Chapter 378: No One Dared Treat Him Like This!

Chapter 378: No One Dared Treat Him Like This!

Beep… beep…

Listening to the ringtone, his face dark, Peng Wei felt his heartbeat quicken in spite of himself.

More than ten years in the trade. He had taken the paparazzo’s craft as far as it could go and earned the title of number one in the country. Naturally, he had nerves of steel. Staying calm when things suddenly turned was the most basic professional discipline any paparazzo ought to have.

This time, though, even an old hand like Peng Wei was struggling to keep his composure.

The whole thing was just too damn eerie.

He had never run into anything like it. No matter how capable or well connected a person was, everyone feared things blowing up. In today’s internet age, once something set off a big enough sensation, even the authorities couldn’t suppress it if they tried.

And Peng Wei was a “superstar-level” paparazzo who could set off a sensation with a single Weibo post. His personal traffic was hardly lower than that of the hottest young idols.

In the few seconds after he dialed, Peng Wei thought of a great many things. He thought of calling the police. He thought of exposing the whole affair on Weibo.

But reason told him neither was his best move.

Mutual destruction might well bring the other side down. But he himself would be hard-pressed to survive it.

“Hello…” Wu Chen’s voice came on the line.

“Mr. Wu!” Peng Wei ground out each syllable, his voice thick with anger. “Quite the operator, aren’t you!”

“Did you want something?” Wu Chen asked mildly.

“I think we need to talk face-to-face. Now. Right now!” Peng Wei said, deadly serious, his tone heavy.

“No time. I’m eating. We’ll talk tomorrow,” Wu Chen said, as mild as ever.

And with that, he hung up.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Peng Wei listened to the busy signal and very nearly smashed his phone in fury. Too arrogant! Wu Chen was just too damn arrogant!

Kidnapping!

Unlawful detention!

And when Peng Wei offered him a chance to talk, he wouldn’t even take it!

Peng Wei was breathing hard with rage. In all these years, ever since he’d made it big, he had never been treated like this, never had to swallow this kind of humiliation.

No one dared treat him like this!

Even hot movie stars with serious backing, once he’d set his sights on them and gotten his photos, sent someone to reach out politely. They spoke politely. They offered money of their own accord.

Peng Wei knew perfectly well that some celebrities could have dealt with him. It wasn’t that they couldn’t touch him.

They just didn’t dare.

They feared his influence. They feared his power to expose them.

After years of smooth sailing, Peng Wei was now truly ready to explode.

Once again he thought of calling the police. Call the police and post online. Hit them on both fronts and blow the whole thing wide open. Even with all the Li family’s clout, they couldn’t contain a storm of public opinion on that scale. The internet would be in an uproar for days.

But!

Peng Wei knew something else just as well.

All of this had started with his photos of An Menglan and Wu Chen. Going public would wreck An Menglan’s career, yes, but it would also enrage the An family, and the Li family too. Dirty laundry wasn’t meant to be aired in public, and once things got complicated, a great family’s first priority was usually to make the uproar die down.

And then he, Peng Wei, would be finished.

He sat motionless in the passenger seat for a long time, face dark, turning it over and over. In the end, reason won out. He didn’t have the nerve for mutual destruction.

Besides, he still believed he had a better option.

The photos he’d taken today.

Wu Chen’s arrogance rested on one thing above all: his relationship with Li Ruobing. How else could someone from such an ordinary family wield that kind of power? How else could he be on brotherly terms with tycoons?

Weren’t they all just showing respect to Li Ruobing, or rather, to the Li family?

To put it bluntly, Wu Chen was nothing but a pretty boy living off a woman.

And those photos could wreck his relationship with Li Ruobing. They could wreck everything he had. That made them Peng Wei’s biggest bargaining chip, the thing that would let him negotiate with Wu Chen and put an end to his arrogance.

Or so Peng Wei believed.

He thought it over a while longer, and a new plan took shape in his mind.

A little over an hour later.

Around nine-thirty that evening.

Wu Chen, Zhuang Xiaodie, Li Ruobing, Su Qingying, and Mu Qianqian finally came out of Laopinxuan Cantonese Restaurant. The dinner had run more than two hours, and they’d all had a good deal to drink.

Sitting in the car with his camera raised, Peng Wei craned his head to watch.

The group stood by the cars, chatting and laughing. After a few more words, Li Ruobing and the girl who had kissed Wu Chen earlier got into the back of the Mercedes-Maybach together.

Wu Chen didn’t get in with Li Ruobing.

He went to another car instead: the Maserati Quattroporte behind the Maybach. Su Qingying and the youngest girl got into the Maserati as well, one in the back, one in the front passenger seat.

Peng Wei couldn’t quite make sense of it. Why would Wu Chen ride in a different car from Li Ruobing? Were they all heading somewhere together and just piling in wherever?

Before he could come up with a plausible guess, he saw the bodyguards climb into their vehicles too. One of them even got into the Lamborghini Wu Chen had driven there.

The convoy set off.

“Old Qian,” Peng Wei prompted quickly, without turning his head.

“On it!” Old Qian started the Volkswagen Touareg.

The convoy pulled away. The SUV slipped in quietly behind it.

Two intersections later, the six-car convoy suddenly split. The Mercedes-Maybach carrying Li Ruobing turned off with two Mercedes G-Class SUVs and headed toward South District. The Maserati carrying Wu Chen, the Lamborghini, and a Mercedes van packed with bodyguards kept going straight.

Toward West District.

In the Touareg trailing them, Old Qian spoke up at once. “Brother Peng?”

“Straight,” Peng Wei said without hesitation.

Of course they would stick with Wu Chen. Tailing Li Ruobing would be pointless, and extremely dangerous. Peng Wei could well imagine the caliber of bodyguards around her.

Ten-odd minutes later, the Maserati and the other two cars had left Central District and entered West District, with Peng Wei’s Touareg still behind them.

Ahead lay an unusually wide intersection.

Red light.

The three cars stopped to wait.

This stretch of road was quiet to begin with, and at nearly ten at night there was even less traffic. Afraid of being spotted, the Touareg didn’t dare follow too closely. It pulled over to the curb a few dozen meters back.

The light turned green.

But the three cars didn’t move. They stayed put at the crosswalk. With nothing behind them, there was no one to honk them along either.

As long as the Maserati didn’t move, the Touareg didn’t dare. It couldn’t get too close, or it would have no way to keep tailing them. It would give itself away.

In daytime, you could tail a car closely, because the roads were busy and you were less likely to be noticed. At night, absolutely not. With so few cars around, even someone with no countersurveillance training would notice a car sitting too close behind.

It all came down to experience.

Twenty-odd seconds passed.

At last, the Maserati and the other two cars moved, crossed the intersection, and continued straight.

Peng Wei immediately signaled Old Qian to follow.

Old Qian floored it. Within seconds, both men realized there was a problem.

The light had turned red.

Because the Maserati had lingered at the intersection, the light had changed again just as the Touareg reached it.

What now?

Two choices. Stop and wait, or run the red light. If they stopped, the light would last a full thirty seconds, and they would lose the convoy for sure. If they ran it… as long as there was no accident, it was only six points on the license and a two-hundred-yuan fine.

“Go, go! Stay on them!” Peng Wei urged after barely a moment’s thought.

The Touareg ran the red light into the intersection.

Suddenly—

BEEEEEP!

A shrill horn blared from the side.

And then—

BOOM!

Peng Wei had no time to react. All he felt was the car lurching violently and flinging sideways as the airbag slammed into his face. His head rang.

A crash!