Chapter 130: No Matter What You Do, You Die

Chapter 130: No Matter What You Do, You Die

Zhuowang Garden residential complex, the corner of the ground-floor corridor.

Lu Guangnian had come downstairs and called Wu Chen straightaway. Barely forty or fifty minutes had passed since Wu Chen left. The reason he had come down so soon, instead of lingering with his woman and his son, was that—

He had to go to the hospital.

Not that he really needed one. The blood he had coughed up was fake. But Ma Huifang and Ma Jiawei had insisted on taking him, and there was no possible way he could let them come along. That would blow the whole thing open.

So he had found an excuse and said he would have someone come for him. He had even teased Ma Huifang a little: “The civil affairs bureau’s on the way to the hospital. We might as well stop in and register the marriage.” That had gotten her worked up enough that she did not follow him out.

Lu Guangnian genuinely had a few injuries from the beating, but nothing worth a hospital.

So the first thing he did downstairs was call Wu Chen.

Reporting the good news was part of it. The other part was that Lu Guangnian still remembered the call Wu Chen had taken while he was laying out the plan for him.

Lu Guangnian prized loyalty and personal bonds above nearly everything.

He hated owing anyone.

Wu Chen had done him two enormous favors, and he had done nothing for Wu Chen in return. Wu Chen would not take his money either. It left Lu Guangnian feeling that if he did not do something for the man, he was hardly a human being at all.

So he had come to regard “someone threatening Wu Chen over the phone” as his chance to repay the debt.

“There’s no need, Brother Lu. I can handle it,” Wu Chen said on the phone.

“What do you mean, no need? Are we brothers or not? If we’re brothers, then out with it!” Lu Guangnian was already growing agitated. “Remember what I told you last time? From here on, you and I are brothers who’d burn yellow paper and swear an oath together! My brother’s in trouble and you want me to stand and watch? Are we brothers or aren’t we?”

Lu Guangnian was genuinely eating himself up over it. If he could not repay at least part of the debt, he felt he would hardly know how to speak to Wu Chen the next time they met.

“That’s not what I meant, Brother Lu. Things have only just turned around with Sister-in-law, and you’ve got your own business to see to. My affairs aren’t—”

“Enough out of you! Give me the address! Stop dragging your feet!”

“Brother Lu, I really—”

“Address! Or don’t you see me as a brother? You think Lu Guangnian isn’t fit to be your brother?”

“…All right. East City. Tree Island Café.”

“Good!”

Lu Guangnian strode out of the building.

Out of the complex, he drove off in the Audi he had brought alone to keep things low-key. Not far along, he turned into a back street.

A luxury motorhome stood at the curb, and behind it waited a convoy with real presence to it—the Rolls-Royce Lu Guangnian usually rode in among them.

Out of the Audi, into the motorhome, change of clothes.

In under ten minutes he stepped back down. He was in a full, sharply cut suit again, his face freshly seen to by a makeup artist.

One detail is worth mentioning: when Lu Guangnian took his beating, the blows had landed on his body only, never his face. That had been arranged in advance, with specific reminders. No hitting the face. Lu Guangnian had people to meet afterward.

The bruises and small hurts on his body were nothing. His clothes covered them; no one would see.

Lu Guangnian had come up from the bottom in his younger days, and he had fought his way up from the bottom. In that era, in the demolition business, men died often enough. He had lived through years of blood and violence. A few minor injuries were nothing at all.

Into the car.

The convoy pulled out.

Straight for Tree Island Café in East City!

Lu Guangnian did not even ask who had threatened Wu Chen before setting off.

No need to ask.

In Donghai, there were not many…