Qingyao, to be honest, in all these years, I've never seen Mr. Meng so considerate to anyone. You're so lucky!"

Shen Qingyao asked with some confusion, "You and A-Yu have known each other for a long time?"

"I know him, but he doesn't know me!"

"Um?"

"Mr. Meng and I went to the same high school. He was a senior when I was a freshman."

"Oh!" Shen Qingyao was a little surprised and looked up at her. "He is indeed quite eye-catching."

"He was so eye-catching back then, a god-like figure." Su Wan smiled. "He was handsome, had a cold personality, came from a wealthy family, and was generous to his classmates."

"During the basketball game, the girls on the sidelines would shout his name and the court would be completely surrounded."

"One after another, they offered him water and gave him love letters, but he always politely refused and walked away, which made the younger students completely infatuated with him."

She paused, looked at Shen Qingyao, and said with a hint of teasing, "He was the dream lover of every girl in school back then. We were all so curious about what kind of girlfriend he would choose. We never expected him to like someone as pure and lovely as you!"

"Maybe it was just fate; everything just happened to be perfect!"

Shen Qingyao couldn't help but smile as she imagined Meng Jiangyu in his high school uniform, looking aloof and unapproachable.

Shen Qingyao was wiping her mouth with a tissue when she looked up and saw Zhou Yanqiu and Xu Mingxuan walking in side by side.

"Oh, so the two sisters-in-law are here?" Xu Mingxuan smiled and raised his chin, his gaze sweeping over the empty plates on the table. "Not bad, you've got a strong fighting spirit."

Zhou Yanqiu nodded in agreement, her fingertips casually resting on the back of the chair, her tone light yet tinged with a smile: "We're back first. My cousin and Brother Chuan probably won't be back until tonight."

Su Wan put down her water glass: "Since we have nothing to do tonight, how about we get together for a game of mahjong?"

"Okay!" Shen Qingyao also became interested, but then she remembered that this was Switzerland, not China.

Shen Qingyao turned to look at the two of them: "There shouldn't be a mahjong machine here, right?"

"Yes!" Xu Mingxuan raised an eyebrow, put his arm around Zhou Yanqiu's shoulder, and looked smug. "We airlifted a mahjong machine over before we came."

Zhou Yanqiu slapped his hand away, a smile playing on her lips: "It's an annual tradition to play mahjong every night."

"You guys actually play mahjong?" Shen Qingyao stared at them with wide eyes.

"This is a national treasure!"

"My elders in the family like to hit me, so I've known how since I was little!" Xu Mingxuan explained.

The four of them chatted and laughed as they walked towards the card and mahjong room. Shen Qingyao followed behind, took out her phone, and sent a message to Meng Jiangyu: "[Ayu, I've made plans to play mahjong with Su Wan and the others. Come find me at the card and mahjong room when you get back tonight~]"

Within seconds, a message came back, containing only one simple line: "Have fun, it's on me if you lose."

Don't feel guilty. I usually beat them, so it doesn't matter how much you lose this time.

【Thanks, Daddy, for saving the day!】 She smiled and quickly followed the person in front of her, putting her phone away.

The warm lights in the card room were just right, and the mahjong tiles were neatly arranged.

The four people took their seats in turn. Zhou Yanqiu took out the chips and said, "Let's set the rules first. The starting price is 10,000, with no upper limit. Does everyone agree?"

"No objections!" Su Wan's fingertips pressed against the neatly arranged wall of cards. "I've been on a winning streak lately, so you'd better be prepared to lose money."

Xu Mingxuan nodded slightly, skillfully picking up the cards with his fingertips, his expression calm: "No objection."

Although Shen Qingyao was mentally prepared for a potentially big fight, she didn't expect it to be this big.

But since no one objected, and I didn't want to be different, I smiled and tucked a stray hair behind my ear. "Okay!"

She's only played mahjong a few times. She's not an expert, but she's meticulous.

Shen Qingyao implied that she didn't care about winning or losing; she just wanted to have some fun.

In the first hand, Xu Mingxuan had incredible luck, immediately getting two pairs of tiles. His draws were also incredibly smooth, and within a few rounds he discarded a nine of bamboo, declaring arrogantly, "Pong!"

He then drew another East Wind tile and immediately declared, "I won! I won with a self-drawn East Wind!"

In the second round, Xu Mingxuan was the dealer and rolled the dice. Zhou Yanqiu had an exceptionally good hand, starting with three 50,000s and a pair of "Fa Cai" (a type of tile in Chinese astrology) as his pair.

He immediately found his way through the game, and his subsequent draws were incredibly smooth. In just two rounds, he drew a 3 of Wan and quietly said, "I win."

In the next few rounds, the situation completely turned in favor of Zhou Yanqiu and Xu Mingxuan. They seemed to have a cheat code, winning one hand after another, either by self-draw or by intercepting other players' hands, leaving Su Wan and Shen Qingyao almost no chance.

As Su Wan pushed the cards aside, she muttered, "What an unlucky day! My luck is terrible!"

Shen Qingyao was also somewhat helpless. Her hand was either a loose hand or a hand that had just been formed when someone else intercepted it. She could only take out chips one after another.

These two are amazing.

She took out her phone and typed a message to Meng Jiangyu: "[Ayu, Su Wan and I lost terribly! They were so good!]"

But after thinking for a moment, she didn't send the message and decided to cheer herself up.

Seeking help from others is not a long-term solution; relying on yourself is the only way to secure your livelihood.

As her fingertips brushed against the cool surface of the mahjong tiles, Shen Qingyao rearranged her scattered hand of tiles according to their suits.

"Seventy thousand." The opponent threw down a card.

Shen Qingyao's fingertip paused on the 70,000 yuan note that had just been placed, her pupils contracted slightly, and she quickly suppressed her emotions.

Her hand was ready to win: three nines of bamboo, a pair of twos of characters as the pair, and a sequence of three, four, five, six, seven, and eight of characters. She was only missing one seven of characters.

"Hu." She said softly, then shoved her hand of tiles over with a clatter.

From then on, the situation began to turn around, and Shen Qingyao and Su Wan started winning consecutively.

The door to the card room opened, and Meng Jiangyu walked in. His dark eyes swept across the card table and landed on Shen Qingyao. A faint smile appeared on his lips: "Yaoyao, how's the game going?"

As soon as he finished speaking, Xu Mingxuan and Zhou Yanqiu looked up simultaneously. Upon seeing the person who had arrived, Xu Mingxuan immediately wailed, "Losing to you is one thing, but losing to my sister-in-law is another!"

Zhou Yanqiu raised an eyebrow and put down his cards: "I thought my sister-in-law's card playing skills were just so-so. I lost to you, but I won it back here. I didn't expect her skills to be so good."

Meng Jiangyu strode over and naturally sat down next to Shen Qingyao, reaching out to ruffle her hair, his tone indulgent: "She really is a novice, but she's quite clever."

"I really couldn't have imagined that after losing so much in the early stages, you could still maintain your composure and turn the tide." Xu Mingxuan took a sip of red wine.

Never underestimate anyone!