Chapter 395: A Failed Attempt at Keeping a Low Profile

Chapter 395: A Failed Attempt at Keeping a Low Profile

Wu Jiao and Chen Xue turned to Li Ruobing in perfect unison and froze, both staring wide-eyed at her face.

“You’re Wu Jiao, right?” Li Ruobing asked, smiling again.

It was worth noting that on the phone, Wu Jiao had never told her what she was wearing or where she was sitting. The two had never met. Normally she ought to have said something; otherwise, recognizing her would have been difficult.

Yet Li Ruobing had picked her out instantly.

That wasn’t because Wu Jiao looked like Wu Chen. There was some resemblance, of course. They had the same parents. But they weren’t twins, and they weren’t even the same sex.

The resemblance only went so far.

Li Ruobing recognized her, naturally, because she had seen her photo long ago.

Not only Wu Jiao’s. She had seen photos of everyone in Wu Chen’s family. In the first few days after she met him, she’d had him investigated again and again, each time more thoroughly than the last.

She had even had his family’s social connections looked into.

So she didn’t only know Wu Jiao. She knew Chen Xue, too, and had seen her photo. Chen Xue was Wu Jiao’s best friend, the girl she had grown up with, the most important person in Wu Chen’s sister’s life right now.

The two girls still couldn’t take it in.

They were stunned.

Floored.

Could this gorgeous woman really be… the girlfriend?!

“Aren’t you going to introduce us?” Li Ruobing gestured toward Chen Xue, though the question was meant for Wu Jiao.

“Ah… um… this is my best friend, Chen Xue…” Wu Jiao finally came to and hurried through the introduction.

“Nice to meet you. Li Ruobing.” The corners of her mouth lifted as she held out her hand to Wu Jiao.

Wu Jiao froze for a second before reaching out to shake it.

She wasn’t used to this kind of “grown-up” etiquette. High schoolers didn’t shake hands when they made new friends.

Li Ruobing offered her hand to Chen Xue too, and Chen Xue scrambled to shake it.

Li Ruobing had put away her usual icy air and made herself a good deal gentler, but her presence, and the ingrained manner of a woman used to running a company, still made it hard for the two girls to relax.

Wu Jiao and Chen Xue exchanged a look.

Their eyes practically flew back and forth. They had so much to say to each other, their appetite for gossip already blazing, but with Li Ruobing sitting right there, they could hardly start whispering.

“S-Sis, you’re so pretty. You’re gorgeous,” Wu Jiao said sweetly, going straight to compliments. She meant every word.

She half suspected she was dreaming. How could her blockhead of a brother possibly have won over the ultimate rich, fair-skinned beauty?!

“You’re very pretty too,” Li Ruobing said with a smile.

That was true as well.

Wu Chen was far from bad-looking. He wasn’t earth-shatteringly handsome, but he stood out. He could fairly be called handsome, and Wu Jiao could just as fairly be called pretty.

By Wu Chen’s own rating scale, anything above a six counted as a genuinely attractive woman. Wu Jiao was probably around a 7.5.

Not a knockout, but nowhere near an everyday face, either.

“Is this all you two ate?” Li Ruobing glanced at the paper containers left on the table. She could tell what they’d had, and frowned slightly. “Is that enough?”

“We were just having a little something. We’re not that hungry,” Wu Jiao said with a small smile.

“You look just like your brother when you smile,” Li Ruobing said.

“Really?” Wu Jiao looked at her. “So, Sis, you and my brother…” She sounded a little awkward and trailed off.

She was bursting with “gossip” she wanted to ask about, but Li Ruobing’s presence made her afraid of saying something out of line. Friendly as Li Ruobing was being, Wu Jiao didn’t quite dare.

“Come on. I’ll take you both out to eat. We can talk on the way…” Li Ruobing said decisively, already rising.

“Oh… o-okay.” Wu Jiao wanted to say no, but it never came out.

She wanted to say no because it felt embarrassing. They barely knew each other. How could she just let someone buy her a meal, with her brother not even there?

But she couldn’t bring herself to refuse.

Partly because she wanted to spend time with Li Ruobing and ask her things. Partly because that unconscious note of command in Li Ruobing’s voice made refusing hard.

The three of them left the fast-food place.

Li Ruobing walked a little ahead. The moment they were out the door, she took out her phone and made a call. To Wu Chen.

The two girls trailed a few steps behind, arm in arm, heads already together, dissecting the situation.

“Is this for real?”

“She recognized you. How could it not be?”

“She’s a rich, fair-skinned beauty! Is my brother really that amazing?”

“Why are you asking me? He’s your brother! Hey, hey, look at her bag… That’s Hermès!”

“Hermès? Like a few thousand?”

“A few thousand? The cheapest ones are tens of thousands. That one she’s got… it’s tens of thousands at least!”

“Whoa! That much? For real?”

“Why would I lie? Of course it’s for real.”

Chen Xue sounded completely sure. Her family was a bit better off than Wu Jiao’s; in their little county town, she even counted as a rich kid. She wasn’t in the habit of throwing money around, and she spent about as much as Wu Jiao did, but she knew a great deal about luxury goods and cosmetics.

She just liked looking at them.

Chen Xue was a little more grown-up than Wu Jiao, too. Wu Jiao had never worn makeup. Chen Xue did now and then.

Up ahead.

“Hello, darling… Mm… I’ve got them… I’m about to take them to lunch… All right, see you this afternoon…” Li Ruobing exchanged a few words with Wu Chen and hung up.

Behind her.

The girls broke into excited whispers again.

“She called your brother darling!” Chen Xue whispered.

“That’s so cheesy. Why does this all feel so weird? It’s like I’m dreaming…” Wu Jiao whispered back.

They took the elevator down.

Into the mall’s underground garage.

Not far from the elevators, a Mercedes G-Class and an Audi A8 were parked side by side.

“Get in.” As Li Ruobing rounded the front of the car, she gestured for the girls to get in on the other side.

All three got in.

All three in the back.

They were all female, two of them seventeen-year-old girls, so it wasn’t a squeeze.

Once inside, Wu Jiao and Chen Xue noticed there was already someone in the car: a man in his thirties in a black suit and sunglasses, sitting behind the wheel.

“Nanzhou Restaurant,” Li Ruobing said as she pulled the door shut.

The man said nothing and simply started the car.

The girls understood at once. An Audi A8, with her own chauffeur… This was no ordinary rich, fair-skinned beauty.

What they didn’t know was that Li Ruobing was deliberately keeping a low profile today.

Wu Chen had asked her to, so she wouldn’t frighten his sister right off the bat.

So she hadn’t taken her Maybach. She had switched to the Audi, which she considered relatively understated.

Nor did the girls notice that when the Audi pulled out of its space, the G-Class beside it moved too, and fell in behind.

“Sis, when did you and my brother… meet?” Wu Jiao, sitting in the middle, turned to Li Ruobing with a smile.

“In March. I went to your brother’s university to recruit…” Li Ruobing said, looking at her.

“Recruit? You’re already working? Can I ask… how old you are?”

“Twenty-seven.”

“Twenty-seven? So you’re ten years older than me? Five years older than my brother, even?”

“That’s right. What, you think I’m old?”

“No, no, no! Not at all! It’s just you’re so pretty and you look so young. Your skin is amazing. I thought you were about my brother’s age…”

They chatted.

Wu Jiao asked about everything under the sun, and the mood was warm and easy.

Li Ruobing answered nearly all of it. Part of what she said was a lie, though: when she and Wu Chen had met. On that point, the two of them had settled their story long ago.

They had met at a campus recruitment fair, and that was that.

Ten-odd minutes later.

“So, Sis, between you and my brother, who chased who?” Wu Jiao was still asking. Something just didn’t add up. How could her brother have landed someone like this? Even if he’d suddenly figured out romance, he couldn’t have figured it out that well. And the idea of her chasing him was even more impossible.

“Him and me… I wouldn’t say either of us chased the other. These things come down to fate,” Li Ruobing said with a smile.

Suddenly.

“Jiaojiao, Jiaojiao!” Chen Xue, by the far window, nudged her and called to her in a low voice.

She had been scrolling on her phone ever since they’d gotten in, apparently looking something up.

“Hm?” Wu Jiao turned to her.

Chen Xue hooked her arm and pulled her close, then whispered in her ear, “Four hundred thousand.” Her voice trembled with excitement.

“What four hundred thousand?” Wu Jiao whispered back, lost.

“The bag. Four hundred thousand. Her bag sells for four hundred thousand…” Chen Xue whispered as softly as she possibly could, terrified Li Ruobing would hear.

Wu Jiao’s eyes went huge.