The antique girlfriend of a chaebol heir

Jiang Duo held Shen Ci's hand and had no intention of letting go.

He deliberately chose to walk in crowded places, and he would stroll around the sycamore-lined avenue in front of the teaching building and the famous "Lovers' Alley".

Along the way, countless burning, inquisitive gazes shone on them like spotlights.

Jiang Duo was very pleased with this, and he inserted his fingers even deeper between her fingers.

We finally arrived at the third canteen.

Shen Ci usually eats with her roommates and rarely comes here.

With high prices and few people, it has become a rare quiet place at this moment.

Jiang Duo keenly noticed that from the moment she arrived here from the teaching building, she had been consistently uninterested, and even her responses were perfunctory.

He knew in his heart that his actions of wanting to announce their relationship to the world these past two days were indeed too high-profile and too eager for quick success, which inevitably caused her to feel resentful.

But he has always been thick-skinned, and when faced with the cold face of his beloved, he not only did not get angry, but instead showed a hint of flattery.

After taking his seat, he, who was usually taciturn, managed to rack his brains for countless topics.

He tried to make amends, his tone carrying a gentleness and probing that he himself was unaware of.

Shen Ci finally raised her eyes, her eyelashes trembled, and replied with a couple of sentences.

His shoulders gradually relaxed, and his lips softened. Although he wasn't smiling yet, the annoyance in his eyes had lessened.

Jiang Duo saw that her expression changed, so he took her hand again, pressed his palm against hers, and rubbed his thumb against the back of her hand, again and again.

Several students at the next table couldn't help but glance at him frequently and sigh in hushed tones.

Who would have thought that the usually aloof and unapproachable Jiang, with his god-like aloofness, would be just like any other ordinary person when it comes to love?

Sticky and lingering, anxious and uncertain.

On the course schedule of the second semester of the first year of Chinese Language and Literature major, a new course, "Ancient Literature," has been added.

The core objective of this course is straightforward and hardcore—to cultivate students' ability to independently read and understand ancient texts.

When the textbooks were handed out, the classroom was filled with a silent lament as we looked at the densely packed layout.

For most students, even with detailed annotations of key words printed in the margins of the book, the texts spanning thousands of years still seem like a tangled mess, obscure and difficult to understand.

But for Shen Ci, the moment she turned the pages of the book, she felt an absurd sense of disconnect.

She felt like she was the kind of "player who got stuck on a bug" that her roommate Li Yueran often complained about when she stayed up all night playing games.

Thanks to the memories accumulated over the long years of her previous life, she possesses an absolute and abnormal advantage in this subject that should be a source of great frustration for freshmen.

Those ancient classics that others find pedantic and agonizing are, in her eyes, more accessible and easier to understand than modern poetry.

The poetic meter, classical Chinese imagery, historical context, and the author's emotional fluctuations behind the words unfolded naturally in her mind, like reuniting with an old friend.

Thus, an extremely incongruous scene appeared in the "Ancient Literature" class.

When the professor stood on the podium, quoting classical texts and trying to draw everyone into that distant era, most of the students below the stage frowned. Let alone fully comprehending the material, they were already doing their best to keep up with the train of thought and understand the gist of it.

Every time the professor pauses his lecture and scans the room to ask a question, there is usually a deathly silence. The students who are called on stand up, but most of them look blank and stammer for a long time without being able to answer anything.

Shen Ci was the only exception.

She always sat there quietly, her back straight, and not only could she read those obscure ancient texts with perfect pronunciation and fluency, but more importantly, she never adhered to the standard answers in the books.

She always manages to offer a unique perspective and provide insightful interpretations.

While everyone else was still struggling with those obscure classical Chinese texts and scratching their heads while looking at the annotations, Shen Ci could already calmly recite those famous ancient poems from memory, and even discern subtle meanings between the lines that others could not see.

Less than a month into the semester, Shen Ci's reputation in the department had already gained another significant boost.

She was already known as the "Ice Beauty" because of her aloof and ethereal temperament. Now, because of her outstanding performance in the ancient literature course, her classmates looked at her with not only amazement but also an indescribable sense of awe.

She single-handedly earned the title of "Holy Body of Chinese Language and Literature Studies".

Professor Cai, who was in charge of their ancient literature course, was no ordinary person.

He is a leading expert in the field of classical literature studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and lecturing is just one of his many academic tasks at the university.

In order to cultivate truly promising academic talents, Professor Cai specially established a classical literature research group on campus. The threshold was extremely high, and most of the members were graduate students and doctoral students who worked together on research projects, visited ancient book libraries, and studied original documents that did not even have punctuation.

Shen Ci has been enrolled for more than half a year, but hasn't even finished her first year.

He was exceptionally admitted to Professor Cai's research group as an auditor.

Although they were just auditors, this was unprecedented for a research group that never admitted undergraduates.

……

After their relationship became public, the first thing Jiang Duo did was to print out their class schedules and stick them on the wall in front of his desk.

He used a red pen to circle the places where the two of them had free time together.

For Jiang Duo, these shared free time during the day were all opportunities for him to be alone with Shen Ci in a legitimate way.

Just like right now.

The afternoon sunlight streamed through the large floor-to-ceiling windows, creating distinct light and shadow effects in Jiang Duo's apartment where he usually lived alone.

The two of them each occupied half of the desk, immersed in their own worlds.

As a third-year student and a leader in his field, Jiang Duo exudes an aura of absolute focus once he enters a learning state.

After completing his daily study tasks according to his strict plan, he relaxed his back slightly, casually rested his arm on the table, and his gaze naturally fell to the side.

Shen Ci was still reading.

Jiang Duo looked at her quietly, his gaze gradually becoming deep. He keenly noticed that her face seemed to have thinned out a bit.

This semester, she's been busier than him, a third-year student.

In addition to the heavy and obscure assignments for Chinese language and literature majors, as the president of the intangible cultural heritage club, she also has to take care of complicated activity planning, arrangement, and summarization.

Not to mention, she was recently exceptionally admitted to Professor Cai's classical literature research group.

Jiang Duo stared at her, gradually becoming lost in thought.

He was not completely ignorant of Chinese language and literature.

The biggest pitfall of Chinese Language and Literature, like other purely academic majors, is that its training objective is to cultivate "researchers," but most people fail to become researchers.

Shen Ci was still reading, completely immersed in her own world, like a plant rooted in the soil, quiet yet powerful.

A surge of indescribable pride and certainty welled up in Jiang Duo's heart.

Shen Ci will definitely become one of the few.

Moreover, she is destined to be the best...

Shen Ci finally closed the book gently, pulling her gaze away from the yellowed words.

Jiang Duo, who had been quietly standing by her side, slowly moved closer to her.

His deep gaze locked onto her eyes, and only when he saw no resistance or evasion in her eyes did he slowly raise his hand.

Warm fingertips gently hooked around the back of her neck.

His lips pressed down lightly, as if testing, as if confirming.

He was certain that she was really there, that she truly belonged to him.

Then it got a little deeper...