The noisy, bustling food stalls were steeped in a thick, lively human warmth.
Shen Wanci's slightly wavy hair was gathered into a simple bun with a claw clip. As she lowered her head, the loose strands at her temples fell down, hiding the side of her face. Her black hair set off her already fair skin, making it all the more dazzlingly bright.
She pointed at the menu, turning her head to say something to the man beside her.
The man nodded, and Shen Wanci smiled, reaching out to flag down a server.
Gu Chenye raised an eyebrow. "Looks like your wife is living quite happily now that she's left you."
Bo Jingzhou said nothing, turning to leave the private room…
At the food stalls, Li Bai chugged down a bottle of beer, still not quite believing it. "You're really Wanwan? The Wanwan who successfully restored that severely damaged Yuan blue-and-white vase?"
Shen Wanci: "……"
This question—Li Bai had already asked it many times along the way, and by now she didn't even know how to answer it.
Mr. Xu kicked him under the table. "Drink less. Wanwan, just ignore him."
Shen Wanci answered obediently: "Okay."
"Food's coming—careful, don't get burned!"
A server called out as he set down a plate of garlic razor clams. Shen Wanci had just picked up her chopsticks when her phone rang.
She set down her chopsticks and dug the phone out of her bag.
Her finger was about to slide across the answer key when she noticed the name on the screen was Bo Jingzhou's…
Shen Wanci's finger froze. She didn't answer, and finally set the phone to silent and put it on the table.
The phone rang twice, then stopped.
Shen Wanci wasn't surprised. Bo Jingzhou had never had any patience to begin with—every time he called in the past, if she was even a beat slow to answer, he'd hang up.
But this time was different. Not long after the call cut off, a WeChat message popped up on the screen.
She tapped it open offhandedly, and the next second she was startled—it was actually from Bo Jingzhou, just two simple, blunt words: 【Come over.】
Shen Wanci frowned and instinctively swept her gaze around. In the end, it settled on the black Bentley parked outside the five-star hotel across the way.
Bo Jingzhou's car was custom-made; she could recognize it at a glance.
Shen Wanci ignored it and kept eating, but she was clearly a bit distracted.
Seeing that Shen Wanci had barely touched her chopsticks, Li Bai assumed she was being shy, so he used the serving chopsticks to put a shrimp into her bowl: "No need to be so reserved. Everyone at Jingyuan is easy to get along with—just treat us as friends. Whenever you need time off, Mr. Xu won't lift a finger to stop you. He'd be only too glad for us to leave quickly."
The truth was, it was hard to retain people in their line of work. Forget promotions—facing these broken, dead old objects every day, you couldn't even find a boyfriend. After a day buried in painstaking work, there simply wasn't enough time.
Few young people could bear this hardship and loneliness, so Mr. Xu cut them as much slack as he could, doing whatever he could to keep people, with relatively lenient discipline.
Shen Wanci smiled. "Thank you."
She had just bent her head to eat the shrimp when another message came from Bo Jingzhou—
【You come over, or I come over?】
Even through the screen she could feel… the thick menace and displeasure radiating from that man.
Shen Wanci knew Bo Jingzhou's temperament all too well. She finished the shrimp Li Bai had given her in two or three bites, set down her chopsticks, and apologized: "I'm sorry, Mr. Xu, something urgent has come up that I have to deal with today. The ride-hail I called has arrived, and the driver keeps rushing me—I have to go first."
Mr. Xu was easygoing about it: "Go on, go on. I should be leaving too. I'm old—I can't match you young people's energy."
Shen Wanci apologized to the others as well, then picked up her bag and strode quickly toward that Bentley.
The passenger door opened and shut, and Shen Wanci slid in, her voice urgent: "Hurry, let's go."
Bo Jingzhou's already displeased mood instantly darkened several degrees more, his fury gradually impossible to suppress. Not only did he not drive off—he reached out and seized the woman's jaw. "Am I so shameful to be seen with?"
His grip made Shen Wanci's chin ache a little, but facing Bo Jingzhou, she simply refused to back down.
In those three years of marriage before, she had backed down every single day, and it had won her not the slightest tenderness from him. Don't expect her to keep coddling him now.
"We're about to get divorced. I don't want people to misunderstand and think I'm still tangled up with my ex-husband."
The man's eyes were dark as a clot of ink. He stared at Shen Wanci's soft, pink lips, his coarse fingertip pressing against them. "Were the shrimp good?"
Seeing his expression, Shen Wanci understood at once the veiled meaning in his words.
Heh. The base nature of men.
Even a woman he didn't want, he wouldn't allow anyone else to touch.
But she was determined to let him know she wouldn't be oppressed by him.
Shen Wanci arched an eyebrow at him. "Of course they were good…"
Before she could finish, Bo Jingzhou's lips pressed down, forcing the rest of her words back.
The scent of tobacco mingled with a faint trace of wine flooded her senses. His kiss was as domineering as the man himself, allowing no refusal.
Shen Wanci hadn't reacted at all. In all their married time, he had rarely kissed her, and on the occasions he lost control it had been within controllable bounds—he could withdraw and call a halt at any moment.
But this time…
In the brief instant her thoughts drifted, the man's hand had already slipped in under the hem of her clothing, his coarse palm pressing against the line of her waist, with a faint intent to keep moving upward.
In her daze, Shen Wanci had the illusion that if she didn't stop him from going further, Bo Jingzhou might really go for a round right there in the car.
She closed her eyes and made one fatal move—
"Hiss."
The man drew in a low breath and let go of her, but his lips stayed very close, as though he'd kiss her again the very next second.
Bo Jingzhou reached up and wiped his lips. A few faint red specks of blood stained his fingertip. He curved his lips, but it was colder than not smiling at all: "You bit me?"
Shen Wanci scrubbed at her lips a few times with her sleeve, thoroughly disgusted. "What, did Jian Weining not satisfy you? Got you going around in heat like some stud horse?"
Bo Jingzhou's expression didn't change. "We're not divorced yet. Touching her is less of a sure thing than touching you."
Those two words—'sure thing'—were especially mocking!
Shen Wanci was so furious she laughed, itching to slap him across the face on the spot!
"If she knew what a scumbag you are, she'd probably dump you all over again."
The words had barely left her mouth when that 'bang, bang' sound came—someone was knocking on the car window…
The two of them looked toward the sound, only to see Li Bai standing outside the car, bending down to see whether anyone was inside.
The car had privacy film—you could see out from the inside, but no one could see in from the outside.
Bo Jingzhou didn't roll down the window, only swept a critical gaze over Li Bai from head to toe.
Then, his voice cool and laced with derision: "So this is the new man you've found?"
What Li Bai wore wasn't luxury label, but the quality was excellent too, and the watch on his wrist was worth over ten thousand—yet in the eyes of the money-burning Bo Jingzhou, it didn't even amount to the cost of one of his meals.
Before Shen Wanci could respond, Bo Jingzhou's gaze shifted from Li Bai to the food stalls across the way. "You kicked up such a fuss demanding a divorce from me—all for this man, who brings you to a place like this to eat?"
His words grew uglier and more cutting with each sentence: "Shen Wanci, have you had your fill of delicacies and now you want a taste of plain congee and simple side dishes?"
Shen Wanci looked at the man's cold profile, her heart aching at how worthless all her years of devotion had been.
"That's right. Young Master Bo is rich and good-looking, and the gifts he hands out run into the millions and tens of millions. But your wife would rather eat at a roadside stall than stay married to you. Tell me—why do you think that is?"