Chapter 089: From the Su Family? Looking for Trouble with Me, Li Ruobing?

Chapter 089: From the Su Family? Looking for Trouble with Me, Li Ruobing?

Inside the pharmacy outside the alley entrance, Su Qingying leaned against the window, talking on the phone while she watched the street on the sly.

The pharmacy was crowded with shelves and displays, and the window was pasted over with signs of every kind. She could see the area around the alley entrance, but no one out there could possibly see her.

She was truly nervous.

She had come over to buy emergency contraception. She’d bought it and was on her way out when several familiar cars happened to pull up outside, and the sight of them sent her scurrying back inside. Since she had thrown her phone out the car window earlier, she’d had to borrow the shop owner’s.

Her memory had always been good, and she had looked at Wu Chen’s number far too many times before. She had reread that text far too many times too.

She dialed his number from memory.

Even so, she got it wrong twice before it went through.

“Honey, what do I do? I’m in the pharmacy. I can’t get out. I—”

“It’s fine. We’re coming down now. Wait for us. Don’t worry. I’ll handle it.”

“Honey, can you really? You have to come.”

“It’s fine. Trust me.”

“Then… all right…”

Su Qingying hung up, put her mask on at once, then walked back to the counter, returned the phone to the owner, and thanked him again. The pharmacy owner looked puzzled—he had no idea what was going on with this girl—but it was no business of his. He asked nothing further. He didn’t want trouble.

Inside the alley.

Fifth-floor bedroom.

Wu Chen ended the call, turned his head, and said to Li Ruobing, “The Su family’s people have found us. They’re right outside the alley. Let’s go down.” With that, he started for the bedroom door.

They had found him faster than he had expected, though still within the range of what he had allowed for.

He didn’t believe the Su family had traced the old apartment registered to his parents, guessed he might be there, and come looking on that basis. Get the initial direction of an investigation wrong and you took detours. They wouldn’t have arrived this fast.

The Su family had traced him through the car. The Lamborghini.

Which meant they had probably pulled strings, gotten access to traffic surveillance, and tracked its route here.

“You knew Su family people would show up at this hour?” Li Ruobing followed him out of the bedroom, asking as they went.

“I’m not some immortal. How could I know?” Wu Chen crossed into the living room, picked up his jacket, and put it on as he spoke. “It was only a possibility. The Su family might come this afternoon. They might, or they might not.”

“You weren’t afraid they’d find you, and you still dared sit here waiting for them?” she asked.

“Don’t try to draw words out of me.” Wu Chen smiled and looked at her. “But I’ll tell you this. If you hadn’t called me this afternoon, if you hadn’t come looking for me, then before three o’clock I’d have taken Su Qingying out of here, gone somewhere for a meal, whatever. They wouldn’t have found us.”

“But since you did come… I didn’t need to leave. You understand, right?” He smiled again when he’d finished.

Of course Li Ruobing understood.

She had already worked it out. She had only wanted to verify one thing: whether this man really was that terrifying, whether coincidence could account for any of it.

Now she knew. There was no coincidence.

Wu Chen hadn’t gambled on anything uncertain. Left alone, even if the Su family came hunting today, they would never have found him and Su Qingying here. But because she, Li Ruobing, had come… it no longer mattered.

Why did it no longer matter?

Because as long as Li Ruobing was here, the Su family wouldn’t find Wu Chen and Su Qingying together. They would find Wu Chen, Su Qingying, and Li Ruobing together.

And then the matter became easy to resolve. Extremely easy.

The key to resolving it was Li Ruobing herself.

Because she had been driven into a dead end with only a single thread of survival, she had no choice but to help Wu Chen of her own accord, willingly and actively, and paper the whole thing over.

She could refuse, of course. But the damage to herself would be far too great.

“Let’s go.” Wu Chen picked up the car keys and gestured to Li Ruobing.

Expressionless, she walked up to him, straightened his collar, then picked up her bag from the sofa. With her other hand she hooked her arm through his and said, “Let’s go.”

They changed shoes at the door and went out arm in arm, like a real couple.

Ring, ring…

A phone. This time hers.

They paused in the doorway and she answered.

“Boss, there’s a group of people surrounding Mr. Wu’s car—”

“I know. I’m coming down.”

Her bodyguard. She said one sentence and hung up.

They went downstairs.

On the way down, Li Ruobing, her arm still through his, suddenly spoke in a low voice. “I don’t like this feeling.”

“What feeling?” Wu Chen said.

“The feeling that you’ve calculated everything, and calculated me along with it, and I still can’t fight you. Do you understand?” She cut a look at him as she said it.

“Don’t put it so unpleasantly. Calculated?” Wu Chen smiled. “If you hadn’t made that bet with me, I would never have dragged you into this. Who is there to blame?”

“I’m not blaming anyone. I just… don’t like the feeling.”

“Are you begging me? Begging me not to pull you into the game next time?”

“Do you have any idea how insufferable you are like this?”

“That sounds like you’re acting spoiled.”

“Spoiled, my ass.”

Angered again, Li Ruobing stopped talking.

“Will you bet with me again in the future?” Wu Chen asked.

“Bet with you, my ass. If I ever bet with you again, I’m a dog,” she shot back, low and fast.

“You’ve got a decent amount of self-knowledge, at least.”

“You—” She turned her head and narrowed her eyes at him.

Wu Chen felt a sharp pain beneath his ribs. Li Ruobing had pinched him. A woman like Li Ruobing had pinched him. She had resorted to a petty, girlish tantrum trick to deal with Wu Chen.

She truly had been provoked past the point of knowing what else to do.

“Why are you behaving like a little girl? Pinching people? You haven’t actually fallen for me, have you?” Wu Chen turned his head and teased her with a smile.

Expressionless, Li Ruobing raised her left hand at once and slapped the back of her own right hand. The crack was fairly loud. Having hit herself, she said, “My hand deserved it. All right?”

Wu Chen smiled and let it go. He’d stop needling her for now. There was serious business waiting.

They walked out of the building arm in arm.

The instant they stepped outside, a faint smile appeared on Li Ruobing’s face. Holding his arm, she even leaned in a little closer, looking exactly like a woman heading out with her boyfriend in excellent spirits.

They walked toward the alley entrance.

Before they reached it, a group of black-suited bodyguards standing near the mouth of the alley noticed them. Li Ruobing spotted her own men as well, but she had brought only four this time. The rest weren’t hers. They were the Su family’s.

Some of these Su-family bodyguards were holding photographs.

“That’s him.”

“That’s right. It’s him.”

Holding the photos up for comparison, they confirmed Wu Chen was the man who had abducted their Eldest Miss, and one after another they closed in on him.

After finding his car here, they had called Madam Su. She was on her way and had ordered them to stand guard. Their assignment was the car, but now that they had the man himself in front of them, they certainly couldn’t let him walk away.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“Back off!”

As the Su-family bodyguards started forward, Li Ruobing’s four broke into a run and threw themselves in front of Wu Chen and Li Ruobing, jabbing hands at the group, faces hard.

One of them had a phone out at the same time. Calling for reinforcements, naturally.

Li Ruobing’s men had been sitting in the off-road vehicle, waiting for her to come out. They’d watched the Su-family group arrive and surround Mr. Wu’s car, hadn’t known what was going on, and had gotten out to look, keeping watch from the side. They had also called Li Ruobing to report it.

Both sides were strictly trained and wouldn’t start a fight lightly.

Until now.

“No need to make a fuss.” Li Ruobing let go of Wu Chen’s arm and took two steps forward. Passing the bodyguard on the phone, she plucked the phone out of his hand without breaking stride, pressed to end the call, and passed it back just as casually.

Then she looked at the dozen or so Su-family men in front of her and said coldly, “From the Su family, are you? What’s this, then? Looking for trouble with me, Li Ruobing?”