Chapter 364: A Night to Remember for a Lifetime

Chapter 364: A Night to Remember for a Lifetime

No one knew what emotional road An Menglan had traveled to reach that moment.

Not even An Menglan herself really knew.

She was drunk, and drink could make a person bold enough to say and do things they never would otherwise, sometimes things they could hardly control.

An Menglan had always lived freely.

She wanted to kiss Wu Chen.

So she kissed him.

Perhaps it was his talent that drew her.

Perhaps Wu Chen had given her a feeling no one else ever had.

Or perhaps she had already begun to believe he was the soulmate she had spent so long searching for.

In truth even she was not sure what she was thinking.

The feeling simply came over her.

Drunk, she did not work through all the complicated implications. She still remembered her wager with Li Ruobing, and she understood that what she was doing was wrong.

But in the end feeling defeated reason.

Still kissing him, she twisted toward him with both hands on his face. Then she rose a little, turned, and sat down squarely in his lap without ever breaking away.

A drunken woman.

And a drunken man.

In truth Wu Chen was much more sober than she was, but he chose not to refuse her.

Wu Chen admitted that he was not a one-woman man.

But he had never promised any woman that he would be.

An Menglan was not very good at kissing.

She had never been in a relationship.

Not having met the right person was only part of it. The reasons she had never dated were in fact complicated. Her family background made it difficult to meet anyone genuinely suited to her, and she had entered the industry too young.

She had debuted as a singer at seventeen.

And she had become a sensation the moment she debuted.

Yet An Menglan was only twenty-six this year, and today already marked the tenth year of her career.

For a young celebrity, romance was a sensitive matter, particularly for a female singer like her who possessed both enormous popularity and genuine ability.

But beyond all those outward reasons, the greatest reason she had never dated was inward.

It was An Menglan herself.

She had given the best years of her youth entirely to music.

Love had never been a necessity of those years.

Music had.

What she needed was a soulmate, someone she could speak to freely about music, someone to whom she could truly open her heart.

Not simply a lover.

Though a soulmate could become a lover.

An Menglan was wholly absorbed. A drunk person’s sense of time was vague, and she had no idea how long she had been kissing him.

Finally…

she lifted her head abruptly.

Her face was bright red.

Her breathing was heavy.

But something in her eyes had changed.

“S-sorry, Mr. Wu. I think… I’m drunk, I…”

She had realized suddenly that she had gone too far. A little flustered, she spoke as she stood and moved aside.

Then she saw the lipstick she had left at the corner of his mouth, and on his cheek.

And wondered all over again whether she had lost her mind.

Why was she behaving like this with a man she had known for two days?

“M-Mr. Wu, wait a moment…”

She looked around as though searching for something, then hurried out of the piano room.

She came back almost immediately.

She had brought a box of tissues. Holding the box in one hand, she pulled a tissue out with the other.

“Mr. Wu, wipe it off. There’s… there’s a mark…” She gestured at the lipstick, about to wipe it away for him.

“Thank you.” Wu Chen smiled and took the tissue, wiping the corner of his mouth. Then he said, “Miss An, why don’t you go and wash your face? You don’t seem to be feeling quite right…”

There was not the faintest irregular note in his voice.

He knew this was the moment when her thoughts were at their most tangled.

So he had to stay steady.

If Wu Chen behaved as though a kiss meant something now had to happen between them, An Menglan would certainly retreat.

She knew what she had done was wrong.

Not knowing he had a girlfriend would have been one thing. But she knew.

Li Ruobing had even warned her.

“Oh. All right… I’ll go.”

She agreed. She felt she needed to step away as well.

She no longer quite knew how to face him.

An Menglan left the piano room again and went back to the bedroom.

She meant to wash her face, but she was wearing makeup, so it had to be removed properly. Taking off makeup was not as simple as washing it away. Good cosmetics were often waterproof, and washing directly would neither clean it off nor do her skin any good.

Wu Chen went to the bathroom too and used the mirror to make sure his face was clean.

A few minutes later.

He returned to the piano room.

He sat down.

Raised his hands.

And began to play.

Wu Chen played something entirely new.

Not accompaniment for a song, but a solo piano piece he had composed during the thousand-year loop.

Its style was exceptionally soothing. A quiet night, rolling waves, a sea breeze.

Another ten minutes passed.

An Menglan finally came back to the piano room.

She had removed her makeup and taken down the bun she habitually wore, so her long, curled hair fell over her shoulders. Her wine-flushed cheeks and tired eyes gave her a particularly languid air.

She had already recovered her composure.

Wu Chen did not stop playing when she returned.

An Menglan pulled a chair over and sat beside the piano. Out of habit she picked up her wineglass again, tilted her head to look at him, then closed her eyes and listened to the beautiful music.

Gradually she began swaying with the melody, left and right, left and right, barely moving at all.

The piece was very long.

A complete performance ran half an hour.

An Menglan listened quietly the whole way.

Every so often she took another sip of wine.

Without her noticing, the way she looked at him grew hazy again.

If everything she had seen from Wu Chen before this had been divine technique, astonishment, dazzling talent, then perhaps all of it had only been groundwork.

Only now.

The silent night.

The intoxicating wine.

The beautiful music.

A man playing while a woman listened.

Everything seemed to rise to another level.

An Menglan watched the man whose lips always seemed to carry a faint smile, playing in complete concentration.

She felt utterly relaxed.

She even had the sense that life itself could stop at this exact moment.

So comfortable.

So enchanting.

This was a night she could remember for the rest of her life.

Wu Chen played the piece through to the end.

It finished.

The piano room went utterly quiet.

He turned to look at her, and only then realized that An Menglan had fallen asleep.

She sat beside the piano, leaning against the ledge at its corner. A little under half a bottle of red wine and an empty glass still stood there. One of her hands rested on the bottle, while her head tilted down against her other arm.

Her breathing was even.

Wu Chen’s piece did have a mildly sleep-inducing quality, but it could never have been that strong.

The main reason was simply that she was drunk and genuinely exhausted.

Wu Chen kept his head turned toward her.

From where he sat he could see her sleeping profile perfectly.

Set against the other women, the womanly quality An Menglan possessed truly was something no one else had in quite the same way.

Su Qingying and Wu Yurong were both too refined.

Su Qingying had an almost ethereal air, while Wu Yurong’s femininity lived in her expressions and the way she spoke. Both gave the impression of beauty best admired from a distance, almost untouchable.

An Menglan was different.

Her looks and her bearing appealed across every age.

That distinctly womanly quality was hard to put into words.

Wu Chen admired her a moment, then stood.

He took two steps over and gently lifted her hand.

She did not wake.

Once a drunk person truly fell asleep, it was hard to rouse them.

He drew her arm over his shoulder, then slipped an arm beneath her and lifted her horizontally into his arms.

He carried her out of the piano room.

Across the living room.

Wu Chen nudged the half-closed bedroom door open with his foot and carried An Menglan inside.