Chapter 17: A New Deal

“Jiang Yi, let’s discuss a new deal.”

Xu Yuan’s voice was crisp and calm, like a shard of ice thrown into the stagnant air of the East District computer lab, instantly stirring a wordless yet fierce ripple.

Several students nearby, who pretended to study but were actually watching the unfolding drama, instinctively held their breath.

Jiang Yi’s normally inscrutable eyes blanked for several seconds before being replaced by a deeper, more complex scrutiny.

He looked at her.

At the girl in the bright yellow dress who had burst into his world like a blinding beam of light.

At the sweet yet distant smile on her face, and those eyes—no longer humble or pleading, but proud and burning like flames.

He was silent for a long time, so long that Xu Yuan almost thought he would stand up and leave like he did in the library last time.

Finally, he slowly removed one earphone.

“I thought,” he began, his voice hoarse, each word wrapped in shards of ice, “there was nothing left to discuss between us.”

“There isn’t,” Xu Yuan nodded, her smile unchanged yet never reaching her eyes, “because the previous deal was void the moment you unilaterally breached the ‘Starlight Cup’ contract.”

She extended her slender fingers and slowly, decisively pushed the cold bank card on the table back to him.

“So, let’s settle the old score first.”

Her voice was soft but like a sharp scalpel, precisely cutting through the long-rotted facade of “cooperation” between them.

“Is this thirty thousand yuan the penalty for your unilateral breach of the ‘Starlight Cup’ contract, or… a breakup settlement?”

The words “breakup settlement” were whispered barely audibly, yet they struck Jiang Yi’s pale face like a resounding slap.

His pupils contracted sharply. His knuckles on the keyboard whitened from gripping too tightly.

He stared at her. For the first time, a trace of wounded, embarrassed emotion flickered in his dark eyes.

Xu Yuan’s heart felt stabbed by something sharp, pain nearly suffocating her. But she knew she could not retreat.

In this game, whoever softens first loses.

“Or perhaps,” she said without giving him a chance to respond, her slender finger lightly tapping the poster for the ‘Windrise Technology’ challenge on the table, blocking all his escape routes, “you think that thirty thousand yuan can buy out the entire value of me as an ‘investment’?”

Facing his turbulent dark eyes, she spoke clearly and deliberately: “Jiang Yi, have you forgotten? I came to you because you are the strongest programmer at Binhai University. What I needed wasn’t your charity, but an ally who could fight alongside me.”

“What I need is a partner who can win bigger, more valuable things with me.”

Her finger struck heavily on the small print that read ‘Internship Offer at Windrise Technology Headquarters’ on the poster.

“That is something your thirty thousand yuan cannot buy.”

The entire computer lab fell into a deathly silence.

Jiang Yi stared at her. For the first time, the face that had always been frozen like eternal frost showed a crack.

In her fiery, stubborn eyes, he saw a beast identical to himself—cornered by life, proud yet forced to fight with every ounce of strength to survive.

“Why do you think,” he finally found his voice after a full thirty seconds, hoarse and rough, “I still need you?”

“Because of this!”

Xu Yuan suddenly pushed the poster toward him again, her voice rising sharply with a desperate resolve.

“This competition requires both a technical lead and a product planner—both indispensable! Throughout Binhai University, you won’t find a journalism student who understands user psychology better or writes better proposals than me! And I can’t find a stronger technical implementer than you!”

“Jiang Yi,” she leaned forward, hands on the table, meeting his gaze for the first time as an equal, “we’re both stuck in the mud; neither one of us is nobler than the other. Stop playing your pitiful game of drawing lines with money! It only makes you look like a coward who can’t bear to lose!”

“Even a rock worn by the sea eventually breaks.”

Her final words were so low, so soft they were almost a sigh, yet heavy as a boulder crashing into Jiang Yi’s long-frozen heart.

He abruptly lifted his head and looked at her in disbelief.

All the coldness, defenses, anger, and humiliation in those dark eyes faded away in that moment, replaced by pure, undeniable shock and vulnerability—shattered completely by her words.

How could she know?

How could she know he was not invincible?

He had only been standing in the storm for too long.

...

Xu Yuan didn’t know how she walked out of the East District computer lab.

She only remembered that after she said “rocks eventually break,” Jiang Yi stared at her for a very long time.

Then, he didn’t say another word.

He just slowly reached out and took the ‘Windrise Technology’ challenge poster from the table.

That was enough.

She had won.

She had won the bruising war for dignity.

Back in the dorm, Lin Feifei immediately clung to her like an octopus.

“So? How did it go? Who won? Did you shut him up and make him kneel down to beg for your forgiveness?”

Xu Yuan looked at her eager face full of gossip and felt utterly exhausted, unwilling to say a single word.

She tossed the bank card back to Lin Feifei.

“The password is still my birthday. Help me return it to him.”

“Huh? That’s it?” Lin Feifei looked disappointed. “And then? Is that how it ended?”

“Not ended.” Xu Yuan shook her head, a faint smile of relief appearing on her face—one even she hadn’t noticed. “We have a new beginning.”

With that, she ignored Lin Feifei’s questions, climbed into bed, and covered herself with the blanket.

Too tired.

This day and night felt like a battle that had drained every ounce of her strength.

She needed rest.

She needed a good sleep.

Weighed down by a faint exhaustion and a subtle peace, Xu Yuan soon drifted into slumber.

...

Midnight.

Her consciousness was once again dragged into that familiar, cold, dark space.

Her heart sank sharply.

It was happening again.

She had thought that once her relationship with Jiang Yi was back on track and all the real-life crises resolved, those cursed, unsettling dreams would disappear.

But they hadn’t.

This time, she no longer saw the KTV or the childhood living room.

Instead, it was a place she knew all too well.

The library at Binhai University.

On the third floor, in the corner by the window where she and Jiang Yi had first “signed” their deal.

The library was empty in the dream, with only the pitch-black night outside the window.

An open notebook filled with lines of code lay quietly on the table.

Suddenly, a small, flickering orange flame erupted without warning from a corner of the notebook.

The flame was tiny, faint, but carried a terrifying, stubborn vitality.

It licked the edges of the paper, turning the precise, rigorous code into curls of black, crumbling ash.

The fire grew stronger and stronger.

Soon, it engulfed the entire notebook.

Then the table, the chair, the rows and rows of bookshelves...

The dream ended abruptly.

Xu Yuan shot awake, her heart pounding wildly as if it would burst from her chest.

Fire!

Fire!

This time, it was no longer a vague, emotional fragment.

It was clear, tangible, and burning with searing heat—fire!

An unprecedented, bone-deep fear seized her heart like a cold hand.

She finally understood.

All her previous dreams—the rocks, the KTV, the childhood traumas—were only warnings.

They were just the prelude to the final, devastating disaster that could completely consume him in flames.