Shoutout to Alinaza for the commission!
Lu Huaiyan meeting with Cao Xun was one of the terms of the deal Jiang Se requested.
The reason Cao Liang was dumped in Tongcheng by his grandfather was because he hit someone while drunk driving in Pingcheng.
The girl who was hit was a medical student. Because her injuries were severe, she was still in a coma even now.
There was no surveillance at the place of the accident. The Cao family sent the girl to the best hospital and paid a huge sum of money to her family. After obtaining a letter of forgiveness from the victim’s family, they also arranged someone to take the blame for Cao Liang, cleanly pulling him out of this accident.
Lu Huaiyan “happened” to have a video from that night. Though blurry, it vaguely showed that the one sitting in the driver’s seat was Cao Liang.
Of course, he would probably never need to use this video.
As the future head of the Lu family, with him coming forward to speak for Jiang Ye, there was no way Cao Xun wouldn’t give him this bit of face.
Because of that, whether Jiang Se went or not wasn’t important.
But why did Lu Huaiyan invite her?
Staring at the text on her phone for a good while, Jiang Se considered it for a moment, and in the end still replied: [Coming.]
—
At six o’clock Monday afternoon, Jiang Se drove her newly-picked-up mini electric car to Junyue.
Junyue was a Han family property, and also one of the few platinum five-star hotels in Tongcheng.
Lu Huaiyan lived in the presidential suite on the top floor.
As soon as Jiang Se entered the hotel, a manager in a black dress came up to her, respectfully asking, “May I ask, are you Miss Jiang Se?”
Jiang Se glanced at the name tag on her chest, the manager’s surname was Yao.
She nodded. “I am.”
“Miss Jiang, please come with me. Chairman Lu is waiting for you in a private room on the seventh floor.”
Jiang Se checked her watch. It wasn’t yet six forty.
She lifted her feet to follow Manager Yao. When getting into the elevator, she asked casually, “Besides Chairman Lu, is there anyone else?”
“Chairman Cao is also there.”
“When did Cao Xun arrive?”
Although Manager Yao didn’t know Jiang Se’s exact identity, she had received not hundreds but at least dozens of major clients. Just from Jiang Se’s bearing in her words and Lu Huaiyan’s attitude toward her, she knew the girl definitely wasn’t ordinary.
Hearing Jiang Se directly call Cao Xun by name also didn’t surprise her. She smiled respectfully and said, “Chairman Cao has been staying at Junyue these past few days. Just after young Chairman Lu came down not long ago, he also went up to the seventh floor.”
Right as she finished speaking, the elevator chimed “ding” and the doors slid open.
Jiang Se didn’t say more, following Manager Yao down a side corridor.
At the door of the private room, Manager Yao knocked: “Chairman Lu, Chairman Cao, Miss Jiang has arrived.”
“Come in.” It was Lu Huaiyan’s voice.
Manager Yao pushed the door open. Jiang Se walked in and first looked at Lu Huaiyan sitting on the long sofa.
The sofa faced directly toward the door. When Jiang Se looked over, he happened to look back at her.
The two met eyes. Jiang Se was the first to look away, turning her gaze to the man sitting opposite Lu Huaiyan.
The man was wearing a dark brown shirt and black trousers, with the top three buttons undone, giving him a rather roguish air.
When Lu Huaiyan looked over, he also turned his head. When his gaze brushed past Jiang Se’s brows and eyes, that wanton expression paused for some unknown reason, then moments later returned to normal. His eyes locked straight onto Jiang Se’s, and he let out a low, unreadable laugh.
“Should I call you Jiang Se, or Cen Se?”
They had crossed paths once or twice before, but only just that, neither had a deep impression, just knew the other existed.
Jiang Se sized up Cao Xun.
Maybe because an ancestor had foreign blood, his eye color was lighter than usual, his skin very fair, his nose bridge high, he had a very refined sort of handsomeness.
Judging from appearance alone, this man indeed had the capital to be a charming scoundrel.
And his question was subtle.
If she bore the surname Cen, what right did she have to interfere with Jiang Ye’s matters?
If she bore the surname Jiang, what capital did she have to meddle in Cao Liang’s matters?
No matter which answer, she didn’t seem to have any right to manage this.
Jiang Se smiled, easily turning it aside: “Why don’t you guess whether Chairman Lu asked you out because my surname is Jiang or Cen?”
Cao Xun pressed his tongue lightly against his molars and angled his gaze at Lu Huaiyan.
The man opposite had his elbow resting on the sofa arm, long fingers hanging lazily. His expression was always cool and distant, as if none of this had anything to do with him and he wasn’t that interested.
But he didn’t refute what Jiang Se said.
Cao Xun couldn’t quite figure out what he meant.
Before coming, Cao Xun had looked into Jiang Se, knew the Cen family had long showed no interest in her, and also knew the Fu family had dissolved her engagement with Fu Yun ages ago.
A couple days ago, during negotiations between the Cao and Han families about the studio city project, Lu Huaiyan represented the Han family, refusing to budge at all at the negotiation table.
Cao Xun was used to giving orders. The authority over developing the studio city was something he had to have; there was no way he’d share it with Han Xiao, that waste.
He hadn’t signed the contract and originally thought that if today Lu Huaiyan insisted on taking Jiang Se’s side, he could use the matter of Cao Liang to push Lu Huaiyan into loosening up on the contract.
Cao Xun was just giving it a try, honestly.
To tell the truth, he hadn’t taken the fallen fake heiress Jiang Se seriously at all. Everything depended on Lu Huaiyan.
“If Ah Liang offended you, I’ll have him apologize to you. But your little brother broke one of his hands, this can’t just be brushed over.” He licked the corner of his lips, crossing his legs, changing posture, still in that lazy drawl, “Kids’ matters should be settled by kids. If you insist on dragging it onto the adults’ table, then isn’t it—”
Cao Xun looked at Lu Huaiyan, smiling: “Using our adults’ way to handle it?”
As his words fell, the room quieted for a moment.
Very quickly, Lu Huaiyan let out a soft laugh. “How does Chairman Cao want to handle it?”
Cao Xun lifted his lips in a smile: “The film city project is a cooperation between the Cao family and the Han family, yet the Lu family insists on—”
Before he finished speaking, a drifting, fairy-like Buddhist chant suddenly sounded.
The sound came from the phone beside Cao Xun. This ringtone really didn’t match his whole roguish aura, as if it were a special ringtone set for someone.
Jiang Se followed the sound and looked over, only to see a big character “Sugar” floating on the screen.
Cao Xun was clearly also surprised by this call. When the Buddhist chant rang, a flash of astonishment passed across his face.
With almost no hesitation, he left a “wait a sec,” leaned over to grab the phone, pressed accept, and stood up to walk toward the door.
Before the door fully closed, Jiang Se only heard him lazily say: “What is it?”
She watched the man’s back disappear out the door, thoughtful.
Outside the room.
Cao Xun walked to the end of the hallway, leaned against a half-open window, and asked, “Weren’t you the one who told me not to appear in front of you again in this lifetime? So now you come looking for me, what do you call that?”
No one knew what the person on the other end said. Cao Xun let out a low laugh: “Alright, give the phone to the manager.”
Moments later, someone else was clearly on the line. The smile on his face faded, and he coldly ordered, “Who told you people to stop her? Let her come up. Send her to my room.”
After hanging up, Cao Xun stared at the phone screen for two seconds, then stepped back toward the private room.
When the door pushed open, he couldn’t even be bothered to step inside. Leaning on the doorframe, he smiled and said to Lu Huaiyan, “Sorry.”
“Chairman Lu, something urgent has come up on my end and I have to head back. I’ll have to invite you two out another day. Next time we meet, I’ll punish myself with three cups first to apologize.”
Since the words had reached this point, Lu Huaiyan knew there was no need to keep him. He lightly nodded. “No need for the apology. Next time, I’ll be the host. However, regarding Chairman Cao’s younger brother—”
“Don’t worry. Since we adults didn’t settle this, I won’t let Ah Liang cause trouble. If he dares cause trouble,” Cao Xun glanced at Jiang Se, gave a short laugh, “I’ll break his hand myself.”
—
After Cao Xun left, Jiang Se looked toward Lu Huaiyan. “I’ll have to trouble Chairman Lu to ask the front desk, did someone come looking for Cao Xun just now?”
Lu Huaiyan raised a brow at her.
That call truly came strangely. He already planned to have someone check on it.
For someone to make Cao Xun ditch at such a crucial moment, whoever it was had some weight.
Lu Huaiyan stood and dialed a number, but his gaze kept falling on Jiang Se.
The girl’s expression was extremely cold, her eyes cold, but sitting on the sofa her posture was calm and elegant.
“Check who came looking for Cao Xun just now.”
Faint, indistinct voices came through the phone immediately. Lu Huaiyan didn’t move his gaze, listening with a faint expression. After a moment, he let out an “mm” and hung up.
Jiang Se lifted her eyes and looked over.
Lu Huaiyan said, “Someone did come looking for Cao Xun. Manager Yao personally brought her to his room.”
Jiang Se: “A woman?”
Lu Huaiyan nodded: “The woman was wearing a mask, her face wasn’t seen clearly.”
Jiang Se took out her phone and dialed Jiang Tang’s number. After a long string of “du-du” tones, the call switched to an automated voice.
She didn’t dial again. Setting down her phone, she looked at Lu Huaiyan and asked, “May I borrow Chairman Lu’s room card?”
While the two were speaking, Cao Xun had already returned to the 27th floor.
A slender figure stood outside the door. The black sweater dress outlined a waist thin enough to hold with one hand; her frail shoulders and straight back showed she had clearly trained in dance for years.
Hearing his movement, Jiang Tang turned her head.
With the baseball cap on her head and mask on her face, Cao Xun couldn’t see her features.
He toyed with the room card in his hand, his gaze pausing for a moment on her shimmering almond eyes. He smiled. “Talk out here, or go inside?”
Jiang Tang said lightly: “Inside.”
Cao Xun used the card to open the door. His black leather shoe pressed against the bottom of the door, and he tilted his head slightly toward the room, signaling her to enter.
After she entered, he let go of the door, leaning his back against it, looking at her with a half-smile. “Came for your little brother?”
This was a premium executive suite. After entering was the living room; beyond the sliding door at the inner side was the bedroom.
The living room was large. The huge floor-to-ceiling windows faced Tongcheng’s financial district. Outside, neon flickered, and colorful LED billboards lit up half the night sky.
Jiang Tang removed her mask and met Cao Xun’s eyes in the window reflection.
“Heard Little Ye broke your little brother’s hand?”
In the reflection, Cao Xun nodded as if solemnly: “Your little brother’s quite heavy-handed. It took Cao Liang nearly three months to heal his hand.”
Jiang Tang turned to look at him, walking toward the bar beside the sliding door, saying, “Then I really must apologize.”
On the bar sat a half-finished bottle of champagne, and beside it, a metal ice pick used for breaking ice.
Cao Xun’s gaze followed her, watching her reach toward the bar with an almost-smile.
“Jiang Tang, no matter what, Cao Liang is my brother. You think you can settle this with a drink? Times are different. Between you and me, it’s no longer the kind of relationship where you drink a cup and I let everything go.”
“Relax, no drinking.” Jiang Tang smiled faintly. She didn’t touch the bottle. Instead, with her left palm facing down, she pressed lightly onto the marble counter. “Little Ye only broke Cao Liang’s hand because of me. So this hand should be paid back by me, the culprit.”
The two beams of light from the bar lamps cast a faint glow over her slender, pale hand.
Jiang Tang’s voice was the same as before: gentle, airy, like a pleasant spring stream flowing deep in the forest.
As she spoke, she had already reached out with her right hand, grabbed the metal ice pick, and in front of Cao Xun, stabbed toward her own left hand with force.
Her gaze remained locked on his, and the gentle curve of her lips never wavered.
But her hand movement had no hesitation at all, utterly ruthless.
The moment she reached for the ice pick, Cao Xun’s expression had already changed.
He rushed forward in panic. When the ice pick was only a hair’s breadth from Jiang Tang’s hand, he grabbed the handle tightly, his palm split open by the sharp tip.
Blood gathered into a tiny clump, sliding down Jiang Tang’s left finger bones onto the cold tabletop.
Cao Xun’s face was iron-blue: “Jiang Tang, are you crazy?”
Jiang Tang lowered her eyes to look at Cao Xun’s continuously bleeding palm, and said softly, “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth; hasn’t this always been the Cao family’s way of doing things?”
She slowly lifted her eyes: “So, me compensating Cao Liang with a hand, isn’t that exactly what you want?”
Maybe because she came in a hurry, she hadn’t put on makeup. Her delicate brows and eyes were bare, pale, tired.
The two bruised shadows under her eyes were extremely noticeable.
Cao Xun didn’t let go, or rather, didn’t dare to let go.
His Adam’s apple moved. He gritted his teeth and said, “No one wants you to compensate with a hand.”
“Not compensate with a hand?” Jiang Tang gave an ambiguous smile, her pure face gaining a trace of seduction because of that smile.
“Cao Liang told Little Ye that as long as he wanted, he could get his brother to send me to his bed for him to play with.” Jiang Tang released the ice pick in her hand, leaned to Cao Xun’s ear, breath fragrant as orchids: “If not a hand, then how many nights does Chairman Cao require me to sleep with your little brother?”
—
In the elevator.
The floor numbers kept jumping.
Jiang Se stared at the display, still holding Lu Huaiyan’s room card in her hand.
Lu Huaiyan rested one hand against the elevator rail, his gaze sweeping over her side profile. He looked at the floor display with her and asked, unhurried, “If that person were your older sister, what are you planning to do?”
Jiang Se’s eyes didn’t move, she only lifted her lips slightly: “Take her home. Once we enter Cao Xun’s room, no need to trouble Chairman Lu to act, I will take her away myself.”
She knew Cao Xun acted like a madman.
But so what, no one ever said this world could only have one madman.
Hearing this, Lu Huaiyan shifted his faint gaze back to her face.
“Like them a lot?”
By “them,” Lu Huaiyan meant the Jiang family.
Jiang Se slowly blinked once, countless images flashing quickly in her mind.
Jiang Chuan repeatedly studying recipes to serve her that plate of plum ribs, Yu Shiying lifting the wine jar to feed her the first sip of liquor, Jiang Ye’s long back standing in front of her with a scowl, and Jiang Tang patting her shoulder with a smile, calling her “Sese.”
Like?
Probably liked them.
But even more, she didn’t want to owe.
Human debts are always hardest to repay; she was more used to being abandoned and being disappointed.
Jiang Se tugged at the corner of her lips, replying indifferently, “They’re blood relatives after all, aren’t they.”
Her light, airy voice was pressed with a faint, hard-to-detect irritation.
Lu Huaiyan caught that hint of irritation.
When the elevator reached the 27th floor, Jiang Se quickly stepped out. She had just turned into a side corridor when she abruptly stopped.
Jiang Tang was walking out from the quiet long hallway. Seeing the people coming out of the elevator, she clearly froze for a moment.
“Sese?”
Jiang Se didn’t answer, lowering her eyes to stare at the bloodstained left hand of Jiang Tang. She quickly raised her eyes again, her gaze darker and deeper than ever.
“Cao Xun laid hands on you?”
“What are you thinking? This isn’t my blood, I rushed out, so I didn’t have time to wash it off.” Jiang Tang’s voice was still gentle as water. Walking toward her, she raised the phone in her hand, “I was just about to return your call, didn’t expect you to suddenly show up here.”
If it wasn’t Jiang Tang’s blood, then it was Cao Xun’s.
Very good.
Jiang Se’s ice-cold face eased slightly, “You don’t need to meet that kind of person again. I can handle Little Ye’s matter.”
This was the first time Jiang Tang had seen Jiang Se look like this. She found it curious for a moment, even a little funny.
After picking her up at the airport that last time, she flew back to Hengdian the next day to film. She’d been so busy then that she could only manage to video call Jiang Se once every few days.
At first, they weren’t familiar, mostly Jiang Tang talking and Jiang Se listening. Later, after more calls, they gradually became comfortable, and the topics increased.
About Tongcheng, about “Wangchuan,” occasionally about Jiang Chuan and Yu Shiying.
In Jiang Tang’s memory, Jiang Se had always been smiling.
Seeing her like this, pink face frosted over, cursing, was the first time in her life.
“The issue between Little Ye and Cao Liang is already settled. I promise Cao Liang won’t trouble Little Ye again. That should put you at ease, right?”
As Jiang Tang spoke, she slipped her phone back into her pocket, then used her clean hand to pinch Jiang Se’s soft earlobe, saying lightly, “Why are you and Little Ye so stubborn? I’m the eldest sister, shouldn’t I be the one protecting you? Next time something happens, don’t hide it from me.”
Jiang Se’s body stiffened slightly, relaxing only after a few seconds.
Jiang Tang’s strength was very light; it didn’t hurt. She only felt that Jiang Tang’s hand was especially cold.
“Alright, let’s go back.” Jiang Tang glanced at Lu Huaiyan, who hadn’t spoken a word yet had a presence hard to ignore. She hesitated, “Or do you want to chat with your friend a bit longer?”
It was only then Jiang Se seemed to remember she was still holding his room card. She lifted her eyes toward Lu Huaiyan.
Just in time to meet his gaze resting on her face.
She belatedly realized he had been looking at her for quite a while.
The man’s narrow eyes were as deep as always.
His gaze was like a calm sea at night, surface smooth, yet hiding turbulent waves underneath.
Hard to describe what kind of look it was.
Clearly not offensive, yet it made Jiang Se instinctively wary.
Jiang Se lowered her eyes a little, meeting his gaze.
Lu Huaiyan then looked away in the next second, jerking his chin toward the elevator: “I’ll take you downstairs.”
His voice sounded cool and distant, the same as usual.
The three of them took the elevator back to the first floor. While Jiang Tang went to wash her hands, Jiang Se handed the room card back to Lu Huaiyan.
“Thank you for your help tonight, Chairman Lu.”
Lu Huaiyan took the card, lowering his eyes to look at her: “The transaction ends here?”
Ends?
Dream on.
He hadn’t done anything yet and still wanted to take a recording from her for free.
Jiang Se tugged at her lips: “What you mentioned that day, please send me a copy, Chairman Lu.”
Lu Huaiyan didn’t seem surprised at all. He even laughed lightly: “I thought the matter with Cao Liang was already resolved.”
“Even if it’s ended, so what? I still want to give the person who’s not reconciled a chance to regret.”
“Not reconciled person?”
“The victim of that traffic accident has already woken up, and her hand will never be able to hold a scalpel again.” Jiang Se said calmly, “For someone whose dream was destroyed, I think she has the right to have the culprit receive punishment. Of course, if she has no objections to her family’s arrangement, she can treat this video as trash and delete it.”
When the incident happened, the victim’s older brother witnessed everything beside her, yet he still approved of the Cao family finding someone to take the blame, even signing a letter of understanding.
Jiang Se only wanted to give that girl a chance to choose.
From the corner of her eye, she saw Jiang Tang coming out of the washroom. She raised her hand to signal, and faintly left a sentence, “I’ll send my email to you later, I will have to trouble Chairman Lu” then walked toward Jiang Tang.
The two sisters left the hotel lobby together and walked to a brand-new mini electric car.
Who knows what Jiang Tang said.
Through the spotless, polished-clear glass, Lu Huaiyan saw Jiang Se’s lips bend, the arc smaller than usual, you could tell she was truly smiling.
Lu Huaiyan looked toward that mini electric car, dazzlingly purple.
Just a cheap car, and it could make her this happy?
The man watched for a moment, then lowered his eyes and turned to walk toward the elevators.
He didn’t go back to the top floor, but to the 27th. When he stepped out of the elevator, he called Han Jun.
“Uncle, for the Tongcheng project, our Lu Group is joining.”
