Following Tang Wan’s directions, Zhao Yinuo made her way to the room and found Tang Wan touching up her makeup with a compact powder. A man with a flushed face was sprawled across the sofa beside her.
Zhao Yinuo recognized him immediately.
It was the same rude gossip enthusiast from earlier.
She also remembered that, despite his lack of manners, he’d had nothing but praise for Tang Wan’s beauty.
“Is this the man?” Zhao Yinuo asked. “Is he one of your admirers? Did he come here because of you?”
Tang Wan put down her powder compact and picked up a mirror to touch up her lipstick.
“I don’t know this man at all. You’re the best, Yinuo. You’re the most reliable. I knew I could count on you to come.”
“Save the flattery.” Zhao Yinuo shot her an annoyed look. “I can’t possibly live up to all these compliments.”
“You absolutely can.” Tang Wan grinned shamelessly. “You’re such a good person. Even when you’re angry with me, all you do is give me dirty looks. You’ve never even actually yelled at me. How does that not make you a good person?”
Compared with her unscrupulous manager, Zhao Yinuo was practically a breath of fresh air in the entertainment industry.
Zhao Yinuo had been complimented, yet she still felt speechless.
So this woman actually knew that people didn’t like the way she did things?
It wasn’t as though Zhao Yinuo had never cursed her out.
When she’d been particularly furious, she’d even hired internet trolls to smear Tang Wan online.
But then Su Muyang saw how badly Tang Wan was being attacked. Not only did the rumors fail to shake his feelings for her, he actually felt sorry for her and immediately came to Zhao Yinuo asking her to help deal with the mess.
She’d been the one to throw the dirt, only to end up cleaning it all back up herself.
All that effort had been completely wasted.
After that one incident, Zhao Yinuo learned her lesson.
For Su Muyang’s sake, she stopped using underhanded tricks against Tang Wan. Instead, she silently continued reinforcing the image that Su Muyang came from a poor background, hoping Tang Wan would find someone better and leave him sooner.
And now, this drunk man was obviously getting in the way of Tang Wan’s attempt to climb higher.
Zhao Yinuo took charge.
“I’ll get a hotel employee to help him out. You carry on with what you were doing.”
“Make it quick,” Tang Wan urged impatiently.
The person she was waiting for hadn’t arrived yet, and she didn’t want a little accident like this to ruin an opportunity that was almost within her grasp.
“Yeah, yeah. I know.”
The two were still talking when the drunk man suddenly let out a low murmur.
“It’s so hot~~~”
The words triggered some rather suspicious associations in Zhao Yinuo’s mind.
Her eyes widened instantly.
She asked nervously, “He didn’t get drugged, did he?”
Tang Wan immediately understood what she meant.
“It’s possible. Our industry is full of this kind of disgusting stuff. But judging by his reaction, even if he was drugged, it probably isn’t anything too potent. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have had the strength to make it all the way to this room to hide from people.”
Seeing the man’s flushed face, both women became about ninety percent convinced that he’d been drugged.
Zhao Yinuo had heard plenty of stories about the ugly side of the entertainment industry, but she’d never expected to encounter something like this right in front of her.
“If that’s really what happened, then handing him over to the hotel staff probably isn’t a good idea. I’ll have my driver come and help. We’ll take him to the hospital.”
Zhao Yinuo wasn’t about to handle a potentially dangerous situation alone.
“I’ll have to wait here for my driver. Is that going to interfere with what you’re doing? If it is, I’ll leave, and you can deal with this man yourself.”
She’d already gone that far, so Tang Wan didn’t dare complain.
She could only smile apologetically.
“Not at all, not at all. I should be thanking you for helping me.”
The man lying drunk on the sofa had been listening to their conversation.
His hazy eyes suddenly snapped open.
This isn’t how things are supposed to go.
This was completely different from what he’d imagined.
How had things somehow progressed to the point where they were sending him to the hospital?
He was exceptionally handsome, and his presence was even more impressive. Didn’t either of these women feel the slightest bit attracted to him?
Hadn’t they ever seen the classic scenario where an incredibly handsome man gets brought home?
The carefully planned scene wasn’t developing according to his expectations.
The man’s dark, ink-black eyes fixed coldly on the two women chatting in front of him.
Even if they hadn’t fallen in love with him at first sight, surely they couldn’t just ignore him like this.
His pupils were so dark they seemed almost black as ink, giving him an intensely calculating air.
Tang Wan was still checking her hairstyle and asking Zhao Yinuo to help fix a few strands when she happened to turn around and meet his gaze.
She immediately took a step back in fright.
Zhao Yinuo, however, was much calmer.
She met his eyes once, then asked bluntly, “Are you sober now? If you’re sober, hurry up and leave.”
“I leave?” the man asked indignantly. “Why should I?”
Tang Wan answered without hesitation.
“Because I was here first. I got to this lounge before you did.”
Between assuming the man was simply rude and assuming he was still too drunk to think straight, Zhao Yinuo kindly chose the latter.
“Enough, Tang Wan. My driver is here. Don’t argue with him. I’ll just take him away myself.”
Tang Wan had already made herself look flawless, right down to every strand of hair. She was practically glowing as she waited for her chance to meet the owner of Shengxing Entertainment.
There was no way Zhao Yinuo was going to let some random person interfere.
While the man was still capable of answering questions, Zhao Yinuo asked, “What’s your name? Do you have any friends here? Should I hand you over to a friend, or should we take you to the hospital?”
The man stared silently at Zhao Yinuo, his gaze dark and unreadable.
Tang Wan felt inexplicably uneasy under that expression.
Zhao Yinuo, however, wasn’t intimidated in the slightest.
When she’d been growing up under the thumb of that poisonous excuse for a father, there had been times when he’d lost control and nearly beaten her to death.
As a child, she had lived under constant threat to her safety.
After surviving years of that kind of high-pressure environment, what could the expression of a drunk man possibly do to her?
Since he refused to answer, Zhao Yinuo simply made the decision for him.
“Your face is abnormally red. I’m taking you to the hospital.”
The driver followed her instructions and bent down to help him up.
Once.
He couldn’t move him.
Twice.
Still nothing.
The driver awkwardly looked at Zhao Yinuo.
Tang Wan couldn’t stand watching anymore and scolded the man.
“Could you cooperate a little? We’re only trying to help you. If we just leave a drunk man like you somewhere, who knows what might happen to you.”
So many incidents involving unspoken rules in the industry happened because the victims had been unwilling and someone had drugged or otherwise manipulated them.
Even though Tang Wan’s primary goal was to get the man out of the room so she could have some privacy, she’d called the most responsible person she knew—Zhao Yinuo—to help.
And now they were even planning to take him to the hospital.
That was pretty damn decent of them, wasn’t it?
The man looked at Zhao Yinuo, then finally stood up from the sofa.
“Fine. Let’s go. I’ll go to the hospital.”
They were doing it out of kindness, after all.
He wasn’t busy right now anyway. He could at least humor them and make a trip to the hospital.
He walked ahead.
When he noticed Zhao Yinuo was still talking to Tang Wan, he impatiently urged her, “What are you waiting for? Come on.”
The driver followed beside him, ready to catch him at any moment in case the drunk man stumbled.
Zhao Yinuo, meanwhile, calmly continued giving Tang Wan instructions.
“Do your best. Don’t disappoint me.”
She finished saying everything she wanted to say at her own pace before finally preparing to leave.
But she’d only spent a few seconds talking.
When she turned around, she found the man glaring at her with obvious displeasure.
“You were the one insisting on taking me to the hospital.”
He couldn’t believe she’d actually made him wait!
Zhao Yinuo remained completely unfazed.
“Mm-hmm, yes, yes. I’m taking you to the hospital. Let’s go. What are you waiting for?”