Chapter Ninety: Chen Qi's Terms

After more than ten minutes, the two of them arrived at the cafe, which looked rather pleasant.

Once inside, Chen deliberately chose a quiet corner by the window.

They sat facing each other.

Chen casually ordered two coffees, then studied the girl across from him with a calm gaze.

More than half a month ago, when he heard her singing on the overpass, he had already realized she was exactly the kind of girl who matched his taste.

Her skin was fair, and her long hair hung naturally over her shoulders. Perhaps because she had come here to sing today, she wore a light touch of makeup. That delicate makeup only made her already lovely face even more breathtaking.

She was beautiful, the kind of beauty that felt genuine and real.

Chen felt as though he had struck gold.

Working with a girl this beautiful and kind was, to him, a pleasure to the eye and the spirit.

Perhaps sensing his scrutiny, the girl, who had already begun to settle herself somewhat, suddenly grew flustered again for no reason at all. She did not even know what she was flustered about.

She lowered her head a little, but not too much, afraid that if he could not see her face clearly, he might grow angry and cancel the deal out of spite.

Yes, she had defined this meeting as a deal.

Although she still did not know exactly what sort of deal it would be, it was a deal all the same.

“What should I call you?” Chen asked.

“Su Xiaoxiao,” the girl said softly.

“Are you a student?”

“Yes.” Su Xiaoxiao nodded. “I’m a third-year student at Capital Foreign Languages University. I’ll be starting my fourth year in half a month. I’m also working part-time at a translation agency.”

“A foreign languages university?” Hearing that she was not from a music school or something similar, Chen actually felt a quiet sense of relief.

Compared with finding some promising singer, he wanted first and foremost to find a helper he could trust completely. That was the reason he had come here in the first place.

“So singing is just your hobby?” he asked.

Su Xiaoxiao was silent for two seconds before replying, “I suppose so.”

“Suppose so?”

She nodded lightly and said nothing more.

Like ordinary people, she did not have any especially deep love for singing. If she had not truly been out of options, she would never have come to this pedestrian street merely because her friends once said she had a nice voice.

To put it plainly, singing was only one way for her to make money right now.

Seeing that she would not speak, Chen vaguely guessed the reason and did not press further.

During this time, Su Xiaoxiao several times seemed on the verge of saying something, but whether out of caution or some other concern, in the end she never took the initiative to say a word.

“Can you tell me why you need money?” Chen noticed her hesitation and brought the conversation back on track.

Su Xiaoxiao was silent for a few seconds, then slowly nodded.

Her father had been hospitalized because of a heart condition, and they needed a large sum of money.

They were an ordinary family from another place. Everything of value at home had already been sold, and every possible method had already been tried, but there was still a huge shortfall.

The money she had now could keep her father in the hospital until tomorrow, but the largest expense of all, the surgery fee, she still had not managed to raise.

To be exact, she could no longer raise it.

Her parents had long since been prepared to go back to their hometown. In fact, after they had finished the examinations here and heard the surgery fee, which was sky-high to them, they had already decided not to proceed with treatment. If not for her persistence, they would probably have returned home long ago and simply left everything to fate.

Indeed, if not for her insistence, they would not have come to the capital at all.

By the time she spoke of the end, her voice was already choking with tears, and she forced herself not to cry.

After hearing her account, Chen more or less understood the whole matter.

He was not surprised by this outcome. The day he had seen her enter the hospital, he had already guessed that someone in her family must be hospitalized.

After thinking it over, he said, “I can give you the money you need, but I have one condition...”

“I agree!”

But what he never expected was that before he had even finished speaking, Su Xiaoxiao, who had been keeping her head down, suddenly lifted it and agreed without the slightest hesitation.

The way she looked, it was as if she feared he might change his mind.

“...” Chen swallowed the rest of his sentence, which had just reached his lips, and looked at her with some emotion.

The light flickering in her eyes looked exactly like the faintest glimmer of hope seen in the depths of utter despair, where there had been no way out.

He was very curious about how much hardship and torment she had endured during this time.

“I haven’t even said what the condition is...” he said, somewhat speechless.

Aren’t you afraid I might really demand something utterly insane?

I’m not exactly a good person.

“As long as you can give me this money, I’ll agree to anything!” Su Xiaoxiao spoke very quickly, her entire body taut with strain.

She was extremely nervous now, so nervous that her heart had risen all the way to her throat.

Just as Chen had guessed, she was afraid he would go back on his word.

She needed this money too much. Before today, she had thought about it more than once: as long as someone could give her this money, she would agree to any condition. She had even once tried to sell herself to get the money, but in the end had to abandon the idea because she had no proper channel.

She had no other road left to take. Chen was her only hope. She could not afford to miss it, and she must not miss it.

Because it was for her father, the man in this world who loved her most.

Chen looked at her with a complicated expression. After two seconds of silence, he sighed inwardly and said, “Give me your card number.”

Su Xiaoxiao hurriedly fumbled out a bank card from her person and handed it over with trembling hands.

She looked at Chen, both nervous and uneasy, so tense that she unconsciously held her breath.

Chen placed her card in front of him, took out his phone, opened mobile banking, and directly transferred three hundred thousand yuan into the account.

After the transfer was complete, he showed her the page confirming the success of the transaction.

Su Xiaoxiao stared blankly at the information on the screen, then looked up at Chen, still unable to believe it.

Right then, her phone gave a text message alert.

She fumbled with it again and saw the bank notification of the deposit.

And then, she froze.

A few seconds later, the tears in her eyes could no longer be restrained and burst forth at once.

“Waaah—”

Suddenly, she bent over the table and cried out loud, crying with heartbreaking grief.

Across from her, Chen watched her quietly without saying a word.

Pressure as heavy as a mountain, despair so complete it left no way forward or back—let alone for a girl like her—would have broken him too.

He could even sense that she had already been close to collapse, merely struggling on by sheer will.

Cry. It would be better to cry it out. The burden she carried was simply too great; she needed to let it go.

Half a minute later, Chen suddenly turned his head. Through the transparent glass, he stared blankly at the distant horizon, just as he had on the day he first came to this world.

Whether stirred by something in his heart or struck by some thought, the corners of his eyes also turned faintly red.