Wu Mangmang followed Shen Ting out of the villa, about to bid farewell to Shen Ting before heading to the stables, when she noticed Shen Ting was also walking in that direction. Seeing that Wu Mangmang had not caught up for a while, he stopped and turned to look at her. “Keep up.”

Wu Mangmang looked at Shen Ting in his casual clothes – he could indeed go horseback riding. After all, men wearing pants could conveniently ride horses at any time.

“I really must thank you for earlier, Mr. Shen.” Wu Mangmang took two quick steps to catch up.

“Weren’t you calling me ‘Shen Ting, Shen Ting’ quite smoothly?” Shen Ting countered.

Wu Mangmang could only manage a “hehe” expression. She neither wanted to get close to Ning Zheng nor become intimate with Shen Ting.

She had never overlooked the contempt hidden deep in Shen Ting’s eyes when he looked at her.

The stables were extremely clean, housing dozens of horses. Shen Ting led Wu Mangmang to a stall where there was a pure white horse, very tall and beautiful, with an ink-colored plum blossom mark on its forehead. Shen Ting called it “Elizabeth.”

Shen Ting took some hay from the nearby feeding trough to feed Elizabeth, while stroking its mane with one hand and saying to Wu Mangmang, “It’s a Lipizzaner horse, very gentle in temperament. Get acquainted with it.”

Shen Ting handed the horse grass to Wu Mangmang.

Elizabeth was indeed gentle in temperament. Before long, Wu Mangmang had become familiar with it, slowly leading it out of the stables to the grassland.

Wu Mangmang asked Shen Ting, “Are you really not going to ride?”

Shen Ting hadn’t chosen a horse for himself earlier.

“I’ll watch you ride for a bit,” Shen Ting said.

Wu Mangmang responded with a sound, adjusted her hat, and was about to mount the horse when she saw Shen Ting extend his hand. She paused, thinking his gentlemanly demeanor wasn’t bad at all.

Wu Mangmang placed her hand in Shen Ting’s palm, using his assistance to step onto the stirrup in one motion, then swung her other leg over the horse’s back.

Unfortunately, her riding skills had been rusty for too long, and she didn’t control her strength well. Originally wanting to mount and dismount as gracefully as Shen Yuanzi, she ended up using too much force and bumped into the saddle with her stride.

Wu Mangmang winced in pain but couldn’t lose face by crying out. She could only make a self-deprecating joke: “Good thing I don’t have balls, or that would have really hurt.”

Shen Ting chuckled softly, leading Elizabeth forward for a short distance. Seeing that Wu Mangmang had adjusted her posture, he gently patted Elizabeth’s hindquarters. “Try riding by yourself.”

Wu Mangmang hummed in agreement and urged Elizabeth into a trot.

Soon, that old feeling of soaring through clouds came back. Wu Mangmang happily ran several laps, passing by Shen Ting again, whistling at him and pointing to the distance with a grin: “I’m going to check out the lake over there.”

Her voice was still lingering in Shen Ting’s ears when Wu Mangmang’s figure had already shot off with Elizabeth, covering several yards in an instant.

Soon, the silhouette of the rider and horse became just a black dot on the horizon.

Only then did Shen Ting realize that he too had been ditched by Wu Mangmang.

Wu Mangmang rode her horse straight toward the lake she had seen from the airplane. By the lakeside stood a solitary tree, creating a quiet and leisurely atmosphere.

The sky was already showing evening glow – orange-red and golden yellow mingling together, along with rose gold hues. Wu Mangmang took out her phone and a pre-prepared selfie stick from the bag beside the saddle, using the lone tree as a prop and taking photos enthusiastically.

Finally, she sat on the grass leaning against the tree trunk, bent one leg, and took a photo with the lake surface as the background.

She then used a photo-editing app to adjust the image, changing the overall color tone to create a desolate, dusky yellow appearance.

She herself was backlit in the photo, her features hidden in shadow, creating a mysterious and elegant silhouette.

Wu Mangmang admired her own photograph – the composition and colors were quite artistic. She felt like giving it as many likes as a phone number has digits.

Next, Wu Mangmang sat ungracefully against the tree trunk and began pulling at her hair while composing text.

Showing off wealth was actually quite intellectually demanding. If you only knew how to photograph handbags and gourmet food, that lacked class and could easily be replaced by more expensive bags.

Wu Mangmang took the literary melancholy route to showing off wealth, attracting both literary young women and melancholy young people.

“Sitting quietly alone under the tree, I think of Sakyamuni from long ago. The holy monk achieved enlightenment under the Bodhi tree. Can I, today, comprehend my own life?”

Sour, so sour!

Wu Mangmang made a gagging gesture at her own words.

But sour as it was, it made her seem very cultured, didn’t it? She even had a touch of religious mystique.

However, what followed was not so pleasant.

The signal on the prairie wasn’t very good. Wu Mangmang held her phone high and walked around the lake, searching for a signal everywhere.

To no avail. Wu Mangmang had to climb back onto the horse’s back, controlling the reins with one hand while holding her phone high with the other, searching for a signal.

When her phone finally showed two bars of signal, Wu Mangmang was more excited than if she had made eight million yuan. She quickly sent out the text and photo she had prepared, anxiously watching the loading icon spin on the page, not daring to refresh, feeling utterly frustrated.

Fortunately, the post finally went through, and soon there were replies.

“Sour! So sour my teeth are falling out. It’s Buddha, okay? Not ‘holy monk.'” This was followed by a string of vomiting emojis.

The comment came from Long Xiujuan.

Wu Mangmang pursed her lips, thinking: You don’t understand a thing. Haven’t you watched Journey to the West? I’m using the tone of the Queen of the Kingdom of Women here.

Recently there had been too many TV dramas and books fantasizing about monks, making Wu Mangmang somewhat expectant of bald heads, especially those foreign monks who could marry and had private helicopters.

After pursing her lips, Wu Mangmang began rapidly typing a reply to Long Xiujuan: “Are you pregnant? Having such severe morning sickness.”

Unfortunately, the mobile signal was indeed very mobile. Wu Mangmang’s phone signal was back to zero. She had to raise both hands high again, spin around twice in place, and when she received two bars of signal again, she sent out her reply.

At that moment, Jiang Baoliang, who was on the villa’s rooftop with binoculars supposedly to watch the stars, had completely shifted his interest to Wu Mangmang.

“This girl is so amusing! What on earth is she doing? She keeps walking in circles around that spot, constantly raising her hands.” Jiang Baoliang laughed heartily, saying to Lu Sui: “You should come look too, it’s hilarious.”

Lu Sui expressed no interest.

Jiang Baoliang didn’t insist further. He knew that women held less attraction for Lu Sui than an ant would.

“This girl doesn’t just have psychological problems, she must have brain problems too, right?” Jiang Baoliang continued watching, laughing so hard he was rocking back and forth. “This trip wasn’t in vain.”

Lu Sui had already moved to the telescope beside him. After watching for a moment, he said: “She’s looking for a phone signal.”

“Phone signal?” Jiang Baoliang couldn’t understand.

Was it really necessary to go to such lengths for a phone signal?

But this seemed to be the only explanation that made sense.

After receiving Lu Qingqing’s urgent dinner summons, Wu Mangmang rode back to the villa like she was soaring through clouds. She went upstairs for a quick battle shower, changed into a different dress, and came back downstairs.

Dinner was set in the garden.

Above were countless stars, with the Big Dipper’s handle exceptionally clear.

Below were specially air-shipped fresh flowers of various colors, emanating fragrance.

Not far from the dining table, a violinist was performing.

In Wu Mangmang’s words, the dinner was romantic enough to be a wedding banquet, obviously arranged to accommodate the ladies present.

When you’ve eaten too many good things, everything tastes the same.

Today’s dinner theme was clearly meant for conversation.

Wu Mangmang and Lu Qingqing sat in the seats of honor at the end. The lady beside them had no intention of conversing with her, leaning thirty degrees to the left throughout the meal to make her attitude clear.

Wu Mangmang was happy to have peace and quiet. What she hated most was forcing herself to chat with people during meals until her face ached from smiling.

The internet here was excellent, perfect for browsing Weibo and social media.

Occasionally lifting her head to relax her neck, Wu Mangmang’s gaze would meet Shen Yuanzi’s in the air. The young lady would coldly look away, and Wu Mangmang would have to make eye contact with Ning Zheng, who was sitting beside Shen Yuanzi and looking over.

Then she would decisively ignore his complex expression and continue browsing Weibo with her head down.

“I don’t know why, but I suddenly feel like dancing.” Du Yijun put down her napkin and sighed with a smile.

“I wonder if I have the honor of inviting Ms. Du for a dance.” Lu Sui stood up.

As the host, Lu Sui naturally had to ensure his guests enjoyed themselves.

Though he was a distant person, as if nothing could enter his heart, his expression wasn’t the same kind of aloofness as Shen Ting’s.

Du Yijun was naturally happy to agree.

Wu Mangmang leaned close to Lu Qingqing’s ear to whisper: “Why does our uncle call her Ms. Du?”

Lu Qingqing was much more well-informed than Wu Mangmang. After chatting with Du Yijun that afternoon, she had checked out her situation on social media.

“I heard she’s in the middle of divorcing Mr. Liu.” Lu Qingqing said.

Wu Mangmang nodded. From this perspective, Lu Sui was either Du Yijun’s newly sought backing, or Lu Sui was trying to win over Du Yijun.

In any case, it was a perfect match with mutual benefits.

That Wu Mangmang could think this far was already quite remarkable. She wasn’t patient enough to guess at these things, so she stopped her imagination from running wild.

The handsome man and beautiful woman dancing together was very pleasing to the eye. What was rare was that Lu Sui showed none of the typical male stiffness when dancing – they usually looked like skeletons with arms stretched out horizontally.

Lu Sui’s dance moves were elegant and fluid, controlled and natural. His arms lightly guided Du Yijun through graceful turns, creating a feast for the eyes. Both could be called dancing masters.

These two undoubtedly inspired everyone present to dance.

After Ning Zheng danced one song with Shen Yuanzi, he invited every lady present to dance, deliberately leaving out only Wu Mangmang to show his anger at being rejected earlier.

Lu Sui stopped dancing after one song with Du Yijun.

Shen Ting never moved at all. In Wu Mangmang’s mind, Shen Ting gave the impression of being the type of rigid man who would move his arms and legs in sync when dancing, as stiff as his expression.

Jiang Baoliang did dance two songs, with decent moves, just his belly was a bit too big.

“How about dancing with me?” Lu Lin’s voice suddenly sounded in Wu Mangmang’s ear, interrupting her “public review” work.

“I’m not very good at this kind of dancing.” Wu Mangmang said modestly.

Nightclub-style chaotic dancing would be more suitable for her. Actually, she could even do a striptease.

“Then let’s dance something you’re good at.” Lu Lin said with a smile, clearly not accepting refusal.

These days, women were more domineering than tyrannical CEOs. Wu Mangmang was speechless.

“Don’t be modest. You must have studied dance.” Lu Lin smiled and added.

Wu Mangmang had indeed studied dance.

Children from families like hers, with busy parents, spent their weekends in various interest classes.

Calligraphy, painting, piano, dance – she hadn’t missed any of them.

But Wu Mangmang was only interested in the youth martial arts class, which was the only place where she could hit those children who had very happy childhoods without being scolded.

As for dance, Wu Mangmang preferred passionate and aggressive ballroom dancing, because she felt that ballroom dancing’s body language constantly conveyed this message: Are you as awesome as me? Are you as sexy as me?

Both awesome and sexy – quite thrilling.

Everyone was a show-off, just divided into obvious show-offs and subtle show-offs.

“I’m okay at samba, but I don’t have a partner.” Wu Mangmang said with feigned regret.

Dancing samba on the lawn? Lu Lin was momentarily speechless. “I can partner with you.” Lu Lin said, walking over to the musicians and saying something. The music changed to passionate samba style.

Now it was Wu Mangmang’s turn to be dumbfounded. Really going to dance samba with me on the lawn?

High heels would poke holes in the grass, and it would be embarrassing when they got stuck and couldn’t be pulled out.