Chapter 062: Even Li Ruobing Was Fucking Stunned!

Chapter 062: Even Li Ruobing Was Fucking Stunned!

What Li Ruobing really wanted to ask was why he hadn’t given her any warning.

Because he’d said nothing, Tao Manying had arrived only to be stopped cold at the front desk—one careless move away from never even getting through the door.

But with an outsider in the room, she couldn’t voice any of that outright. She knew perfectly well Wu Chen would understand exactly what this call was about. And he’d answered with an “oh”?

An “oh”?!

That single syllable might have passed for normal a decade or so ago. Used like this, now, it was infuriating.

Li Ruobing’s brow twitched—as if she’d just heard him say something—and she carried on smoothly, “Mm, all right, darling. I should get back to it.” She hung up, natural as breathing, wearing the exact look of a woman who’d just had a lovely little chat with her boyfriend.

“President Li, you and your husband are quite the devoted couple. It’s enviable, really,” Tao Manying offered right on cue.

She had no idea, of course, whether Li Ruobing was even married. She didn’t know the first thing about the man—the “good brother” her Godfather, Lei Cheng, had mentioned. All Lei Cheng had told her was that this was his good brother’s woman’s company.

He hadn’t gone into detail. Just told her what to do, hadn’t even kept her overnight, rushed off as if some urgent matter was pulling at him.

Having met Li Ruobing in person, Tao Manying now understood—a woman like this wasn’t the kind any man could simply tame. And with a background like the Li family behind her, there was no chance she was anyone’s mistress, anyone’s second woman.

So she’d assumed, without really thinking it through, that the man who’d gone to her Godfather for help must be Li Ruobing’s husband.

Not a boyfriend—the men her Godfather called brothers weren’t young. This one had to be in his thirties at least. And Li Ruobing herself would hit thirty in a few years. Surely she wasn’t still just dating at that age?

Marriage was the natural next step.

Different worlds, different circles. There was no way Tao Manying could know much about the Li family or Li Ruobing herself. She’d only caught fragments.

“Husband?” Li Ruobing’s expression flickered with something odd, as if a thought had just crossed her mind. “Miss Tao, you’ve misunderstood. We’re not married. We’re dating—he’s my boyfriend.”

“Oh—sorry, I’m so sorry.” Tao Manying apologized at once, realizing her mistake.

“It’s fine. We’re solid. Marriage is only a matter of time.” Li Ruobing pressed on, “Actually, I haven’t asked—Miss Tao, how did you and my man… come to know each other?”

Wu Chen had told her yesterday he’d never heard of Tao Manying.

Now Li Ruobing was certain he’d lied.

If they didn’t know each other, how had he produced her in a single day—flown in from Thailand, no less? Was the man some kind of god?

And it wasn’t only the lie that bothered her. She was now convinced he’d set her up, engineered the whole thing just to lure her into that bet.

A bet was a bet. If she lost, she’d accept it—worth it, for the company’s sake.

Twenty million to Wu Chen was no real loss. As for jealousy—Li Ruobing didn’t believe for a second she’d actually feel jealous. She wasn’t really dating the man.

But the stakes had been raised once already.

Lose, and she’d have to kneel and apologize.

So now she wanted to pull the truth out of Tao Manying. If she could prove Wu Chen had lied, the bet itself might be voidable. She’d still pay the money regardless—she simply didn’t want to kneel.

Li Ruobing wasn’t the kind of woman who went back on a debt.

She just felt, with total conviction, that Wu Chen had tricked her.

“We… we don’t know each other,” Tao Manying said.

“You don’t? He wasn’t the one who told you to come?” Li Ruobing’s expression shifted at once.

“Well… more or less. My Godfather told me to come. My Godfather and your boyfriend are brothers—he went to my Godfather, and my Godfather sent me here.” Tao Manying explained.

She was, in truth, a woman Lei Cheng kept and had built up over the years. But given the age gap, and how poorly that kind of scandal would sit in the entertainment world, she called him “Godfather” to anyone outside their circle.

“Your Godfather… Boss Lei?” Li Ruobing knew instantly who that meant.

Of course she knew Lei Cheng. Knew, too, that he was Tao Manying’s backer. Among people with real power, this sort of arrangement barely qualified as a secret—not even much of one within the entertainment industry itself.

Few stars were entirely clean.

And a man like Lei Cheng, building someone up, was never going to keep it buried completely.

“That’s him.” Tao Manying nodded.

Li Ruobing’s brow creased faintly. Wu Chen actually knew Lei Cheng? As brothers?

Since when?

She’d never crossed paths with Lei Cheng herself, but she knew the name—the second son of the Hongfa Lei family, Lei Zhenghui’s youngest boy, who’d lost some internal power struggle within the family and left for Donghai on his own.

As far as she understood it, Lei Cheng was an extraordinarily low-key man, rarely social, difficult to approach—anyone who tried to get close to him on their own initiative tended to draw his suspicion instead.

She’d heard his own elder brother had once schemed against him, nearly gotten him killed. He’d lived carefully ever since.

“President Li, your boyfriend’s surname is Wu, isn’t it?” Noticing Li Ruobing’s strange expression, Tao Manying asked on her own.

She didn’t know his full name, only the surname—Lei Cheng had mentioned “Brother Wu” while explaining the situation.

“Yes.” Li Ruobing nodded.

“Then that checks out.” Tao Manying smiled. “It sounds like you’re not entirely sure how your boyfriend arranged this. I’d guess Mr. Wu wanted to surprise you, President Li.”

“Haha, probably. He really put some thought into it.” Li Ruobing smiled back.

That was what came out of her mouth.

What was going on inside her head was something else entirely.

A surprise?!

It was a surprise, all right. Also a small fright.

Right now what Li Ruobing wanted most was to get her hands around Wu Chen’s throat and demand to know exactly what the hell was going on.

For nearly the next hour, she asked no more questions along those lines. She’d corner Wu Chen about it later. Business first.

She walked Tao Manying through Huancai’s situation, the upcoming product launch, and asked about her schedule, offering to adjust Huancai’s plans around any conflicts.

What she hadn’t expected was that Tao Manying agreed to everything without hesitation. No need for Huancai to shift anything at all—she’d make it work on her end.

Even when Li Ruobing raised the matter of the endorsement fee, Tao Manying wouldn’t name a figure, insisting Li Ruobing quote her own price instead, tossing in lines like “we’re all friends here,” “a friendship rate is fine,” “any more than that and I couldn’t accept it anyway,” and “Godfather would have words for me.”

Even Li Ruobing was fucking stunned.

Wu Chen and Lei Cheng, brothers? What kind of brothers? The kind who’d kowtowed and sworn brotherhood?

The whole negotiation went unnaturally smoothly.

Before ten in the morning, Tao Manying had formally signed the endorsement contract with Huancai Fashion. Li Ruobing had wanted to pay her the full rate—a favor was still a favor, and even though this one belonged to Wu Chen, using it would mean owing him.

But Tao Manying wouldn’t hear of it. She refused to take that much. In the end the fee she settled for barely matched a standard first-tier actress rate, nowhere close to what her current level of fame warranted.

With a flight to catch back to Thailand for filming, Tao Manying left right after signing.

Li Ruobing saw her downstairs personally.

Everything was set. Tao Manying would return in a week to finish shooting the promotional materials and ad footage before the launch, and would show up in person that day to lend her public support to Huancai.

After seeing her off, Li Ruobing hurried back to her office.

The moment she sat down, she snatched up her phone and dialed Wu Chen.

More than ten seconds passed before he answered.

“Where are you? Get to the company,” Li Ruobing said, no preamble.

“Busy. No time. Noon, maybe.” Wu Chen’s breathing sounded strange, uneven.

“Hm? Where are you?” she asked again.

That was when she caught it—faintly, in the background on his end, a woman’s voice. “Sir, does this feel good?”

Li Ruobing was on her feet before she knew it. “Where. Exactly. Are you.”