It was the truth. Because he was Mo Qingchen could she unashamedly take his help. She could justify it by saying he was doing it on his own accord and she didn't need to repay his kindness.

  "I don't want your money," he said suddenly. "You were going to compensate me or something, weren't you?" he observed.

  She shook her head. "No." He looked surprised. "I don't know how to repay something like human warmth." She shook her head in confusion. "I feel like it was charity, though."

  "It wasn't a charity. It was a gift from a friend." Surprise, surprise.

  "I am your friend?" her pitch was a few notches higher. "You don't even know me…" Wasn't this what she wanted? To be acknowledged as a friend-enemy?

  "I think I may know you better than you think I do. You may not realize it, but I think you and I are a lot alike."

  Way to sound like a creep, Mo Qingchen. It sounds like something a serial killer would say before killing a girl and saving their skin as a trophy.

  "You and I are nothing alike." He looked up at her.

  "If it makes you feel better, I'll take a cheque for my services." His stare was penetrating.

  "An emotional gigolo?" she teased.

  He waved the comment off. "I will take it but I won't deposit it."

  "Mo Qingchen, you're so pretentious!" she said, exasperated.

  "If you really want to repay me, you can sit down, accompany me for a chat out here so that we can avoid going inside and risk running into unsavory people."

  She raised her eyebrow. "Chat?"

  "Yes, chat."

  "And what on Earth do we have to chat about? You never told me what you wanted from me."

  He stared at her. He kept staring at her. If only she knew what it meant.

  "As I said, you and I are more alike than you think."

  "Give me one thing that we have in common and I'll sit down with you." She paused. "Are you finally going to tell me what you want?"

  He nodded and answered immediately. He didn't even need to think about it. "We're both independent. We're both so independent that it's not a good thing."

  Qian Meng's eyes bulged. He had to be kidding her. If this was some sexist bullshit, she would punch him in the nose. "How is independence not a good thing?"

  "Sit down and I will tell you."

  "Hold on, I need more alcohol in my system."

  "Alright," he said. "Little alcoholic." She gave him the stink eye.

  She threw back what was left in her wine glass and then went over to the table where bottles of champagne were set in buckets of ice. She popped one of them open, refilled her glass, and then put the bottle back and went back over to Mo Qingchen.

  She set herself down on the bench next to him and turned to face him.

  "Shoot."

  "Shoot what?" he asked, looking confused.

  "Start talking. You were about to tell me why our independence is such a bad thing." She rolled her eyes.

  "Well, for one, that eye roll brings you great misfortune. Your father and most men his age hate it so much that they want the worst for you." She looked at him blandly. She didn't mind pissing them off. "I don't mind it one bit, but you always say that you don't want to invite anyone's wrath." He shrugged.

  "Go on…"

  "Well, you're so independent that you have issues taking help from people."

  "That's not true," she insisted. "I don't have anyone that I can trust to do it."

  "Yes, it is. Why else would you be so determined to compensate your employees so well even though they want to be your friends? You can't even handle being helped by me. You want to pay me back somehow, don't you?"

  "Because they are my employees. I don't need them as my friends. And you don't know me. It wasn't about a friend helping out another friend, it was charity. And I am not a charity case." She gritted her teeth. Poor Yun Qian Meng is forced to marry someone else by her family. Poor Yun Qian Meng for being abandoned by her biological mother.

  "Nobody said you were. And I don't think it should matter why I helped you or why people want to be your friend. You said it yourself, didn't you? You didn't even take your father's help when you started your business, let alone the money your mother gave you as pocket money. He isn't close to you, but he is your father and you are entitled to take his money without reserve."

  "From a man who hates me and will boast about it for as long as I live? I don't think it's a bad thing for not taking his help." She was staunch in her beliefs.

  "But you can take help because you are entitled to it. And when you need it."

  "Fine. I see your point, even though I don't agree with you. But what's your problem? You said we're both too independent." Now, this was something she was dying to know. To hear him reveal his dark secrets… she felt her heart thump against her ribcage with excitement.

  "Right. My problem is that I'm so independent that I don't need anyone. I don't let anyone close to me because I don't feel the need for company."

  Qian Meng shrugged, unable to see the problem. "I don't have a problem being alone either."

  "See? Just another thing we have in common."

  "God, Mo Qingchen. What is wrong with being alone if it doesn't bother you? Just because society says that you have to have people in your life doesn't mean everyone is that way."