I'm really foolish, truly.
Since it's a matter of mutual benefits, I shouldn't have expected anything from that scumbag.
Forget it, let the engagement be. Wang Wanrou and Chu Qingqing... aren't they living just fine with him even without an engagement?
Let it be whatever it is.
Xing Yuanzhi stood up from the bathtub, rinsed off under the shower, and then slowly dried herself with a towel in front of the mirror.
She then changed into clean clothes and left the bathroom.
Upon stepping out, she saw Cheng Jinyang and Chu Qingqing sitting on the sofa, laughing at the melodramatic scenes on TV.
"Oh, Yuanzhi, you're out?" Cheng Jinyang immediately stood up, "About what happened earlier..."
"I'm fine." Xing Yuanzhi gave him a warm and gentle smile.
Cheng Jinyang: ???
The emotions of these noble ladies are always the opposite of their expressions. If she's cold or indifferent towards you, it actually means she likes you. On the contrary, if she's smiling warmly at you, she's likely harboring some distance or alienation towards you.
For instance, the always smiling Miss Qingqing is a prime example.
"Ahem, I saw there were some leftover Liangshan beef rolls in the fridge, so I pan-fried them as a midnight snack." Cheng Jinyang offered eagerly, "You must be tired from your bath. Let's replenish some energy."
Xing Yuanzhi was speechless. Since when is taking a bath such an energy-consuming activity?
But she understood that her fiancé was trying to mend the rift between them. She almost instinctively refused, saying, "I don't eat midnight snacks; I want to stay slim." But then she changed her mind and agreed, smiling, "Thank you."
Cheng Jinyang: .......
Ah Zhi, you've really changed! You wouldn't have been so distant before!
The three of them quickly devoured the pan-fried beef rolls. Cheng Jinyang suddenly remembered that Miss Wang was still in the study.
Shoot, he forgot to call her.
He hurriedly took the plate to the kitchen to dispose of the evidence. Meanwhile, Xing Yuanzhi sat down on the sofa and casually asked Chu Qingqing:
"Do you like him?"
"I do." Chu Qingqing replied.
"But he's a scumbag." Xing Yuanzhi sighed.
"I don't know about being a scumbag or not." Miss Qingqing smiled, "I just know he suits my taste."
"Tch." Xing Yuanzhi understood her implication, "That's not love."
"Love?" Chu Qingqing chuckled, "Yuanzhi, girls from our noble families don't get to decide our own marriages. Being able to live separately from our family-arranged husbands without interference is the best life we can hope for. Why bother expecting love?"
Xing Yuanzhi had no response.
That's right; it was supposed to be like this. What had clouded her mind to make her subconsciously hope her fiancé would genuinely like her?
She sighed deeply and headed to the study.
In the study, Wang Wanrou was writing something, the pages filled with obscure terms.
Xing Yuanzhi stood behind her and knocked on the open door.
Miss Wang didn't turn her head, asking:
"What is it?"
"About Yang Wangshu," Xing Yuanzhi said, "I can take you to see her."
"Then let's go." Wang Wanrou stood up.
"Go?" Xing Yuanzhi asked, surprised.
"It's only 8 PM," Wang Wanrou said. "We can meet her and be back before midnight."
"Alright."
"Go get Cheng Jinyang."
"The Hongnong Yang clan won't let him into their territory." Xing Yuanzhi shook her head.
"But we can lure her out," Wang Wanrou sneered.
Xing Yuanzhi: ???
The two girls left the study and informed Cheng Jinyang of their plan.
"What are you planning?" Cheng Jinyang asked suspiciously.
"I want to conduct an experiment," Wang Wanrou said nonchalantly.
"An experiment?"
"An experiment to deal with ghosts," Wang Wanrou said.
"Sounds fun! Count me in!" Chu Qingqing, who had been listening, couldn't sit still anymore and immediately jumped up. She didn't want to stay home alone.
The three of them ignored her and went out.
Wang Wanrou was the initiator, Xing Yuanzhi had the connections, and Cheng Jinyang was the essential core. What reason did Chu Qingqing have to insist on going?
Unperturbed, Miss Qingqing quickly changed and followed them out.
The Hongnong Yang clan's territory was located at the foothills of Guanyin Mountain in Jiangning District, quite far from Pukou District. So, they took a flying car (a private transport helicopter) and flew south across the river to the city area.
Under the night sky, the city of Jiankang was bustling with holographic advertisements and neon lights, teeming with vehicles and flying cars, and crowded with pedestrians, appearing extremely lively and prosperous.
However, having been in this world for over three years, Cheng Jinyang knew that today's liveliness and prosperity didn't belong to everyone.
Under normal development, with the diversification and refinement of social division of labor, new jobs would require higher labor quality. For instance, accountants need math skills, engineers need science knowledge, and so on. Driven by economic interests, rulers would focus on talent cultivation, expanding education to enlighten the public, thus creating a large middle class.
However, the technological leap and productivity boost brought by the predecessor who traveled through time disrupted this normal development.
Especially during the late years of Sima Yi, to achieve immortality, the cyberpunk plan was heavily developed, giving birth to artificial intelligence and synthetic humans, which severely hindered the demand for developing the populace's intellect.
Most mental tasks could be handled by artificial intelligence; most physical tasks by automated production lines and synthetic humans. Originally, there were cost constraints, but with years of integrated industrial automation, the cost of synthetic humans became incredibly low, further reducing the need for a highly educated workforce.
Thus, in today's Jiankang City, the educational level among the common people is extremely polarized. According to last year's employment report, only 3% of the population had higher education, generally holding doctoral degrees and working in royal and major family research institutes.
As for the remaining 97%, they were brutally filtered out in the highly competitive stages of primary to middle school entrance exams and high school entrance exams. Some of these people, squeezed into the gaps between synthetic humans and artificial intelligence, found some jobs and became workers.
The rest, unable even to secure jobs, had to rely on welfare from public granaries to sustain basic living, becoming part of the unemployed masses. The unemployed themselves were a source of instability, and coupled with the influx of northern refugees, social unrest had become more frequent in recent years.
As the helicopter flew over the factory, they saw down below, around Lulong Lake, law enforcement had cordoned off a large area where many civilians lay on the ground, either dead or alive, amidst bloodstains and burning vehicle wreckage.
"It's a gang fight," the pilot glanced below and casually remarked.
"A gang fight?" Cheng Jinyang asked curiously.
"A brawl between Malays and Tungus," the pilot joked sharply.
Northern refugees migrating to Jiankang City undoubtedly impacted the local people's jobs and lives. Thus, local gangs derogatorily called these refugees "savages" or "barbarians," and a new trendy term had appeared online in recent years: "Tungus wild boars," implying that these northerners were uncivilized hunter-gatherers from the tundra of the Han Sea Province.
The northern refugees, in turn, insulted the southerners as "Malay short blackies," implying they were "jungle natives from the South Sea Islands."
Of course, these were extremely vulgar derogatory terms, implying "unfit to be Han Chinese." It was said that this insult originated from the mouth of Emperor Xuan himself. Thus, the three girls frowned, feeling slightly uncomfortable with these crude expressions.
Cheng Jinyang, looking down below, began to zone out.
There was actually no strict boundary between the common people and the poor families. The so-called poor families were just some people with special bloodlines who liked to put a high value on themselves. As long as they weren't part of a noble family, their social treatment was no different from that of the common people.
So, he was originally one of the people down there.
According to his original life trajectory, if he had failed the college entrance exam and didn't get into university, he would have become one of the 97% of the lower class. Either working as a proud worker or becoming a future hopeful unemployed person, living in his house, scraping by.
Fortunately, his princess sister helped him achieve a class leap.
But what about those common people who didn't have a benefactor's support? What was their future path?
Comparing the two, Cheng Jinyang felt no sense of superiority or satisfaction in becoming a noble child.
He just felt a bit of sadness.