Chapter 298: Final Instructions

Chapter 298: Final Instructions

In the private room on the fourth floor, Wu Chen smiled at the screen.

He had to admit it: Lei Cheng could act. He made it feel as though the matter itself was minor but the offense it would cause was grave, and by inflating the problem he gave every impression of a man about to name an outrageous price.

Ding Ruilong would never take it as a refusal. If Lei Cheng meant to refuse, he would simply not have met him. Refusing after a detailed face-to-face discussion would only offend him more.

Tone, expression, every word—Lei Cheng had judged all of it perfectly.

And Ding Ruilong was a man who dared say almost anything. He had already said as much on the phone.

Besides.

They were only words.

In truth, even if this recording were made public, it would not mean much. As long as nothing happened to Lei You, Ding Ruilong could dismiss it as empty bluster.

And if something did happen to Lei You, the video would become leverage against Lei Cheng too.

So naturally Lei Cheng would never let it be made public.

But—

What if Lei You himself saw it?

What if Lei You learned that Ding Ruilong had come to him first, promised him every sort of benefit in exchange for his help, and then turned straight around to his younger brother and offered to help Lei Cheng harm him?

Then…

Lei You was a ruthless man.

He had been willing to go after his own brother.

And even if Lei You, wary of the Ding family, held back—

What if Lei You learned that Ding Ruilong meant to help Lei Cheng kill him, and then Ding Ruilong learned that Lei You knew?

Given Ding Ruilong’s style, he would very likely strike first.

In that situation, whether something went wrong for Ding Ruilong or something happened to Lei You, each side would have every reason to suspect the other.

That would be very interesting.

Fifth floor, the Listening Wind Pavilion.

Lei Cheng had gone silent after Ding Ruilong’s offer, apparently considering it.

“I know what you’re worried about, Boss Lei. You’re afraid that once you’ve crossed Li Ruobing and Li Ruotai, you won’t be able to keep a foothold in Donghai,” Ding Ruilong said. “You even think that afterward your brother Lei You might approach them, make friends with them, and join forces to crush you…”

“It all comes back to Lei You. You need a foothold in Donghai. You can’t go home. You can’t inherit the family business. Even ten years of living in fear, of losing your edge—every bit of it is because of Lei You.”

“Don’t you hate him? Think about your late wife.”

“I can help you. Once Lei You is dead, you’re the only heir. Your father won’t have a choice. He’ll have to call you home to take over. You won’t need to worry about Donghai anymore. Every problem solved.”

Ding Ruilong could talk.

He knew how to stir people’s emotions. He wanted to provoke Lei Cheng’s rage against Lei You.

To rekindle his will to fight.

“Murder?” Lei Cheng finally spoke, looking at him. “I have Manying break her contract, and you’ll kill a man for me? The Lei family’s eldest son, no less. Young Master Ding… that’s an enormous promise. How am I supposed to trust it?”

“I know it’s hard to believe all at once. That’s because you don’t know me.” Ding Ruilong smiled and adjusted his glasses. “I don’t like making simple problems complicated. If something can be solved the simple way, solve it the simple way. Don’t you agree?”

“Murder is simple?” Lei Cheng asked.

“Is it hard?” Ding Ruilong shot back at once, one eyebrow raised.

Lei Cheng froze for a moment, holding his eyes, then burst out laughing. “Hahahahaha! Sounds like Young Master Ding has a few stories of his own. I’ve always heard you’re a man who dares to act. Hahahaha… come, tea!”

He raised his cup.

They drank again.

When both cups were down, Lei Cheng stood, picked up the teapot, leaned across the table, and poured for Ding Ruilong before refilling his own.

The gesture signaled an unmistakable change in attitude.

The corners of Ding Ruilong’s mouth lifted slightly.

He felt the deal was already half done.

“Boss Ding, there’s something I don’t really understand. You’re going to all this trouble…” Once seated again, Lei Cheng turned the conversation slightly. “I’ve heard a bit about you and Miss Li. You’ve been wrecking her business all this time. Why, exactly?”

It looked like a change of subject. In fact it still circled the endorsement.

Show the right measure of curiosity.

Learn the right measure about each other.

That was how you laid the groundwork for cooperation.

Lei Cheng would not suddenly agree to anything Ding Ruilong proposed. That would be too false.

It would invite suspicion.

If you were going to act, you had to play the whole part.

“Li Ruobing, that woman…” Ding Ruilong began, then stopped. He weighed his words and looked at Lei Cheng. “The truth is, this has to do with the marriage alliance between the Ding and Li families, and with a wager Li Ruobing and I made years ago.”

He had brought up the wager.

It was a secret, and revealing it raised the stakes of the endorsement. In effect he was handing Lei Cheng more bargaining power.

But Ding Ruilong had thought it through.

It did not matter.

He had no fear of Lei Cheng pushing for terms, because his offer had already reached the ceiling.

Nothing could be worth more to Lei Cheng than helping him take back his inheritance.

Besides.

The two sides needed to build trust.

So Ding Ruilong showed some sincerity.

And in truth, revealing the wager was no great matter.

“A wager?” Lei Cheng’s eyebrows rose. “What wager?”

Precisely the right amount of curiosity.

His acting really was superb.

And acting was exactly the word, because the reaction was pure performance. He already knew about the wager.

Wu Chen had told him.

Only last night.

After dinner at Lei Cheng’s house the two of them had gone upstairs and talked privately for another half hour. Wu Chen had told him a great many things, answered some of his questions, and worked out with him how to handle the meeting with Ding Ruilong.

Wu Chen had foreseen that Ding Ruilong might tell Lei Cheng about the wager, so he had told him first.

Ding Ruilong wanted to build trust with Lei Cheng.

He could never have imagined that Wu Chen was already one step ahead of every move he meant to make on him.

“Four years ago…” Ding Ruilong began laying out the details.

For the next half hour and more, the two men talked almost entirely nonsense.

First Ding Ruilong spoke about the Ding family, the Li family, Li Ruobing, and some of the history and entanglements among them.

Then Lei Cheng spoke about his own family, returning again and again to Lei You’s present grip on it and to the family’s local power and reach.

The upshot was that even if the Ding family threw its full weight behind the effort, it would struggle to shake the Lei family’s foundations in Huaixi City in any short span of time.

That was no exaggeration.

The Hongfa Lei family truly had that kind of power in Huaixi. It was a business family, but decades of painstaking cultivation had bound it into a web of relationships, connections, and interests reaching every level. In the short term the Ding family genuinely could not move it an inch.

The Lei family was not to be trifled with either.

Ding Ruilong, however, made it clear that his target was not the Lei family.

Only Lei You.

If something happened to Lei You, then as long as Lei Cheng became the family’s future head, Ding Ruilong would not have offended the Lei family at all.

On the contrary, each would become a connection for the other.

Fourth floor.

Wu Chen sat at the laptop with his headphones on, watching throughout.

Before long it was nearly half past four in the afternoon.

Wu Chen judged the moment had come.

He took out his phone, typed a text message, and sent it to Lei Cheng.

He was not watching the whole conversation because he distrusted Lei Cheng.

Even if he had not come, he would not have missed it. It was being recorded; he could have watched afterward.

He was watching live for one reason only.

Based on what the two men discussed, what Ding Ruilong said and let slip, and the state of mind he displayed, Wu Chen had to give Lei Cheng his final instructions.

Agree to have Tao Manying break the contract and drop the endorsement?

Refuse after long deliberation and risk offending Ding Ruilong?

Or take a third option…

What Lei Cheng said in the end, Wu Chen would decide.

Fifth floor, the Listening Wind Pavilion.

“…At the start of last year our old man even showed up at the group’s annual meeting. He went to back Lei You and shore up his position in the group…” Lei Cheng was saying when—

Ding.

His phone chimed.

He took it out as naturally as anything and opened the message.