The antique girlfriend of a chaebol heir

In the cafeteria, my roommates were eating and chatting enthusiastically, showing no signs of being half-dead during military training.

Li Yueran was holding her phone, her fingers flying across the screen, her lips curving into a wide smile, and her eyes filled with a sweet glow.

"Chatting with your partner again?" Chu Xuanxuan leaned over, her face full of teasing. "You chat all the time you have free time, don't you get tired of it?"

After more than ten days of living and eating together, the girls in the dormitory had become quite familiar with each other.

The other three knew that Li Yueran had a boyfriend in her hometown in the south, and the two were in a long-distance relationship.

Li Yueran didn't even look up, her fingers still tapping away merrily: "You guys without boyfriends wouldn't understand."

After sending her last WeChat message, she pressed her phone against her chest, a look of bliss on her face: "This is called emotional value. Even if we're not together right now, we still need to provide emotional value to each other, to prove we're still a couple. Otherwise, feelings can easily fade when separated by a screen."

"Emotional value?" Chu Xuanxuan tilted her head, looking puzzled. "What do you mean?"

"It's just to let him know that I'm thinking about him." Li Yueran shook her phone, the screen filled with heart emojis and messages like "I miss you" and "What did you eat today?"

"Never forget to say good morning and good night, share what you ate, and tell him about anything fun that happens. Even just posting a picture of the sky is saying—look, I'm thinking of you."

She paused, her gaze finally settling on Shen Ci, a hint of smug satisfaction in her eyes: "Xiao Ci, aren't you right?"

Shen Ci was stirring the egg drop soup in her bowl with her head down when she heard this, and her fingertips paused slightly.

According to my roommate's description, the original owner of this body was quite good at providing emotional value.

In the chat history with Jiang Duo, the original owner would say a few words about what she had seen and heard every now and then, as if she wanted to break down every 24 hours of the day and feed it to him.

But she wasn't the original owner of this body.

Even if she falls in love with someone in the future, she won't easily express it.

In her mind, longing is hidden in the stitches, and care is melted into the soup.

The words "I miss you" cannot be said so easily.

"I don't know much about these things." She lowered her eyes, her voice faint. "Perhaps I'm... a bit old-fashioned."

—Emotional value.

Shen Ci silently recited these four words in his heart.

What emotions could there possibly be between her and Jiang Duo?

One was coerced by a debt of gratitude, while the other avoided it at all costs. This relationship, which was not meant to be discussed with outsiders, was a castle in the air and would disintegrate with the slightest breeze.

She didn't want to offer any emotional value; she just wanted to quietly wait for him to get tired of it and for this absurd "relationship" to naturally disappear.

My phone vibrated again.

Jiang Duo: "Why haven't you sent me any WeChat messages lately?"

Shen Ci: "I'm afraid of bothering you and making you upset."

Shen Ci took a deep breath, thankful that Jiang Duo hadn't pursued her previous ill-intentioned WeChat message.

Jiang Duo: "Why were you not afraid of being disturbed before, but now you're afraid?"

The simple words gave Shen Ci an unprecedented sense of pressure.

She considered it for a moment, then tentatively asked:

"So, how often do you think I should send a WeChat message?"

Jiang Duo: "Whatever."

Shen Ci: "..."

Shen Ci suddenly understood that before breaking up, she would probably have to provide Jiang Duo with some emotional support, just like other couples.

Since Jiang Duo has this need for his girlfriend, even if she is only nominally his girlfriend, she will naturally cooperate.

It's nothing more than sending a WeChat message periodically to report on my activities.

However, she also needs to maintain a proper balance during this period.

Being too cold won't do; I can't stay silent for more than half a month like before.

Being too enthusiastic is also not good. Being too clingy like the original owner could result in being expelled from school and affecting her father's business.

Shen Ci, who has never been in love in either of her two lifetimes, said:

This is so difficult...

She imitated Li Yueran by taking a picture of her half-eaten dinner and sending it to her.

Shen Ci: "Dinner at the school's first canteen consisted of two dishes and a soup; the taste was alright."

The phone vibrated again shortly afterward.

Jiang Duo: "Transfer 50000"

Jiang Duo: "Next time I'll go to the third canteen. You can order à la carte there, and the food tastes a bit better."

fifty thousand?

Shen Ci already had a certain understanding of modern prices and knew that this was a considerable sum.

My roommates mentioned the third canteen during a casual chat. It was a canteen specially set up by the school for the rich kids. It wasn't very big, but it had all kinds of cuisines, including Cantonese, Sichuan, French, Japanese, and even live seafood flown in from the air. A meal there could easily cost over a thousand yuan.

Looking at the transfer amount, Shen Ci suddenly felt a sense of understanding.

She finally understood why the original owner of this body was willing to risk being exposed to painstakingly impersonate her savior and keep this man by her side as her boyfriend.

After all, a boyfriend who is both exceptionally good-looking and incredibly generous is a rare find in the market; you'd be hard-pressed to find one even with a lantern.

Shen Ci tapped the back button, her fingertip lightly touching the screen—

"No need, I have plenty of money, I can easily eat out every day."

In the boys' dormitory, Jiang Duo stared at the three words "returned" on the screen, his eyes as dark as an ink pool.

He remembered one afternoon when his phone vibrated. He opened it to find a photo of a dress—a champagne-colored long gown with tiny rhinestones adorning the hem. Below the photo was a caption: "Is it pretty? It costs over 80,000! So expensive!"

It was followed by a pitiful emoji at the end.

Her little scheme was obvious; it was as if she was silently demanding something, or testing his bottom line.

He was replying to an email at the time, and without even flinching, he transferred the money directly.

Eighty thousand yuan is nothing more than a tiny number to him.

She declined a few times, saying "No need" and "It's too much trouble," but in the end she accepted it and sent a string of hearts and "Thank you, boyfriend."

A few days later, she sent a few more photos—a necklace, earrings, and a bracelet, all of which were accessories to match that dress.

Prices range from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of yuan. She used the same trick again, captioning her posts, "I don't know which one to choose" and "They're all so pretty, but so expensive."

He paid the bill as usual.

That's how Shen Ci was in his memory—greedy and straightforward, never hiding what he wanted. Although he didn't like it, he was too lazy to argue; it was just some money, and he could save himself the trouble.

But now—

She refused to accept the 50,000 yuan.

The refusal was polite and distant, without any coquetry, grievance, or fancy expressions.

Just like her whole personality lately, she's become increasingly irrational.

The girl who used to go to great lengths to please him and give him hints about her dresses and jewelry seemed to have vanished overnight.

Instead, he was confronted with a stranger who was completely unfathomable to him and who even began to feel out of control.