Shortly after the banquet, Huan Tian Technology officially released a statement announcing that the city’s first author of the Universe physics paper, Xie Ran, had been hired as the company’s technical consultant.

The news shocked the entire industry. After all, Huan Tian was the most advanced tech company in the country, employing only the nation’s top technical talents—all graduates from prestigious universities and covered in honors. Many of them had published papers in Universe. Meanwhile, Xie Ran was just a high school student who hadn’t even started college. And yet, someone like him had suddenly become a technical consultant at Huan Tian?

Had Huan Tian gone mad?

It wasn’t until more in-depth information emerged that people realized Huan Tian hadn’t lost its mind. On the contrary, the company was very clear-headed—and extremely shrewd. People finally understood why Luo Xia valued Xie Ran so highly and what the “secret” Luo Xia had mentioned at the banquet really referred to.

In the six months following the publication of his paper, Xie Ran had applied for two technical patents, and those two patents happened to perfectly align with Huan Tian’s upcoming R&D direction.

In other words, if Huan Tian didn’t want to abandon its current R&D progress and wanted to remain a leader in the industry, it had to acquire the rights to use those two patents.

Even if Huan Tian were stubborn enough not to cooperate with Xie Ran, Xie Ran could still transfer those patents to Huan Tian’s competitors.

In short, Huan Tian had no choice at all.

But before people could finish processing their shock, more news followed. The specific location of Huan Tian Technology’s new campus in the city was officially confirmed: it would be located in Nancheng.

Immediately after that, the city government announced its latest urban development plan—Nancheng would be the focal point of a smart city development project, built around Huan Tian Technology.

This meant that for at least the next five years, the city’s development resources would be heavily concentrated in Nancheng, and the development of Dongcheng New District would naturally be put on hold.

Once the news broke, the city’s entire investment community was shaken. The Xu family—who had been riding high over the past six months with one successful investment after another—was utterly dumbfounded.

Everyone knew: the Xu family was finished.

They had bet too much on Dongcheng’s development, going all in with no fallback.

And they lost the bet. Xu Feiyan’s investment legend collapsed overnight and became a joke.

And that was only the beginning. After all, Xu Feiyan still held future knowledge—so long as he had capital in hand, he theoretically still had a chance to make a comeback. That had indeed been his plan. But the moment he tried to act, he was immediately intercepted by Xie Ran.

Just like him, Xie Ran also possessed years of future memories from the original host and could foresee all the strategies Xu Feiyan might come up with. Whatever move Xu Feiyan tried, Xie Ran could counter precisely.

Xu Feiyan suffered defeat after defeat. Only then did he finally have to face a harsh reality: all his past success in the investment market over the past half-year had only happened because Xie Ran had allowed it.

If Xie Ran had wanted, he could’ve completely cut off any opportunity for him to act.

With the collapse of the Dongcheng investment, the Xu family’s capital chain broke. The family plunged into crisis overnight. Everyone in the Xu family secretly blamed—even hated—Xu Feiyan. But since he had indeed performed brilliantly in the past six months, people were still willing to believe that the Dongcheng disaster was just a fluke—albeit a devastating one. At such a critical moment, they couldn’t help but pin their hopes on Xu Feiyan pulling off another miracle.

However, from then on, whatever Xu Feiyan invested in failed, and every move he made backfired. It was as if someone had turned the tables on him completely.

He once seemed to anticipate every opponent’s strategy and crush them with ease—but now, the exact same thing was happening to him.

The Xu family gradually began to suspect that maybe Xu Feiyan wasn’t an investment genius after all. Maybe all his past success had just been dumb luck. And now, that luck had completely run out.

In such a situation, Xu Feiyan naturally became the public enemy of the entire Xu clan.

Xu Feiyan didn’t know how Xie Ran did it. He only knew one thing: he was completely finished. The advantage he had—the knowledge of the future—would only last a few years. After those years passed, he would lose that edge.

And in the current situation, the Xu family would no longer give him any more chances. No external investors would either.

Of course, the Xu family also no longer had the capital to give him another chance. They abandoned Xu Feiyan and began trying to save themselves.

It was at this point that a massive unknown fund suddenly entered the market and started shorting the Xu family’s only remaining asset. The real target behind that operation: Qixing High School.

On the first day of the new semester, all students at Qixing were notified to gather in the school auditorium for the opening ceremony.

In the auditorium, the students chatted among themselves, abuzz with gossip.

“Hey, did you guys hear? Our school’s shareholders changed—everyone from the Xu family was kicked out. The principal was replaced too. Now Vice Principal Zhou is acting principal.”

“I know. The Xu family’s investment in Dongcheng failed. They owed a lot of money and had to sell their shares in Qixing.”

“The Xu family went crazy. They bought up so much land in Dongcheng, but then the city’s policy shifted to Nancheng. Who could survive that?”

“That’s cursed. Wasn’t Xie Ran hired as a technical consultant by Huan Tian? Since he’s a student here, a lot of people thought the Xu family got insider info through him… but no one expected this…”

“I heard a rumor—my family works with Huan Tian. Apparently, Huan Tian originally wanted to build in Dongcheng, but Xie Ran changed their mind and made them move to Nancheng… Supposedly, that was one of the conditions for licensing his patents…”

“Holy crap, really?”

“Who knows? But honestly, if Xie Ran really did that, it wouldn’t be surprising. Just think about what Xu Feiyan used to do to him.”

“Still, Xie Ran is insanely impressive. Even Huan Tian has to follow his lead…”

“Sigh… this story really proves one thing: never underestimate a poor teenager. You never know what they might become.”

“Oh right, I heard from my family—the Xu family was targeted. No one knows who did it, but they shorted Qixing completely. Qixing was sold at rock-bottom price.”

“Damn, who was that ruthless?”

“We’ll find out once we see who the new board member is.”

…

As they spoke, the master of ceremonies went on stage and announced the official start of the opening ceremony, inviting the new board member to deliver a speech.

Amid the music, a young man in a tailored suit gracefully walked in from the side of the stage. He was tall and upright, with strikingly handsome features that carried a sharpness beyond his age. Though he wasn’t very old, his presence completely overshadowed Vice Principal Zhou and the other school leaders who followed behind.

The entire auditorium erupted into chaos.

The new school board member was actually Xie Ran!

At the start of last semester, Xie Ran had still been one of their classmates. Less than two weeks into the term, he had published a paper in Universe and immediately took a leave of absence. For the entire semester after that, his classmates only heard about him through media reports—explosive headlines like Xie Ran being hired as a technical consultant by Huan Tian Technologies.

No one had expected that the next time they saw Xie Ran, he would have become their board member?!!!

The students were collectively stunned—especially Guan Heng and his little crew, who were so excited they trembled from head to toe.

One of the boys grabbed Guan Heng’s arm tightly: “Brother Heng, it’s Brother Ran! It’s Brother Ran!”

“What Brother Ran?!” Guan Heng smacked the boy on the head: “Call him President Xie!”

“Right, right! President Xie! We should call him President Xie!!”

On stage, Xie Ran heard Meng Feixuan’s voice through the earpiece: “Sir, your atomic consciousness field is beginning to separate from this world’s Xie Ran.”

“Mm.” Xie Ran responded calmly. After a pause, he added: “I’ll wait for you in the next world.”

Meng Feixuan said: “If possible, in the next world, I’d like to waste time with you… I’m not afraid of the server short-circuiting. I want to soak in soda with you.”

Xie Ran let out a quiet laugh: “Okay.”

The original Xie Ran’s consciousness gradually became clear. He looked at the sea of people in the auditorium, his mind overwhelmed with emotions.

When he and Xu Feiyan had perished together, he hadn’t truly known what he wanted. His life had been full of regrets and failures. He had only wished for a chance to start over, but he had never thought about what he would do with that chance.

He had wanted to escape his original fate, to let his parents live a good life and stop worrying about him. He had also wanted Xu Feiyan to pay for what he’d done.

Unfortunately, it seemed he couldn’t do any of that.

But he hadn’t expected that another person named Xie Ran would temporarily live his life, and one by one, mend all of his regrets.

Yet he still felt lost. Were these things really what he had wanted? It seemed so… and yet not entirely.

Until this moment—when Xie Ran, in his name, took over the entire Qixing High School—the original finally understood what it was he most wanted to do.

His past life and even his entire family had been destroyed by school bullying. He had been lucky—he’d had the chance to be reborn and someone to help him. But there were still so many teenagers trapped in the whirlpool of bullying, with no one there to save them.

He could do something for those people, just like that Xie Ran had done for him. Even though he didn’t possess the same strength, he still wanted to try.

Looking out at the crowd of students below, he cleared his throat and smiled: “Hello, everyone. I’m your new board member…”

He might not have been strong yet, but he carried memories from his past life—his mental age and experience were far beyond his peers. Although he hadn’t developed much in that previous life, it was enough to help him perform well in the role he had now.

He was still young and had the chance to study again. Now, he had a starting point others could only dream of—none of this was a problem anymore.

Xie Ran had arranged his retreat carefully. He held two patents at Huan Tian. The licensing income alone gave him a constant stream of money. The knowledge he lacked, he could study. Through his consultant role, he was able to access real R&D at Huan Tian and learn from the inside.

And he truly did.

He didn’t take the shortcut of being directly admitted to a prestigious university. Instead, he devoted himself to studying, even giving up sleep to fill the gaps in his knowledge and learn how to run a school. He was cautious and diligent. Others might have seen it as too conservative, but this effort and carefulness allowed him to preserve the platform Xie Ran had left behind.
Several years later, he fully mastered school management, earned his degree from a top university, and gained enough knowledge to occasionally advise Huan Tian. He even learned horseback riding.

Before Xie Ran left that world, he had already helped the original’s parents move into a villa. They both gradually developed their own careers and hobbies, their faces no longer burdened by the sorrow of the past.

But for the original Xie Ran, the most satisfying thing was that at Qixing, whether students were rich or poor, they could come to him when something went wrong and trust he would help.

He became the best principal Qixing had ever had.

One time, Guan Heng came back from a class reunion and gossiped with the original: someone had seen Xu Feiyan. He had fallen into utter ruin—his name was mud in the investment world, and no major companies would hire him. He could only work in small firms. But he couldn’t let go of his former pride, so just like he used to bully classmates, he now became the target of bullying by his superiors and coworkers. The Xu family had completely collapsed and gone bankrupt. Everyone was just trying to survive—some even took out their frustrations on Xu Feiyan.

It also seemed that Xu Feiyan’s mental state had deteriorated. Whenever he got drunk, he would talk about having once been with Xie Ran—how he had loved Xie Ran, how they had both been reborn. But no one believed him.

“Really?” The original Xie Ran didn’t even lift an eyelid: “Don’t talk to me about that person again. He has nothing to do with me.”

.

Xie Ran traveled to a new world, into the body of another person also named Xie Ran, and inherited that person’s life memories.

Xie Ran of this world had been exceptionally good-looking since childhood. While still in school, a classmate had taken a photo of him playing basketball and posted it online, which instantly made him go viral. Netizens called him the “No. 1 School Heartthrob on the Internet,” and he quickly became a moderately well-known internet celebrity.

After becoming famous, the original Xie Ran met Ying Kaixi, a wealthy second-generation heir. Ying Kaixi pursued him aggressively. Xie Ran had a good impression of Ying Kaixi, so the two naturally began dating.

However, Ying Kaixi’s parents looked down on Xie Ran because of his ordinary background and strongly opposed their relationship.

At first, Ying Kaixi was determined to be with Xie Ran. He made solemn promises to him, and Xie Ran believed those promises, doing his best to gain the approval of Ying Kaixi’s parents.

Unexpectedly, Ying Kaixi’s mother pretended to accept Xie Ran on the surface, but secretly spoke ill of him to Ying Kaixi. After being together for a while, Ying Kaixi gradually grew tired of Xie Ran and began picking on his faults based on what his mother had said.

Not only that, Ying Kaixi started cheating, partying outside. When Xie Ran found out and wanted to break up, Ying Kaixi refused and threatened suicide to make Xie Ran stay with him.

They became entangled like this for many years. Xie Ran suffered from severe nervous exhaustion. Then, one time, after Ying Kaixi was caught cheating again, he faked a suicide attempt by pretending to take pills. But the pill bottle had been swapped and never switched back in time, causing Xie Ran to accidentally take the wrong medication and die.

When Xie Ran transmigrated, he found himself in the Ying family’s living room. It was the second time he had accompanied Ying Kaixi to visit his mother.

Ying’s mother had already met Xie Ran once and expressed her dissatisfaction with his background, but Ying Kaixi had not broken up with him. Instead, he worked hard to prove to his parents that he and Xie Ran were truly in love.

Mrs. Ying knew her son very well. She knew that the more she opposed, the more rebellious he would become. So, she changed her strategy—pretending to be touched by Ying Kaixi’s sincerity and agreeing to accept Xie Ran, even taking the initiative to have Ying Kaixi bring Xie Ran home again to “test” him further.

During this visit, Mrs. Ying put on airs while skillfully manipulating the situation. She made Xie Ran believe she had truly accepted him, which in turn made him eager to earn more of her approval.

Unfortunately, it was all just a show. After that meeting, she pretended to treat Xie Ran well in front of Ying Kaixi while subtly criticizing him behind the scenes. Gradually, Ying Kaixi began to feel annoyed with Xie Ran.

On top of that, Ying Kaixi was never faithful himself, which eventually led to the tragic ending.

At this moment, Xie Ran was sitting on the Ying family’s living room sofa, with Ying Kaixi beside him. Across from them, in the main seat, sat Mrs. Ying, decked out in luxurious jewelry.

She was elegantly sipping her English afternoon tea. After putting down her cup, she slowly and deliberately looked Xie Ran up and down. Finally, her gaze landed on the watch on his wrist. The original Xie Ran had worn his best watch to show his sincerity for this visit.

Mrs. Ying’s eyes flashed with a trace of contempt. She chuckled and said: “Xie Ran, if you want to be with Kaixi, don’t wear such cheap watches in the future. Let Kaixi buy you a proper one. Otherwise, people might think we’re mistreating his partner.”

In the original Xie Ran’s memory, this was one of Mrs. Ying’s usual tactics. On the surface, she seemed generous—often asking Ying Kaixi to give Xie Ran things—but always subtly implying that Xie Ran was cheap and not presentable. Behind the scenes, she even ridiculed him, claiming he was treating Ying Kaixi like a cash machine and leeching off him.

As Ying Kaixi gave more and heard more, he gradually started believing it, suspecting that Xie Ran was just using him.

But during this particular visit, the original hadn’t yet realized it was a tactic. He still thought Mrs. Ying accepting him was a good start, and that a little pickiness was normal.

So this time, Xie Ran quietly endured all of Mrs. Ying’s criticism without any rebuttal.

At that moment, Xie Ran had just regained his awareness and was still lowering his eyes, sorting through the current situation, so he didn’t respond.

Mrs. Ying was quite satisfied with that. In her eyes, if Xie Ran wanted to climb up into the Ying family, he had to be prepared to endure everything in silence—this was only the beginning.

Ying Kaixi also thought his mother was just doing this for the sake of the family’s image. He chimed in: “I got it, Mom. I’ll buy Xiao Ran a new watch later… and other stuff, too. We won’t let anyone think we’re cheap.”

He then smiled at Xie Ran and added: “But I think Xiao Ran looks good no matter what.”

Mrs. Ying sneered inwardly but remained expressionless as she turned back to Xie Ran: “Xie Ran, you probably know this already, but I wasn’t too thrilled about Kaixi being with you at the beginning. After all, you’ve seen our family’s conditions—Kaixi could find someone with any background he wants…”

She deliberately paused, then continued slowly: “But since Kaixi likes you so much, I have no choice but to accept it. I hope you behave well from now on…”

“No need to force yourself,” Xie Ran interrupted coldly, having understood the situation by now. He stood up: “Let’s end this here.”

“…?” Mrs. Ying had prepared a whole speech to put pressure on Xie Ran, and she was so stunned the words caught in her throat.

Ying Kaixi was also shocked. He hurriedly reached for Xie Ran: “Xiao Ran, what are you doing?”

“I’m leaving.” Xie Ran brushed off Ying Kaixi’s hand and turned to walk out. But after a couple of steps, he suddenly remembered something, turned leisurely, and looked at the sparkling gemstone necklace on Mrs. Ying’s chest. His expression was calm and aloof.

“You say the Ying family is very wealthy, but Madam, you’re still trying to break into so-called high society, aren’t you? That gemstone…”

He casually rattled off several technical parameters—clarity, carat weight, cut, and treatment—and then named a price: “At current market rates, this necklace wouldn’t exceed 100,000 yuan. A true lady of status wouldn’t wear it, but…”

He paused: “New money types love it. I’d suggest wearing it less often. It easily reveals your origins.”

With that, Xie Ran turned and walked away, leaving a stunned Ying Kaixi and a flushed, furious Mrs. Ying.

Mrs. Ying: !!!!!!!

Her necklace had a certificate! Every parameter Xie Ran mentioned was spot on!

How did he know?!