Chapter 024: Are You Hitting on Me?

Chapter 024: Are You Hitting on Me?

The interplay of black and white keys gave rise to notes of quiet beauty, a melody like sunlight at two thirty in the afternoon—languid and leisurely, flowing slowly along its ancient, elegant curve.

The sound bloomed brighter by degrees, spreading outward like a rising tide, filling every corner of the world around them.

His fingers danced lightly across the keys, sliding from low notes to high, opening onto some rose-tinted vista with every pass, then drifting back down again like scattered pearls—fine, fragmented, gleaming faintly with light.

Wu Chen’s fingers kept moving.

His body swayed almost imperceptibly with the rhythm, eyes half-lowered, neither fully open nor closed, as though he’d sunk entirely into the melody unspooling beneath his own hands.

Li Ruobing crossed the room without a sound, a champagne flute in each hand, and leaned lightly against the piano, setting the glass from her left hand on the lid, within his reach.

She took a small sip from her own glass, propped her chin against the back of her hand, and tilted her head to watch him lost in the music.

The clear, bright notes flowed on like running water.

Watching him, a distinct light kindled slowly in her eyes. She had to admit—Wu Chen never failed to surprise her.

In twenty-seven years, she’d crossed paths with plenty of unusual men. He was, without question, the most unusual of them all.

She no longer dared assume there was anything he couldn’t do.

He rarely showed his full hand, and yet every time, in exactly the right moment, exactly the right setting, he managed something that left her stunned.

The piece he was playing happened to be famous—extraordinarily so, familiar to nearly everyone.

It had been used for years as background music across countless variety shows, news broadcasts, and television programs.

Few people knew its actual title, but almost anyone would recognize it the instant they heard it.

Too familiar, really.

And overfamiliarity carried its own quiet cost—the way even a favorite song, set as a ringtone or alarm, wore thin within a year until you couldn’t stand to hear it again.

Heard too often, anything started to feel worn. Common.

But a living performance carried a weight no recording could match.

Wu Chen wasn’t a professional pianist. He carried no such title.

But Li Ruobing, who’d studied piano herself, could tell his skill ran high—far beyond her own, at the very least.

She reached up absently and brushed a strand of hair behind her ear—long, straight, and black, the kind that fell forward and hid her face whenever she tilted her head.

Wu Chen never looked over.

His focus while playing had reached the point where the world around him simply ceased to register—even a devastating beauty like Li Ruobing, who could still reach a nine under exacting standards, sweeping her hair back in front of him, went entirely unnoticed.

She took another sip of champagne, breathing out slowly, and closed her eyes, as if finally listening with something deeper than her ears.

It had been a long time since she’d let herself relax like this.

No scheming, no corporate maneuvering.

No pressure bearing down from the family.

No work. No worries.

Only music, and the quiet pull of it.

Some unknown stretch of time later, the piano fell suddenly silent.

Li Ruobing opened her eyes as though waking from a dream and looked at him. “You really are full of surprises. Richard Clayderman’s Ballade pour Adeline. Not bad at all. Why’d you stop?”

He hadn’t finished the piece—there should have been a short passage left.

Clang, clang, clang.

Wu Chen pressed a quick string of keys and said, “This piano needs tuning. You should be able to hear it.”

“Mm…” she murmured. In truth, she hadn’t caught which note was off.

Wu Chen had underestimated himself, and overestimated her.

She’d studied piano as a teenager, passed her exams back then—but it had been years since she’d touched a keyboard. As for Wu…