Chapter 048: Still That Careful, Huh?

Chapter 048: Still That Careful, Huh?

The room was spacious, far larger than an ordinary restaurant private room built for a dozen guests, though it held only a single table, four wooden chairs, and a scattering of decorative pieces—flower stands, folding screens.

A man in his early forties sat at the table drinking tea, dressed in a plain high-collared T-shirt, baggy shorts, and slippers.

He was tall, carrying some weight but not excessively, the kind of build that read as sturdy rather than heavy. Stubble covered his jaw, his hair looked days overdue for a wash, and altogether he gave off a distinctly sloppy, unkempt air.

Either of the two bodyguards outside would have carried a hundred times his presence.

He looked, at a glance, like any ordinary middle-aged man you’d pass on the street—someone who might have kept himself in shape once, back before marriage and kids softened him around the edges, before he stopped bothering with how he looked, before the small grinding demands of daily life sanded down whatever sharpness he’d had in his youth and left him thoroughly average, thoroughly rough around the edges, the kind of man destined to drift through life without amounting to much.

That was the impression he gave at first glance.

Nobody would have guessed he had money or power.

In truth, he had both. Not just money—serious money.

One detail stood out: a faint scar along the right side of his neck. It was his most distinctive feature, and the reason he stuck to high collars—they hid it, at least partway.

As far as Wu Chen knew, the scar dated back to a car accident, years ago.

The moment Wu Chen stepped into the room, the sloppy man’s head turned toward the door.

He froze at the first sight of Wu Chen.

Wu Chen froze too.

For entirely different reasons.

The man froze because Wu Chen looked far too young. He’d expected a middle-aged tycoon who shared his particular hobby—someone maybe a bit younger than himself, but not by much.

Their brief phone call earlier had given him a hint: Wu Chen’s voice sounded somewhat young, though his tone carried real steadiness.

So he’d guessed early thirties. Something close to that.

He’d never imagined Wu Chen was barely in his twenties.

“So it’s you, Boss Lei.” Wu Chen spoke first, feigning surprise. He wanted the man to believe he’d simply recognized him—that the two of them really were fated to meet.

“Chen? Wu Chen?” the man asked. He’d guessed the character might be in Wu Chen’s given name from the game ID, Server-Dominating King·Chen, and had already gotten the surname over the phone.

“Yes, that’s me.” Wu Chen nodded and walked further in.

The bodyguard outside pulled the door shut.

“You know who I am?” the man asked, watching him cross the room.

“The second son of the Lei family, Hongfa Industrial. I’ve heard your name for a long time, Boss Lei. We really are fated.” Wu Chen smiled as he said it, letting something flicker across his expression at the word fated.

The man caught the flicker.

Wu Chen had made sure he would.

Wu Chen straightened his suit jacket and took the chair across from him.

Hongfa Industrial. Plenty of companies carried some version of that name—it wasn’t exactly unique, though it wasn’t quite a duplicate either, since a company’s full registered name always included its location and would read differently in full, with a different scope of business attached.

“Industrial” was simply a catch-all term, covering manufacturers and certain tech firms alike.

The Hongfa Industrial Wu Chen meant was Hongfa Weixing Precision Group, based in Guanan County, Huaixi City.

It ranked among the national top ten in contract manufacturing, with reach into air-conditioning R&D, auto parts production, and more. Total assets now exceeded sixty billion yuan.

The Lei family of Hongfa—the Lei clan—held 31 percent of Hongfa Group’s shares collectively, making them the company’s largest shareholder and its de facto controller.

Hongfa had started out as a…