“So you want me to accompany you to buy a gift?” Xiao got into the car and fastened his seatbelt.
Liang Mu didn’t bring a driver and sat in the driver’s seat himself, having just inserted the key into the ignition. Hearing this, he asked in return, “Wasn’t it you who sent me a message saying you had to report wherever you were going?”
Xiao She smiled, “I didn’t expect you to be so obedient.”
Xiao’s eyes were filled with laughter, and he was clearly in a genuinely good mood. Liang Mu withdrew his gaze and placed his hand on the gear shift lever to start the car, his tone far from friendly: “You know why.”
Xiao didn’t respond. He looked with great interest at Liang Mu driving. Because he had just come out of the company, Liang Mu was still wearing a tailored suit, which set off his lean and slender waist, making him extremely attractive.
“Don’t look at me like that.” Liang Mu could feel his blatant gaze and got distracted while driving: “Unless you want to be on the news tomorrow because of a car crash.”
Xiao She didn’t mind and merely smiled slightly.
Eventually, the two arrived at the shopping mall, and Liang Mu parked the car. Even though Xiao She was the one who demanded that Liang Mu keep an eye on him wherever he went, as soon as they reached the underground parking lot, Xiao She wandered off to who knows where. Liang Mu endured it and dragged him back several times, but in the end, he decided to enjoy some peace and simply let him get lost.
He called his assistant to keep an eye on him, went to the top floor himself to pick out a gift, and retrieved a custom invitation card. When he returned, he found that both the assistant and Xiao She were nowhere to be seen.
Liang Mu: ….
Rewinding to twenty minutes ago, after Xiao She walked around aimlessly, he turned around and found himself staring blankly at the assistant behind him.
Xiao She: “Hi?”
The assistant had followed Xiao She through every women’s clothing store and cosmetics counter on the upper floors, and had even watched him wash his hands at the public restroom sink for ten whole minutes: “…Hello, Mr. Xiao.”
Xiao gestured, “I can see your desire for the mall. You can go shop on your own; I won’t tell on you.”
The assistant looked at the new floor, which was half women’s area and half infant and toddler area: “Sir, I do not have such a desire.”
Xiao She was a bit disappointed, and his tone grew more serious: “You can have it.”
Assistant: “I don’t…”
He suddenly met Xiao She’s eyes. The look in the man’s eyes wasn’t as easygoing as the playful banter in his speech; instead, it carried a sense of pressure. The assistant swallowed the second half of his sentence in response: “I can have it.”
“Go on then.” Xiao She’s tone became cheerful again, and he casually pointed in a direction: “I’ll wait for you over there in a bit.”
“…Mm.” The assistant looked at the women’s clothing area Xiao She was eager to enter, and then looked at the infant and toddler product area he was pointing to. He gritted his teeth and nodded: “I’ll wait over there… I’ll go there after I finish shopping.”
“Buy a few things,” Xiao She guided persuasively. “You’ll find the joy in it.”
“…Alright.” The assistant looked with a complex expression at the area Xiao She was about to enter: “Enjoy yourself, sir.”
Having gotten rid of this assistant who knew how to talk reasonably, Xiao She’s facial expression was far from relaxed. He rubbed his aching forehead and asked the little ball next to him, which was invisible to others: “Are you done checking?”
The little ball, which had informed Xiao She upon entering the mall that there was a potential trigger mission, flew quickly around the shop and then shook its body: “No target mission.”
Xiao She was very puzzled: “Why can you sense the entire building, but can’t find the exact location?”
The little ball replied in a tone tinged with embarrassment: “I’m a bit directionally challenged.”
“…” Xiao She cursed in his head and grabbed the little ball back into his arms in one swoop. In the eyes of others, this action looked as if he was snatching air and stuffing it into his chest. Not far away, two girls were watching this scene while whispering to each other.
“Is he out of his mind, Yingying?” A girl wearing a white dress had tears sparkling in her eyes: “He looks so pitiable.”
Hearing her friend say this, Liang Yingying turned her head around. The moment she saw who it was, she pulled her friend back: “No!”
Why was that nuisance Xiao She here?!
She screamed in her heart and quickly reached out to cover her friend’s eyes, saying earnestly, “Pengyu, he’s not a good person. Don’t go around pitying just anyone.”
Chen Pengyu was the youngest child in her family. She had been kind-hearted since childhood and had always been well protected by her family. The worst person she had ever seen was merely someone who didn’t turn off the tap after using the restroom or someone who littered when she snuck out with Liang Yingying.
Hearing this, she said, “Mm! Then he really is a bit bad!”
Right after saying that, she saw Xiao She frowning as he covered a kicked-over boba cup with a tissue, picked it up, and put it into the nearby trash can.
Her eyes instantly became even moister, and she turned her head to look at Liang Yingying: “Is he really a bad person? Yingying.”
Liang Yingying couldn’t explain clearly, so she could only say, “Aiya! Definitely! He clings so relentlessly to my second brother, and my whole family hates him! You know how good my second brother is, right? Xiao, she is someone even he dislikes.”
As she spoke, her eyes darted everywhere, trying to find something to distract Chen Pengyu’s attention. To her surprise, she spotted the assistant in the shop across from them. Liang Yingying often visited Liang Mu, so she naturally recognized the subordinate by his side. She immediately waved her hand excitedly: “Brother Feng!”
Assistant Feng was originally just strolling into the shop casually. However, before long, he curiously picked up a concave mirror that looked like a neck pillow. The sales representative next to him immediately followed up and said, “Hello, sir, this is our newly released vehicle observation mirror. It can be used not only for children, but also for the elderly at home.”
Assistant Feng: “For the elderly too?”
“Yes, you can directly observe the situation in the back seat, which is very useful for taking care of elderly family members with weaker constitutions during long drives.”
“Are there other models?” Assistant Feng was somewhat intrigued: “My car model is XE-150.”
“Of course! Your car model is particularly suitable for family trips. Our product has already been purchased by many users with similar models. You can also prepare in advance for the future.”
Assistant Feng unknowingly began to shop around, and his shopping basket piled higher and higher. Just as he was immersed in shopping, he suddenly heard a familiar voice beside his ear. Looking over, he said in surprise, “Little Miss?”
Liang Yingying skipped cheerfully over to his side, her eyes sweeping over the shopping basket in his hands: “Brother Feng, do you have a child?”
Assistant Feng liked this Little Miss very much. Hearing her question, he replied happily, “I don’t even have a partner yet.”
“Then why are you buying these?”
Assistant Feng’s gaze shifted to his brimming shopping basket, and the heartfelt smile on his face suddenly froze: “Ah, this…”
“This is merely the General Manager’s order.”
But none of her brothers had children.
Liang Yingying felt puzzled for a moment, but she quickly tossed the doubt to the back of her mind. While trying to pull Chen Pengyu beside her, she said, “It’s perfect that Assistant Feng is here. Let him take us to find Second Brother, and let Second Brother tell you himself what kind of person Xiao She is.”
The hand Liang Yingying reached out grabbed nothing but thin air. She looked in horror at the empty spot beside her: “Pengyu?!”
Chen Pengyu originally intended to wait in place for Liang Yingying to finish greeting her big brother’s assistant. However, seeing Xiao She walk into the next shop with a gloomy expression, she couldn’t help but follow him.
Chen Pengyu hid behind the clothes, watching Xiao She enter one shop after another without doing anything. He would just stare at those women’s clothes with a melancholy expression for a while, let out a deep sigh, and then wrap himself tightly around the air before walking out.
The more Chen Pengyu watched, the more touched she became: Does he want to try them on deep inside his heart? Is he embarrassed because it’s women’s clothing?
Only when Xiao She left the last women’s clothing store did she step out from behind the clothes and pat her empty pockets.
Oh, Yingying was afraid she would get pickpocketed, so she had taken all her cards away. Chen Pengyu intended to ask Liang Yingying for her cards back later and buy a few pieces as gifts for Xiao She.
People must have dreams, after all, and she was going to help Xiao She realize his dream!
She patted her pockets and walked out the door, only to be grabbed by the hand by a woman.
The woman shrieked loudly, “What are you doing? Are you trying to steal things even in a place like this?!”
Chen Pengyu was startled by her, deeply afraid of drawing back Xiao She, who had just stepped out of the shop. While making a “shh” gesture toward the woman, she lowered her voice and explained, “I didn’t come here to steal things.”
The woman ignored her completely. While holding onto her hand, she yelled at the shop assistants who rushed over: “Look, look! I’ve said so many times that you have a thief here, and now that she’s caught red-handed, are you going to admit it or not?”
The husband standing to the side hesitated to speak, his expression showing indecision. The shop assistant looked at them with embarrassment: “This might be a mistake…”
“What mistake? Are you in cahoots with this thief?!” The woman’s saliva flew everywhere. Her hand remained tightly gripping Chen Pengyu’s arm, her nail art digging deeply into the tender flesh of her arm: “If you’re not in cahoots, call your store manager out! What nerve! After being told so many times, you still didn’t believe it. Now that a thief is caught red-handed, you still want to gloss over it? No way!”
The young girl had delicate skin, and in no time at all, her arm was grabbed until it was red, painful, and burning. Tears welled up in Chen Pengyu’s eyes, nearly overflowing. She looked up at the crowd aggrievedly and defended herself: “I didn’t! I was just following someone…”
She suddenly remembered her family saying that following someone without permission was also very rude behavior, so she fell silent all at once.
“Where is that person then!” Seeing her conflicted look, the woman became even more arrogant in her momentum: “There’s no one else in this shop besides us. You followed someone and lost them, so you wanted to steal, right? Consider that person lucky for not being entangled by a seductive slut like you.”
Chen Pengyu had been pampered since childhood, with bright eyes and clear teeth. Her current aggrieved look was delicate and pitiable enough to draw plenty of sympathy. In the woman’s eyes, however, it was no different from seeing a whore pouncing over the moment her husband made a fortune.
The middle-aged man softened his heart slightly and couldn’t help speaking up: “The young girl didn’t really do anything…”
“Oho, so she knows how to seduce men too!” The woman cursed loudly. She freed one hand and kept poking her husband’s chest with her finger: “You soft-hearted upstart, getting soft-hearted the moment you see a whore like this, right? She’s just a ruined piece of trash who knows how many times she’s been fucked, and yet you treat her like a treasure…”
The middle-aged man immediately shrank back: “Aiya, this… what are you talking about?”
The woman sneered. With one hand dragging Chen Pengyu’s wrist, her other hand was about to feel around the young girl’s exquisite body: “I’m going to search and see what this whore stole from others… Ah!”
As the woman spoke, she suddenly let out a scream. Hearing the sound, Chen Pengyu raised her tear-filled eyes. In her field of vision, the woman’s outstretched hand was pushed away, and subsequently, the hand that was tightly pinching her own arm was also grabbed.
Those slender fingers merely exerted a little force, their neat wrist bones looking exceptionally clean under the slightly taut skin, and the short, thick hand that had been pinching her flesh released its grip.
Chen Pengyu heard a gentle male voice: “My apologies, this is my younger sister. Is there some kind of misunderstanding?”