Trapped in the Same Day for a Thousand Years: Want to Make Another Bet?

Welcome to Trapped in the Same Day for a Thousand Years, exclusively produced by Feilu Novel Network, written by Sang Ze and narrated by Wang Xiaomo and Lao He. The Su Family, huh!

Wu Chen smiled, though there was something odd about it. Of course he knew who was investigating him.

It was Su Qingying.

After Wu Chen had happened upon her motorcade yesterday afternoon, he had sent her a text. He could imagine how panicked she must have been. She probably hadn't slept well last night.

Wu Chen's phone number was registered under his real name. With the Su Family's connections across the city, finding basic information about him, such as his family background, would take minutes.

Clearly, Su Qingying had looked beyond that. Someone with his family background had no business driving a Lamborghini Aventador.

She was probably already digging into Wu Chen's connections in East Sea and searching for more detailed background information.

"What? You don't know?" Li Ruobing asked after putting on her heels. "How would you know someone was investigating you?"

But Li Ruobing felt Wu Chen ought to know. He was an information broker, after all, and he always seemed to know everything.

"I do know."

Wu Chen smiled. "Who?"

"Who's investigating you?" Li Ruobing asked.

"That's none of your business, is it?" Wu Chen smiled at her, plainly unwilling to say. Then he added, "You'd better stay out of it." He didn't want any complications or surprises in his dealings with Su Qingying.

"Stay out of your business?"

"Do you think I have that much time on my hands?"

Li Ruobing shot back. She went to the coat rack in the corner, took down her coat, and put it on. "A new Italian restaurant opened over in New Century. Want to try it?"

"Let's go."

Wu Chen got up.

Li Ruobing straightened her coat in the mirror. When Wu Chen stepped up just behind her, she turned and reached out to fix his collar. She had noticed in the mirror that it was crooked. She seemed to be trying to get a feel for acting like his girlfriend, so they wouldn't give themselves away when they went out together.

"How does it feel to kneel to a man five years younger than you, from an ordinary family, who isn't even as rich as you?" Wu Chen asked softly, smiling.

Li Ruobing's tone was calm, but her words were infuriating.

"Still going on about that?"

The hand adjusting Wu Chen's collar froze. Two seconds later, Li Ruobing smiled, her face suddenly radiant.

"Are you deliberately provoking me?"

Li Ruobing tilted her chin up slightly, looking beautiful as she smiled.

She was tall to begin with. In heels, she was only a little shorter than Wu Chen.

"No, no."

Wu Chen denied it, then smiled. "I just want to interview you. You know, in my line of work, I have to study people and understand what goes on inside their heads."

"So I'm especially curious. You act as though you've already forgotten about it, but what do you really think?"

Wu Chen was provoking her. He just wouldn't admit it.

Li Ruobing's eyelid twitched. She suddenly tugged on his tie and leaned forward, lifting her face until they were almost cheek to cheek. Still smiling, she held his gaze and asked, "Do you think there's nothing I can do to you?"

"I never said that."

Feeling her breath on his face, Wu Chen remained calm and smiling.

"Don't tell me you've fallen in love with me," Li Ruobing said.

She thought that was clever and gave him a smile of feigned surprise and amusement.

"Please don't flatter yourself," Wu Chen said with a soft laugh.

"Oh?"

Li Ruobing looked as though she had seen right through him. "Then why bring it up when you know I don't want to talk about it? Are you trying to make me pay more attention to you, or—"

"I'm already your fake boyfriend. We see each other every day. Do I really need to get you to pay more attention to me?" Wu Chen interrupted.

"You're neither the prettiest nor the richest woman I know. You wear that cold, sour expression every day and give off such a 'keep away' air that even cats would avoid you. What makes you so sure I'd fall in love with you?"

Li Ruobing's eyelid twitched. Wu Chen really knew how to say the nastiest things.

Wu Chen would never tell Li Ruobing that he had deliberately practiced debating and trading barbs. It was part of being persuasive, and he considered that crucial when dealing with people.

The right words could put someone at ease and make them happy. The wrong ones could get under their skin, change their mood, and stir up their urge to push back.

Li Ruobing really was angry. "So you have lots of women, is that it? Every one of them a breathtaking beauty?"

She wanted to hit back. Wu Chen had helped her enormously over the past few days, but right now she was annoyed and wanted to get the better of him.

She kept important matters separate from personal ones. On matters that counted, she would stand with Wu Chen.

Li Ruotai had given Wu Chen a house worth a hundred million yuan, and she thought he should have. Wu Chen had earned it.

But she also felt she had a personal score to settle with him, and she intended to settle it.

Li Ruobing didn't realize how unusual it was for her, normally so composed and cool, to be so rattled by a few words from Wu Chen.

"Women? I've slept with quite a few before. These days, not so many." Wu Chen smiled again.

"All prettier than me?"

"Some of them certainly were."

Still smiling, Wu Chen watched her. "Who? Give me an example. I'll look her up and see whether she's prettier and richer than I am."

Li Ruobing was twisting his words. He had said "women I know," but she had deliberately taken that to mean "my women."

Wu Chen couldn't be bothered to correct her. They had somehow reached the point where Li Ruobing would get angry and bicker with him. Better to play along and see what else she said.

But this time, she really had stumped him. Since New Life began, Wu Chen had slept only with Mu Qianqian. She was a different kind of beauty from Li Ruobing, but she wasn't prettier.

"You're fishing for details about my private life. I'm not falling for it," Wu Chen said with a chuckle.

"Hmph. Can't name one, can you?" Li Ruobing smiled and kept needling him. "The way you talk, I almost thought even Su Qingying was one of your women. And all of them are prettier than me? Watch that big talk, or you'll bite your tongue."

At the mention of Su Qingying, Wu Chen paused. For an instant, he wondered whether Li Ruobing knew something, whether she had found something out. He dismissed the thought at once.

Impossible. He thought it over and understood why she had brought up Su Qingying: they had mentioned Jinfu Group and the Su Family earlier, so the name had come to mind.

Besides, Su Qingying was famous. Everyone in East Sea's business circles knew Li Ruobing, but fewer people outside those circles did; she generally kept a low profile. Su Qingying, on the other hand, was known throughout East Sea. Among ordinary people, she was probably more famous than her father. They might not know the name of Jinfu Group's owner, but most knew the name of his only daughter.

She was known not only as East Sea's Richest Heiress and East Sea's Number One Heiress, but also as East Sea's Top Beauty.

Li Ruobing had lived in East Sea for four years, so of course she knew of her. And Wu Chen had just said that, among the women he knew, Li Ruobing was neither the prettiest nor the richest.

Put all that together, and it was natural for Li Ruobing to think of East Sea's Top Beauty.

In East Sea, Su Qingying might truly be the only woman who fit both descriptions.

Li Ruobing was exceptional herself. Women richer than her weren't as beautiful, and she had met hardly any women more beautiful than herself. In East Sea, she knew of only one: Su Qingying.

Only Su Qingying was both prettier and richer than her. She was, after all, the sole heir to Jinfu Group.

Even counting only personal assets, Su Qingying had more than Li Ruobing.

Of course, Li Ruobing had brought her up only to mock Wu Chen. Wu Chen considered it, then said with a smile, "Su Qingying? She isn't my woman yet."

"Yet?"

Li Ruobing caught that word immediately.

"That's right. Not yet," Wu Chen said as if it were obvious. "In a few days, who knows?"

"What's that look for?"

"Don't believe me? Want to make another bet?"

Another bet!

Li Ruobing's eyelid gave a sharp twitch.

She had only just lost a bet to Wu Chen. She hadn't believed what he could do, and she had paid dearly for it.

Only a few minutes had passed since she had fulfilled their wager by kneeling and apologizing to him.

And now, in the middle of another argument, Wu Chen was proposing a bet again.

By now, Li Ruobing genuinely respected Wu Chen's abilities and connections.

But this had nothing to do with connections.

She had just learned that someone in the Su Family was investigating Wu Chen. That meant they didn't know him. Even if they did, they couldn't be close. Otherwise, why go to such lengths to investigate his background—enough for Li Ruotai, with his dense network of contacts, to hear about it? But set aside whether Wu Chen knew the Su Family at all. Suppose he did.

Suppose he and Su Qingying had even grown up together and been friends since childhood.

Even then, Li Ruobing thought he was talking nonsense.

It wasn't that she didn't believe in Wu Chen. She believed in Su Qingying and the Su Family. Su Qingying was known throughout East Sea, and she hadn't been named East Sea's Top Beauty for nothing.

Li Ruobing, the Li Family, and even Li Ruotai had little to do with the Jinfu Su Family. Jinfu Group dealt in gold, silver, and jewelry, and there were so few members of the Su Family that they hardly counted as a clan. Business and other matters rarely brought the two sides together. They weren't complete strangers, but they had no real overlap in interests or connections.

Still, Li Ruobing knew about Su Qingying. She had heard more than enough stories about her.

Su Qingying's father, Su Ruiwen, East Sea's richest man, had started out poor. He had gone out into the world at seventeen or eighteen, traveled widely, and tried his hand at many businesses. Most had failed, but he gained a wealth of experience. In the end, he built his fortune from a tiny jade shop. Su Ruiwen seemed born for business: tenacious, bold, and more determined with every setback.

In Jinfu Company's early days, he had even taken people to the jade mines in Myanmar himself. It was a dangerous place then. He had risked his life to get quality stock straight from the source at the lowest possible price.

Perhaps because he was so focused on business, Su Ruiwen married late. By the time his daughter Su Qingying was born, he was already enormously wealthy.

Jinfu Company was then the largest chain jewelry company in the East China Region. Su Qingying was born into privilege and showered with affection.

Su Ruiwen's wife, Su Qingying's mother, came from a family of senior officials and intellectuals. She was a university lecturer when she married him. Shaped by her family's wealth and her mother's teaching, Su Qingying had stood out from other children from an early age: obedient, sensible, an excellent student, and unfailingly polite.

The Su Family had strict rules at home, and Su Qingying grew up exceptionally well-mannered.

She was the sort of outstanding girl who topped every exam in elementary school and spent her summer holidays studying at home instead of playing with friends.

She was accomplished enough to inspire envy, but she had lost her childhood in the process.

According to some, her family had guided her toward a clear plan for her future while she was still very young. In middle school, she designed several pieces of jewelry for the family business. They sold well, and people talked about it for years.

While studying abroad, she even launched her own luxury brand in the United States and modeled for it herself.

Luxury goods and jewelry went hand in hand; an expensive diamond bracelet was itself a luxury item. Creating that brand overseas had been Su Qingying's way of testing herself and preparing to inherit the family business.

Great things had been expected of Su Qingying from birth. She was Su Ruiwen and his wife's only child.

During her years in East Sea, Li Ruobing had heard countless stories about Su Qingying. The most famous concerned the time, two years ago, when Su Ruiwen had nearly announced a public search for a husband for her.

Su Qingying was the same age as Li Ruobing—twenty-seven this year—but her birthday came earlier, making her a little older.

Su Ruiwen was fifty-six. That wasn't especially old; under normal circumstances, he might well have another ten or twenty years.

But his health had long been poor. Running Jinfu Group and attending endless business engagements had worn him down. Two years earlier, he had undergone major surgery. Though he recovered, everyone knew he was eager for his daughter to take over. He feared that if something happened to him before she had full control of the company, there would be trouble.

Two years ago, when Su Qingying was twenty-five, the Su Family began arranging blind dates for her not long after Su Ruiwen recovered from surgery and left the hospital.

Yes, Su Qingying needed blind dates. Her family had kept such a tight rein on her that she had never dated and didn't know how. Men her age could hardly get close to her. Even when she studied abroad, her mother had sent someone to keep an eye on her, afraid foreign ways might lead her astray.

That left no chance for a man to be in Su Qingying's life. Her family had once guarded against romance at every turn, but by twenty-five they were anxious for her to marry. Many women faced pressure to marry at that age. Li Ruobing herself would have married Ding Ruilong at twenty-three if she hadn't fought back.

Of course, the Su Family's sudden urgency had much to do with Su Ruiwen's health.

The blind dates arranged for Su Qingying did not go smoothly.

It wasn't that she lacked prospects. Quite the opposite: she had so much to offer that the Su Family's other demands were almost impossibly exacting.

First, Su Qingying had to like the man. If she couldn't stand him, it would cause serious problems later. On this point, the Su Family respected her wishes.

Second, anyone whose family had assets of less than a billion yuan wouldn't even get to meet her. The family had to be worth more than that.

He could be neither too young nor too old. He had to be healthy. Ordinary looks were acceptable, but he couldn't be too ugly.

He also had to be an accomplished young man in his own right. A powerful family wasn't enough; he needed the ability to help Su Qingying run the company.

Finally came the most important and least acceptable condition: he had to marry into the Su Family.

Whoever married Su Qingying had to join her family, and their children would take the surname Su.

Taken alone, that condition might have been workable. Su Qingying had the beauty and the family standing, after all.

Combined with everything else, it was nearly impossible.

What capable man would agree to marry into another family?

And even if such a man existed and was willing, his family would never agree. They would become a laughingstock in their social circle.

It wasn't about money. It was about pride, about enduring a lifetime of people talking behind their backs.

Yet the Su Family insisted on a son-in-law who was capable, well-connected, healthy, reasonably good-looking, and willing to marry into their family.

Of those requirements, only the demand that he marry into the family came from Su Ruiwen. The rest came from Su Qingying's mother, and neither would budge. The whole thing became almost farcical. At first, people unaware of the Su Family's terms nearly wore out their doorstep. Once word spread, they stopped coming. Ordinary men couldn't qualify, and extraordinary ones wouldn't go. Their families were wealthy and powerful too; they would have to be mad to become a live-in son-in-law.

Then came word that Su Ruiwen was openly seeking a husband for his daughter—one who would marry into the family. Within days, though, he publicly denied it, and the uproar died down.

To this day, Su Qingying remained single, without so much as a rumored romance.

"I'll bet," Li Ruobing told Wu Chen after turning every possibility over in her mind.

That concludes this episode. Please keep listening!