Chapter 131: No Other Choice

Chapter 131: No Other Choice

Meng Junhao was on his knees again.

He was caught in a “dead end”—and it was not one Wu Chen had built.

He had done it to himself.

In truth he had always known this day would come. That was precisely why he had been quietly shifting his assets, desperate to get out. Wu Chen’s choosing today to come and see him was simply moving with the current: the right man at the right moment.

Wu Chen could not be certain exactly when Ding Ruilong would strike, but he could infer that it would not be long. A matter of days, most likely.

Ding Ruilong was not an incompetent man. But that obsessive streak of his—once he was truly enraged, there was nothing he would not do.

In that respect he was the exact opposite of Meng Junhao.

Meng Junhao weighed gain and loss too carefully. He feared death and forever calculated consequences. Which meant he would never truly lose control.

“Mr. Wu! Save me! Save me!” Meng Junhao cried from the floor, unable to stop himself from clutching at the hem of Wu Chen’s trousers.

“What makes you think I can save you?” Wu Chen asked, glancing down at him with a faint smile.

“You! You certainly can. Otherwise you wouldn’t have come to find me. That’s right—that’s it! You came to find me, so you must have a way. You do, don’t you?”

As he spoke, Meng Junhao talked himself into the logic. He did, after all, have a brain in his head.

“Sit.”

Wu Chen tipped his chin at the chair.

Meng Junhao’s face was uneasy in the extreme. He rose and took the seat, but seemed unable to keep still in it. He was too badly rattled.

He had a performative personality.

So even now, nothing he showed on the surface was wholly real. It hardly mattered. It was enough that Wu Chen knew which parts were.

Meng Junhao was in fact an extremely difficult man to control. He was fickle and capricious.

But from another angle, he was an extremely easy man to control—so long as you had hold of his psychological weakness.

Wu Chen needed people who could work for him. Not men like Wang Zhuangyuan; Wang Zhuangyuan was Li Ruotai’s. Wu Chen needed someone who, in the fullest sense, worked for Wu Chen.

Meng Junhao would be the first.

“I’d guess Ding Ruilong—or one of his trusted men—will contact you soon. It might be Jiang Chuan. Or Wang Zhuanghe.” Wu Chen spoke with a smile. “If you want to stay alive, then whatever they tell you to do, do it. Understood?”

Meng Junhao was struck dumb.

He could not follow the logic at all. As ruthless as Ding Ruilong was, if he handed down an assignment, it would surely be aimed at putting Wu Chen in the ground.

And Wu Chen himself was telling him to do whatever Ding Ruilong ordered?

What if Ding Ruilong told him to abduct the man outright?

“M-Mr. Wu…” Meng Junhao ventured, picking his words, deeply uneasy. “Then should I—warn you in advance? Stage something, maybe…”

“No, no, no. There’s no need.” Wu Chen’s smile stayed light. “Not for the moment. Do your own job. And you don’t need to tell Li Ruotai what’s happening either. That’s the only way you live…”

Now Meng Junhao truly did not understand.

Then why had Wu Chen come to him at all?

Wu Chen plainly knew something might happen to him within days—and he did not intend to interfere with any of it? Not do a single thing? Just wait to die?

“Ding Ruilong’s people in Donghai—there’s you. Feng Yang. Then Huang Xiuping, Xu Jun, Cao Feng… small fry. No threat to me. I can’t even be bothered to go looking for them. You, though…” Wu Chen smiled again. “The reason I came to see you is that you’re a little more interesting than the rest.”

Meng Junhao stared, shaken.

Of the names Wu Chen had just rattled off, he knew some were Ding Ruilong’s men. But others—even he had not known about them.

It was as if Wu Chen knew everything.

“Then… what exactly is it you want me to—do, Mr. Wu?” Meng Junhao asked again, far more careful now.

“I need you to deliver something to Ding Ruilong for me.” Wu Chen kept smiling. “But not now…