Chapter 003: Don’t You Know the Rules?

Chapter 003: Don’t You Know the Rules?

Mu Qianqian stood frozen off to the side, scared out of her mind. She liked to run wild, sure, but she’d never seen anything like this.

She wanted to run, but it felt like every thug in the room had their eyes locked on her and Wu Chen both.

The call connected fast.

“Hello? How’d you get this number? Who is this?” The voice on the other end was hoarse, guarded. This was a private line, known to almost no one—only people who mattered could reach him through it.

“Crooked Zhao. Nice work. Your boys sure love making trouble. Wasn’t the whole point of the May gathering that we’d all make money together? Trying to start a war? Throw Donghai back into chaos?” Wu Chen opened with a barrage, giving the man no room to breathe.

On the other end, Crooked Zhao went silent, stunned.

This man knew about the May gathering.

He knew this number.

Which meant—

“You… who exactly are you?” Crooked Zhao asked, carefully.

“Young Master Li wanted me to pass along a message. Rein in your people. Next time, it won’t be a phone call. Understand?” Wu Chen said.

“Young Master Li—then you’re—yes, yes, of course, I understand, I promise, there won’t be a next time. This was my fault, I’ll deal with it.” Crooked Zhao had no idea what had actually happened, but he apologized first anyway.

“Good. Hold on.” Wu Chen glanced up at Bearded Liu. “Take this.”

He slid the phone across the table.

Half-suspicious, Bearded Liu picked it up—and the moment he heard the voice, his posture snapped straight with respect.

“Boss, it’s me… yes, yes… Boss, no, it’s not like that, we’re at Wang Zhuangyuan’s bar, it’s nothing big, just—yes, Boss, I was wrong, Boss, I…”

The longer he talked, the more frightened he sounded. Sweat beaded on his forehead.

Finally, he lowered the phone, stepped forward, and handed it back to Wu Chen with both hands.

Wu Chen took it, held it to his ear.

“This one’s on us. It won’t happen again, I guarantee it. I’ll leave Bearded Liu in your hands,” Crooked Zhao said, every word careful.

“Fine.” Wu Chen hung up and looked at Bearded Liu.

Thud!

Bearded Liu dropped to his knees. “Brother! I was wrong! I’ve got parents to look after and kids to raise—I don’t want to die, Brother! Please, forgive me, I admit my fault!”

Smack. Smack.

He punctuated each word by slapping himself across the face.

His men watched in horror, several unable to even look at Wu Chen directly.

“Apologize to her. You scared her.” Wu Chen tilted his head toward Mu Qianqian.

Bearded Liu scrambled over on his knees and resumed his pleading, still slapping himself. “Sister-in-law, I’m sorry, forgive me, I’ll never do it again, please, say the word—anything, I’ll do anything, just don’t let me die—”

Sister-in-law. He’d clearly assumed the wrong thing about her relationship with Wu Chen.

Mu Qianqian, at a loss, glanced toward Wu Chen as if begging for help.

“That’s enough. It’s getting late—I need to get home and sleep. We’ll call it settled,” Wu Chen said.

“Thank you, Brother! Thank you, Sister-in-law!” Bearded Liu practically sang the words, so overcome that he knocked his forehead against the floor twice in front of them.

He rose to lead his men out. He would probably never set foot in this bar again as long as he lived.

“Just walking off like that?” Wu Chen said, mild as ever.

Bearded Liu froze mid-step, then turned back with a wide, ingratiating smile. “Anything else you need, Brother?”

“Don’t you know the rules? You think you can just walk away? You made a mistake—aren’t you going to leave something behind?” Wu Chen raised his eyes, gaze dark and level.

Understanding dawned on Bearded Liu’s face. It hardened. He gritted his teeth, stepped forward, and drew a knife.

Mu Qianqian jumped, edging closer to Wu Chen.

Bearded Liu gripped the knife in his right hand and spread the fingers of his left flat against the table.

Thunk.

One stroke. His face went white as paper, but he didn’t make a sound. His own pinky finger lay severed on the table.

He dropped the knife, grabbed a few tissues, pressed them to the wound, and looked up at Wu Chen with a strained smile. “Brother—will this settle it?”

“It’ll do.” Wu Chen stood, stretched, and said, “I’m heading out. Don’t just walk off, though—you wrecked their business tonight. Make sure they get paid for it.”

“Yes, yes, of course. Whatever you say.” Bearded Liu bobbed his head.

“Let’s go.” Wu Chen walked toward the door. The crowd parted around him without a word, heads bowed, no one daring to meet his eyes.

Mu Qianqian hurried after him, hooking her arm through his, glancing back every few steps.

Wu Chen hadn’t planned on bringing her along.

The matter was settled now. No one would touch her.

But she was still shaken.

Just as they stepped outside, a dozen-odd cars had just pulled up at the curb below the entrance steps—mostly vans and SUVs, along with two supercars: a white Lamborghini and a red Ferrari.

Forty or fifty men poured out, each carrying something long wrapped in newspaper. Knives, almost certainly.

The leader climbed out of the Lamborghini.

Short, thin, somewhere in his early thirties, wire-rimmed glasses, an air of quiet refinement.

This was Wang Zhuangyuan, a name that carried weight across Donghai’s underworld. Wang Zhuangyuan was what people in the underworld called him; his real name was Wang Zhe, and fifteen years ago, he had been Donghai’s top science-track scorer on the gaokao.

Not long before this, having just finished burying a family elder, Wang Zhuangyuan had been dining with his closest men when word came that Crooked Zhao’s people were causing trouble at his own Huahe Bar. He’d come straight here with reinforcements.

Mu Qianqian looked barely twenty, and Wu Chen carried himself like an unremarkable college student.

Wang Zhuangyuan and his men swept past them without a glance, heading straight inside.

As Wu Chen brushed past him, his hand flicked once—unnoticed by anyone.

The two of them descended the steps to the curb.

Wu Chen glanced back up. Once he confirmed Wang Zhuangyuan and his men had all gone inside, he pulled a key from his pocket and pressed the button.

The white Lamborghini’s lights flashed. Unlocked.

“You—” Mu Qianqian stared.

“Lifted it off him just now. Coming?” He turned to her.

Stealing a car? She hesitated a moment, then nodded.

They climbed in.

Wu Chen gunned the Lamborghini and tore off into the night, Mu Qianqian beside him.

Car theft was practically routine for him. With every day reset by morning, none of it mattered—the same logic that let him kill without a second thought.

Still, for all the evil he’d done, he had never once killed indiscriminately.

Trapped in the same day for over a thousand years now, he had known despair, madness, and death by his own hand hundreds of times over—only to wake, always, at seven in the morning on a new July 7th.

He couldn’t even die properly. Eventually, he’d made peace with it. He decided to fill every day to the brim. He set himself challenge after challenge, determined to make his endless life interesting—rich, varied, alive.

…

Half an hour later.

The white Lamborghini screamed along the elevated road, its speed already past 200 kilometers per hour. Traffic was thin this late, but the ride was still full of close calls.

“Whoo, hahahaha!” Mu Qianqian threw her head back, laughing, whooping with delight.

She’d fully recovered her nerve by now. Wild by nature, she loved a good thrill, and everything she had experienced tonight could easily be called the most exciting day in all seventeen years of her life.

She’d met a genuinely remarkable man.

They came off the highway, speed dropping, and the car eased to a stop at the curb.

“Get out. Grab a cab home,” Wu Chen said, hands still on the wheel.

“You’re just going to make me take a cab?” She blinked. “You’re not driving me?”

“Too far. I’m tired.”

“You even know where I live?”

“Of course. How many times do I have to say it—this isn’t the first time I’ve known you.”

“Tch, still trying to sell me on that.” She laughed, shaking her head, then paused, a strange little smile creeping in. “I’m not going home tonight.”

“Then where?” he asked.

“Hold on.” She dug a small bottle of makeup remover and a cotton pad out of her bag and set to work on her face in the visor mirror.

In moments, her skin was bare and clean.

“What am I now?” She turned to him, grinning.

Wu Chen smiled, looked ahead through the windshield, and said, “Nine.”

He shifted into gear, and the Lamborghini roared back to life.

Home.