Chapter 154: Every Hair Stood on End

Chapter 154: Every Hair Stood on End

What Li Ruobing felt most, in truth, was the conflict of it.

She genuinely respected and revered Wu Yurong. Although in her years in Donghai she had met her only a handful of times, and almost always at banquets, Wu Yurong was one of the very few people Li Ruobing would cross a room to speak to of her own accord.

What worried her most was not what Wu Yurong might do to Wu Chen if she learned he had moved on her daughter.

Li Ruobing no longer doubted anything about Wu Chen’s abilities.

Just as she did not doubt whether he could win Song Xuan.

There was no second possibility.

For Li Ruobing herself, the real problem was this: if Wu Chen actually went that far, what was she supposed to do?

Everyone knew Wu Chen was Li Ruobing’s boyfriend.

Before, it had been fake.

As of today, it was real.

So what was she to do?

Tell Wu Yurong that she permitted her boyfriend to keep other women?

Or help Wu Chen deceive her?

The more she thought about it, the worse it sat. She would not let Wu Chen go. But she did not want to lie to her idol either.

Emotionally, that was very hard for her to accept.

What else could she do?

At present she simply wanted to stop him.

“My dear Miss Li, aren’t you getting a little too worked up?” Wu Chen said, smiling, his tone relaxed. “This isn’t like you at all. Relax. The things you’re imagining aren’t going to happen, and events certainly won’t unfold the way you think…”

The instant Li Ruobing saw his attitude, she knew she could not talk him out of it.

It was useless.

Her face cooled. Cold-eyed, she stared at him for several seconds, then said in a low voice, “Wu Chen. Don’t you think you’re rather a scumbag?”

“A scumbag? Am I?” Wu Chen raised an eyebrow.

“You see a woman who’s beautiful and you go and get your hands on her, never mind the consequences—”

“The love of beauty is common to all mankind. The ancients had that right.” Wu Chen smiled. “And let me remind you: beauty is one of my standards for choosing a woman. It isn’t the only one. Song Xuan is a very interesting person. She’s no decorative vase.”

“You—can’t you consider how the other person feels? The way you—”

“Am I not good to you?” Wu Chen cut in, smiling.

Li Ruobing had nothing to say.

What could she say?

Good scarcely began to describe how Wu Chen treated her.

Yes, he was forever “using” her—but what he had taken on for her concerned the whole of her life. Ding Ruilong, and behind him the entire Ding family, had become Wu Chen’s enemy because of her.

And he had never once come to her demanding anything in return.

She, meanwhile, had hardly offered him much of her own accord.

She was not even as considerate as Su Qingying.

Su Qingying was obedient and attentive with him. Su Qingying stayed the night.

Li Ruobing had set out to call him a scumbag, and one question from him had turned her around: the more she thought, the more it seemed the fault might not be Wu Chen’s at all.

Perhaps she was the one being a little too… thoughtless.

In which case, should she perhaps—

Li Ruobing gave her head a sudden shake, faintly alarmed.

What in God’s name was she thinking now?

“Am I not good to Qingying?” Wu Chen asked, smiling again.

Still she had nothing to say.

She knew perfectly well what he had done for Su Qingying.

“So?” he asked once more, still smiling. “Am I a scumbag?”

“No,” she said quietly.

In truth, calling him a scumbag had only been a pretext.

Another pretext to stop him.

She had never truly believed it. She simply could not think of any other argument that might work.

Seeing she had gone quiet, Wu Chen smiled and let it be.

He got out of bed and began to dress.

Li Ruobing watched him.

After a long while she said, suddenly, “I’ll give it to you.”

“Hm?” He turned his head and smiled at her. “Give me what?”

“What do you think?” she shot back.

Wu Chen went blank for a beat before he understood.

“Don’t go looking for Song Xuan. I’ll give it to you tonight. After work,” she said.

She truly had thrown everything in.

With her nature, a great many things simply did not require that much agonizing. She and Wu Chen had established a real relationship; sleeping together was only a matter of time.

It was not even a question of being mentally prepared.

Li Ruobing needed no preparing.

She had settled on Wu Chen as her partner for life. She had already thought as far ahead as how many children they might have.

Whatever was meant to happen in between would happen.

She would not resist it in the slightest.

She had even wanted to be the one to start it.

If not for the fact that she meant to use push and pull to keep him in hand…

She did not resist the idea. She simply also wanted Wu Chen to ask.

And now—

To keep him from provoking enormous trouble, she had decided to offer first.

It hardly mattered. There would be no shortage of chances to run her routine on him later.

“Ruobing, I think you may have misunderstood something.” Wu Chen smiled at her. “Do you really believe I went looking for other women because you teased me, wound me up on purpose, and then wouldn’t give me what I wanted? That all I’m after is that?”

Li Ruobing froze.

Then her expression shifted again.

“You have to understand this. Because I know too much, at any moment, for any reason, on any opening, I can make the choice that benefits me. Who I meet, who I befriend, which woman I decide I want…” Wu Chen said. “And when I say benefit, I don’t mean sleeping with a woman. I mean something deeper than that.”

The color came and went in her face.

She understood him.

He was telling her that his reason for going to see Song Xuan was not—or at least not only—to have her.

It was something else.

Li Ruobing did not know what.

But she could make connections.

Her mind went straight to Su Qingying.

Wu Chen had not merely gotten Su Qingying.

He had changed Su Qingying’s standing inside the Su family.

He had changed the internal power structure of Jinfu Group.

He had taken Su Qingying from passively waiting to inherit and turned her into a woman who rebelled and seized power.

And afterward he had not asked Su Qingying to use Jinfu Group to do a single thing for him.

But that only meant he had not asked.

Not that he could not.

If he wanted to, he could ask at any moment.

Then Li Ruobing thought about herself as she was now.

If Wu Chen came to her of his own accord and asked her to do something for him, then—

At that thought, every hair on her body stood on end.

She realized that without noticing she had entered a state in which Wu Chen could make complete use of her.

She wanted him to ask things of her.

So long as he asked—so long as he was willing to ask her—she would satisfy him.

Then she thought of Lu Guangnian.

Of Lei Cheng, the man behind Tao Hongying.

Of Zhan Xiumei, who owed Wu Chen a favor.

And those were only the ones she knew about or could guess at.

She had no idea how many more there were that she knew nothing of.

The more she thought, the more frightening it became.

She had the sudden sense that all of it might be one enormous setup—a game Wu Chen had begun arranging from the first phone call he ever made to her, and was still laying out even now.

Li Ruobing sat lost in it for a long time.

“What exactly—what—are you trying to do?!” she demanded at last, coming back to herself and staring straight at him.

By then Wu Chen was fully dressed.

“Guess.” He looked up from adjusting his cuff and smiled at her. He smoothed his suit, slid a hand into his pocket, and said, “Stop turning it over. Make life easier on yourself. I’m not going to hurt you… I’m off.”

With that he turned and walked out.

Li Ruobing stayed in the lounge, watching him go, listening to his footsteps cross the office beyond and recede until they were gone.

For a long time she did not move.

Thinking, and thinking, until she had sunk into it again.

…

A few minutes later.

CBD Building Five, ground floor, north-facing street side.

Ruifeng Café.

One hand in his pocket, Wu Chen pushed open the door and went in. He paused, glanced left and right, and picked out a girl in a baseball cap and mask, hair in a single ponytail, seated by the window toward the inner right of the room.

Dressed mysteriously, as though afraid of being recognized.

Wu Chen walked over, pulled out the chair opposite, sat straight down, and smiled.

“Student Song. Still that afraid of being photographed?”