Surrounded by Wolves
His words seemed to be directed at the cat, yet somehow not quite. Jiang Wu didn’t respond.
Suddenly, there was a knock at the door. A servant outside had come up to call him. “Master and Madam have brought her back.”
Jiang Wu’s lashes trembled lightly, and she turned her head slightly toward the direction of the door.
Huo Qingzhi did not answer at once. His large hand soothed Bingbing’s warm little body. “The noodles are expired. Wait for me to come back.”
Jiang Wu’s brows and eyes moved faintly. Only after Huo Qingzhi let go and left the room did she react.
When the door opened, she heard the servant ask Huo Qingzhi cautiously, “There still hasn’t been any movement from Young Miss. Madam is considering whether to ask her to come meet her.”
Huo Qingzhi closed the door, and his voice was shut outside as well. “No hurry.”
Jiang Wu carried Bingbing out of the kitchen, took a bag of taro chips, and curled up on the sofa chair.
Absentmindedly, she opened the packaging, her mind involuntarily imagining the scene of Wen Ciying entering the house, everyone reunited and happy together.
Jiang Wu irritably curled herself deeper into the sofa, feeling restless. Two minutes later, she still could not resist struggling back up. She ran to the cabinet and dug out the pet companion robot used to watch over Bingbing. The little robot was a palm-sized ball. It had a black body and white base, with a camera inside its body. Its base had little wheels, allowing it to chase its cat master all over the floor.
Huo Qingzhi did not use it, but Jiang Wu liked using it to harass Bingbing when she was not home.
Jiang Wu turned it on, placed it outside the door, and closed the door again.
She crouched by the doorway, adjusted the robot’s viewing angle, then guided the little robot to leave the room and secretly go downstairs to look at the situation outside.
The little robot rolled smoothly down the corridor, looking left and right to make sure no servants would come up and catch it at this time. Only then did it confidently circle around to the corner staircase and head downstairs.
Jiang Wu curled back into the sofa chair and watched the footage the robot captured. She admitted that right now, she felt rather sneaky. But not wanting to go downstairs did not mean she was not curious. She would just take a look. What harm could it do?
The robot was not convenient for taking the elevator, and the staircase happened to be quiet, so it would not run into anyone.
Jiang Wu focused intently on her phone screen, controlling the buttons and directing the robot downstairs.
At this moment, however, at the corner on one side of the staircase, a tall, slender figure quietly appeared. His Cuban-collar khaki shirt gave him a relaxed and leisurely air beneath the dim yellow corridor lights.
Huo Yingli leaned to the side, watching as the little robot stopped on the upper step of the staircase, then suddenly hopped down to the next step. After pausing for two seconds, it backed up to gather momentum, then jumped down to the next step in one go. Once it got the hang of it, it began hopping down one step after another.
Huo Yingli laughed silently and slowly followed behind it.
Hearing footsteps, the little thing paused and actually turned in a circle to look for the source. Unfortunately, its movements were too slow.
Slow enough for Huo Yingli to walk into its blind spot and deceive her.
At first, Huo Yingli had been worried that Jiang Wu might be badly shaken after finding out. But looking at things now, Eldest Brother had been right. She still had an appetite, and she even had the mood to spy. Her mental state was healthier than both of theirs.
Huo Yingli watched as the little robot expended quite some effort hopping down to the second floor, then secretly and stealthily followed the second-floor corridor to the living room terrace. Whenever it saw a servant coming from the opposite direction, it immediately hid in a corner or pretended to be a potted plant. In the end, it simply pressed itself against the wall as it moved, lowering its sense of presence.
Only when it reached the railing of the second-floor living room did it stop, sneakily poking out half its head to look at the scene in the hall downstairs.
Wen Ciying had been home for a while. But the living room was not as lively as Jiang Wu had imagined. Huo Tingshan and Huo Qingzhi were both absent.
The atmosphere was also somewhat subtle. The household staff stood neatly in rows. On the living room sofa, Jiang Yaping was introducing the household situation to her.
Wen Ciying wore a hat and mask, a black T-shirt and long pants. At a glance, her entire figure looked like a dark, heavy mass, as though shrouded beneath storm clouds.
Jiang Wu was familiar with this kind of outfit. It was what one wore to avoid the media.
From the look of it, there should still be quite a few reporters camped outside Cloud Peak Bay.
Through the video feed, Jiang Yaping’s gentle tone could faintly be heard. “Your eldest brother is discussing matters with your father. He’ll come over in a moment. Are you hungry? Shall we go eat something first?”
Jiang Wu knew that Jiang Yaping was not a gentle person by nature. On ordinary days, she was not especially polite to her brothers or father. Only with her had she always been extremely gentle. So, when Jiang Wu heard Mommy speaking to someone else in that tone, she still felt disappointed. She was no longer Mommy’s only precious darling.
Jiang Wu irritably turned over.
But in the footage, Jiang Yaping seemed to have sensed something and raised her head to look in this direction.
Jiang Wu held her breath slightly, her body stiffening in place.
Then Jiang Yaping looked past the robot and frowned slightly. “You brat, you gave me a fright. When did you come back? You didn’t even say anything. Hurry down and greet your younger sister.”
“???”
The hairs along Jiang Wu’s back stood upright. Thinking of those shadow-like footsteps, she immediately turned the little robot around!
But she forgot that she was beside the railing on the second floor. As the robot’s wheels turned, one careless slip sent it sliding from the edge of the railing and falling straight down to the first floor.
Amid the wildly spinning footage, Jiang Wu saw Huo Yingli leaning against the railing, admiring the accident scene.
Beside her ear came the clattering crash of the robot smashing down below.
Jiang Wu covered her ears and screamed softly, “Ahhh! Huo Yingli, you bastard!”
No wonder she had heard footsteps. He had actually been following her the entire time, and gotten her caught!
So embarrassing.
The video feed flickered between black and white. Only when the little robot ball rolled to the edge of the sofa did it finally stop. Wen Ciying, wearing a black baseball cap, was staring unblinkingly in the robot’s direction.
In the midst of all that shaking, Jiang Wu’s heart seemed to hang in empty air, her lips pressed into a straight line.
In person, Wen Ciying looked even colder than she had in the photos. The black baseball cap cast a thin layer of shadow over her sharply structured face. Perhaps because she had been hounded by the media all day, her expression looked even more irritable.
Only after clearly seeing what the object was did Wen Ciying lift her brows slightly.
Jiang Wu actually saw in those pale eyes a faint, almost imperceptible trace of interest.
Then she watched helplessly as Wen Ciying leaned forward and, with great interest, picked up the robot. The next instant, the screen went completely black.
At the same time, the door to the room opened. Jiang Wu tensed and warily pricked up her ears. Only after listening for a moment did she realize it was Huo Qingzhi returning.
He had the chef bring dinner upstairs.
Jiang Wu shrank back and hid in the sofa chair, listening as the chef set the dishes in the dining room. The dining room in Huo Qingzhi’s suite was some distance from the sitting room, so no one could see her.
Only after the chef left did Jiang Wu slowly and hesitantly get up and walk to the dining room.
The table was filled with dishes she liked: crab roe pomegranate balls, beef brisket braised in red wine, scallop risotto with white truffle, and more.
Huo Qingzhi stood with his back to her beside the counter, and there was indeed a bowl of cat food beside his hand. He simply arranged the salmon and chicken breast. His shirt cuffs tightened around his strong arms, and standing there, his broad shoulders and narrow waist appeared even more pronounced, his lines and proportions exceptional.
Bingbing ran over after him and jumped onto the counter to look at the little cat bowl in Huo Qingzhi’s hand.
Huo Qingzhi turned around with the little cat bowl. From a short distance away, he saw Jiang Wu leaning against the doorway to the dining room, as curious as Bingbing about what he was holding. Perhaps he had not noticed earlier, but only now did Huo Qingzhi see that Jiang Wu was wearing only a thin nightdress.
The slender straps rested against shoulders as fair as snow, fragile enough that they seemed as though they would snap with a single tug, barely wrapping around that soft, tender body. Her well-proportioned legs were also revealed without the slightest concealment.
Huo Qingzhi subconsciously frowned and averted his gaze.
Jiang Wu, however, walked forward because he had looked over. Only now did she remember to ask, “When did you come back?”
“Just landed not long ago.”
Jiang Wu took Bingbing’s dinner from Huo Qingzhi’s hand and seized the chance to complain. “Second Brother is back too. The moment he came back, he started bullying people.”
The moment the words left her mouth, Jiang Wu felt a little awkward. They were no longer biological siblings now. Complaining to Eldest Brother and fussing over Second Brother teasing her suddenly seemed a little too precious.
A strange silence filled the room. Then, the man’s slightly lowered voice came from behind her. “He bullied you?”
Jiang Wu thought of what had just happened and could not say it aloud for the moment, so she hummed and started making things up. “Yes. He’s always like that.”
Huo Qingzhi did not take in what she was saying. He was only looking at her, dressed so defenselessly and wandering before him like this, her voice still holding that familiar, soft, spoiled tone. His mood darkened.
Jiang Wu did not sense it. She had long been used to Eldest Brother being like this. Only after waiting for a long while without hearing a response did she turn her head slightly.
Before she could look over, a suit jacket was suddenly draped over her body.
“Understood,” Huo Qingzhi’s voice came from right behind her ear. As he leaned down slightly, his voice sent a tingle through her ear. There was only one simple command: “Put it on.”
Jiang Wu paused for two seconds. In the silence, she felt the pressure coming from Huo Qingzhi and instinctively reached out to put the jacket on properly.
Huo Qingzhi helped her into the jacket. Seeing her so obedient gave him another strange feeling. He let out a deep sigh. “Eat first.” After saying that, he turned and left.
“Then you…” Jiang Wu wanted to ask where he was going, but before she could finish, Huo Qingzhi had already left the room.
His mood seemed even darker than before. Jiang Wu thought that perhaps he had gone to educate Second Brother.
Huo Qingzhi stood outside the door for a while. His brows were tightly furrowed as he tugged at his tie, removing that suffocating strip of fabric, then went to Jiang Wu’s room next door.
At her door was the package he had someone bring up earlier. Huo Qingzhi gripped the door handle and quietly looked at the fingerprint lock on Jiang Wu’s door.
As an elder brother, he probably should not have fingerprint access to his younger sister’s bedroom. Yet in the next instant, the fingerprint lock beeped a few times and opened in response.
At the corner of the circular corridor, a figure appeared.
Huo Yingli watched as Huo Qingzhi removed his tie just like that and entered Jiang Wu’s room. He waited in silence. About half an hour later, the door opened again.
Huo Qingzhi came out from inside and caught sight of the person waiting at the doorway. As their gazes met, an unusually subtle atmosphere emerged.
Huo Yingli looked him over and asked meaningfully, “How is she?”
“I remember telling you that she was fine.”
“Not good.” Huo Yingli smiled as he stepped forward, though the smile did not reach his eyes. “If I don’t see her myself, I still won’t feel at ease.”
“Let me go in and take a look?” As Huo Yingli spoke, he reached out to keep the door from closing, only to immediately feel resistance from Huo Qingzhi pulling it shut.
Huo Qingzhi casually closed the door. “I coaxed her to sleep. See her tomorrow.”
Huo Yingli studied his actions and clicked his tongue softly. “What’s this?” The smile at the corners of his eyes deepened, full of mirth. “Is Eldest Brother already planning to keep her all to yourself?”
In an instant, the circular corridor fell silent. So silent one could hear a pin drop. Those unreadable thoughts were, for the first time, openly exposed beneath the lights. Both of them maintained a surface calm.
Huo Qingzhi did not directly answer his question and walked away coldly. “She said you bullied her and doesn’t want to see you.”
“Oh.” Huo Yingli very naturally dragged Huo Qingzhi down with him. “And you?”
“What?”
“Don’t you want to bully her too?”