Xiao Ji vaguely felt that the Qinghua porcelain fridge magnet wasn’t the best choice for a birthday gift.
But he couldn’t think of anything better at the moment.
Gifting Chanel or Hermès to an Arab prince was no different from picking a wildflower by the roadside.
He ripped off the fifteen-yuan price tag from the renminbi sticker, picked out a well-tailored deep black suit, and planned to head over for the party that evening.
Young Master Xiao admired himself in the mirror.
Damn, so sexy. Looks good.
Meanwhile, Ye Jinyu had changed into his clothes and was slinging a backpack over his shoulders, ready to head out.
Xiao Ji glanced at him casually, then froze for a second.
“What are you going for?”
“Medical summit.” Ye Jinyu frowned. “What’s wrong?”
They were roommates, but not schoolmates.
Xiao Ji was the typical domestic heir resume-padding type—came to Columbia University for an MBA, then headed home to help his old man conquer the business empire.
Ye Jinyu was his childhood friend. Though two years younger, he’d skipped two grades in elementary school, finished his five-year undergrad by twenty-five, completed three years of residency training, passed his medical licensing exam ages ago, and was now in the United States as a visiting scholar, specializing at the Elder Council Hospital.
Because of some old history, he was also nominally Xiao Ji’s private doctor—handling minor ailments on the fly and periodically checking to make sure his bamboo-horse buddy was still alive.
Xiao Ji was silent for a moment. “…You’re wearing that to the conference?”
Ye Jinyu glanced at the mirror.
White shirt, cropped pants. Perfectly ordinary. No issues.
Xiao Ji thought to himself, damn, that’s too hot. What are you thinking, bro?
A white shirt like that was all about the wearer.
Ye Jinyu had a slim waist, long neck, straight back. In a white shirt, he radiated that perfect blend of scholarly vibe and raw, hormone-fueled desire.
…Way better than those little models in group livestreams desperately faking that pure, fresh-air boy-next-door look.
The shoes matched perfectly, the slim pants accentuated his legs, giving him that flexible, elegant beauty unique to Eastern men.
Xiao Ji pulled his gaze away. What am I thinking? It’s not like I’m giving it to him.
“No office drone vibe. It’ll do.”
Ye Jinyu chuckled. “You might as well kill me as make me wear a suit.”
Xiao Ji: “…”
Oblivious to how much he looked like a fresh-faced college boy, Ye Jinyu grabbed his bag and left.
Xiao Ji went to a gift shop, picked out a box and some satin ribbon, and for a few seconds indulged in a fantasy: the Arab prince sees the gift, instantly regrets not meeting him sooner, declares him his soulmate, and hands over half the oil empire.
Cut back on the short videos, he told himself. You’re starting to sound dumb.
The gathering spot was the Dead Poet bar. Black bodyguards with earpieces checked guest IDs and slipped black-and-white satin bands onto their wrists.
Xiao Ji thought, a Middle Eastern minnow nation like this? The spectacle wasn’t even as flashy as that Wenzhou classmate of his from university.
He signed in, gave a nod to some classmates he spotted. “Partying here tonight?”
“No way!” In the distance, a tipsy rich kid waved his arms. “Fahd said the whole week’s open bar on his tab just by dropping his name. The shuttle just left with a load—hang tight, kid!”
Oh, so this was the pickup point.
Xiao Ji ordered a gin and tonic inside the bar and sipped it like it was lemonade.
Before long, another stretched Hummer H2 rolled up. The eight-meter beast looked like a steel train barreling through the modern city. Cheers erupted at the entrance as burly bodyguards leaned in to open the doors, ushering guests aboard for the next round of revelry.
Xiao Ji hadn’t brought a date. He watched a bunch of girls pile in and figured he’d wait for the next one.
Truth be told, he always found nightclubs too loud, the booze burned his throat, and he wasn’t used to it—but that didn’t fit the image of a classy Shanghai heir.
So he held it together, playing the perfect social butterfly.
When the third stretched Hummer pulled up, the doors swung open and laser lights blasted out from the disco balls. Everyone cheered and piled in.
Xiao Ji squeezed aboard, clutching his fifteen-yuan Yiwu cultural souvenir in hand, silently hyping himself up.
You’re an adult now. Cocktails are just juice. Nightclubs are just structured bouncing.
Hold it together!!
The car reeked of perfume. A British study-abroad kid was making out with a hot Mexican guy.
The girls were pros at snapping pics, editing, and posting to Xiaohongshu. Some dude was quietly smacking his lips, figuring out what champagne tasted like.
Xiao Ji squinted at the scene, trading half-hearted banter with friends, watching the guy find the champagne sweet and pouring himself another glass.
He found it kinda funny.
Even if you bent over backwards, couldn’t they stock a few bottles of the good stuff in a stretched Hummer?
“Right, where are we headed?” he asked.
The guy next to him shoved his phone in Xiao Ji’s face with the latest scoop. “This is insane, bro! What a setup!”
The disco lights were flashing so hard it could trigger a photosensitive episode. Xiao Ji inwardly griped about whoever picked this vocational-school rap playlist—it was goddamn awful—as he squinted at the screen to see where the Arab prince had chosen to party.
How grand could the spectacle really be? He was a Shanghai young master who’d seen and savored plenty…
The video showed a group of students laughing uproariously as they clinked champagne glasses in front of the mammoth.
Location: American Museum of Natural History.
“Brother Fahd rented out the whole museum for a party! I heard that Kardashian’s coming too—”
“Which Kardashian?”
“There are so many Kardashians, how am I supposed to tell them apart? Whatever!”
Xiao Ji fell silent for two seconds.
Oh. The museum.
Throwing a birthday bash in the natural history museum—the prince was aiming to live as long as the heavens.
He thought with a mix of indignation and resentment: If I were back home, I could probably match this extravagance.
No, Lao Xiao’s spending philosophy had always been to splurge where it counted and pinch pennies elsewhere. His family would never throw a shindig like this.
A certain Young Master Xiao deflated wordlessly in the corner.
God, he wanted to splash cash around and flex his wealth hard.
But with only fifty bucks in his pocket, he couldn’t compete in the slightest.
The North American Mammal Hall was on the first floor. Right at the entrance loomed a massive mammoth fossil skeleton, and the tantalizing aroma of food drifted from within.
Strictly speaking, no one was supposed to touch these exhibits.
But museums didn’t usually host parties either. Clearly, the payoff was substantial—folks were eating, drinking, and dancing up a storm.
So several people were groping the displays with gusto.
Security turned a blind eye. The playlist was pure prince’s taste: Beyoncé rubbing shoulders with abstract Middle Eastern chants.
Xiao Ji followed the directions inside. He saw chefs plating food assembly-line style for the guests, who chatted with champagne flutes like a gathering of global elites. One international student was stealthily fondling a saber-toothed tiger’s fang.
Enough already, quit touching it, he said to the guy in his head.
Now you’ve got me wanting to touch it too.
The Arab Prince himself was elusive as a dragon—seen but never caught—but the guests were lost in this Gatsby-level dream of revelry. Some danced, some posed, everyone reveling in the party.
There were maybe a few dozen international students on site—not all from Columbia—plus over a hundred guests the prince had whimsically invited. The guest list was strikingly egalitarian.
Roma folk tore into lamb legs with gusto, Japanese students gravely inspected each animal, and there amid them was the class brainiac he knew: Sun Xueying, the woman with god-tier grades.
Xiao Ji drifted through the crowd. Without Jin Jin there, he just felt lonely.
Truth be told, he didn’t blend in all that well.
Overseas Chinese boiled down to a few types.
The elite ABCs, who figured they sat at the top of the ethnic food chain. Accent-free, with assets entrenched in New York, San Francisco, and spots across Europe. They were there for school mostly because Mom and Dad sat on the board—major was whatever.
Then the nonstop party rich kids, living like every day was Carnival. Endless hangouts, King’s Cup or whatever got them lit—papers and exams somehow scraped by. Then the midnight emo post: “I don’t want tons of money. Just a little love.”
And the grind kings: terrifying humans operating at peak intellect and self-discipline.
He wasn’t any of them.
He was just a twisted international student scraping by.
Xiao Ji couldn’t help wondering if the prince ever felt that chill of isolation at the summit.
He grabbed a bite at random, headed upstairs to the second-floor exhibits, and wandered aimlessly on.
By chance, he actually spotted the prince.
Most folks thanked Fahd and exchanged greetings, but shied from lingering chats.
Fahd was pointing at the exhibits alongside his entourage.
The prince ran his hand over the snow owl. Nice texture.
“I want one of these.”
An attendant jotted it down.
The prince passed the snow leopard.
“Get me one of these too.”
Attendant noted it.
The prince went to touch the elephant.
Xiao Ji watched with deep melancholy.
He’d been born with a silver spoon as a Jing’an District young master, but no Chinese heir could yet treat a museum like an open-air market.
If the prince pointed at the mammoth, those burly black bodyguards would shoulder their guns and trek to some glacier to dig up a bigger one.
He sipped a cocktail, thinking wistfully: Why can’t I be a Puxi prince?
Xiao Ji snapped back to reality.
No—a Puxi prince was way too flashy. Act like I never thought that.
Meanwhile, Ye Jinyu was sitting through a interminable lecture at The Pierre Hotel.
The conference drew a horde of academic heavyweights—two Nobel laureates, apparently.
The tea-break salmon was decent.
Ye Jinyu dashed off a few notes. His gaze inadvertently swept over a pharma titan swapping business cards with some dean.
That cardholder looked familiar.
He seized an opening to step out and call Xiao Ji.
“Didn’t you show me that German brand before? Hemmerlein. Lizard-skin card holder. Custom order only for their annual black gold members?”
“Oh, that.” Xiao Ji pulled out his wallet and glanced inside. “I’ve got it on me. What’s up?”
“Lend it to me. I’m coming to find you.”
Ye Jinyu immediately pulled out his phone to confirm his location, his footsteps swift as he hurried downstairs.
“A rare bigwig from the pharma world just showed up. I need to figure out a way to chat him up, see if I can link it to the family business.”
Xiao Ji still wanted to play coy for a bit longer, but the call had already ended.
The man silently stared at his phone.
I didn’t even agree to lend it to you.
Besides… can you even get in?
Twenty minutes later, Ye Jinyu appeared in the buffet line not far from Sabertooth.
Xiao Ji’s eyebrow twitched.
He glanced over. His childhood friend’s wrist still bore a black satin ribbon.
Xiao Ji sauntered up casually, as if nothing were amiss, grabbed a lightning puff pastry, and asked, “How’d you get in?”
“No idea,” Ye Jinyu said. “I stood at the door for a bit. Some lady asked for a photo with me and gave me this.”
Xiao Ji eyed his face, straight out of a shoujo manga.
“I’ll believe that.”
“The card holder.”
“I haven’t agreed to give it yet.”
Ye Jinyu wasn’t happy.
“Fair trade.” Xiao Ji nodded toward the Arab Prince, who was surrounded by admirers not far away. “Next up is the gift-unwrapping segment. I want that guy to remember me.”
He lightly brushed Ye Jinyu’s sleeve and whispered, “After all, my family’s in renewables.”
Ye Jinyu fell silent for a moment, glancing to the side.
The chefs’ knives flashed and fell, preparing Omani milk lamb roasted with saffron and honey.
Nourished by spices and glistening fats, the perfectly marbled lamb was sliced and plated. The milk lamb’s bones were meticulously disassembled—each one as clean and luminous as ivory.
Ye Jinyu eyed the lamb spine and ribs.
Xiao Ji said, “What are you up to?”
“Give me fifteen minutes.” Ye Jinyu slipped on a pair of disposable gloves, his voice carrying the cool precision of a surgeon. “Help me snag these bones.”
“I’ll build you a White Bone Camel.”
