Chapter 099: Usurp Her Father’s Power?

Chapter 099: Usurp Her Father’s Power?

Li Ruobing sat up straight and looked at Wu Chen with no expression on her face.

In his lap, Su Qingying straightened as well. He raised a hand and patted her back, and she stood. She, too, looked at him without expression.

Both women had heard the whole of the call. They knew what Wu Chen had said and what the other man had said.

And… that was it?

Six lines?

Neither of them, of course, had been able to make out what the exchange actually meant or what the situation was. There was far too little content to analyze. Two names had come up, and the name of a warehouse. What in the world were any of those?

The second option Wu Chen had described was supposed to make Su Qingying the one with the final say.

And then… he made a call like that? Said only those few lines?

What Li Ruobing could work out for now was this: Wu Chen wanted Su Qingying to have the final say both in the company and at home, to take over the Su family’s power ahead of schedule and become president of Jinfu Group. Which meant the entry point should be inside Jinfu Group.

He might well be helping her seize power outright.

If Su Qingying could succeed in taking power within Jinfu Group, then rather than waiting to inherit, she would have actively seized power and taken over. The meaning would be entirely different. And in the process of seizing it, she would generate pressure against her family.

If she succeeded, it would mean the Su family had lost the ability to control her.

Her right to speak at home would be a completely different thing after that.

It was the simplest and most direct method available. It was also the hardest.

So the man Wu Chen had called—Li Ruobing could feel it, and she could guess: Wu Chen probably held some leverage over him, and had set a time and place. The man would probably come. But… who was he?

Was Wu Chen going to threaten him?

And even if Wu Chen succeeded, what kind of power did the man hold that could put Su Qingying in direct control of the company?

Anyone who truly held that kind of power was not someone a few sentences could control. And putting Su Qingying in control of the company ahead of schedule was an extremely complex matter. It touched every part of the business. Above all, the company’s major shareholder was Su Qingying’s father, Su Ruiwen.

It wasn’t that Su Qingying had no shares. Su Ruiwen had given her a portion long ago, which was what let her into the company’s decision-making layer.

But even after giving her that portion, Su Ruiwen remained Jinfu Group’s largest shareholder. The largest block of equity had always stayed in his hands.

Under those circumstances, usurp her father’s power? How?

“What are you thinking about? You can’t work it out, can you?” Seeing both women deep in thought, Wu Chen took Su Qingying’s hand and gave it a squeeze, but he smiled at Li Ruobing as he asked.

“You want to start from inside Jinfu Company…” Li Ruobing asked, frowning.

“Mm-hm.” Wu Chen nodded before she’d finished.

He already knew what she was thinking. With Li Ruobing’s intelligence it was no surprise she’d gotten the first small piece of it. But past that there was absolutely no way for her to go further. Because she didn’t understand the situation.

She had no idea what the relationships among Su Ruiwen, Madam Su, and Su Qingying were actually like—husband and wife, father and daughter, mother and daughter.

Nor did she know the current state of affairs inside Jinfu Group.

And because she didn’t know, she didn’t even have the mental room to keep reasoning.

For Wu Chen, trapped in the same day through a thousand years of loops, the greatest wealth he had accumulated was not only those skills and abilities, that intelligence and those secrets. There was one more thing, and it mattered enormously: he understood the human heart.

There’s a saying: those who know too many secrets don’t live long.

But if the man who knows those secrets also understands the human heart, then not only can he live very long and very happily—he can control everything.

The truth was that this matter was nowhere near as difficult as Li Ruobing imagined. Though only for Wu Chen. For anyone else it wasn’t a question of difficult or not difficult. It was fundamentally impossible. Only Wu Chen could do it.

“Let’s go.” Wu Chen stood.

“Wu Chen, I think perhaps you might consider it a little further…” Li Ruobing spoke suddenly. However she turned it over, something felt wrong. Setting everything else aside, the mere fact that Wu Chen appeared to be threatening someone would genuinely cause problems.

“Want to bet?” Wu Chen turned his head and asked.

“No!” Li Ruobing answered with particular decisiveness.

She had truly, truly learned her lesson.

Wu Chen knew she had. So after winning those two bets off her, whenever he brought up betting again, he was only needling her.

“Honey, are we going straight to Qingyuan Teahouse?” Su Qingying asked from beside him.

“No. First we go to Ruobing’s company,” Wu Chen said.

“Will there be time?” Su Qingying glanced at her watch. “Normally it’s half an hour from here to Qingyuan Teahouse in the Central District. But it’s rush hour. Going straight there might be just about right.”

“What’s the rush? It doesn’t matter if we’re late. Let him wait.” Wu Chen said it, then smiled, entirely unbothered.

He gestured and headed for the door. Su Qingying followed. Li Ruobing didn’t move.

Wu Chen looked back at her.

One point is worth noting: if they wanted to leave Jinfu Teahouse, it had to be Li Ruobing taking Su Qingying out, not Wu Chen. The story was that Su Qingying was staying to keep Li Ruobing company and still needed her counsel. If Wu Chen took her out, the nature of the thing changed.

Li Ruobing didn’t move. Clearly she didn’t want to cooperate.

“Not coming?” Wu Chen asked her with a smile.

She said nothing.

“You’re sure?” he asked again, then added, “Then we’ll just be off.” And he smiled again.

“Don’t!” Li Ruobing said at once. How could she dare let Wu Chen walk out of here with Su Qingying? The instant the two of them left, someone at Jinfu Teahouse would surely report it to Madam Su, and Madam Su would very likely call her, Li Ruobing, immediately to ask what was going on.

And then there would be no explaining it. Far too much would no longer be coverable.

From the moment she’d made that bet with Wu Chen and been pulled into this, she was fated to cover for the pair of them. Not only could she not extricate herself, she couldn’t say a single no to him.

Exhausting.

“How about this. I’ll cooperate and take Miss Su out, but you have to promise that afterward I can go to Qingyuan Teahouse too. I want to see exactly what you’re going to do.” When she finished, she even raised her brows at him. She truly was unwilling to bow her head.

Her hard nature made her feel that simply cooperating now would leave her far too weak in front of him.

So although she plainly had to cooperate, she still had to negotiate terms. That way it didn’t count as losing. There was a certain forced salvaging of face in it.

“Fine. If you want to watch, I don’t mind.” Wu Chen smiled, and once again there was that faint oddness in it. “But don’t regret it. I hope you won’t say afterward that I dragged you into this. You’re coming in of your own accord.”

Li Ruobing’s face changed.

She felt as though she were still inside his calculations. Even her wanting to follow him had been calculated by Wu Chen.

She regretted it a little. But she had no intention of taking it back, because she genuinely wanted to know how Wu Chen would handle something this large. When he went to Qingyuan Teahouse… who exactly was he going to meet?

They set out.

The three of them went downstairs. Li Ruobing drove the Bentley and took Su Qingying with her.

Wu Chen drove the Lamborghini alone.

The bodyguards followed in their cars.

First, Huancai.

On the way there, neither Li Ruobing nor Su Qingying knew that Wu Chen, driving alone, made several more calls to several different people. Each was very short, a few lines and done.

At Huancai they rested a while. Then the three changed cars and set out again, conveniently shaking off the Su-family people tailing them in secret.

By the time they reached Qingyuan Teahouse it was nearly seven in the evening.

If the other man had arrived on time, he would have been waiting for Wu Chen for close to an hour.

“Why are there so many cars?” Before they even reached the teahouse doors, Li Ruobing had already sensed something was off. Because at this hour there were an extraordinary number of luxury cars parked outside.

Wu Chen smiled and said nothing. Of course there were. He had invited more than one person.

Inside.

Upstairs.