Financial freedom starts from graduation

Chapter 619 A Girl's Daily Life

Zhou Wang was not familiar with the voice, but the attire of the people in front of him, coupled with the keyword "Xiaoxi," finally stirred up some memories that Zhou Wang had been suppressing in his heart recently.

Ji Xiaoxi.

Zhou Wang has many girls around him, but only a few can give him such a special feeling as Ji Xiaoxi.

Perhaps it was because of her extreme contrast, or perhaps it was because of the existence of the [hidden rounds], but as Zhou Wang personally guided her step by step toward "fall," he himself also fell into that abyss of intertwined desires, unable to extricate himself.

So when Zhou Wang heard the name, he immediately turned his head to look for that figure.

A bus with the church logo was parked on the side of the road. Young girls dressed in nuns' habit were laughing and playing as they boarded the bus. From one of the windows facing the street, a round-faced girl with a youthful and energetic face leaned out and waved and shouted into the distance.

Following the direction of her gaze, I saw two girls, both dressed in nuns' habit, walking out of a flower shop not far away.

The girl on the right wasn't particularly tall, and her figure was obscured by her loose nun's habit, but her oval face, which could be both happy and sad, was revealed only by her slightly wavy medium-length hair. When she came into view, it seemed to steal all the colors around her.

Her skin was so smooth and delicate, her lips were small and rounded in the shape of flower petals, her nose was straight yet soft, her eyebrows were like distant mountains, and her eyes were clear and bright, reflecting a glimmer of light, like a clear spring illuminated by the stars at night.

All the wonderful qualities a girl possesses seem to have gathered in her: clear-headed, pure... but the small beauty mark under her eye adds a unique charm to her.

It was only because the girl's expression was so ethereal that her allure was well concealed.

But having seen another side of her, lost in struggle and indulgence, Zhou Wang knew how alluring and beautiful a flower is when it fully blooms...

Zhou Wang stared at her blankly for several seconds, then his gaze shifted downwards and he saw that she was holding a small bouquet of white roses in her arms. They must have just been bought from a florist, as they still had some dewdrops on them to indicate their freshness.

At this moment, Ji Xiaoxi was staring at the white rose in her arms, looking somewhat lost in thought.

If Zhou Wang remembers correctly, the white rose symbolizes "innocence," "purity," and "humility," but it is also often used to mean "remembrance."

As if by some unspoken understanding, Zhou Wang immediately saw that Ji Xiaoxi's expression concealed "reminiscence".

But what is she reminiscing about?

That naive and clueless version of myself, or...

Zhou Wang had no idea what was going on; he simply stood across the street, quietly watching her.

Upon hearing her companion's call, Ji Xiaoxi clearly snapped out of her daze, quickened her pace, and together with another companion, hurriedly boarded the bus.

"Xiaoxi, you went to buy flowers again!"

The girl who had called out to Ji Xiaoxi earlier glanced at the white roses in Ji Xiaoxi's arms and asked with some doubt, "But you bought the flowers and you don't take good care of them. You just leave them there. Why waste the money?"

"I guess I just like it when it's fresh..."

Ji Xiaoxi didn't know how to explain the problem, so she could only give a vague answer.

But half of that statement was actually true.

The “trips” organized by the church school are clearly different from ordinary travel. Although they involve traveling around, each stop only has one day for sightseeing, while the rest of the time is spent practicing with the local church.

Sometimes it's doing volunteer work, sometimes it's sitting in church all day, or copying and studying church texts.

Ji Xiaoxi didn't find it boring, but she often felt empty inside. She didn't have any other leisure activities, and when she had free time, she liked to stare blankly at the flowers she had bought.

She would watch those flowers wither and die, as if they were gazing at her own present self. On the surface, they appeared as pure as ever, but the flowers were rotten at their roots, and inevitably, they were heading towards decay...

She told Zhou Wang that she wanted to see the green mountains, but she had been away for so long, from Beijing to southern Tibet, then to Yunnan Province, and then all the way east, passing through Guangdong and Guangxi, and arriving at Hong Kong Island and Macau Island.

This is the last stop on her "journey," but Ji Xiaoxi has been to so many places and still hasn't found the "green hills" she's looking for.

Occasionally, in the vast and open environment, Ji Xiaoxi would feel her mind go completely blank, as if she had truly forgotten all the unbearable things she had to look back on, and returned to the carefree self she used to be, who only thought about food and photography every day...

But Ji Xiaoxi knew this was just an illusion, because every time she woke up in the middle of the night, when everything was quiet, those images would appear in her mind.

In the mother and baby room, she huddled helplessly in a corner, her head held down by Zhou Wang; in the lounge of the Paris hotel suite, she tremblingly stretched out her feet adorned with bells; or on that pristine white bed in Beidu, covered with rose petals, her pale toes curled up as she clung tightly to Zhou Wang, whispering softly:
"I love you, I love you so much I'm going crazy, please, stop torturing me..."

Ji Xiaoxi remembered that when she was first bullied by Zhou Wang, she would often think of those scenes in the middle of the night. Every time she woke up, the sheets would be wet with tears she shed out of hatred for herself for being so weak.

Even now, when she recalls those scenes, a patch of her bedsheet still gets wet, but...

"Xiaoxi, Xiaoxi..."

"Ok?"

Why are you spacing out again?

The round-faced girl next to Ji Xiaoxi waved her hand in front of her, "The team leader just said we can go out for dinner, and asked what you'd like to eat."

"I……"

Just as Ji Xiaoxi was about to answer, she suddenly caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of her eye. She was startled and then hurriedly turned her head, but at that moment the traffic light on the zebra crossing turned on and the crowd on the street surged. Ji Xiaoxi looked around, but suddenly she couldn't find that figure anymore.

Ji Xiaoxi was lost in thought for a moment, and as the bus started moving, she looked away, though there was a hint of self-mockery in her eyes.

This wasn't the first time Ji Xiaoxi had experienced such a hallucination-like misperception; she had even become somewhat accustomed to it.

She felt that she might truly be beyond saving...

The girl bit her lip, her eyes filled with an unresolved sorrow.

……

"Xiaoxi is very withdrawn. Although she seems normal when you're with her, I always feel like she has some heavy burden on her mind. Her favorite thing to do is to hide away and space out by herself..."

"She was always buying flowers, only white roses, and then watching them wither and die, I don't know why..."

"Miss Ji doesn't seem to be very good at socializing. This isn't just evident in groups; judging from her usual communication records, besides her parents, she has almost no other relatives or friends..." "By the way, Xiaoxi seems to have poor sleep quality. She often dreams in the middle of the night and talks in her sleep... well, strange sleep talking, hard to describe..."

In the study of the hotel suite, Zhou Wang sat in front of the computer, browsing a folder named "Ji Xiaoxi".

In Ji Xiaoxi's travel group, from the tour leader to her roommates, everyone had been bribed by Zhou Wang before the trip.

These people received a five-figure salary, but their daily tasks were not complicated. They simply recorded Ji Xiaoxi's itinerary in detail, kept an eye on her for any unusual behavior, and then compiled the information and sent it to a designated email address.

Zhou Wang hadn't had time to check recently because no one had called him, which meant there was probably nothing unusual. The extremely busy Zhou Wang had temporarily forgotten about it.

Zhou Wang unexpectedly ran into Ji Xiaoxi today. Yu Duo was still nearby, so Zhou Wang naturally couldn't do anything. After realizing that Ji Xiaoxi seemed to have seen him, he pulled Yu Duo, who had been standing there blankly with him for half a day, and turned to leave.

Back at the hotel, Zhou Wang remembered the incident, so he turned on his computer and began browsing the secret reports sent to him by the "spies."

Because many days had passed, even though there wasn't much to record about Ji Xiaoxi's itinerary, the various records compiled still kept Zhou Wang occupied for a long time.

Ji Xiaoxi's schedule could only be described as "unremarkable" and "boring," but Zhou Wang somehow observed it very carefully.

As he read through the lines of text, the daily life of a young girl seemed to come vividly to life before him—

While on a pilgrimage to Tibet, she wore headphones and walked up the mountain as if possessed, almost disappearing because no one was paying attention...

At Chaka Salt Lake in Qinghai Province, they sat around the lake, listening to an elderly couple passing by tell their love story. From their time as sent-down youth to old age, they had supported each other through thick and thin, remaining faithful to one another until the end. Everyone was moved to tears, but Ji Xiaoxi seemed to cry particularly hard, perhaps thinking of something...

When they reached Yunnan Province, Ji Xiaoxi kept getting distracted and even asked the team leader where Jingcheng was, so she specifically asked for a day off...

Zhou Wang's gaze swept over her, and he seemed to see her joys and sorrows, her hesitation and confusion.

For a long, long time, Zhou Wang couldn't remember how much time had passed until the knocking sounded on the door. Zhou Wang, who still had a cigarette butt between his fingers, suddenly realized that it was already dark.

Su Yaqing poked her head in, "Brother, are you still busy with work...? The food is ready, would you like to eat now?"

"Oh, here we come."

Zhou Wang took a deep breath, temporarily putting aside his chaotic thoughts, closed all the emails, got up and walked out of the room.

In the restaurant illuminated by the crystal chandelier, four girls were already seated. When they saw Zhou Wang come out, their laughter stopped abruptly. It was unclear what they were thinking, but apart from Yu Duo, whose expression was relatively natural, the other three girls all avoided each other's gaze with some shyness.

Everything that happened last night still seems so vivid in my mind. Heaven knows how awkward it was when the three girls woke up one after another as dusk approached.

Shen Yutong couldn't find where her panties had gone, while Cui Min'er, unaware that there was still a white mark on the corner of her lips, was photographed by Su Yaqing with quick eyes and hands. After realizing what had happened, Cui Min'er struggled with Su Yaqing for a long time, but Shen Yutong, whom she somehow managed to bribe, managed to hold her down and take another picture.

If it were just a photo of a "little girl," it wouldn't be a problem. But Su Yaqing, who had completely gone wild last night, found that she couldn't compare to Shen Yutong in terms of figure, and was slightly inferior to Cui Min'er in terms of looks. In order to please Zhou Wang, Su Yaqing could only make use of her advantage in "burning".

Then she found a lipstick and wrote some obscure Chinese characters, like "****", in places she couldn't quite describe...

Shen Yutong and Cui Min'er were stunned at the time. Now that Su Yaqing still dared to secretly take pictures of their incriminating evidence, how could Cui Min'er possibly let Su Yaqing off the hook?
Later, Cui Min'er and Su Yaqing reached an equal and friendly agreement. When she turned around and saw Shen Yutong watching the commotion from the side, she was obviously upset again.

So the two girls grabbed Shen Yutong again, added some marks to her, and took a picture. After this playful bickering, the matter was finally over.

Now that they were seated at the dining table, the appearance of Zhou Wang, the culprit, reminded them of these events, and the atmosphere became subtle again.

Zhou Wang could only eat while chatting about light topics, and it took a lot of effort to dissipate the strange atmosphere.

As the meal drew to a close, Zhou Wang glanced at the four girls and tentatively asked, "Um, tonight..."

As soon as Zhou Wang opened his mouth, he noticed that the four girls' expressions changed slightly.

Shen Yutong stood up first, "Well... I need to discuss joining the crew with my agent tonight, so I'll go back to my room first."

Choi Min-ah looked pained, but her acting was clumsy. "I'm not feeling well, so I'm going back to rest."

After saying that, Cui Min'er also ran away in a panic.

Yu Duo followed closely behind, looking as if something important had happened. "Sister Min'er, wait a minute, I have something to discuss with you..."

In the blink of an eye, only Zhou Wang and Su Yaqing were left staring at each other at the dining table.

Su Yaqing didn't expect her three sisters to act so quickly, as if they had planned it beforehand. If it were any other time, she would have been happy for them to run away so that her brother would be completely hers. But after last night and understanding Zhou Wang's true fighting power, Su Yaqing, who was still feeling a bit numb, didn't dare to be alone with Zhou Wang.

"Brother, I..."

Su Yaqing looked miserable and could only manage a forced smile.

"I know, you're not feeling well either, right?"

"Hmm, but if you really want it, brother..."

"Go and rest, it's okay."

Su Yaqing, who was already stammering, felt as if she had been granted a pardon upon hearing this and quickly ran away without looking back.

Zhou Wang looked at the now empty dining table and couldn't help but laugh and cry.

He didn't really have any particular idea, since he was already stuffed last night. He just wanted to ask them if they wanted to play mahjong, yeah, I mean, real mahjong...

Seeing how these girls were avoiding him like the plague, Zhou Wang had a premonition that the next few days would be tough; it was like three monks running out of water.

Shaking his head to dismiss his wild thoughts, Zhou Wang turned his attention to other matters.

The trip to Australia is nearing its end. Next, Zhou Wang plans to visit South Korea, go sightseeing, and also resolve Cui Min'er's inner conflict.

But before that, there's one more thing we need to confirm.

Zhou Wang checked the date, estimating it was about time, so he took out his phone and sent a WeChat message to a contact:
"Have you considered it?"

(End of this chapter)