And so Xu Ye woke up.
There was an extra person in his arms.
Chen Qingqing was curled up against him like a kitten, both arms locked firmly around his waist.
Xu Ye wanted to laugh. A little while ago she wouldn’t have it, and now here she was, having burrowed into his arms herself.
Seeing that she was fast asleep, he held still in the same position. But before long a phone call broke the quiet in the room, and the ringtone soon woke her.
“Hello~”
Half awake, Chen Qingqing heard his voice. She yawned, and still hazy with sleep she pressed instinctively closer to his chest.
“Right. I’ll send you the location in about half an hour. Just come straight over.”
“Good. We’ll leave it there for now.”
It was Zhao Ming, asking where exactly they were eating that evening.
Xu Ye answered in a couple of lines and tossed the phone aside.
Just then Chen Qingqing came fully awake. She scooted upright and sat there, and Xu Ye spread both hands at once with a wicked grin all over his face. “Nothing to do with me. You’re the one who came into my—”
“All right! Don’t say it!”
Chen Qingqing glared at him, then hurried to get her shoes on and stand up.
Xu Ye sat up too and phoned Qin Zhiwei, telling him to take Zhang Ruowei and Jiang Yu to the IAPM first and then come back for him.
Once the call was over he went to the bathroom to wash his face and rinse his mouth. On the way out he saw the Hami melon from lunchtime hadn’t been finished, so he picked up the fork and ate all of it.
They waited about twenty minutes at the hotel. When Qin Zhiwei’s message came through, Xu Ye took Chen Qingqing downstairs, and the four of them went to an upscale restaurant on the top floor of the IAPM.
Zhang Ruowei’s makeup and her outfit were both a little different from usual that day. Normally she dressed mostly in black, in the sultry older-woman line.
Today she had gone sweet and cute instead.
She had on a fitted white shirt with a short pink skirt, a pink headband, and her long hair was even tied up in pigtails. If Xu Ye hadn’t been expecting it he would certainly have joked, “Excuse me, miss — who are you?”
Before they ordered, Xu Ye sent Zhao Ming the restaurant’s location.
The drive over from Lisheng Capital took only about twenty minutes. Once Xu Ye had ordered, he made a point of telling the server to hold the dishes for twenty minutes. The server agreed and brought out two plates — salted peanuts and sunflower seeds.
Jiang Yu knew perfectly well, and asked anyway. “Xu Ye, don’t tell me you’ve invited that rich kid you mentioned last time?”
“You know, so why ask?”
“No wonder somebody’s been acting like she’s lost her mind today, dressed this girlishly. I thought a wire had come loose somewhere.”
Zhang Ruowei reached over, found Jiang Yu’s thigh and pinched it. “You shut your mouth. Don’t go making conversation out of nothing.”
Then she grabbed a handful of sunflower seeds and put them in Jiang Yu’s hand — the message being that Jiang Yu could crack those if she had nothing to do, and drop a subject this embarrassing.
Xu Ye laughed too. “Jiang Yu, you really can’t read a room. You’re sitting next to Zhang Ruowei. When he gets here, do you want to be stuck between the two of them?”
“Huh?”
Only then did Jiang Yu catch on. She quickly pulled Zhang Ruowei up and swapped places with her.
Everyone at the table laughed at the sight.
Zhang Ruowei saw it and simply put on a brazen face. “What are you laughing at? What’s so funny? I only want to see whether he’s really as good-looking as the photo. If he’s a long way off it, this young lady certainly won’t be interested.”
“Haha.”
Xu Ye put his phone on the table and picked up a handful of seeds to crack. Chen Qingqing, beside him, took a small handful too — but she didn’t eat what she shelled. She put the kernels in a little dish in front of her.
It was close to twenty minutes.
Then a text came in from Zhao Ming. Xu Ye told him the name of the restaurant, and a few minutes later he walked in.
It was quite a coincidence.
The slut was wearing that same white suit. It was evidently still warm outside, though, because he had the jacket off — and underneath it, of all things, was a pink shirt.
Zhang Ruowei was white on top and pink below.
Zhao Ming was pink on top and white below.
Watching him walk into the restaurant in that outfit, Xu Ye nearly laughed out loud.
Did you two damn well plan this?
Matching outfits on the first meeting?
“Over here.” Xu Ye stood up and called out, and Zhao Ming came straight over. He had assumed it was going to be just the two of them, and hadn’t expected Xu Ye to have this many beautiful women along. He hurriedly did up one more button on his shirt as he walked up. “I didn’t keep you waiting long, did I?”
Only then did Zhang Ruowei look up at him. One look, and her head went straight back down.
Xu Ye laughed. “Let me introduce everyone. This is my friend Zhao Ming — young master Zhao.”
“Hello, all of you.”
“Zhao Ming, this is my girlfriend Chen Qingqing. This is my best friend Qin Zhiwei — goes by Wei-bro. This is Zhiwei’s girlfriend Shen Xinyi. This beauty is Jiang Yu. And this last one, the one in matching outfits with you, is Zhang Ruowei. They’re all my girlfriend’s roommates.”
Zhang Ruowei’s eyes went to his clothes again at once, and she threw Xu Ye an embarrassed glare. “What matching outfits? Don’t talk nonsense.”
Zhao Ming laughed too. “They do look a lot like matching outfits.”
Xu Ye waved Zhao Ming into a seat and snapped his fingers to have the server start bringing the food.
Zhao Ming was a textbook extrovert — Xu Ye had spotted it the first time they met. So even though Zhang Ruowei and the others were all strangers to him, he showed not the slightest nerves. Instead he opened the conversation himself. “Which university are you all at?”
“Shanghai Conservatory of Music.”
“No wonder you’re all so good-looking. Xu Ye didn’t give me any warning. If he had, I’d certainly have dressed properly before I came out.”
Xu Ye laughed in exasperation. “Give me a break. What you’ve got on today is slutty enough already.”
Seeing that Zhang Ruowei wasn’t saying anything, Jiang Yu asked with a deliberate grin, “Handsome, where did you go to university?”
“Oh, I studied in the States for a few years. Only came back last year.”
“Impressive.”
“I was just killing time out there. I never wanted to go abroad in the first place — my uncle made me.”
As they talked, the servers began bringing dishes to the table one after another.
Seeing them get into conversation, Xu Ye didn’t cut in much. He simply kept watching Zhang Ruowei and Zhao Ming.
Before Zhao Ming arrived, Zhang Ruowei hadn’t drunk a single mouthful of water. In the few minutes since he sat down she had drunk three…
And Zhao Ming, on the surface, was happily talking with Jiang Yu, Qin Zhiwei and Shen Xinyi — but he was watching Zhang Ruowei the whole time, half deliberately and half not. When she went to pour water partway through, he got to the pitcher before she did…
Chen Qingqing, beside him, wasn’t paying much attention to any of it. She was concentrating on shelling seeds, and only when most of the dishes were on the table did she tip the kernels into her palm and hold them up to his mouth.
Xu Ye didn’t even look at what she was offering. He just opened his mouth. Once she had tipped the kernels in, she settled down contentedly to listen to what the rest of them were talking about.
(End of Chapter 295)