Mu Linjiang’s expression was calm as he listened quietly.
“How old are you this year?”
Du Youling answered immediately, “Twenty-four!”
He gave a slight nod and asked again, “Do you know how old I am?”
“Thirty-four!”
“A twenty-four-year-old girl comes before a thirty-four-year-old man and proposes marriage—do you think that’s appropriate?”
“Why wouldn’t—”
“Someone who has never had any contact with me dares to say in front of me that she wants to get a marriage certificate. What makes you think I would accept such a sudden proposal?”
“I—”
Mu Linjiang lifted his eyelids slightly. “In your understanding, is marriage just a game of make-believe? Or do you think I, Mu Linjiang, am the kind of man who would be so dazzled by a young girl throwing herself at him that he’d nod his head without a second thought?”
Du Youling was bombarded by this series of rhetorical questions without even a chance to defend herself.
She looked at Mu Linjiang’s utterly unruffled face and couldn’t help grumbling inwardly.
This thirty-four-year-old old man—how was his sense of caution even tighter than someone working on classified research? He wouldn’t even leave a crack for her to slip through!
“Of course I didn’t think that! I just figured, since the Mu and Du families are going to be joined by marriage anyway, why let the water flow to someone else’s fields? Besides, I’m this good-looking—if you married me and got to look at me every day, wouldn’t that add years to your life!”
The man withdrew his gaze. “I won’t agree. Go back.”
He left Du Youling absolutely no room to haggle.
“I’m not going back!” Du Youling slammed her hand on the table, done playing nice.
“Mu Linjiang! You won’t even give it a single thought before shutting me out—do you know you’re wasting a treasure heaven’s gift!”
“I can bring a brand-new shock to your dull, lifeless thirty-four-year-old ancient life! I’ve already offered terms more humiliating than a treaty of surrender, and you still want to chase me away? Did you hit thirty and suddenly develop some feudal, conservative defense mechanism in both body and mind?”
Mu Linjiang listened to her utterly unrestrained nonsense. “Feudal and conservative?”
“Yeah! Otherwise why won’t you even consider it? What about me isn’t good enough for you? Or is it that at twenty-four I’m too old, not fresh enough?”
Amidst the curling wisps of tea fragrance, Mu Linjiang spoke. “Second Miss Du, I think what you need to understand now is that marriage is not a tool for you to compete in your respective races, nor is it a bargaining chip for you to demand a higher generational standing on a whim.”
Du Youling was startled and blurted out, “How do you know I came to—” demand a higher generational standing.
Mid-sentence, she snapped her mouth shut, nearly biting her own tongue.
“What you said today, I can take as the careless joke of a junior and not hold it against you—but only this once.”
With that, he leisurely straightened his sleeves, rose with an air of noble grace, and said in a flat tone, “The rain outside has lightened. Secretary Chen is at the door. Go back. Don’t gamble with your own future over a fit of pique.”
As he finished speaking, the door opened and Secretary Chen walked in respectfully, giving a slight bow. “Second Miss Du, please.”
Du Youling was so angry she could’ve blown her beard and glared her eyes out—chasing her away, again he was chasing her away!
She slumped back in her chair, crossed her arms, and propped one leg over the other, striking a pose that declared, “Your grand lady isn’t budging today.”
She even raised her chin defiantly at Secretary Chen. “Go on then, carry me out if you can.”
Secretary Chen glanced at Mu Linjiang, saw his expression remain utterly unruffled, and then called out into the air.
The next second, the bodyguard who had been chasing her relentlessly twenty minutes ago and had cost her a broken heel appeared at the door.
Secretary Chen adjusted his glasses. “Second Miss Du doesn’t want to walk. You two will have to put in the effort.”
“Yes!”
Without a moment’s hesitation, the two bodyguards strode toward Du Youling.
Du Youling’s eyes went wide. “What are you doing? Don’t come any closer! Take one more step and I’m really calling the police!”
The two men flanked her left and right, bent down in perfect sync, and their thick, iron-like arms directly and steadily caught hold of the base of the chair.
Du Youling felt the world spin before her eyes—her entire person, along with the old master’s chair beneath her, was actually being lifted clean off the ground by the two bodyguards!
She was still maintaining her arrogant pose, and her gaze collided with Mu Linjiang’s mid-air.
Well, there it was—she really had become a grand lady out on a sedan tour.
“Mu Linjiang! You’re going too far!”
Du Youling immediately abandoned her arrogant demeanor, gripping the armrests with both hands to keep herself from falling.
The bodyguards took long, steady strides, carrying her and the chair out of the private room without a word.
As they passed Secretary Chen, he gave her a slight nod and a small smile. “Second Miss Du, do be careful on the way.”
“Careful my ass!”
The whole way out, Du Youling felt like she was being publicly executed.
Although there was no one else in the tea house besides the attendants standing with heads bowed and hands lowered, Du Youling still felt like the whole world was laughing at her.
She had never lost to anyone in any arena her entire life—except Du Ningyang!—and today, she had been carried out, chair and all, by two men!
Song Shan, who was waiting outside the teahouse for Du Youling, was in the car scrolling through her phone and eating a sandwich when she caught a glimpse of movement at the entrance out of the corner of her eye. She looked up.
One look, and she nearly choked to death.
“Cough—cough, cough, cough!”
She slapped her chest frantically while fumbling for a bottle of mineral water from the car fridge, gulping down half of it before she finally managed to swallow the sandwich that had nearly done her in.
“Oh my god…”
Song Shan rolled down the window and leaned half her body out.
She rubbed her eyes, then rubbed them again, staring at the steps of the teahouse.
There, two bodyguards in black were effortlessly carrying down a traditional armchair.
And the person sitting in that chair—wasn’t that her best friend since childhood, Du Youling?!
If it weren’t for the fact that Du Youling’s face was black as thunder, Song Shan would have genuinely thought this was some mafia princess staging a retro coronation ceremony.
“You—Youyou?”
Song Shan called out in a trembling voice.
Hearing Song Shan’s voice, Du Youling gritted her teeth and hissed at the bodyguards: “Put me down! We’re already at the front gate! Are you trying to carry me to the middle of the road to put on a show for everyone?!”
At her command, the two bodyguards moved swiftly and set her, chair and all, down in front of the door of the Mercedes.
“Second Miss Du, take care.” The bodyguards gave a slight bow.
Du Youling sprang up from the chair in a frenzy, but thanks to that crooked high heel that refused to cooperate, she wobbled and plopped straight into the back seat of the Mercedes.
Bang!
She slammed the door shut with all the strength she had in her life.
Du Youling collapsed limply into the seat, her soul seemingly having left her body some time ago.
Song Shan still hadn’t processed what had happened, staring at Du Youling with her mouth agape, hesitating: “You—”
Du Youling suddenly pounded the seat cushion: “Is the Mu Group hiring assistants recently?”
Song Shan was thrown off by her leap in logic and blurted out instinctively: “Yeah—you want to go work for Mu Linjiang?!”
“If a marriage proposal fails, can’t I take a roundabout route?! I’ll get close to the water and seize the moon first!”