Gu Chao paused, shifting his posture with a hint of awkwardness. "I do know her."
"You seem to care about her quite a bit..." An Ruo had noticed him secretly following Song Weiwei's gossip news more than once. If it was just a rumor, clarifying it after being caught by paparazzi should have been enough—the whole thing had blown over anyway. Why was he still paying attention to her?
"She reminds me of someone from my past... an old acquaintance." Gu Chao suddenly let out a bitter laugh. "You could say she was my secret crush."
Someone he had quietly kept in his heart for over a decade, someone he could never forget.
An Ruo's eyes flickered with surprise. She hadn't expected Gu Chao to actually have a white moonlight in his heart. No wonder Zhou Mingyue had clung to him so desperately without ever getting a response. So his heart had already belonged to someone else.
"Even the CEO has someone he can't have?"
From his words, it seemed there was someone he carefully guarded deep in his heart.
Gu Chao's deep eyes dimmed. He picked up a cigarette from the table, paused before lighting it, then let out a soft laugh and put it away, forgetting she was pregnant. If Shen Xiaoxing had quit smoking for her and found out his girl was inhaling secondhand smoke here, he'd come charging over to beat him to death.
His eyes grew dark. "It's shameful to admit."
An Ruo didn't press further. She could already see the heavy sorrow in his eyes, and she didn't like reopening old wounds.
The room fell into silence. The man toyed with a metal lighter, his voice barely a whisper. "My parents died young when I was a child, leaving just my siblings and me to fend for ourselves. There was a famine back then, so we left our hometown and became laborers for a wealthy family to survive."
A flicker of shock crossed An Ruo's beautiful eyes. His background was so similar to hers. The difference was that he had siblings, while she only had An Che, who wasn't related by blood.
"That family had a daughter who was doted on by everyone. She was lively, dazzling, sincere, and kind. She never stood on ceremony and loved playing with us servants, never looking down on who I was." Gu Chao lowered his head, hiding the pain in his eyes. "The only bad thing was, she already had someone she liked."
"..."
"The person she liked was too outstanding—someone I could never measure up to in a lifetime."
An Ruo couldn't help but interject, "I'm really curious what someone more outstanding than the CEO looks like."
Even if his background had been poor before, he was now incredibly capable, sitting as the CEO of the Blazing Group with wealth and looks. Was that still not enough to compare to that lady's beloved?
Gu Chao leaned back in his office chair, his gaze gradually dimming. "He had a good family background."
"Have you heard of the Four Great Families?"
An Ruo froze. Could it be that the other party was...
"He was the young master of the Ji family. How could I compare?" Gu Chao smirked, a self-deprecating smile on his lips.
All he had now was money. Climbing through thorns and hardships, he could barely stand shoulder to shoulder with the other man, but that man had been born into his status. He had known long ago that Mu Yan would eventually marry Ji Chen. Their families were not only well-matched but also old friends. Old Master Ji doted on Mu Yan, and rumors of a marriage alliance between the Mu and Ji families frequently spread through the courtyard...
Although Mu Yan had never expressed her feelings for Ji Chen, no one in the Mu family opposed the match. Back then, he had nothing. Every time Ji Chen was with Mu Yan, he could only watch from afar. A good background was crucial to him, especially after meeting the radiant Mu Yan.
An Ruo hadn't expected that his crush's beloved was actually the young master of the Ji family. She had just heard Chen Keqiao talk about the Four Great Families, and now those names were fresh in her mind. But from the man's eyes, she saw not only unrequited love but also deep sorrow, a heavy gloom enveloping him. She didn't dare ask further and found an excuse to leave the office.
...
After a long day of work, An Ruo returned to the villa exhausted. Though the tasks were tedious, she enjoyed the feeling of being busy and fulfilled.
"Madam." Butler Xu greeted her as usual, taking her coat and bag.
"Is your master back?"
"Not yet." Butler Xu's eyes dimmed as he looked at her and asked softly, "Are you hungry, Madam? Should I have the kitchen make you some soup?"
"I'm not very hungry. I'll wait for your master to come back and eat together." An Ruo yawned. Pregnant women tended to be sleepy, and she was feeling drowsy again.
Butler Xu said nothing more, his gaze turning strange as he watched her go upstairs.
Lying in bed, An Ruo was drifting off to sleep when her phone on the nightstand vibrated. She was too tired to bother, but the caller seemed frantic, calling repeatedly.
Finally, a bit annoyed, she threw off the blanket and grabbed the phone. It was Chen Keqiao.
She answered weakly, "Hello."
Chen Keqiao raised an eyebrow. "Oh, listen to that weak voice. Am I interrupting something good? You two going at it this hard in broad daylight?"
In the past, An Ruo would have naively asked what she meant, but now, after being "trained" by Shen Xiaoxing, she understood instinctively and was caught off guard!
"What are you talking about? I worked all day and I'm exhausted. I just wanted to lie down."
"Really not doing anything?"
"...Do you have something to say or not? If not, I'm hanging up."
"Hey, hey, don't hang up! I'm calling because I have something urgent. Otherwise, I wouldn't have called so many times and wondered if you two were busy making a baby..."
An Ruo rubbed her head. "I'm really hanging up."
"Alright, I'll stop teasing you." Chen Keqiao said, "You promised me an autographed photo of Shi Yibo last time. Now he's caught up in a scandal, and I still haven't seen that photo. Where is it?"
"I've been busy lately. I'll look for it later and bring it to you tomorrow."
Chen Keqiao's tone turned surprised. "Wait, you actually have it!?"
"Yeah. Last time Song Weiwei thought I was his fan, so she helped me ask for one."
"Oh~ so those two have known each other all along. Song Weiwei's been planning this for a while, hasn't she?"
An Ruo yawned again. She didn't have the energy to gossip with her. She said she'd find it and quickly hung up. Afraid she'd forget—her memory was terrible now that she was pregnant and working—she slowly got out of bed, went to the walk-in closet, found the coat she'd worn that day, and pulled the autographed photo from the pocket.
Just as she was about to leave, she accidentally bumped into a nearby table. A drawer slid open, revealing some of the man's personal items inside.
An Ruo's gaze froze. Her eyes landed on a black card lying quietly inside—the all-access, unlimited black card for the elite circle.
She picked it up. On the back was a string of numbers. If she remembered correctly, it was the card the man had given her. Back then, she had used it to follow An Qing into the socialite event, not knowing how powerful it was—a symbol of supreme privilege! After learning online how valuable it was, she'd worried about losing it and had found a way to return it to him.
As An Ruo placed the card back in the drawer, a memory suddenly flashed through her mind: the conversation with the hotel front desk during her business trip to Xuancheng, when a strange man had slipped into her room.
[That man held a black card. He's a shareholder of the hotel, so he has the right to enter other guests' rooms.]
For some reason, that incident—though nothing had happened—still left her with a lingering sense of unease.
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Dear readers, the next few chapters will be a bit angsty. Please be prepared~