Chapter 097: Wu Chen! What Are You Doing? Don’t Mess Around!

Chapter 097: Wu Chen! What Are You Doing? Don’t Mess Around!

Su Qingying had come over to act spoiled.

Of course she knew his anger earlier had been a performance. But her golf really was hopeless, and she didn’t know how much of the truth had been in his calling her stupid—whether that was what he genuinely thought, and he’d simply said the thing out loud.

Smack!

A crisp sound. Wu Chen had reached back and swatted her backside.

“Are you an idiot? Would I actually say that about you?” He lifted his head and said it with a smile, then raised a hand and beckoned.

Su Qingying twisted around at once and settled into his lap, arms looping around his neck. “So all those things you scolded me about were fake too, right, honey?” She was acting spoiled. She wasn’t an idiot.

“Of course they were fake.” As he said it, Wu Chen flicked her forehead.

Su Qingying laughed, and kissed him on the cheek.

“I say… could the two of you… possibly… not do that?” A faint, plaintive voice drifted over. Li Ruobing had come back from the entryway of the private room. She and Su Qingying had gone out together to see Madam Su off; only Wu Chen had stayed on the sofa.

And so, walking back in, Li Ruobing found Su Qingying sitting in his lap, kissing him.

Her head genuinely hurt.

She raised a hand to her forehead, turned aside for a moment, then turned back. Her face stayed fairly calm. Inside she was already cursing.

Cursing herself.

What was she after? What in God’s name was she getting out of cooperating with Wu Chen like this?

Seeing the look on her, Su Qingying rose from his lap and turned to her. “Miss Li, thank you for today. For my husband and me, you went to so much trouble…”

Li Ruobing waved a hand, as though she couldn’t be bothered to say another word and had no wish to discuss the matter further.

She walked in and sat down in the sofa chair Su Qingying had occupied earlier.

Madam Su had not been gone a full minute, and already the two women had traded places: Su Qingying to Wu Chen’s side, Li Ruobing off at a distance.

“Why don’t we change places?” Su Qingying said, taking the initiative again. “This is my family’s property, and everyone here is from the Su family. Miss Li, it would be better if you took me out and we went somewhere else…”

Su Qingying wanted to leave.

Because she was uncomfortable. Jinfu Teahouse belonged to her family. She had come here often before and had often discussed business here with clients. In this place she felt the particular unease of being at home.

And talking wasn’t convenient either.

She didn’t even dare raise her voice, afraid someone passing in the corridor would overhear.

“Let’s go to my company. My office…” By the end Li Ruobing was entirely serious. She looked at Su Qingying, then let her eyes sweep across Wu Chen. “I really do think I need to have a proper talk with the two of you.”

She truly… the moment she thought about covering for these two on their dates in the future, her head ached and something tightened in her chest.

“All right. Shall we go, honey?” Su Qingying agreed, then turned back to ask him.

“No rush. Whatever needs saying can be said later. As it happens there’s still some time today, and Qingying’s here, so we might as well…” By the time Su Qingying turned to ask, Wu Chen already had his phone out, and he spoke with his eyes on the screen. She tilted her head to look: he was on the dial pad.

It seemed he was about to make a call, and was thinking it over.

“Honey, have you forgotten the number?” she asked.

“No.” He lifted his head, smiled at her, and said, “I’m thinking… who to call first.”

“Who to call first? How many people are you calling?” Her brows drew together slightly.

In the sofa chair, Li Ruobing listened, and something seemed to occur to her. Her face changed abruptly and she shot to her feet.

“Wu Chen! What are you doing? Don’t mess around!”

He had just said there’s still some time today, and Qingying’s here, and we might as well, and now he wanted to make phone calls. With everything she now understood about Wu Chen, it came to her at once—Wu Chen was about to stir up trouble.

Su Qingying had already gone over to him, and rather thoroughly at that.

So he certainly wasn’t going after Su Qingying.

But if it concerned Su Qingying… then it could only be the Su family.

“Did I say I was going to mess around?” Wu Chen turned his head to her, smiling as he said it.

“Could you stop playing games?” Li Ruobing came a few steps closer. “Everything is fine now. The matter is resolved. There’s no need for you to go out and start another fight. Isn’t the situation quite good as it stands? Madam Su can’t pursue anything against you, and you can still see Miss Su in future. What more do you want?”

“I don’t want anything.” Wu Chen kept smiling. “Don’t worry. This time I won’t drag you into it.”

“That’s not the issue.” She came several steps nearer. “Wasn’t today dangerous enough? It took everything we had to pull it back together. It’s already fine, so don’t—”

“Was today dangerous?” Wu Chen cut in, looking at her with a smile.

The two of them held each other’s eyes. For about a second, silence.

Su Qingying was thoroughly lost.

Because she had no idea how the two of them had suddenly ended up arguing. It was so abrupt.

“If she weren’t Qingying’s mother, I wouldn’t have chosen such a gentle way to solve the problem.”

Wu Chen looked back down at his phone, speaking fast and yet perfectly naturally, pressing one digit after another as he went. “Do you remember what I’ve said before? Everyone has secrets they don’t want seen. Everyone. And that goes double for a company the size of Jinfu Group. The bigger the company, the bigger the problems. If I’d used a different method, Madam Su would have been kneeling in front of me just now, begging me to spare her daughter. To spare her.”

Li Ruobing listened, and didn’t dare consider whether any of it was true or whether he was simply talking big.

“But she is Qingying’s mother, after all.”

He finished entering the eleven digits but didn’t dial. He turned back to Li Ruobing. “She isn’t a bad person. Her love for Qingying is simply somewhat diseased. She wants her daughter to live along the path she’s mapped out, because she believes that path is best. She would risk her life for her daughter. She’d bow her head to anyone if it made her daughter’s life better—the way she did to you just now.”

“Pitiful, the hearts of parents under Heaven.” Wu Chen sighed, then smiled.

He glanced at Su Qingying, then said to Li Ruobing, “Qingying is my woman now. I won’t pretend I’m an especially good man. But since she’s followed me… if I have a way, there’s no need to make things difficult for her. I won’t wrong myself, and I won’t wrong her either. I don’t need to force her to choose between love and family. If I did that, then even if she chose me, she wouldn’t be happy afterward, would she?”

When Li Ruobing had heard him out, the first thing she felt was, of all things… envy.

She didn’t know herself why that emotion had surfaced.

It simply felt as though Wu Chen indulged Su Qingying enormously.

A powerful man whose methods no one could predict. A man who wouldn’t let his woman be cornered or wronged.

Did Wu Chen like women who were especially obedient?

Obedient, and he indulged them?

Li Ruobing shook her head sharply. For that one instant she had been afraid. What insane notion had just surfaced in her mind?

“So?” She made herself serious and asked him, “What are you going to do now?”

“You’ve already guessed,” Wu Chen said, smiling.

“You—” Her eyes went wide.

Wu Chen really did intend to move against the Su family.

He was insane. In Donghai the Su family was a hegemon.

Jinfu Group was one of the top three jewelry companies in the entire country. A leading enterprise in Donghai.

A conventional company on that scale was something even the Li family didn’t hold under its name. Granted, that was mainly because such money came slowly, growth was slow, and the effort wasn’t worth it, so they didn’t bother. But Jinfu Group’s scale truly was enormous. Under the Li family, only a handful of private funds exceeded Jinfu Group in size.

And Wu Chen intended to move against the Su family in Donghai itself.

Even if the Li family wanted to move against the Su family, they couldn’t possibly strike in Donghai, the Su family’s home ground. They would attack from other regions across the country. In Donghai the Su family was far too hard to touch.

“You can’t do this. If you do this, you’ll—” Li Ruobing spoke as she came quickly toward him.

“Since when did you start caring so much about me?” Wu Chen asked, smiling.

Li Ruobing stopped dead.

She went calm.

She was furious.

“How about this…” Wu Chen suddenly lifted his phone and gave it a shake. “I haven’t made the call yet. Why don’t we hand the choice to Qingying?” And as he said it, he looked at Su Qingying.