The next morning, Pei Huaijin opened his eyes.
She lay curled up in his arms, her face buried against his chest, a small bundle with tear tracks still damp on her lashes. She was fast asleep, breathing heavily, as if she were exhausted.
Pei Huaijin watched her for a long time.
Then he gently eased his arm out from beneath her and got out of bed.
He took a notepad and pen from his suit pocket and wrote a few lines. Then he pulled a card from his wallet and placed it beneath the note.
After getting dressed, he stood by the bed and looked at her once more.
Morning light slipped through a gap in the curtains and fell across her face. She looked so sweet and well-behaved in her sleep, nothing like the bold woman she had been last night.
He looked away and turned to leave.
The corridor was silent. Only his footsteps echoed, one after another, growing fainter in the distance.
—End of flashback—
Shen Qingyu opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling, slowly letting out a breath.
She, Shen Qingyu—a Good Girl who had barely ever sworn in her twenty-six years, a Stanford law PhD, the eldest daughter of the Jingbei Shen family—had actually spent the night with a man she didn’t know?!
“I’ve lost my mind,” she whispered. “Shen Qingyu, you’ve really lost it.”
She lay back down, pulled the covers over her head, and wrapped herself up completely.
In the darkness, the scent of cedar drifted into her nose again.
It was what he had left behind.
She flung the covers off and turned toward the bedside table.
A note lay on it, with a black card beneath it.
She reached over and picked them up.
The handwriting on the note was beautiful, the neat, practiced strokes of a semi-cursive hand, clean and decisive, without a single unnecessary flourish.
“The room is paid for through tonight. Get some rest. There are five million on the card; the PIN is the last six digits of the card number. Let’s pretend last night never happened.”
Shen Qingyu stared at the words for a long time.
Then she set the note down and picked up the card.
It was black and had a metallic finish. She recognized the gold lettering in the upper-left corner: an anonymous black card from a domestic bank, with a credit limit starting at five million.
Five million.
She was worth five million for one night.
Shen Qingyu tossed the card back onto the bedside table, leaned against the headboard, and closed her eyes.
Five million.
Her father’s law firm had annual revenue of several hundred million, and her mother charged more than that for a single case. Shen Qingyu had grown up in that kind of environment; five million wasn’t all that much to her.
Just then, the doorbell rang.
Shen Qingyu sat bolt upright, pulled the covers up to her neck, and warily watched the door.
“Hotel service. May I come in, ma’am?”
“Oh, yes.”
The door opened, and a woman in a hotel uniform came in with a polished professional smile.
“Good morning, ma’am. I’ve brought you breakfast, as requested by a gentleman.”
She wheeled in a cart laden with rice porridge, side dishes, a fried egg, toast, and a steaming cup of honey water.
“The gentleman specifically asked us to prepare this for you.” She placed the honey water on the bedside table.
Shen Qingyu looked at the cup and paused.
“Did he say anything else?”
“No.” The attendant smiled and shook her head. “He only said to make sure you got some rest.”
“Okay. Thank you.”
“You’re very welcome.”
The door closed, and the room fell quiet again.
Shen Qingyu sat on the bed, looking at the cup of honey water, the breakfast, the note, and the black card beside it.
Sunlight slipped through a gap in the curtains, casting a long stripe of light across the carpet.
The distant noise of the city drifted in from outside—the sounds of cars and people, far away, as if they belonged to another world.
Then she suddenly remembered something more important.
“Qingyu, hurry up and book a flight home, okay?” Her mother’s voice over video yesterday had been so gentle it was almost unrecognizable. “Huaijin, the one from the Pei family, is only four years older than you, and he’s already the president of Pei Group. His grandfather and your grandfather were comrades-in-arms, and his mother and I have known each other for decades. We know the family inside and out.”
“Mother,” Shen Qingyu had tried to reason with her at the time, “it’s the modern era now. You studied law too. You can’t just interfere so openly with my freedom to marry. That’s not appropriate, is it?”
“I’m only doing this for your own good,” her mother had said earnestly. “Pei Huaijin is known as Jingbei's Crown Prince. The Pei Group his father built could practically be said to control Jingbei’s economic lifeline. Of course, our family is no slouch either. They came to propose this match because they’re interested in our resources and connections. Come back and meet him. See how things go. If you really don’t like him, I won’t force you.”
“I’m not coming back.”
“Then I’ll cut off your allowance.”
“…”
“You can forget about buying any more of those bags, jewelry, or limited-edition clothes.”
“…”
“Qingyu? Is the signal bad? Hello?”
Shen Qingyu forced a perfectly practiced fake smile at the screen. “Fine, fine. I’ll come back. I’ll book a ticket right now, all right?”
She booked a flight home for three days later. She was going back to meet that so-called Pei family Crown Prince, the man her mother called “the most eligible bachelor in Jingbei.”
Shen Qingyu picked up the cup of honey water and took a sip.
It was sweet and delicious, and just the right temperature.
Leaning against the headboard, she slowly finished the whole cup.
Then she remembered something and opened her phone, bringing up the photo her mother had sent her.
It was a very formal picture, as if it had been clipped from some financial magazine. Pei Huaijin wore a black suit and stared coolly into the camera. His jawline was sharp, and his thin lips were pressed together, making him look extremely unapproachable.
So this was Pei Huaijin. Shen Qingyu stared at his face for a few seconds.
He was definitely good-looking.
But why did he look so familiar…
She enlarged the photo and studied his eyes.
They were utterly cool and distant.
Shen Qingyu suddenly stopped, staring at Pei Huaijin in the photo for a long time.
Those eyes, that cool, distant look—they reminded her of the man from last night…
Frowning, she tried to think it through, but whatever was stirring in her mind kept slipping out of reach. She really couldn’t remember the man’s face at all. She could blame the alcohol for that.
She shook her head sharply.
What was she thinking?
There was no way last night’s man could have been Pei Huaijin. Pei Huaijin was back in Jingbei, living like its Crown Prince. Why would he show up at a bar in San Francisco? Why would he happen to save her? Why would he end up in bed with her—
But then Shen Qingyu remembered the faint Jingbei accent she’d heard when the man spoke.
A Jingbei accent.
He was from Jingbei.
And the clothes he’d worn had clearly been very expensive.
Even the watch on his wrist could have bought a small apartment.
Then there was his whole bearing—cool, distant, and strangely similar to the man in the photo.
And he’d handed over five million just like that, an amount ordinary people couldn’t afford.
Shen Qingyu stared at her phone screen, her heart skipping a beat.
Then she shook her head again.
Impossible.
Absolutely impossible.
Even if that man was from Jingbei, even if he was rich, even if his manner seemed a lot like Pei Huaijin’s, it still couldn’t have been him. There were plenty of people like that in Jingbei.
Besides, what were the odds of something that coincidental happening?
She’d spent the night with a stranger, and that stranger just happened to be the man her mother had arranged for her to marry?
That only happened in novels.
In real life, the odds of that kind of coincidence were lower than winning the lottery.
Shen Qingyu turned her phone facedown on the bed and rubbed her temples hard.
Stop thinking about it. Something straight out of a novel couldn’t possibly happen to her.
Shen Qingyu rubbed her face hard again and told herself, Get a grip, Shen Qingyu. Last night is over. He gave you money, left you a note, and now you’re even.
She couldn’t think about him again. She couldn’t keep wondering what he looked like. And she absolutely could not connect him with Pei Huaijin.