Chapter 072: Mr. Wu, Right? I’m Su Qingying!

Chapter 072: Mr. Wu, Right? I’m Su Qingying!

Li Ruobing knew what Wu Chen was capable of, and she believed without reservation that he was a capable man. He’d proven it to her too many times.

But until now she had never found him frightening. Even with the Lu Guangnian affair, Wu Chen had eventually given her the answer, letting her understand that he’d engineered the reversal through intelligence. For an information broker, that meant only this: he was genuinely professional. Genuinely formidable.

Until this time.

This time Li Ruobing had been present for the whole of it. She had watched with her own eyes how the thing began, how it developed, and finally how Wu Chen, with nothing but skillfully chosen words, had put the perfect full stop on it.

He hadn’t merely brought his revenge to a flawless finish. He’d left Zhan Xiumei owing him an enormous favor.

Something that by rights should have produced no goodwill at all—something that might even have left Zhan Xiumei quietly resentful—Wu Chen had wrenched all the way around to this.

And though he had lied, the only person capable of exposing that lie was Li Ruobing.

And Li Ruobing happened to be one of the lie’s beneficiaries.

There was no possibility of her exposing him. She could hardly tell Zhan Xiumei that the reason she’d stood up and told the woman’s husband and his mistress to be quiet was simply that they were too loud—not, as Wu Chen had it, because she and Zhan Xiumei were close and it grated on her to hear the woman spoken of that way.

Wu Chen had handled the entire matter in a way that left everyone comfortable.

Li Ruobing included.

And yet the moment she analyzed it coldly, a chill went down her spine.

“What’s wrong?” Wu Chen noticed her staring straight at him and asked with a smile.

“You look really handsome today.” Li Ruobing imitated his manner, smiling as she said it.

“Is that so? I’ve always been handsome. Not only today.” As he spoke, Wu Chen raised a hand and tugged at his collar.

Seeing it, Li Ruobing came around the table to stand in front of him and straightened his collar and lapels herself.

An ordinary gesture between lovers.

She used the excuse to lean in a little closer and murmured beside his ear, “Are you always this… good at playing people?”

“Are you finding me more and more interesting?” Wu Chen glanced sideways at her and asked quietly in return.

“Yes. I genuinely am. I want so badly to peel you apart layer by layer and look at your heart, your brain—see how exactly they’re built. Are you always this certain of everything?”

“Don’t make it sound so scary. I’m not an onion, you know. Peeling me apart layer by layer…” Wu Chen didn’t answer the question.

To anyone watching, Li Ruobing had stepped up to straighten her boyfriend’s clothes, after which the two of them pressed close, murmuring in each other’s ears. They looked impossibly intimate.

Meanwhile—

Zhan Xiumei had reached the car and hauled her cheating husband back out, blood all over him.

“Walk faster. Stop dragging your feet!”

Apparently displeased with his pace, Zhan Xiumei drove a kick into the small of his back. Wang Weijun staggered forward and went straight down beside Li Ruobing and Wu Chen’s table.

“Tell me, what the fuck are you even good for? You eat what’s mine, you drink what’s mine, and I haven’t shorted you on money! You go out and keep another woman—fine, today I won’t even get into that! But you go and stir up trouble for me, offend people, is that it? Have you got eyes in your head or not? Is Miss Li someone you can afford to offend? Useless piece of garbage!”

Unable to get it out of her system, Zhan Xiumei cursed and stamped down on him again and again.

In that moment, she was pure shrewish fury.

“Apologize. Now. I said fucking apologize!”

“I—I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I was wrong! I was blind! I’m sorry! I’m lower than a pig or a dog, I’m worse than scum!”

Under Zhan Xiumei’s demands, punctuated by kicks and stamping, Wang Weijun knelt before Li Ruobing, apologizing and slapping his own face as he went.

A very practiced way of apologizing.

Li Ruobing’s brow, however, drew faintly together.

She had always been on decent terms with Zhan Xiumei, but there were things the woman did that she had never once approved of.

After two failed marriages, Zhan Xiumei had started keeping pretty boys. Once she was carrying Wang Weijun’s child, she had him marry into her family. By that point something in her had already twisted. She had a taste for handsome men, cared about nothing but a face, and her approach to her pretty boys was simple: in a good mood, she pampered them; in a bad mood, she beat them.

For a stretch of years, calling Zhan Xiumei a perverse rich woman would not have been an exaggeration.

Wang Weijun had chosen this himself. He’d picked this road, walked willingly into marrying in and being someone’s dog, so there wasn’t much to pity.

But Zhan Xiumei’s willingness—for the sake of smoothing over a relationship, of building a connection—to make her legally wedded husband lose face in public and slap himself—this, Li Ruobing could not accept.

When Li Ruobing dealt with her own people who’d made mistakes, however she punished them, she would never do something like this in a setting like this.

She didn’t even want to accept an apology of this kind in front of a crowd, with everyone looking on.

Whatever sort of creature Wang Weijun was, Li Ruobing didn’t care. What she cared about was Zhan Xiumei, who was, after all, a very useful connection. Though… come to that, Zhan Xiumei genuinely did have serious problems at home, in her private life, in how she treated the people around her.

But none of that was Li Ruobing’s concern.

From the standpoint of relationships and connections, there was nothing wrong with Zhan Xiumei at all.

“Miss Li, I’m truly sorry about today. I never imagined this dog of mine would be so blind…” Zhan Xiumei lifted her head and addressed Li Ruobing again. She’d only just finished screaming curses at her husband, yet the instant she looked up, a smile appeared.

As though she had two separate personalities.

Wang Weijun was still apologizing, still slapping himself. Zhan Xiumei hadn’t told him to stop.

“It’s all right, Madam Zhan. It’s over.” Li Ruobing glanced around as she said it. Both her bodyguards and Zhan Xiumei’s had spread out nearby, watching with such fierce vigilance that no one dared come close. Even so, people were stopping to stare toward the restaurant entrance from a good distance off.

“Let’s do this—the two of you haven’t had lunch yet, have you?” Zhan Xiumei had caught Li Ruobing’s expression and understood she had no wish to be gawked at. She’d also noticed nothing but drinks on the table, which meant the food hadn’t come out.

“How about it? Let me treat you. We’ll go inside and eat. Miss Li, it’s been months since we last saw each other. Last time, the old man in my family was even singing your praises to me—said you’re more capable than I am. A few years in Donghai and your business is already this size. I’ve been meaning to come pick your brain…”

Zhan Xiumei really did have a way with words.

And so the three of them went into the Italian restaurant and up to a private room on the second floor.

As for Wang Weijun—before they went in, Zhan Xiumei arranged for her bodyguards to take him to the hospital first.

The farce was over at last.

What Li Ruobing hadn’t anticipated was that the meal would run more than three hours.

Zhan Xiumei was treating, and there were only the three of them in the private room. She seemed to have an inexhaustible supply of things to say. Not only could she talk business with Li Ruobing, she could hold a conversation with Wu Chen as well. When she heard he was now Li Ruobing’s assistant, she showed not the faintest surprise or astonishment. She simply praised them both, entirely naturally—said he was like a fish in water, that the two of them complemented each other perfectly, that Huancai Company was certain to climb to another level.

She looked after everyone at the table.

Wu Chen understood her thinking. What she wanted, in truth, was to talk more, to draw closer, to make sure Li Ruobing was left with no knot in her heart over the business with her husband. And from the other direction, she also wanted to use the occasion to deepen the relationship.

It was past three in the afternoon before the meal came to its end.

They hadn’t eaten much. They’d drunk a great deal.

Zhan Xiumei had opened the wine, working through nearly two large bottles of red on her own and ordering champagne besides, without showing the slightest sign of drunkenness. Her tolerance was astonishing.

Li Ruobing had drunk nowhere near as much, and yet she was the less clear-headed of the two, slightly tipsy.

Disliking private engagements and banquets as she did, she rarely drank at all, and her tolerance was quite ordinary.

Around three-forty, the three of them walked out of the restaurant and said their goodbyes at the entrance.

Zhan Xiumei got into her car and left.

Li Ruobing, though, had no wish to go straight back to the company. She took Wu Chen’s arm, leaned lightly against his shoulder, and said, “Let’s find somewhere to walk. Get some air.” Wu Chen didn’t need to ask why.

She needed to sober up. She would not walk into her own company while still tipsy.

She disliked the feeling of being drunk, because a person was at their strongest only when they were at their most clear-headed.

The two of them set off along the sidewalk, then crossed the plaza to the shade of the trees on the far side.

It was a lively spot, full of people coming and going. Li Ruobing’s bodyguards followed at a distance and didn’t come close.

She hadn’t spoken the whole way. Slightly tipsy, she seemed lost in her own thoughts.

Ring, ring, ring…

Wu Chen’s phone went off.

He took it out, glanced at the screen, and an odd smile crossed his face. He answered and put it to his ear.

“Mr. Wu, right? I’m Su Qingying. I think we need to meet. Let’s set a time.” The voice on the line was cool and clear.