Chapter 11

Meng Ning turned her head and saw Qi Xiao staring at her with an eerie intensity. “You seem like the kind of pervert who’d steal someone’s shirt just to sniff it.”

“Thanks for not saying underwear,” Meng Ning replied.

She set the card down and lifted the thermos cup for a sip of sobering tea. C Hotel’s thermoses were custom-made, lined with porcelain to hold soups or teas at the ideal drinking temperature for up to six hours, without any change in flavor.

The tea tasted like ordinary herbs. Yet the fragrance from Wen Zenian’s wrist still lingered around her nose.

Earlier, while sniffing the card, she had wondered if the scent near the wrist—pressed close to the pulse—lasted longer than the one behind the ear. For instance, last night, when Wen Zenian sat beside her, Meng Ning had caught her natural body scent after the perfume faded. But then Wen Zenian reached out and touched her face again, and suddenly it was the wrist’s perfume she smelled.

Right—Wen Zenian had touched her face again, after Meng Ning uttered those overly covetous words.

Why had Wen Zenian touched her face like that?

All she remembered was the gentle look in Wen Zenian’s eyes, her pupils reflecting the sparsely starred night sky in a gorgeous shade of purple.

Then…

Damn it. Meng Ning rubbed her throbbing temple.

Then she had blacked out. Nothing else came to mind.

Qi Xiao perched on her bed. “Do you have any idea how scared I was today? You were out cold, and I was leaning against the headboard playing games when someone knocked. I figured it was Ju Mengya dropping by, but nope—Gwyneth was standing there, saying hi to me.”

“That was my first time seeing Gwyneth that close up.” Qi Xiao balled her fist as she spoke. “I swear her eyes are this deep violet. Think she’s mixed-race? Remember that super famous actress, the French Rose? Her eyes had that purplish tint.”

“Not mixed-race,” Meng Ning said firmly. She knew full well why Wen Zenian’s eyes could look so mesmerizing at times. Her pupils were an impossibly deep black, and when light struck them just right, they produced stunning effects.

Qi Xiao let out a sharp “Ha!” “You two knew each other already! How else would you be so sure?”

Meng Ning turned away, her thigh pressing against the low table behind her. “What did she say?”

“She asked if you were here. I said you were sleeping and offered if she wanted to come in. She said no, handed me the thermos and card to pass along, then told me, ‘Thank you, Sharon.’ Oh my god, that British accent of hers is killer! It’s all prim and proper on its own, but she lowers her voice, and suddenly you feel like the most special person alive!”

“And then?”

“Then she left.” Qi Xiao’s story took an unexpected turn. “But then she came right back!”

Meng Ning braced her hands on the table behind her, fingers clenching tight where Qi Xiao couldn’t see.

“She pursed her lips and stepped back up to me, like she was debating whether to say something. That’s when you flipped over in bed—she heard it and told me, ‘Please take care of Meng Ning. She’s never handled alcohol well, not since back then.'”

“Then she clicked away on those stilettos,” Qi Xiao concluded. “Gone for good that time.”

Meng Ning bowed her head, eyes on the sliver of sunlight spilling through the half-obscured window.

Qi Xiao pressed: “So, how do you two even know each other?”

“We crossed paths in middle school.”

Qi Xiao clutched her chest. “Are you some heiress playing at real life? Which fancy middle school?”

She rattled off names of several globally renowned schools.

Meng Ning just smiled. “Nah. We met at a competition.”

“What kind?”

“Math.”

“You two total nerds—makes sense she’d end up in economics. Hang on,” Qi Xiao eyed her up and down, “if you’re such a brainiac, why beach lifeguard?”

Meng Ning shot her a sidelong glance. “Don’t tweet that; it’s job discrimination.”

Qi Xiao grinned.

Meng Ning added, “I’m no brainiac. I lost to her—she’s the real one.”

Qi Xiao leaned in, intrigued. “What was Gwyneth like back in middle school? Nerdy school flower, heiress—stack those buffs. Oh, and that wavy long hair—natural or permed?”

“Natural.” Meng Ning turned to screw the lid back on the thermos. “The rest? Can’t recall.”

“No way—you forget a stunner like that after one look?” Qi Xiao deflated a bit, then perked up. “How’d she know you suck at drinking, then?”

“After the contest, I think. Bunch of us got rowdy.”

“And she remembers you all these years? Sounds like she cares.” Qi Xiao grinned slyly. “So, you two…”

Meng Ning’s gaze drifted sideways, landing on the tiny ink dot capping the G.

“You’d gossip about that?” she said, staring at the dot. “Web novels wouldn’t even go there.”

Qi Xiao smacked her thigh. “Exactly! Prime web novel fodder—beach lifeguard and hotel heiress!”

Meng Ning turned with a smile. “It’d rack up clicks, sure. But it’d tank—too fake.”

One cup of sobering soup rescued Meng Ning’s hungover brain. She even managed some sleep.

The card went into her bedside drawer. She woke to dusk, the sky awash in orange and pink brushstrokes, like a Renaissance oil painting with unbridled splashes of heavy color.

As twilight deepened, everything felt faint and weightless. Meng Ning tilted her head and spotted the window half-open. A butterfly must have slipped in during the day; now it rested on the edge of the bedside drawer.

The drawer stood slightly ajar, cradling Wen Zenian’s card inside. Meng Ning figured it was that wrist fragrance drawing the butterfly.

Qi Xiao sprawled across the narrow bed beside her, drool pooling on a fox-shaped plush toy.

Meng Ning eased herself upright; the dizziness had mostly faded. “Qi Xiao,” she called, “up and at ’em—meeting soon.”

In the bathroom, she splashed cold water on her face to wake up. Her reflection showed delicate features offset by her rather thick eyebrows, now wet and tousled.

Wen Zenian had once traced them lightly with her fingertip, soft as hibiscus petals. “Meng Ning, I like your eyebrows.”

Qi Xiao yelled from outside: “Meng Ning, you done? Hurry—we’re gonna be late!”

“Coming.”

Meng Ning stepped out. The butterfly had vanished from the drawer edge.

They changed into their Lifesaving Team uniforms and headed for the auditorium.

Everyone off-shift was there.

This marked Wen Zenian’s first all-staff meeting since parachuting into C Hotel.

The Lifesaving Team claimed seats along the edge. Their sporty outfits came in a misty seafoam blue, a far cry from the rose-purple formal attire everyone else wore.

The rest of management had taken their stage seats. The Italian general manager sported curly dark-golden hair and piercing sea-blue eyes. Only Wen Zenian’s spot sat empty, her crystal nameplate reading “Gwyneth Won.”

Even her name looked striking in print.

A colleague whispered nearby: “Board called an emergency meeting. Gwyneth’s tied up there—should be along soon.”

“Why the rush?”

“Last year’s financials, I hear.”

Ten minutes passed. The staff sat in disciplined silence, scrolling phones or iPads, with only the occasional murmur.

Meng Ning kept her head down, earbuds in, phone open to lyrics. She watched the words scroll by without really taking them in.

Her volume was low enough to catch the sudden hush around her.

She looked up.

Wen Zenian ascended the dais, her stilettos elongating the graceful lines of her calves. A spotlight gleamed off the subtle curve sheathed in sheer stockings. Higher still: pencil skirt hugging her hips, the metal waist chain glinting at her waist, shoulders slim yet perfectly poised.

She glided from stage left to center, crossing Meng Ning’s line of sight. In her earbuds, the singer’s husky timbre—worn like an old sweater—wove strangely into the stillness:

“she may be the beauty or the beast,

may be the famine or the feast,

may turn each day into heaven or a hell……”

She slipped past Meng Ning’s view, the lights bathing her snow-white nape beneath the elegant updo.

Meng Ning abruptly recalled the office chatter: Wen Zenian’s odds of inheriting the hotel chain were slim, but the rumor persisted because she embodied “Celestynka” itself—beauty straight from paradise.

It wasn’t until she shook hands with the towering 1.9-meter Italian general manager that Meng Ning grasped it fully. Paradise offered more than gentle allure; its sanctity commanded reverence and devotion.

At just shy of 1.7 meters—even in heels—Wen Zenian appeared delicate before the burly man. Yet he offered no smile, only respect, his shoulders slightly hunched in deference.

Their handshake was feather-light, entirely at her pace. She withdrew first; an usher swiftly drew out her chair.

She settled with effortless grace, every inch feminine poise. But her gaze swept the crowd stern and unsmiling. Light caught her pitch-black pupils, revealing faint violet depths, while her unwavering stare had everyone instinctively straightening their backs.

That aura of authority made her age—still under thirty—easy to overlook.

Leaning toward the microphone, her voice emerged soft, laced with a rhythmic cadence that climbed straight into listeners’ minds.

The news wasn’t good. C Hotel’s profits had dipped last year, falling short of projections. She paused. “What is C Hotel’s core philosophy?”

Dead silence.

“Dream Weaving,” she stated crisply.

“And the core method of Dream Weaving?”

More silence.

Her cool poise accustomed to filling voids: “Service.”

Which explained why she had demonstrated it personally yesterday—not merely a game she played with Meng Ning.

From her seat below, Meng Ning naturally gazed upward. Her heart felt torn in two, much like the night before on that sofa soft as a cloud, where Wen Zenian’s elbow had formed a subtle, enveloping brace around her.

When her natural scent wafted through the air, she was the girl from Meng Ning’s dream of a long, narrow alley—the one who had left her utterly intoxicated.

When the perfume from her wrist drifted over, she was the top manager everyone at the five-star hotel looked up to, someone impossibly distant from Meng Ning.

She offered a few simple words to wrap things up, then adjourned the meeting.

Meng Ning followed the crowd toward the exit, glancing back one last time. Wen Zenian was still seated at the edge of the rostrum beside the Italian general manager, murmuring over a document with a sliver of her pale forehead exposed.

Suddenly, Wen Zenian lifted her gaze. Her eyes cut straight through the throng, locking onto Meng Ning.

Meng Ning jolted in surprise and quickly averted her eyes, hurrying out alongside Qi Xiao.