Chapter 1050 — The Gradual Entrapment

Sun Jingyan knew exactly what kind of man Wu Chengtian was: a glory hound. Put politely, he loved the spotlight; put bluntly, he loved to show off. It was not the most ladylike word for a girl to use, but it was certainly a word she could think to herself.

Feng Xiaoxiao had played along with Wu Chengtian's posturing the whole way, and in doing so she had built him up into a formidable business titan, a man raking in gold by the day, a man who did not even deign to glance at five million! Sun Jingyan understood perfectly well why Wu Chengtian had boasted in front of her: he wanted to put on a show, to make her worship him.

But Wu Chengtian's scheme had to be counted a failure. Sun Jingyan knew exactly what he was, and besides, she had no fondness for brainless braggarts like him. She preferred clever men — and of course, they had to have real strength behind them.

By that measure, Wei Zhao met the first criterion, but whether he had the substance remained to be seen.

In Sun Jingyan's eyes, Wei Zhao was for the moment no more than a candidate under consideration, a prospective boyfriend. That was why she was entirely unbothered by the relationship between Wei Zhao and Feng Xiaoxiao; she had not yet made up her own mind, and there was no need to enter any sort of contest.

Even if she did make up her mind, Sun Jingyan still had no confidence that Wei Zhao could win her family's approval, and so in such circumstances she was all the more certain to make no move at all. From the day she ran away from home, she had seen only two possible roads for her love life. The first was to find herself a man powerful enough — even more powerful than Wu Chengtian — to shut her relatives up once and for all.

The second road was to find a man she loved, be with him in secret, and live a life that could not bear the light of day, at least never making the relationship public. Publicity would not harm Sun Jingyan herself, but she dreaded that her family might quietly take revenge on the man.

And that would mean bringing harm upon someone else.

To avoid such an outcome, if Sun Jingyan chose the second road, she would voluntarily give up her status and position, and willingly become a woman kept in the shadows — at least on the surface, she would let that man have a normal, complete family of his own, so as to throw the Sun family off the scent.

As for eloping, Sun Jingyan had never so much as considered it; that was utterly unrealistic. The Sun family had connections and eyes everywhere. You can hide a thing for a while, but not for a lifetime; the day of exposure would come eventually, and then the trouble would be enormous.

Sometimes Sun Jingyan felt very sad. Her parents were both gone, and her place in the Sun family was that of an unwanted child — loved by neither aunt nor uncle. If the old master of the Sun family had not still been alive and shown her a certain favor, her uncles and aunts would likely have driven her to the end of her rope long ago.

Doing business in Songshan City, without the old master's tacit blessing, she would have been hauled back long ago to be married off to Wu Chengtian in a formal ceremony. How could anyone have waited for Wu Chengtian to come chasing after her himself?

So in Sun Jingyan's heart there was a natural aversion to Wu Chengtian, to say nothing of liking him. Now that Wu Chengtian was being taken down a peg in front of Feng Xiaoxiao, she was only too happy to see it! If only Feng Xiaoxiao would come every day to take him down a peg, until he could not stand to stay in Songshan City at all!

At this moment Wu Chengtian's face was flushed red, and he was at a bit of a loss for how to respond. Yes, he might be a bit of a fool, but even a fool knew that money was a good thing!

The wooing fund he had brought from the Wu family this time was only ten million, and here five million had just come in. He had been feeling quite pleased with himself, thinking he would use that five million to put on a proper show — and the show had indeed been put on, but it had not achieved the effect he had anticipated. In his estimation, five million ought to buy him several rounds of showing off, surely? Now look at him: one round, and it was gone. That was one expensive bit of showing off, wasn't it?

At this rate, ten million would not even cover two rounds!

But the words were already out of his mouth. If he backed out now, not only would his image be ruined, but what worried him more was that Feng Xiaoxiao might take offense this time and stop playing along with his posturing in the future — and then how would his glorious image ever shine?

At that thought, Wu Chengtian could only cut his flesh to save his face. He gritted his teeth, then put on an air of perfect composure and a face full of smiles, and said to Feng Xiaoxiao, "No trouble at all, no trouble at all. Five million, is that all? A trifle! Give me your card number, and I'll transfer it to you right now!"

"Haha, just as I said — Brother Chengtian is tremendously generous! A man like that — whoever marries you is going to be happy, happy to death, I'd say!" Feng Xiaoxiao gushed in delighted flattery.

Only, the words carried a certain sarcasm: happy to "death." That was right — whoever married Wu Chengtian would probably truly die of it! Here he was, before anything had even happened, handing out five million. Give it time, and wouldn't he give away his entire fortune? What woman would dare marry a man like that?

Sun Jingyan caught the sarcasm in it too, and could not help but find it highly amusing. This Feng Xiaoxiao was a real piece of work — she took the advantage and still would not play the modest victor. What was even funnier was that Wu Chengtian, the fool, had not caught the slightest impropriety in it and was standing there grinning like an idiot: "Haha, don't go falling for me now — I've already got someone in my heart!"

Wu Chengtian was thoroughly pleased with Feng Xiaoxiao's praise. Laughing, he dialed the phone and made the transfer.

Sun Jingyan glanced at Wei Zhao and found his expression perfectly calm, as though this sort of thing were an everyday occurrence for him. She could not help but knit her brows slightly, and her curiosity about Wei Zhao grew all the more.

Five million was nothing to the Sun family, of course, but to Sun Jingyan as she was now, it could not be called anything less than a vast sum! At present her trading company did not clear five million in profit in a whole year, and yet Wei Zhao's wife had coaxed five million out of someone with the greatest of ease — and Wei Zhao seemed not to care in the slightest?

Was he feigning composure, or did he simply not regard this sum of money as worth regarding at all?

Judging by her manner, Feng Xiaoxiao must have been born into a fairly well-off family — though not a truly wealthy one, or she would never have set her sights on Wu Chengtian's five million.

But Wei Zhao evidently did not think much of him. As a pair, the two of them made a rather curious match.

Sun Jingyan drove into the parking lot of the Starlight Splendor Grand Hotel and casually parked the car in an empty space.

It was morning, and few people were dining here; many of the cars belonged to guests staying at the hotel, scattered here and there in twos and threes. The four of them got out of the car, and a doorman soon came over to usher them into the hotel lobby.