Chapter 008: The Woman with the Ice-Cold Voice and Domineering Temper

Chapter 008: The Woman with the Ice-Cold Voice and Domineering Temper

Wu Chen’s phone held only the numbers of people he’d known before July 7, 2020. Anyone he met on the seventh itself never made it into his contacts—there was no point. A reset erased it all anyway.

Instead, he’d simply memorized every number that mattered. Over a hundred thousand of them, committed to memory across a thousand years. He found it strangely satisfying—one more way to fill the endless hours.

Memory was the one thing the reset never touched, so Wu Chen had learned to use his to the absolute limit.

“You’ve got a traitor close to you. Been there two years now. Besides watching your every move, he’s also under orders to steal the R&D files for your company’s newest product…” Wu Chen said, calm as anything, while flooring the accelerator.

“Who is this?” A flicker of suspicion crept into the woman’s icy tone. “How did you get this number?”

She’d assumed, at first, that this was a subordinate calling with something urgent. The unfamiliar number hadn’t struck her as strange, not until his opening line.

Because no one spoke to her like that. Not unless they were a stranger with nerve to spare.

He clearly knew something real. But right now, his identity concerned her more than his information.

“I think we should meet in person,” he said.

“Who. Are. You?” She repeated herself, mechanical, her voice hardening further.

“You’ll find out when we meet. There’s a traitor in your inner circle. I’m doing you a favor telling you this. You wouldn’t want to lose that wager of yours, would you?”

“You know about the wager—who are you? I’m warning you—if you know this number, you already know who I am. I will find you.”

“Come on, I already said we could meet. Why the threats? Don’t you want to know who the traitor is?”

“I don’t even know who you are. Why should I believe anything you say just because you say it?”

“Because I’m a good person who happens to know things, and I’m being generous enough to share them. Pay me a reasonable fee for the intel, and I’ll tell you even more. Say… something about your little brother, for instance.”

“I’ll find out exactly who you are.” Click. She hung up without another word.

Wu Chen wasn’t remotely surprised. That was exactly her personality.

“Wu—Wu Chen… isn’t this… a little fast—” He’d just set the phone down, both hands back on the wheel, when Mu Qianqian’s voice, tight with fear, drifted over from the passenger seat.

The Lamborghini was flying now, acceleration pinning them both into their seats.

She sat rigid, spine flat against the seatback, knuckles white where she gripped the sides, staring out the windshield at a blur of morning traffic.

Rush hour. The absolute worst possible time for this.

Once they hit the main road, the traffic thickened fast, and at this speed, reckless didn’t begin to cover it.

She’d wanted to say something earlier—wanted to scream at him to slow down, to stop making phone calls at two hundred kilometers an hour—but she’d been too afraid that speaking up would break his concentration at the worst possible moment.

She liked speed. She’d raced before, plenty of times. But always at night, on empty roads winding through the hills.

Doing this in broad daylight was a different kind of insane entirely.

“Don’t worry. Once we lose them, I’ll slow down.” He said this and pressed the accelerator down further.

“We’ve already… lost them, haven’t we…” She checked the mirror again. The off-roaders were gone—swallowed up somewhere behind them, too far back to see.

SUVs simply couldn’t keep pace with a car like this.

And they clearly weren’t willing to drive as recklessly as he was.

“Yeah, more or less.” He eased off, slightly. “I’ll slow down after the next light.”

Then, glancing at the clock, he hit the gas again instead.

Their speed climbed toward two hundred forty kilometers per hour.

“You—you don’t have to—do this—” Mu Qianqian felt certain, in that moment, that she was going to die.

“If I don’t, we’ll miss the green light,” he explained.

Ten seconds later, the white Lamborghini swept into the intersection of Jianshe Road and Fuming Street, executed a flawless drift through the wide-open junction, and cut hard right onto Jianshe Road.

The light turned red the instant they cleared it.

Wu Chen knew every road in this city by heart—every signal’s timing, every stretch that clogged at which hour, every route that stayed clear. He’d mapped it all out in his head before they’d even started moving.

Through the worst of rush hour, he’d avoided every choke point on instinct.

The car’s low chassis ruled out anything but smooth asphalt.

He’d planned for all of it.

The speed dropped, eventually settling around eighty—still fast for city streets, but no longer terrifying.

Mu Qianqian exhaled and raised a fist as if to hit his shoulder, then thought better of it and let her hand drop, unwilling to risk distracting him even now.

“You scared the life out of me, you jerk.”

“Emergency situation. People chasing us. Not exactly my first choice either.” He smiled.

“Aren’t you worried about crashing? Or—or ending up on the news? The whole country could see this. You’d be finished.”

“No crash coming. And no news, either. This car is Wang Zhuangyuan’s—a smuggled one with fake plates. He’s not calling the police over it. And if footage ever surfaces online, he’ll have it scrubbed clean within minutes. He’s got the connections for it.”

“Wang Zhuangyuan has that kind of reach?”

“Of course he does.”

“Then you’re basically dead either way. Why even steal the car? You could’ve just walked away yesterday.”

“Ha.” He laughed once, and left it at that.

A little over ten minutes later, the white Lamborghini rolled to a stop near Qinghe Park, in Donghai’s South District.

“Out. Go home,” he said.

Only then did Mu Qianqian—who’d spent the whole ride staring at him instead of the road—notice they’d stopped right by her own neighborhood. Her family’s place was in Qinghe Courtyard, the villa community just beside the park.

“You actually knew where I live?” She stared at him.

“Mm-hm.” He smiled. “I keep telling you—I’ve known you a long time.”

“Ugh, more made-up nonsense! Oh, wait—I get it now.” Something seemed to click for her. “My dog of a best friend told you, didn’t she? That traitor tells everyone everything.”

“Get out,” he said, waving her off.

“Where are you even going? Take me with you. I don’t want to go home yet.”

“I’m currently being hunted. You want to get hunted too? If they catch you, they’ll do God-knows-what to you first and ask questions later. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” He laid it on thick.

“…Fine.” She climbed out, visibly rattled, then leaned back through the window. “Be careful, okay?”

He flashed her an OK sign.

“Call me,” she said, and shut the door.

He hit the gas and vanished around the corner in a haze of exhaust.

She turned to head home, took one step—and froze, spinning back around to wave frantically at the car already too far to see.

“Oh, for—” She smacked her own forehead, disgusted with herself.

She’d just remembered something painfully important.

She had absolutely no way to contact him.

No number. No WeChat. Nothing. He’d spent the entire night with her and hadn’t left so much as a phone number behind.

“I—oh, right!” She dug out her phone and called her best friend. She was still convinced, somewhere underneath it all, that this whole thing had been her friend’s doing—that whatever came after had just spiraled on its own, but the initial meeting had definitely been arranged.

Time to get some answers.

—

Half an hour later, Wu Chen pulled the white Lamborghini into the underground garage of an office tower, killed the engine, reclined his seat, and closed his eyes to wait.

Waiting for a call.

He knew, without a shred of doubt, that she’d call back on her own.

Whatever mess he was currently in—Crooked Zhao, Wang Zhuangyuan, all of it—was small potatoes compared to the real problem: Young Master Li. Handle that, and everything else would sort itself out.

Which was exactly why the first real connection he intended to build was with the woman he’d just called out of nowhere.

A woman whose looks landed at a solid nine, whose presence was nearly impossible to resist, and who wielded serious power with a temper to match.

He’d slept with her before, of course. More than once—meeting her fresh each time, on the same day, over and over, across more repetitions than he could count.

Her name was Li Ruobing.

The elder sister of the very Young Master Li whose name carried weight across all of Donghai.

To the outside world, Young Master Li looked untouchable—a man who answered to no one. At home, though, he was terrified of his own sister.

Which suited Wu Chen just fine. He had no objection whatsoever to becoming Young Master Li’s brother-in-law.

Ring, ring, ring…

The phone buzzed.

He sat up, glanced at the screen, and smiled.

She’d called.