My Queen, My Rules - 89
Extra: Jiang Chun (1)
Back in elementary school, teachers would ask during class meetings what everyone wanted to be when they grew up. Jiang Chun thought that was probably the moment scientists enjoyed the greatest sense of existence, aside from winning the Nobel Prize.
Children were always simple and sincere. Once they grew older, though, they discovered that scientists did not make much money, could not drive luxury cars or live in villas, and spent their days shut away in laboratories doing great but mind-numbingly tedious work. Worse still, 99.9% of that great work will probably never be known to anyone.
So by middle school, class meetings were suddenly full of wildly ambitious "future tycoons" who dreamed of conquering the world.
Compared to those aspiring billionaires, Jiang Chun felt a small sense of pride, she considered herself pure and steadfast in her focus. Since elementary school, she had held only one dream: to become a landlady, carrying a sack every month as she went door to door collecting rent.
Perhaps Heaven took pity on her sincerity and steadfastness, because in her second year of middle school, her dream came true. There was no great mystery to it—just dumb luck and a dad who knew how to hustle.
Years earlier, the tiny fishing village where the Jiang family lived had undergone redevelopment. Her father, Jiang Hongtao, was faced with two options: a huge cash payout plus one apartment, or a smaller cash payment plus several buildings. With remarkable foresight, he chose the latter.
Back then, the real estate market was nothing like what it was now. Those buildings they received stood in remote suburbs so desolate that even ghosts wouldn't want to rent there.
No one had expected that these very remote suburbs would one day become some of the most valuable land in Shenzhen. Nor had anyone expected that Jiang Chun would so effortlessly transform from a fishing village's local rich girl to the heiress of a Shenzhen magnate.
For a time, Jiang Chun thought she had already reached the peak of life. But what no one expected was that her dad was too good at hustling. In less than ten years, he used that sudden wealth as seed capital to build an entire restaurant empire. Then, full of ambition, he moved the whole family to the capital and bludgeoned his way through the iron gates of high society with stacks of money.
And so, Jiang Chun naturally leveled up once again, becoming one of the capital's nouveau riche socialite.
Unfortunately, her own upbringing and refinement fell short in every respect, and the women who proclaimed themselves true ladies of high society privately looked down on her.
As a result, those first few years after arriving in the capital were deeply unhappy ones. Though she had more money than she could spend, she was foolish enough to let others lead her around by the nose and ended up making a spectacular joke of herself on multiple occasions.
The greatest joke of all, perhaps, was discovering her fiancé Yan Yu cheating with a little white lotus young actress. To protect his new flame, Yan Yu even publicly turned on Jiang Chun and humiliated her.
She had to admit that was probably the most humiliating moment of her life, the one she least wanted to revisit.
She'd always believed Yan Yu was different from the others in their circle. He was gentle, considerate, cheerful, and understanding. Most importantly, he had never seemed to look down on her.
Only later did she learn that the Yan family had long been in decline. Yan Yu had agreed to their engagement solely for her father's vast fortune. In truth, he looked down on her so much he didn't even want to sleep with her. And she, fool that she was, had believed this abstinence before marriage was his way of respecting her.
After surviving such a once-in-a-generation scumbag, Jiang Chun temporarily lost faith in love and poured all her limited emotional energy into cultivating her new friendships instead.
In a way, it was a blessing in disguise. The scene where she caught Yan Yu cheating had been witnessed by Ji Mingshu, one of the central figures of the capital's socialite circle. Ji Mingshu stood up for her, and that encounter became the start of their friendship. Before long, they had become close friends.
Ironically, Jiang Chun had once disliked Ji Mingshu. Partly due to others’ influence, but also because Ji Mingshu always carried herself with an air of haughty disdain, as though she looked down on the entire world. A single offhand remark from her could leave someone so thoroughly stung they would lose their appetite for days.
But once they became friends, Jiang Chun put a best-friend filter over every one of Ji Mingshu's unchanged habits and sincerely came to believe that Ji Mingshu was the prettiest, cutest, kindest girl in the world, while all men were nothing but pigs.
That was, until Tang Zhizhou entered the picture.
Tang Zhizhou was the new blind date arranged for her by her father, Jiang Hongtao. Jiang Hongtao praised the Tang family to the heavens, saying they were a distinguished family of scholars and doctors, renowned in Shanghai since the Republican era, producing generation after generation of remarkable figures.
Their current generation was just as impressive. Tang Zhizhou's grandfather was a giant in the medical field. His father held a leadership position in the education bureau. His eldest uncle was an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. His youngest uncle was a leading figure in traditional detective fiction. His mother was vice chair of the Writers Association and a renowned female author.
The least accomplished member of the family was probably a younger cousin who had rebelliously dropped out of school at a young age, yet even he had gone on to found a major web novel platform.
As for Tang Zhizhou himself, he had entered the special gifted youth program at the University of Science and Technology, completed a PhD in computer science at Stanford at a young age, and was now the youngest professor at a prestigious university's School of Computer Science. He also headed its AI laboratory, specializing in artificial intelligence, with a future brighter than bright.
After hearing this introduction to an entire clan of intellectual elites, Jiang Chun sat there dazed for half a minute before finally asking, "Is he bald?"
Jiang Hongtao, still immersed in his fantasies about a future son-in-law, shot her a glance. "What nonsense are you talking about?"
Jiang Chun: “Is he ugly, then?”
"Ugly? Not at all! He's one meter eighty-five, tall and refined, neat and handsome. A truly outstanding young man! I think this Xiao Tang is excellent!" Jiang Hongtao even gestured enthusiastically to demonstrate the height.
Jiang Chun was silent for a moment. "Dad, just tell me the truth. I can handle it."
"?"
"Is he divorced? Impotent? Is he abusive, a drug addict? Or… does he just not like women?"
Jiang Hongtao was stunned speechless. When he recovered, he poked her forehead and scolded, "What on earth goes through that head of yours all day? You're my only daughter! Would I push you into a pit of fire?!”
“No, it's just… if his family is that amazing, why would they want a blind date with me? Surely they could have their pick of any socialite." Jiang Chun rubbed the spot where he had poked her and asked in confusion.
Jiang Hongtao stood with his hands on his hips for a moment, then finally laughing in exasperation. "Never knew you had such self-awareness."
Jiang Chun sat obediently to one side, staring at the tip of her nose. "When all you've got is money, you have to be at least a little self-aware."
Jiang Hongtao pointed at her, sputtering for a good while before managing, "You little brat. You've got money and you're still not satisfied!"
Jiang Chun rolled her eyes, unimpressed. She thought her father and Ji Mingshu would have a lot to talk about if they ever sat down for a chat. After all, they were both loyal believers in the philosophy that ‘there's nothing money can't solve, and if there is, you just didn't have enough.’
Still, this time her father had not lied. Tang Zhizhou really was a perfect man from a scholarly family: handsome, wealthy, brilliant, unmarried, childless, and free of any bad habits.
As for why the Tang family would consider to arrange a match with a nouveau riche family like theirs, the story went back many years, to when Old Master Tang had once received help from her father in Shenzhen.
By coincidence, the charitable organizations Jiang Hongtao had anonymously supported over the years were all managed by the Tang family. Old Master Tang believed Jiang Hongtao was an honorable businessman with excellent character, and by extension, assumed his daughter must be equally virtuous. So he personally arranged the blind date.
On the day of the blind date, Tang Zhizhou wore a light gray striped casual shirt and a simple platinum watch on his wrist.
His skin was fair, his features clean and sharply defined. He possessed the kind of handsome face that was elegant yet striking, and even sitting quietly in the living room, he naturally commanded attention.
Especially those calm, dark eyes. Paired with the faint upward curve of his lips, as though he were smiling but not quite, a single glance from him seemed to see straight into a person's heart.
Jiang Chun secretly muttered to herself, feeling that he looked less like someone working in artificial intelligence and more like a psychologist.
The blind date began with a family dinner. After it ended, the elders eagerly pushed the two of them out to spend time together.
From beginning to end, Tang Zhizhou was impeccably polite and well-mannered. He took her for coffee, brought her to the supermarket, and at the end, they even exchanged WeChat contacts. There was not a single flaw in his conduct.
Yet after the blind date, Jiang Chun felt strangely down.
A man this handsome and considerate probably did not lack girlfriends. Most likely, he had simply come to satisfy his grandfather's wishes. She figured her chances were probably zero.
What was worse, after recounting every detail of the date to Ji Mingshu, she learned that her "perfect” blind date had actually included a catastrophic social disaster in which she had tried to show off and failed miserably without realizing it.
When Tang Zhizhou asked whose paintings she liked, she casually replied that she liked all the works of the Eight Great Masters. She'd once heard Ji Mingshu mention her husband had been collecting paintings by Eight Great Masters. So, she assumed they must be a formidable group of painters.
Then, while shopping, in an attempt to sound sophisticated, she remarked that she couldn't find her favorite pears called "shi-duo-pi-li," unknowingly completing a perfect double combo of her embarrassing blunders.
Recalling those earth-shattering cringe-inducing scene , she had to give Tang Zhizhou credit for not laughing in her face. Completely disheartened, she sent him a message to confess her sins.
Jiang Chun: [You must have been struggling trying not to laugh today…]
Jiang Chun: [Sorry for making a fool of myself in front of you. I'm so embarrassed TvT]
She had waited for him to politely reply with "It's fine," then delete each other contact and disappear from one another's lives forever.
To her surprise, Tang Zhizhou replied: [I think you’re very cute. I've never met a girl like you before.]
Jiang Chun strongly suspected that what he really meant was: I've never met a girl this dumb before.
Jiang Chun: [Well, now you have…]
Tang Zhizhou: [Mm. It's my pleasure.]
Alright. That should be the end to this ‘commercial flattery session’.
Jiang Chun flopped back onto her bed, but a moment later, her phone rang twice again. Tang Zhizhou had sent a voice message.
"I have a public lecture tomorrow morning. Would you like to come?"
His voice on the recording was low and, gentle, carrying a faint sense of allure.
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