Class reunions invariably boiled down to the same few things: eating, singing karaoke, and gossiping about how everyone had fared since graduation.
As Shanghai's premier five-star hotel, the Yunzhong offered impeccable amenities. The suite was stocked with drinks, fresh fruit, top-shelf liquor, and virtually anything else one could ask for.
However, the most important guest had yet to arrive, so after settling into the reserved private suite, everyone mostly stood around chatting.
Following the earlier incident outside, several classmates couldn't help gravitating toward Lu Yuan. They were eager to find out how he had managed to get his hands on such a luxury ride just one year after graduating. Others dropped subtle hints, probing whether he could throw some lucrative opportunities their way. The female classmates, led by Li Sisi, were even more direct, asking point-blank if he had a girlfriend.
Lu Yuan responded politely to each of them, but kept details about his personal affairs to an absolute minimum. After all, he had come with a specific agenda; playing nice or networking with former classmates was nowhere on his radar.
"Hey, Class Monitor, look at how all the girls are flocking around Lu Yuan," Wang Zibo said from across the suite, looking somewhat helpless as he watched the crowd encircling Lu Yuan.
Back in college, his lively, bold personality had made him quite popular with the female students. But that didn't work anymore; these days, everyone's eyes were fixed on money.
"So what?" Li Hansheng popped open a bottle of liquor and sneered. "Isn't it just a rented four-million-yuan car? Once Sisi and the others find out, let's see how he worms his way out of that embarrassment."
He was naturally sour about having his thunder stolen, but with nothing concrete to say right now, he could only sulk and drink.
"How do you know it's a rental? Didn't look like one to me," Wang Zibo remarked, puzzled.
"Let me tell you..."
Li Hansheng was about to launch into an explanation when his phone lit up with a text message, making his eyes widen with delight. He sprang to his feet, raised his hands to quiet the room, and announced loudly, "Quiet down for a second, everyone! Yunqiong is on her way. Let's order the food first—she'll be here any minute!"
At those words, the room fell silent. Everyone immediately moved toward the adjoining dining area to get settled.
Zhou Yunqiong was not just the prettiest girl in their class; she had been the undisputed campus belle of the entire university. More importantly, her family's Wuzhou Group was prominent enough to rank among the top tier in Shanghai. A textbook fair, wealthy, and beautiful heiress, she was the goddess who lived in the hearts of every male student in their college days. Naturally, her impending arrival commanded everyone's full attention; nobody dared show the slightest negligence.
Seeing this, Li Hansheng's sullen mood brightened considerably. After all, he was the only one in touch with Zhou Yunqiong right now.
At that thought, he cast a triumphant sidelong glance at Lu Yuan.
Lu Yuan acted as if he hadn't noticed at all, simply walking with the rest of the group toward the dining table. When it came time to pick seats, instead of joining the wealthy crowd, he pulled up a chair next to Chen Song, offering a warm smile. "Long time no see, Chen Song."
"Ah... long time no see, Lu Yuan," Chen Song stammered, startled before quickly nodding in greeting.
Due to his modest background, hardly anyone had spoken to him during the gathering, leaving him sitting quietly off to the side the whole time. Lu Yuan taking the initiative to sit next to him was a complete surprise, and recalling the ultra-luxury car Lu Yuan had driven in made him distinctly nervous. His mind raced—their relationship in college had been thoroughly ordinary.
"Yeah, it's been over a year," Lu Yuan said softly.
He naturally saw right through Chen Song's thoughts. In fact, attending this reunion had been entirely for Chen Song's sake.
Before long, the food was ordered, and the group drifted back into casual chatter.
"Have you guys heard? Those two tour groups in the Taihang Mountains have been found," Wang Zibo, ever the social sparkplug, was the first to speak up.
"Yeah, I saw that on the news. Someone leaked online that they'd all gone mad, claiming they saw a tiger that could talk!"
"Right, right! And someone even claimed they found an ocean in the middle of the mountains! What a joke—how could there be an ocean in the mountains?"
The classmates grew animated, swapping recent bizarre occurrences.
"Did you catch the news about Tianzhu's national treasure, the Bodhi tree, being stolen? Hilarious! Who the hell steals a tree these days? Pure absurdity."
"That's nothing. I heard the Pope in the Vatican personally knelt before a teenage boy, declaring him an angel come to save the world! I still have the video on my phone."
"Oh, and what about that ancient text that stirred up such a massive fuss a while ago? The one said to be connected to the *Daodejing*?"
"Of course! Didn't Christie's put it up for auction recently? How did that turn out?"
"Some idiot bought it! Rumor has it they spent over thirty million!"
"What? Over thirty million?!"
"How brainless can you get? Even our domestic experts said it was a fake, yet someone still fell for it!"
"See, that's where you're naive. If they didn't inflate the price like that, how else would they launder money?" Li Hansheng chimed in, convinced that such auctions were mostly used to launder dirty cash. For something so blatantly valueless to fetch an astronomical sum, there had to be shady business behind it.
"Exactly, definitely money laundering," a few classmates agreed.
Not far away, Lu Yuan listened to their banter with a faint curl on his lips.
Indeed, when an information asymmetry existed, ordinary people couldn't begin to fathom the logic behind his actions. But it was only natural; no one here could imagine that in a mere two months, the entire world would undergo a global mutation, and the very things everyone mocked would reveal their true, miraculous wonders.
Lu Yuan had zero intention of explaining himself. He simply cradled his wine glass, watching in quiet amusement.
As for the complete version of the *Daodejing* at Christie's, he was naturally the one who had arranged the purchase. It had been finalized the day before yesterday and was likely already on its way back to China.
Yet listening to their chatter only reinforced Lu Yuan's conviction: the global mutation had already begun, completely unnoticed by ordinary people.
The two tour groups in the Taihang Mountains, the bizarre behavior of the Pope in the Vatican, and the earlier reports of the Loch Ness Monster...
To normal people, these were just amusing oddities in the news.
To someone who had lived through the apocalypse, however, they carried a profoundly different weight.
*Creak.*
Just as the conversation grew heated, the door to the room swung open, and a delicate, refreshing fragrance drifted in.
Everyone turned their heads. Their expressions varied wildly—delight, shock, awe, and in some, an instinctive trace of inferiority.
Stepping into the room was a young woman in her early twenties, tall and slender, with fair, porcelain skin. Her hair was gathered into a high ponytail, and an aloof, icy aura radiated from her, creating an inviolable distance like that of a moon goddess descending to the mortal realm. Her breathtaking beauty eclipsed the likes of Li Sisi by leagues.
The moment she appeared, everything else in the room seemed to fade into dim obscurity, drawing every single gaze.
"I'm sorry, I'm late," she said, her voice like a cool mountain spring, refreshing and crystalline.
"Zhou Yunqiong!"
"Yunqiong is here!"
"Yunqiong!"
The varying forms of address reflected their different degrees of familiarity from the past. That last call naturally came from Li Hansheng, who sprang to his feet with gentlemanly eagerness and rushed over to welcome her.
Yet the moment he drew near, his heart jolted, and he involuntarily took two steps back.
Because behind Zhou Yunqiong stood another person.
Chapter 5