Chapter 244: If people don’t showoff, what’s difference compared to a salted fish?
Translator: _Min_ Editor: Yukira_
These days, Jiang Chen had been very free.
Despite finding those surveillance devices in his room, he didn’t bother to care who did these vile things. Everyday he just chatted with his parents, took Ayesha to the places where he spent his childhood, took several photos with his mobile phone and sent it to the three people in the apocalypse to satisfy their curiosity.
“This is my high school,” Jiang Chen explained to Ayesha. Standing in front of the gate, Jiang Chen stared at the building with a sense of nostalgia.
It was where he spent his youth with sweat and tear.
Reminiscing his past, he used to be a youngster who would blush and had his heart beat faster just by merely touching his seatmate’s hand accidentally. Back then, he used to be so naïve and innocent.
“Did you attend high school?” Jiang Chen casually asked.
“Didn’t get to finish it. The school was destroyed,” Ayesha responded blankly.
What an utterly tragic memory.
“I’m sorry for reminding of your unhappy memories,” Jiang Chen murmured.
The cold face gave him a gentle smile, and then she shook her head.
“No need to apologize. There’s nothing we can do about it.”
Towards her tragic past, Ayesha had never felt any regret for it. Even to the tragedy that happened to her own family, she just accepted this fact in silence. When Jiang Chen asked her before if she wanted to seek revenge against the people who killed her family. As long as she desired it, he would be willing to help her, but still she shook her head.
Jiang Chen didn’t ask her why, but he could somehow guess the reason.
It was a distressing reality. The residents of her hometown probably resembled the people of the apocalypse the most.
Only those people who were accustomed to death would be so apathetic towards death.
It was precisely because of this that she could only be intimate to the only person that made her feel warm, the only person that made her open her heart.
Rubbing her little head, Jiang Chen smiled, took her hand and went to the school gate.
“Cla.s.s is still ongoing at the moment. Uninvited guests can’t enter the school premises,” the old man, sitting in the security room and clad in a military jacket, solemnly said.
Although Jiang Chen could still recognize him; on the other hand, he would obviously not remember everyone who went out from here.
Jiang Chen was stunned as he could not imagine that he would be blocked by a security guard. However, seeing the alertness on the guard’s face, Jiang Chen immediately understood why.
There was nothing wrong with the guard obstructing anyone from entering the school. Jiang Chen remembered when he was still studying here, there would be young thugs who were fond of hanging out in the vicinity of the school. Even though they were nothing, they would pretend to be a “boss” in front of these teens to show off their grandiose” tale,” and then they would gang up on inexperienced delinquent girls and ask them for money and the like.
The brown curly hair of Ayesha was obviously misunderstood by the old guard as dyed. After all, the guard was getting old and could not see her facial feature clearly.
As though reading the guard’s mind, Jiang Chen smiled and walked over and started a conversation with the old man.
“Is the princ.i.p.al still Mr. Wu?”
“Yes, are you looking for him?”
“Mhmm… Call him and tell him someone wants to donate a school building.”
The guard was gobsmacked.
“What?”
…
Ordinary people may not recognize Jiang Chen, but as the school leader of the Hucheng High School II, how could he not recognize his outstanding alumnus? To start with, in a small place like Hucheng, it was rare to have someone so accomplished. And now, that this place had produced a president of a 10 billion company, someone who had been praised by the Wall Street Journal to be equal to Bill Gate and Steve Jobs; and recognized as the “third technology revolution leader.”
Wu Zechen had been working in Hucheng High II for more than ten years and could be considered as a veteran of the school. Although he didn’t have much impression of Jiang Chen, who graduated five years ago, it didn’t stop him from feeling proud. It was not at the point where he would mention Jiang Chen’s name every sentence, but at the end of every princ.i.p.al’s speech, he would use Jiang Chen’s story to motivate the young students to study harder to get into a good university.
This was despite the fact that Jiang Chen’s current achievement had nothing to do with the university he attended at all…
Less than half a minute later, Jiang Chen saw Princ.i.p.al Wu led a group of school officials walking out in hasty steps. From afar, he waved at Jiang Chen and greeted him with a bright smile.
“Haha, Mr. Jiang came to visit us. We weren’t prepared. You should have given me a call,” Wu Zechen said pa.s.sionately, shaking Jiang Chen’s hands vigorously.
“You don’t have to bother. I just want to check the place out again.” Jiang Chen smiled.
“That’s not okay! Mr. Jiang coming back to Hucheng High School II is an important event, we need a welcome ceremony—”
“There’s no need. Let’s not disturb the students.” Jiang Chen waved his hand.
Towards the old princ.i.p.al’s excessive enthusiasm, Jiang Chen couldn’t help but feel embarra.s.sed. After shaking hands with the vice princ.i.p.al, directors, and other school officials, he finally entered the school gate.
Of course, the reason why the old princ.i.p.al gave Jiang Chen such a warm welcome was because of his introductory words of “donating a school building.” After receiving confirmation from Jiang Chen, his aging face bloomed like a flower and personally played the role of a “guide” by showing Ayesha and Jiang Chen around.
He previously thought he would have to retire being a headmaster, but Jiang Chen somehow came back and contributed to his hometown’s school.
Once the new school building project had been finalized, it would not take him two years to transfer to Education Bureau. With this qualification, he would be promoted at least half a level, perhaps even a full level. After gaining so many benefits, it was no wonder why he would be so pa.s.sionate.
Originally, the princ.i.p.al’s enthusiasm gave Jiang Chen a headache. After all, he initially intended to wander about the familiar campus while holding Ayesha’s hand to reminisce the past in silence, and also made a bit of contribution for his hometown, but he didn’t expect that he would have a group school leaders following him.
But soon after, he quickly began to enjoy this experience.
The reason being was because…
“Quickly look, isn’t that Jiang Chen?” Pa.s.sing through the cla.s.sroom where he spent his three years, a sharp-eyed girl immediately recognized Jiang Chen and dragged her seatmate excitedly.
Among the youngsters using smartphones, Jiang Chen was especially famous since Future 1.0 had at least 300 million domestic users. The majority of people enjoying watching shows and playing games would choose to install Little White to save battery and increase speed.
“Eh? It’s true! OMG, how did Old Wu manage to invite the nation’s husband to the school?” A pretty looking girl with long hair widened her eyes and stopped scrolling through Weibo.
“Put your phone away, if the director sees you—”
“Wait, let me take a photo first.” The girl raised her phone to take a picture.
Not only among girls, Jiang Chen was also popular among guys.
A lot of smart students view this man as their role model and wished to become like him one day, to be able to strut back to their school and hold their heads high, and let those “arrogant” school leaders trail behind them and enjoy their fawning words.
More than a billion of net worth, a foreign gorgeous female a.s.sistant: the epitome of life’s winner.
Though Jiang Chen really wanted to tell them that his present achievements had nothing to do with studying… despite getting a high score when he was admitted to w.a.n.ghai university.
In short, it was incredibly exhilarating to be envied and praised by a crowd of energetic young people.
That’s right! Jiang Chen utterly enjoyed the feeling of vainglory.
“What do you think of this, Mr. Jiang? Are you satisfied with the culture at our school?” Wu Zechen asked in great spirit when he saw Jiang Chen’s mouth curved up.
“Whether I’m satisfied or not, I’m not qualified to say it. But seeing that our students are so energetic, as an alumnus, I’m extremely pleased,” Jiang Chen casually said and grinned.
“Haha, how could that be? We have a lot of students that view Mr. Jiang as an alumnus,” a female secretary in her 30s said while giggling.
Towards this compliment, Jiang Chen cracked a smile.
“Speaking of, where is teacher Cai?” That was his homeroom teacher. After walking around the campus, he failed to see him.
“Mr. Cai is already old and retired. I heard that his son is doing well in the south, so he retired there.”
Already retired?
Jiang Chen could not help but feel some regret, thereupon he felt relieved.
He had already spent more than half of his life teaching, so it was time to enjoy life.
…
5-million school building, a set of 1 million state-of-the-art teaching equipment, and a marble statue. Princ.i.p.al Wu insisted that a ceremonious donation ceremony should be made, or else it would be hard to express the grat.i.tude of the students and staff of the school.
But Jiang Chen rejected it. Afraid of trouble, he used the most straightforward method and donated it under Future Technology’s name. The company’s legal department would send people to coordinate with this matter, so he didn’t need to worry anymore.
After taking care of everything, Jiang Chen called Xia s.h.i.+yu to let her know.
“h.e.l.lo?” Jiang Chen drawled on the phone.
“Ah, hmm? Do you need something?” Xia s.h.i.+yu sounded slightly absent-minded.
Puzzled, Jiang Chen frowned and said in a voice filled with concern, “There’s something… I feel like you don’t sound right. Are you coming down with a cold?”
“No, nothing, just a bit personal stuff,” Xia s.h.i.+yu perfunctorily said.
Her parents wanted her to go on an arranged date by a matchmaker saying it would be hard for older girls to get married. The male’s side also worked in w.a.n.ghai City and owned a company. Apparently, he was quite well off… What era was this?
For the past few days, Xia s.h.i.+yu has been troubled by this.
She was unable to talk her insistent parents out of it and finally agreed to take a vacation and return home
It just to make her parents happy.
As for the date, she had unceremoniously sentenced him to death in her heart already.
For some reason, even though it didn’t have anything to do with Jiang Chen, she still didn’t want Jiang Chen to know about this. The more embarra.s.sing thing was, when she thought about marriage, what happened that night would somehow surface in her head.
That night, their lips were only a few centimeters apart.
If they kissed on that day…
After listening to Jiang Chen’s donation distractedly, Xia s.h.i.+yu hung up the phone.
After a long sigh, she held her phone in front of her chest.
That bright, red thin lips pouted, it was a rare scene.
She cluelessly murmured to herself, “Fool…”
(1) Salted fish is an Internet slang for saying useless person.