"Brother Lan Li, if Gu En really dislikes He Zhilan so much, why don’t we pull some strings and get Gu En transferred to another school?" Lin Deng was initially thinking that He Zhilan should move to another school, but on second thought, he realized that this would be unfair to He Zhilan. After all, He Zhilan had earned her place in Capital University through her genuine talent and hard work, whereas Gu En got in through connections.
"The older you get, the less sense you make!" Lan Li shook his head in disapproval, then sat next to the phone, picked it up and dialed Ding Long’s number, immediately asking if Gu En was with him. However, the voice on the other end wasn’t Ding Long but a mocking Ding Jinshi instead.
"I must say, Mr. Li, have you dialed the wrong number? Why are you looking for Miss Gu at Ding Long’s place? People who don’t know any better would assume that Ding Long and Miss Gu have some special relationship."
Ding Jinshi initially didn’t want to answer the call, but Ding Long had just excused himself to go to the restroom, leaving his phone behind on the table. When it rang, Ding Long’s mother naturally asked Ding Jinshi, his fiancée, to answer it for him. But it just so happened that the call was from Lan Li.
"Jinshi~" Lan Li’s expression stiffened. He could clearly make out the mockery in Ding Jinshi’s voice, but before he could say anything more, Ding Jinshi curtly ended the call.
Lin Deng turned his curious gaze towards the phone, as if looking at it would reveal what Ding Jinshi was saying on the other end. As soon as Lan Li put the phone back, Lin Deng chuckled and said, "Isn’t it rumored that Ding Jinshi and Ding Long aren’t getting along? But I see them together now. It seems their relationship isn’t as bad as people are making out, right?"
Lan Li shot Lin Deng a cold look, grabbed his jacket and car keys, and walked out the door. Without making any more calls, he was certain that Gu En was at the bar Night Charm, with Lan Song and their group.
However, this time Lan Li was wrong. Lan Song had returned to the south quite a few days ago and wasn’t in the capital. When he arrived at Night Charm, he found Gu En alone at a table with three used glasses, suggesting that two other people had been with her before he arrived. The ashtray on the table held two cheap cigarette butts, indicating her previous company were two men who smoked cheap cigarettes.
Upon seeing Lan Li, Gu En merely grunted, turned her back, and continued sitting there all by herself, seeming sober and listless.
"Refusing to stay at home or at school, skipping class whenever you feel like it and wandering around aimlessly – Gu En, what on earth are you up to? Don’t you have any sense of decorum as a daughter of the Gu family? Do you want to appear as a disrespectable girl or a lady of the Gu family?" Keeping his cool, Lan Li snatched the glass from Gu En’s hand, called a waiter over to clear the table, and then took a seat across from her.
"What does it matter to you? Why would you care about me? Are you not torn between that bitch Ding Jinshi and worrying about your comrade’s sister!" Halfway through her outburst, Gu En burst into tears, burying her face in her arms on the table. "Brother Lan Li, I am your sister. Why do you care more about an outsider’s sister than your own?"
"Have I not cared enough about you? Have I not indulged you enough? Haven’t I satisfied every single one of your wishes and helped you with everything since we were children? Even when you asked me to..." He cut off abruptly, his expression abruptly hardening, and his tone shifting to sternness.