The Cutie Keeps Falling for the Wrong Girl [Quick Transmigration] - Chapter 34

During the subsequent conversation, Lu Huan seemed somewhat distracted, her entire focus lingering on the solitary and frail silhouette she had just glimpsed.

For some reason, her nose tingled slightly, and the sensation surged upward toward her eyes. She lowered her eyelids, struggling to suppress the rising emotion.

Not wanting to waste any more time on trivial topics with the scumbag, she shifted her gaze to the woman at the neighboring table.

Gao Heng’s little mistress had initially tried to be discreet, but as she observed Lu Huan’s exceptional elegance and stunning beauty which made her feel threatened and, more importantly, noticed that Gao Heng was engrossed in conversation with Lu Huan without sparing her a single glance, she grew increasingly resentful.

Eventually, she abandoned all pretense of subtlety, staring blatantly in their direction and even appearing on the verge of joining their table.

The woman who hadn’t once glanced their way the entire time now turned her attention toward them, startling the mistress into a soft gasp. The mistress wondered if the woman had noticed something, even though she hadn’t looked over before. At the same time, she thought it might be for the best, let the other woman know who the real third party was.

With that thought, the mistress puffed out her chest proudly, but as her gaze drifted downward to Lu Huan’s bust, her confidence deflated, and she slumped back.

“Come here,” Lu Huan said, tilting her chin toward the mistress.

The mistress hesitated, shuffling slowly. Gao Heng, no longer bothering to maintain his facade, leaned back in his chair and raised an eyebrow, his interest in the woman across from him rekindling.

[System: Ding. Target’s favorability has increased to 10%.]

Lu Huan’s expression remained unchanged by the system’s notification. Her gaze was still cool and detached as she regarded the two. “Mr. Gao, you only showed up tonight because of your grandfather’s insistence, and I’m here under pressure from my father as well. How about we discuss a deal?” As she uttered the last three words, the corners of her lips curved into a faint, almost imperceptible smile.

It was the first expression other than indifference she had shown all evening.

Admittedly, that subtle smile added an extra layer of allure to her already beautiful face, and Gao Heng found himself momentarily captivated.

Beside him, the mistress fumed inwardly and pinched his waist discreetly. Yet, her eyes were also irresistibly drawn to the woman’s face. Whether man or woman, there’s an undeniable attraction to beauty, even when that beauty might be a rival.

Jolted back to reality by the pinch, Gao Heng turned to Lu Huan and flashed his most charming smile out of habit. “What kind of deal did you have in mind, Miss Pei Xuan?”

Gao Heng sank into his car with a dark expression, slamming the door so hard the entire vehicle shuddered.

Recalling the so-called deal the woman had proposed, he felt a surge of irritation. It wasn’t the terms of the deal that bothered him, but the fact that she had completely disregarded his charm.

His mistress, Gu Shuang, however, was overjoyed. Ever since hearing Lu Huan’s proposal, a smile hadn’t left her face.

“Happy?” Gao Heng raised an eyebrow at her.

Gu Shuang batted her eyelashes and didn’t hesitate to express her delight. “Of course.”

Gao Heng, who had been about to fasten his seatbelt, abandoned all restraint upon seeing her like this. In a husky voice, he said, “Get in the back.”

Knowing what he intended, Gu Shuang leaned in to kiss his lips, then gave him a seductive look before moving to the back seat. Gao Heng promptly got out of the car and joined her in the rear.

After leaving the restaurant, Lu Huan, as if guided by some inexplicable impulse, drove back to the vicinity of Xiao Zhao’s Hydraulic and Electrical Repair Company. She didn’t approach directly but parked across the street, in a diagonal parking spot facing the small storefront. She didn’t get out of the car; instead, after unbuckling her seatbelt, she remained seated, her gaze fixed on the store across the road.

A middle-aged man in his forties or fifties was sitting at the entrance of the shop, engrossed in watching videos on his phone and chuckling to himself. Lu Huan assumed he was the shop owner, but she hadn’t caught sight of the person she was hoping to see. She wondered if he was out on another job.

Just as she decided to wait a little longer before heading back, someone tapped on the passenger-side window. Thinking it might be a traffic officer issuing a parking ticket, she turned and was surprised to see the very person she had been searching for.

“Miss Pei.” Li Zhaodi had noticed the car parked there ten minutes earlier. Having seen the woman’s vehicle that afternoon, she recognized it instantly. Unsure why the other party had driven here and wary of unnecessary complications even though she knew it was unlikely she had initially chosen to keep her distance.

She had assumed the woman wasn’t in the car and had stepped out to attend to something. But at one point, she glimpsed movement through the rear window and, upon closer inspection, realized the woman had been sitting inside the entire time.

After their conversation that afternoon and witnessing the scene earlier that evening, Li Zhaodi had no intention of approaching. Yet, for reasons she couldn’t explain, she found herself walking over and knocking on the window.

When the woman turned to look at her, Li Zhaodi felt a wave of nervousness.

Lu Huan leaned over, opened the passenger door, and said to her, “Get in.”

Li Zhaodi glanced down at her work clothes, stained and dirty from a long day’s labor, and shook her head. “No, I’ll dirty your car.”

“The car can be washed. Get in,” Lu Huan insisted.

“Wait for me a moment,” Li Zhaodi said before crossing the street. Lu Huan didn’t have time to stop her. Noticing the shop owner glancing their way, she calmly nodded in acknowledgment.

Old Zhao was baffled. He had never seen this woman before, and the familiarity between her and his apprentice only deepened his confusion.

As his apprentice returned to the back of the shop to change into clean clothes and prepared to cross the street, Old Zhao called out to her, “Xiao Li, who is that woman?”

Li Zhaodi paused, unsure how to respond. After a moment’s hesitation, she uttered two words: “A client.”

Old Zhao: “…” Are you kidding me?

The way that woman looked at his apprentice was nothing like how a client would regard a hydraulic and electrical repair technician.

Unable to decipher his apprentice’s convoluted thoughts, Old Zhao gave up and returned to watching his videos.

As Li Zhaodi approached, Lu Huan glanced toward the shop entrance and asked, “Is that your master?”

“Yes,” Li Zhaodi nodded. After a moment’s hesitation, she circled around the front of the car, opened the passenger door, and got in.

She didn’t understand why she had come over. They had already cleared the air that afternoon, yet the scene she had witnessed outside the French restaurant that evening kept replaying in her mind. She knew, she was bothered by it.

But she couldn’t quite articulate what this unease was. When she saw the woman’s car parked in front of the store, her low spirits began to lift.

Especially when the woman invited her into the car, she rushed back to change clothes at the fastest speed, afraid that the woman might grow impatient and leave. When she came out after changing and saw the car still there, she let out a sigh of relief without even realizing it.

But when her master asked who that woman was, her muddled mind instantly cleared.

“Just finished work?” Lu Huan asked. Though she hadn’t seen which direction the other had come from, she had been watching the storefront, so she assumed the other had just returned from a job and happened to pass by, spotting her car.

“Yeah.” Li Zhaodi no longer felt the same way she had when knocking on the car window earlier. Now, her emotions were complicated, on one side were the glamorous man and woman behind the glass curtain wall, and on the other was herself, dressed in dirty work clothes.

This time, she directly experienced what it meant to be from two different worlds. Even though she had left the mountains and that isolated village, she still carried the aura of that place with her.

“Have you had dinner yet? Let’s go grab something to eat. I’m a little hungry,” Lu Huan said, rubbing her stomach.

Li Zhaodi turned to look at her, her eyes filled with undisguised surprise.

“What’s wrong?” Lu Huan asked, noticing her expression.

“You!” Li Zhaodi hesitated, unsure whether to mention what she had seen earlier. But even if she did, what would it accomplish? After a moment’s thought, she smiled and shook her head. “It’s nothing.”

Unaware of her thoughts, Lu Huan turned the steering wheel and said, “I met the son of my dad’s friend tonight. I didn’t like the food there, so I only took a couple of bites. That’s why I’m hungry now.”

Hearing these words whether they were an explanation or just an offhand remark Li Zhaodi, who had just faced reality and accepted it, felt her resolve begin to waver.

“Let’s go for some barbecue,” Lu Huan suggested. “And order two bowls of wontons.”

At the mention of wontons, a memory surfaced in her mind, a steaming bowl of wontons garnished with cilantro and a hint of chili oil in the center. She assumed it was a memory from the original host and paid it no mind.

“Let’s just have wontons,” Li Zhaodi said. “My treat. You treated me to instant noodles yesterday.”

While waiting at a red light, Lu Huan glanced over at her. The streetlight was half-blocked by trees, making it hard for Li Zhaodi to see her expression clearly. Unable to read her face, Li Zhaodi began to overthink wondering if the other would think she was being petty or question why she wasn’t offering to treat for barbecue.

She thought of the twenty yuan left in her pocket, which had to last her for the remaining three days of the month. That money was her food budget.

“I was hoping to keep you in my debt,” Lu Huan suddenly said, just as Li Zhaodi was lost in her thoughts. Her eyes remained fixed on the road as she drove, but her tone was light. “Even though we cleared things up this afternoon, and you said you didn’t want to date or even have anything to do with me.”

“I didn’t—”

“But,” Lu Huan interrupted, “that was just your side. I never agreed to it.”

This was the second time since getting in the car that Li Zhaodi was taken aback. Staring blankly at the woman’s profile, she couldn’t believe that such an outstanding, elite person would say something so shameless.

Lu Huan lifted her chin and said arrogantly, “This is the first time I’ve ever pursued someone, and I actually got rejected. How could I possibly accept that?”

Li Zhaodi felt somewhat numb; the woman’s words repeatedly shattered her understanding of things.

Belatedly, she turned to look at the woman, her eyes widening more and more.

Lu Huan glanced at her expression in the rearview mirror and frowned. “What’s that look on your face?”

Li Zhaodi turned her head away, gazing at the bustling streets outside. In the stretches without streetlights, she could see her own reflection in the car window dazed and a little foolish.

“What, don’t you believe it’s my first time pursuing someone?” Lu Huan seemed to know exactly what she was surprised about and said it outright.

“No,” Li Zhaodi murmured softly, though it was clear the other woman was right she just didn’t want to admit it.

“Lots of people pursue me, but I’m not interested in any of them. The only one I am interested in doesn’t want me.”

“That’s not true,” Li Zhaodi turned to look at her, refuting vehemently, “I don’t dislike you.”

“You rejected me, if that’s not disliking me, then what is?” Lu Huan began to argue unreasonably. In truth, the other woman had made herself perfectly clear that afternoon, but she didn’t want to accept it. If things were too clear-cut, there would be no connection left between them. Just thinking about that made her unable to bear it.

“I…” Li Zhaodi was momentarily at a loss for words, unsure of what to say.

“And there are some things I didn’t make clear this afternoon,” Lu Huan said, turning the steering wheel and driving into a parking lot. She parked the car, unbuckled her seatbelt, and turned to face her. “I’m offering to support your education and help you learn more skills not out of charity or anything like that. I’m just making an early investment.”

“An early investment?” Li Zhaodi stared at her in confusion.

Lu Huan explained, “I provide for your education and skills training. Once you’ve mastered them, you’ll join my company and work for me. Doesn’t that count as an early investment? Honestly, I’m the one who stands to gain.”

Seeing how seriously she said this, Li Zhaodi didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. And she wasn’t sure if it was her imagination, but she felt that the woman’s tone carried a hint of coquettish pride when she spoke to her.

Realizing that the other woman was discussing serious matters while she was lost in such trivial thoughts, Li Zhaodi’s ears turned slightly red, and she felt a little guilty.

Lu Huan didn’t notice, as she had already pushed the car door open and stepped out. “There’s a wonton shop here that’s especially delicious.”

“Does Ms. Pei usually come out to eat street food like this?” Li Zhaodi began to grow curious about the woman.

“Just like you, I don’t have the time,” Lu Huan said, though it was unclear whether she meant it intentionally or not.

Hearing this, Li Zhaodi once again didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, wondering if the woman was getting back at her.

They soon arrived at the wonton shop. The storefront was small, but it was packed with people, and a line had formed outside.

Li Zhaodi hadn’t expected a wonton shop to be so popular.

Soon, it was their turn. They ordered two bowls of wontons and went inside. Lu Huan found a seat and said to her, “My secretary told me about this place. She comes here often.”

Remembering how she had run into Ms. Pei and the equally stern-faced woman beside her in the elevator yesterday while fixing a pipe at the Pei Corporation, Li Zhaodi nodded.

At the same time, she thought to herself: So Ms. Pei has a secretary? She must be a company executive.

The thought made her feel a little pressured.

Just then, the wontons arrived. Lu Huan pulled two pairs of disposable chopsticks from the container and handed her one. “Eat quickly, or they’ll get cold.”

“Okay,” Li Zhaodi nodded.

“Do you want chili?” Lu Huan asked.

“Mm,” Li Zhaodi nodded, taking the jar from her and adding two spoonfuls of chili oil to her bowl.

Seeing her add so much, Lu Huan glanced at her a couple more times.

“What’s wrong?” Li Zhaodi asked.

Lu Huan looked at the jar and pushed her bowl closer. “Add some for me too. I want to try it.”

Li Zhaodi didn’t find it odd that she was asked to add the chili. She even added just a tiny bit for the other, right in the center of the bowl. After doing so, she said, “Try just a little first. If it’s not enough, you can add more.”

Hearing this, Lu Huan felt a sense of familiarity. The bowl of wontons before her was just like the one in her memory. She rubbed her index finger along the edge of the bowl a few times.

“What’s wrong?” Li Zhaodi asked, noticing her mood seemed off.

“Let’s eat,” Lu Huan said, looking up at her.

“Oh,” Li Zhaodi nodded, still feeling that something was off about her.

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