After the school beauty rejected me, I became her mom's number one fan!

It was seven o'clock in the evening when it got dark.

The lawn in front of the castle was already full of people waiting for the fireworks show.

Ning Xiuyang laid out a picnic mat provided by the staff in the VIP area. Qiao Jinlin took off his canvas shoes, sat cross-legged on it, and neatly arranged his shoes next to the mat.

At 7:30, the music started.

When the first firework rose from behind the castle, cheers erupted all around.

Qiao Jinlin looked up at the sky, his mouth slightly open. Red, gold, blue, and purple colors exploded layer by layer, their fragmented light reflected on the lake's surface.

She didn't know when, but her head rested on Ning Xiuyang's shoulder.

"Senior Ning."

"Um."

"Do you know, I felt that you were a special person ever since the day of the car accident."

Ning Xiuyang turned his head away.

The light from the fireworks shone on her profile, flickering between bright and dim, and the shadows of her eyelashes danced on her cheekbones.

He didn't reply.

He simply reached out and took her hand, which was resting on her knee.

Qiao Jinlin's fingers were cool and slender.

She didn't pull it back; instead, she gripped it again.

The two of them sat there, listening to the first song until the last.

When the fireworks ended, the crowd on the lawn began to disperse.

Qiao Jinlin stood up and patted the grass clippings off her skirt. As she bent down to put on her shoes, Ning Xiuyang noticed that the base of her ears was red.

On the way back, Qiao Jinlin was much quieter.

She leaned back in the passenger seat, her face turned toward the window, lost in thought.

Ning Xiuyang drove without speaking, and the only sound from the car was the navigation system occasionally announcing the route.

As they approached Zhonghai University, Qiao Jinlin turned around.

"Senior, I have a great day."

"Me too."

"Well... see you next time."

See you next time.

Qiao Jinlin got out of the car, walked a few steps toward the school gate, and then turned back to wave.

Ning Xiuyang flashed his headlights twice in response, watching her white dress disappear into the school gate.

He rolled up the car window and was about to shift gears and leave when his phone vibrated on the center console.

It was a short message.

He didn't have the number saved in his contacts, but he recognized it.

"Master, Jinlin just sent me a photo. She's very happy. Please... treat her well."

Ning Xiuyang glanced at the message but did not reply.

He tossed his phone back onto the center console, and the car rejoined the traffic.

In the darkness, the taillights of the Luman G-Class weaved through the traffic.

Ning Xiuyang rested his right hand on the steering wheel and tapped the armrest box lightly with the fingers of his left hand.

Things are going through my mind.

Qiao Jinlin's performance today was even better than he expected.

This girl has a natural sense of trust in her bones; she's not naive, she's genuinely pure.

She trusted the world and the people she met, which is why she dared to lean on a man's shoulder after knowing him for less than a month.

This kind of trust is very precious.

It works very well.

Next date can't be at the amusement park.

We need to make this a bigger spectacle.

Ning Xiuyang picked up his phone and dialed Han Yunmei's number.

"Order something for me."

"Please speak."

"I want a yacht on the Bund. The deck should be covered with roses, and there should be an LED screen. Also, contact the property lighting management systems of those buildings on the Bund; I want them to change colors in sync."

There was a two-second silence on the other end of the phone.

Han Yunmei's voice was steady: "What about the time?"

"Four days later."

"Understood."

For the next three days, Ning Xiuyang appeared at the west gate of Zhonghai University at 8:45 every morning.

On the first day, he brought a bag of hot Xiao Yang Shengjian (pan-fried buns) and a cup of soy milk.

As Qiao Jinlin was taking the food from the school gate, two girls carrying steamed buns from the cafeteria passed by and turned to look at him at the same time.

The next day, he replaced it with a bunch of sunflowers.

When Qiao Jinlin got into the passenger seat with the flowers in his arms, he buried his nose in the petals and smelled them for a long time before saying, "Did you go to the flower shop and empty the owner's place?"

On the third day, he took her back to school in the afternoon, where he was caught by Qiao Jinlin's roommate at the school gate.

Three girls stood in a row, their expressions somewhere between interrogating a criminal and watching a giant panda.

"Are you the one who drives his G-Wagon to pick up Jinlin every day?"

What department are you in? What year are you in?

What does your family do?

Qiao Jinlin, standing nearby, anxiously tugged at his roommate's sleeve, saying, "Stop asking!"

Ning Xiuyang stood by the car, surrounded by three girls. He was very polite and answered their questions one by one.

The last roommate looked him up and down, then turned and gave Qiao Jinlin a thumbs up.

"middle."

That evening, a new post appeared on the anonymous forum of Zhonghai University, titled, "Does anyone know who that guy who drives a G-Wagon to the west gate to pick people up every day?"

The number of replies surged to over three hundred within two hours.

Some say he's a rich second-generation, others say he's the president of some company, and still others confidently claim that they saw the license plate number in the parking lot and found that it belongs to a company called Hanhai Shipbuilding.

Qiao Jinlin's roommate posted a screenshot of the post to the dorm group chat. Qiao Jinlin glanced at it, replied with a facepalm emoji, then turned off his phone and buried his face in his pillow.

The fourth day, Thursday.

At 6:30 p.m., Ning Xiuyang invited Qiao Jinlin to go to the Bund to see the night view.

The car drove along the Bund and stopped near the Shiliupu Wharf.

When Qiao Jinlin got out of the car, she was still talking about the exam she had taken that day. She had just finished a statistics exam in the afternoon and felt that she hadn't gotten the last big question right.

She couldn't stop talking halfway through her sentence.

At the end of the dock stood a white yacht, its deck covered with dense red roses, obscuring the floor beneath.

A huge LED screen was mounted on the top deck of the yacht, displaying seven words scrolling across it.

"Jinlin, be my girlfriend."

Qiao Jinlin stood there, stunned, and covered his mouth with both hands.

Then, the lights on both sides of the Bund changed color in the same second.

The skyscrapers in Pudong and the Bund buildings in Puxi all had their exterior lighting turned pink.

The entire Huangpu River was illuminated by pink light.

A few tourists at the pier exclaimed in surprise, some raised their phones to take pictures, and others shouted, "Who is confessing their love here?"

"Holy crap, this woman named Jinlin is Su Daji! Look how infatuated she is with this rich guy!"

"Jinlin definitely doesn't love money, but every moment that moves her is worth money!"

"That's so extravagant! If a rich guy confessed his love to me like that, I'd be willing to be his dog!"

"Look at yourself in the mirror! Someone like you, you'd be nothing but a dog for free, and people would complain you eat too much!"

"Hahaha……"

Tourists on both sides of the pier stopped to watch this rare sight, eager to see just how beautiful the woman named Jinlin was that she could bewitch such a wealthy man!