Chapter 36: The Bar on Xipu Street

Li Zhenguan looked at the neon lights outside, expressionless.

“Sister, my marriage with Wang Zhao won’t be affected in any way,” his face reflected in the car window had an unusually cold quality, “Legally, we already have a substantial marital relationship.”

Li Zhenwei pinched the bridge of her nose, finding it difficult to explain that for a woman, sometimes those two red booklets are really hard to be effective. If one’s heart is a bit harder, marriage can also turn into divorce.

In the end, she only said one sentence: “I’ll have someone investigate and send you the results on your phone. You’re pregnant now, you need to use your head when doing things. You know Wang Zhao’s personality, she’s not the type to compromise easily. On some matters, you should learn to be a bit more yielding.”

However, as she said this, Li Zhenwei paused for a moment, because she realized that the most yielding person in the family was actually Li Zhenguan. In front of Wang Zhao, he was basically a lump of dough.

For a moment, Li Zhenwei suddenly felt that she didn’t need to worry anymore. Li Zhenguan wouldn’t be at a disadvantage in any case.

“Alright, go home early tonight. Dad has specially hired a nutritionist for you. Get used to it in these few days. After you get married, he can go with you,” Li Zhenwei said.

Only then did Li Zhenguan remember that he had forgotten to mention one thing: “Sister, I’ll be living with Wang Zhao at the Wang family’s place later, and won’t be moving out for now. You know the house on Golden Avenue was just recently renovated. Wang Zhao thinks it’s not safe for me as a pregnant man to move in there, so she decided to wait half a year before moving in.”

If he lived at the Wang family’s place, there really wasn’t any room to accommodate a nutritionist.

Li Zhenwei frowned: “Don’t you have a hillside villa under your name? Dad has had it all prepared, and you said before that you wanted to live there. Dad even had the designers and stylists redo all the furniture, bedding, and clothes.”

“It won’t be convenient for Wang Zhao to live there after she starts working, and her work nature is a bit special, so it’s not good to live there,” Li Zhenguan explained, “Anyway, I’m pregnant now, so I’ll just live here for now. Wang Zhao said we should be able to move over before I give birth. Some furniture still needs to be shipped from Italy and Germany.”

“Then you go tell Dad yourself. He’s worried you won’t eat well after marriage, that’s why he specially prepared a nutritionist for you.” Li Zhenwei couldn’t be bothered to worry about the young couple’s affairs. After saying this and giving Li Zhenguan a couple more reminders, she hung up the phone.

By this time, almost everyone in the entire office had left, with only her office still lit. This had become the norm, so the employees were used to the boss working overtime.

Li Zhenwei actually felt the office was a bit too quiet, so she decided not to go home. She sent a text message to Yang Jin, saying she would be home tonight and asking Zhang Shu to prepare some late-night snacks.

Li Zhenguan, on the other hand, reached the street in just half an hour by car.

Xipu Street was even livelier at night, with restaurants on both sides full of people. The neon lights gave the street a somewhat surreal feel. Some drunk youngsters sat on the roadside, talking nonsense.

Li Zhenguan had the driver park not far from The Shell. He didn’t get out of the car, just sat there watching the flickering neon lights of the bar across the street. He rolled down the window and called Wang Zhao again.

Still, no one answered.

The driver in the front glanced at Li Zhenguan’s expression through the rearview mirror and hesitantly spoke up: “Young Master, should I get out and take a look? We might run into Miss Wang Zhao.”

“No need, we’ll just wait for her out here,” Li Zhenguan said calmly, just looking at the bar entrance from across the street.

Meanwhile, Wang Zhao had been inside for about an hour. The band’s performance had just ended, and the whole place was starting to heat up and get rowdy.

A host walked up, a foreign woman wearing a simple suit, speaking English, occasionally saying something that made the whole place burst into laughter.

Wang Zhao and her friends had great seats, right near the stage and close to the aisle. It was clear that Xu Yingchun had spent a lot this time.

There were quite a few foreigners visible in the venue, with Chinese people not even making up the majority. Besides the first floor, there were also people sitting on the second floor, though the view up there definitely wasn’t as good as on the first floor. Wang Zhao heard several girls next to her excitedly talking about hoping to be selected to go on stage and interact with the dancers.

At this point, Wang Zhao was starting to feel something wasn’t quite right. It wasn’t until four men in suits walked out from backstage and stood in the center of the stage that a chorus of screams erupted from a large group of women around them. Even Xu Yingchun couldn’t help but excitedly wave her hand and shout.

Wang Zhao felt a headache coming on. She knew Xu Yingchun and her group weren’t very reliable and quite reckless, but she never imagined that the “excitement” Xu Yingchun mentioned was coming to watch male strippers. Now she felt like she was in a bit of a predicament.

Xu Yingchun hadn’t even noticed Wang Zhao’s headache at this point. The three of them had completely blended in with the surrounding women, waving and screaming together.

Photography and video recording were prohibited in this place, so no one had taken out their phones. Wang Zhao tapped Xu Yingchun’s shoulder, wanting to say something to her, but just then, she saw the four suits on stage being thrown into the audience, instantly triggering another wave of screams. One of the men’s suits happened to land right on the table of Wang Zhao’s booth.

Xu Yingchun and the other two were getting hyped up.

Wang Zhao had no choice but to give up on talking to these three crazy women. She sat quietly in her seat, waiting for the performance to end, while unable to resist lowering her head to smell her own clothes. She was really worried that the mixed odors of this place would linger on her even after going home tonight. Li Zhenguan now had a nose like a dog and tended to overthink things. She didn’t want to cause any issues.

However, as Wang Zhao sat there with the crowd getting rowdy around her, her gaze inevitably fell on the stage.

Perhaps due to the culture of this world, the men on stage were all of the tall, lean type – the kind that looks reserved when clothed but reveals a toned physique when undressed. Two of the four men were Asian, with skin even fairer than the other two, and features that Chinese people typically find attractive.