“I know this guy… He’s a rich kid that does things regardless of how it affects everyone else, you better not get involved with him.” Wu Hongwen leaned over and advised Gu Xiqiao in a soft voice because even he didn’t want to directly start a conflict with Yin Shaoyuan. He didn’t know about the other man quite well, but his elders had reminded him time and time again that the only person that he couldn’t get into trouble with in N City was him!
Wu Hongwen had never expected Gu Xiqiao to get entangled with him of all people, and was worrying over what ulterior motives Yin Shaoyuan had.
Yin Shaoyuan wasn’t a regular person, so he naturally heard all of Wu Hongwen’s words. Raising an eyebrow, he spoke, “I haven’t been in N City for so many years, and you people start spreading all these bad rumors about me?”
“That’s not what the point of what I said. Is there any reason why you’re looking for my classmate?” Wu Hongwen moved and stood protectively in front of Gu Xiqiao, and at that moment he seemed like the protagonist of a romance novel.
“What, do I need a reason to see her?” Yin Shaoyuan replied, jeering as he did.
Wu Hongwen opened his mouth but didn’t know what to say.
Gu Xiqiao finished her milk tea and threw the empty plastic cup to a rubbish bin before looking at Yin Shaoyuan. “What do you need?”
Yin Shaoyuan turned around and opened the door for the passenger seat, seeing Gu Xiqiao finally respond to him. “Finally not treating me like air? I’m just here on your Young Master Jiang’s orders, are you going to stand around and let everyone gawk at you, or are you gonna come with me?”
Since it was Jiang Shuxuan, she didn’t have any more reservations and got onto the car.
This was a ways away from where Jiang Shuxuan would always wait for her, and because it was already a while after school ended, so there weren’t a lot of students passing by.
Wu Hongwen frowned as he saw Gu Xiqiao get onto the car, and looked over at Xiao Yun. “Are you going to let her get on just like that? He isn’t a good person…”
“It’s fine.” Xiao Yun remembered Yin Shaoyuan’s attitude the last time she saw him with the Young Master Jiang in question, so she wasn’t all that worried.
“You believe in that guy that he mentioned so much?” Wu Hongwen’s brows were still furrowed as he drank his milk tea that he had never had a habit of drinking, before he met Gu Xiqiao.
Xiao Yun finished her milk tea and threw it into a nearby trashcan, looking at the white car that slowly pulled up by the sidewalk in front of her. “I saw them at the mall before, and he treats her like a treasure.”
Both of them used to directly get fetched at the school gates, but ever since they had their after school strolls with Gu Xiqiao, they had always had their chauffeurs fetch them near the crossroads.
The white car drove away, leaving Wu Hongwen pondering over what Xiao Yun had said.
The red race car stopped by a private club, and Yin Shaoyuan got off the car and threw the car keys to the doorman before leading Gu Xiqiao inside, telling her where this was as he did.
He pushed open a door and let Gu Xiqiao inside first, and there was a gentle and graceful woman inside whose gaze went up and down Gu Xiqiao as they came in, before smiling. “I heard that Young Master Yin got a new girlfriend, but I hadn’t guessed that his tastes would have changed completely to an underage girl.”
This gaze on her made Gu Xiqiao quite uncomfortable, and she furrowed her brows slightly.
Yin Shaoyuan stopped smiling and looked at the woman seriously. “Miss Xia, just because you are free to say whatever you want, doesn’t always mean you should, you know. I treat her as the biological sister that I never had.”
It was the first time that she saw Yin Shaoyuan so serious, and Xia Zilan’s expression froze on her face. Even though she had only been loosely acquainted with him before this, she had never expected him to talk like this with her because she had always been given special treatment because of her pretty face. Now that she was treated so coldly, she couldn’t keep up her calm and gentle facade well. Was Young Master Yin being serious?
And so, she glanced at that young girl again to see if she could recognize who it was.
The girl’s features were delicate and pretty, and her dress that reached her knees further amplified her pure aura, but what Xia Zilan was focused on was how her face seemed familiar…
Before Xia Zilan could react, Yin Shaoyuan shoved her to a side and led Gu Xiqiao in, not giving her any courtesy.
At this moment, Xia Zilan remembered who it was and froze by the door. She had seen Gu Xiqiao’s picture before, and back then she had never paid any notice to the illegitimate daughter. Only when those events transpired that she finally started noticing this girl, and realized how much she had changed in a mere month.
Not only did she change her gloomy and timid demeanor, she even caused all that trouble for the Gu family and got onto the good graces of Yin Shaoyuan at the same time?
Xia Zilan made her way into the toilet deep in thought.
There were several billiard tables set up in the room, and a bunch of young people were playing while some were sitting and chatting at the rest area. Yin Shaoyuan glanced at everyone and led Gu Xiqiao to the rest area.
The membership fee of this private club started from around two million yuan, and the people that converged here were mostly from families that were involved in finance. This club was connected with many others of its kind all over the country and was quite renowned for having prestigious members.
Jiang Shuxuan sat in the center of the sofas, and while some sat nearby him, none dared to sit next to him.
Seeing Yin Shaoyuan and Gu Xiqiao come over, he got up and took over Gu Xiqiao’s bag. He had told Yin Shaoyuan to bring her back to the mansion first, but this unreliable guy brought her here directly.
Yin Shaoyuan shrugged upon being met with Jiang Shuxuan’s condemning gaze. “I didn’t bring her here on purpose, Mrs. Zhang went back to her home today so she wouldn’t have anything to eat if she went back anyway…”
Jiang Shuxuan didn’t linger on the topic anymore and was about to tell him to order some food before he thought for a bit and turned over to Gu Xiqiao. “What do you want to eat? Should I bring you out later?”
“No need, there’s everything you could want to eat here!” Yin Shaoyuan walked out and ordered food before Jiang Shuxuan could take the chance to leave—He wasn’t about to let this young master that he had painstakingly convinced to come to the club in the first place.
Gu Xiqiao kept getting glances from the people that sat across her, and so she took out the painting album from her bag and focused on that instead.
The onlookers were quite surprised that Jiang Shuxuan didn’t tell Gu Xiqiao to retreat even though he was talking business with someone else, and because many of them were from rich families in N City too, they recognized Gu Xiqiao. One of them even almost spilled their cup of wine in shock, but then sipped as if nothing had happened, hiding their astonished gaze.
After a while, some of the people that were playing billiards came over and glanced at the girl that was flipping through the painting album in surprise before asking the others in a hushed tone, but all that they had in reply was silence.
Gu Xiqiao eavesdropped on some of the conversations in the room as she flipped through the pages of the painting album, and realized that the main topic of the room was about the National Base that was going to be built in N City. She had only heard about the matter when Gu Zuhui mentioned it in passing, and back then the Yin family was completely in charge of it. It was at that time that the Yin family planned to move the center of politics to Jing Capital.
After that, the National Base turned into the most important research facility in the country, and the Yin Family became the highest authority in the matter of national defense.
In other words, if any of the families in N City could get their fingers into this lucrative pie, their families would thereby be connected to the country itself, and in her past life, the Gu family couldn’t get into this even if they poured all of their resources and connections into it.
She glanced at Jiang Shuxuan, seeing his cleanly shaved chin and sculpted jaw, and from the looks of it, he was the one that was in charge of the project as a whole.
No wonder the Yin family could become so influential in her past life.