Kapitel 8: Meeting At The Louvre Part 1

October 24, 20XX (Wednesday)

Musée du Louvre

"Hey!"

Mei Li, who was quietly queueing the long line of people to buy tickets, looked up from her phone with wide, startled eyes.

"You!" Mei Li rudely pointed her pointer finger in Zhao Yang's face, "What are you doing here?"

"I'm going inside the Louvre. Want to come with me? I have one extra ticket."

Mei Li's eyes narrowed at him in suspicion, especially with that same confusing grin plastered in his face. Mei Li, having remembered that she can wipe that grin off with savage words, was relieved that this man of great wealth and success can still be human.

"How coincidental that you have an extra ticket…"

A short silence reign for a minute with Yang's hesitation, "If you want to call it that, then sure… what a coincidence!"

Without waiting for her affirmation, Yang took Mei Li's left wrist into his right hand. He dragged Mei Li away from the long queue and entered the fast lane beside it with a simple show of the tickets that were already in his hands to the security guard.

Upon officially entering, Yang turned back to her and asked, "So where should we go?"

"We're going together?"

Yang looked at her as if she was asking something already a given, which she was indeed.

"I thought you didn't like me; it was obvious with how much you wanted to walk away yesterday…" Mei Li trailed, hoping that he didn't like her so she could wander around without a tail following behind her. Besides that, she also doesn't like that fake smile he always plasters in his face was too unnatural.

"Well, you made me sit again." And she had managed to shake him too, but he wouldn't tell her that or else she might tell his sister, and then he wouldn't stop hearing about it. This woman in front of him was a woman with many layers. He couldn't wait to know more.

"Have you been here before?"

"This is the first time…" Yang trailed.

"Well, which wing should we go first?"

"Here…" Mei Li hesitated for a while before pointing towards the Denon Wing in the south, her dislike to her companion lesser than her eagerness to see Mona Lisa.

There were plenty of tourists speaking different languages and the stairs, Oh the countless of stairs was torture to the painter while the CEO appeared to be grinning the same as before, unaffected by her dilemma.

It was when they reached a lobby near the staircase before an old beat up statue with wings but no head or arms that Mei Li stopped for a breather. Yang cursed to himself; he should have brought water! He settled with handing his handkerchief to her.

"No, thank you, but I have mine." the orphan immediately rejected his offer.

Mei Li could have sworn that Yang's smile faltered a slightest of a hint. She smirked to herself, glorious even with the smallest victory.

"So how did you know I was going here today?"

She wiped her brows, then her neck, and then her thin arms, never knowing the eyes that followed her movements with a flash of devouring hunger.

"You sure you want to ask me that?" Yang repeated the question Mei Li asked him yesterday.

"Well, I wouldn't ask if I wasn't interested…" In turn, Mei Li mockingly repeated his answer.

Yang's smile grew with Mei Li's smirk.

"My Sister can be blubber mouth…" Yang hinted.

"I should have know…"

Yang snickered, pulling Mei Li to start moving again. Quickly arriving at the statue above the staircase, Mei Li awed with eyes sparkling as if the stars had fallen into her pupils and her cute red rose lips open in wonder.

Yang hated to interrupt her wide-eyed wondering but his curiosity got the better of him, "So, what's this sculpture? Is this important?"

Yang ignored the disbelieving scoff from Mei Li. He was a CEO that was busy most of the time and the fact that he sometimes forgets to eat his meals are proof enough; He wasn't about to add learning art into his schedule.

"This is the Winged Victory of Samothrace… One of the greatest surviving original Hellenistic statue."

Yang nodded his head, even though he only understood the word Hellenistic in her sentence. He'll pretend he's listening.

"Are you excellent with going with me? I'm boring when it comes to art, as Yue had observed."

"I don't know anything about the Louvre, to begin with, aside from it having 35,000 art pieces. I'm not sure of that figure by the way. Might as well have someone to explain it to me."

"Contrary to your belief, I'm not all knowing to all these paintings. I wasn't even an art student."

"Yet you've become the famous painter Miss M with paintings that value almost half a million dollars."The sentence Yang uttered softly to her, so as not to let others hear it, surprised Mei Li to the point where she stopped walking.

Horrified, Mei Li asked, "How did you know that?"

Yang gave her a look with eyebrows mockingly cocked in her direction with the same annoying grin.

Mei Li sighed, "Sister?"

"Sister." Yang's confirmation made her eyebrows twitch.

Mei Li deliberated whether Yue's mouth should be stitched or glued.