Chapter 363: So Sudden

Chapter 363: So Sudden

Could you not go back?

The way she put it was plainly open to more than one reading.

Wu Chen’s expression shifted faintly before he smiled. “Tonight… I’ve nothing planned at the moment. It wouldn’t matter if I didn’t go back.”

“Miss Li won’t come looking for you?” she asked softly, swirling the wine in her glass without noticing.

With a little alcohol in her there was a particular charm in the way she spoke.

Under the private room’s light her wine-flushed cheeks seemed wrapped in a soft glow. Looking at her, you could not help thinking: now this was a fucking woman.

“Probably. I’ll let her know,” Wu Chen said with a smile.

“It seems I really did misunderstand before,” she said, smiling too, her rich, magnetic voice full of warmth. “Miss Li seems very… accommodating toward you, Mr. Wu.”

“I wouldn’t quite call it accommodating,” he said.

She smiled and let the subject go.

She was more and more curious about him, but when it came to his romantic affairs she still did not want to pry too deeply. Instinct told her to keep a little distance from that ground.

Even though her conscience was clear.

Still, by now she could no longer deny that Wu Chen had become attractive to her.

That astonishing musical gift.

And not only that.

An Menglan had rarely, if ever, met anyone so perfectly in tune with her. They shared the same musical language and could talk without end. And he never deferred to her because of who she was.

He took things exactly as they were.

That was what made her most comfortable around him.

“Do you have any plans tonight, Miss An?” Wu Chen asked in return.

“Not really.” She smiled. “I’d just like to talk more about music with you. If you don’t find it tiresome, I’d like to ask whether you could stay and help me get familiar with those songs. If I’m singing anything wrong, I’d be grateful for your correction.”

Where music was concerned, An Menglan was already willing to put herself below him.

She had recognized the truth.

There was no point measuring herself against a genius who came once in an age.

“I wouldn’t call it correction,” Wu Chen said with a smile. “It’s only that they’re songs I wrote, and I think they’ll come out best performed the way I imagined them.”

She smiled, paused briefly, then raised her glass toward him.

Wu Chen raised his.

Their glasses touched lightly, and each took another sip.

Once her glass was down she picked up the bottle beside her and poured herself more.

“Mr. Wu, you seem to know everything,” she said with a smile. “I mean everything to do with music.”

“More or less,” Wu Chen said.

“Then… may I ask how many instruments you play?”

“I’ve never counted.”

“Never counted?” Her eyebrow rose, her smile turning slightly surprised. “So there are a lot?”

“Quite a few.” He nodded.

They drank.

They talked.

Without noticing, their meal ran from a little after three in the afternoon to past five.

More than two hours.

They had not actually eaten much. Most of the time had gone to talking and drinking.

An Menglan’s tolerance really was excellent.

Between them they finished six bottles of red wine, three each. Measured by alcohol, three bottles of wine came to at least ten large bottles of beer.

An Menglan was drunk.

Wu Chen was a little drunk too.

But both only halfway.

Neither was staggering. Wine simply showed in An Menglan’s face; she flushed easily when she drank, which was hardly a serious problem.

It was around half past five when the meal finally ended.

Time to go upstairs.

They stood. She picked up her bag and started for the door, still talking to him.

“Miss An, your sunglasses,” Wu Chen reminded her.

Only then did she remember. She picked up the sunglasses she had left on the table and put them on.

Then she started for the door again, forcing him to remind her a second time.

“And your mask.”

She really had drunk a bit too much and was overlooking small things without meaning to.

“Thank you, Mr. Wu.” She laughed, visibly tipsy, took the mask from her pocket, and put it on.

People who drank too much often grew muddled in speech and overly animated.

An Menglan was not that bad.

She was simply acting a little… off.

A few minutes later.

Wu Chen and An Menglan took the elevator back to the fifteenth floor and went into her presidential suite again.

The moment she was inside she kicked off her heels and walked in barefoot. She took off the sunglasses and mask, dropped them on the coffee table, then collapsed back onto the sofa and pulled out her phone.

She called her assistant, Liu Jing.

She had not forgotten the important business.

A few minutes later Liu Jing arrived with two thick copies of the contract.

She had clearly not typed the whole thing herself. She had contacted the company’s legal department in Modu, where they had templates, and using the information she gave them they had filled everything in and sent the electronic documents back for printing.

Two hours and more had been ample time.

Wu Chen and An Menglan signed.

Once it was done she raised a hand, signaling Liu Jing that she could go and rest in the room next door.

Then An Menglan opened another bottle of red wine.

The suite had a temperature-controlled cabinet stocked with red wines, whiskies, brandies, bottles of various years and categories. Guests could of course drink them; they simply paid extra at checkout.

An Menglan was genuinely happy today.

Night came on.

A little after seven in the evening, in the piano room.

An open bottle of red wine stood on the ledge at one corner of the piano, beside Wu Chen’s glass, still half full.

An Menglan stood nearby with her own glass in hand, singing to her heart’s content.

Wu Chen played, giving her the melody of Sound the Bell.

The night deepened.

Singing drifted on through the presidential suite.

Wu Chen had written Sound the Bell for her first, then the seven songs for the album.

Eight in all.

Running through all eight even once took more than half an hour.

She kept singing, kept practicing.

His accompaniment let her sink almost perfectly into the feeling of each piece, and under the influence of the wine her performance ran even beyond her usual state.

Of the eight, her three favorites were Sound the Bell, Queen, and The Final Chapter, so those three she sang most.

But by a little after nine both of them were tired, and gradually it turned into play.

Her throat could not take endless singing.

So they began playing together instead.

Wu Chen at the piano, An Menglan on violin, the two of them performing Queen as a duet.

In pure melody Queen was the most breathtaking of the songs, and both violin and piano suited blues extremely well.

After they had played it through several times, however, the drunken An Menglan began to look dissatisfied.

“I’m so bad,” she muttered, then looked at him. “You’re much better, Mr. Wu.”

“You’re not bad at all,” he said with a smile.

“You’re always so modest.” She smiled drunkenly.

She set down the violin, walked over, and sat right beside him.

The bench was fairly long, so there was room for both.

Still, the fact that she sat down without saying anything could only mean one thing.

She had drunk too much.

“Four hands?” she asked, turning toward him from close beside him.

“Sure.” He nodded and shifted slightly aside.

They began playing four hands.

Queen again.

But she managed only the opening with him before she could go no further. Drunk as she was, she could not play properly without the score in front of her. She had not memorized the whole thing, and he played so well she had trouble keeping up.

So Wu Chen played a passage alone.

An Menglan turned her head, a drunken smile on her face, and looked with admiration at the young, exceptional man beside her.

This brilliantly gifted man.

This man of almost supernatural skill.

This man who never stopped astonishing people.

She simply kept looking at him.

Wu Chen stopped after a short passage, since she had fallen behind.

He lifted his hands from the keys, turned to her, and smiled.

“Miss An?”

“Mr. Wu,” she said back.

Their eyes met.

“Hm?” He made a small questioning sound, still smiling.

An Menglan leaned suddenly forward, cupped his face in both hands, and kissed him.

It came without warning.