Chapter 351: Learning Bad Habits from Wu Chen!

Chapter 351: Learning Bad Habits from Wu Chen!

An Menglan was stunned.

So was Song Xuan. Her eyes went round as she stared at Li Ruobing in astonishment.

The air in the room dropped to freezing in an instant.

A moment ago An Menglan had merely supposed that Li Ruobing’s possessiveness ran too strong, that she feared another woman taking Wu Chen and had misread An Menglan’s relationship with him. An Menglan had explained herself.

Never in her wildest imagining had she expected Li Ruobing to be this direct, or to dare say something so outrageous.

Li Ruobing truly had stopped pretending.

Someone had called her an older woman and staged a reception meant to frighten her. With her temper, she was hardly going to swallow it. Even as a misunderstanding, an apology and an explanation would have been one thing. Instead she had received neither. And they suspected her of controlling Wu Chen, and kept on at her about it.

It was not that Li Ruobing had no patience. It depended on who was in front of her.

She had come here carrying a certain hostility toward An Menglan to begin with. The same kind of hostility she felt toward Wu Yurong. An Menglan’s standing was no lower than her own, which made her a possible “threat.”

There might be nothing between An Menglan and Wu Chen at present, but Li Ruobing understood Wu Chen’s methods better than anyone.

She felt she needed to do something in advance.

She might not be able to manage Wu Chen, but surely she could manage a woman who might become another “little sister.”

The silence held for a good ten seconds and more.

“Miss Li.” An Menglan pressed her lips together. Much of the smile had gone from her face as she met Li Ruobing’s eyes. “I don’t know why you would ask a question like that, but don’t you think it’s extremely rude?”

“Is it?” Li Ruobing smiled at her, then let the smile drop and gestured toward the door. “So inviting me here today and putting on that little show was very polite, was it? What was that supposed to mean? Were you trying to frighten me?”

An Menglan’s face turned awkward at once. The reception had been settled between herself and Song Xuan. However she explained it, she was clearly in the wrong.

“Miss Li.” Song Xuan stood up suddenly, looking rather flustered. She sensed the two of them were about to quarrel and wanted to smooth it over.

“This was my fault, Miss Li. I’m sorry. I apologize.” She bowed to Li Ruobing as she said it.

Then she picked up her wineglass and said in a soft, apologetic voice, “Miss Li, may I offer you a toast to make up for it?”

Song Xuan had not even left university and was not at ease in formal social settings like this. There was no possibility of her staying as composed as An Menglan.

But when she was at fault, she apologized. That was simply her nature.

Li Ruobing looked at the girl holding out her glass. She smiled faintly, picked up her own, and raised it toward her.

The apology was accepted.

Li Ruobing had no interest in squabbling with a “little girl” like Song Xuan. Song Xuan was not that young, but she was still a student who had not left school.

Nor would she hold it against her for being Wu Yurong’s daughter. She was not going to take her anger at the mother out on the daughter. In Li Ruobing’s eyes, Song Xuan was no threat at all.

After the two of them drank together, the air in the room eased considerably.

An Menglan watched Li Ruobing set down her glass, but she did not feel she ought to apologize.

By rights she should have.

But Li Ruobing had said something so far out of line. She had a temper too.

“Miss An, aren’t you going to answer me?” Li Ruobing said, turning to her again once her glass was down. “You think so highly of my Mr. Wu. When exactly are you planning to…”

“Miss Li!” An Menglan cut her off, frowning slightly. “Don’t you think this is absurd? I only met Mr. Wu today. What are you suspecting us of?”

“You came to Donghai to see him, didn’t you?” Li Ruobing countered.

“Yes!” An Menglan admitted. “But I came to discuss signing him and helping him debut, not because I want anything to happen between us. You said yourself that I don’t know him at all. You can’t assume that because I compliment him, something is going to happen, can you?”

“If you don’t know him, why are you so sure I’m the one keeping him from debuting? You think I control him? Rather than that he genuinely doesn’t want to? Tell me, Miss An, what exactly do you think of me, Li Ruobing? That I’m domineering? That I’m unreasonable?” She looked An Menglan in the eye and put the questions to her one after another.

An Menglan found she could not answer.

Not that she had no answers. She simply could not say them aloud. She was prejudiced against Li Ruobing, or more precisely she had built a stereotype of her out of rumor.

“You think I’m standing in the way of Wu Chen’s career in entertainment, and you’re hostile to me because of it. Isn’t that so?” Li Ruobing asked.

Again An Menglan had nothing to say, because that was exactly what she thought.

The room went quiet once more.

Li Ruobing’s presence was intimidating, and An Menglan was no match for her with words. It would be fair to say Li Ruobing had completely overwhelmed both her and Song Xuan.

“My Mr. Wu is… very popular with women.” Li Ruobing rested a hand on her glass, then picked it up without thinking and swirled it a little. When she had finished, she glanced instinctively at Song Xuan.

She would never say anything to Song Xuan about Wu Yurong. She was incapable of anything so contemptible.

An Menglan could tell there was more behind the words, but she had no idea what Li Ruobing was referring to.

“Miss An.” Li Ruobing paused, then looked at her again. “Why don’t we be frank with each other? Just tell me when. You. Plan to. With Wu Chen…”

“This is absurd!” An Menglan cut across her again. She was so angry she almost laughed. “Miss Li, let me say it again. I came to see Mr. Wu in order to sign him to my company and have him debut properly as a singer. I admire his talent enormously, and that is all. What you’re talking about will never happen.”

“It won’t?” Li Ruobing said.

“It won’t!” An Menglan answered with absolute certainty.

“You’re sure?” Li Ruobing asked.

“I’m sure. Absolutely sure.” An Menglan pressed the point.

Li Ruobing paused, then looked straight into her eyes. “I don’t believe you.”

In that moment An Menglan felt on the verge of losing her mind. She even wondered whether there was something wrong with Li Ruobing. She badly wanted to lose her temper, and held it in.

Because traced back to the beginning, she was partly in the wrong. She had been the first to act unfriendly, with that display in the corridor.

More importantly, if this got out it would do her reputation serious damage. Working in the entertainment industry, An Menglan understood the power of rumor particularly well.

“Miss Li, whether you believe me or not, there is nothing improper between Mr. Wu and me,” she said again. “I admire his talent. If he doesn’t debut, it will be a loss to the whole Chinese-language music industry. You’re not in the music business, Miss Li, so you may not quite understand the miracle Mr. Wu has achieved…”

Even now An Menglan had not abandoned the idea of persuading him. She had nothing to feel guilty for; she knew she had done nothing wrong. Li Ruobing’s suspicions, on the other hand, were a serious problem.

She still wanted to win her over.

“Let’s make a bet,” Li Ruobing said suddenly, cutting in as she listened.

An Menglan was taken aback. Only after a moment did she ask, “A bet? On what?”

“On whether you’ll fall in love with Wu Chen.” Li Ruobing looked her in the eye, her expression subtle.

She had learned some bad habits.

From Wu Chen.

People changed, and Li Ruobing was no exception. Wu Chen had maneuvered her into his schemes often enough that she had naturally picked up a thing or two.

Meanwhile.

Out in the corridor, a short side passage branched off the middle of the hallway, with the men’s and women’s restrooms facing each other along it.

Wu Chen had already come out of the men’s room, but he had not left the passage. He stood at its far end with one hand in his pocket, looking out the window.

As though waiting for something.

For someone, naturally.

Ding! At the far end of the main corridor, the elevator doors opened.

“Boss!”

“Boss!”

The bodyguards in the corridor greeted the new arrival.

Wu Yurong had come.

Hearing the commotion, Wu Chen turned and walked toward the main corridor.

“How are things?” Wu Yurong asked as she came, her steps quick.

“Nothing so far. They’re having dinner,” a bodyguard said.

Her footsteps drew nearer and nearer the junction. Just as she was about to pass the side passage, Wu Chen stepped out, and the two came face to face.

Wu Yurong started at the sight of him, then went straight to him, took his arm, and drew him back into the passage. As they walked she asked quietly, her voice turning instinctively far gentler and sweeter.

“What’s going on? Why does Li Ruobing have some sort of quarrel with my daughter?”