Chapter 38.2 Clarification Part 2
Names mentioned in this chapter :
-苏芮 (sù ruì) – Su Rui, our female protagonist
-顾煜城 (gù yù chéng)- Gu Yu Cheng, the male lead
-顾董(gù dǒng)- Chairman Gu, Gu Yu Cheng
-白欣雨(bái xīn yù)- Bai Xin Yu, aka Siria
-白宇集团(Bái yǔ jítuán)- Bai Yu Group
– 顾夫人(gù tài tài)- Mrs Gu
-余静女士(yú jìng nǚ shì)- Madam Yu Jing
Ten meters away, Su Rui saw the man in a suit and black coat standing upright under the streetlamp at the dormitory’s entrance.
Having not been able to see Gu Yu Cheng for a few days, Su Rui really missed him.
So much that the moment she saw Gu Yu Cheng, Su Rui, herself, could feel her heartbeat speeding up a little and she was inexplicably a bit excited.
She subconsciously trotted towards the direction of Gu Yu Cheng.
Before Su Rui had realised that it was better not to be seen too excited at this time and was about to slow down and walk over “calmly”, Gu Yu Cheng had somewhat sensed her presence, raised his head and looked towards Su Rui’s direction.
The moment he saw the girl trotting towards him, Gu Yu Cheng’s eyes lit up and a smile that had not been there for the past few days instantly appeared on his face.
In the next second, Gu Yu Cheng had briskly walked towards Su Rui’s direction.
“Slow down.” In the middle of the conversation, Gu Yu Cheng had walked forward and grabbed Su Rui’s arm.
“En.” Su Rui nodded.
Their eyes met, and no one spoke for a moment.
Gazing deeply at Su Rui, Gu Yu Cheng’s Adam apple bopped, his mind was organising the words on how he was going to explain it to Su Rui.
As for Su Rui.
Initially, she wanted to tell him that she missed him once she met him. Who knew that before they met, such an internet gossip would actually pop up out of nowhere?
“Is the project in City S successful?” Tightening the coat wrapped around her again, Su Rui looked towards Gu Yu Cheng, pursed her lips slightly and asked.
Upon hearing that, Gu Yu Cheng nodded his head, but his eyes did not leave Su Rui for a moment.
“Are you cold?” Gu Yu Cheng asked.
“Hm?” Su Rui looked up at him.
In the next second, Gu Yu Cheng had taken a small step forward, grasping Su Rui’s hands, and embracing her in his arms.
So cold. This was the first thought in Su Rui’s head the moment she was pulled into Gu Yu Cheng’s arms.
It might be because he was standing outside for a bit too long, that Gu Yu Cheng’s coat was cold and wet. Did it perhaps rain a bit before?
But, very quickly, the damp chill faded and Su Rui’s entire body felt warm.
Being held by Gu Yu Cheng, Su Rui could feel the strength of his hand.
Smelling the other person’s scent, at this moment, it was like something was filling Su Rui’s heart.
Hmm.. Alright. She missed this guy, and she was pretty excited to see him.
Su Rui thought to herself as she nestled in Gu Yu Cheng’s arms.
It seems that Gu Yu Cheng also enjoys the current state of the two of them. So he just tightly embraced Su Rui in his arms, he did not rush to speak as if he did not want to ruin the atmosphere of this moment.
For a moment, maintaining a mutual snuggling position, neither of them spoke.
Finally, after being hugged by Gu Yu Cheng long enough, Su Rui began to worry that if the two of them continued to maintain this position, they would simply be so cold that they had to get IV drops together.
“Alright, isn’t it time for you to explain? Your first girlfriend? And that news on the internet.” Su Rui leaned on Gu Yu Cheng and asked sullenly, but her tone contained a hint of seriousness.
“She is not my first girlfriend nor is there any relationship between us.” When Gu Yu Cheng heard that, he did not hesitate, and his tone was serious and spoke directly. After a pause, he then said, “My girlfriend from to start to end is only you.”
After saying that, Gu Yu Cheng formed his explanation and told Su Rui about how he knew Bai Xin Yu.
“The celebrity mentioned online was previously a daughter of the Bai Yu Group, do you know about the Bai Yu Group?”
“The company that went bankrupt about ten years ago, that Bai Yu Group?” About this, Su Rui has a bit of an impression of it because the bankruptcy of Bai Yu Group was taken out as a case study by the tutor of the economic analysis course before.
“En.” Gu Yu Cheng nodded and said, “Bai Yu Group had some business dealings with Gu Company in the past, and the two families are considered to be acquainted. In addition, the Bai family also lived near Gu house before, so they are considered neighbours.”
“The kids who lived over there were about the same age and went to basically the same school. So at that time, kids would play together amongst themselves and the Bai family’s daughter was one of them.”
“Childhood sweetheart?” Hearing Gu Yu Cheng’s explanation, Su Rui raised a brow and asked.
“Not at all. It’s at most one of the playmates I know.” After all, he and Bai Xin Yu weren’t the only ones who played in the same courtyard at that time and later attended the same school and class.
Also, Bai Xin Yu is a girl, and as they grew older, there weren’t many situations where they played together between boys and girls.
“After that, the Bai family went bankrupt. Bai Xin Yu left the country and I haven’t seen this person since then.” Gu Yu Cheng said in a calm tone as if he was a bystander explaining about someone else’s matter.
Only that when Gu Yu Cheng mentioned this matter of the Bai family’s bankruptcy, his eyes flickered with a hint of darkness.
The real story about what happened at that time was not as touching and heartwarming as Tang Xiao Niu had made it out to be.
The reality was that Bai Xin Yu and Mrs Bai had gone to the school to find Gu Yu Cheng a few days before the Bai family was about to declare bankruptcy.
What they told Gu Yu Cheng was that Bai Yu Group’s bankruptcy is related to Gu Company.
In business, there are no eternal enemies or friends, and interests are paramount, let alone that there is already fair competition between Gu Company and other enterprises.
Regardless of whether what the Bai family’s mother and daughter were telling the truth or not, even if the Bai Yu Group had lost in the competition with Gu Company, in Gu Yu Cheng’s opinion, it was merely normal business competition.
However, it was the point that Mrs. Bai mentioned afterwards that made Gu Yu Cheng unhappy.
According to Mrs. Bai, Mrs. Gu or Madam Yu Jing was deliberately trying to suppress the Bai family because she misunderstood her son and the Bai family’s daughter relationship.
Frankly speaking, with Gu Yu Cheng’s intelligence, he would not believe this kind of statement at all.
He didn’t believe his mother could do such a thoughtless, reckless and distrustful thing to her own son.
However, when Gu Yu Cheng returned home, the first thing Mrs Gu asked him was: What is his relationship with that girl from the Bai family? What did he secretly do without letting his family members know and so on.
At that time, Gu Yu Cheng did not know that the Bai family had actually visited Gu house hoping that Mrs Gu could help them because of their children’s relationship before they met him.
As a result, Gu Yu Cheng really thinks that Madam Yu Jing was being stupid.
Consequently, the mother and son had a big fight over it.
When Mrs Gu calmed down, she also felt that she probably misunderstood her son in a moment of anger, but at that time, Mrs Gu was haughty. How could she apologise to her own son?
That and Gu Yu Cheng was at a rebellious age at that time. Therefore, he didn’t want to talk to his family about anything at all. Moreover, at that time, Gu Yu Cheng was actually discontented with Mrs Gu’s attitude and the way she handled things.
Thus, the misunderstanding between these two people, where one with an overly strong personality and the other that is too lazy to say anything, was resolved just like that.
It was just that the Bai family’s situation was over by then and it didn’t affect them that much thus that knot in their hearts remained.
“En.” When Su Rui heard the explanation, she nodded her head and added, “So what about the news on the internet yesterday?”
“I was about to leave the hotel yesterday and was just waiting in the lobby for the driver to arrive. Coincidentally, Bai Xin Yu walked over since she probably recognised me and greeted me.”
After so many years, Gu Yu Cheng’s impression of that person wasn’t too deep, so he simply distantly exchanged pleasantries with her and then he left.
The whole process hasn’t taken more than 2 minutes.
After that, the photo was taken by a “passerby”.
Just like that?
Actually, even though Su Rui felt a little frustrated, she had always rationally believed in Gu Yu Cheng.
So, at this moment, hearing Gu Yu Cheng’s explanation about this matter, Su Rui was not too surprised. On the contrary, a certain gossipy part of her was still a little bit not satisfied with this conversation.
Su Rui first raised her eyebrows, then recalled what Liu Ling had said before and suddenly furrowed her eyebrows slightly.
“Gu Yu Cheng.”
“Hm?”
“That Miss Bai seemed to be staging an act[1] on you.” Su Rui voiced out the suspicion in her heart without concealing it.
Otherwise, a clear photo of a casual greeting could be taken, and all sorts of “scientific and reasonable” news articles would follow.
If it is a coincidence, this is probably too much of a coincidence.
Thus at this moment, such a word popped into Su Rui’s mind: Staged act.
Now, most of the celebrities have to live on internet traffic flow[2]. For the sake of their popularity and internet traffic flow, it is not uncommon for celebrities to stage an act, pull a publicity stunt[3] and even become infamous and then popular later on.
Staging an act on other celebrities is seen quite a lot. It is probably because of the lack of fame and “cooperation” that there are not many cases of celebrities staging an act on someone from the business circle.
That Siria met Gu Yu Cheng was probably considered a chance encounter. It is just that only what happened later, it would be hard to say that it was accidental.
Upon hearing that, a cold glint flickered in Gu Yu Cheng’s eyes.
“En.” Gu Yu Cheng responded as he added, “Don’t worry, all relevant news and articles have been removed.”
As for the other matter, Gu Yu Cheng also told Su Rui.
When Gu Yu Cheng arrived at City B’s airport, he came out of the airport and happened to meet a few reporters that were waiting on the passageway.
Although Chairman Gu is half a public figure, he is not an object of public discussion.
As for Siria, even though she is a celebrity and recently bought a lot of publicity articles of #this person is very popular, she hasn’t entered the domestic market yet after all. Thus, she is not as famous as Gu Yu Cheng amongst public discussion.
So those reporters didn’t come and wait specifically for Gu Yu CHeng.
Those people originally came to wait on a certain red carpet star who just went abroad and made a fool of himself. However, they happened to see Gu Yu Cheng and thought they could get a special column, so they interviewed Gu Yu Cheng about the scandalous incident that was fermenting for a while a few hours ago.
In response to the reporters’ question, Gu Yu Cheng just coldly spouted, “Utter nonsense.”
Just these words because it was the person involved personally responding to it and it was someone who could not possibly be talking nonsense like Chairman Gu. So all these so-called rumours from before became like what Gu Yu Cheng had said, utter nonsense.
However, considering other not-so-small public discussion and subsequent events, such as the fact that one matter that is already heading east and there are still a small group of people who firmly insisted it’s going west.
When Gu Yu Cheng got off the plane, Gu Yu Cheng instead arranged for Wang Zhou to release more news.
As for what news, of course, it was about the actual relationship of Gu Yu Cheng with Bai Xin Yu.
Bluntly speaking, the two of them were just neighbours who have known each other in the past. That’s all.
When Su Rui heard Gu Yu Cheng’s explanation, she nodded, but she pretty much agreed with him doing so.
There was nothing to it in the first place, and sometimes it was better to be very clear and open instead of using a tone to conceal or refute an explanation.
This melon was cut open, but it was so bland and tasteless that, naturally, the melon eaters would lose their interest in it.
“So, do you trust me now?” He lowered his head and looked at the girl nestled on his shoulder, Gu Yu Cheng said with a smile.
“I have always believed you.” Su Rui said.
In his arms, because Su Rui was cold, her hands subconsciously inserted themselves into the pocket on both sides of Gu Yu Cheng’s coat at some point.
In the left pocket, Su Rui touched Gu Yu Cheng’s car key.
Then, without even realising what she was doing, Su Rui unconsciously pressed the button on the car key one after another.
After explaining what he wanted to say, at this time, Gu Yu Cheng also noticed that, next to him, his car’s headlights were flashing on and off.
When he saw that, Gu Yu Cheng couldn’t help but curved into a smile, somewhat amused, but he didn’t remind Su Rui and just let her continue doing that.
“Su Rui.”
“Hm?”
“There is a banquet…”
[1] 碰瓷(pèngcí)-Staged act/to scam somebody by setting up an “accident” in which one appears to have sustained damage or injury caused by the scam victim, then demanding compensation. The variation of these incidents include putting “expensive” porcelain in place where it is likely to be knocked over by passers-by, and stepping into the path of a slow-moving car. Thus, it sort of relates to its literal translation of the words ‘touching or bumping(碰) porcelain(瓷)’.
[2] 流量(liúliàng)- Site traffic/internet traffic flow/influencer. It has two meanings. Firstly, it could refer to site traffic or internet traffic flow. Secondly, it could refer to an influencer or a celebrity that is very popular and has a lot of fans.
[3] 炒作(chǎozuò)- pull a publicity stunt/hype/promote in the media. It is used to increase sales or ratings. It is commonly used to attract attention, and some subjective conjecture and unconfirmed content are often added in the process.