Chapter 4: Flipping Faces Faster Than Flipping Pages

“One thousand eight hundred?” Mu Qingwu chuckled, “Is that enough to get by?”

“It should be,” Xiao Yu admitted, feeling somewhat sheepish. There was nothing he could do during the internship period

“Do you have a car?” asked Mu Qingwu.

“Emm… No,” Xiao Yu responded candidly.

“What kind of car do you like?” she pressed on.

“What kind of car?” Xiao Yu was perplexed. “What do you mean?”

“Take a look.” Mu Qingwu gestured toward the supercar in the garage. “A Bugatti Veyron, limited edition. Do you like it?”

Xiao Yu was baffled. 

“It’s yours now,” Mu Qingwu declared nonchalantly.

Xiao Yu was speechless.

“Do you have a house?” Mu Qingwu asked, her smile broadening.

Xiao Yu shook his head in a daze, still trying to process Mu Qingwu’s previous statement. 

A supercar, just given away like that? This lavish gesture felt eerily familiar, like something straight out of a novel.

So magnanimous? Was she for real?

“I’ll give you one,” Mu Qingwu said, still smiling.

‘Are you a devil?’ Xiao Yu’s gaze towards Mu Qingwu had changed, filled with disbelief.

“Now, let’s revisit our conversation,” Mu Qingwu said, looking at the stunned Xiao Yu. “Do you still think 28 is old?”

So, this was her game all along?

Xiao Yu took a deep breath, fighting the urge to retort, ‘So what if you’re old?’

But the sheer magnitude of her offer gave him pause.

“Excuse me,” he finally said, shaking his head. He then turned and started walking towards the villa’s entrance.

This wasn’t about putting on airs. As a transmigrator, Xiao Yu could have easily amassed wealth if that was his goal. With a system at his disposal, what did sports cars and houses mean to him?

From his first day in this world, Xiao Yu had decided to forgo the monotonous life of the wealthy.

Watching Xiao Yu walk away, Mu Qingwu’s expression was a mix of surprise and disbelief. Money might not be everything, but at her level, she knew well, there were very few problems that money couldn’t solve.

This was exactly the case with the young man.

Women’s curiosity can be intense. The more inexplicable something is, the more they are driven to unravel it.

“Are you just going to leave like this?” Mu Qingwu shifted her approach, no longer assertive but speaking in a soft, almost vulnerable tone.

Xiao Yu halted in his tracks. Responding to gentleness over assertiveness.

Mu Qingwu’s eyes sparkled with this revelation, she seemed to have discovered something new. Her expression shifted rapidly, her lips pursed, displaying a hint of defiance, like someone wronged yet refusing to speak, simply staring.

This woman was a natural-born actress.

Confronted with this version of Mu Qingwu, Xiao Yu was baffled.

What was happening here? Who was she making that face for? Did he owe her something?

“What exactly do you want?” Xiao Yu finally gave in, unable to resist her gaze.

“My mother has been pressuring me to find a boyfriend and get married,” Mu Qingwu confessed, dropping the act. There was a genuine hint of grievance in her voice as she turned to gaze at the garden’s flowers.

“And then?” Xiao Yu asked, feeling a strange sense of camaraderie.

“I’m not ready to find someone… but I can’t bear to see her crying in front of me all the time,” Mu Qingwu sighed. “Help me out, please? I never planned to have you as my real boyfriend.”

Xiao Yu rolled his eyes in understanding. ‘So, I’m just a prop in this plan?’

“You realized back in the restaurant that I wasn’t into the whole blind date thing, right?” Xiao Yu asked with a smile. “Why not just be upfront with me?”

“Why should I have told you beforehand?” Mu Qingwu turned to face him, putting on her aggrieved yet stubborn look once again.

‘Enough with the act. I can see right through it,’ Xiao Yu thought, his previous life as a seasoned detective coming to mind. “Alright, cut the act.”

Caught off guard by his insight, Mu Qingwu dropped her facade and stared intently at Xiao Yu.

“We’re just pretending, right?”

After pondering for a moment, Xiao Yu found the idea appealing. “Fine, when I need you, you’ll have to play along. When you need me, I’ll pretend to be your boyfriend. Other than that, we just go about our separate lives, deal?”

“Okay.” Mu Qingwu agreed and requested, “Give me your phone number.”

After exchanging numbers, she bid him farewell, “Goodbye.”

Xiao Yu was left pondering, ‘Her mood swings are faster than flipping through a book. She toyed with my emotions, hurt my pride, and now she’s sending me away. The injustice of it all brought tears to my eyes. Is being human really this hard?’

Leaving the villa and exiting the neighborhood, Xiao Yu, feeling somewhat dejected, had no choice but to hail a cab home.

How would he explain today’s blind date fiasco to his mother? 

The thought of Mu Qingwu sparked an idea. He now had a ‘girlfriend.’ It was fake, but surely it would delight his mother.

On his way home, Xiao Yu chuckled bitterly. He had forgotten to ask Mu Qingwu about her profession. 

“Well, I can always call her later.”

Just as he thought of calling her, his phone rang. After the call, Xiao Yu clenched his fists in excitement.

He was assigned to the Criminal Investigation Brigade.