Chapter 161: Friend! Care to Come With Us?

Chapter 161: Friend! Care to Come With Us?

Once Wu Chen had confirmed exactly when and how the other side meant to “stage an accident,” he deliberately let them learn his whereabouts a second time.

Only then would they drive out when he drove out.

And once they were on the road, they would be far easier to catch.

After calling Li Ruotai, Wu Chen went on toward CBD Tower Seven.

Meanwhile, at Crown Entertainment, Li Ruotai hung up and immediately phoned Wang Zhuangyuan, Zhao Guaizi, and every other figure he knew in Donghai’s underworld, ordering them to mobilize as many men as they could in the shortest time possible and sweep the whole city—above all, the roads.

With his own people moving, Li Ruotai made further calls and pulled strings to obtain real-time data from Donghai’s traffic surveillance system.

Donghai was his territory.

If Ding Ruilong’s men were holed up somewhere, even Li Ruotai might not turn them up quickly. But if they were not hiding—if they were out driving on the roads—there was no chance they would slip his net.

A few minutes later.

Ring, ring…

Wu Chen was driving when his phone rang.

Meng Junhao.

He glanced at the screen, answered, and said at once, “I know. I’ll handle it.”

Then he hung up.

More than twenty minutes later.

Wu Chen brought the Lamborghini onto Shangmao East Road again.

This was the road where it had happened before.

The collision itself had been much farther on, at the intersection of Shangmao East Road and Wanping Road.

This time he did not go that far. After a stretch he turned off onto Xinbei Road, and not far along Xinbei Road stood a shopping center well known in the area near the CBD: Xinmao Shopping Center.

Wu Chen came off the road and drove straight down into Xinmao’s underground parking garage.

The shopping center was only five stories, but its footprint was enormous. The basement held a large supermarket. The first floor was shopping and leisure, luxury boutiques among them, and the second was much the same. The third had a children’s play area and an arcade. The fourth was almost entirely restaurants. The fifth was built around a cinema.

It was not yet eight-thirty in the morning.

Like most large shopping centers, Xinmao did not officially open until nine, so at eight-thirty its main shops were still shut and the surrounding streets were cold and quiet.

Even so, parts of it were usable. The main doors stood open, the escalator from the first floor down to the basement was running, several elevators worked, and the parking garage was open.

That was because the supermarket in the basement opened at seven.

And the cinema on the fifth floor was a coffee-and-cinema concept theater that ran twenty-four hours a day.

So although the bulk of the shopping center was closed at this hour, a person could still get inside. Only the fifth-floor cinema and the basement supermarket, of course—there was no wandering wherever you pleased. Temporary barriers blocked the rest, and security guards would turn you back.

Wu Chen parked in the underground garage.

Getting out and walking toward the elevators, he took out his phone and called Li Ruotai again.

“Brother-in-law, how are you? I’ve already arranged everything. Zhuangyuan and the others are leading men out themselves. They’re all out looking.” Li Ruotai spoke in a rush the instant the call connected.

“I’m fine.” Wu Chen smiled. “I’m near Shangmao East Road now. Those vehicles followed me over here as well. Make your arrangements.”

“Shangmao East Road? Right, right. Don’t worry, Brother-in-law!”

This was precisely why Wu Chen had run the route again, following his original path and only breaking from it at the last moment: it drew every one of Ding Ruilong’s vehicles into the same area.

Which made them easy to take.

He could have told Li Ruotai on the earlier call to lay an ambush near Shangmao East Road in advance. But knowing Li Ruotai’s temperament, he would very likely have made too much noise about it. Shangmao East Road was the only sensible route from Wu Chen’s home into the CBD unless he took a long detour, so Ding Ruilong’s people were certain to have set up there beforehand. Too much commotion too early, and the snake in the grass would be startled.

Wu Chen did not want a single one of them getting away.

This was the safer way.

After ending the call, Wu Chen took the elevator straight up to the fifth floor and went into the cinema.

It was a distinctive place. The lobby was filled with seating, and screens hung all over the walls, one near almost every table, playing popular films that had left theaters some time ago. Anyone who wanted a current release could buy a ticket and go through to the screening rooms farther in.

The theater offered two experiences, in other words.

One was to sit in the lobby with coffee and watch whatever happened to be playing on the big wall-mounted screens.

The other was no different from an ordinary cinema.

Wu Chen was not there for a new release.

He bought a cup of coffee, found a corner seat in the lobby, and sat down to drink it.

It was still early, only a little past eight, so apart from the staff there was hardly a customer in the lobby. Business here was poor, and Wu Chen had known it for a long time. Twenty-four-hour cinemas were still a new thing, only a few years old and confined to the big cities; specialty theaters like this were rarer still.

Wu Chen remembered another twenty-four-hour coffee-and-cinema theater in Central District that did reasonably well. Even there mornings were never busy, but they were never this desolate either.

He had chosen this place deliberately.

And it was not only the cinema that was desolate. Xinmao Shopping Center itself did poor business. Outside holidays there were never many customers in the entire mall.

Wu Chen was going to wait here.

For word from Li Ruotai.

And for… Ding Ruilong’s next move.

More than ten minutes later.

Near the CBD.

A crew-cut man in a mask was driving a white refrigerated truck along Fuyou Road. Wu Chen’s sudden change of route into a shopping center garage had forced him, as part of the operation, to abort for now, alter his own route, and start back.

The truck ran steady, at no great speed.

Then—

A van cut in ahead of him, swerving across at high speed. The crew-cut man stamped on the brake, but the two vehicles scraped anyway, and the van rolled another two meters before stopping.

“Do you know how to fucking drive?” Already sour over the failed operation, the crew-cut man swore, killed the engine, shoved the door open, and got out to look at the damage.

The van’s doors opened at almost the same moment.

A crowd of young men piled out, all aggression and fury, steel pipes and baseball bats in their hands.

“Do you know how to fucking drive?”

“Are you blind?”

Their manner was so hostile that anyone might have wondered whether the collision had been engineered to shake him down.

The masked crew-cut man’s first instinct was exactly that. But he did not lose his temper. He stayed cold.

Even if the whole pack came at him at once, they might not be able to take him.

But he could not afford trouble.

“How much? I’ll pay you…” he said, pulling off his mask.

Just then—

Screech!

Screech!

Screech!

Several vans and old Volkswagen Santanas swung in and stopped all around the refrigerated truck at once.

Men came out of every vehicle. Some had tattoos. Others wore thick gold chains.

The crew-cut man’s face changed. He made a sudden move, apparently to get back into the truck.

“Friend! Care to come with us?” A slightly overweight middle-aged man climbed out of one of the old Santanas, the fleshy jowls of his hard face quivering as he spoke.

At the same time he lifted one side of his jacket.

From where the crew-cut man stood, the pistol at the man’s waist was perfectly visible.

His pupils shrank to points.

He understood.