Bai Xiao pondered for a long time and finally understood; Sister Wei and Li Jiao were insinuating that An Zhiyuan was cheating!
It seemed the rumor was rampant throughout the compound, and it looked like she had to step in to address it herself.
Without grabbing her bag, she headed straight out the door and cycled to An Zhiyuan’s military base, where she was stopped at the gate. She asked the guard to notify An Zhiyuan that someone was looking for him.
And she waited at the gate.
The night breeze wasn’t very cool, the temperature at night here was still bearable; overall, the season was temperate without extreme heat or cold.
Someone came out, "Who’s looking for Chief An? He went to a meeting and hasn’t come back!" Wu Yalan could have simply told the guard over the phone, but her curiosity overpowered her reason when she heard on the phone that it was a young girl looking for An Zhiyuan.
So she specifically came out to see, just who was this young girl who came looking for An Zhiyuan in the dead of night?
Once she stepped out, the guard pointed at the young girl standing outside by the wall of the gate entrance. What young girl?
Bai Xiao, because of her small face, was always mistaken for younger than her age, which was quite deceptive. Now looking at her, Wu Yalan indeed thought she was just a fifteen or sixteen-year-old girl, and seemed to breathe a sigh of relief.
An Zhiyuan was the type to have various relatives and, looking at her, she seemed more like a family member, like a sister or something.
In the past few days, An Zhiyuan had been someone who scarcely joked or smiled, always stern, going about his duties methodically and precisely, without wasting words on idle chit-chat with her, so what she knew about An Zhiyuan was mostly hearsay.
It was said An Zhiyuan wasn’t a local, and he didn’t look like one. The locals generally weren’t as tall and sturdy, and his face was clearly that of a northerner.
"Chief An has gone to a meeting, and he’s not back yet. If you have something to tell him, you can tell me, and when he returns, I’ll pass on the message," she said, curiously looking at Bai Xiao.
It was at this moment that Bai Xiao understood what Li Jiao and Sister Wei had meant. Indeed, in front of her stood a bona fide mature woman, seductively sexy and charming, and it was indeed rare to see such provocative dressing here at night. She noticed the young soldier standing guard by the door trying to keep his eyes straight ahead but blushing to the tips of his ears.
"No need!" said Bai Xiao, shaking her head as a sense of disappointment suddenly filled her.
However, she wasn’t interested in inquiring about Wu Yalan’s relationship with An Zhiyuan! Such trivial gossip was not something a grown adult like her should be asking.
She turned around, ready to leave.
Wu Yalan watched the girl pushing her bicycle, ready to leave, and found the girl’s behavior quite odd.
Just then, a jeep drove up and stopped beside Bai Xiao.
Wu Yalan, with her keen eyes, immediately spotted An Zhiyuan.
She rushed over to him.
"Darling, you’re back!" she exclaimed.
It was their playful term of endearment they planned to use at future auctions; to avoid slipping up, they had been addressing each other this way for the past couple of days.
Upon seeing Bai Xiao unlocking her bicycle, An Zhiyuan stiffened, then turned around.
His eyes filled with disbelief as they locked gazes with her.
In that moment, An Zhiyuan realized something was terribly wrong.
Wu Yalan had just called him ’darling.’
That was a huge misunderstanding.
He immediately got out of the car and hurried toward Bai Xiao, but she didn’t even give him a glance and pedaled away on her bicycle, ready to depart.