Chapter 45: What is the Shi Family’s Adopted Daughter’s Full Name?

Jiang Zhexi glanced at the two of them.

“Are you still eating?”

“I’m done,” Gao Cheng said.

Hearing this, Jiang Chengshuo chimed in immediately, looking as though he had been waiting for a long time.

“Then let’s go.”

The three of them stood up with their trays; as they passed Shi Kezhen’s table, Gao Cheng’s steps slowed by half a beat.

She did not raise her head, apparently entirely oblivious to the meaningful gaze Gao Cheng cast upon her.

Leaving the canteen, the three of them walked slowly along the tree-lined path, none of them speaking first.

Upon reaching a deserted corner, Jiang Chengshuo finally couldn’t hold it in any longer.

“I say…”

With his hands in his pockets, he turned his head to look at them.

“Don’t you find it strange?”

“The attitude of that adopted daughter of the Shi family toward Shi Yanzhou is completely different from before.”

Jiang Zhexi nodded.

“In the past, she trailed after him happily every day like a little wife, yet today when Shi Yanzhou took the initiative to talk to her, she acted somewhat indifferent instead.”

He let out a tsk.

“It is indeed a bit strange.”

“No,” Jiang Chengshuo frowned, hesitating for a moment.

“I’m talking to another matter.”

He looked at Gao Cheng.

Gao Cheng walked at the very front at a moderate pace, not looking back, but his entire body seemed slightly tensed.

“A-Cheng,” Jiang Chengshuo called out to him.

“That wifey of yours disappeared for two weeks, and that adopted daughter of the Shi family was also absent from school for two weeks.”

“Don’t you think…”

“Enough,” Gao Cheng’s voice wasn’t loud.

Jiang Zhexi tugged at Jiang Chengshuo’s sleeve, gesturing for him to shut up.

Jiang Chengshuo shut his mouth for a moment but still couldn’t resist speaking up again.

“I just feel… there are far too many coincidences.”

Gao Cheng halted his steps, turning back to look at them.

“She said she was in Guangcheng,” Gao Cheng spoke suddenly.

“But in the canteen photo she sent, the steel stamp on the tray was JZDX.”

Jiang Zhexi and Jiang Chengshuo looked at him silently, neither of them responding.

Gao Cheng continued, revealing something that neither of them knew.

“On the night of Old Master Zhang’s birthday banquet, I bumped into her in the garden outside the hall and accidentally saw a red bean-sized mole on her collarbone.”

He paused.

“Yao also has an identical mole on her body, of the exact same size and in the exact same position.”

Hearing this, both Jiang Zhexi and Jiang Chengshuo widened their eyes in shock.

Jiang Zhexi took a deep breath, then slowly exhaled.

“So… you suspect that the Shi family’s adopted daughter is your wife.”

“What is there to even suspect?”

Jiang Chengshuo said.

“How could there be such a massive coincidence?”

Gao Cheng neither nodded nor shook his head.

“On the night of the banquet, I tried interacting with her as a test; her personality is completely different from Yao’s.”

Frowning, he spoke as if trying to convince himself.

“Yao has a somewhat capricious, arrogant, and domineering personality, with a bit of a temper; she is a highly distinctive and free-spirited girl.”

“But her…”

At this point, Gao Cheng’s brows knitted even tighter.

“You’ve seen her too; she is conservative, boring, reserved, and dull.”

“In front of Shi Yanzhou, she doesn’t even dare to speak loudly.”

“She’s putting on an act, obviously,” Jiang Chengshuo blurted out.

Gao Cheng spared him a glance.

“If she could act for ten years…”

Jiang Zhexi found it somewhat unbelievable.

“Then just how resilient must her patience be?”

The Jiang family had worked with the Shi family for many years; Jiang Zhexi knew a lot about the Shi family and was aware that Shi Kezhen had arrived there roughly ten years ago.

The three fell silent for a moment.

Gao Cheng suddenly recalled something and looked at Jiang Zhexi.

“By the way, what is the Shi family’s adopted daughter’s full name?”

Among the three of them, only Jiang Zhexi understood the Shi family.

Gao Cheng and Jiang Chengshuo had never taken the Shi family seriously; they naturally hadn’t paid much attention to the Shi family siblings who also studied in the Jingda Business School.

They only knew she was the Shi family’s adopted daughter; as for her name, neither of them had ever noticed it.

Jiang Zhexi spoke with a trace of disdain.

“Speaking of her name, it’s actually quite unique; I have no idea which stubborn, old-fashioned pedant came up with it, but she is called Shi Kezhen.”

“Which characters?”

Gao Cheng asked.

Jiang Zhexi curled his lip, unable to resist complaining.

“The Ke of ‘abiding unswervingly’ and the Zhen of ‘loyal and faithful.'”

“I don’t know which of her elders gave her that name.”

“What era is this, yet they still expect her to treat her husband as heaven and remain faithful to him until death after she marries?”

Gao Cheng ignored his complaints, pulled his phone from his pocket, opened WeChat, and tapped on the chat box with Yao.

His fingers quickly tapped a few times, and the system popped up a prompt.

[Transferring to Yao (** Zhen).]

Glancing at the system prompt, he turned the phone screen around to face Jiang Zhexi.

“Is it this ‘Zhen’?”

Jiang Zhexi and Jiang Chengshuo leaned forward at the same time to look.

Jiang Chengshuo’s eyes widened instantly.

“Holy shit!”

“…It really is,” Jiang Zhexi murmured.

Now, it was basically confirmed: the Shi family’s adopted daughter was Yao, Gao Cheng’s online wife.

Gao Cheng pulled back his phone and continued tapping; very quickly, a transfer was sent over.

Yao had said she would proactively contact him today, but half the day had passed and she remained silent, so sending her a transfer would serve as a reminder.

After sending the transfer, Gao Cheng slipped his phone back into his pocket, suddenly letting out a meaningful laugh, though the smile did not reach his eyes.

This adopted daughter of the Shi family apparently harbored a long-standing affection for the Eldest Young Master of the Shi family.

Flirting with him online while bitterly pursuing Shi Yanzhou in real life.

‘She really is something.’

Jiang Chengshuo and Jiang Zhexi seemed to have realized this as well.

Jiang Chengshuo looked at Gao Cheng with amusement, unable to resist teasing him.

“If I recall correctly, not long ago, your wifey waited downstairs at Shi Yanzhou’s dormitory building for an entire night.”

“Tsk, tsk, tsk…”

He couldn’t help but click his tongue.

“What a devoted girl.”

Gao Cheng swept a cold glance over him.

Jiang Chengshuo immediately wiped the playful expression from his face, letting out a couple of awkward coughs before reminding him.

“Though there are indeed many coincidences, shouldn’t you find a way to verify it once more?”

Jiang Zhexi nodded in agreement.

They were all heirs to top-tier wealthy clans, groomed by their families to be successors since childhood; regardless of what they encountered, they would verify through multiple channels to ensure absolute certainty.

Clichés like those in melodramas, where a vicious female antagonist easily deceives the male lead into a daze using some token belonging to the “white moonlight” female lead, were simply impossible to occur with them.

“My thoughts exactly,” Gao Cheng said.

Jiang Chengshuo grew excited.

“What do you plan to do?”

Jiang Zhexi also looked at Gao Cheng with curiosity.

Before Gao Cheng could speak, Jiang Chengshuo, who had always had the most ideas among the three, spoke up first.

“I have an idea. How about this…”

***

After finishing her meal, Shi Kezhen saw that it was still early and not yet time for her afternoon class.

She walked slowly along the tree-lined paths of the campus, treating it as a way to digest her food.

Her steps were very slow, looking like she was wandering aimlessly, but in fact, her direction was very clear.

Twenty minutes later, she strolled into the small woods and sat on her favorite stone bench.

At this hour, the woods were as quiet as usual; other than her, there wasn’t a soul.

She pulled out her phone and switched to the Privacy Space.

“Ding.”

The WeChat notification of her secondary account rang out as expected; having not contacted Cheng by this hour, he had indeed grown impatient.

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