Rong Qian said nothing in response to Xu Mo’s rebuke. She just tilted the glass back and drained it in one swallow.

“Ah, I was just speaking off the top of my head — Miss Rong, if there are reasons you can’t talk about, pay no mind to what I said.”

Her silence left Xu Mo unsettled. If she’d pushed back or gotten angry, that would have been fine, but this — sitting there saying nothing and drinking her sorrows — made him feel almost guilty.

Rong Qian took the exit he was offering and changed the subject. “Where’s Shen Yi?”

“The boss went to greet tonight’s guest of honor, Chairman Lin. He’ll pay his respects and then he plans to leave.”

Rong Qian was still thinking about that secretary, Sheng Wanqing, and whether she had come along too, so she asked, “Is it just the two of you here?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.” Then Rong Qian added, “I met Sheng Wanqing earlier.”

“You met Secretary Sheng?” Xu Mo looked surprised. Something seemed to occur to him, and he quickly said, “Miss Rong, please don’t misunderstand — Secretary Sheng and the boss only have a professional relationship. And the reason a female secretary was hired is simply because there are certain matters that are more conveniently handled by a woman. That’s all there is to it.”

“I haven’t even said anything yet — why are you so flustered?” Rong Qian laughed despite herself. Did she really look like she was that bothered?

Xu Mo pouted. “I just didn’t want you to get the wrong idea. The boss has been completely devoted to you — if you misunderstood him, he’d be heartbroken.”

Then Xu Mo caught himself, realizing he’d missed the more pressing question, and hurriedly asked, “Miss Rong, you said you met Secretary Sheng — when was that? What did the two of you talk about?”

“Around two o’clock this afternoon. I thought I could get to Shen Yi through her, but it turned out she didn’t believe for a moment that I could possibly know him.” Rong Qian was honest about it.

Xu Mo looked embarrassed. “Ah, I see. She probably handles so many situations like this that she just assumed you were another one.”

“Never mind — it doesn’t matter anymore. Running into you is enough.” Rong Qian wasn’t one to hold grudges over small things. As long as she’d found Xu Mo, she could find Shen Yi. She asked him, “Where did he go to meet the guest of honor? I’ll go wait for him there.”

“You’re not staying here to wait?”

Rong Qian shook her head. “No — I’ll go to him. After all, he’s been waiting for me for so long. How could I make him come to me instead?”

Xu Mo found a quiet warmth in that, and told her where to go. After Rong Qian left, he happened to glance at the bottle she’d been drinking from — and his face went pale.

He stared in disbelief at the bottle, now nearly half-empty, of strong liquor. He let out a low, astonished murmur: “How did Miss Rong drink this much without saying a word? This is the bottle I brought — it’s got quite a high alcohol content.”

Xu Mo’s bottle was meant to be used as a mixer, mainly for adding flavor — not to be drunk straight. He’d had half a small glass himself and already felt his face flush and his head swim. How was Miss Rong still standing after that much?

As it turned out, Xu Mo had noticed far too late.

Once Rong Qian stepped out of the room, the alcohol hit her all at once. The world swayed. Her steps turned unsteady, and she felt as though someone had slipped something into her drink.

She knocked herself on the head, but the blur in her vision refused to clear. She muttered, “I can usually hold my drink just fine — why am I this far gone after just a little?”

All she felt was sleepiness — overwhelming, bone-deep sleepiness — the kind where she could collapse anywhere and fall into a dead sleep. Drinking never made her wild or reckless; it just made her want to sleep. Immediately, wherever she happened to be.

“Rong Qian, hold on. You cannot sleep,” she said, slapping her own cheeks, forcing herself to stay alert. But the alcohol made her awareness grow hazier and hazier with every step.

She stumbled into several people on her way, apologizing repeatedly. Then, just as she nearly lost her footing completely, someone caught her hand.

Her eyelids were impossibly heavy. She forced them open.

For a moment she thought it might be Shen Yi — until that vivid, flamboyant red filled her vision, and the hope on Rong Qian’s face visibly crumbled.

“Hey — what’s going on with you? How did you get this wasted?”

Ke Wenguang had been looking for her this whole time. Seeing her stumbling, nearly falling at every step, in a dazed and barely conscious state, he rushed over to steady her.

“I need to find Shen Yi…” Rong Qian was barely holding on by sheer willpower alone.

“You can barely stand up, and you still want to see Wei Long? What is wrong with you?” Ke Wenguang’s tone was exasperated, and his movements were rough as he reached out to support her, clearly put-upon about the whole thing.

“Hey — don’t take advantage of me!”

Both his hands were on her shoulders, and when he saw she couldn’t stay upright any longer and was falling toward him, Ke Wenguang complained even as his body instinctively moved to catch her.

He had to admit — this woman might be some obsessive fan of Shen Yi’s, but she was genuinely pretty, and her figure wasn’t bad either. Getting bumped into by a beautiful woman wasn’t really the worst thing in the world.

Just as he was thinking this, a hand suddenly shot out from behind him and shoved him aside.

The force behind it was sharp and contained a thread of anger — the kind that comes from being in someone’s way.

Ke Wenguang hadn’t been braced for it. The shove sent him stumbling back two steps, barely catching himself, and at the same time his grip on the nearly unconscious Rong Qian was released.

Without Ke Wenguang to prop her up, Rong Qian pitched straight toward the floor.

But before she could make contact with the ground, she was caught mid-fall.

The person who caught her was gentle. Careful and unhurried. He even lightly touched the top of her head. Even in her half-conscious state, Rong Qian’s nose caught a familiar scent — clean and faintly bracing.

She instinctively leaned toward him, her arms looping around his neck. In her sleep-soaked haze, she murmured, “Shen Yi…”

“Mm, I’m here,” came the soft reply.

Ke Wenguang steadied himself and nearly let loose a torrent of words — until he saw who had shoved him. The curses died on his lips.

Because this person was Wei Long.

If there was one thing Ke Wenguang knew about Wei Long, it was his reputation — famously uninterested in women, repressed and restrained, like a monk in the secular world, untouched by earthly desire. It was said no woman could get close to him; even Sheng Wanqing, who worked at his side, couldn’t lay a hand on him.

And yet here, right in front of him, was this man — the one with the reputation of wanting nothing to do with women — holding a woman in his arms of his own accord. The way he was looking at her was so deeply tender, so utterly wrapped in feeling, that Ke Wenguang could feel the warmth of it from where he stood.

He had never seen anyone look at another person with such naked, unguarded devotion. It was gentle enough to undo you completely.

A thought drifted through Ke Wenguang’s mind: could it be that everything this woman had said was true all along? She really did know Wei Long?