BDB Chapter 30

Li Jueyan’s determination to find her was unwavering.

As he climbed the stairs leading out of the subway station, his heart suddenly began to race erratically for a few seconds.

He halted his steps and looked back at the glass window of the fast-food restaurant.

“President Li?” Xiao Zhang was on the verge of collapsing.

What on earth is going on now?

Li Jueyan glanced at Xiao Zhang and then turned his attention back to the fast-food restaurant, “Does she look like her?”

Although his question was brief, as Li Jueyan’s personal special assistant, Xiao Zhang knew better than anyone what the president had been focusing on recently, aside from work.

The former, “she”, naturally referred to the unfamiliar girl who had suddenly caught President Li’s attention.

The latter, “her”, referred to the president’s wife, who, despite being in front of him, was not the person President Li was searching for, despite their similarities in appearance and name.

Xiao Zhang had no particular fondness for the woman he had only seen in police records and was indifferent to the many women whom President Li had mistakenly identified as her.

However, when he looked in the direction President Li was focused on, he couldn’t feel any dislike toward the girl eating a burger in the corner.

“Not at all.”

Not even slightly similar. “Although I haven’t seen Miss Jiang, the information we found about her shows… Miss Jiang’s skin color isn’t like this, right?”

“And that girl looks like a left-hander. Is Miss Jiang a left-hander too?”

Li Jueyan’s heart sank. “Let’s go.”

…

By the time Jiang Rao finished her meal, it was nearly 2 PM.

The IELTS results would take ten days to come out, and she had no intention of relaxing during this period.

After all, English was not her native language, and if she was going abroad, she needed to expand her vocabulary to make her life there more convenient.

She took a short nap at home and arrived at the C University library around 4 PM.

It was rare to find an empty seat in a top university library, and Jiang Rao knew that arriving late meant she was unlikely to find a spot.

As she was about to pick out a book from the shelf and look for a quiet corner to sit and study, someone suddenly tapped her shoulder, “You’re just getting here…”

The remaining part of the sentence was left hanging as the girl stopped speaking when Jiang Rao turned around.

Seeing the girl’s stunned expression, Jiang Rao smiled, “I think you’ve mistaken me for someone else. It’s okay.”

This was a minor occurrence in everyday life.

However, as Jiang Rao was flipping through the twelfth or thirteenth chapter of her book, a shadow fell over her, and she looked up to see the same girl from earlier.

“We’re heading to class now. Do you want to take the seat I occupied earlier?”

At seventeen or eighteen-year-old, away from the unrealistic world of domineering CEO novels, how many could be as wicked as the male and female supporting characters in those books?

Anyway, Jiang Rao thought it was very few.

So she didn’t think much of it and accepted with a smile, “Thank you.”

Sometimes, fate works in strange ways. After getting to know each other for various reasons, two unfamiliar people would often run into each other easily.

Perhaps the girl was also a passionate learner. Over the next few days, Jiang Rao frequently saw her in the library.

Becoming familiar was a natural process.

The girl’s name was Wen Nuan. After getting to know each other, Wen Nuan learned that Jiang Rao was preparing for studying abroad and often urged her to join her for foreign language classes.

After being asked several times, Jiang Rao couldn’t refuse the kind offer and agreed.

It was now early May.

The campus was full of boys and girls dressed in various outfits.

Some wore down jackets, while others were in shorts and skirts.

Jiang Rao had also bought new clothes, but all her new items were long-sleeved and long pants. Though her legs, covered in jeans, were visibly long and slender, they couldn’t compete with the eye-catching trendy outfits all over the street.

Wen Nuan was frustrated, “Even though you’re a bit tanned, you have a beautiful face and great legs. Why don’t you dress up a bit? Even if you don’t want to dress up, don’t wear a mask all the time! Why are you hiding such a pretty face?”

After distancing herself from City A, Jiang Rao no longer had to receive Madam Bai’s relentless “urgent” calls or had the domineering male lead’s neurotic series of tests…

She had become much more at ease, and no longer needed to constantly put on a facade, “I’m fine this way.”

“How can this be fine? If you just use some foundation to lighten your skin, even without makeup, you’d be the most beautiful girl at C University!”

“And then?”

Wen Nuan didn’t know what to say, and after a while, managed to say, “Why do you seem so different from others your age? None of my roommates are uninterested in beauty.”

Jiang Rao remained silent.

She, too, liked beauty. She always remembered her amazement when she first took over the original owner’s appearance.

But such beauty wasn’t something an ordinary person could maintain.

If even the picky male lead loved her face, how could ordinary people not?

She couldn’t leave the chaotic city neighborhood for now, so for safety reasons, she had to keep her darkened face.

As the two were talking, they reached the lecture hall.

After the class ended, and Jiang Rao finished organizing her notes and left the classroom with Wen Nuan, she saw a group of girls gathered around a large poster that had just been put up, pointing and discussing.

Jiang Rao wasn’t one to seek out excitement, and such situations were usually crowded and pushing.

So she had even less interest in this kind of thing.

But Wen Nuan, standing next to her and just eighteen, had the curiosity typical of her age, despite having spent most of the semester in campus life.

“I’ll go check it out. Wait for me,” Wen Nuan said.

Jiang Rao nodded.

Standing at the corner, with the noon sun shining warmly through the stairwell window, the light softened her face, reducing the harshness of her appearance.

However, due to her excellent bone structure, her exposed features didn’t seem to change much to outsiders.

In fact, her well-defined eyelashes made her eyes appear even more striking, piquing curiosity about the beauty hidden beneath her mask.

Wen Nuan stared in awe, reminded of something she had just seen on the poster. After a while, she walked up and said, “Jiang Rao, has anyone ever told you that you look like Jiang Tang?”

“What’s the matter?”

“Do you want to become a star?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Then do you want to make money? The kind that makes you rich!”

Jiang Rao sensed that Wen Nuan’s demeanor was a bit off, “What do you mean?”

“Do you know Director Feng Ke? His planned film, Yanyan, recently trended on social media because of Jiang Tang. Jiang Tang had clarified that there was no pre-selection, but now the announced female lead is still her. Since the film is more than just an ordinary trafficking movie, the director issued a nationwide photo reward. Anyone who took a photo of a girl resembling Jiang Tang by 50% and uploaded it to the website would receive a reward of 500,000.”

The warm May sunlight enveloped Jiang Rao, but she felt a chill running through her.

What was 500,000? The male lead could afford 5 million or even 50 million. In a domineering CEO novel, domineering presidents were always depicted as spending money like water, as if they earned RMB but spent Japanese yen or Korean won.

But this was a real world, a real world with extremely low prices, so 500,000 was a significant amount for most ordinary people.

Thinking about the tragic fate of the original female lead who was captured as a runaway wife, Jiang Rao felt a surge of fear for the first time since entering the book.

She said, “Wen Nuan, I don’t want you to upload my photo.”

Although Wen Nuan agreed, Jiang Rao could see regret on her face.

“Wen Nuan, I’m speaking seriously. I really don’t want to.”

Wen Nuan pursed her lips, “Okay, I understand.”

After they parted ways, Jiang Rao felt a deep chill as she walked home.

She had thought that after such a long time, her world had returned to peace, but she had forgotten how domineering male leads loved to pull off distressing schemes.

The power of money was immense.

Although she had only taken off her mask in front of Wen Nuan, there was no guarantee that some sharp-eyed person wouldn’t think her partially visible face resembled Jiang Tang’s. Following the principle of “better safe than sorry”, there was a risk that her photo could be uploaded.

As for Wen Nuan…

She wanted to believe in the kind-hearted girl, but she couldn’t afford to take that risk.

Jiang Rao walked with her head down toward the outskirts of the campus.

Her expression grew resolute.

Tomorrow was the day her IELTS results would come out. Once she received her score, she would switch cities and change her appearance!

Though makeup could damage her skin, she could endure it for a year.

After surviving this year…

She would definitely have a smooth path ahead!

That night, Jiang Rao dreamt again.

This time, the content of her dreams had changed once more.

It was no longer about torment or distress over having children.

Instead, the entire dream felt as if it had been injected with sweetness; with the male and female leads in the dream being utterly affectionate with each other.

In her dreams, she moved about as the female lead, and she could feel the emotions of the character.

She was merely forcing a smile.

As expected, at the end of the dream, under the midnight stars, she gently touched his profile with her hand and said, “If that year I hadn’t fallen in love with you and had left with Jiang Pei, it would have been so much better. That was my only real chance at freedom.”

She woke up from the dream.

Jiang Rao stared ahead with her watery, dazed eyes for a long time without moving.

Meanwhile, in a presidential suite in City C, Li Jueyan’s eyes were as cold as ice.

After a while, he smiled.

He then made a phone call, “From today on, keep an eye on someone named Jiang Pei. If Raorao goes to find him, break his legs.”

——