Chapter 577: A Womanizer, a Frivolous Man

Chapter 577: A Womanizer, a Frivolous Man

How the hell could he do that?!

Li Ruobing had considered how Wu Chen might try to win Xia Jinyu over. In fact, drawing on everything she knew about him, she had made a great many detailed deductions. Wu Chen had used his information advantage to manipulate her before, so she knew how he operated.

Still, Li Ruobing believed that if Wu Chen tried to get Xia Jinyu by revealing some secret about her, or simply by showing off how much he knew about her, he would have a hard time winning her over.

Xia Jinyu was a master of psychology, after all.

If his motive was too obvious, she would see through him at once.

Even if he hid his motives, or first tried to mislead her so she wouldn’t know what he really wanted, that might work on other people. Logically speaking, it could never work on Xia Jinyu.

This wasn’t a matter of winning or losing.

No matter how formidable Wu Chen was psychologically, and no matter how accurate his information, beating Xia Jinyu would still only mean beating her.

But Wu Chen’s actual goal wasn’t to defeat Xia Jinyu. He wanted her to become his assistant—and his woman. He could win a few rounds along the way, but those victories meant nothing in themselves. Winning didn’t automatically get him what he wanted.

And then there was another consideration.

Within her own circles, Xia Jinyu had more or less reached the end of her pursuit of fame and fortune. She had achieved far more than anyone her age or with her level of experience should have, and she had long since achieved financial independence.

More than one person had even said she had a certain Buddhist detachment.

The outside world might misunderstand her, but some points of consensus couldn’t be wrong. Xia Jinyu had no need to put on an act, and Wu Chen himself had said as much yesterday without disputing it: she had very few material desires.

Given all that, how could Wu Chen win her over?

Threatening her with her own secrets was clearly out of the question. Li Ruobing didn’t even know what secrets Xia Jinyu might have that could be used against her.

Then what about attracting her with other people’s secrets? Or offering her enormous benefits? That was even less likely to work. Xia Jinyu was practically beyond worldly concerns. Once a person had enough money, they could enjoy just about everything worth enjoying. Any more money became nothing but a number.

Xia Jinyu was already at that level.

Li Ruobing could even put it this way: if Wu Chen used the same methods on Xia Jinyu that he had once used on Li Ruobing herself, the outcome would be disastrous. He might provoke Xia Jinyu’s disgust and rejection very early on—even outright hostility.

Xia Jinyu was a completely different kind of woman from Li Ruobing.

She was just as different from Su Qingying and Wu Yurong. Li Ruobing and those women had things in common: they were all strong women, all striving for greater success. Xia Jinyu, however, was not like that. In some ways, she was the exact opposite.

Ordinary women, young professionals, senior female executives, female business owners—they all pursued greater commercial or financial success.

Men were no different.

No matter what position people occupied, their greed had no limit. Those who had possessed great wealth and power were especially greedy; they could never truly let go.

That described the vast majority of people in human society.

Xia Jinyu, by contrast, might already belong to a tiny minority. She had let go and seen through so much that methods effective on ambitious, powerful women were more likely to backfire on her.

So, after Wu Chen had used the notes on his phone to repeatedly astonish Xia Jinyu, Li Ruobing had naturally reasoned that he might be using Xia Jinyu’s psychological expertise as his entry point. Perhaps he wanted to stir up her competitive spirit in psychology, then demonstrate that he was even better than she was, hoping she would be drawn to someone stronger.

As for turning Xia Jinyu into his assistant as well as his woman, the fact that she had nearly seen through worldly affairs made the former many times harder than the latter.

That didn’t mean the latter would be easy. It was just that the former was harder.

Li Ruobing had considered countless possibilities.

Maybe Wu Chen would reveal another secret that would shock even Xia Jinyu, and so on. If she counted every sudden idea that had flashed through her mind, dozens of possibilities had occurred to her. But not one of them resembled what Wu Chen was doing now.

She never could have imagined it, not in a million years.

He just… kissed her?!

Wouldn’t that completely break the script?!

At least Li Ruobing had made plenty of guesses. Even though events had suddenly taken a wildly absurd turn, she could use what she knew of Wu Chen to recognize that this was probably one of his tactics—though she had absolutely no idea what kind of tactic it was supposed to be.

Xia Jinyu, meanwhile, had nothing left in her mind but a roar.

Her first kiss was gone!

She had never been particularly attached to the idea of a first kiss. Whether she had one or not didn’t matter; every experience in her life was her own choice. But this time… it hadn’t been her choice! It had happened far too suddenly.

After the initial roar, Xia Jinyu was left with one extremely simple thought. Unlike Li Ruobing’s mental storm, her own reaction was direct:

Damn it! That brat had used the opportunity to take advantage of her!

Of course she was angry.

But anger at being taken advantage of came in different degrees.

If some greasy, ugly creep had done this, Xia Jinyu’s fury would have shot through the roof. She would have slapped him on the spot, called the police, or stepped outside to call someone to come break his legs—something along those lines.

But if the man who had taken advantage of her was a handsome, wealthy young man eleven years her junior, other women might well have been the ones to take the initiative afterward. Xia Jinyu was not that kind of woman, of course, and she was still angry. Her anger, however, was not nearly as intense.

Besides, she didn’t feel that this man was dangerous or might hurt her.

If they had been alone together in a confined space, that would certainly have been dangerous. But they were in a movie theater, a public place with security cameras—and, most importantly, another woman was sitting right there. Xia Jinyu didn’t feel that she was at risk of being harmed.

She didn’t lack a sense of security.

She could tell that Mr. Wu had spent the previous night with Bingbing.

She could sense that Bingbing was hostile toward her.

And Bingbing was sitting right beside them—yet he had kissed Xia Jinyu anyway.

From this, she reached a conclusion.

This was a womanizer, a frivolous man who always took the initiative in romantic relationships. He had come here to… flirt with her?! What did he take her for, an eighteen-year-old girl who had barely seen the world?

“Mm!” Xia Jinyu jerked backward.

Wu Chen straightened up at almost the same moment, as if the kiss had ended for both of them simultaneously. They put some distance between themselves, though they were seated next to each other and could not get very far apart. There was still less than a meter between them.

Xia Jinyu stared at Wu Chen, eyes wide.

“Do you think I…” She was about to say something warning him of her anger. After that, she would surely have made her own counterattack.

Of course, she couldn’t be allowed to finish.

“First of all, I won!” Wu Chen interrupted her with a smile. “And then, Professor Xia, would you mind analyzing the psychological motive behind what I just did?”