Chapter 240: Wouldn’t It Be Better to Make Him a Real Cuckold?

Chapter 240: Wouldn’t It Be Better to Make Him a Real Cuckold?

Her first thought, hearing him out, was that Wu Chen was setting her up.

She knew far too well how extreme Ding Ruilong could be.

Yes, she and Ding Ruilong had broken up long ago. More than ten years ago. And it was not as though Ding Ruilong believed no other man could ever touch a woman he had once had.

He had been through far too many women. Once he lost interest, he stopped caring. Let them date. Let them marry. It was nothing to him.

He Shiqin alone was different.

She was not some woman he had come by easily. She was the goddess he had risked everything to possess, the woman he had killed to have.

The meaning was not the same.

And there was more. He Shiqin was the mother of Ding Ruilong’s illegitimate daughter. She was raising He Xinxin.

That mattered enormously too. However little he acknowledged the girl, Ding Ruilong would never allow his own daughter to call another man “Dad.”

So He Shiqin could not fall in love. She could not marry.

A creature called He Xinxin’s stepfather was not permitted to exist in this world.

Those things together, and Ding Ruilong’s nature besides, meant that although he had not laid eyes on her in years, he would never allow her to have a man.

Because of He Xinxin, He Shiqin was effectively Ding Ruilong’s kept woman outside the household.

She understood all of it perfectly.

Which was why, when Wu Chen finished, her instinct said—a setup.

If Ding Ruilong learned she had taken a hotel room with some man, he would not kill her. Not after more than ten years apart. Men had pursued her before; some had declared themselves in public, had taken meals with her. He Shiqin was still young. Of course she had wanted love, wanted to return to an ordinary life. There had been moments when her heart moved. And Ding Ruilong had never discussed any of it with her directly. He had simply caused the men who pursued her to leave without warning.

Or disappear.

Xinxin still needed her mother.

So if Ding Ruilong found out about this hotel room, He Shiqin judged, he certainly would not kill her. But he would not let it pass either. He would bring enormous trouble down on her.

So it was a setup.

Except that the more she turned it over, the less it fit.

Because if Ding Ruilong learned of it, the enraged Ding Ruilong might spare her, but he would absolutely kill the man who had taken a hotel room with her.

That man was Wu Chen.

How was this a setup? He was courting his own death.

Blowing himself up.

An act of the most staggering recklessness.

A man who sleeps with another man’s woman—his “wife,” his lover—fears nothing so much as being found out. Wu Chen was doing the reverse. He had not even slept with He Shiqin, yet he wanted Ding Ruilong to misunderstand.

Wanted Ding Ruilong to believe he had been cuckolded.

This…

He Shiqin was lost. She could not make it come out right.

The room stayed quiet a long while.

“Why… are you doing this?” she finally asked.

“What do you think?”

Wu Chen smiled and turned the question back on her.

“You and Ding Ruilong…” She thought as she spoke, and her voice slowed. “You have a grudge against him?”

It was the most logical guess. And the easiest.

“Mhm.”

Wu Chen nodded.

She sat there stunned—and then, for reasons she could not name, felt something in her loosen.

Because she hated everyone who stood close to Ding Ruilong. Anyone on good terms with him was part of Ding Ruilong’s power.

By the same measure, she did not dislike his enemies. In fact, over all these years she had wondered more than once: why isn’t Ding Ruilong dead yet? Why has no one killed him?

“Then who are you, exactly? Is Wu Chen even your name? What do you do? How did you and Ding Ruilong become enemies?”

“You know of the Li family?” Wu Chen asked.

“I do.” She nodded.

“Li Ruobing?”

“I know of her.” She nodded again.

Originally she had known nothing of the Li family or Li Ruobing. Then, a few years earlier, during one of their phone calls, Ding Ruilong had warned her and mentioned his marriage, and in doing so had let names and details slip.

That was how she learned the Li family stood on roughly the same level as the Ding family.

She did not even know how the Ding family worked from the inside. The workings of families at that height were beyond someone like her.

But she knew how much power the Ding family had, how much force it could bring to bear. So she could infer what sort of family the Li family was.

And what sort of person Li Ruobing must be.

“Li Ruobing is my woman,” Wu Chen said, smiling.

She went blank again.

“Four years ago the Ding family and the Li family agreed on a marriage alliance. And then…”

Wu Chen began to explain. He set out the relationship between the two families in brief. Li Ruobing’s refusal to marry Ding Ruilong. Even the wager.

He told her all of it.

There was no reason she could not know.

He needed her to understand where he stood between Li Ruobing and Ding Ruilong.

Several minutes later, he had covered most of it.

“Ding Ruilong wants Ruobing so badly he’s gone mad with it. The same madness that made him kill for you back then. Maybe worse.”

Wu Chen smiled as he finished.

“So he wants me dead. In the end one of us has to die. This doesn’t stop until one of us does.”

“So… you came to me… and you want Ding Ruilong to misunderstand because…” She worked through it aloud, slowly. “Because you want revenge on him? To make him a cuckold? To make him furious?”

“Not just furious.”

Wu Chen looked at her and smiled.

“Ding Ruilong’s nature is extreme. I need him to make mistakes, so that he dies faster.”

“And not only him.”

“His family has to go down too.”

Shock crossed her face.

For Wu Chen to say he wanted Ding Ruilong dead was one thing. Whether or not he could manage it, the two of them were mortal enemies, and there was nothing strange in talking that way.

But the Ding family—He Shiqin knew what the Ding family was. She had felt its weight herself.

“If you can testify to the Dong family that Ding Ruilong killed Dong Yuantao, then with the power the Dong family holds now, they will absolutely go to war with the Ding family and bring the Ding family down for good,” Wu Chen said, laying it out plainly.

Because He Shiqin had no way of knowing how formidable the Dong family was. At most she would think that if it came out that Ding Ruilong had killed Dong Yuantao, it would bring him trouble.

Only trouble, nothing more.

So it had to be said outright. She had to understand.

Her face changed. Then changed again.

She thought of a great many things. If it truly ran that deep, then the moment Ding Ruilong learned she had taken a hotel room with Wu Chen, he might kill her outright to stop the truth about Dong Yuantao from ever surfacing.

And then something struck her that mattered to her more than any of it.

He Xinxin was Ding Ruilong’s daughter.

So whether Wu Chen’s target was the whole Ding family or simply Ding Ruilong himself, either way it could reach Xinxin. And if Wu Chen were extreme enough to take his revenge out on the girl, then—

“I’ve already spoken with Li Maoren on the Li family’s side. The Li family will sever ties with the Ding family and become part of the force that brings it down.”

Wu Chen spoke very plainly.

“So if you agree, you and Xinxin will come with me to Donghai. I’ll arrange people to protect you both. And when the right moment comes, I’ll arrange for you to meet the Dong family.”

Her face was still troubled as she turned it over.

“A free life is beckoning to you, Miss He.”

Wu Chen smiled.

“You hate Ding Ruilong, don’t you?”

“Miss” sat a little oddly on He Shiqin. Her daughter was fourteen, after all. “Ms. He” would have been the fitting form of address.

But Wu Chen called her Miss on purpose. It was a kind of suggestion planted in her mind. She truly was still young, still in her prime. There were good years ahead of her yet, and a life she could enjoy.

Silence.

A long moment passed.

Then, still thinking, He Shiqin suddenly stood. She walked to the window of the enclosed balcony and drew the curtains shut.

She turned back to Wu Chen and took a deep breath.

“Yes! I hate him! I hate Ding Ruilong! I wish he’d drop dead this minute!”

“And why settle for making him misunderstand?”

She looked at him.

“Wouldn’t it be better to make him a real cuckold?”

And as she said it, He Shiqin began undoing her dress.

She began taking it off.

Of her own accord.