After Becoming a Spare Tire, I Got Together with My White Moonlight - Chapter 11

Four years ago.

On an evening as the sun set in the west, Jiang Xuehe was chatting with a friend back home while tidying up the cabinets in the art studio.

Among the scattered papers were a few sketches. When Jiang Xuehe flipped to one of them, she paused for a moment.

A single character, “Yan,” helped her recall a chance encounter from a few days earlier.

Before she knew it, she had already asked, “Do you know anyone from the Yan family?”

As it turned out, her friend did know. The physical characteristics weren’t hard to recognize either. Among the Yan family’s younger generation, the only one close in age was the eldest, Yan Guiqiu.

The second daughter, Yan Guizhou, followed closely behind, just two years younger than her sister, but she was still in high school and should have already started school by then.

“The eldest daughter of the Yan family? A friend of mine knows her friend. They went abroad together for a trip before university started, and I think they just got back a couple of days ago.”

It matched.

Jiang Xuehe let out an “Oh,” her inner question answered. She glanced again at the person in the drawing, though her memory had already grown a bit hazy.

She casually set the sketch aside and continued sorting through the papers beneath.

Her friend went on, “But your families are in the south and north respectively, with basically no overlap. What made you think to ask about her family?”

Jiang Xuehe had no intention of spreading the story of the Yan family’s eldest daughter’s heroic act. She brushed it off with a simple, “Just a little curious.”

It really was just a little bit of curiosity.

Her friend said, “There aren’t many people who can make you curious.”

And it just so happened that this one had caught her eye.

Jiang Xuehe smiled without replying.

Her friend asked again, “Want me to look into it for you?”

Jiang Xuehe looked up, her gaze catching the trench coat casually hanging on the rack by the door. After a brief pause, she swallowed the words “Never mind” and instead uttered a simple, “Okay.”

Six months ago, in another early autumn.

Jiang Xuehe went to the school art studio to pack her things. Most of her belongings had been gradually taken away when she graduated, but she had occasionally returned to the school for events, leaving behind some odds and ends in the studio.

Not long before, she had decided to return to her home country, so some necessary items had to be packed up and taken away for good.

As she sealed the sorted box, a junior student she was on good terms with knocked on the door, holding a thick stack of papers that had slightly yellowed.

“Is this yours?” the junior asked, handing the stack of sketches to Jiang Xuehe. “I was just tidying the cabinets, and this was buried at the very bottom. It looks a bit like your style.”

Jiang Xuehe had spent time in the neighboring art studio before, so it wasn’t impossible for something of hers to have been left behind.

She took the stack and flipped through it, pausing slightly.

They were indeed her own sketches not part of any formal portfolio, but mostly private practice pieces inspired by moments of feeling. More than half were quick sketches of landscapes and people.

Having been buried at the bottom of the cabinet for years, untouched, they were surprisingly well-preserved aside from the slight yellowing of the paper.

As she reached the middle of the stack, a familiar figure leaped out at her.

Yan Guiqiu.

Over the past two years, she had become quite familiar with this face though it was a one-sided acquaintance through photos.

The date in the lower right corner was clearly marked, instantly bringing distant memories flooding back.

Seeing her pause, the junior asked again, “Is it yours?”

Jiang Xuehe snapped back to reality, nodded, and smiled gratefully. “It’s something very important. I’ve been searching for it for a long time and thought it was lost. Thank you.”

Her junior waved her hands repeatedly, saying it was no trouble, and murmured a gentle reminder, “If it’s that important, you should take better care of it in the future.”

She had seen the look in Jiang Xuehe’s eyes as she gazed at the sketches and had no doubt about the importance she placed on them.

“You’re right,” Jiang Xuehe replied with a mix of shame and agreement. “If it were truly lost, it would be a great regret.”

It was just a drawing.

And thankfully, it was just a drawing.

After seeing her junior off, Jiang Xuehe carried the box and the stack of sketches back to her place. The sun was already setting, casting a shimmering glow on the water outside the balcony, evoking a vague sense of melancholy.

Leaning against the balcony railing, Jiang Xuehe flipped through the sketches and received a call from a friend.

After the usual pleasantries, the conversation shifted to Yan Guiqiu.

To Jiang Xuehe and her friend, who had investigated Yan Guiqiu, she was an enigmatic figure. Peeling back the layers of mystery only revealed the tip of the iceberg. Whether out of stubbornness or genuine curiosity about the young woman, her friend had persistently delved into Yan Guiqiu’s past over the years.

This time, it seemed she had uncovered something substantial.

“During the turmoil in the Yan family, she was indeed involved, but her father’s side handled most of it. What she truly managed entirely on her own was ‘Xinglan,’ roughly from eight to six years ago.”

“Eight years ago? She wasn’t even an adult then.”

“Right, she was fourteen. So she never appeared directly, but the closest collaborators knew very well that the young lady was the real mastermind behind Xinglan.”

“Eight years ago, President Meng was still in the hospital, wasn’t she?”

Xinglan originally focused on the fashion design industry and was a subsidiary of the longstanding Meng family. It was named after Meng Xinglan, the family’s newborn daughter at the time, and by now had a solid history of over forty years.

When Meng Xinglan came of age, the company was naturally handed over to her.

A few years after her marriage, the Meng family patriarch passed away due to illness, triggering internal strife within the family. With outside forces stirring the pot, the conflict raged for years, leading to sell-offs and restructuring. The once-great family collapsed almost overnight, with only the company under Meng Xinglan’s control remaining intact.

Unfortunately, misfortune never comes alone. A car accident sent Meng Xinglan to the hospital, where she underwent over a dozen surgeries and spent several years recovering.

During that period, due to the negative fallout from the Meng family’s internal conflicts such as key executives leaving, competitors smearing the company, chaotic management, subpar products, and the chairman’s inability to oversee operations due to injury, the company nearly hit rock bottom.

Under such circumstances, no one would have been surprised if they had announced bankruptcy, closure, or an outright sale the very next day.

But the outcome defied all expectations.

Shortly after waking from the car accident, Meng Xinglan appointed a proxy CEO to fully handle the company’s affairs.

Anyone with a discerning eye could see that this proxy was not the kind of talent who could turn the tide. Their only virtue was loyalty, as they owed Meng Xinglan a great debt and remained unwavering in their devotion to her.

Since he took over, a series of actions carried out with a decisive and resolute momentum, pushing through pressure from top to bottom, thoroughly cleansing the company.

This chaotic situation was also a great opportunity, but few had the capability to seize it.

At the very least, this acting CEO didn’t seem like such a genius.

Yet the facts proved that most of the decisions he made were correct.

In just two short years, Xinglan was revived from the brink of collapse, even surpassing the state it was in when Meng Xinglan first took over.

From then on, industry insiders analyzing Xinglan’s various moves directly included it in the textbook template for corporate self-rescue, becoming a legendary tale.

If you were to tell those people that the one truly behind those legends wasn’t President Meng, nor the later acting President Huo, but an underage girl, no one would believe it.

Even Jiang Xuehe didn’t believe it at first.

From fourteen to sixteen years old at that age, most are still struggling to grasp the basics of business operations under their parents’ guidance. To suddenly be credited with masterminding such strategies seemed utterly absurd.

Moreover, if she were truly such a prodigy, how could she appear so ordinary when they met?

Before hearing her friend dig up the Yan family’s past, she had only thought of Yan Guiqiu as a well-behaved student with a slightly stronger sense of justice.

There was no direct evidence to prove Yan Guiqiu possessed such immense capability.

But some business partners were aware and privately spread rumors though they were too unbelievable for anyone to take seriously.

Coupled with the fact that Yan Guiqiu’s frequent class-skipping perfectly aligned with the timeline, many noted that the young lady was often seen around the company whenever major moves were made.

There were even jokes that the acting President Huo had to consider the young lady’s mood when making decisions.

Because of her age and her resolute detachment from it all, despite so much circumstantial evidence, no one was willing to dig deeper, much less believe it.

Jiang Xuehe never entertained far-fetched notions like reincarnation, but she trusted what was right in front of her.

She couldn’t help but grow curious about this legendary figure.

This was one of the reasons that prompted her decision to return to the country.

Her friend marveled for a while before asking Jiang Xuehe, “Are you going to seek her out to collaborate? But it seems she really has no interest in diving back into the business world. Right now, she just looks like an ordinary college student.”

Not to mention, after all these years of staying out of it, how much sharpness and ability could she possibly retain.

“You two aren’t related or connected in any way. Are you sure you can persuade her to help you?”

“No,” Jiang Xuehe said.

“No what?” Her friend was taken aback.

“Not for collaboration,” Jiang Xuehe clarified. “I just want to see her with my own eyes.”

To see this near-mythical figure who could revive a company on the verge of collapse. Even starting from scratch, she should have created a legend fame, power, profit, the most fundamental human desires seemed to mean nothing in her eyes.

How could such a person exist?

Jiang Xuehe couldn’t comprehend it.

Even someone as “gentle” and “easygoing” as herself couldn’t claim to be entirely free from the drive for profit and competition.

She could let go of many things in her hands, but she wouldn’t abandon all her chips.

Yet Yan Guiqiu seemed capable of just that.

Jiang Xuehe knew her thoughts would be laughed off as naive if spoken aloud, but she couldn’t help entertaining them.

Such a person is truly remarkable.

Of course, the praise outweighs the criticism.

Yet his friend couldn’t understand. In his view, aside from hobbies like painting that Jiang Xuehe had persisted in since childhood, she wouldn’t engage in anything meaningless.

Wanting to see someone for no apparent reason naturally had to involve some unspeakable hidden circumstances.

He suddenly recalled a rumor he had unintentionally overheard during his investigation Yan Guiqiu was infatuated with a female student from the same school.

“You!” His friend’s thoughts involuntarily drifted off track, his voice trembling slightly. “You wouldn’t be.”

“What?” Jiang Xuehe didn’t grasp his meaning.

“You and Miss Yan!” His friend hesitated for a moment, pondering what kind of person Jiang Xuehe might like regardless of gender or personality, it was likely only those who were undeniably strong yet effortlessly composed could capture her attention.

Perhaps even Jiang Xuehe herself hadn’t realized it, but deep down, she was quite proud, even somewhat arrogant.

Because of her background, her perspective, and her abilities, she could interact amicably with anyone, yet it was difficult for her to truly place someone by her side.

Fundamentally, it was a kind of admiration for strength.

Strength here didn’t refer to status or fame, but to ability and character.

Did Yan Guiqiu fit that description?

A prodigy from a young age she probably did.

“Me and Miss Yan?” Jiang Xuehe finally understood his implication. “If you’re asking what kind of feeling it is, it’s probably admiration.”

Up until this moment.

“Admiration?” His friend muttered to himself, unsure whether it leaned more toward respect or something else within that “admiration.”

“I don’t know either, but I really want to see her.”

Only this feeling was absolutely clear.

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