The late-spring night wind seeped through Song Shuangxu’s skin with its chill, and she shivered, only then remembering that she’d come out without her coat.
The liveliness and warmth of the crowd had been left behind in the brightly lit house. The parking lot was sparsely dotted with lights.
She didn’t want to go back inside. After looking around, she saw that He Tingzhou’s all-black Koenigsegg was still there, but he wasn’t in it.
She waited beneath a tree. The sky grew emptier as the night wore on, its deep, inky darkness shutting off the laughter from the villa’s front courtyard as though behind a transparent barrier.
Song Shuangxu heard footsteps and spotted a tall, straight-backed figure in the distance, his long legs stepping through the night as he strolled over.
He Tingzhou reached the car and pressed his key fob. A figure emerged from beneath the tree’s shadow.
“Brother Tingzhou.”
He Tingzhou took half a step back and swore.
With one hand braced on the roof of the car, he steadied his nerves after being startled in the pitch-black of the night.
His keen, inscrutable eyes fixed on the person opposite him. She was tiny, yet somehow managed to give him quite a fright.
“What are you doing, hiding here to mug me?”
I’m five foot five, and he’s six foot two. Do I look crazy enough to mug him?
Song Shuangxu had been waiting long enough to get cold, so she cut straight to the point. “The blueberry mousse you ate earlier was for my brother.”
To keep He Tingzhou from denying it, she’d even taken a photo as proof.
He Tingzhou lowered his eyes and glanced at her phone screen. You could have examined that properly proportioned face with a magnifying glass and still not found a trace of embarrassment.
“What, you tried to poison your brother, and I ate it by mistake?”
Song Shuangxu took her phone back, exasperated. “Why would I poison my brother?”
He Tingzhou leaned against the car door, utterly nonchalant. “Love unrequited, hatred born of love?”
Song Shuangxu’s fingers instinctively tightened around the fabric of her dress.
A cold wind swept through her spine, freezing the blood in her veins. When she first opened her mouth, no sound came out.
Who could be more malicious than He Tingzhou? Other people might gossip behind your back; he stabbed you to your face.
The wind brushed her face, arms, and calves, chilling her to the bone everywhere it touched. Song Shuangxu fought the urge to run away from him then and there, keeping her expression composed.
“I don’t mean anything by it. You ate the cake, so that’s that. I just hope you’ll at least reconsider partnering with Feixue.”
She didn’t dare demand too much—not because she didn’t want to, but because it was only a cake. It wasn’t worth that much.
But it was the birthday cake she’d made for Shen Yu. He Tingzhou had at least eaten it, so asking him to do her a favor wasn’t unreasonable, was it?
He Tingzhou went still, not moving a muscle.
If the shadows of the trees behind him weren’t swaying, he might have looked like a movie image frozen by a bad internet connection.
Song Shuangxu didn’t understand what was wrong with him. After he’d stood frozen for three seconds, she was about to speak.
He Tingzhou moved, perfectly serious. “I’ve considered it. No.”
“……”
If exasperation had a shape, it would have been the eye roll Song Shuangxu could barely suppress at that moment.
The blood that had just frozen in her veins started flowing again, this time out of sheer anger.
“Could you at least give it some serious thought?”
He Tingzhou showed no sign of feeling obliged just because he’d eaten her cake. “Three seconds isn’t serious enough for you, Little Princess? You’re really hard to deal with.”
He simply didn’t want to give her a chance—not even the slightest one.
Song Shuangxu was a little frustrated. He’d eaten the cake she’d made for Shen Yu, and she couldn’t exactly make him spit it back up.
She was afraid He Tingzhou might actually do it. It would be disgusting.
“Forget it.” She shouldn’t have gotten her hopes up about him.
“That’s it? You’re giving up?” He Tingzhou said.
Song Shuangxu didn’t understand what he meant.
Hands in his pockets, he leaned lazily against the car door. “My stomach’s a little delicate. I don’t feel well after eating your cake, so I’ll need to get it checked out tomorrow. If it damaged my stomach, remember, you’re responsible.”
“What…?” Song Shuangxu’s mind couldn’t keep up with his completely unexpected turn of events.
She quickly ran through the ingredients she’d used for the cake. She’d bought everything fresh that day. There shouldn’t have been anything wrong with it…
“Out of consideration for your brother, I won’t hold it against you.” He Tingzhou magnanimously added, “Remember to tell your brother he owes me a favor.”
A little farther away, a man and woman came out of the villa laughing and got into their car. Before long, it drove out of the parking lot.
A gust of wind lifted the hem of Song Shuangxu’s dress.
She hadn’t managed to extort anything from him.
Instead, he’d extorted something from her.
She’d only wanted to keep Shen Yu from owing him a favor. She hadn’t expected that after all that, she’d not only failed to achieve her goal, but had lost the cake and ended up owing He Tingzhou something on top of it.
Song Shuangxu knew she’d been played. She was so frustrated, but there was no one she could complain to, so she had to swallow it.
She was truly in a bad mood today. It felt as though a sponge swollen with some kind of liquid had lodged in her heart, and along with all the emotions she’d been bottling up, it began pressing against her tear ducts all at once.
Shu Yang’s wasted body, Chen Peiran’s smugness, a home where she wasn’t welcome, and the actress in Shen Yu’s arms…
Song Shuangxu felt her eyes grow hot as moisture quickly blurred her vision.
She lowered her eyes. “If you don’t want to help, then forget it. I’m sorry for taking up your time.”
She turned and hurried away as soon as she finished speaking.
As she turned, He Tingzhou caught a glint of moisture in her eyes.
She was quite thin, but not bony—slender in a soft, delicate way. Her black dress clung to the curves of her body, and from behind she looked like a thin little wisp.
The wind was strong that night, and she was walking so quickly she looked as if it might blow her away.
Leaning against the car, He Tingzhou spent a few seconds reflecting on himself. Had he been too hard on her?
*
“President He is really that kind of person?” Shu Yang was shocked.
She’d met He Tingzhou once, at a drone-industry expo.
That day’s conference had brought together experts and scholars from around the world, industry leaders, and outstanding entrepreneurs. Shu Yang had finally managed to get a spot. As she talked with a potential investor about developing liquid-hydrogen drones, He Tingzhou happened to overhear them. That was how Feixue first came to Yundun Group’s attention.
However, the person who gave her a business card that day, and the one who contacted her afterward, was a mid-level manager in charge of Yundun’s drone division.
She only remembered looking over at He Tingzhou from a distance that day, surrounded by the conference chair, members of the Academy of Engineering, and other big names in the industry.
He’d worn a tailored suit, his figure tall and straight, standing out from the crowd like a crane among chickens. As a group of people fawned over and praised him, his handsome face remained completely expressionless.
So cold and distinguished.
Although Song Shuangxu had told Shen Yu there was no need to help, he had still contacted the hospital and arranged a VIP room for Shu Yang.
The side effects of Shu Yang’s chemotherapy were severe. The doctor gave her an antiemetic, which eased them a little. Her face was grayish, and she looked utterly exhausted.
Shu Yang’s impression of He Tingzhou had been that he was devastatingly handsome and utterly unapproachable. She hadn’t expected him to be such a… bastard in private.
“If he won’t help, then he won’t help. He’s friends with your brother, at least. How can he bully you like that?”
“I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up in the first place. He’s my brother’s friend, but that doesn’t mean he has to do me any favors.”
Song Shuangxu had now come to terms with reality—and with her own naivety. Her brows knit with worry. “Maybe I really will have to ask my brother.”
“Don’t. Don’t trouble your brother.” Shu Yang said, “He Tingzhou is so difficult to deal with. If he’d wanted to do your brother this favor, he would’ve agreed already—you wouldn’t have had to beg him like this. In the adult world, if he hasn’t given you an answer, his meaning is already clear. Why insist on forcing a melon to ripen?”