Chapter 188: She Almost Called the Police

Chapter 188: She Almost Called the Police

A little after eight-thirty in the morning, in the underground garage of Lüyuan Waterside Villas, Song Xuan parked her Porsche 911 in the space belonging to Villa No. 6.

With a laptop bag and a shoulder bag, she was humming a song.

The lightness of the melody made her good mood plain.

This was Song Xuan’s home.

Before she turned eighteen she had lived here all the time.

Besides Wu Yurong and Song Xuan, mother and daughter, there had also been two live-in housekeepers back then, who handled the meals and the daily running of the house.

Wu Yurong could not cook. The housekeepers had always done the cooking.

After Song Xuan turned eighteen she became an adult and started university. She got her license and bought a car, and Wu Yurong bought her an apartment of her own near Donghai University.

After that Song Xuan did not come home often.

It was not that mother and daughter got on badly.

Quite the reverse. They were extremely close.

But Wu Yurong’s work kept her very busy, and once she started university Song Xuan began a life of her own.

There was no need to force themselves together every day.

Especially after Song Xuan took up music. She had her own circle of friends and often stayed over at her closest friends’ homes.

Once she was an adult, Wu Yurong stopped managing her so closely and never insisted she come home.

And because Song Xuan no longer lived there, Wu Yurong stopped keeping live-in housekeepers.

She could not cook and did not eat at home in any case. She ate out every day, and hourly cleaners came regularly to keep the house in order.

In fact, after Song Xuan started university, mother and daughter still saw each other more often than students who studied in another city and came home only over summer and winter break.

They were in the same city, after all.

Whenever they wanted to eat together, they simply had dinner.

Song Xuan also came home to stay for a couple of days each week.

Today’s return was unplanned.

Ordinarily, even when she meant to stay, she would call her mother in the afternoon, arrange dinner, and come home with her afterward.

And at this hour—a little past eight in the morning—Wu Yurong should already have been on her way to work.

She should not have been home.

Song Xuan had not come back to see her mother.

She had come back to her own room to fetch something.

This was her home, so of course she knew the code for the basement rear entrance.

She crossed the parking area, entered the code, went in through the rear door into the villa’s basement, walked down the corridor, then climbed the stairs.

Soon she reached the first floor.

She had only just come up and was about to turn and go on to the second when she stopped short.

Her big eyes blinked as she stared around the living room.

It was not only her gaze that was wrong.

Her whole body had gone still.

Why was the living room such a mess?

Why had a throw pillow been tossed onto the TV cabinet? There was another on the floor across the room.

Why was the liquor cabinet standing open? Bottles inside had been knocked over and not even righted.

How had a half-full bottle of red wine rolled all the way to the wall?

The wine had spilled everywhere and stained the floor. It looked as though it had been sitting a while. Who knew whether the soaked flooring could still be cleaned properly.

And what had happened to the decorative cabinet that stood half a person high?

Every framed photo and ornamental potted plant that had sat on top of it had been swept onto the floor.

The plant was broken.

It looked as though someone had shoved everything off in one motion to clear the surface.

Clear it for what?

Had someone wanted to lie down on it?

What was that hanging from the table lamp?

A man’s tie?

And what was draped over the television?

A woman’s bra?

Song Xuan recognized it. It was one of her mother’s favorites, black, with thin straps.

And what was that under the large planter beside the TV cabinet?

It looked like…

Her mother’s high heel.

Why was the qipao lying on the carpet?

And there were a man’s suit trousers beside it?

How had even the decorative frame on the wall been knocked crooked?

What had someone been doing against the wall?

The longer Song Xuan looked, the more wrong it all became.

She began to suspect the house had been broken into.

At the far edge of it, she even wondered whether something had happened to her mother.

There was no possibility her mother had done this herself.

Her mother had always been clean and orderly. She would never leave the house in a state like this.

Song Xuan was completely at a loss.

She could not help calling out. “Huh? Mom? Mom, where are you?”

She could not see anyone.

She was looking for someone.

Missing property hardly troubled her.

She was afraid something had happened to her mother.

Still calling, she walked forward a couple of steps and shouted again. “Mom, are you home? Mom?!”

As she called she glanced up toward the stairs to see whether anything stirred above.

She could see no one, and her anxiety was rising.

On the sofa.

Wu Chen and Wu Yurong, wrapped in the blanket, woke with a start at the same moment.

“Mom? Mom? Mom, don’t frighten me. Are you home?” Song Xuan kept calling as she walked toward the sofa.

Wu Yurong came fully awake, and alarm crossed her face at once.

What time was it?

Why had her daughter suddenly come home?

The reason Song Xuan could not see her was that from the staircase she was approaching from behind the sofa.

Which meant Song Xuan could see the living room but not what was on the sofa. The high back cut off her view.

The sofa was exceptionally large and lavish, and it blocked her line of sight entirely.

So Song Xuan could see only that the living room was a wreck.

She could not see a single person.

Not one.

Wu Chen lay comfortably along the sofa with the soft, boneless Wu Yurong in his arms, the blanket over them both.

The sofa back hid them completely.

Song Xuan could see nothing.

She saw only the disorder, and from her tone she thought the place had been robbed.

Hearing her, Wu Chen and Wu Yurong exchanged a glance.

Wu Chen’s expression turned subtle.

For him this was an “accident.”

If Song Xuan discovered him today, his whole strategy toward her would have to change substantially.

But it was not a serious problem.

If necessary he could reset time to seven this morning.

No need to panic.

Wu Chen was not panicking.

Wu Yurong genuinely was.

It was written all over her face.

Strictly speaking it was not so grave a matter.

Wu Yurong had been divorced and single for more than ten years. It would be perfectly normal for her to have a boyfriend now, or even to remarry.

And even if she did remarry, Wu Yurong believed her daughter would give her blessing.

Being caught by her daughter was embarrassing, but she was not afraid of Song Xuan knowing she had a man.

A divorced woman remarrying was entirely ordinary these days.

None of that was the problem.

What truly had Wu Yurong panicking was—

The man was Wu Chen!

Her daughter’s senior at university.

A young man only two years older than her own daughter!

If her daughter found out, what would she think of her?

What kind of woman would she become in her daughter’s eyes?

How could she ever face her afterward?

Wouldn’t this make her look like some older woman helping herself to a much younger lover?

It would ruin her image completely.

“Mom? Don’t frighten me…” Song Xuan still could not see anyone.

She truly believed something had happened.

The living room was enormous, and she was still some distance from the sofa.

Calling out, she took out her phone.

Her voice had gone urgent.

She was already thinking of calling her mother’s bodyguards.

Wu Yurong sat up abruptly and called out to her daughter.

“I’m here, I’m here… Xuanxuan, you’re back. Why didn’t you call first…?”

Even Wu Yurong found the words awkward in a situation like this.

She was genuinely frightened. Terrified her daughter would come closer and see.

She hardly knew what to say.

Song Xuan stopped dead.

Then she stared, utterly stunned.

Because of the state her mother was in…

The sofa back could hide someone lying down, but with Wu Yurong sitting up, Song Xuan could see her from the upper chest up.

Wu Yurong was of course wearing nothing.

The blanket had been pinned beneath her and had not come up with her.

And there were several reddish-purple marks on both sides of her collarbones.

Song Xuan had never dated, but she was a university student.

Of course she knew what a hickey was.

There were faint marks on one of Wu Yurong’s shoulders as well, close enough to scratches to be called that.

And then…

Her loose, disheveled hair.

The natural look on her face, so unlike her usual.

She gave off the unmistakable impression of a woman who had been thoroughly satisfied.

What was going on?!

“Mom! You—” Song Xuan was truly dumbfounded.

Her mother had raised her single-handedly.

Twenty years. She knew her far too well.

She knew exactly how guarded, how proper a woman her mother was.

She had never once in her life seen Wu Yurong look like this.

She could already guess what her mother had done last night.

How was that possible?!

“Mom, you… why aren’t you wearing… and you slept in the living room? You…” Song Xuan’s expression grew unnatural as she spoke, and her face flushed.

Not because Wu Yurong was naked. Mother and daughter still bathed together sometimes.

She was blushing because of what she had realized might have happened.

And as she spoke she kept walking toward the sofa.

She wanted to “look after” her mother.

“Don’t come over!” Wu Yurong shouted in panic.

Song Xuan’s steps instinctively slowed.

Then she froze again.

Her mother never shouted at her.

Wu Yurong could speak softly and gently to anyone—all the more so to her own daughter.

At that moment—

“Ahem!”

A man coughed lightly from behind the sofa.