Chapter 132: Mu Qianqian Bursts Into Tears

Chapter 132: Mu Qianqian Bursts Into Tears

“Wuu… ah… I…”

Mu Qianqian sobbed on and on.

Wu Chen knew her temperament, and for the life of him he could not think what would make her cry like this. He could tell she was not in danger—if she were, she would not be crying this way. This was simply emotion pouring out of her.

He frowned and stayed silent.

He was thinking. What could have happened, all at once, to reduce Mu Qianqian to this?

Across the table, Meng Junhao saw the look on Wu Chen’s face and hardly dared move. He was in a state now where he feared the man so much he did not dare risk angering him. He had known plenty of powerful people and knew exactly what they were like in a temper. He understood perfectly: whatever else you did, do not provoke them.

Wu Chen was not angry. He was only frowning.

But from the moment they met, Meng Junhao had felt his composure, his unhurried calm—he rarely spoke quickly, and he wore that faint habitual smile, as though the whole world were already in hand. Wu Chen had been like that the entire time. So the frown now made for a jarring contrast.

Meng Junhao could not help treading very carefully.

In truth Wu Chen was only working out what had happened.

He could not predict the future. He had simply spent too long circling through July 7.

He knew Donghai far too well. He could not guarantee what the future would hold, but from what he already knew, he could tell when certain planned things were due to happen, and how matters would unfold if they ran their course.

“Your dad wants to send you abroad?” Wu Chen said suddenly.

On the other end, the crying cut off dead.

Wu Chen smiled. He had reasoned it out, and he had it right.

If anything, Wu Chen understood Mu Qianqian’s father, Mu Sihai, better than he understood Mu Qianqian herself. Mu Sihai was the major figure truly worth investigating in depth. A pharmaceutical magnate of Donghai.

He knew Mu Sihai had long intended to send Mu Qianqian abroad.

For no complicated reason. Mu Qianqian was simply not an obedient, well-behaved girl. She was wild and unruly.

She kept herself clean, but she really was a little troublemaker—smoky eye makeup every day, in and out of nightclubs, running around with a pack of friends. Even when she did not go looking for trouble, trouble came looking for her.

She had even taken part in street racing. Some of the friends around her were decent people. Some were not.

From the time Mu Qianqian started high school, Mu Sihai had wanted to send her overseas—to put her in a different environment. His plan was one of the strictest girls’ boarding schools in Britain.

But every time he raised it, Mu Qianqian threw an enormous fit, and Mu Sihai never had a good enough reason to force it. Her mother always spoke up for her daughter too; she could not bear to send her away. So it had been put off, again and again.

This had to be it.

Because now Mu Sihai had his reason. And now her mother could hardly speak up for her either.

Mu Qianqian had gotten herself mixed up in serious trouble lately.

It had been on July 8. Wu Chen had come home, and Wan Li had dragged Mu Qianqian along to block his way, and Wu Chen had sent them off—after telling Wan Li that her current boyfriend was a pretty-faced con artist who preyed on rich girls. Wan Li had gone straight for him.

The business had even made the news the next day. Wu Chen had seen the morning bulletin while eating breakfast with Wang Zhuangyuan. He still did not know whether Wan Li’s scumbag boyfriend had pulled through after they took him to the hospital.

Strictly speaking, none of it had anything to do with Mu Qianqian. Wan Li was the one who had called men in to do the beating. And even if something truly grave had come of it, Mu Sihai and Wan Jianmin were capable of making it go away. Even if a man had died.

But!

Mu Qianqian had been part of it in the end.

A beating serious enough to reach the news.

That was more than enough for Mu Sihai to come down hard on his daughter—and to have his reason for sending her out of the country.

The phone was quiet for several seconds. Then her sniffling came through again. “How… how did you know?”

“Guessed.” There was amusement in Wu Chen’s voice. “I thought something had happened to you. This little thing? Go on, then. Tell me what the situation is.”

Sniffling, Mu Qianqian gave him the short version.

At first, after the trouble, nothing much had come of it. She had been given a scolding. It was Wan Li whose state was truly bad. Wan Li changed boyfriends the way she changed clothes; she had dumped people and been dumped, but never in her life had she been played for a fool. It had shaken her whole sense of things.

She had not found out after she had grown tired of Hu Xiaowei. She had still been head over heels. So the blow had struck all the harder.

After her father, Wan Jianmin, finished scolding her, Wan Li shut herself in her room and cut herself off from everyone.

So Mu Qianqian went to stay with her best friend. They ate together and slept in the same bed for several days. Mu Qianqian did nothing else that week; she simply kept Wan Li company.

By yesterday, Wan Li’s spirits had more or less come back. The two of them went out shopping and put several hundred thousand yuan on their credit cards, and came back to the Wan house laden with bags. Arriving at dusk, Mu Qianqian found her own father, Mu Sihai, sitting in the living room of the Wan family villa with Wan Li’s father, Wan Jianmin.

And not only them. Both their mothers were there as well.

The parents of the two families sitting down together was nothing remarkable. The families had been close for generations; it happened often enough.

But it never occurred to Mu Qianqian or Wan Li that this time the four of them were sitting there to discuss sending the two girls abroad!

By the time they walked in, the discussion was over.

Both girls were going overseas.

To Britain, for high school.

Naturally, neither of them agreed. They kicked up every kind of fuss. It made no difference. This time even Mu Qianqian’s mother would not take her side. It was all settled: a girls’ boarding school in Britain. They had heard how strict British girls’ schools could be. They protested some more. Still no use.

The date was fixed. A little over half a month at home, and then they left at the end of the month.

“That’s it? That’s all it is, and you’re crying like this?” Wu Chen laughed when she finished. He glanced out the window again, and out of the corner of his eye caught Lu Guangnian’s convoy arriving.

“I… I don’t want to go abroad… nobody’s on my side… I don’t want to…”

Mu Qianqian sniffled.

In truth she had not called Wu Chen to ask for help. She simply felt helpless. She wanted to tell someone about it. She needed to pour it out.

Wu Chen was the man she had given her first time to. That gave him a particular meaning for her.

“Young lady, why are you crying? What are you doing crouched down here?”

“N-nothing, Auntie… Auntie, you go on up…”

Suddenly Wu Chen caught voices and footsteps behind her on the line, along with a faint, distinctive echo—the kind you only get in an apartment stairwell.

And the woman who had spoken sounded like the middle-aged neighbor from upstairs.

“Are you outside my door?” Wu Chen asked, raising an eyebrow.