SAHBQT 07

Chapter – 07

The Beloved Heiress — Stirrings of the Heart

Bai Qiyao had the young man lead You Mingming to find Pei Jingzhi, while he himself planned to leave. But just as he turned, the sleeve of his uniform was gently tugged. He lowered his gaze and met a pair of pleading, watery eyes.

“Can… can you come with me?”

The familiar floral fragrance wafted over. Bai Qiyao steadied his mind, subtly stepped back a few paces to put more distance between himself and You Mingming, then swept his sharp gaze over the young man whose expression had grown intoxicated and almost distorted—

He now realized just how dangerous it would have been to let the young girl go off alone with this man.

“Fine, let’s go together.”

Bai Qiyao followed silently behind You Mingming, like a grim, imposing guardian deity. Because of his cold demeanor and his reputation for being difficult to get along with, the men and women who had been about to approach and strike up a conversation all fell silent along the way.

The young man leading the way was also trembling with fear, his legs feeling weak. Even as oblivious as he was, he understood that his attitude toward the future major’s wife seemed to have touched a nerve with the major.

But he didn’t regret it—in fact, he was rather pleased.

Just standing next to her seemed to soothe all his past pain completely.

You Mingming was led to the second floor. The Bai family’s seaside villa was probably over two thousand square meters. Compared to the bustling activity on the first floor, the second floor was much quieter. Her gaze drifted past the window and she noticed a peacock sculpture in the garden.

The peacock sculpture stood atop a fountain, with one blue and one red gemstone set into its eye sockets, shining brilliantly in the night.

Such priceless gems, wantonly wasted on a decorative sculpture—this alone gave a glimpse into just how vast the Bai family’s wealth truly was.

You Mingming’s gaze stuck to the gemstones, unable to look away. She suspected that in a past life she might have been a dragon, given how much she loved shiny things.

She shared this thought with the system, who replied: “The shininess comes second—what really matters is that the shiny things are valuable.”

You Mingming: “So that’s the kind of person you think I am?”

“Yes, I am,” she admitted readily, gazing at the gems with tearful eyes. “There are so many rich people in this world—why can’t I be one more of them?”

“Oh, is that rumor true?” As they neared the corner, You Mingming suddenly overheard two women whispering. “Did Pei Jingzhi really become Lady Pingyuan’s paramour?”

“Yes,” another voice replied, laced with resentment. “He truly turns no one away. I originally thought I was special to him.”

“Heh, you never should have given him your heart. Everyone else thought the same—that they were the special one—and in the end, they all had to accept reality with their tails between their legs.”

“No wonder he’s been so hard to find lately…”

“If he really has become Lady Pingyuan’s paramour, given her temperament, we probably won’t have any chance left at all.”

You Mingming stopped walking. The young man beside her looked at her awkwardly—

Bai Qiyao stood with his arms crossed, half-leaning against the wall behind him. His long, boot-clad legs were slightly bent, the tips of his toes touching the ground, his face utterly expressionless.

Clearly, this was exactly what he had meant just now—that when she saw or heard something about Pei Jingzhi with her own eyes and ears, with her heart tied to her stepbrother as it was, Pei Qingqing had better not regret it.

You Mingming: “…” So what expression am I supposed to have right now?

The system: “Improvise.”

You Mingming understood, and lamented to the system, “I never expected him to be this kind of man! A man who doesn’t uphold male virtue won’t be loved by women.”

“These days, money is hard to earn, shit is hard to swallow, and working people have no rights!”

The system: “…” That’s a bit much.

You Mingming grasped the emotions appropriate for a delicate flower at this moment. She clenched her fists, her eyes bright, harboring two flames of anger that made the two women chatting and laughing startle in unison when they saw her.

Yet she said nothing, merely letting the two women walk away in embarrassment.

“Don’t believe everything they say,” the young man leading the way scratched his head. “Jingzhi is just a good person—he’s gentle with everyone, which makes them think they have a chance.”

“Actually, it’s understandable. Qi Xin only came back a few years ago, so Jingzhi grew up without a mother figure.”

Therefore, it wasn’t hard to understand why he was so drawn to women after he grew up.

You Mingming’s expression relaxed considerably, as if she believed the young man’s words. “Is that matter about Lady Pingyuan… true?”

“I don’t know,” the young man hesitated for a moment, then honestly said, “All I can say is that almost no one can resist Lady Pingyuan’s charm.”

You Mingming said nothing more after that, walking quietly all the way to the open terrace at the end of the second floor. There she saw a young man standing alone, his back to them.

The night was deepening, dark mist spreading all around. The moonlight spilled across the terrace, covering the young man who stood with his back to everyone, making his jet-black hair seem as though it was dusted with frost.

Hearing the sound behind him, the young man turned around. His hazy peach-blossom eyes gazed back through the night breeze. Beneath his high nose bridge, his slightly curved lips made one instinctively warm to him at first sight.

Before this moment, You Mingming had never thought the word “gorgeous” could be used to describe a person’s appearance.

He gave off a feeling of being tightly bound to swamps or darkness—as if when something reaches the pinnacle of magnificence, it is inevitably followed by a grand, decadent death.

No wonder women couldn’t help but become infatuated with him, knowing full well what kind of person he was, yet still unable to resist wanting to get close to him, to save him.

Pei Jingzhi’s pupils were very dark, veiled by his lowered lashes, making it impossible to guess his thoughts. One could only glimpse a hint of light through that subtle shimmer.

He was exceptionally handsome, and his build was by no means frail—he appeared to be about 188 centimeters tall. Through his slightly open collar, one could glimpse his delicate collarbones and the faint outline of his abdominal muscles.

The evening breeze rustled through, sending flowers from the terrace scattering to the ground in a flurry.

Pei Jingzhi smiled at her, his gaze exceptionally tender, like a spring river, radiating infinite tolerance toward the person before him: “Why did you come here?”

You Mingming stared, somewhat dazed.

At the same time, the progress on her second task increased by ten points. Merely being with Pei Jingzhi was apparently also the original host’s way of claiming this as her own way of possessing her brother.

“You haven’t come home in so long…” You Mingming was about to say more when she was interrupted by a sweet, playful voice. The girl, pulling Wen Suyue along, ran over and said, “Brother, Brother Jingzhi, the dance is about to start—why are you all still here?”

“Brother Jingzhi,” the girl in the pale yellow court dress stepped forward and looped her arm through Pei Jingzhi’s. “Today’s my birthday—keep me company for a while, won’t you?”

“Of course,” Pei Jingzhi replied with a smile, looking at Bai Junmin with no difference in expression from when he looked at his stepsister.

And so You Mingming understood—although this man appeared gentle to everyone, everyone was the same in his eyes. No wonder the two women earlier couldn’t help but complain.

You Mingming sat down and drank a glass of water. For some reason, Wen Suyue, despite all the places she could have been, chose to stay right beside her.

“Miss Pei,” Wen Suyue said, her expression flickering. “I don’t know if you’ve heard—apparently, a few formulas on Xunfangchen were auctioned off for hundreds of millions.”

“I was thinking, if you were willing to auction off the perfume formulas your parents left behind, the proceeds probably wouldn’t be any less than that.”

These past few days, Wen Suyue had been using her thieving system to crack that USB drive and kept failing. Her mindset was already beginning to crumble. If it weren’t for her rebirth and the undeniable fact that the system had given her the real perfume formulas developed by Pei Qingqing, she might have actually concluded that her system was useless.

Completely baffled, Wen Suyue could only assume the system had encountered a bug—that the formulas left by Pei Qingqing’s parents simply weren’t on that USB drive.

She planned to first probe discreetly to find out where the formulas were actually hidden.

At this moment, several senior perfumers whom Bai Qiyao had called over were also gathered around You Mingming. Upon hearing this, they all asked, “So it’s true that the Pei family’s stock crashed because of that incident, and they’re on the verge of bankruptcy?”

“I heard it all started with a plagiarism accusation—”

In this era, perfumers were an extremely valuable resource. So if a renowned perfumer was found to have had their formulas plagiarized, the plagiarist would fall into an abyss of no return. If not for this, the business empire left by Pei Qingqing’s parents wouldn’t have collapsed and gone bankrupt so quickly over just a hint of scandal.

The moment the word “plagiarism” was uttered, Wen Suyue bit her lip and put on a pitiful, aggrieved expression.

But everyone’s attention was on You Mingming—her performance was clearly wasted.

“Although I don’t know the full truth of the matter,” said a short-haired female perfumer, “could you tell me the name of the perfumer with whom you may have that misunderstanding? I think I might be able to help clear it up.”

“The Pei family has been good to me,” Wen Suyue chimed in. “I currently have about two million saved up. It might not solve your immediate crisis, but it’s all the savings I have.”

“If you tell me where those perfume formulas are, this whole matter will be much easier to resolve.”

“No need,” You Mingming looked at Wen Suyue with a puzzled expression. “My family isn’t short of money. As for that so-called misunderstanding, I’ll clear it up myself in due time.”

Upon hearing this, Wen Suyue lowered her head and sneered inwardly. On her way here, she had overheard this person talking to others about green-note perfume—she was probably planning to use that newly developed green-note fragrance as her weapon of retaliation.

But how would she know that Wen Suyue had already taken that very perfume out and demonstrated it to everyone?

As if she could already foresee Pei Qingqing’s unfortunate end, she said, “Well, alright then. Oh, by the way, Major Bai is over there—won’t you invite him for a dance?”

Not far away, Bai Qiyao was being nudged and teased by several peers in military uniform, all urging him to head toward You Mingming’s direction—clearly, they were also trying to persuade Bai Qiyao to invite her to dance. But with the system’s warning, You Mingming knew that the young major was completely clueless about dancing.

She glanced at the ill-intentioned Wen Suyue, then stood up and walked closer to Bai Qiyao.

Bai Qiyao furrowed his brows, his thin lips pressed tightly together—it was clear he wasn’t in the best of moods.

“Excuse me,” she blinked at the young men surrounding Bai Qiyao, speaking with utter sincerity, “I need to speak with my fiancé. Could you give us a moment alone?”

The young men exchanged glances, unable to hold back their smiles, then dispersed, leaving the time to the young couple.

“You helped me once,” You Mingming said before Bai Qiyao could speak. “So I’ll help you once in return—we’ll call it even.”

Her features looked exceptionally soft under the light. Unlike Lady Pingyuan’s flamboyant beauty, hers was understated. Though not breathtakingly stunning, she still had the power to make one’s heart skip a beat without warning.

Before Bai Qiyao could quite identify the sudden feeling stirring at the tip of his heart, You Mingming had already taken his hand and led him down to the seaside.