Chapter 133: Does the Missus Know About This?

Chapter 133: Does the Missus Know About This?

“Y-yeah…” Mu Qianqian answered through her sniffles. She was right outside Wu Chen’s door.

Wu Chen thought for a moment, then said, “On the wall beside the door, above the meter box, there’s a spare key. It’s high up—stand on your toes and feel around for it. Go inside and wait for me.”

“Mm. All right…”

Less than two seconds after he hung up, his phone rang again.

Lu Guangnian.

The man was already out of his car with more than a dozen bodyguards, standing outside Tree Island Café.

“Brother, I’m here.”

“Second floor,” Wu Chen said, and hung up again.

Downstairs, Lu Guangnian pocketed his phone and led his men inside. One step through the door he stopped short, then set his face and frowned. There were dozens of men in the room, and a single glance told you none of them were customers.

“Boss Lu?” Someone recognized him. Men in the security trade, especially those who handled the big events, tended to know Donghai’s prominent figures by sight.

Lu Guangnian’s dozen-odd bodyguards came in behind him.

Numerically it was no contest.

But not one of Lu Guangnian’s men was ordinary, and the same could not be said of the security company’s crowd. The difference in bearing between the two sides was plain. The faces of the dozens of men shifted at once. None of them knew what to say, or whether they ought to say anything at all.

Lu Guangnian said nothing either. He swept the room with a frown and led his men straight for the stairs.

The men had no idea what was happening. They knew perfectly well their boss was upstairs talking business, and still not one of them dared step into his path. Not a word came out of anyone’s mouth.

Lu Guangnian went up.

The second floor was empty save for two men seated by the window.

He spotted Wu Chen the moment he reached the top, and a smile broke across his face as he came over. “Brother. Having a chat?” The greeting done, his face darkened again and he cut Meng Junhao a sidelong look.

He knew Meng Junhao. Both of them were men of standing in Donghai; it would have been impossible not to. It was only a question of how well.

Meng Junhao stood up, his expression thoroughly wrong. “B-Boss Lu…”

It was not that he cringed before everyone he met. Under normal circumstances he and Lu Guangnian would have shaken hands, smiled, exchanged pleasantries. But this was plainly not normal. Lu Guangnian had come up the stairs calling Wu Chen “brother”—and then looked at him with a face like thunder.

That look. As though there were blood between them.

Lu Guangnian wasted no words. On his way over he hooked a chair from another table, dropped it beside theirs, sat down, leaned back, and eyed Meng Junhao sideways.

“Boss Meng. You’re the one who called and threatened my brother earlier, aren’t you?”

Meng Junhao went blank for a beat. From Lu Guangnian’s manner, the man looked ready to carve him into pieces.

“Brother Lu, don’t—” Wu Chen raised a hand slightly, as though to hold him back.

“Boss Lu, I didn’t! You’ve misunderstood!” Meng Junhao was beginning to panic. His mind was chaotic enough already. If a figure like Lu Guangnian added him to his ledger, he might as well stop bothering to stay alive.

“Misunderstood? I was sitting right beside him when you called. What exactly did you say?” Lu Guangnian’s brows were level and hard. He did not speak fast, but every word came down with weight.

“No—no, it isn’t—I…” Meng Junhao was genuinely rattled. He even looked at Wu Chen as though pleading for rescue.

There was no way to explain himself.

“Brother, he threatened you. Does the missus know about this?” Lu Guangnian turned to Wu Chen.

Even Wu Chen was caught off balance for an instant before he understood: by “the missus,” Lu Guangnian meant the woman of the man he called brother—Li Ruobing.

The man really did know how to build up someone’s standing.

Meng Junhao froze too—and then his face changed drastically.

He had assumed Lu Guangnian called Wu Chen “brother” because of Li Ruobing and Li Ruotai. He had heard about the business at Old Pinxuan a few days back: something had nearly come to blows, and afterward all had been smoothed over.

Lu Guangnian was sociable by nature. Everyone knew he was close to Li Ruotai, and he was on good personal terms with Li Ruobing as well. He had a touch of jianghu spirit in him and liked calling acquaintances “brother.” So Meng Junhao had not read much into it. Li Ruotai was already calling Wu Chen brother-in-law; Lu Guangnian calling him brother meant only that they were familiar.

But the moment that form of address—“the missus”—left his mouth, the whole shape of the relationship changed.

Lu Guangnian was not calling Wu Chen brother because Wu Chen was Li Ruobing’s man or Li Ruotai’s brother-in-law. You could take both siblings out of the equation entirely. His brotherhood ran directly to Wu Chen himself.

And more than that—

The woman Lu Guangnian had just referred to as “the missus” was Li Ruobing—the eldest granddaughter of the Li family.

For him to address her that way meant that in his mind Wu Chen came first, and the Li siblings had to stand back. Of the three—Wu Chen, Li Ruobing, Li Ruotai—the one he was directly bound to was Wu Chen. Wu Chen was the center of it.

What sort of brotherhood was that? The kind you died for?

Meng Junhao’s color kept shifting. Terrified of death to begin with, he felt as though he were losing his mind.

“It’s a small thing. No need to tell Ruobing.” Wu Chen smiled at Lu Guangnian, then added soothingly, “Brother Lu, don’t come in with your temper up like that. We’re all friends here.”

“Right, right, right—we’re all friends. Boss Lu, you’ve misunderstood. Mr. Wu and I had the smallest misunderstanding, and we’ve talked it all through, truly, we’ve settled everything…” Meng Junhao explained at high speed, terrified of not making himself clear.

“Settled?” Lu Guangnian frowned and looked at Wu Chen for confirmation. “Brother…”

Wu Chen smiled and nodded. “I told you to go see to your own business, Brother Lu. I can handle this myself. Look at you.”

“Brother! Now that I don’t like hearing.” Lu Guangnian bristled at once. “What kind of relationship do you and I have? Your business is my business. If anybody in Donghai dares touch a hair on your head, I’ll tear him apart.”

Meng Junhao’s heart jumped again. He cut in fast: “Boss Lu, you really, truly have misunderstood. I did nothing. Please, calm down. Mr. Wu and I only had a tiny misunderstanding, you—”

And he was explaining all over again.

Wu Chen glanced at him.

Enough.

It could end here.

He had borrowed Lu Guangnian’s standing successfully—borrowed a little too much of it, if anything. Lu Guangnian had thrown himself in far too eagerly.

But there would be no bad aftertaste. It only improved things.

It produced a change in kind.

Until now, Meng Junhao had obeyed Wu Chen out of fear alone—because he did not dare do otherwise. But he had just seen that even without the Li siblings, Wu Chen commanded formidable connections of his own. Wu Chen was a mystery, and Meng Junhao would start guessing wildly about him, each guess more extravagant than the last.

Meng Junhao was a man who climbed by attaching himself to power.

So the next time Wu Chen told him to do something, he would no longer do it merely because he had no choice. He would do it eagerly, and try to do it better. He would court Wu Chen.

Because he would come to see that knowing Wu Chen was an opportunity.

He might even take Wu Chen for something like Ding Ruilong or Li Ruotai—a major figure with a terrifying background and terrifying reach.

For the next ten minutes and more, the three of them made small talk. Meng Junhao, for his part, spent it explaining himself over and over and swearing assurances over and over.

“All right. I’ve still got things to do. Time I went.” Wu Chen stood and glanced at his watch.

“Brother, don’t go. Let’s have dinner.” Lu Guangnian rose too.

“Another time. Something’s come up at home. Go back and spend the evening with Sister-in-Law, Brother Lu,” Wu Chen said with a smile.

Lu Guangnian assumed that by home Wu Chen meant Li Ruobing, and did not press him.

Downstairs.

Home.

At that same moment, while Wu Chen was still driving the Lamborghini back—

Outside his apartment, in the stairwell.

Su Qingying came up with two bodyguards, groceries in her hands. At the door she signaled one of them, and he produced a length of wire and set to picking the lock.

She had no key to Wu Chen’s apartment. She had not called ahead either. And she knew he was not home, because before coming she had spoken to Li Ruobing, who said Wu Chen was busy.

She wanted to surprise him.

She would have dinner made with her own hands first.

She wanted to celebrate today’s success with Wu Chen, properly.

And there were the clothes and sheets she had washed yesterday, still hanging inside. She could take those down too. Su Qingying had not forgotten them.

The bodyguard worked at the lock.

Click. Creak…

The door swung open from the inside.

Mu Qianqian frowned at the bodyguard in the doorway, then looked at Su Qingying beside him.

The two women stared at each other, wide-eyed, both rooted where they stood.

They knew each other.