Chapter 297: What Do You Think?

Chapter 297: What Do You Think?

Fifth floor of Shuiyuehe Teahouse, the Listening Wind Pavilion.

It was the finest private room in the teahouse. It occupied a corner of the building above the street corner, with windows onto the street on two sides. The decor was antique Chinese in style, and extravagantly luxurious. The room had never once been opened to customers. Lei Cheng kept it for himself.

Over the years he had met a great many people in the Listening Wind Pavilion and discussed a great many things. Most of those people had been close friends, or more precisely, people he trusted.

Lei Cheng never met anyone unfamiliar or untrustworthy at Shuiyuehe Teahouse.

Today he had made an exception.

Inside, Lei Cheng and Ding Ruilong sat facing each other across a long tea table carved from a single piece into a miniature scene of little bridges and flowing water. They were drinking gongfu tea. The fragrance of it filled the room, incense smoke curling around them, and both men smiled as they sipped and made small talk.

“…I hear that these past few years, Boss Lei, you’ve been living what might almost be called a hermit’s life here in Donghai…” Ding Ruilong rested a hand on his teacup, smiling broadly, another meaning folded into his words. “Are you really content with that?”

Ding Ruilong had taken off his jacket and laid it aside. In a white shirt and gold-rimmed glasses, his hair combed meticulously into place, he looked at first glance like a refined and cultured gentleman.

Lei Cheng was dressed formally too, suit and leather shoes, hair slicked back. He was fat, but the clothes lent him a certain presence all the same.

“Content? Young Master Ding, do you think I could be?” Lei Cheng grinned. His manner stayed relaxed, but the hand holding his teacup tightened without his seeming to notice, the knuckles paling slightly. “And if I’m not, what can I do about it? I imagine you don’t know much about my family’s affairs. A lot of things aren’t simply a matter of… what I want.”

He was deliberately making himself sound deep.

And he genuinely was only pretending.

He was feeding Ding Ruilong nonsense.

“Then what is it you do want, Boss Lei?” Ding Ruilong smiled, lifted his cup, and gave him a meaningful look. “Tell me. I can help you.” He took a sip.

His eyes never left Lei Cheng.

“Help me? Hahahaha.” Lei Cheng laughed and waved a hand. “Young Master Ding, it isn’t that I don’t trust you. It’s just that my family’s affairs can’t be explained in a few words…”

At the same time—

Fourth floor of Shuiyuehe Teahouse.

Wu Chen came quickly up the south staircase. On the fourth floor he turned into the corridor without hesitation, walked all the way to the far end, and pushed open the door of the Clouds over Clear Waves room on the left.

It was a medium-sized room, and several people were already inside.

All in black suits. Lei Cheng’s trusted bodyguards.

Several laptops stood open on the long table. Their screens showed the Listening Wind Pavilion upstairs from multiple angles. Every camera was trained on Ding Ruilong; only one caught Lei Cheng in the frame.

“Mr. Wu.” The bodyguards nodded to him as he came in.

“Thanks for your trouble.” Wu Chen went to the table and looked at one of the screens.

One bodyguard took off his headphones and handed them over.

Another pulled out a chair for him.

Wu Chen put on the headphones and sat, watching the screen. He raised a hand in a small gesture. “Begin.”

The bodyguard beside him picked up a walkie-talkie and pressed the button. “Send it in.”

Fifth floor, the private room.

“Boss Lei, why be so afraid?” Ding Ruilong looked straight at him. “I know your elder brother, Lei You, hurt you badly back then, and your old man favors him…”

“Young Master Ding, this isn’t fear.” Lei Cheng cut him off and met his gaze. “A man has to know his limits. All the power in the Lei family is in my brother’s hands. I’ve accepted my lot.”

“Ha!” Ding Ruilong laughed. “Boss Lei, if you’d really accepted your lot, you wouldn’t be sitting here with me today. It seems… there still isn’t enough trust between us.”

Just then—

Knock, knock.

A knock, and then the door simply opened.

A waitress in a qipao, pretty enough to rate an eight, came in, set her tray on the table, and laid out plate after plate of pastries.

Tea snacks, nothing more: tiny portions, exquisitely made, plainly expensive.

The two men paused their conversation.

“Tea.” Lei Cheng raised his cup.

They drank.

Ding Ruilong naturally thought nothing of the snacks. He had come a long way and Lei Cheng was hosting him. Whether pastries appeared or not was no cause for suspicion.

What he did not know, and only Lei Cheng did, was that the pastries were a signal.

They meant Wu Chen had arrived.

It was time to begin.

Once the waitress had gone, only the two of them remained in the room. Both men’s bodyguards were outside the door.

“Young Master Ding.” Lei Cheng took another sip before finally setting his cup down. “Let’s speak plainly…” He studied Ding Ruilong, looking as though he were weighing every word, and paused before going on. “My Darling… Manying, I mean. I settled her endorsement with Miss Li a while back.”

“Miss Li and I do have a friendship. Unless there’s good reason, I won’t let her down.” As he said it, his expression turned heavy with old grievance.

He had gotten serious.

Ding Ruilong understood that seriousness perfectly. He knew Lei Cheng wanted to strike back at his elder brother.

Lei Cheng was ready to talk terms.

“Boss Lei, what do you think the endorsement alone is worth?” Ding Ruilong adjusted his glasses. “What would it be worth for me to… do for you?”

The endorsement could be made to sound large or small. It depended on how you looked at it and how you framed it.

On the small side, even without Tao Manying, Li Ruobing could simply push back Huancai Fashion’s product launch and find someone else. If she was truly willing to throw money at it and hire an international star from abroad, even Ding Ruilong would not dare move rashly.

On the large side, it touched Huancai Fashion’s IPO plans. With the settlement date of the wager drawing near, Li Ruobing might not be able to afford a delay.

Which meant that if Tao Manying suddenly pulled out, or if something went wrong at the launch, Li Ruobing could very well lose the wager with no room left to recover.

One blow, and it would be decided.

But Ding Ruilong did not think Lei Cheng understood it that deeply.

That gave him room to bargain the price down.

Room to play on Lei Cheng’s mind.

Lei Cheng was silent a moment, thinking. Then he looked at Ding Ruilong again. “Leave aside what the endorsement’s worth. Young Master Ding, I think you understand this. You—the young master of the Ding family. Miss Li—the Li family’s eldest granddaughter. Weigh the two of you against each other, and to me… neither one is worth more than the other.”

“And right now I’m on good terms with Miss Li.” He grinned. “If I really offended a friend for your sake, threw away a connection like that, maybe even brought that kid Li Ruotai down on my head—what kind of reason would I need, Young Master Ding, to do a thing like that?”

He paused, but before Ding Ruilong could answer he went on. “All these years in Donghai, I’ve kept my head down and never gone looking for trouble. I’ve made a few friends and lived ten quiet years… You know better than I do what Li Ruobing and Li Ruotai are in Donghai. And you want me to cross them?”

“Young Master Ding, it isn’t that I, Lei Cheng, won’t give you face. I have my difficulties, and I hope you can understand them. I can’t go home. If I can’t stay in Donghai either, how am I supposed to live?”

It was remarkably frank, remarkably direct, and full of technique.

The endorsement was a small matter.

Offending people was the large one.

Ding Ruilong looked at him, smiled, and slowly lifted his cup for another sip.

Their eyes held.

Tap.

Ding Ruilong set the cup down. “I’ll help you put Lei You in prison, or arrange an accident for him. You decide how he ends. However you want him to die, I can make it happen. What do you think?”

He had said it outright.

And it was all on camera.

Sound and picture both.