She snatched the phone back and pressed the advantage. “Mr. Sheng, when Madam said 'it's nothing,' she didn't mean it. She said it because she believes you won't take her side.”
Beside her, Lin Ting lunged to grab the phone in a panic. “Stop talking!”
Shen Yueji sidestepped her, paid her no mind at all, and recited everything Lin Ting had just said in one breathless burst. “Mr. Sheng—as Madam's husband, if she's been wronged, you'll stand entirely, completely, forever on Madam's side, won't you?”
On the other end, silence for a few seconds. When the voice came again, Sheng Zeyun's tone was far more formal than before, every word precise and distinct. “I, Sheng Zeyun—whether or not I am Lin Ting's husband—will stand on Lin Ting's side, entirely, completely, forever.”
Lin Ting went completely still. He'd said “whether or not I am her husband.” The fingers gripping the balcony railing tightened.
Beside her, Shen Yueji was deeply satisfied. The man finally had a mouth on him.
That night, after receiving Sheng Zeyun's icy warning text, she had felt wronged.
And after feeling wronged, she had gathered her courage and sent him a long paragraph laying out, in full, her observations and analysis of Lin Ting's situation, ending with the line: “Love needs the most direct expression there is.”
She had no idea whether any of it had sunk in. But tonight, that one sentence meant all those analyses—drawn from the piles of wealthy-family novels she'd read—hadn't gone to waste.
Lin Ting still stood there dazed, and Sheng Zeyun on the phone said nothing more. Shen Yueji asked, “Then I'll hang up first,” received an “Mm,” and cut the call without hesitation.
She turned to Lin Ting. “You see, Young Miss? Mr. Sheng is on your side.”
Lin Ting came back to herself and lifted her chin slightly, the tsundere tone sliding back in. “So what? They already said all those things. It's not like I can stuff the words back into their mouths.”
Shen Yueji blinked. “Then you could get revenge.”
Lin Ting's eyes lit up, and she looked over expectantly. “How?”
Shen Yueji froze. Uh. Uh-uh-uh. That was asking a bit much of her. According to the wealthy-family novels, you were supposed to dump a glass of red wine on the gossips, or slap them out of the venue... Just how trustworthy were these novels as reference material?
Before she could devise any strategy, the doorbell rang. Shen Yueji went to answer it—and found Sheng Zeyun standing outside.
She stepped aside to let him pass and, with exquisite situational awareness, left the room to the two of them, slipped out, and pulled the door gently shut.
Only once she was outside did she notice there was someone else standing in the corridor.
A brown suit, impeccably cut, expensive at a glance, the man leaning against the wall, watching her with an amused look in his eyes.
Probably here with Mr. Sheng. Shen Yueji nodded to him in acknowledgment and took up her post in front of the door like a gate guardian.
But the man spoke, a smile threading his voice. “Not leaving? Standing at the door to eavesdrop?”
“No.” In front of strangers, Shen Yueji kept up her mature, steady bodyguard front—back straight, eyes forward.
What she didn't know was that the entire conversation on the balcony had been overheard, in full, by Sheng Zeyun and the man before her from the small balcony upstairs.
Back in the ballroom, Shen Yueji resumed her post in the corner, operating as scenery.
She had just readjusted her earpiece when she saw Sheng Zeyun leading Lin Ting down from the second-floor staircase. Sheng Zeyun's stride was long, his expression far from pleasant, his gaze sweeping the hall as if locking onto a target, heading straight for it.
Lin Ting was being pulled along, one hand holding up her skirt, the other dragging back on his arm with all her strength, brow furrowed, lips moving—reading the shape of them, she was saying something like “forget it” and “don't go.”
Watching from a distance, Shen Yueji couldn't keep her mouth from curving up. Ship it, ship it, Mr. Sheng is really going to go settle accounts. The young miss can't even hold him back.
She was enjoying the show when someone's shoulders blocked her view.
“Shen Yueji! It really is you!”
She froze for a split second, pulling her gaze back from Sheng Zeyun and Lin Ting to the face in front of her.
The man she'd nearly collided with at the stairwell corner—she'd been too desperate chasing Lin Ting to get a look. Now, standing under the lights, his features were perfectly clear—an old face dug up from a corner of memory. Brow bone, jawline, and that not-quite-noticeable mole: everything matched.
Cheng Chi.
She composed herself and produced a smile that was polite and measured. “Hello, Young Master Cheng.”
Cheng Chi looked her up and down, gaze sliding over the black suit, the earpiece wire, the staff badge. A faint, unreadable smile hung on his lips. “So how did you end up here? Dressed like that—are you working here as a servant now?”
She'd already lost the rest of what he was saying. Her mind had been dragged seven years back by the face in front of her.
Seven years ago, she'd been a freshman in the accounting program at Yu City University, famously aloof, head buried in coursework and part-time jobs, keeping everyone at arm's length except her roommates.
Cheng Chi was that breed of campus celebrity—good face, good family, good at basketball, recognized wherever he went.
A man like that pursued her for half a year: breakfast deliveries, holding library seats, waiting for her under an umbrella at the school gate on rainy days. It was so conspicuous the whole department was whispering that “the accounting program's top student had landed the campus heartthrob.”
After six months, she said yes. And within the first month she found out: Cheng Chi had started pursuing her over a bar bet—whether he could land “the girl who was hardest to get.”
When Shen Yueji found out, she didn't yell, didn't make a scene. That very night she sent one message ending it and blocked every one of his contacts.
Later, her little sister's illness and the hospital bills for the orphanage director who had raised her—the woman she called Mom—came down on her all at once. She truly couldn't hold up anymore, and she went back to him.
She got no help. Instead, a rumor spread through the school that Shen Yueji had been playing hard to get with the campus heartthrob all along—that she was really a gold-digger.
In the end, Cheng Chi's family arranged for him to transfer abroad. And Shen Yueji, having lost her sister and the director-mom both, left school and enlisted.
“A-Chi, what are you doing over here?” A cluster of young masters and young ladies closed in, dragging Shen Yueji out of the memory.
She had no desire to get entangled with this young master again, and was casting about for an exit line when a voice broke the awkwardness.
“What's everyone gathered around for?” It was the man in the brown suit, the one who'd gone upstairs with Sheng Zeyun. He walked over and said it lightly, without any particular weight, and the onlookers drifted apart. Behind him came Lin Ting and Sheng Zeyun, who appeared to have finished handling their own business.
Shen Yueji let out a long inward breath. Young Miss, you are my god.
She crossed over in three quick steps and took her place at Lin Ting's side, spine straight, turning her head slightly toward Cheng Chi. “Young Master Cheng, I'm Miss Lin's personal bodyguard.”
Now every eye in the vicinity swung onto Cheng Chi. Surrounded, his mouth pulled into his customary smile with its edge of mischief. “Nothing. Just ran into my ex... my ex-girlfriend. Saying hello.”
The gazes transferred from Cheng Chi to Shen Yueji in an instant.
In that moment, Shen Yueji very much wanted to punch Cheng Chi's smug head in.