Chapter 984: The Neighbor's Little Brother
After getting slapped and being called a lunatic, Chu Hong, holding her face, didn't show any resentment toward Zhang Tao.
Instead, she cast an extremely venomous glance at Lan Wen. Seeing this, Ye Fei's brow furrowed slightly. He thought to himself, This woman can't be allowed to stay!
Originally, in his eyes, this crazy woman was nothing more than an ant.
Even if she made a fuss, he wouldn't have taken her seriously.
But things were different now. This ant had turned into a poisonous one that could bite at any moment. He certainly wouldn't let her have the chance to bite his woman.
However, dealing with such trash didn't require Ye Fei to lift a finger, let alone with Lan Wen present. Although this small county was on the fringes of the Southeast, it was still under the control of the Lingyun Club.
Taking care of this minor trouble would be as simple as a word from him.
This little incident didn't affect Ye Fei and Lan Wen's mood at all. They walked in together, with Zhang Tao accompanying them.
As for Chu Hong, he didn't even spare her a second glance.
Since the hotel wasn't very big and Zhang Tao had invited a lot of people, the gathering was held in the lobby on the first floor.
Once inside, Lan Wen was pulled away by her female colleagues who had arrived earlier. Zhang Tao, being the actual organizer, naturally couldn't stay with Ye Fei the whole time and had to leave to entertain his fellow rich kids.
As for Ye Fei, he had no interest in mingling with a bunch of women, nor did he want to see the sycophantic faces of Zhang Tao's rich friends and the men fawning over them. So, he found a secluded spot to sit and watched Lan Wen from a distance.
Generally speaking, a woman who is more beautiful than others usually doesn't have great relationships with other women, due to the innate jealousy among females. But Ye Fei found that Lan Wen got along quite well with her colleagues.
This was partly because of her generous and outgoing personality, but without some tact, no matter how approachable she was, it would be hard to achieve this.
Ye Fei didn't feel any aversion to this. He admired Lan Wen even more.
Extremely innocent girls are cute, but if everyone were like that, they'd just be a bunch of ornaments.
To be honest, most of the women around Ye Fei were far from simple, especially his mom and aunts, who were all very capable.
In Ye Fei's view, a woman who could be shrewd and capable in public but completely unguarded in front of him was the most adorable. His mom and aunts had perfectly achieved this, and he believed Lan Wen would do the same in the future.
While Ye Fei was keeping an eye on Lan Wen, Lan Wen, chatting casually with her friends, would steal glances at him from time to time, feeling more and more attracted to him.
When a girl has a crush on a guy, she tends to see only his good qualities. Take Ye Fei, for example. He was just sitting there with a smile on his face.
Apart from being good-looking, there was nothing particularly charming about him. In fact, to those who didn't like him, he might even seem like he was showing off.
But Lan Wen didn't see it that way. To her, this legendary guy was so low-key and profound.
The rich kids who talked big and the men fawning over them couldn't compare to Ye Fei at all.
After more than half an hour of sheer boredom, at four-thirty, the general manager of Lan Wen's company finally arrived.
Ye Fei could understand this. Although the manager needed to flatter Zhang Tao's dad, he was still a somewhat important figure and needed to maintain some dignity in front of his employees.
He was a middle-aged man with a big belly and a large slicked-back hairstyle, which gave him quite a leadership presence.
Without much ado, he clapped his hands to get everyone's attention and then started speaking.
Surprisingly, most of his speech was about praising Lan Wen, saying she worked hard and had outstanding abilities, and so on.
Lan Wen was an ambitious girl. If she didn't know the inside story, she would have been very happy to hear the manager's praise.
But now, facing everyone's congratulations, she felt uninterested. She knew this was all arranged by Zhang Tao. It was true that she worked hard and had great abilities, but she wanted to be praised fairly and openly, not through some backroom deal.
This made her not only ungrateful to Zhang Tao but even more annoyed with him.
Although Lan Wen herself wasn't interested, she received quite a few congratulations, both sincere and insincere, thanks to her good relationships at the company.
The only exception was Chu Hong, who was sulking in the corner after being slapped by Zhang Tao. Her gaze at Lan Wen was even more poisonous now, like a venomous snake ready to strike.
After the speech, the big boss didn't stay to join the fun. He just exchanged a few pleasantries with Zhang Tao and his rich friends before leaving.
It was only after the boss left that the banquet officially began. Since most of the attendees were employees of the same company or friends who knew each other well, Zhang Tao didn't arrange a buffet-style gathering that encouraged mingling. Instead, he set up more than ten large round tables in the lobby for people to sit together in groups.
Zhang Tao had originally wanted Lan Wen to sit at the same table with him, but she refused. He was a little unhappy about it, of course.
But his main goal today was to show off his influence in front of Lan Wen, which had already been demonstrated by the boss's praise of her. So, he didn't want to push too hard in other aspects, as that might backfire.
After getting rid of Zhang Tao, Lan Wen sat at the same table with Ye Fei and a few of her close female colleagues.
Those women had been eyeing Ye Fei for a while and, now that they had the chance, they wasted no time in teasing him.
Even though Lan Wen emphasized several times that Ye Fei was just her brother, he still got teased by the seven or eight girls.
Ye Fei could only respond with a wry smile. His eldest sister's classmates had done the same thing, and now these women were doing it too. It seemed that women everywhere were the same—they always liked to tease their friends' boyfriends.
Lan Wen didn't help Ye Fei out of the situation. She just watched with a smile, growing more and more puzzled. She couldn't help but doubt the rumors about Ye Fei again.
He was just too mild-mannered. He didn't get angry when Zhang Tao boasted in front of him, he didn't get mad when Chu Hong called him a "pretty boy," and now he was being teased by her good friends. He didn't seem like the legendary warrior everyone talked about. He was more like a very shy little neighbor's brother.