Chapter 481: The Man and Woman in the Pavilion

Chapter 481: The Man and Woman in the Pavilion

“Oh, nothing much.” Wu Yurong smiled sweetly and gave her champagne a gentle swirl. Her voice was soft, as though she were mentioning something in passing. “It’s just that… at a banquet a while back, a few old friends and I were chatting privately, and Mr. Wu came up.”

She glanced at Wu Chen as she spoke, her eyes brimming with tenderness.

“And I joked that if I were twenty years younger, I might just be willing to marry Mr. Wu.” Her gaze returned to Li Ruobing, her smile as sweet as ever. “Everyone knew I was joking, of course. But for some reason, Su Ruiwen brought it up again today, all on his own. He asked whether I knew Mr. Wu particularly well.”

Li Ruobing stared straight at her, face cold.

She looked ready to throw her drink in Wu Yurong’s face!

Had Wu Yurong provoked her like this with no one else involved, she might already have done it! But this wasn’t only between the two of them. Wu Chen was what mattered. If things got out of hand, he would be the one left in an awkward spot!

Li Ruobing held herself back.

“I really didn’t tell him much. Su Ruiwen asked a few idle questions, and I gave a few idle answers,” Wu Yurong went on, still sweet and gentle. Then her tone shifted, and she smiled. “Though I have a feeling Su Ruiwen wasn’t asking idly at all.”

Her lovely eyes flicked to Wu Chen again. “Mr. Wu,” she asked with a soft laugh, “you’ve been found out, haven’t you?” The question came out of nowhere, yet all three of them knew exactly what she meant.

In truth, Wu Yurong had come over to warn him.

It was just that a warning delivered this way was bound to strike Li Ruobing as an attack, a deliberate provocation!

“Nothing to worry about,” Wu Chen said to her with a smile, one hand in his suit pocket, the other holding a glass of champagne.

“Good, then,” Wu Yurong replied softly. She turned to Li Ruobing, looked her up and down, and smiled again. “Miss Li, you look so beautiful today. You and Mr. Wu really are a perfect match.”

It was a compliment! The kind of pleasantry anyone might offer at a social occasion.

But coming from Wu Yurong, it struck Li Ruobing as malicious.

“I saw Miss Su just now, too. My goodness, she looks beautiful today as well,” Wu Yurong added with another sweet smile.

This time the malice was rather more obvious.

Wu Chen sensed it too. Wu Yurong really did seem bent on getting under Li Ruobing’s skin today. Not because she wanted to compete for anything; Wu Chen knew her far too well to think that. Most likely, he judged, it was Li Ruobing’s attitude when Wu Yurong first walked over that had needled her.

Wu Yurong had never been afraid of Li Ruobing!

“Wu Yurong.” Li Ruobing said her name once and stopped. Then, abruptly, she laughed. It was the laugh of someone pushed to anger. She held Wu Yurong’s gaze, took a sip of champagne, and only then went on, her voice cold. “You’re deliberately picking a fight today, aren’t you? Don’t you understand that if you’re going to be the other woman, you need to know your place?”

Wu Yurong’s face changed slightly.

If Li Ruobing had said that in private, she might not have been angry at all. Getting angry would mean taking the bait. But this was a public occasion. There might be no one close by, but someone farther off could easily notice!

“What other woman? Miss Li, you and Mr. Wu aren’t married yet, are you?” Wu Yurong said, recovering her composure and smiling gently.

“That’s enough, you two,” Wu Chen said, still smiling.

He couldn’t let the two of them start arguing today. If this kept up, they might be at war by tomorrow! Here in Donghai, Li Ruobing was no match for Wu Yurong in business. But Wu Yurong’s personal safety… that was another matter!

If the two of them truly went at each other, then without Wu Chen in the picture, they would probably both come out badly hurt!

Naturally, Wu Chen would never let it come to that!

At his words, both women paused and glanced at him. When he raised his glass, they raised theirs, and each clinked against his from either side.

They drank!

As though nothing had happened!

“Ruobing.” Wu Chen tilted his head toward her, since she stood closer, and spoke in her ear. “Go find Qingying. Tell her… and then…”

Li Ruobing leaned in slightly to listen. After hearing only a few words, she turned sharply to look at him, a rather peculiar smile on her face. “What are you up to?” she asked softly.

As she said it, she glanced instinctively at Wu Yurong.

“You’ll see.” Wu Chen smiled and murmured a little more in her ear. “After that… Su Ruiwen may come looking for you…”

“Another scheme this big?” Li Ruobing asked, shooting him a sidelong look.

But she was smiling!

The last time Wu Chen had played Su Ruiwen, Li Ruobing had been genuinely furious. It wasn’t the playing that bothered her, whoever the target was. It was that he hadn’t told her beforehand, so when Su Ruiwen called, she’d been panicking inside within a few sentences.

Luckily, she was quick. She’d grasped what Wu Chen was after and managed to play along!

This time, he’d told her what to do in advance.

“Go on,” Wu Chen said with a smile.

Li Ruobing kissed the corner of his mouth. Her waterproof lipstick left no trace. Then, with one more glance at Wu Yurong, she walked off with her champagne.

“Mr. Wu, I’m jealous,” Wu Yurong said in a soft, honeyed voice once Li Ruobing was some distance away. Coming from her, those words were devastatingly effective!

Wu Yurong was an exceptionally intelligent woman with a deep understanding of how men thought.

When she said she was jealous, she wasn’t necessarily jealous at all. She simply wanted Wu Chen to feel how much he mattered to her.

“What are you jealous of?” Wu Chen asked, turning to her with a quiet laugh.

“You get to be so intimate with Miss Li in public,” Wu Yurong said. Yet there was no resentment in the eyes she turned on him, only a tenderness as soft as water.

“So can you,” Wu Chen said with a smile. “If you’re not afraid of the gossip.”

“Mr. Wu, you know perfectly well I can’t,” Wu Yurong replied gently.

In a sense, Wu Yurong was the ideal companion in a man’s eyes. She understood men, and she always knew how far to go. That was exactly what made her frightening. Almost no man could ever handle her. Instead, step by step, she would end up controlling him.

Of course! She wouldn’t dare try to handle Wu Chen.

Because she knew he understood everything about her! Her personality, her methods, her thoughts! So… she simply acted a little spoiled with him in her own way, and only in moderation.

She might be forty-two, but that didn’t mean she had no girlish side.

She just never let anyone else see it. After all, her own daughter was already grown!

“Xuanxuan didn’t come today?” Wu Chen asked, as if making small talk.

“She’s gone to Modu. Besides, she doesn’t like occasions like this. Even if she were here, she probably wouldn’t have come,” Wu Yurong replied.

They chatted a while, keeping a proper distance between them, until both had finished their champagne.

Wu Chen handed his empty glass to a passing waiter and took another drink.

So did Wu Yurong.

“Shall we go somewhere else to talk?” Wu Chen asked quietly, smiling at her.

“You bad man,” Wu Yurong murmured, the corners of her mouth curving a little higher.

Somewhere else? Just to talk?

They set off, chatting as they walked.

Soon they had left the main wedding grounds behind and followed a garden path. Past an ornamental rockery and fishpond, the view opened up all at once: a little bridge over flowing water, and a pavilion.

This was Tangsha Club’s landscaped garden. Given the nature of the club, few guests ever came here, and hardly any of today’s wedding guests were likely to wander this way.

At a social occasion this important, who had their mind on the scenery?

Wu Chen and Wu Yurong reached the pavilion.

Once inside, Wu Yurong half turned and looked around. There really was no one. She turned back at once, set her champagne glass carelessly on the pavilion’s table, and threw her arms around Wu Chen’s neck.

She kissed him!

A little while later.

Wu Chen sat on a wooden bench along one side of the pavilion, Wu Yurong on his lap. They raised their glasses, linked arms, and drank a cross-armed toast!

Wu Yurong tipped her head back and drained her glass.

“Haa…” She slowly breathed wine-scented air toward his face, then asked in an impossibly gentle, sweet voice, “Mr. Wu, are you free tonight?”

“Sure,” Wu Chen said with a smile.

They talked in the pavilion for a while.

Over by the rockery and fishpond.

Su Ruiwen strolled up and paused in front of the rockery. Earlier, when Li Ruobing had come to find Su Qingying, he’d been standing right there. After a few idle words, Li Ruobing had wanted to pull Qingying aside for a private talk and had signaled her with a look. Su Ruiwen had noticed.

He’d casually asked Li Ruobing why he hadn’t seen Mr. Wu.

Li Ruobing had told him Wu Chen was over this way, discussing business with Wu Yurong!

Su Ruiwen used to come to Tangsha Club often. Only in the last few years, with his health failing, had he come less, though Su Qingying still played golf here regularly.

He did know, though, that the area around the rockery and fishpond was very secluded.

So he’d come looking, hoping to talk with Wu Chen. With Wu Yurong there too, they could all chat some more!

There was no one in front of the rockery and fishpond. Su Ruiwen looked around. There were benches nearby, and wide hanging swing chairs along the path, but no sign of anyone.

Had they already gone?

Wondering, Su Ruiwen followed the narrow path beside the fishpond a little farther in. The moment he rounded the rockery, he stopped short. In the distance, several dozen meters away, he could see the pavilion.

A man and a woman were talking like lovers.

The woman was sitting on the man’s lap, arms around his neck, extraordinarily intimate.

Su Ruiwen stood rooted to the spot.

If his eyes weren’t deceiving him, the man was Wu Chen. And the woman in the long gown, who looked no older than her twenties… was Wu Yurong!

Su Ruiwen watched in silence and didn’t move for a long time.