Chapter 111: A Witness to Fatal Dirt

Chapter 111: A Witness to Fatal Dirt

Wu Chen’s understanding of Ding Ruilong was thorough in every direction.

Although Ding Ruilong wasn’t in Donghai but in Nanguang City, Wu Chen had gone to Nanguang many times during the repeating July 7. The flight took only a little over two hours.

Inside the loop he had gone every morning. In different repeated iterations he investigated different intelligence, and in the end he had even kidnapped Ding Ruilong and questioned him about a great many things.

Across a thousand years of loops, Donghai was what Wu Chen understood best, but of course he had touched the world beyond it too. Most of the time it was passive. When he investigated someone in Donghai and a person elsewhere proved to have a major connection to them, Wu Chen would go out, find that person, and investigate everything about them.

At present, nearly everything Wu Chen knew of Nanguang City’s secrets had to do with Ding Ruilong. Not that all the secrets concerned him—rather that the people holding secrets had direct connections to him.

Because Ding Ruilong was the source that had driven Wu Chen to Nanguang to gather intelligence in the first place.

Ding Ruilong was also why Wu Chen had gone to investigate in Modu. Modu was nearer to Donghai; there was no need to fly, and the high-speed rail took a little over two hours.

Though the first time Wu Chen went to Modu to investigate, it hadn’t been because of Ding Ruilong. Only later, after he learned Ding Ruilong had an illegitimate daughter living there, had he gone back to Modu to look again.

Wu Chen opened the message from No Envy by the Abyss and began typing a reply.

No Envy by the Abyss: Hello, Teacher Xingchen.

Xingchen: Don’t call me teacher. I’m not that old.

No Envy by the Abyss: You’re too modest, teacher. Your sketches are so good—calling you teacher has nothing to do with age.

Xingchen: Thanks for the compliment. The drawing’s only passable.

No Envy by the Abyss: Teacher, you’re far too modest. How could that be passable? I’ve hired plenty of tutors for Xinxin, and next to yours, their drawings are what deserve to be called passable.

No Envy by the Abyss: Xinxin is my daughter. She’s in middle school.

Xingchen: Your daughter’s learning to draw too? How long has it been?

No Envy by the Abyss: Three years. She even studied with Teacher Wang Zhengtao of Modu Academy of Fine Arts, but then Xinxin got into trouble and he stopped teaching her. This child really gives me headaches.

Xingchen: It’s normal for children to be a bit mischievous.

They chatted very naturally about drawing, and along the way about the child learning to draw.

After Wu Chen replied once more, the other side paused for more than ten seconds, then sent a picture. A sketch photographed with a phone. A drawing of dinner…

After that, No Envy by the Abyss went on sending pictures, five or six in a row.

All sketches. Flowers, birds, fish, insects, fruit, street scenes—everything.

No Envy by the Abyss: Teacher Xingchen, could you take a look? These are all my daughter’s. Could I trouble you for some comments?

Wu Chen waited a moment.

He didn’t need to look at the drawings. He had seen them during the loop.

But looking at drawings took time, so he couldn’t reply immediately.

A little over ten seconds later, he answered.

Xingchen: They’re very good. Much better than what those children in the group posted just now. Your daughter’s only in middle school? How old is she?

No Envy by the Abyss: She’ll start ninth grade in the second half of the year. Fourteen.

Xingchen: To draw like this at fourteen is already very impressive. She has very high talent. If your family is willing to cultivate her carefully, she can develop in this direction. Her future won’t be a problem at all.

No Envy by the Abyss: Even you say so, Teacher Xingchen… That’s exactly what I keep saying. My child can do it. Everyone says she has talent. Her school and those tutors all praised her talent too.

Xingchen: That’s good. Just cultivate her carefully.

No Envy by the Abyss: Yes, but… Xinxin used to be quite obedient, and willing to study. I don’t know what’s happened these past two years, this year especially. I don’t know whether puberty has arrived and she’s started rebelling, or whether someone has influenced her, but she gets more disobedient by the day… several tutors have been driven off by her, one after another.

Xingchen: It’s probably adolescent rebellion. As parents you should communicate with her more, have more heart-to-heart talks.

After Wu Chen sent that, the other side paused and didn’t answer at once. Only after a while did another message come.

No Envy by the Abyss: Xinxin comes from a single-parent family. I’m raising her alone.

Xingchen: I’m sorry. I didn’t know. My apologies.

No Envy by the Abyss: It’s all right. It isn’t something that can’t be said. I’m a single mother… maybe that’s the reason. I only worry that now Xinxin is older, someone may have said something to her about not having a father, or she’s been bullied and started brooding on it… and that’s why she’s become like this.

Xingchen: That’s worth watching. You still need more heart-to-heart talks with her, more communication.

No Envy by the Abyss: I want to, but the child won’t talk to me now. Whatever I ask her to do, she does the opposite.

Xingchen: When strictness is called for, be strict. Only then can you guide her properly.

No Envy by the Abyss: You’re right, Teacher Xingchen. Oh—Teacher Xingchen, what do you do for work now? Are you in Modu?

Xingchen: Me? I’m freelance these days. But no, I’m not in Modu.

No Envy by the Abyss: Freelance work is good. Easy to go anywhere. Then could you come to Modu?

Xingchen: Hm? For what?

No Envy by the Abyss: It’s like this, Teacher Xingchen. You see how much talent our Xinxin has—wouldn’t it be a pity to waste it? I was thinking… could you come to Modu and be Xinxin’s tutor? Teach her.

One message came through, and before Wu Chen could reply, more followed at once.

No Envy by the Abyss: Don’t worry, Teacher Xingchen. If you can come, I’ll take care of your accommodation. I’ll make sure everything is properly arranged for you.

No Envy by the Abyss: And the tutoring fee. Someone at your level charges by the class hour, don’t they? How about two thousand a lesson?

No Envy by the Abyss: I also know quite a few other parents whose children are learning to draw. Teacher Xingchen, at your level, if you can come, I’ll put you in touch with them. I’ll make sure you earn more.

No Envy by the Abyss sent message after message. Her wish to hire Wu Chen as her daughter’s tutor was extremely urgent. It was also why she had messaged him privately in the first place.

Wu Chen looked at the screen and smiled.

Making contact with this woman was very simple.

For Wu Chen, at least.

And he didn’t merely want contact. He would bring mother and daughter to Donghai. He would cuckold Ding Ruilong thoroughly, and that was only the appetizer. More importantly… this woman was also an important witness to the fatal dirt Wu Chen held on Ding Ruilong.

Ding Ruilong was a deeply heartless man, and at the same time one whose possessiveness and hunger for control ran extraordinarily strong.

He had seen his illegitimate daughter once, just after she was born. In the dozen-plus years since, he had never seen her again. Had never gone to see her. As for the daughter’s mother, the goddess of his high school years, he hadn’t met her in many years either.

Yet because the illegitimate daughter existed, he would wire over an enormous sum every year for living expenses.

The man’s creed was this: what is mine is mine, and what I consider mine is also mine, even if I haven’t obtained it yet. I permit no one to touch it. Whoever dares touch it must die.

And if she was someone he had once cared deeply about and no longer cared about at all, he still permitted no other man to touch her. Whoever touched her died too.

No Envy by the Abyss had become pregnant and given birth in high school. This year she was only in her early thirties, in her prime, and extraordinarily beautiful. She had once been the school beauty, and she maintained herself so well that she looked twenty-six or twenty-seven. But in more than ten years she had never had another man. Not for lack of suitors. She simply didn’t dare accept one.

Wu Chen knew she feared Ding Ruilong, and… hated Ding Ruilong.

And once Ding Ruilong learned that he had been cuckolded not merely in spirit but in substance, then…

And if he then learned that the green light surging above his head was not the whole of it—that he had been thoroughly betrayed, reported in turn by his own woman—then…

Wu Chen was even a little worried.

Worried that before he could get Ding Ruilong into prison and kill him there, Ding Ruilong might lose the will to live first and rage himself to death on the spot.

Wu Chen smiled at the screen and quickly typed another one-handed reply to No Envy by the Abyss.

…

At the same time.

Jinfu Building, Second Conference Room!

“What did you say?! Qingying!” Madam Su flew into a rage, slapped the table, and stood. Glaring at Su Qingying’s expressionless face, she shouted, “Say that again! Are you rebelling against me?!”

“I stand by my proposal. Zhou Da and Yang Kuo must be dismissed!” Su Qingying’s tone came back extremely hard. “If you disagree, then call a board meeting!”