Chapter 134: Both “Friends” with Wu Chen?

Chapter 134: Both “Friends” with Wu Chen?

Su Qingying truly did freeze. For a moment she was simply dumbfounded.

There was someone in Wu Chen’s apartment.

A girl.

A girl Su Qingying knew.

And more to the point, she was wearing—

Mu Qianqian stared back just as blankly.

She had not, in fact, set out that day intending to come to Wu Chen’s place. She had been drifting around outside since morning.

She had been miserable, thoroughly unhappy; the more she turned things over, the more wronged she felt. She had left home before noon and wandered from place to place, and nothing held her interest. After nearly a full day walking the streets alone, she had somehow ended up in Wu Chen’s neighborhood.

Which made her think of Wu Chen. So she had gone to his door, sat down on the stairs outside it, and only then called him.

He told her where the spare key was and told her to wait inside.

Once in, she had sat on the living-room sofa a while. But after a day of walking she was sticky and uncomfortable, so she took a shower—and afterward, instead of putting her own clothes back on, she took something off the drying rack on the balcony, from among the freshly washed laundry, and put it on.

It was Wu Chen’s robe.

On Mu Qianqian it was enormous. On him the hem fell below the knee; on her it nearly reached her ankles.

Su Qingying and Mu Qianqian looked at each other.

Su Qingying studied her carefully, up and down. She remembered that robe. Yesterday she had stuffed it into the washing machine herself, and when it was done she had slipped it onto a hanger with her own hands and hung it on the rack.

Mu Qianqian’s hair was still damp. Anyone could see she had just showered.

Her eyes were red, too, as though she had been crying not long ago.

“Miss Su?”

“Mu Qianqian?”

The look in both women’s eyes was very strange.

Mu Qianqian had finished her shower only minutes earlier. She had been curled on the sofa with her legs tucked up, waiting for Wu Chen, when she heard noise at the door—the sound of someone working a key, except not quite; more like a key that had stopped fitting, as though no amount of effort would turn the lock. Click, click, click.

So she had gone over and opened it.

And found a man in a black suit who looked like a bodyguard, a piece of wire in his hand. She realized at once he was picking the lock—and before she could even wonder whether he was a thief, she noticed Su Qingying standing beside him.

Su Qingying wore a black fitted floor-length dress today, the kind one wore to a banquet, the neckline low enough to leave her fragrant shoulders bare. Formal, and at the same time intensely feminine, and superb on her figure.

Add the long waves of her hair and that face, flawless from nearly any angle—

She looked like an immortal maiden with beauty enough to topple a city.

And yet!

This immortal maiden was carrying plastic bags, several of them, large and small, brimming with the business of ordinary life. Through them you could make out all manner of vegetables and meat, and one long green onion stuck out of a bag entirely.

A fairy home from the wet market. That was the precise, absurd impression.

After that mutually bewildered exchange of greetings, the two of them stood staring at each other for a good ten seconds more without either finding anything to say.

“Miss Mu, why are you at Wu Chen’s home?” Su Qingying spoke first, her voice soft and sweet but freighted with confusion and hesitation. “Is Wu Chen… home?”

She was thinking of what Li Ruobing had said—that Wu Chen was busy. Could he have been busy at home, with another girl?

“No—no, he isn’t. He told me to wait for him. I used the spare key to—” Mu Qianqian’s own look was odd, and she faltered. She broke off before finishing and asked instead, “Miss Su, what are you… doing?”

As she said it, she glanced at the bodyguard.

She did not even know how to frame the question.

There was too much wrong with the picture.

Why was Su Qingying here? Su Qingying knew Wu Chen? What did the groceries mean? And what on earth did it mean that her bodyguard was picking the lock?

“I…” Su Qingying did not know how to explain either. She still had no idea what Mu Qianqian’s situation was. After a pause she said, “Wu Chen and I are friends.”

Then she raised a hand and signaled.

The bodyguard beside her and the one behind her turned without a word and hurried downstairs to wait in the car.

Su Qingying offered no explanation for the lock.

It was a little embarrassing—not the sort of thing a well-bred person did. She could explain it to Wu Chen easily enough, but to Mu Qianqian… She did not even know why Mu Qianqian was here. The whole situation was too bizarre.

Once the bodyguards had gone down, she carried the groceries in.

Mu Qianqian had been standing in the doorway. With anyone else she certainly would not have simply let them walk past. But Su Qingying was another matter, and Mu Qianqian felt no instinctive guardedness toward her. Even in Wu Chen’s home, the notion that Su Qingying had come to steal something was not even funny enough to be a joke.

Su Qingying said she and Wu Chen were friends.

Mu Qianqian thought something was off—but she did believe that Su Qingying knew Wu Chen.

So she stepped aside.

Inside, Su Qingying first set the bags of vegetables and meat on the cabinet by the door and changed into slippers.

Mu Qianqian shut the door and watched her, the look on her face stranger still.

She could tell Su Qingying knew this place.

It was just… so natural.

Slippers on, Su Qingying carried the groceries farther in and asked, “Miss Mu, when did you… get here?”

“Not long ago. Half an hour.”

“You and Wu Chen… are friends?” Su Qingying asked. Mu Qianqian had showered here, changed here, and was wearing his clothes. What she was really asking was obviously not whether they were friends.

“Ah—yes. Friends,” Mu Qianqian said.

Neither knew the other’s situation, and each knew the other’s family standing. So on the question of where they stood with Wu Chen, both were on guard. It made speaking plainly nearly impossible.

Even though each could tell perfectly well that something about the other was off.

For Mu Qianqian, the feeling was stronger still.

Because this was Su Qingying.

Su Qingying carried the bags toward the kitchen. Passing the sofa, she noticed Mu Qianqian’s clothes on it—all of them, tossed down at random, including the two most private items.

She glanced at them, said nothing, asked nothing, and went on past into the kitchen.

Mu Qianqian went back to the sofa, more and more certain something was wrong.

Su Qingying… why did she move as though she had come home?

It left her a little dazed.

Strictly speaking, she and Su Qingying were only acquaintances, with no particular connection. Both families were powers in Donghai, so naturally there was contact between them. But Mu Qianqian had not even started university, while Su Qingying had been working for years. The gap in age was wide, and there was no friendship of their own.

The last time Mu Qianqian had seen her was a few months ago, at Su Qingying’s twenty-seventh birthday party. Her father, Mu Sihai, had taken her.

Since returning from her studies abroad, Su Qingying had marked every birthday on a lavish scale—the Su family deliberately grooming its successor, using every kind of occasion to widen her circle. The birthday banquets were only one of those occasions.

Su Qingying’s connection to the Mu family ran through Mu Qianqian’s father, Mu Sihai.

So the two of them really were nothing more than… acquainted.

“Miss Mu, did Wu Chen say when exactly he’d be back?” Su Qingying set the groceries down and came out of the kitchen to ask.

“No—no, he didn’t. Soon, probably…” Mu Qianqian answered from beside the sofa, still a little dazed. She could not work it out, and was still working at it.

“Oh… Have a seat, then.” Su Qingying gestured.

That strange feeling came over Mu Qianqian again.

As though this were Su Qingying’s home, and she, Mu Qianqian, were the guest being received—invited to sit down and make herself comfortable.

The atmosphere was very subtle.

Having said it, Su Qingying walked straight into Wu Chen’s bedroom and shut the door behind her.

Mu Qianqian turned to watch, then sat down on the sofa with an odd expression, brows drawn.

A minute or two, no more.

Su Qingying came out again—and she had changed clothes. What she wore looked like a man’s pajama top and trousers. Blue ones. They had to be Wu Chen’s.

“Miss Mu, would you like something to drink? What would you like? There’s some in the fridge…” As she spoke, she went to the balcony and began taking the laundry off the rack.

Mu Qianqian’s eyes went wide. She kept thinking, and something fell into place. She shot to her feet and put a question to Su Qingying with astonishing directness.

“Miss Su, have you slept with Wu Chen?”