Chapter 81: Business Trip (Part 10)

This time, it was also the first time Zhou Xiaoru felt from the bottom of her heart that Gu Liyan was a gentleman of his word.

A new day had arrived without her noticing; at this moment, Zhou Xiaoru and Gu Liyan were already in the car driven by Xiao Chen, heading toward the location of the Bidding Conference.

Last night, after Gu Liyan kissed her, he did not do anything else.

Instead, he lay on the bed just the same and chatted with her.

The two chatted for a long time, from university to their current work and life, from friends around them to colleagues at work.

Zhou Xiaoru had never imagined that one day, she would be able to just lie under the covers and purely chat with Gu Liyan like she did last night.

(Author's note: Was that really just chatting! Are you suffering from selective amnesia! Have you forgotten what happened before the chatting?)

But Miss Zhou did not pay any mind to that soul-stirring kiss before they parted, which had been so intoxicating it almost made her lose control.

And last night, the final outcome seemed quite dramatic as well.

After chatting for a long time, a certain Xiaoru fell asleep on the waterbed in the Love Hotel Room without even taking a bath.

And after she fell asleep, a certain gentleman propped himself up, touched that sleeping face, and said a sentence she did not manage to hear.

"Xiaoru, in this world, the only thing that can make me give up on you is your own true heart. Your heart tells me that you still love me, so... how could I possibly give up on you..."

A certain gentleman had dug a very large pit for her to jump into, and she still did not know it.

However, this pit was one she had jumped into herself; she could not blame anyone else.

Zhou Xiaoru thought that through the long chat last night, she had already become friends with Gu Liyan.

In reality, a certain gentleman had already laid out a fine, dense net for her, letting her crawl into it of her own accord.

To avoid suspicion, they did not travel with Zhou Ding; everyone was in the same industry, so it was better to keep business as business and meet up privately later.

And this Bidding Conference lasted for a full three hours before it finally ended.

Because the organizers wanted to keep this Bidding Conference confidential, everyone entering the conference hall was forbidden from bringing in electronic devices.

This caused Zhou Xiaoru, who had been trying to be clever and use her phone to record audio for her notes, to have no choice but to use a pen and notebook to take records.

If she had known it would be like this, she should have prepared a digital voice recorder.

By the time the conference ended, her dog paws were about to be crippled.

There was too much to remember, and she had written several pages. Yet, when the great President Gu looked at her records, which were written like ghost talismans, he frowned.

In the end, the Big Boss just coldly said, "Go back and organize a new copy for me."

Zhou Xiaoru had no choice but to work overtime to reorganize it after returning to the hotel, without even having time to eat.

At this moment, she had returned to the suite, and Gu Liyan had already gone out to eat with Zhou Ding.

She was creating a new document on the computer, typing all the meeting records from the morning into the computer.

While typing, she was cursing.

"Damn it! I'm not an Executive Secretary, why call me to take meeting minutes! What a waste of time!"

Cursing to this point, she suddenly remembered the several pages of precautions that Zhang Haiyan had given her in the car yesterday.

She stopped her typing, leaned back against the sofa...

That's not right! The coffee and breakfast in the morning were all prepared by that guy, and he didn't ask her to handle it.

Thinking this way, she felt that the Executive Secretary was being overly dramatic.

Suddenly thinking of something else, she hurried toward the bathroom in the two-bedroom suite.

Sure enough, in the bathroom of one of the rooms, she found a certain brand of toilet paper!

It seemed that this was also bought by Gu Liyan himself.

This guy really has had enough! Going on a business trip and having to use his own toilet paper; what did the hotel's toilet paper ever do to him, could it give him hemorrhoids or something?

Shaking her head, she sat back down on the sofa, somewhat uncomprehending, and prepared to type again.

But just as her butt hit the seat, the doorbell rang again, so she had to go open the door.

After opening the door, it was a young man who looked like a waiter, pushing a dining cart inside.

The other party said very politely, "Hello, Miss Zhou, this is your lunch."

"I didn't order any food."

After saying this, she immediately thought that it must have been ordered for her by Gu Liyan.

Just as she was wondering in her head if Gu Liyan had changed his strategy to deal with her, the young man added a sentence that instantly dispelled her thoughts.

"Oh, it's like this, our hotel provides lunch for guests in the Presidential Suite; did you not know before you checked in?"

"Oh... is that so? I didn't book the room, so I didn't know."

"Very well, then I wish you a pleasant meal. We will have someone come to collect the trays in two hours."

"Okay, thank you."

"You're welcome."

After seeing the waiter off, Zhou Xiaoru finally took a good look at the food on the cart.

Two portions of rice, four dishes, and one soup; this was a lunch for two.

It seemed this really was a free lunch provided by the hotel.

She hadn't eaten dinner last night, and in the morning she had only had a little coffee and two pieces of cake before rushing out.

It was already past eleven o'clock now, and she was truly starving to death.

She had almost been about to order takeout just now; this food had come at the perfect time.

Since Gu Liyan had already gone out to eat, these dishes were all hers for the taking.

Just thinking about having something to eat made a certain Xiaoru feel so happy.

And just as she was wolfing down the food, the young man who had delivered the meal, after leaving, immediately spoke into the walkie-talkie in his hand.

"Manager, the lunch has been delivered according to your instructions, and Miss Zhou has no suspicions whatsoever."

A moment later, a calm voice came through the walkie-talkie.

"Understood."

The young waiter looked at the walkie-talkie in his hand with some confusion...

Is this the manager? How did his voice sound so pleasant all of a sudden?

On the other side of the walkie-talkie, on the second floor of this hotel, Gu Liyan and Zhou Ding were sitting at a table by the floor-to-ceiling glass window, eating.

The second floor was the restaurant, and people were coming in one after another to dine.

On the table, besides some simple food, there was a walkie-talkie placed at the left hand of a certain gentleman.

The person who had just replied was not the manager here, but him.

The hotel manager had been chatting with them just a moment ago, but had been called away to handle something, so the walkie-talkie had been left here.

The lunch sent to Zhou Xiaoru had been specially arranged by Gu Liyan, and those words were also what he had instructed to be said.

It was all so that Zhou Xiaoru would not be suspicious; he looked at the rather intense sun outside—the weather in W City today was unusually hot.

After thinking for a moment, he picked up the walkie-talkie again and said.

"When you go over to collect the tableware, prepare a serving of matcha ice cream to take with you, and just say that this is a complimentary after-meal snack provided by the hotel."

The young waiter on the other end of the walkie-talkie stared at the device in his hand in a daze again, and replied hesitantly.

"Understood, Manager."

A question rose in his heart again: Is this the manager? Or... has the manager's walkie-talkie been stolen?!

Since when did the manager's voice become so magnetic!

Over there, Zhou Ding was sighing and shaking his head while eating.

After the man opposite him put down the walkie-talkie, he glanced at the person across from him, not paying much attention to his behavior.

Zhou Ding, who had been holding it in since last night, finally couldn't help but ask.

"Do you really... like Zhou Xiaoru now?!"

Why did he feel that this was somewhat horrifying!

The gentleman glanced at him again and replied.

"What's wrong?"

"No, back at school, you didn't treat her well at all, so why have you suddenly changed your nature now?"

He suddenly remembered that on the day of the school anniversary, after this guy met with Zhou Xiaoru alone, he had been suffering from diarrhea ever since he came back...

Thinking of this, Zhou Ding had a sudden inspiration.

"Did Zhou Xiaoru feed you something on the day of the school anniversary!"

He remembered that when he returned, he said he had drunk something unclean.

Could it be that Zhou Xiaoru had cast a spell on him?!

Gu Liyan also thought of the scene from that day at this moment.

Recalling that girl, like a little tiger showing him her tiny claws, a trace of a gentle smile could not help but appear on the gentleman's face.

This made the person opposite him unable to accept it, and he almost vomited out what he had just eaten.

A sour stench of romance made Zhou Ding want to leave immediately.

"Please! I'm telling you, brother, can you not make that disgusting expression!"

As the words fell, the tenderness on Gu Liyan's face vanished instantly, and he looked at the person opposite him with a face full of frost.

As soon as Zhou Ding saw him revert to his icy face, he even patted his chest with great seriousness.

"That's better, that's better, I almost threw up."

"Zhou Ding!!"

"Alright, alright, I am one hundred percent sure now that you have truly, genuinely fallen for that Zhou Xiaoru. I sent a message to Yu Li last night, and he didn't even believe it."

It wasn't just that he didn't believe it; even though he had seen them both living in the same room with his own eyes, and had even heard Gu Liyan reject his childhood sweetheart with his own ears...

He still felt that all of this was just acting.

But now, seeing the things this guy had done for Zhou Xiaoru, plus this expression and this sour stench.

It was all enough to prove that Gu Liyan was in love.

Gu Liyan was slightly lowering his head at this moment, looking at the food on his tray, talking to himself a little.

"Even I find it hard to believe."

It had only been a few months, and he had already fallen for Zhou Xiaoru.

Love does not distinguish between who came first or last, nor does it care about the length of time.

Although a first love is hard to forget and lasts a long time, once someone else moved back into his heart, he realized that none of this had anything to do with time.

When the time came, and that person was there, everything just followed its natural course.

Zhou Ding had already heard his self-talk and asked gossiping-ly.

"Last night..."

As for the rest of the words, he thought Gu Liyan should know what he wanted to ask.

Last night, after the two of them left the suite one after another, that Fang Qingkong, after being heartbroken for a long time, rushed out of the room just when he thought she was about to come back to life.

In the end, he was the only one left in the spacious Presidential Suite.

He had originally wanted to go and check on his good brother to see how things were.

But then he thought, they were in a Love Hotel Room now, so would it be inappropriate for him to go?

So he had no choice but to hold it in until today...

And Gu Liyan, after raising a pair of murderous eyes, asked coldly.

"What do you want to know?"

Zhou Ding gave two dry laughs, "Why are you still the same as before, not cute at all."

This icy gaze could freeze a person to death.