Chapter 117: How Long Are You Going to Keep This Up? Get Out!

Chapter 117: How Long Are You Going to Keep This Up? Get Out!

Of course Wu Chen didn’t want money. Lu Guangnian’s favor was worth far more than money.

Lu Guangnian already owed him a major favor from the last time—he had nearly burned yellow paper and kowtowed with Wu Chen to become sworn brothers over it. If he owed him another now… with a code of loyalty like his, Wu Chen’s troubles would become his troubles. Wu Chen might not even have to open his mouth. As long as Lu Guangnian heard about it, he’d likely get there first and slap the other party across the face himself.

“Don’t, brother. Whether you want it or not, I have to give it. Let go…” Lu Guangnian was determined to transfer the money. Now that he’d raised it, it had to be sent.

“Brother Lu, I’m not lecturing you, but that temper of yours really does need changing. Not everything comes down to money. It’s the same as this—however rich you are, however much you spend, you still can’t win back your woman and your child…” Wu Chen kept his hand pressed over Lu Guangnian’s, then patted the back of it. “Keep this up and I genuinely won’t get involved.”

Lu Guangnian took the advice. At a moment like this he didn’t dare argue with Wu Chen over something so small.

“All right, all right. I’ll listen to you first, brother. We’ll talk about that later…” He put his phone away. “Tell me, brother, what’s the second way? Whatever you say to do, I’ll do.”

“The method isn’t complicated.” Wu Chen looked at him and smiled. “It’s only that… you’ll have to swallow some grievance, Brother Lu. And absolutely nothing can go wrong. There’s one chance only. A second attempt won’t work.”

“I’m not afraid of a little grievance! Just tell me what to do!” Lu Guangnian thumped his chest in promise.

To win back his woman and his child, he would throw in everything he had.

He had no descendants, nobody to inherit the family business. Deep in his bones Lu Guangnian held to a certain traditional way of thinking, so winning back his woman and his child was not purely a matter of feeling.

“Brother Lu, if you can harden your heart and set aside your face, then we do this…” Wu Chen began laying out the plan.

It wasn’t complicated, but the details had to be minded. The slightest flaw would ruin the whole thing.

And Wu Chen had built the plan around Ma Huifang’s and Ma Jiawei’s characters. It was aimed with great precision.

Naturally he wasn’t going to tell Lu Guangnian how he had once investigated his first love and his son, or how thoroughly he understood their natures. There was no need. Whatever Wu Chen said, Lu Guangnian would follow, because Lu Guangnian had no other way left.

The dishes came.

They ate.

The meal had formally begun a little before noon and still hadn’t ended by past one in the afternoon, mainly because Wu Chen was going through the details with Lu Guangnian and reminding him of them over and over.

He needed Lu Guangnian to change himself temporarily. He needed him to act, and Lu Guangnian was no actor, so Wu Chen had to make him commit it to memory. He had to make him understand that if he botched it there would be no chance left. Only then could Lu Guangnian just barely carry it off.

Ring, ring…

As the meal was nearly finished, Wu Chen’s phone suddenly rang.

He picked it up and looked.

An unsaved number.

The man he had called earlier… the one Wu Chen had taken the initiative to arrange a meeting with. They had agreed to meet at the café at twelve, and Wu Chen was already more than an hour late.

He answered.

“Still not here?” the man asked, low.

“What’s the hurry? If I’m not there, wait,” Wu Chen said flatly.

Lu Guangnian, in the middle of drinking soup, lifted his head sharply and cut a glance at Wu Chen on the phone. He could feel that Wu Chen’s mood was very strange. He hadn’t had much contact with him, but he knew his steady temper. Wu Chen rarely spoke to anyone like that.

“What the fuck… What do you mean by that?” The man’s temper went off at once. He had only agreed to meet because Wu Chen held leverage over him, and here Wu Chen was taking that attitude. “I’m warning you! I don’t care who you are. If you dare play games with me—”

“Threatening me?” Wu Chen cut in.

Watching him, Lu Guangnian’s brows drew together at once. Someone was threatening Brother Wu?

“When I tell you to wait, you wait.” Wu Chen said the one line and hung up.

He set the phone on the table, looked at Lu Guangnian, and gave his habitual, easy smile.

“Brother, is someone making trouble for you? And he dares threaten you?” Lu Guangnian asked in a rush, his face darkening. “Who is it? Tell your big brother. Is the bastard tired of living?”

“It’s nothing. I arranged to talk something over with someone, and he got a bit anxious,” Wu Chen said lightly.

The lighter he sounded, the more wrong it felt to Lu Guangnian.

The man had dared threaten him. How could that be nothing?

And Lu Guangnian suddenly remembered that when he’d called earlier to invite him out, Wu Chen had said he had business and would skip the meal. Only after Lu Guangnian had begged him every which way had he come.

“If something’s going on, say the word, brother. Don’t hide it. We’re all on the same side.” Lu Guangnian said it with a strong jianghu air.

“It’s nothing. A small matter.” Then Wu Chen’s tone shifted. “Let’s not talk about that. Brother Lu, back to your business… things have to be handled one at a time, don’t they? I can deal with it.”

The more he said that, the more Lu Guangnian felt the matter wasn’t small.

“Ah—that’s right, Brother Lu. Call and ask whether the things are ready…” Wu Chen offered.

The change of subject was so obvious that even Lu Guangnian could feel the deliberateness of it.

“Ah, right. I’ll ask…” He answered and picked up his phone.

For the business of winning back his woman and child, “props” were required. Not only clothes and the like—there were some things an ordinary person couldn’t lay hands on all at once, though they weren’t especially hard to obtain either. With Lu Guangnian’s connections, a single phone call basically settled it.

That included certain people he needed. He could arrange them quickly too.

One thirty in the afternoon.

Wu Chen and Lu Guangnian finished lunch and left Yuefu Tower together.

After that Wu Chen went with him for a haircut, then to his house once to make preparations, and only then did they formally set out. Back and forth, it took another hour and a half.

Three o’clock in the afternoon.

Jingjiang Road, South City District. Zhuowang Garden residential complex. A very nice high-end complex, all high-rises, with a large garden inside. The complex was new and the facilities excellent. Ma Jiawei had bought the place on a mortgage a few years after he formally started working.

This was where Ma Huifang’s family lived now.

The full address was Room 901, Unit 2, Building C, Zhuowang Garden residential complex.

Before going up, Lu Guangnian also stopped at the property office. It took him more than ten minutes to come out.

Security in this complex was very good. You had to swipe a card to go upstairs. An ordinary magnetic card would only reach one fixed floor; only the property office’s public card let you swipe and then press any floor you liked.

On Lu Guangnian’s earlier visits, the first time he had gone to the property office and asked the security guards to swipe him up. Seeing his clothes and bearing, and the bodyguards with him, the guards had figured he couldn’t be a bad person. They’d also heard him say he had come to find his ex-wife and son, so they swiped him through.

Afterward, once he’d made a scene, the guards wouldn’t swipe for him anymore. Lu Guangnian had been taking the stairs up to the ninth floor.

This time was the same.

Up the stairs, and alone.

Lu Guangnian naturally didn’t do much exercise, and he was getting on in years—fifty-six already. By the ninth floor he was a little short of breath. He stood in the corridor a moment, looked around, then walked toward the door of Room 901.

He went over and knocked.

Knock, knock.

“Xiaofang! Xiaofang, are you home? Open the door. I brought you something to eat. Xiaofang…”

Nobody inside answered. Lu Guangnian went on knocking and calling without stopping.

At the same time.

In the property monitoring room, Wu Chen leaned back in a chair, watching the corridor feed for the ninth floor of Unit 2, Building C.

He had to keep an eye on this from beginning to end. He didn’t need to appear, but the plan was his, and Lu Guangnian was the one carrying it out. If Lu Guangnian botched it, Wu Chen wouldn’t really lose anything—but there would be no point to it. Since his new life had begun, he had never once failed.

He had to watch. If something went wrong, he could still correct it and salvage the situation.

“Xiaofang! Xiaofang, you’re home, aren’t you? Xiaofang!” Lu Guangnian knocked for a full several minutes.

“Not home. Dead. Don’t come here again!” A woman’s voice finally came from inside, fierce. She was standing right at the door.

“Xiaofang, don’t be like that… Open the door first! I only—”

Bang!

The door opened. A woman rushed a step out and shouted at him, “What are you still coming here for?! How long are you going to keep this up?! Get out!”

“Waa… waa…” A child’s crying suddenly rang out from inside the apartment.