Marry by Relying on Favor: Chapter 72 - Hard to Coax
Chapter 72: Hard to Coax
On the phone, He Qingchi spoke slowly and calmly. First, she asked for the hotel’s address, then confirmed the man’s exact location. On Wen Shuchen’s end, he kept his head lowered, listening in silence, only his steady breathing passing through the line.
After pausing for two seconds, He Qingchi said, “I’ll come pick you up—”
Neither of them mentioned anything else. The call lasted barely a minute before it was hung up.
Wen Shuchen stared at the darkened screen, his expression unreadable.
The male escort at his side, however, understood clearly and asked in a low voice, “Sir, did you run away from home?”
Run away from home? Hardly.
He couldn’t even step past the He family’s gate!
A deeper shadow of displeasure flickered in Wen Shuchen’s eyes. He deleted the call record before handing the phone back, his tone collected as he instructed, “Tonight you’ll stay in this suite. If she calls again, stick to the story that I’m penniless. Don’t slip up.”
This was probably the easiest job the escort had ever taken.
One phone call earned him six thousand yuan, plus a luxury suite for the night.
After giving his instructions, Wen Shuchen calmly picked up his suit jacket and walked out of the hotel.
The city streets in the early morning were empty of pedestrians, with only the occasional taxi passing by. The dim streetlamps on both sides made the darkness seem all the more desolate.
His tall figure walked with unhurried composure. Reaching a trash bin about a hundred meters away, his gaze swept over it. From his suit’s inner pocket, he pulled out a wallet. With long, strong fingers, he snapped two black cards in half and tossed them into the bin, then broke his ID card as well.
After “destroying all evidence,” Wen Shuchen kept only the cash, throwing away even the wallet itself.
A while later, his figure gradually receded. In the silence of the night, a closer look would reveal that an expensive suit jacket had been left draped over the trash bin.
He then retraced his steps back near the hotel entrance, handing the cash to a sanitation worker by the roadside. Standing tall under a streetlamp, his presence in the dead of night became especially striking.
Half an hour later—
He Qingchi arrived by car. The wide street was nearly deserted, so she quickly spotted the man near the hotel. Her car rolled to a slow stop in front of him. As the window lowered, her gaze landed clearly on Wen Shuchen.
He stood under the streetlight, its amber glow casting highlights on the contours of his face and shirt, giving his profile an almost surreal sheen.
Suppressing her emotions, He Qingchi spoke: “Get in. I’ll take you back to the He residence.”
Only when she spoke did Wen Shuchen move.
He opened the door, got in, fastened his seatbelt—
All in one fluid, silent sequence.
As she started the car, she noticed that on this early winter night, he wasn’t even wearing a suit jacket. Reaching out, her fingertips naturally brushed his shoulder before she turned up the car heater. “You even threw away your coat?”
Wen Shuchen glanced at her profile but couldn’t immediately answer.
Frowning, He Qingchi added, “There’s a blanket in the backseat.”
But the chill around him had mostly dissipated. He didn’t take her blanket, whether out of stubbornness or because his mood was too heavy. His lips pressed into a thin, indifferent line.
For a while, silence reigned between husband and wife.
Instead of heading toward the He residence as originally planned, He Qingchi adjusted the GPS and found a nearby hotel. Wen Shuchen, sitting beside her, noticed clearly but asked no questions—his demeanor was that of a man resigned to being taken wherever she chose.
When they arrived at the hotel entrance, He Qingchi made no move to get out of the car, nor did Wen Shuchen unbuckle his seatbelt.
Only after she gave him a brief glance and turned off the ignition did she finally get out.
A moment later, Wen Shuchen followed behind.
One in front, one behind, they entered the hotel lobby.
He Qingchi went to the front desk to check in. Five minutes later, she returned with a room card and headed toward the elevator.
Wen Shuchen silently followed, one hand in his pocket, exuding the air of a down-and-out man living off a woman—yet still carrying an oddly composed, almost relaxed presence. Standing just behind her, his eyes lowered faintly toward her figure, emotions unreadable.
In the elevator, He Qingchi lit up her phone screen.
A message from Father He appeared: [Did you pick him up yet??? He’s unfamiliar with this place. Don’t lose him in the middle of the night.]
[Picked him up.] She replied after a pause, just three words.
She switched off her phone, just as the elevator dinged open.
With her ID, He Qingchi could only book a single suite. Once inside, she looked around at the setup. At the same time, the man following behind her showed a flicker of emotion in his eyes.
“It’s already very late. Tomorrow I’ll ask the hotel to get you a change of clothes. For tonight, use the bathrobe in the bathroom.”
Setting down her car keys and phone, she turned to face the man with the calm, detached expression.
Wen Shuchen locked the suite door behind them, remaining in place as he looked steadily at her. “You use the bathroom first.”
He Qingchi laid her knit sweater on the edge of the bed, not bothering to argue with him.
She freshened up quickly. Since the amenities were only for one person, she came out wrapped in a towel, handing the bathrobe to him. Her long black hair fell over her pale shoulders, her face clean and makeup-free.
Afterward, she looked toward the silent man sitting on the bed. “Go wash up.”
Wen Shuchen lifted his eyelids to glance at her. Seeing that she had only wrapped herself in a towel rather than dressing again, he felt slightly reassured, then rose to enter the bathroom.
This time when he showered, He Qingchi noticed he didn’t even bother to close the frosted glass door.
Wide open like that, as if he had nothing to hide.
He Qingchi had already seen Wen Shuchen inside and out countless times. At this point, she had no interest in his body. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she neatly folded her dress and coat, placed them on the sofa—and in doing so, accidentally realized the car keys she had left on the coffee table were gone.
Her brows knit together. She was about to kneel on the carpet to check under the table when—
The sound of footsteps in disposable slippers came from behind. She lifted her head and saw that he had showered quickly. His tall, lean figure was wrapped in a loose bathrobe, the belt only tied in a casual knot.
“Did you see the car keys?”
He Qingchi clearly remembered leaving them on the coffee table with her phone.
Wen Shuchen, towel in hand as he dried his short black hair, gave a careless glance over and said in a low voice: “On the nightstand.”
Straightening up, He Qingchi turned to the nightstand and found the keys half-hidden behind a tissue box. No wonder she hadn’t seen them.
Wen Shuchen calmly observed her movements without showing anything on his face. After drying his damp hair, he sat back down on the edge of the bed as steady as a mountain.
He Qingchi, seeing him like this, didn’t pick a fight or say anything more.
For a newlywed couple reunited after some time apart, the atmosphere between them should have been charged with sparks.
Yet tonight, the two of them lay on opposite sides of the bed in silence.
The suite’s lights were off, only the faint glow from outside seeping through the window.
He Qingchi turned on her side, her long lashes already closed.
Unlike her, Wen Shuchen had no trace of sleepiness in the small hours past midnight.
The long night dragged on, until the latter half.
The man, lying quietly on his left, turned over. The single bed wasn’t large, and in the darkness he could almost catch the faint fragrance of her hair.
After a long silence, his low voice finally broke it: “Asleep?”
Three words, held back all night.
He Qingchi remained still, her delicate shoulders exposed above the quilt unmoving.
Wen Shuchen’s face was unreadable, his gaze fixed on her back for a long while.
Until at last, her soft voice floated over: “Whatever it is, talk in the morning.”
That one sentence instantly made Wen Shuchen the one who couldn’t hold back.
In the dark, he sat up, pulling out his phone from the pocket of his trousers.
He had personally thrown away even his ID earlier, yet had not discarded his phone.
Eyes still closed, head buried in the pillow, He Qingchi heard the sound of him moving but didn’t turn to look.
Half-asleep, she vaguely knew he was on his phone.
That night, the man beside her lay properly, never disturbing her sleep—apart from taking up more than half the bed.
When she woke naturally, daylight was already streaming through the curtains.
Her long lashes fluttered open, and as she turned, she was face-to-face with his handsome, sleeping features. Probably from staying up the whole night, he hadn’t woken yet.
The sunlight shone into her eyes. She lifted her hand to block it. The diamond on her wedding ring glittered brilliantly, a reminder of the reality of their marriage.
He Qingchi got up quietly, picked up her clothes with one hand while holding a towel in the other, and went to the bathroom to change.
Ten minutes later—
The white blanket on the single bed was lifted and tossed onto the sofa.
Feeling a chill, Wen Shuchen stirred, frowning slightly as he woke from the haze of sleep. The moment his eyes opened, he saw her standing at the bedside.
He Qingchi was already fully dressed, her face cool and composed as she looked at him.
“Get up.”
Two words left her red lips, carrying the air of a judge demanding answers.
Wen Shuchen slowly sat up. After the night, his bathrobe hung loosely and disheveled, his chest faintly exposed, his skin pale and cool—his male allure evident.
But He Qingchi was unmoved. She waited until he seemed more awake, then spoke again: “Check-out is before twelve. You have forty minutes left.”
With that, she opened her phone and pulled up the stopwatch function.
“—I’ll give you three minutes to think of how you want to start.”
Wen Shuchen’s gaze shifted from the phone recording every second to her composed, detached expression.
He Qingchi pulled up a chair and sat down, her skirt pooling at her feet, waiting for him to speak.
Last night, she had been patient enough not to ask anything. But after a night’s sleep—
This morning, she struck when he was unprepared.
“If you don’t know how to start, I’ll give you one.”
After a pause, He Qingchi’s black eyes locked on his face as she asked: “You and Wen Yue—who knew me first?”
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