Chapter 398: What Did You Call Me?

Chapter 398: What Did You Call Me?

Even Li Ruobing hadn’t expected Wu Jiao to ask her straight out how much money she had.

If she answered honestly, there would be no keeping a low profile after that.

She was silent for a moment, thinking.

“About two billion,” she told Wu Jiao.

“T-two billion?” Wu Jiao stammered.

“Mm. Roughly.” Li Ruobing nodded.

She had told the truth. And she had done so because she had thought back over what Wu Chen had said.

Besides telling her to keep a low profile, he had said he’d bring Wu Jiao to the company that afternoon.

Which meant he wasn’t planning to hide the company from his sister.

So Li Ruobing took his “low profile” to mean her style and entourage and her family background. When it came to money alone, there was no need to go out of her way to play poor.

She could hardly pose as a pauper. Wu Chen had only mentioned it in passing. It didn’t call for anything that extreme.

Besides, to Wu Jiao, once someone was rich, two hundred million or two billion made no real difference. Either was an astronomical figure beyond her imagining.

So there it was. If Wu Jiao knew, she knew.

Wu Jiao was floored.

So was Chen Xue.

The two girls looked at each other.

Neither said a word. Neither knew what to say.

“Two billion… two billion…” Wu Jiao looked back at Li Ruobing, murmuring the number under her breath without realizing it. Her whole picture of Li Ruobing had just risen to a new level.

A female president only twenty-seven years old, worth an astonishing two billion yuan.

And this beautiful.

Wu Jiao had only ever seen people like that in TV dramas.

And she… was her brother’s girlfriend?! Sitting here buying her lunch?!

The poor-boy-meets-lady-CEO romance had actually happened right in front of her. To her own brother!

Surreal.

Way too surreal!

“So, Sis, what did you even see in my brother? I mean, he’s… he’s only just finished college. How did you end up… liking him? You’re so amazing…” Wu Jiao was so shocked she could barely put a sentence together.

What she meant was obvious. She didn’t think her brother was good enough for someone as exceptional as Li Ruobing.

“Love doesn’t follow reason,” Li Ruobing said, smiling at her. “You’re still a bit young, so maybe you don’t understand yet. It’s hard to explain in a sentence or two. Besides… your brother’s outstanding too. Don’t you think we’re a good match?”

Li Ruobing was firmly convinced that she and Wu Chen were a perfect match. Those vixens Wu Yurong and An Menglan couldn’t hold a candle to her.

Wu Jiao, however, shook her head like a rattle drum.

“You don’t think we’re a good match?” Li Ruobing raised an eyebrow.

“Yes, I mean no, I mean… not exactly.” Wu Jiao’s tongue had tied itself in knots again. Every answer seemed to be the wrong one.

She took a moment, then went on. “My brother’s actually pretty okay. Compared with people his age, he’s above average. His grades were always good, and he went to a key university. But… next to you, Sis, he’s just way too ordinary. It feels like… he’s not good enough for you.”

She was brutally blunt.

She still hadn’t recovered from “two billion.”

What kind of family were they, that her brother had landed a girlfriend worth two billion yuan?

She wasn’t looking at it as an outsider would. She was looking at it as one of the family, with a clear-eyed sense of where they stood.

“Not good enough for me? That’s how you talk about your own brother?” Li Ruobing laughed. “Aren’t you afraid he’ll be angry if he finds out?”

“No way. He spoils me,” Wu Jiao said.

“Then maybe I’ll just tell him.”

“Don’t!” Wu Jiao cried at once. “Come on, Sis. Don’t let my brother know.”

She was still a little worried her brother might “teach her a lesson.”

“Excuse me.”

A server’s voice came from beside them.

The food had started to arrive.

Once the server had gone, Li Ruobing said with a smile, “Actually… your brother’s a lot more outstanding than you think. Let’s talk about him. He’s never told me much about what he used to be like. Oh, that’s right, didn’t you say earlier that he once got a love letter?”

“Yeah. When my brother was a sophomore…”

And so they talked about Wu Chen.

Li Ruobing was very interested in his past. What Wu Jiao told her firsthand was far more vivid than the written reports her people had compiled.

And plenty of things simply couldn’t be dug up by investigation.

Mostly trivial things. The little details of everyday life.

Li Ruobing had no particular motive for wanting to hear them. She simply wanted to know him. To understand him better.

Wu Jiao was artless and straightforward, and answered nearly everything Li Ruobing asked.

Naturally, she embellished here and there, calling Wu Chen a blockhead, poking fun at him for being such a STEM guy, and saying he was a total straight man when it came to girls.

“Did your brother ever learn an instrument? Guitar, piano, anything like that?” Li Ruobing asked halfway through the meal.

“No. How could he have…” Wu Jiao said.

“Brother Xiaochen never really had any hobbies besides gaming,” Chen Xue added.

A firm no.

Li Ruobing wasn’t the least bit surprised. She had only been confirming a suspicion of her own.

Before they knew it, it was nearly one in the afternoon.

They had more or less finished eating.

Wu Jiao and Chen Xue were stuffed, so full they were hiccuping, and still there was food left on the table. They had ordered a bit too much and couldn’t get through it.

Li Ruobing dabbed her mouth and checked her watch.

“Do you two have plans? Want to come by the company for a while? Wu Chen will be there this afternoon,” she asked.

“We…” Wu Jiao glanced at Chen Xue, then turned back to Li Ruobing. “We were going to go clothes shopping today. We haven’t bought anything yet…”

“Shopping? Then let’s all go. I’ll take you.”

“N-no, that’s too much trouble, Sis. You already bought us lunch. We can just get a taxi. And… don’t you have to work?” Wu Jiao waved her hands.

“It’s fine. I can go in a bit later. I happen to want to pick up a few things myself.” Li Ruobing smiled.

Half an hour later.

Central District. Haman Shopping Center, second floor, the Chanel boutique.

Li Ruobing lifted a pink Chanel classic flap bag in grained leather and looked it over. Wu Jiao and Chen Xue hovered nearby, looking around but not touching anything. They knew everything here was expensive. They couldn’t afford any of it.

They had only come along because Li Ruobing said she wanted to buy something herself.

“What do you think of this one? Pretty?” Li Ruobing turned to Wu Jiao with the pink bag in her hand.

“Mm-hm! Super pretty!” Wu Jiao nodded. She loved pink, girlish bags like that.

She couldn’t see why Li Ruobing would want one. It didn’t suit her style at all. But if Li Ruobing wanted her opinion, the answer was: gorgeous.

“Here, put it on.”

Li Ruobing reached out and hung the strap straight over Wu Jiao’s shoulder, then turned to the sales associate. “This one. Card.”

“This way, miss.” The sales associate beamed.

Wu Jiao froze.

It was for her?!

Li Ruobing had already followed the sales associate toward the counter by the time Wu Jiao came to her senses.

“She’s buying it for you,” Chen Xue whispered in her ear.

Wu Jiao snatched up the price tag.

Fifty-six thousand yuan!

“Wait, Sis… Sis, I can’t take this.” She hurried after Li Ruobing, trying to push the bag back into her hands.

Li Ruobing had reached the counter. Taking a card from her own bag, she turned her head. “What’s wrong? Didn’t you say it was pretty? Don’t you like it anymore?”

“It’s pretty, but it’s way too expensive. I… I can’t accept it.” Wu Jiao held the bag out in both hands.

She truly didn’t dare take it.

A bag worth a few thousand, she might have been tempted enough to accept. Tens of thousands was terrifying.

“Keep it. Think of it as a first-meeting gift from me,” Li Ruobing said.

“But it’s way too expensive,” Wu Jiao said at once.

“Expensive? It’s all right.”

“But… I…”

“Take it.”

Li Ruobing couldn’t help shooting her a mildly reproachful look. She was still smiling, but to Wu Jiao that look was suddenly a little frightening, as though if she refused one more time, Li Ruobing would get genuinely angry.

“Then… then…” Wu Jiao looked at the bag, then at Li Ruobing, then at the bag again. Her fingers brushed the leather without her meaning them to. It really was beautiful. She truly loved it.

“Okay, then. Thank you, Sis,” she said, mortified.

Li Ruobing handed her card to the sales associate, then looked back at her. “What did you call me?”

“Sis,” Wu Jiao said.

“What?” Li Ruobing asked again.

Now Wu Jiao was nervous. She’d been calling her Sis since the moment they met. What had she gotten wrong?

She stood there blankly for a beat. Then an uncertain thought popped into her head, and in an uncertain voice, very carefully, she said:

“…Sis-in-law?”