Chapter 037: Darling! Come Here

Chapter 037: Darling! Come Here

Li Ruobing had braced for a mole somewhere on her body, or maybe some faint scar from a childhood scrap.

Hairless. Down there.

She really was hairless down there, and she was the only person alive who knew it. She’d noticed the difference the moment puberty hit, and she hadn’t wanted anyone’s opinion on her body—so after fourteen, she’d never once set foot in the school bathhouse.

Wu Chen’s words knocked the chopsticks clean out of her hand.

Because he hadn’t just named her most private secret.

He’d named something that no one else on earth could possibly know.

She picked the chopsticks up off the table without a word, then lifted her eyes to him again—and the look in them now carried an edge of real danger, sharp enough that Wu Chen could feel it land.

She was looking at him the way you’d look at a pervert.

“How long have you been stalking me?” she asked, her eyes gone dark.

She’d genuinely started to wonder if he was some kind of peeping obsessive—if he’d broken into her home before, hidden in a closet, watched her all night.

“I’m twenty-two,” Wu Chen said, unbothered. “Just graduated. Before high school I was back in my hometown—three years of high school, four of college, seven years total here in Donghai. Four years ago you were still overseas. You only came back after your master’s…”

“I was still in school myself, and my grades were always solid. Donghai University’s a proper key school by any measure, and I got in. And you’re not the only person I know things about. What I know—about people, about events—goes further than you’d guess.”

“So how much time do you think I could really spend on any one person? You think I’d use something as clumsy as tailing someone around to dig up secrets, one by one? I’m an information broker. I have my own methods, ones that go well past what you’re imagining. Definitely not as… simple as you think.”

She set her chopsticks down and pressed her lips together.

She wanted to ask him something, but held it back—she already knew what she’d get: “trade secret.”

She had to admit, though, what he’d said made sense.

Wu Chen didn’t just understand her. He understood far too many people.

Which meant that a man his age couldn’t possibly be gathering intelligence through anything as crude as staking people out. That method worked, sure, but it ate time he clearly didn’t have—not for the sheer number of people he seemed to know inside and out.

There had to be something more advanced. More efficient.

“You keep getting more interesting,” Li Ruobing said suddenly, a smile breaking across her face, an odd light flickering in her eyes.

In one day of knowing him, Wu Chen had made her feel that more than once already. Now her interest in him had climbed to its peak.

The stubbornness bred into her bones made this situation almost impossible to sit with.

The situation being: Wu Chen knew everything about her, down to her most guarded secret, while she knew nothing about him at all.

After tonight, she’d throw more people, and more resources, into digging up everything there was to know about him.

She’d do some of that digging herself, too—find some way to get at this remarkable man’s secrets.

Which was exactly what Wu Chen wanted.

A man usually wins a woman’s heart the moment she becomes curious about him.

For most women, that curiosity started with looks, or money.

Looks and money were the two things Li Ruobing cared least about. She’d seen more than enough handsome men. A rich man might not be richer than she was—and even if he were, and had earned it all himself, that would win her respect at most.

Respect was just respect. Nothing beyond it.

But now Wu Chen was using the one thing he actually had—mystery—to pull her interest toward him.

“A toast?” He raised his glass.

She studied him with a smile, then lifted her own and clinked it against his.

She was probably already sketching out some grand scheme against him in her head. Wu Chen wasn’t afraid of that in the least. He welcomed it—welcomed her coming at him however wildly, however deep, however recklessly, so long as it meant getting to know him.

Their first date, their first dinner together, drew to a quiet close.

No need to settle the bill. Lu Guangnian had already taken care of it—every table on the first floor.

Arm in arm, under a great many watching eyes, Li Ruobing and Wu Chen left Lao Pinxuan.

“I’ll drive you home,” she said the moment they stepped outside.

Into the car, and home.

On the way, Wu Chen gave her a quick rundown of Lu Guangnian’s situation—mainly the part involving Liu Caixiu and Liu Ligang. He said nothing about the first love.

Whether Lu Guangnian would win her back, whether his son would even acknowledge him—none of that was settled yet.

Until there was an actual outcome, Wu Chen thought it best to keep quiet.

A little over half an hour later.

The mouth of the alley on Old Street in the East District, where Wu Chen lived, came into view.

He understood why she’d insisted on driving him herself. Partly it was for the performance—if she’d never once driven her “boyfriend” home, the whole act would ring hollow.

Partly, she wanted to see whether he really lived here.

Ring, ring, ring—

Inside the Bentley Continental, her phone rang.

One hand on the wheel, she glanced at the screen, answered, and said flatly, “Talk.”

“Boss, there’s a car on us,” the bodyguard in the trailing Mercedes G-Class reported.

“I know.” She frowned, hung up with a flash of irritation, then said to Wu Chen, “Someone’s tailing us. Probably one of Ding Ruilong’s.”

She assumed it was Ding Ruilong because only someone that obsessive would waste manpower having her followed for no reason.

“What makes you so sure it’s him?” Wu Chen asked.

“Who else is that sick?” she shot back.

“Fair enough.” Wu Chen smiled and let it drop.

In truth, he knew someone had been tailing him since noon—not her, him. Even when he’d stepped outside to speak with Lu Guangnian alone, someone had been watching from a distance.

Too far to catch the conversation. Close enough to see the two of them talking privately, to see Lu Guangnian offer him a cigarette.

Wu Chen knew exactly who’d sent them.

Li Ruobing had gotten it wrong.

Let her.

The Bentley reached the mouth of the alley and eased to a stop. The road beyond was rough, and the Continental sat low—even with its adjustable suspension, threading it in and back out would be more trouble than it was worth.

“Here’s fine. It’s late—head home, get some rest. Sweet dreams.” Wu Chen pushed the door open, stepped out, and started toward the alley.

He walked without looking back.

Watching him go through the windshield, something crossed her mind. She lowered the window on impulse, tilted her head, and called out, “Darling!”

Performing again. For whose benefit this time?

Wu Chen turned back toward the car.

She tilted her head and beckoned him over with a curl of her finger.

He frowned faintly and walked back, stopping outside the driver’s door.

“Come here.” She crooked a finger again, as if she meant to whisper something.

He leaned in.

She hooked an arm around his neck, leaned half her body out through the window, and kissed him full on the mouth.