Chapter 203: After All That, What the Hell Is Going On?!

Chapter 203: After All That, What the Hell Is Going On?!

Old Dao had noticed when Wu Chen dialed. He had caught a glimpse of it, an unusually long number, because of the international code prefixed to it — the country code for Myanmar, which Old Dao naturally recognized.

Who in the Golden Flower Group was he calling?

It hardly mattered who. The only man who could decide something like this was Khun Han.

And Wu Chen wanted a hundred million dollars?!

Old Dao stared at him, eyes wide.

There was silence on the other end.

The man there had been thrown for a moment too. It had nothing to do with the strength of his nerves. A hundred million U.S. dollars was simply too fucking outrageous. Anyone would need a beat after hearing that.

The silence ran better than ten seconds.

“Who are you?” The voice out of Wu Chen’s phone carried age in it, and hardness with it, the tone low and weighted.

He spoke Chinese.

With a standard accent.

Khun Han himself.

Khun Han, Chinese name Duan Wenhan, was sixty-one this year. He had been born in the mountain country of northern Myanmar, of mixed Chinese and Burmese ancestry — his mother an ethnic Shan of Myanmar, his father Chinese. In the 1940s, for reasons of war and other circumstances, his father had left his homeland for northern Myanmar and stayed.

Wu Chen could speak Burmese, but he knew Khun Han’s Mandarin was excellent, so there was no need for it.

“Me. Wu Chen. Heard of me?” Wu Chen said.

“Wu Chen…” Khun Han turned the name over, and his voice went heavier. “Old Dao failed.”

Old Dao did not report every job he took to Khun Han.

But if the job came from the Ding family, or touched any of China’s major families, Old Dao always told him, and Khun Han would look into it.

Not every job could be accepted. There were men of too high a standing whom they simply would not touch.

The Golden Flower Group wanted to do business and make money, and it had to do business with the mainland. Set the illegal side aside entirely — the legal side mattered too. Every year, enormous numbers of Chinese merchants traveled to northern Myanmar to buy rough jadeite.

If Golden Flower overreached and genuinely enraged those families, then never mind anything else, it could forget about doing business in mainland China. Smuggling was illegal from the start; once there was something to investigate, striking at it would be easy. And the legal business could be squeezed still more easily, through connections and influence.

So when Old Dao took the job from Jiang Chuan, he had called Khun Han straight away.

It had really only been the usual courtesy notice. Wu Chen was not an important figure in some great family, just the boyfriend of the Li family’s eldest granddaughter, and Old Dao had been able to judge for himself that killing him posed no problem.

“Old Dao’s alive?” Khun Han asked after a moment’s thought. He was extremely calm.

“Alive. I didn’t kill him,” Wu Chen said.

“A hundred million dollars?” Khun Han said, and then, “Do you honestly think I could pay that? Don’t you feel… it’s too much?”

He was genuinely giving the idea of ransoming Old Dao back real consideration.

“Is a hundred million a lot? He came to kill me and I took him. I didn’t kill him. I’ve been very courteous about it. I’m only asking you for money. Is that too much?” Wu Chen’s tone stayed mild.

“The commission on Old Dao’s job was three million U.S. dollars. I’ll add two million. Five million total. That is the absolute limit of what I’ll accept. Bring Old Dao to the border. We exchange the money and the man at the same time.” Khun Han drew the line and left no room in it.

Khun Han was not a mild-tempered man.

That he could sit here bargaining calmly with Wu Chen was not only a matter of self-possession and a well-hidden mind.

It was also because he was so fucking clearly in the wrong here.

Just as Wu Chen said: Old Dao had been caught while trying to kill him.

If some enemy of Golden Flower had seized Old Dao out of nowhere and then dared demand money, that would be kidnapping for ransom, and Khun Han would have gone off like a shell.

This was another thing entirely.

Khun Han was a soldier and a businessman both. He had no grievance against Wu Chen. He did not even know the man. Old Dao had taken money, failed the job, and been captured. Wu Chen had not killed him and was even willing to hand him back. Given Old Dao’s value, Khun Han was willing to pay for his return.

But he would never accept a price that outrageous.

And there was another important reason he could bargain so calmly.

He could picture it: Old Dao had taken that many men along and still failed, so whoever caught them could not have been Wu Chen alone. The Li family’s eldest grandson of the main branch must have stepped in. Khun Han knew very little about Li Ruotai.

He knew only that Donghai was Li Ruotai’s ground.

That was enough.

Enough for Khun Han to conclude that Old Dao was, in effect, in the hands of that core third-generation member of the Li family.

He truly did not want to be dragged into the rotten affairs of great families. The older he got, the less he wanted any part of it. If money could settle it quickly, he would settle it. He could stomach a loss. Getting Golden Flower clear as soon as possible was the correct move.

“Do you want to know who killed Ang Tun?” Wu Chen asked suddenly, the turn coming out of nowhere.

“Hm? Ang Tun?! You know?!” Khun Han’s tone changed at once.

“I can tell you. Your nephew—” Wu Chen went straight into it.

He told Khun Han the whole story of Ang Tun’s death.

Then he raised the killing of Wang Ruida.

As far as Wu Chen knew, Old Dao had agreed to kill Wang Ruida for three reasons. First, Ding Ruilong had raised the price. Second, Wang Ruida’s death had nothing to do with any conflict between great families. And third, there was no way it could ever be traced back to them.

No risk, good money, and it preserved the relationship with the Ding family — a relationship extremely useful for small matters that needed only a word in the right ear.

So Khun Han had approved Old Dao taking the Wang Ruida job.

This was something that should have been impossible to leak. Three people in all the world knew the inside of it.

Ding Ruilong.

Old Dao.

Khun Han.

And yet Wu Chen knew.

“Old Dao told you?!” Khun Han’s breathing had grown heavier. Had they forced it out of him?

If this reached the Wang family and they struck back, it would hit the Golden Flower Group’s business inside China. A great deal of money was at stake.

“Did he need to tell me?” Wu Chen countered with a laugh. “If I could find out that Ding Ruilong killed Ang Tun, what makes you think I couldn’t find out that Ding Ruilong once hired someone to kill Wang Ruida?”

Khun Han believed him immediately, because he knew Old Dao. The odds of anyone breaking him under interrogation were extremely low.

Thinking it through, the likelier explanation was a slip on the Ding family’s side. Perhaps Ding Ruilong had told someone close to him…

Now Wu Chen knew.

And the Li family’s eldest grandson and granddaughter probably knew as well.

Khun Han’s mind was very sharp. He had survived in northern Myanmar this long and built his power to its present scale; naturally he had his own intelligence and judgment. He had already run through every possibility.

And every consequence.

“Ding Ruilong and I are enemies to the death,” Wu Chen said. “I’m going to make sure the Wang family learns about Wang Ruida.”

“Are you threatening me?” Khun Han’s voice came down hard.

“If I were threatening you, do you think I’d have told you about Ang Tun?” Wu Chen asked, smiling.

“Then you…” Khun Han paused.

He had it.

“…You want me to help you strike at the Ding family?”

“No. Your business is your business and mine is mine. We’re not partners,” Wu Chen said. “I’m only telling you how things actually stand. The Wang family won’t let this go. The Li family will put distance between themselves and it. And even— never mind. There’s plenty I won’t bother telling you. I know you’re not interested. All you want is to stay out of trouble and run your jade business in peace. Whether you decide to beat a drowning dog once the Ding family is in difficulty has nothing to do with me.”

Khun Han caught everything packed into that.

“I can forget the hundred million,” Wu Chen went on. “But I want Old Dao to stay in Donghai and work for me. I think very highly of his abilities. If you agree, he can sever ties with Golden Flower immediately, and I’ll arrange things so that Wang Ruida’s death has nothing whatsoever to do with your Golden Flower Group.”

Wu Chen smiled.

“Well? Think about it.”

He was asking outright for the man.

As he spoke, he looked over at Old Dao, who was staring back at him, utterly lost.

What the hell?

After all these twists and turns, what the hell was going on now?!