Chapter 342: She’s Here

Chapter 342: She’s Here

Wu Chen and Li Ruobing turned at the same moment. Ten-odd meters away at the southern end of the corridor, four bodyguards laden with bags of every size were escorting two girls. Or two women.

Mu Qianqian and Su Qingying.

Mu Qianqian looked as full of energy as ever: white shirt, short shorts, knee-high boots, a distinctly girlish cartoon bag on her shoulder. She was waving hard.

Beside her, Su Qingying had her usual ethereal air, a pale-blue long dress with high heels and sunglasses large enough to cover half her face. The sunglasses did spoil the effect somewhat, but there was no helping it. Su Qingying was Donghai’s foremost beauty. Without them she would be surrounded by gawkers the moment she stepped outside.

Such were the troubles of looking like a fairy.

Li Ruobing glanced over, mildly surprised, and raised a hand in greeting.

The two women came toward them with their bodyguards.

Only once they were close did Mu Qianqian speak to Wu Chen, dropping her voice to a huff. “You big meanie. You go shopping and don’t even tell us. Are you going to a banquet tonight?”

Wu Chen reached out and flicked her forehead.

“Ow!” Mu Qianqian yelped, then pulled an exaggeratedly fierce face at him.

Su Qingying, meanwhile, smiled with her lips pressed together and stole glances at him, her eyes saying a great deal. She looked instinctively around them as well, but did not dare say a word to him.

In another setting she certainly would not have behaved this way.

The trouble was the crowd. There were people everywhere. If Su Qingying called Wu Chen “hubby” here or showed him the slightest affection and someone saw, there would be trouble.

That was also why Mu Qianqian had called out to Li Ruobing from a distance rather than to Wu Chen. They were all performing: two women who had happened to spot Li Ruobing shopping with her boyfriend and come over to say hello.

In reality Wu Chen was the link that joined all four of them.

“Three days! You haven’t called me or Sister Qingying in three whole days!” Mu Qianqian complained again, waving her little hand and counting on her fingers, keeping her voice low and her mouth in a pout.

Her tone was so exaggerated anyone would think Wu Chen had not contacted her in half a year.

“If I didn’t call you, why didn’t you call me?” he asked with a smile.

“Because you’re busy. Sister Ruobing said you’re incredibly busy, morning to night.”

“Then why ask, if you already know? Missed me?” Wu Chen grinned.

“Hmph! Of course not.” Mu Qianqian lifted her chin.

“Qianqian. This isn’t the place.” Su Qingying checked her, glancing around again without meaning to.

“Qingying, how long have you been out?” Li Ruobing asked.

“Nearly an hour. We’re almost finished. It was Qianqian who wanted to come. She said she had nothing to wear…”

“There’s a café downstairs. Shall we go sit for a while?” Li Ruobing pointed below.

Su Qingying nodded, and glanced at Wu Chen once more.

Before long the four of them and their bodyguards went down. The mall’s second floor was given over to dining, upscale restaurants of every kind. They went into a café called Yuehe. The bodyguards took a booth near the entrance while Wu Chen and the three women went all the way to the back.

They chose a four-seat booth in a corner. The sofa backs on both sides rose high, which made it extremely private.

Wu Chen and Li Ruobing sat on one side, Mu Qianqian and Su Qingying on the other.

They ordered coffee and began to talk.

They had come mainly to rest. Wu Chen and Li Ruobing had been shopping for more than half an hour, and the banquet was still more than two hours off. There was no hurry.

“…Hubby, how did things turn out with Tang Xinbao? Ruobing said he and Guo Qiqi are staying at your place now. Is that right?” Su Qingying leaned forward slightly, raised a hand to shield her mouth, and asked him very quietly.

She looked rather furtive, terrified of being overheard.

She knew about Tang Xinbao. She even knew Ding Ruilong had come to Donghai. Li Ruobing had told her all of it.

Although Wu Chen had not contacted Su Qingying or Mu Qianqian for days, the two of them had been in constant touch with Li Ruobing.

It went back to the large gathering on the evening of the twentieth, the day Wu Chen returned from Modu.

At that gathering Su Qingying and Li Ruobing had agreed to work together. It had not been an idle promise. They were in earnest, and had already begun putting it into motion.

Wu Chen genuinely had been extraordinarily busy these past few days. Lei Cheng, Ding Ruilong, Tang Jingbin, Sun Yongzhang, one after another. He had not contacted Su Qingying, yet she knew his movements in detail.

Li Ruobing had told her.

Su Qingying knew exactly how busy he was, and she was buried in work herself, so she had sensibly refrained from disturbing him. Mu Qianqian, who followed Su Qingying everywhere, naturally knew the same.

Li Ruobing and Su Qingying now had a very good relationship, and a rather delicate one.

Good, because they were going to work together.

Delicate, because of Wu Chen.

Su Qingying now called Li Ruobing simply “Ruobing,” and Li Ruobing called her “Qingying.”

“It’s all settled. No problems,” Wu Chen said briefly.

Su Qingying exchanged a few more words with him, then turned to Li Ruobing, and soon they were on the subject of the evening’s banquet. Mu Qianqian chimed in now and then, and before long all three women were talking together.

What dresses to wear, which heels to choose, how to avoid turning up in the same outfit, the collaboration they would announce at the banquet, and more.

That Wu Chen and Li Ruobing should run into Su Qingying and Mu Qianqian here today was a coincidence, but hardly a startling one.

The two of them were also attending Huancai Fashion’s banquet.

Su Qingying would attend as executive vice president of Jinfu Jewelry Group, with her assistant Mu Qianqian in tow.

Originally the banquet had nothing to do with Jinfu Group. Huancai Fashion was holding it to celebrate the successful close of its new-product launch and to thank its partner companies and the media.

But Li Ruobing and Su Qingying had already agreed to use the occasion’s high media attention to announce a collaboration between Huancai and Jinfu. Hence Su Qingying’s attendance.

Su Qingying hardly wanted for evening gowns.

The shopping had been Mu Qianqian’s idea. Like so many young girls, she had suddenly discovered she had nothing to wear and needed something new.

The longer the three women talked, the more they found to say.

Which left Wu Chen out of it entirely.

He drank his coffee in silence without joining in, though his expression turned faintly peculiar now and then. No particular reason. It was only that they were getting along so well. Wu Chen found it rather amusing.

The four of them stayed in the café for half an hour.

Then they went out together and went on shopping together. Buy, buy, buy.

…

Night.

Seven-thirty in the evening.

The second-floor banquet hall of the Century Star Hotel in Donghai’s South District was thick with guests.

Huancai Fashion had reserved the entire floor and spent nearly five million yuan on decorating the venue and laying on drinks and food. This was the closing stage of the new-product launch, so the company had spared nothing.

Wu Chen accompanied Li Ruobing to the banquet, both of them dressed for the occasion.

Worth mentioning: Tao Manying attended as well. But she was not the sole focus of the evening. Superstar or not, she could not overshadow Li Ruobing’s presence, let alone Su Qingying’s, the daughter of Donghai’s richest man and the woman known as the city’s foremost beauty.

The banquet went smoothly.

At nine o’clock exactly Li Ruobing tapped her glass. She and Su Qingying then jointly announced that Huancai Fashion and Jinfu Group would collaborate on a luxury cosmetics line.

At ten the banquet ended and the guests dispersed.

It was Wu Chen’s first time accompanying Li Ruobing to a business banquet. Nothing eventful happened. Everything ran smoothly, and hosts and guests alike enjoyed themselves.

—

July 24, 2020. At seven in the morning exactly Wu Chen woke on schedule, then rolled over and sank into deep sleep again.

It had been midnight before he and Li Ruobing got home the night before, and they had not actually gone to sleep until two. Five hours was nowhere near enough.

When he woke again at half past eight, Li Ruobing was already at her makeup in her pajamas.

Meanwhile.

Donghai International Airport.

A private jet out of Modu, after a flight of just over an hour, touched down in the airport’s northern section.

A casually dressed woman with her hair in a bun, wearing a mask and sunglasses, came down the steps with an assistant and a bodyguard.

Before long the three passed through the VIP channel and left the terminal.

Outside.

A black Alphard van and two Escalade SUVs had been waiting at the curb for some time.

Song Xuan, wearing a mask, paced beside the Alphard and watched the terminal doors. When the three emerged she recognized the mysteriously dressed woman in front at once.

“Miss An!” Song Xuan waved to An Menglan in excitement, then hurriedly called the bodyguards out of the vehicles to take the luggage.

It was An Menglan. She had arrived in Donghai.