Super Rich: Starting the game by going back ten years to buy Bitcoin

"...ex-girlfriend."

When those three words were squeezed out of his throat, Li Yichen's first reaction wasn't to greet him, nor to pretend he didn't see him, but rather—

run.

He turned and ran.

My foot has already moved half a step back.

But Xiao Yuqing was standing right next to her.

If he ran into his ex-girlfriend and abandoned his current girlfriend, what kind of behavior would that be? If Xiao Yuqing didn't know the inside story, she would think he was afraid of his ex-girlfriend.

It's not fear.

It's not that I'm afraid.

I don't know how to face it.

Li Yichen pulled his foot back, stood still, put his hands in his pockets, and clenched his ten fingers tightly.

Xiao Yuqing tilted her head to look at him, then glanced in the direction of the woman.

"Ex-girlfriend? Which ex-girlfriend?"

Li Yichen did not respond.

He stared at the figure ten steps away, looking down at his phone, the images in his mind replaying frame by frame.

Liu Xiaoyu.

My high school classmate.

Back then, they sat at desks one in front of the other. She sat in front, and he sat behind. During class, she would secretly pass notes to him, which he would take and tuck into the folds of his textbook, reading them word by word after class. They walked home together after school; the 800-meter road from the school gate to her house took them forty minutes to walk.

inseparable.

Two and a half years.

Every morning when he arrived at the classroom, a carton of milk and a tea egg would already be placed on her desk. Every evening after self-study, she would wait for him at the school gate, and the two of them would slowly walk back along that road, their shadows stretched long by the streetlights, overlapping and inseparable.

She was seventeen or eighteen. She knew nothing, yet dared to say anything. She said she wanted to go to the same city as him for university, and he agreed. She said she wanted to marry him after graduating, and he agreed again.

At that time, I thought that the two of us would stay like this forever.

Second semester of senior year.

While everyone was engrossed in doing practice problems, one day after school, Li Yichen was cornered in the alley behind the school.

It's raining.

It wasn't a drizzle; it was the kind of heavy rain that splashes up when it hit the ground. Water was streaming down the walls on both sides of the alley, and the puddles on the ground were ankle-deep.

The person who blocked him was named Liu Qiang.

Liu Xiaoyu's older brother.

He was over 1.8 meters tall, wearing a black leather jacket, his hair soaked by the rain and plastered to his forehead. He stood at the entrance of the alley, behind him a white BMW, its hazard lights flashing in the rain.

"You're Li Yichen?"

Liu Qiang looked him up and down. The knees of his school uniform pants were frayed, one of the straps of his schoolbag was broken and tied with a shoelace, and the soles of his sneakers were almost worn through.

"Stay away from my sister."

Five words. Crisp and efficient.

Li Yichen stood in the rain without saying a word.

Liu Qiang took two steps forward, standing less than a meter away from him. Rainwater poured down from above their heads.

"Look at yourself! You're from the countryside, your parents work as construction workers, and you don't even own a decent house. What makes you think you can be with my sister?"

Every word hit my ears like a hammer blow.

It hit very accurately.

"My sister has always been in the top ten of her grade, but since she got together with you, she's fallen to outside the top thirties. There are still four months until the college entrance exam; if you hold her back—"

Liu Qiang didn't finish his sentence. But the unspoken words carried more weight than the spoken ones.

"You can't cross the threshold of the Liu family. Give up on that idea now."

After saying that, Liu Qiang turned and left. The back of his leather jacket billowed in the wind as he opened the door of his BMW, got in, started the engine, reversed, and drove out of the alley. His taillights left two red streaks in the rain before disappearing around the corner.

Li Yichen was left alone in the alley.

Rain poured down from above, running down my hair and into my neck. My clothes clung to my body, and I shivered from the cold.

But he remained standing. He didn't move.

Ten minutes. Twenty minutes.

The same few sentences kept running through my mind.

You're from the countryside. You're a bricklayer. What do you have to offer her to be with her? You can't even get close to her.

恨刘强吗？

I don't hate.

What's so hateful about an older brother not wanting his sister to be with a poor guy? If he were Liu Qiang, he probably would have done the same thing.

From that day on, Li Yichen avoided Liu Xiaoyu.

She stopped looking ahead during class, took a different route after school, and went to the cafeteria at times she didn't go.

Liu Xiaoyu sent him messages, but he didn't reply. She called him, but he didn't answer. Five or six calls a day, from morning till night, and he kept his phone on silent, tucked away at the bottom of his backpack.

For the first week, she waited for him at the classroom door every day. He left through the back door.

The following week, she found his back door route and blocked the stairwell. He climbed out of the first-floor window.

The third week.

The phone rang.

At 11 p.m., the dormitory lights were off, and all that could be heard was the breathing of my roommates.

The phone screen was lit up, displaying Liu Xiaoyu's name.

Li Yichen stared at that name for a long time.

Thumb hovers above the answer button.

Press down.

The first sound coming through the receiver was a sob. Not a loud cry, but a suppressed sob, as if afraid of being heard.

"Li Yichen...why are you ignoring me...?"

He gripped his phone tightly, his back teeth clenched.

"Did I do something wrong...? Tell me, I'll change..."

There's something stuck in my throat; I can't swallow it or spit it out.

"Say something..."

The dormitory ceiling was dark and gloomy. A thin ray of moonlight leaked through the curtains and cut across the back of his hand.

The image of Liu Qiang standing at the alley entrance flashed through my mind again. Rain. BMW. Leather jacket.

Those few words.

There was a silence of about ten seconds.

Let's break up.

Four words.

It was so soft that he could barely hear it himself.

There was a full three seconds of silence on the other end of the line.

Then came a short, abrupt sob, as if it had been cut off.

He pressed the hang-up button.

The next day, he took the SIM card out, broke it in half, and threw it in the trash. He got a new SIM card, but didn't give the new number to anyone.

After finishing the college entrance examination, he did not attend the graduation party or pick up the graduation photos. He simply packed his bags and left the city.

Five or six years have passed in the blink of an eye.

Never met her. Never contacted her. I even deliberately avoid thinking about her name.

But now, she's standing just ten steps away.

A black dress. Long hair flowing down her shoulders. She looks completely different from when she wore a ponytail and a school uniform in high school, but the profile of her face and the habit of tilting her head slightly when looking down at her phone are exactly the same.

Li Yichen's Adam's apple bobbed.

owe.

The word popped out from some corner of my mind and stuck in my chest.

He owes her an explanation. He didn't give it to her five or six years ago, and he still can't now.

"Walk."

Li Yichen lowered his head, grabbed Xiao Yuqing's wrist, and turned to walk towards the escalator.

Walks quickly. In a hurry.

Xiao Yuqing stumbled a step after being pulled by him, and quickly followed.

"What's wrong? Why are you running—"

"Nothing much. There's not much to see on this floor, let's go to the third floor."

Xiao Yuqing glanced at him suspiciously, then looked back at the woman.

In the blink of an eye—

The woman in the black dress looked up.

She looked away from her phone screen and glanced over in this direction.

My steps stopped.

The phone in my hand sank two centimeters.

She stared at the back of the man who was leading a girl toward the escalator ten steps away, and froze on the spot.

His lips moved slightly.

"...Li Yichen?"

The two words weren't big. They were very light. So light they were almost drowned out by the background music in the mall.

But Li Yichen's feet were firmly planted on the ground.