In a daze, I thought of Shen Mengzhou again.

Back then, I’d just joined a national-level research team. My senior sister said she’d take me out to see the world.

She got dead drunk, and her boyfriend came to pick her up. Not wanting to be a third wheel, I planned to go back to school alone.

As I walked to the alley entrance, a group of hooligans approached me.

I pulled out my phone to call the police.

At that moment, all the romantic clichés from movies came true. Shen Mengzhou appeared out of nowhere, chased away the hooligans, and saved me.

My clothes had been torn by the hooligans.

He took me to a changing room and found me one of his shirts.

He worked as a bartender apprentice at that bar. He’d seen me looking flustered and knew something was wrong.

He called me silly: "A cute girl like you walking into a back alley—were you asking for trouble?"

No one had ever called me cute before. I’d worn thick glasses since I was ten, and as I grew taller and thinner, the lenses only got thicker.

I became more and more inferior.

That night, I drank a lot.

He mixed me a drink and said it was the perfect match for me—called "Cute Lady."

Then I told him I’d never had a boyfriend and it was my first time in a bar.

That night was my first time drinking, my first time in a bar, and my first time sleeping with a man.

In the bar’s staff changing room, he kissed me until I couldn’t breathe. Under the dim lights, our two bodies clung tightly together.

I blamed him for coming too late—I’d lived alone in this world for so long, feeling so lonely.

But I was also extremely grateful. Fortunately, fortunately, he’d finally come.

I clung to his shoulders, my body melting under his skilled touches.

But how did everything change later?

Because he found a richer woman; being with me had only been a passing fancy.

"I’ve never slept with a female PhD before."

"Did you really expect true love in a place like this?"

"Zhu Zhu, if you really love me, stay away from me."