Chapter 035: Do I Have Some Shameful Secret?

Chapter 035: Do I Have Some Shameful Secret?

“Ha, Boss Li, we’ll have to find a way to work together sometime,” Mu Sihai said, laughing.

“When the chance comes along,” Li Ruobing said, holding a polite, even smile. It wasn’t idle talk on her part, either.

A cosmetics company and a pharmaceutical company genuinely had grounds to cooperate—in cosmeceuticals, specifically.

Huancai Fashion was only four years old. It had grown fast, but its research capacity was nowhere near Mu Biopharmaceutical’s, which ran laboratories and research bases both at home and abroad.

If Huancai ever wanted to move into cosmeceuticals without the in-house science to back it, teaming up with a company like Mu’s would make plenty of sense.

Wu Chen caught the tail end of the conversation as he approached.

He worked out at once that Wan Jianmin had likely made the introduction himself.

Wan Jianmin and Li Ruobing had been business partners for years and knew each other well. But as far as Wu Chen knew, she and Mu Sihai barely had any connection at all—not strangers exactly, but little more than aware of each other’s existence.

“What’s the topic?” Wu Chen asked with a smile, arriving at the table.

“And this would be—?” Mu Sihai looked him over.

“Boss Mu, Boss Wan, this is my boyfriend, Wu Chen,” Li Ruobing said.

“Mr. Wu.”

“Mr. Wu, a pleasure.”

Both men shook his hand.

“Quite the impressive young man, ha ha!”

“Boss Li has an eye for these things. Mr. Wu here looks every bit the part—a dragon among men…”

The warmth in their voices went well beyond what Wu Chen expected. Something was off. It was as if they already knew something about him—neither man seemed remotely surprised that he was Li Ruobing’s boyfriend.

“Well, we won’t keep you two from your evening.”

“Boss Li, we’ll be off. Enjoy yourselves.”

They’d only stopped to say hello, and after a few words they left—not toward the private rooms upstairs, but straight for the entrance, clearly on their way out. Watching them go, Wu Chen understood at once why their manner had struck him as strange.

They hadn’t just arrived at Lao Pinxuan.

They’d already finished dinner upstairs and were on their way out when they’d spotted Li Ruobing and stopped to say hello.

Which meant that while they’d still been upstairs, they’d almost certainly heard exactly what had happened down here.

Lu Guangnian might not be the richest man in Donghai, but no one in the city’s business circle had a bigger name, or more friends.

And what had just gone on downstairs…

Liu Caixiu picking a fight with Li Ruobing. Her boyfriend firing right back. Lu Guangnian storming over ready to explode—only to be talked down by a few quiet words from Wu Chen, ending with him slapping his own wife and apologizing to every table on the floor…

In a restaurant this exclusive, even the smallest disturbance drew every eye in the room.

Let alone one involving a man like Lu Guangnian.

That was why neither Mu Sihai nor Wan Jianmin had blinked at Wu Chen’s identity—they’d already known he existed before they ever came downstairs.

No doubt they’d already spun up their own theories about who he really was. They’d simply keep those theories to themselves.

Wu Chen sat back down across from Li Ruobing.

Their first “date” had turned out to be full of twists.

“Do you know them?” Li Ruobing asked.

“Mu Sihai. Wan Jianmin.” Wu Chen named them without hesitation—she’d only said Boss Mu and Boss Wan earlier, never their full names.

“You really are an information broker, aren’t you,” Li Ruobing said, half teasing, half something closer to grudging respect, her voice low.

“Of course. It’s my profession.” Wu Chen smiled and lifted his glass.

She raised hers as well.

They clinked glasses.

Li Ruobing tipped her head back for a sip, set the glass down, picked up her chopsticks, then set those down too without touching the food. She propped both elbows on the table and studied him. “Nothing you’d like to tell me?”

“About what?” Wu Chen…