I will go against the world’s tide.

Bai Haonan was indeed out of money. Asking Chen Sufen for help would have been the easiest solution, but no matter how shameless he might be, Bai Haonan was not the kind of despicable man who would take advantage of others. As cunning as he was, he had never truly harmed anyone; at the very least, every woman he had been with had done so willingly. Besides, he still carried a shred of pride within him, especially when facing Chen Sufen.

He wasn’t particularly anxious either; if he had money, he spent it lavishly, and if not, he made do with whatever scraps he could find. For someone like Bai Haonan, who had never learned the value of financial planning, such predicaments had become routine.

Counting up his twenty-year career, he had started receiving allowances as a young player, earning money much earlier than his peers. He had been a professional footballer for at least ten years, joining right at the dawn of the golden age of Chinese professional football. He entered the ranks just as the youth teams were being formed, then moved into the professional scene during its rise and subsequent reshuffling. With all the salaries, bonuses, and various benefits—by any measure, he had pocketed several million, maybe even close to ten million yuan. It should have been enough to secure a comfortable retirement. Yet, over those ten years, he had squandered it all. He never bought property, never invested, and nobody had managed to swindle him out of his money—he had simply frittered it away without a care.

So Bai Haonan’s turn to gambling and match-fixing was largely a result of his reckless spending habits; otherwise, the regular income from the club would have sufficed for most. The money left in his account now was mostly from dubious sources, and he was careful not to let anyone notice that his spending outpaced his official income.

Most people, when short on cash, would think about finding a job or working harder in their studies. Bai Haonan, on the other hand, always looked for shortcuts. He had considered gambling again—not the kind of grand promises he made to Chen Sufen about hitting the casinos, but rather taking money from students.

Casinos, after all, were full of professionals, but university students were, in his eyes, easy prey, still naïve and simple.

He dropped Qiao Yingna off directly at the foot of the teaching building. It was clear that her classmates dressed fashionably and carried themselves with a certain maturity, lacking the bashfulness often seen in younger female students. Bai Haonan skillfully drove onto the campus, only learning from Qiao Yingna that her program was different from others—clinical medicine required at least five years of study. So, after her third year, she had begun clinical rotations, and now, in her fifth year, she was on the cusp of official internships. She was among the most senior students, already closely connected to the outside world. Her stylish appearance was not so out of place among her peers.

She had intended to give Bai Haonan a graceful wave goodbye as she got out, under the watchful eyes of her many classmates, but he didn’t even pause—familiar with the campus roads, he sped off as if he were a taxi driver rushing to his next fare.

His abrupt departure nearly made Qiao Yingna pull a muscle as she turned, but she kept her composure, facing the flock of curious female classmates.

“So, you’ve found yourself a boyfriend? He looks quite refined…”

“Wait, isn’t that the legendary soccer star with the little white car from the lower grades?”

“Bringing you to school so early in the morning—something’s going on! No wonder you’ve seemed so radiant lately, all your indicators are looking great. Who is he, anyway?”

“And why does the car have out-of-town plates? He’s not a local?”

Qiao Yingna smirked dismissively and only asked about the soccer star rumor, deciding she’d look into it that afternoon.

When Bai Haonan said he was broke, it was only relatively speaking. He might not have thousands to throw around at nightclubs, but he still had enough for gas and a boxed lunch. He swung his car down a small alley behind the medical university, parking along the curb outside an internet café he had frequented lately—not to surf the web, but to consider when to reel in his catch.

This was why Bai Haonan looked down on college students. He had once thought of them as intellectuals, but after becoming familiar with them, he realized that these so-called privileged youths, living off their parents’ money, spent their days skipping class, sleeping in, gaming in internet cafés, and, aside from an occasional game of soccer in the evenings, were no better than him. At least, that was his current opinion.

He entered the large internet café—a place with a hundred or two computers, already half-filled even at nine in the morning. Some had clearly pulled all-nighters and now sat like ghosts, barely conscious but still clicking away at their mice. To Bai Haonan, they looked no different from addicts, and he held them in contempt.

By now, he was a regular. Several young men playing cards around a glass table near the computers greeted him as he approached. “Hey, Boss Hao, you’re early today!”

Indeed, Bai Haonan had given himself a false name—Liu Hao—plain yet bold, befitting his tastes and education. “Yeah, I had breakfast and nothing to do. Are the others here yet?”

Any sizable internet café had a communal lounge, and though Bai Haonan rarely played on computers, he had spent quite a bit of time here lately. It all started after a casual meal with some students following a soccer game, a few drinks, and then being brought here to play cards. Among the young men was the owner of the café, who now greeted him like an old friend.

They weren’t playing the usual card games, but rather “Three Card Brag,” a wildly popular gambling game, and Bai Haonan was more than adept at it. Ever since his first day, he had quietly pocketed enough for meals and gas by winning small amounts off the students.

He didn’t cheat; instead, he relied on his sharp memory. On his first day, he had claimed to be unfamiliar with the game, mostly sitting on the sidelines with a pleasant smile, carefully observing everyone’s reactions and choices when they received certain cards.

In this game, where the only real skill was psychological bluffing, he took note of who liked to fake, who was timid, who lit up when holding a strong hand, and who tried to bluff with weak cards. There were only about a dozen regular players, and soon, Bai Haonan had their every quirk memorized. Even without any advanced gambling tricks, his ability to read people and follow the flow made it easy to win small, consistent sums. He never stood out as the biggest winner, remaining inconspicuous. Stakes were never huge—at most a few hundred yuan per round—so he could plausibly make a living as the silent “mini gambling king” behind the medical university, blending in for years without drawing attention.

That was Bai Haonan’s nature: he could live it up with ten thousand a day or find joy with just ten. Qiao Yingna had hit the nail on the head—he simply lacked ambition.

He even comforted himself with an old story he’d once heard at a drinking party: a farmer napping under a tree is caught slacking by the landlord, who asks why he doesn’t work harder. The farmer retorts, “No matter how hard I work, isn’t it all for a moment like this—to lie comfortably under the tree? I’m already there, so why bother?”

To him, that was wisdom. Wasn’t the struggle of a lifetime all for the sake of such carefree ease? Why work yourself to exhaustion?

But living every day off card games without change would be dull, wouldn’t it? Today, reminded that he could combine his hobby with making money, Bai Haonan decided to give it a try. Still, it was time to reel in his net, which mattered more than money.

He sat down and played for an hour or two, smiling as always. Then the glass door’s hinges creaked, and a group of disheveled young men shuffled in, greeting Bai Haonan as soon as they saw him.

They’d arrived.

No one noticed that Bai Haonan had come early, sitting at the table with his foot pressed firmly against the black lacquered crossbar of the metal table leg, applying considerable force.