Chapter 234: I’ll Hire Him at Any Price!

Chapter 234: I’ll Hire Him at Any Price!

Wu Chen and Mao Rusong settled on a time and place, exchanged a few more words, and ended the call.

“Teacher… was that Brother Daqi’s dad?” He Xinxin asked carefully from beside him.

She had heard him say Boss Mao. It was the same way he had addressed the man on the phone Mao Qi handed him in the park.

“Mm.” Wu Chen looked at her and nodded.

“Does he need something from you?” she asked, her voice full of curiosity.

He Xinxin had never met Mao Rusong. But over the past few years she had heard plenty about him from the kids in her circle. She knew Brother Daqi carried so much weight in Dongpu because his father carried more. The family owned bars and KTVs, and a film company too. They were enormously rich. His father was a big shot.

“Little girl, why so many questions?”

Wu Chen raised a hand and flicked her forehead.

“Teacher…” She pouted. Even the way she said the word now carried a hint of spoiled wheedling.

“Let’s go up.” Wu Chen tipped his head toward the building.

Seeing that he would not tell her, she did not dare press.

They went up together.

They reached the door of her home. Wu Chen carried her skateboard for her. She held her ice-cream cone in one hand and worked the key with the other.

Once the two of them were inside, He Shiqin, who had been preparing dinner in the kitchen, heard the noise and came out to look.

She stood there a moment, blank.

“You’re back…”

Then her surprise deepened. The moment her daughter came in, she took out slippers for Wu Chen entirely on her own initiative.

“Teacher, wear these.”

He Shiqin was also surprised to see that both Wu Chen and He Xinxin held ice-cream cones in their right hands.

It made Teacher Wu and her daughter look unusually close.

“Oh, Teacher Wu, you shouldn’t have spent money on her…” He Shiqin said with an apologetic smile as she came toward the entryway.

Wu Chen understood her meaning.

“It was nothing.” He smiled at her. “Xinxin bought the cones…”

“Really…?” He Shiqin looked even more surprised and glanced at her daughter.

At once a broad smile spread across her face, wide enough that she could hardly contain it.

Her daughter was being so thoughtful.

She had never been like this. How had she turned so sensible all at once? She had known Teacher Wu for such a short time, and already he had taught her to be this obedient, this well-behaved. He seemed to have her utterly in hand.

How could Teacher Wu be this remarkable?

Her daughter was in the thick of her rebellious phase, and he had said he could straighten her out—and he actually had?

After setting out the slippers for Wu Chen, He Xinxin changed into her own. Then she took the skateboard back from him and headed for her room with her backpack still on.

She wanted to put her things away first.

He Shiqin invited Wu Chen to sit on the sofa. In truth, she had not expected him to come home with her daughter. She had assumed he would go to the park with Xinxin, watch for a while, and leave from there.

But she was delighted that he had come back.

Because…

the tutoring arrangement had still not been settled.

This was the perfect chance to raise it again.

By now He Shiqin had even reached the point of believing that no world-class painter—not even one of those legendary masters who live to see their own works enter museum collections—would suit her daughter better than Wu Chen.

This was no longer a matter of technique alone.

She knew exactly how extraordinary Wu Chen’s painting was. But more than that, no one else could manage her daughter. Wu Chen could. More than manage her—in less than a single day he had turned her mischievous, rebellious girl into someone well-behaved, thoughtful, and earnest about learning.

He Shiqin had seen with her own eyes the attitude Xinxin had brought to her lesson with Wu Chen that day.

She had to hire him as her daughter’s private tutor.

Whatever it cost.

“Teacher Wu… Xinxin didn’t act up, did she?”

“No. She was very good. She’s a fine kid.”

Wu Chen and He Shiqin talked for a few moments on the sofa. She asked first whether Xinxin had angered him at the park, whether she had made any trouble.

Wu Chen did not tell her the truth. He said only that He Xinxin had been obedient, well-behaved, and wonderful.

He Shiqin was overjoyed to hear it. She even said that Xinxin and Teacher Wu must have been fated to meet.

In her bedroom, He Xinxin heard every word. The reason she had gone in to set down her things without so much as closing the door was precisely that she was afraid Wu Chen would tell her mother what she had done at the park. She wanted to hear the living room clearly.

“Teacher Wu, so… about the tutoring…” He Shiqin came to the point before they had talked long.

“Let’s see… I can give you an answer tomorrow. We can arrange it then… I’ll know tomorrow.”

Wu Chen still did not agree outright.

“Teacher Wu, look at my child. You do like her, don’t you? Won’t you just give me a firm answer…?”

He Shiqin was growing anxious. She was afraid something might change.

“Xinxin is a good kid. It’s my own situation. I have to have the time for it. There are things I need to arrange,” Wu Chen said with a smile.

“That’s true… Then tomorrow? What time tomorrow?” she asked.

“Let’s talk by phone. I’ll call you,” Wu Chen said.

As the two of them spoke, He Xinxin came out of her room again. Her cone was finished. She crossed the living room into the kitchen, and a short while later came out carrying several washed apples.

“Mom, have an apple.”

“Teacher, have an apple. They’re really sweet.”

She handed one to each of them.

He Shiqin stood there with the apple in her hand, almost dazed.

Her daughter really did seem to have changed. She was like the girl she had been several years ago—well-behaved, sensible, even attentive to others. The change was so great that He Shiqin nearly wanted to cry.

Her daughter was everything to her. As long as her daughter was all right, everything was all right.

What He Shiqin did not know was that He Xinxin was only playing at being good.

She was currying favor with Wu Chen.

He Shiqin did not know it now. And she never would.

Even if someone beat He Xinxin to death, she would never dare tell her mother. It would mean explaining what she herself had done. It would be the same as exposing herself.

He Shiqin looked at her daughter, apple in hand, then at Wu Chen. She gathered herself and rose suddenly, beaming.

“Teacher Wu, sit for a while. Let me go check the pot. Stay for dinner… It’ll be ready soon.”

“No, no.” Wu Chen stood as well and smiled. “I need to be going.”

“Don’t. It’s already this late. Eat before you go,” He Shiqin urged.

“I have an appointment. I’ve already promised. They’re waiting for me.” Wu Chen explained briefly.

“Ah… then… all right, Teacher Wu…”

Seeing that he was headed for the door, she added, “Teacher Wu, let me see you out…”

He Shiqin walked him to the door. He Xinxin followed and waved obediently.

“Goodbye, Teacher.”

Out of the complex. Into the car.

Wu Chen looked back at the entrance to the residential complex and smiled as he bit into the apple.

According to his plan—tomorrow.

Tomorrow he should be able to get things settled with He Shiqin.

He set off again.

It was evening rush hour, and Modu’s traffic was appalling. And the place Wu Chen was going was not Ninth Dimension Bar.

An hour later.

It was already past seven in the evening when he finally arrived at the place he and Mao Rusong had agreed on: Golden Tycoon KTV in Modu.

This was another of Mao Rusong’s principal businesses in the city. The bar turned a higher profit, but Golden Tycoon KTV was a place filled with beautiful women, built far more heavily around social entertainment.

He parked. He went upstairs.

No one stopped him anywhere along the way. Mao Rusong had arranged everything. Someone met him at the entrance, and the bodyguards upstairs all knew his face.

Fifth floor. End of the corridor. The largest private room in Golden Tycoon KTV.

The bodyguard at the door opened it for him at once.

Wu Chen walked in. In the enormous room, on the long semicircular sofa that ran along the wall, only two people sat.

Mao Rusong, and his son Mao Qi.

The moment Wu Chen entered, both of them stood.

“Mr. Wu is here. Come, come, please, please…”

Mao Rusong welcomed him with extravagant courtesy, his face all smiles. As he spoke he cut a glance at his son—then stepped over and kicked him.

“You little bastard! Don’t you know how to greet a guest? Not a scrap of manners! Is this how I raised you? Every single day you make trouble for me!”

Mao Rusong’s temper flared instantly. The kick sent Mao Qi stumbling and dropped him beside the sofa.

Then he turned straight back to Wu Chen, all smiles again.

The change came astonishingly fast.

Father and son were putting on a show.

And for Mao Rusong, this was only the appetizer.