"But—" Luan Xiaoru assumed Jing Yu was putting on a show for face, trying to prove a point, and hurriedly waved her hand again. "Forget it, Xiaolu. Heaven on Earth is quite far from here, and it's the lunch rush. Never mind that taxis are hard to flag down—even if we got there, there might not be a table."

"Whether there's a table or not, we'll know once we get there." Yang Ce spoke up with a smile. "Let's go. I have a car, no need to call a taxi."

A car? Luan Xiaoru was taken aback—she had not expected Jing Yu's boyfriend to have a car. Then again, her own boyfriend had one too. These days a private car was nothing strange; small-displacement cars were cheap, a few tens of thousands of yuan would do it. They were just a means of getting around.

Seeing that Yang Ce had spoken, Luan Xiaoru said no more. Any further protest would have seemed affected. So the three of them walked together toward the parking lot at the end of the commercial street.

Jing Yu had never ridden in Yang Juehuan's car either, so she stayed close beside him, and it was not until Yang Ce stopped in front of a BMW X5 and pressed the remote to unlock it that Jing Yu realized this was Yang Juehuan's car.

Luan Xiaoru, by contrast, immediately wore an expression of surprise. She recognized the BMW X5—it cost seventy or eighty thousand, no, seven or eight hundred thousand yuan apiece. Never mind students; even among working people, few could afford one.

Then she looked at the license plate, and her heart skipped again. That plate alone must have cost a pretty penny—and the key point was that an ordinary person could not get one even with money to spend. Luan Xiaoru grew puzzled about what Yang Ce had said. Was he really just a student?

Luan Xiaoru's astonished expression did not escape Jing Yu's eyes. Jing Yu felt secretly pleased. She guessed that by tomorrow at the office, once Luan Xiaoru spread the word, all those rumors about her would be confirmed.

Once they were in the car, Luan Xiaoru could hold back no longer. "Xiaolu, is your boyfriend pulling our leg? How could he be a student? Would a student drive a car this nice?"

"He is a student, all right, but he also runs a business on the side," Jing Yu explained. She did not know much about Yang Juehuan's affairs either, but she could hardly say she knew nothing, so she had to pretend to be well informed and gave a perfunctory account.

"So that's how it is." Luan Xiaoru nodded and looked at Yang Ce with a half-smile. "Yang Ce, you're not playing straight with us—holding out on us like that. Come on, what company do you run?"

"Heh, just a small jewelry company," Yang Hengye said. "My first identity is a student, after all—these are all sidelines. Like I said, Xiaolu is just working a holiday job too. Heh."

Seeing that Yang Yongjin wanted to say more, Luan Xiaoru stopped asking. It was their first meeting, after all, and she could hardly press him on what he said; they were not well acquainted yet. But one thing was certain: Yang Ce was definitely more than just a student. It seemed most of those rumors at the company were true after all.

The car headed toward Heaven on Earth. After a second round of renovations, the place was clearly a cut above its former self and had become one of Songjiang's finest hotels. At the lunch rush, it was often impossible to find a table.

Yang Ce parked in the lot at Heaven on Earth. A sharp-eyed security guard spotted Yang Juehuan's car at once and came trotting over, guided Yang Ce into a space, and respectfully opened the door. "Brother Yang, you're here."

Yang Yuting nodded with a faint smile and said nothing, but Luan Xiaoru shot Yang Puqi a meaning-laden glance. The guard's form of address might not mean much in itself, but at the very least it showed that Yang Ce was a regular here—otherwise the guard could not possibly have recognized him.

Once they entered the lobby of Heaven on Earth, Luan Xiaoru became even more convinced that Yang Juehuan was no ordinary person. The lobby manager herself came running over to greet them, and the deference on her face was not that of an employee toward a customer—it was as if Yang Ce were her superior. "Mr. Yang, you're here. Shall I notify President Guo to come down?"

"No need," Yang Ce said with a wave of his hand. "Don't trouble him. We're just having a simple meal."

"But—" The lobby manager looked troubled. President Guo had given strict instructions that the moment Mr. Yang arrived, he was to be notified at once. Yet Mr. Yang did not want her to notify him, which put her in something of a bind. Luan Xiaoru was all the more astonished. Just who was this Yang Ce, that he could put the general manager of Heaven on Earth to the trouble of coming down to welcome him in person?

To be continued.

989. Suspicion

Yang Ce saw the lobby manager's awkwardness and smiled at her. "I'll give Guo Jianchao a call in a bit. You don't need to worry about it—just arrange a private room for us, any one will do."

Yang Ce had a regular private room on the top floor of Heaven on Earth, but hearing him say this, the lobby manager understood that he surely did not want to bring his guests to the four-person room upstairs. So she nodded and led them to a private room on the second floor.

"Beep-beep." A text message alert sounded. Luan Xiaoru hurriedly took her phone from her handbag, pressed a button, and read the message on the screen. Her expression shifted slightly. She shot Yang Puqi a startled glance, then in an instant her face returned to normal. She pressed delete and cleared the message.

"What is it, Xiaoru?" Jing Yu asked casually, seeing Luan Xiaoru fiddling with her phone.

"Nothing," Luan Xiaoru said with a shake of her head and a smile. "My husband sent a text asking what I'm up to."

"Heh, then you'd better hurry up and reply." Jing Yu smiled. "By the way, I've never even met your boyfriend. Let's all go out together sometime."

Jing Yu patted Yang Juehuan's shoulder and spoke with great intimacy. Yang Ce felt a surge of helplessness—was Jing Yu ever going to stop?

"Never mind him, he's busy to death all day long," Luan Xiaoru said with a smile. "We'll talk about it another time."

Jing Yu nodded and asked no more. As far as she could tell, Luan Xiaoru's relationship with her boyfriend was probably not very good; whenever it came up, Luan Xiaoru never said much. Jing Yu only knew that her boyfriend worked in sales at some company, was busy every month, rarely had days off, but earned a decent salary—over twenty thousand a month.

"Why not have him join us for lunch?" Yang Hengye said.

"Him?" Luan Xiaoru shook her head. "Forget it. I'm about to break up with him anyway."

Break up? Yang Ce was taken aback and shot Luan Xiaoru a baffled glance. Still, this was her family business—strange as it was, it had nothing to do with Yan.

Yang Ce called Guo Jianchao to tell him he was dining at the Heavenly Paradise, and to say there was no need to come over—it was just a few friends grabbing a bit of lunch, nothing special.

Seeing that Yang Ce really did not want him there, Guo Jianchao had no choice but to let it go.

Over the meal, Yang Ce made a point of observing, and found that Luan Xiaoru was impeccably bred—her posture at the table, the pace at which she ate, all of it elegant. Jing Yu, by contrast, fell somewhat short, eating whatever looked good and enjoying herself enormously. Yet when all was said and done, Yang Ce found Jing Yu the more endearing of the two, for he himself had never been one to fuss over trifles.

"Yang Ce, your family must be awfully rich, right?" Luan Xiaoru asked.

"Why would you say that?" Yang Lin Yue asked mildly in return.

"A manager of some little jewelry company wouldn't get this kind of red-carpet treatment at the Heavenly Paradise," Luan Xiaoru said with a smile. "I may not be high society, but I've seen enough on television to know your background can't be simple."