The south entrance of Er Hall was typically used by staff members – in other words, it was the back door. Unlike the bustling east entrance, the path to the south entrance was much quieter. Combined with the malfunctioning street lights, it had an eerie atmosphere. Meeting Yan Cheng’s deep gaze, Chen Jinyao was momentarily stunned, though she wasn’t completely thrown off by his joke. Her nose had turned red from the cold, and she couldn’t help stamping her feet.
After a while, she finally said with a shiver: “You ancestor.”
“Tsk.” The man shrugged in surrender, moved away from the wall, walked over, took off his coat and draped it over Chen Jinyao. Following her words, he said, “Well, this ancestor shouldn’t catch a cold.”
The south entrance didn’t lead to the bar hall. Instead, it opened to a very short corridor with a wall dividing it, and two doors on each side. However, they could hear the noise and chaos inside – the party had already started. There must have been a band playing on stage, and the husky-voiced singing could make one’s ears pregnant.
Chen Jinyao tilted her head to listen, but before she could marvel at the singer’s talent, Yan Cheng pulled her through one of the doors. Inside was a spiral staircase. According to Yan Cheng: “Going up from here leads to my rest room.”
Instinctively, Chen Jinyao narrowed her eyes and, with the intuition of a proper wife, made a guess: “This is quite something – perfect for secretly hiding mistresses.”
At the top of the stairs was another short corridor with a push door. The rest room was brightly lit, and when the door opened, Yan Cheng paused, turned to look at her several times, examining her up and down in the light, from her clothes to her makeup. After finishing his inspection, he lazily withdrew his gaze: “Mm, right now you’re the mistress I secretly brought in.” He paused, then smiled and said: “My wife doesn’t look like you.”
The current Chen Jinyao was completely different from her usual self.
“So why wouldn’t you let me use the east entrance?” Mentioning this, Chen Jinyao remembered the figure she had glimpsed earlier. She frowned slightly and returned the coat to Yan Cheng. The room had heating. “I was originally planning to just blend into the dance floor.”
Hearing this, Yan Cheng pondered for a moment, “Would you like me to accompany you through the east entrance again? Whatever you want to do later, we can just go down from here.”
“…No, thank you.” Chen Jinyao righteously refused Yan Cheng’s kind offer.
The initial talk about inspection was just a pretext. Since she was here, she wanted to properly experience and indulge in the nightlife. The husky voice was still lingering in her ears, and she planned to go downstairs and request a song at the stage. After some thought, she patted Yan Cheng’s shoulder and said meaningfully: “Who brings their family when they come to a bar?”
She now felt that she shouldn’t have messaged him in the afternoon. If she had gone for a surprise attack, she wouldn’t have gotten stuck with this clingy person who couldn’t be shaken off.
Yan Cheng insisted on staying with her.
However, reality didn’t allow for his ‘insistence’.
A Tai knocked and entered the rest room. His face was full of worry, and he was startled for two seconds when he saw Chen Jinyao there. After a while, he withdrew his gaze, and his businesslike tone wasn’t particularly pleasant: “Boss, Zhou Xue is here and says she needs to see you.”
“She says she must see you.” A Tai seemed uncomfortable saying these words.
Chen Jinyao raised an eyebrow and looked at Yan Cheng with interest. She thought to herself: so she hadn’t mistaken that figure after all.
“You go ahead and handle it well.” She made a “after you” gesture to Yan Cheng, winked at him, showing such understanding that A Tai was dumbfounded.
Yan Cheng frowned: “I thought you’d want to join the battle.”
Chen Jinyao laughed and said casually: “Rather than waste time fighting, I’d rather taste a few more cocktails. Oh, and if you can’t handle it, don’t bother coming home.”
“…”
Bright lights and flowing wine, bodies moving freely.
Men and women released their work pressure, enjoying themselves thoroughly.
On stage, one song ended, and below, there were people cheering and applauding, begging for another song.
Chen Jinyao ordered a low-alcohol drink from the bartender, took a small sip, and gradually moved her gaze from the lead singer. She looked up, her eyes floating uncertainly as she searched for a certain private room upstairs. Women, after all, tend to say one thing but mean another.
Standing beside her was A Tai, whom Yan Cheng had sent to watch over her. Although Er Hall had been ordered to reform, they couldn’t guarantee that among the various people who came to play, there wouldn’t be some with impure intentions, or male customers who might get drunk and do something inappropriate under the influence of alcohol.
In simple terms, A Tai’s role was to prevent Chen Jinyao from being approached by strange men.
Chen Jinyao sighed, waved her hand to get A Tai closer: “Hey hey hey, go help me scout out the situation, will you?”
They stared at each other in silence for a moment.
A Tai maintained a serious face and said solemnly: “I think it would be better if you went yourself.”
Zhou Xue was in the first private room up the stairs.
The lights in the private room were colorful, and she sat on the sofa, the fake smile on her face already stiff, but her dark eyes were fixed on Yan Cheng opposite her.
She came to find him indeed about Zhou Chao’s matter.
At the same time, there were other psychological factors at play.
After so many months without seeing him, Zhou Xue was still confident about her position in Yan Cheng’s heart. She was used to it, had been used to using men to achieve her goals since middle school, and men’s willing compliance would satisfy her self-esteem.
She naturally assumed that as long as she asked, Yan Cheng would basically agree to her requests, even if he had grievances with Zhou Chao.
However, at this moment, under Yan Cheng’s ambiguous smile and near-mocking gaze, Zhou Xue’s heart skipped a beat, and she unconsciously pressed her lips together and tugged at her clothes.
Yan Cheng: “Your thick skin makes me bow in admiration. What, that good-for-nothing cousin of yours still wants to freeload off me?”
Her fingertips turning white, Zhou Xue bit her lip and softened her tone, sounding a bit wronged: “Yan Cheng, I remember you weren’t like this before.”
“I thought you had some self-awareness.” The man crossed his legs and leaned forward, resting his elbow on his knee, supporting his chin with one hand, slightly narrowing his eyes.
His voice showed no discernible emotion, yet somehow made people feel cold when hearing it.
Zhou Xue was completely stunned.
Under the dappled light, Yan Cheng looked sinister.
After a while.
Zhou Xue rubbed the back of her hand, and when she looked up again, she caught a faint smile at the corner of Yan Cheng’s mouth.
It was as if the earlier sinister appearance was just an illusion.
She swallowed and vaguely sensed something was wrong.
“Heh.” Yan Cheng let out a cold laugh. When this person became caustic, he was truly unmatched, “You really think you’re some fairy?”
“You really think I liked you?”
“Zhou Xue, did you think I didn’t see through your little schemes in university?”
These three consecutive sentences made Zhou Xue’s face instantly turn unsightly.
She sat there with an ashen face, not responding.
For someone like Zhou Xue who was solely focused on marrying into a wealthy family, marrying up was almost the only way out she could think of. At that time, she was fortunate enough to attend university with several famous young masters from the capital. Huo Qidong’s hot-and-cold attitude towards her made her uncertain, which gave her a great sense of crisis. At that time, she wasn’t sure she could hold onto Huo Qidong, so she adopted a strategy of casting a wide net, successfully infiltrating the capital’s elite circle, and getting along with that group of people as brothers and sisters. At that time, among so many people, it seemed only Yan Cheng was indifferent to her.
Memories flooded back.
Zhou Xue’s face changed from ashen to pale, then from pale back to ashen.
Later, it seemed that Huo Qidong and Yan Cheng had competed in a university entrepreneurship project, and Yan Cheng had won over Huo Qidong. Yan Cheng also had a better reputation at school than Huo Qidong. The two of them had friction over something else – how young they were then, young and impetuous, easily hot-blooded. Huo Qidong’s pettiness led him to oppose Yan Cheng at every turn… Later, somehow rumors spread around school that Yan Cheng was pursuing Zhou Xue, and it was then that Zhou Xue discovered Huo Qidong had become nice to her again.
Yan Cheng “pursuing” Zhou Xue originated from Zhou Xue’s initial net-casting.
He went along with her intentions at first, and then really didn’t expect Huo Qidong to be so foolish, smart all his life but muddle-headed at that moment, actually becoming mindless enough to compete for everything.
That he would even marry Zhou Xue was beyond his expectations.
Ah, well, not exactly – it was a shotgun wedding.
However, this “shot” seemed to have been lost just a few days after Zhou Xue’s marriage.
Tsk tsk tsk.
Yan Cheng held his wine glass, leisurely swirling the red wine inside.
Once the box was opened, there was no need to hide anything anymore. He pressed his tongue against the roof of his mouth, suddenly smiled, but this smile didn’t reach his eyes, and even carried some harshness: “In the end, you should thank me. Without me, you might not have been able to secure the position of Mrs. Huo.”
Zhou Xue felt ice-cold all over, still finding it unbelievable even now.
She suddenly looked up at him, but after seeing the expression on his face clearly, she abruptly closed her mouth, unable to say anything.
At this moment, Zhou Xue suddenly realized that Yan Cheng was somewhat frightening.
Licking her lips, something flashed through her mind, and after quickly grasping it, she asked dryly: “Was it you who beat up Zhou Chao?”
Hearing this, Yan Cheng pondered for a moment, his expression unchanged: “No.”
Indeed, it wasn’t him.
But the person who did it was outside.
The private room door was quietly pushed open a crack.
Chen Jinyao hadn’t come up to spy, but she had sent A Tai. Because A Tai had been ordered to watch over Chen Jinyao, he didn’t dare leave, so Chen Jinyao gave him advice, telling him to use the “walls have ears” method, and promised that this matter would be known only to heaven, earth, him, and her.
After frowning and struggling for a few minutes, A Tai defected and became part of Chen Jinyao’s camp. At the same time, he apologized for what he had privately thought about Chen Jinyao’s magnanimity and understanding…
And thus concluded: Women are essentially creatures who say one thing but mean another!!!
Some things only need to be mentioned briefly.
Yan Cheng also didn’t have the patience to continue circling with Zhou Xue. He raised an eyebrow and put down his wine glass, slowly stood up, his right hand still methodically fastening the cuff on his left hand. In the dim light, he looked down at her from above, his eyes lowered, cold as could be.
After a long while, he finally spoke lazily: “If I were you, I’d hold onto Huo Qidong tightly, after all, after divorcing Huo Qidong, you won’t find another option.”
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