Chapter 200: I Need You to Tell a Lie

Chapter 200: I Need You to Tell a Lie

Old Dao’s timing was precise. Just as Wu Chen had said, he had been using talk to split his attention — before he had even decided whether to touch the gun, he had started talking. All he needed was one instant of distraction.

Old Dao was a knife man.

But his shooting was first-rate as well.

Nobody ever mentioned it, only because his close-quarters armed killing was so strong, at the very top of the field. He had received proper training in Myanmar, though. The Golden Flower Group was, after all, a small warlord organization on the Myanmar border. Old Dao’s marksmanship was solidly at the level of a first-rate gunman, even if he was not among the very best.

Wu Chen stopped talking.

The faint, unhurried smile stayed on his face as he met the eyes of the man aiming a gun at him.

Composed.

Not rattled in the least.

Wu Chen had made no move to stop him as he reached for the gun. Not because he had failed to react. Because there was no need.

Wu Chen knew Old Dao would not fire.

Earlier, if Old Dao had suddenly gone for the gun, Wu Chen would certainly have taken it off him in the same second. But Wu Chen had already raised Ang Tun. Now there was no need.

To Old Dao, the question of who killed Ang Tun mattered enormously.

Not only because he and Ang Tun had been like brothers and were personally very close.

But because Ang Tun had been one of the Golden Flower Group’s core figures. He was Burmese, spoke Chinese, and was the biological nephew of General Khun Han, the leader of Golden Flower. He could be called one of Khun Han’s right-hand men.

Khun Han’s two sons had both fallen in conflicts years earlier, leaving him only a daughter. So before he died, Ang Tun had in fact been one of the strongest contenders to succeed Khun Han at the head of the Golden Flower Group.

Khun Han thought very highly of him.

Five years ago, Ang Tun vanished inside Yun Province. Neither the living man nor his body was ever found.

At the time, Old Dao was one of Golden Flower’s men responsible for affairs inside China, and it was Old Dao who led the search. He turned up some threads, but all he could establish was that Ang Tun had been killed. Who had done it, he could not find.

Khun Han was enraged. He went straight to suspecting another warlord organization on the Myanmar border — the two sides were rivals already, with too many clashes behind them. Khun Han took his fury out on them, seizing a number of their people in secret and putting them to interrogation, trying to force out an answer.

He got nothing.

The affair cost both the Golden Flower Group and their rivals dearly. They traded blows back and forth, plenty of men died, and only then did the two sides come to terms again.

Old Dao never found the truth.

The thing had long since become an unsolved case.

But Old Dao had never made peace with it.

Wu Chen had now named Ang Tun’s killer — only the opening of it, no detail, nothing to prove it true or false.

Under those circumstances, Old Dao absolutely wanted to hear the rest. He wanted to know.

Which meant that if he intended to kill Wu Chen, this was the worst possible moment to reach for the gun. He could have kept asking, heard it all out, learned the whole of it, and only then looked for his opening.

Old Dao held the gun on him and narrowed his eyes slowly.

Wu Chen was still smiling, still perfectly calm.

“You’re not afraid?” Old Dao asked.

“I believe you won’t shoot me,” Wu Chen said, smiling.

Old Dao would have sworn he had never seen anyone this calm. He had come to Donghai for precisely one reason: the Ding family had hired him to kill Wu Chen. A great deal had happened since, but right now he had a gun leveled at the man. One curl of his finger and Wu Chen died. The job would be done.

And Wu Chen sat there as though no threat of death existed anywhere in the room.

Old Dao had already feared him for what he could do with his hands. In this moment, alongside the fear, his admiration climbed higher still.

He genuinely did not know that Wu Chen never gambled with his life. Wu Chen understood Old Dao’s psychology. He was controlling it.

And in any case, even without the psychology, Wu Chen would not have been afraid.

Because he still held his greatest card.

Reset.

Old Dao abruptly lowered the gun.

At the same time he dropped the knife from his other hand, reached back, and took the cushion from the armchair.

He folded the cushion around the pistol, wrapping the muzzle inside it, and pressed the muzzle against the underside of the sofa armrest, on the inner face.

His movements were very fast, one unbroken sequence.

Then—

Bang.

Part of the lower outer side of the armrest blew open at an angle, spitting splinters.

Old Dao had fired.

The shot was deeply muffled. Not quiet, but nowhere near loud enough to carry, far below the decibels of a normal gunshot. It sounded more like a cork leaping out of a shaken bottle of red wine. The neighbors might not hear it at all, and if they did, they would never take it for a gunshot.

Because it had been “silenced.”

There was no suppressor. But the thick cotton cushion wrapped around the muzzle, with the gun pressed into the sofa, cut the sound enormously. The cushion did most of the work.

After the shot, Old Dao sat stunned.

He truly had never meant to shoot Wu Chen. And by the end he had even come around to suspecting Wu Chen of lying — that he had tampered with the gun, and that was why he showed no fear.

The facts said otherwise. He had guessed wrong.

The gun worked. Wu Chen really had sat across from a weapon that could kill him at any second, and felt no fear at all.

He carried a confidence that everything was under his hand.

Clack.

Old Dao tossed the gun onto the coffee table. It landed and slid a little way toward Wu Chen.

That was his answer.

He did not merely fear and admire Wu Chen now.

He trusted him a little, too.

“Mr. Wu, I find it hard to imagine what you’ve been through. The file says you’re only twenty-two?” Old Dao said, and as he spoke his hand went instinctively to his chest, the wound flaring.

“A lot of people wonder that about me,” Wu Chen said, smiling.

“Ding Ruilong killed Ang Tun?” Old Dao asked outright. He wanted the truth of it badly.

“Have I lied to you yet?” Wu Chen answered.

“But there’s no reason for it. Ang Tun never met Ding Ruilong. There was no point where they crossed.”

“No crossing doesn’t mean no connection. It doesn’t mean they didn’t know of each other. Everything you did for the Ding family over the years, Golden Flower’s upper ranks knew about. You reported it and got approval before you acted. Ang Tun knew all of it.”

“But—”

“Ang Tun threatened Ding Ruilong.”

“What?” It knocked Old Dao sideways. He had already been unable to make sense of it. Now he was more lost than ever.

How could Ang Tun possibly have had any leverage over Ding Ruilong?

“What exactly—” Old Dao wanted it more with every second.

He was still suspicious. Wu Chen might not lie about other things, but this touched Ding Ruilong, and the two of them were mortal enemies. Framing the man was entirely possible.

“The specifics—” Wu Chen paused, then smiled. “I can show you the evidence first.”

“What evidence?” Old Dao asked at once.

“If you really want the truth, then to get you this evidence I need you to tell a lie. You only have to deceive one man. He’ll tell you the truth himself.” Wu Chen smiled.

Old Dao frowned. It had been turned around enough times that he did not follow at once.

Then he watched Wu Chen take the phone and the SIM card out of the case. Wu Chen fitted the card, switched the phone on — a brand-new handset — and worked through the setup until the home screen came up.

Then he set the phone on the coffee table and slid it across to Old Dao.

“Call Jiang Chuan,” Wu Chen said.

“Hm?” Old Dao’s hand came down on the phone and he blanked for a beat.

“Tell him you got out. He’s certain to ask exactly what happened. Tell him Li Ruobing arrived with men just in time. Say you tried to take Li Ruobing hostage to get clear, that it didn’t work, and that you came close to injuring her. Then ask him whether that’s going to cause a problem.” Wu Chen finished, and smiled again.

No plan ever keeps pace with events.

If Li Ruobing had not called her father yesterday and hung the blame on Ding Ruilong, Wu Chen would not have arranged it this way.

Now, this was the arrangement.

Jiang Chuan would not die.

He would be taken in secret and brought quietly to Donghai. Another important piece on Wu Chen’s board against the Ding family.

Wu Chen’s mind moved in leaps.

And in this moment, Old Dao had no conception of how intricate the thing in Wu Chen’s head really was.

But there was one thing he was certainly going to do.

Make this call.

He needed the truth about how Ang Tun died.

Old Dao picked up the phone and entered Jiang Chuan’s number.