Chapter 152: Senior, You’re Up to No Good~

Chapter 152: Senior, You’re Up to No Good~

He was saying this sort of thing again. Last time he had said something similar and set her thinking of Su Qingying, Donghai’s number-one beauty. And now again.

Who this time?

“Who do you think it might be?” Wu Chen asked once he had finished entering the number, pausing without placing the call.

“Younger than me? And prettier than me?” she asked. She did not bother asking about gentler. She had enough self-awareness for that.

“Right,” he said.

“Richer than me?”

“No. But her family is richer than yours.”

“Then… she’s from Donghai? She’s in Donghai?”

“Of course.”

“Then…” Li Ruobing genuinely set to guessing. She was extremely confident in her own looks. If Wu Chen said this woman surpassed her, she would have to be on Su Qingying’s near-celestial level—and women like that were vanishingly rare. Not one in a million.

Surgery did not count. They were speaking of natural beauty.

And she was certain Wu Chen could never be drawn to a surgically remade face.

So—

The field of possibility was very narrow indeed.

And yet, turning it over from every angle, she could not produce a single name. Nobody came to mind at all. Among the young women she knew, in Donghai alone, she could not think of a second whose looks exceeded her own.

She had seen no shortage of beautiful women in her years in Donghai. Her own company, for one, was full of them.

Huancai was a young, energetic company. Li Ruobing could not fairly be called obsessed with appearance, but because the business dealt in high-end cosmetics, good looks genuinely counted in a candidate’s favor when she handled recruitment herself.

To her mind, a woman who pursued beauty and cared more for her own appearance was likelier to understand cosmetics.

A woman’s beauty came partly from birth—but knowing how to care for herself, how to live, mattered too.

And yet, for all the beautiful women she had seen, the only one Li Ruobing could bring herself to concede defeat to was Su Qingying.

“Her family richer than mine…” she thought again.

That narrowed things further. Her own personal net worth stood at close to two billion yuan, most of it in Huancai Fashion. For someone to be richer than her personally would mean assets starting at around two billion.

Which meant—

The woman Wu Chen was speaking of had to come from one of Donghai’s billionaire families.

With a background like that, the family would inevitably be prominent and influential in Donghai. The more she thought, the more she felt she ought to know her. And then again, perhaps not…

She knew perfectly well she did not care for socializing privately. Donghai’s billionaires she knew, of course; there was no shortage of occasions on which to meet them. But every individual member of every one of those households—she could hardly have met them all.

“Can’t guess, can you?” Wu Chen said, smiling.

Li Ruobing got up abruptly, hopped off the bed, crossed to the vanity, and picked up her phone.

Wu Chen turned his head toward her and smiled. “What are you doing?”

She did not answer. A few taps at the screen, and she raised the phone to her ear.

Placing a call.

It took more than ten seconds to connect.

“Sis, I’m talking with Dad right now…” Li Ruotai, his voice deliberately low. Ten seconds and more to answer meant he had probably made an excuse to slip out and find somewhere private.

“Atai. Let me ask you something.” Li Ruobing’s tone was serious.

“Go ahead, Sis,” he said at once.

“In Donghai, which rich girl do you think is prettier than me?”

“How could there be one? Sis, you’re the prettiest. Next to you the rest are all trolls.” Not a moment’s hesitation.

Inwardly Li Ruotai was in a panic.

His sister had called out of nowhere to ask something utterly inexplicable, and he had no idea whether it was a pretext to take her temper out on him. She had clearly been angry when lunch ended. Perhaps she just wanted something to hit.

“Be serious.” Her voice cooled. “Answer me seriously. Say it.”

“There isn’t one, Sis, honestly. Don’t you know what you look like? How could anyone be prettier? There isn’t. Impossible.” He sounded utterly sincere.

“What about Su Qingying?”

“Su Qingying… next to you, Sis, she… obviously can’t compare either. It comes down to taste anyway. I think you’re the best-looking, Sis. Su Qingying’s just a bit off…”

“All right. Shut up.”

Li Ruobing hung up and tossed the phone onto the table, irritated.

She had thought her brother, who knew Donghai inside out, might be of some use. Instead all he could do was flatter her. Not one useful word. He had even claimed Su Qingying could not compare. She was beginning to worry about her own brother’s taste.

“Do you really have to take it this seriously?” Wu Chen asked, head turned toward her, teasing.

“Because I want to.” She threw him a glance.

She simply wanted to beat him. At everything, great and small.

Wu Chen smiled and said nothing more to her. He glanced at his phone, pressed the call button, and raised it to his ear.

Seeing it, Li Ruobing climbed back onto the quilt, lay down beside him, put an arm around his neck, and pressed close to listen.

“Beep… beep… beep… Hello?” It connected quickly. A very sweet young woman’s voice came through—gentle, certainly, but where Su Qingying’s was soft and yielding, this one was noticeably brighter, brisker.

“Hello. Is this Student Song?” Wu Chen asked, smiling.

“Yes… who’s this…?” She hesitated. An unfamiliar number, an unfamiliar man’s voice. She did not know him.

“I hear you’ve been looking for songs lately? I have a few…” Wu Chen said, then explained with a smile, “I graduated from Donghai University this year too. Heard about it from some classmates…”

“Oh, so you’re a senior.” She went straight to Senior, and she sounded open, easy to talk to. “Were you in the music department, Senior?”

“No. Computer science.”

“Computer science… and a computer science senior writes songs too? You didn’t buy a few songs on purpose just to get close to me, did you? Senior, you’re up to no good~” She sounded as though she had seen straight through him, though her tone stayed light, half serious, half joking.

“Oh dear! You’re so clever. Saw right through me.” Wu Chen matched her, half joking too.

“All right, enough of that. Do you really have songs, Senior?” She steered it back herself.

“I do. The kind I guarantee you’ll like.”

“Hah.” She sighed. “That’s what all of you say. I’ve heard it I don’t know how many times, and hardly any of them are good. Not even as good as the ones I write myself…”

“Want to buy them?” Wu Chen asked.

“Let me have a look first. If they’re good, sure. Have to inspect the goods before buying, don’t I? Do you have time now, Senior?”

“I do. I’m over in the CBD. Where are you?”

“Oh? What a coincidence, so am I… I’m in Tower Three. There’s a music studio here…”

“I’m in Tower Seven.”

“Then… Ruifeng Café. You know it, Senior?”

“I know it.”

They agreed on a place, exchanged another line or two, and hung up.

Beside him, Li Ruobing lifted her head slightly and studied Wu Chen through narrowed eyes, thinking. All she knew now was that the woman he claimed was prettier than her was a university student. At Donghai University.

Surname Song.

Song?

She thought carefully and could not come up with a single Song family in Donghai holding assets above two billion.

Nor was anyone among Donghai’s ten richest surnamed Song.

So—

Li Ruobing gave a sudden start, her eyes widening slightly.

She had thought of someone.