Chapter 043: The Fatal Kind

Chapter 043: The Fatal Kind

“Fine. Got it.” Wu Chen hung up as he said it, without asking more. He could already guess—something serious at the company, most likely, and right now nothing mattered to Li Ruobing more than the company. Its fate was her fate.

“Something’s come up. Let’s call it here for today.” Wu Chen pocketed his phone, stood, and headed out.

Wang Zhuangyuan said nothing, just pulled out his wallet, tossed a hundred yuan on the table, and followed him.

“Need a car, Mr. Wu?” Wang Zhuangyuan hurried to catch up, already pulling the Lamborghini key from his pocket. Wu Chen glanced at it and took it.

Wang Zhuangyuan followed him out of the alley.

Wu Chen spotted the Lamborghini—and the row of cars parked behind it. A few men stood smoking near one of the SUVs; seeing Wang Zhuangyuan emerge, they nodded and called out, “Boss.”

“What’s this supposed to be?” Wu Chen turned to him.

The question wasn’t out of nowhere.

Because there were two Lamborghinis now.

Not just Wang Zhuangyuan’s white one—there was also a blue Aventador, the newest generation, released only last year.

Wang Zhuangyuan’s own car was a smuggled import running fake plates, an older model he’d driven for years.

“Mr. Wu, I really am sorry for the misunderstanding. Take it as an apology. The car’s yours to drive—any problems, I’ll handle them. What do you say?” Wang Zhuangyuan said.

He was lying.

Wu Chen knew it too. It was barely past seven in the morning—the car couldn’t have been bought in the middle of the night. Even Donghai’s Lamborghini 4S dealership didn’t open in the middle of the night.

And even with connections strong enough to pull a car out after hours, there was no getting proper registration done overnight. Driving a plateless car for his own fun was one thing. Handing one over as a gift was another entirely.

So the car had to have been bought yesterday.

He couldn’t have known in advance that Wu Chen would call.

Which meant the real story was this: yesterday morning, right after leaving Crown Entertainment, Wang Zhuangyuan had decided to court a connection with Wu Chen. He’d put men on him, and because Wu Chen had once driven off in his own Lamborghini, he’d assumed the man had a taste for them.

So he’d bought one—waiting for a moment to hand it over, tailored to what he thought Wu Chen wanted.

“Sure.” Wu Chen said only that.

He pressed the key. The blue Lamborghini flashed its lights in response.

He got in, started the engine.

As it came to life, Wu Chen took in the interior. Newest model, no question—buying it off the lot meant no extra options, but this was still an Aventador, the “Big Bull,” as people called it. On-road price alone would clear eight million yuan.

The price itself didn’t much interest Wu Chen.

But that Wang Zhuangyuan had decided, on the spot yesterday, to drop eight million on a car meant as a gift—that kind of nerve explained plenty about how he’d climbed this high.

As Wu Chen pulled away, Wang Zhuangyuan raised a hand from the curb. “Safe travels, Mr. Wu.”

Wu Chen nodded back through the window, expression unreadable.

—

A little over half an hour later.

Wu Chen parked in the underground lot beneath CBD Building Seven. Glancing around, he spotted several cars belonging to Huancai Fashion, and Li Ruobing’s among them.

She’d beaten him here.

He rode the elevator up, swiping the employee card he’d been issued the day before during onboarding—it sat in his suit pocket now.

He reached the thirty-first floor, then took the stairs up to the thirty-third.

Li Ruobing’s bodyguards were stationed everywhere up there. None of them stopped him—they all knew who he was—and each greeted him as he passed: “Mr. Wu.”

He walked into Li Ruobing’s office.

She stood by the window on the phone, pacing without seeming to notice, visibly on edge.

“Did they manage to save her? How bad is it, exactly… Mm. Mm. How many months? So she’s out for the launch, is what you’re telling me. Mm… I understand. All right, I know. Mm…”

Wu Chen didn’t interrupt. He crossed to the sofa well across the room from her desk, dropped into it, crossed one leg over the other, leaned sideways with his chin propped on his hand, and watched her finish the call.

A full five minutes passed before she finally hung up, her face like ice.

“Who got hurt?” Wu Chen asked.

“Deng Xunya. Car accident.” Li Ruobing answered flatly, then strode to the filing cabinet, pulled a folder from it, and returned behind her desk to flip through it, head down.

“Her, huh. Ding Ruilong’s work?” Wu Chen asked.

“You even know who she is?” Li Ruobing looked up.

“She’s a huge star. Who doesn’t?” Wu Chen said, smiling.

Around Wang Zhuangyuan today, he’d rarely worn this particular smile—he always drew a sharp line between people worth using and people worth knowing.

“That’s not what I asked. How do you know it was Ding Ruilong?” Li Ruobing said.

“Simple enough. This year’s new product launch might not mean much to Huancai Fashion as a company, but to you personally, it’s everything. You want to take the company public and raise capital before the bet plays out—push your net worth up as high as it’ll go.”

“Which means you need Huancai’s performance to peak right now, so the stock price is high when it lists.”

“In an era built on traffic, a high-end cosmetics brand lives and dies by having the right spokesperson.”

He paused with a smile, then went on. “And Ding Ruilong’s been blocking you on every front, including this—including finding a spokesperson. For years, the only people willing to endorse Huancai were second-tier, third-tier, sometimes has-beens.”

“This year, Huancai finally reached a new tier. A genuine top-tier A-list actress was finally willing to sign on—and Ding Ruilong kept interfering, even bending the rules of the bet by using the Ding family’s weight to stop it. No matter how you negotiated, you couldn’t land anyone who met your standard.”

“Until two months ago, when you quietly locked down Deng Xunya.”

Deng Xunya had debuted as a singer and was now a blazing new-generation female star, popularity through the roof.

Li Ruobing’s plan had her stepping into the spotlight at the launch itself—appearing that day, standing behind Huancai, endorsing the new product line. Li Ruobing meant to ride her heat, layer it with online promotion, and detonate the launch into an overnight sensation.

She wanted to turn Huancai Fashion from a modest domestic name into a genuine national brand.

For this launch, she’d poured in far more preparation than anyone realized.

“Yesterday I helped you flush out the mole. Ding Ruilong found out the plan to steal your product files had fallen through—and today Deng Xunya has a car accident. Can’t appear at the launch, can’t do any of the follow-up promo. Pretty clear, isn’t it? That’s no coincidence.” Wu Chen finished.

“You really do know a lot.” Li Ruobing said it quietly.

She’d already known it was Ding Ruilong, even without Wu Chen spelling it out—that was exactly why she was this furious.

She hadn’t expected him to go this far, this twisted. Unable to steal the files, he’d simply had someone run down the actress set to endorse the line. He was determined to wreck the launch by any means necessary.

The whole reason she’d signed Deng Xunya in secret had been to keep Ding Ruilong from doing exactly this.

She’d thought he didn’t know. But yesterday, Wu Chen had helped her root out the traitor—a mole who’d been working right beside her as an assistant the whole time. Which meant Ding Ruilong had known about the secret contract with Deng Xunya from the start.

The reason she’d always been at a disadvantage against Ding Ruilong had nothing to do with her own ability.

It came down to this: both the Ding family and the Li family stood behind him. She was fighting alone.

Whenever Ding Ruilong used family power, the Li family covered for him. But if she so much as stepped over the line laid out by the bet, both families would rule her defeated on the spot.

Li Ruobing took a slow breath, looked at him, and asked, “Do you have dirt on Ding Ruilong?”

That was the real reason she’d called him here.

The attack on her spokesperson wasn’t Wu Chen’s doing, and it wasn’t something he could fix.

She was furious. She wanted Ding Ruilong to pay.

“Dirt on him? I’ve got some.” Wu Chen arched a brow at her, smiling. “The fatal kind.”