Surrounded by Wolves
Chapter 21
The auction was cut short. The provenance of every lot was reopened for investigation. Soon, the Chinese Embassy in France also activated its internal and external response procedures, sending a consular specialist to follow up and coordinate with the French authorities. Each side was to provide one appraiser certified under its own national system. Because the embassy did not currently have an appraiser on staff, Jiang Wu, who held the proper credentials, would temporarily act in that role. She began work in the examination room while waiting for the French appraiser to arrive.
Jiang Wu had no choice but to remove all of her disguise and change into a different set of clothing. She pinned up her hair, put on gloves, and walked over to Snow Over the Northern Frontier. She switched on the specialized lighting used for restoration and authentication and looked at the rime-covered snowy landscape vividly captured on the scroll.
The brush-and-ink traces were distinctive. Red collector’s seals covered the work, each one left by a different owner over the centuries. It was authentic. And it really was the same painting she had seen in a museum in China three years ago. Jiang Wu let out a soft sigh.
Before long, the door opened again. When Jiang Wu saw who had entered, she was surprised. “Professor Lina.”
The newcomer exclaimed just as loudly. “Oh my God, Miss Jiang?” Lina enthusiastically expressed how much she had missed her and opened her arms as she walked toward Jiang Wu.
Just before she touched Jiang Wu’s work clothes, she remembered where they were. “No, no, no.” She immediately pulled back. Then she asked, “What happened? I heard the auction house ran into quite a serious problem today.”
Jiang Wu gestured toward the painting. “This one.”
Lina was a professor Jiang Wu had met while doing further study in the United States, where Lina had been visiting for a short-term academic exchange.
Jiang Wu explained, “This painting originally belonged to the Su family of Hai City. In the 1980s, they donated it to the museum as a treasure. It has remained in the museum collection and been exhibited there ever since. I saw it at the museum three years ago. I never expected the next time I saw it wouldn’t be in a museum, but being auctioned overseas.”
Lina immediately understood the seriousness of the situation. “This is an illegally trafficked cultural relic.”
“Yes.”
Lina nodded. “All right.” She went to change into her work clothes. “Don’t worry, sweetheart. I heard the embassy has already stepped in. Since it’s a museum collection piece, the chain of evidence should be complete. If we authenticate it as genuine, they’ll give you a proper answer.”
Jiang Wu smiled. “I just didn’t expect it would happen to be you. That’ll make things go much more smoothly.”
“That may not be a coincidence.” Lina finished putting on her work gear. “A friend contacted me and asked me to help.”
Jiang Wu’s heartbeat paused slightly. “A friend?”
Lina smiled. She had spent most of her life in academia and knew little about gossip or Jiang Wu’s family affairs. So, she had no idea about their relationship. “Do you two know each other? Huo Qingzhi.”
Hearing the name, Jiang Wu’s lashes trembled. “He’s my…” The word brother reached the tip of her tongue, but she simply couldn’t say it; anything else was even harder. “Yes. We know each other.”
~~
When Jiang Wu came out of the examination room, several police officers and embassy officials handling negotiations were still gathered outside. There were also reporters waiting around. After all, this was major news. The moment the examination-room door opened and the appraisers stepped out, the media surged forward. They moved so fast that even the police barely reacted in time.
Jiang Wu was suddenly hit by two camera flashes. Lina immediately shut the examination-room door to keep the flashes from damaging the artifact. Before Jiang Wu could even open her eyes, someone caught hold of her arm, and a tall figure stepped in front of her.
Huo Qingzhi said nothing and ignored every question from the media. He simply guided her straight into the emergency stairwell nearby. The police followed after them and blocked the reporters outside.
Jiang Wu stumbled a step. When Huo Qingzhi stopped, whether because she had been jostled too hard by the crowd or simply couldn’t stop her momentum, Jiang Wu crashed straight into him. She pressed him directly against the stairwell railing.
Jiang Wu heard a faint compressed inhale from the man’s chest. The low breath carried an indescribably masculine intensity.
For a moment, the air seemed to freeze. The only thing especially clear was the rough, burning warmth of the man’s palm against her arm. That heat seemed capable of traveling along her veins and slipping into every part of her body.
Huo Qingzhi made no unnecessary movement. He steadied her and said, “Go downstairs first. Someone’s waiting in the underground parking garage.”
But the place he was holding was her waist. The way he closed a hand around her waist and guided her inward was practiced and natural. As though, sometime Jiang Wu knew nothing about, he had rehearsed the movement countless times in his mind.
Jiang Wu answered dazedly and went downstairs first. But the places he had touched quickly began to burn. She couldn’t shake the feeling off.
Huo Qingzhi turned back and escorted Professor Lina into the stairwell too.
The reporters had crowded around the elderly professor so tightly that she kept exclaiming in alarm. Only once she entered the emergency stairwell did she finally breathe a sigh of relief and thank Huo Qingzhi.
When Jiang Wu reached the underground parking garage, the driver spotted her and immediately switched on the car’s hazard lights.
Cherry had also gotten the news early and was already there to meet her. Jiang Wu had only walked halfway over when she heard someone call from nearby. “Jiang Wu?”
She followed the voice and saw Slyvia walking toward her with a delighted expression. “What are you doing here too? Who did you come with?”
Jiang Wu knew her, but she had very little energy left for socializing right now. She simply took Slyvia’s hand and gave her a brief hug in greeting. “Slyvia, I’m exhausted. Let’s talk another day.”
“What happened?” Slyvia had a stomach full of things she wanted to tell Jiang Wu. “Did you see it too? At the auction today, someone called the police and said something about an illegal… something, some cultural relic. It scared me half to death.”
As she spoke, something started to feel wrong. The surroundings went quiet for a moment. Slyvia looked over Jiang Wu’s dress and appearance. Aside from the hat and mask she had removed for work, a strange sense of familiarity suddenly washed over her. “You…” Then Slyvia’s expression changed from casual conversation to shock. “That person was you?!”
Jiang Wu had already been photographed by the media, so there was no point hiding it. She nodded.
Slyvia suddenly felt ridiculous. “You have no idea. When I first saw you, I didn’t recognize you at all. My brother even thought you were some little lover Huo Qingzhi brought with him.”
She had even inexplicably started competing with Jiang Wu. So, she was his younger sister. No wonder.
Jiang Wu sharply caught the words little lover, and her scalp tingled. She awkwardly smoothed it over. “How could that be?”
“I really owe you too.” Slyvia hooked her arm around Jiang Wu’s. “Otherwise, I might’ve stupidly paid a fortune today for an illegally sourced artifact and left myself with a huge problem. Are you free sometime afterward? Let me treat you to dinner.”
“Sure.” Jiang Wu agreed. “But I really need to go back today.”
“Go get some rest.”
Slyvia saw Jiang Wu into the car, then went back and immediately kicked her brother. “That’s what you get for talking nonsense. I made such an idiot of myself today.”
Bastien hissed in pain, then shamelessly started laughing instead. “How was I supposed to know?”
Slyvia sat back down in the car, but the more she thought about it, the less right it felt. “I need to think about how to apologize properly.”
Bastien raised a brow. “Hm?”
“Bidding on an illegally sourced lot is unlawful.” Slyvia took a deep breath. “Even though I didn’t know, what happened still wasn’t appropriate.”
She turned to her assistant. “Send Miss Jiang a full set from our new Starry Enchantment collection.” The assistant agreed and called headquarters to arrange the transfer.
Jiang Wu sat in the car waiting for Huo Qingzhi. As she waited, she fell asleep. Half-awake, she felt herself being lifted out of the car. Through the cool fabric of his suit jacket, the heartbeat beneath it thudded softly against her. She wanted to pull away from the feeling of being touched. Instead, the arms around her tightened.
“Don’t move.”
The voice came from his chest. Low and gentle.
Jiang Wu had already been groggy with sleep, her whole body limp, and the vibration of that voice seemed to soften her bones even further. Instead, she curled in a little closer and asked drowsily, “Did you ask Professor Lina to come?”
Huo Qingzhi gave a quiet, “Mm.”
Jiang Wu said nothing more. Her thoughts drifted, and she fell asleep again.
After a long while, Huo Qingzhi mentioned in an extremely soft voice, “Before she left, she asked what our relationship was.”
Jiang Wu made two faint sounds, barely even forming words.
Huo Qingzhi said, “I didn’t say anything.”
She relaxed. Her breathing became even once more.
Huo Qingzhi carried her into the room, set her down, then bent over and looked at her softly closed eyes. “But what I said doesn’t matter.” What mattered was that this proved, at the very least, Jiang Wu no longer introduced him to other people as her brother.
~~
The next morning, the first thing Jiang Wu saw after waking was Slyvia sending her updates on Paris social media, all about the illegally exported cultural relics at yesterday’s auction.
When Jiang Wu opened Liang Xiaoyue’s messages next, she discovered that domestic social media had exploded too. It was filled with notices from the Chinese Embassy in France regarding the auction house’s violations. She was trending again. She immediately closed everything.
Annoying. Jiang Wu had even gone viral. She stayed buried under the blankets for a long time until she was fully awake. There was nothing she could do. This time, she had brought it on herself. But if she were truly asked to stand by and let that painting be auctioned off, she still couldn’t do it. Give her the choice a hundred times, a thousand times… she would still do the same thing.
Jiang Wu made peace with it. Maybe this was simply her fate. If the Hong Kong Museum wanted her, fine. If not, whatever. Worst case, she could become a private cultural relic restorer.
Jiang Wu climbed out of bed, ordered room service, then went to the living room to wait for her brunch. When she left her room, she discovered Huo Qingzhi wasn’t there, while Huo Yingli was packing his luggage.
Jiang Wu walked over. “You’re going home?”
“Yeah.” Huo Yingli spoke lazily. “I’ve been away too long. I need to go back and keep an eye on the PR department.”
Jiang Wu went to his side and crouched down to look at the luggage he was organizing. “Is it because of me?” At the moment, the only thing they seemed to need public relations for was the huge commotion she had caused.
Huo Yingli put down the clothes in his hands. “Didn’t they already cut ties with you? Why would it be because of you?”
Jiang Wu thought about it carefully. That was true.
What those people had said back then was that from now on, whether Jiang Wu caused positive or negative attention, she would bear it herself. The Group had completely drawn a line between them. Whatever the PR department did, the benefits or consequences wouldn’t fall on the Group anyway.
Halfway through packing, Huo Yingli suddenly asked, “Then if it is because of you, has Ah Wu thought about what reward you’ll give me?”
Jiang Wu walked to the refrigerator nearby to look for something to eat. “What can I even give you right now? But I do still have two funds operating, Bamboo Slips and Bronze Coin. If you like, pick one.”
“You’re quite generous,” he said. “One favor gets me one fund. What happens when you’ve given them all away?”
Jiang Wu took out a cup of yogurt and sat on the sofa, lightly swinging the slipper hooked over her toes. “Then I’ll just have to freeload off you, brother.”
The room went quiet for a moment. Even Huo Yingli stopped packing. Jiang Wu immediately realized something was wrong and hurriedly added, “Freeload off my brother’s labor.”
The explanation only made it worse. Huo Yingli suddenly let out a low laugh that sent chills down her spine, but she didn’t dare ask why. Fortunately, Huo Yingli resumed packing, letting it go.
Just then, room service rang the bell. Jiang Wu hurried to open the door, grateful for the chance to escape the awkward atmosphere she had accidentally created. She wheeled the cart in and asked him, “Want something to eat?”
“I already ate.” Huo Yingli finished arranging his suitcase and stood it upright. “I’m leaving.”
Jiang Wu walked him to the door. Huo Yingli stopped outside with his suitcase and turned to look at her.
Jiang Wu thought he had forgotten something. “What did you leave? I’ll get it for you.”
Huo Yingli drawled, “I was going to say… if Ah Wu ever needs to…” He paused, leaned down slightly, and murmured beside Jiang Wu’s ear, “You can freeload off me.”
When Huo Qingzhi returned and reached the doorway, this was exactly what he saw. Jiang Wu’s ears went warm, and she didn’t dare think too deeply about what he meant. “Freeload off what?”
“Whatever you meant is what I mean.”
“What I mean is you should hurry up and leave before you miss your flight.” Jiang Wu shoved him outside and slammed the door shut with a bang. Fortunately, the entire floor consisted of their presidential suite, with no unrelated guests around.
Huo Yingli was pushed out so forcefully that he staggered a few steps and leaned against the corridor wall, looking lazy and dissolute from head to toe. Then he turned back and knocked twice. “Forgot my coat.”
Rapid footsteps sounded from inside, and the door opened again.
Huo Yingli looked at her. “You were just asking me to stay and eat. Why are you chasing me out now?”
Jiang Wu shot him a look.
From Huo Qingzhi’s angle, he couldn’t see Jiang Wu. He only saw Huo Yingli’s coat come flying out from inside and land directly over his face. Then Jiang Wu shut the door again.
Huo Yingli caught the coat with one hand, draped it over his shoulder, and turned toward Huo Qingzhi. The two passed each other without saying a word. Huo Qingzhi could clearly sense the provocative air coming off Huo Yingli. Huo Yingli had deliberately stopped there and talked to Jiang Wu because he had seen him approaching.
Just what had they been talking about to look that intimate? From a distance, they looked almost like a married couple. A husband teasing his wife before heading to work, and a wife getting flustered and angry with him. More like husband and wife than Huo Qingzhi and Jiang Wu did. The pressure around Huo Qingzhi dropped to its lowest point. He walked to the door.
Jiang Wu had gone back to the sofa and hugged a cushion, pretending to be calm while her thoughts ran wild. Before she could settle herself, another knock sounded nearby. She didn’t want to deal with him anymore, but the knock came again quickly.
Jiang Wu let out an exasperated sound, grabbed the cushion beside her, yanked open the door, and swung it at him. “What did you forget this time? Huo Yingli, why does it always take you this much trouble just to leave…”
The cushion hit Huo Qingzhi squarely in the face. Before the impact registered, the scent of rose and cocoa from her body had already filled his nose and lungs. Huo Qingzhi stood completely still after being hit. The light in his eyes only grew darker.
So, this was how his wife had just rewarded his younger brother. And the way they talked sounded even more like private flirtation between husband and wife.
Jiang Wu stopped halfway through her sentence and stared blankly into Huo Qingzhi’s eyes. “Oh. It’s you.” She vaguely sensed that something about Huo Qingzhi’s mood was off. She lowered the cushion and retreated slightly into the room. “I thought it was Second Brother.”
Huo Qingzhi stared at her without blinking. “So, what were you two talking about?” As he spoke, he stepped inside.
Jiang Wu tried to move aside to let him pass, but there was something unusually forceful about his approach.
Once inside, Huo Qingzhi casually shut the door behind him. Bang. With almost no effort, he trapped her in a space containing only the two of them. Huo Qingzhi stood in the entryway, thinking about everything he had just seen and everything he had heard. The more he thought about it, the more dark thoughts began to grow uncontrollably in the hidden corners of his mind.
She was already his. Yet things with no sense of self-preservation kept coming up to her. Worse, this one was his own younger brother. He couldn’t exactly get rid of him, and Ah Wu was oblivious too.
Jiang Wu couldn’t read his expression, but the first thing Huo Qingzhi did after entering was remove the watch from his wrist and the ring from his hand. The metallic click of the clasps opening sounded unusually sharp. The pieces knocking together carried a strange chill. He removed them as he walked toward her. His mixed-race features, normally sharp and refined like carved jade, looked even more obscure now, his emotions impossible to read.
Jiang Wu certainly didn’t dare repeat exactly what Huo Yingli had said. “We didn’t talk about anything. Second Brother likes talking nonsense. You know that. You don’t have to listen to half of what he says.”
Huo Qingzhi knew she wasn’t telling the truth. He closed his hand around the watch and ring he had removed. The increasingly intense urge to punish her clamored at him to drag her over… Ah Wu was still too kind. If some dog outside rubbed against her, she would reach down and pet its head, rewarding it. She needed to be properly taught. So, she would understand that a married girl with a family of her own couldn’t casually reward dogs outside. Yet the little wife he had raised himself had no idea what was going through his mind.
She simply pointed at his hand in confusion and asked, “Why did you take those off?”