Chapter 441: Why?! Why?!
by cnwebnovelsChapter 441: Why?! Why?!
Tang Jingbin turned to Wu Chen, the startled doubt still written on his face.
He still couldn’t get past the most crucial point. Never mind why Wu Chen would make such an enormous affair out of something so minor. Why would the Gu family get involved at all? And on the Tang family’s side, no less?
As for relations between the Tang and Gu families… they were actually a little more distant than the usual ties between great families.
Both were great families rooted in Modu, so naturally they knew each other. In Modu’s upper circles, there was no one who didn’t know Tang Jingbin, Second Master Tang!
And even when two great families didn’t actively associate, some contact was unavoidable. Younger members of both might attend the same banquet, say, or a friend’s friend might turn out to belong to the other family.
But that was as far as it went!
The Gu family was a fairly typical powerful elite family. Some of its members held high office and wielded real authority, while others sat at the helm of state-affiliated enterprises.
The Tang family was far more straightforward. Tang Jingbin’s elder brother and the Tang family’s Old Master were both military men!
The two families moved in vastly different circles!
That difference had sent the two great families down separate fast lanes as they grew. They didn’t get in each other’s way, shared no common interests, and almost never came into conflict.
As both families expanded and went into business, some overlap was inevitable. But it usually came from the lower tiers of each family. Deep ties between their middle and upper ranks were very hard to come by.
And it was precisely the uppermost core of a family that determined its overall conduct and collective will.
By comparison, even the Xiang family was closer to the Gu family than the Tang family was!
“Mr. Tang, in a few more months, half a year at the latest, the Tang family is bound to move against the Liu family, right?” Wu Chen asked.
“Of course.” At the mention of the Liu family, Tang Jingbin’s face darkened slightly.
The Liu family was the Tang family’s mortal enemy, with old grudges and new ones piled together. Now that Tang Jingbin had the dirt on the Liu family from Wu Chen, he naturally meant to make the most of it!
Strike a snake without killing it, and it turns to bite you!
This time, the Tang family meant to prepare for every contingency and crush the Liu family flat in a single blow!
“Then how would you rate your odds, Mr. Tang?” Wu Chen asked.
“With the Li family’s help, plus what you’ve given me, Little Wu… ninety percent!” Tang Jingbin said, thinking it over.
In truth he’d wanted to say a hundred percent, but it was best not to speak in absolutes about something like this. Especially while the groundwork was still being laid. Any leak at all might prompt the Liu family to decisively cut off a limb to save itself!
“And if you add the Gu family?” Wu Chen asked again.
“The Gu family?” Tang Jingbin’s heart jolted.
All at once he understood what Wu Chen’s “gift” really meant! The true gift wasn’t Shuangqi Real Estate. It was the Gu family!
Wu Chen wanted to bring the Gu family in! To broker an alliance between the Gu and Tang families?!
That… only made the whole thing seem even more preposterous to Tang Jingbin!
Whether great families could ally usually came down to three conditions.
Did they share common interests?
Did they share a common enemy?
And! Could they trust each other?
But between the Tang and Gu families there was… no foundation whatsoever! Great families had always been extremely cautious about such things, because an alliance could indirectly shape a family’s rise or fall!
The more Tang Jingbin thought about it, the more he found himself circling back to his original question. Wu Chen was blowing up something as trivial as his woman nearly being hit, and the Gu family was supposed to lose its mind and jump into these muddy waters? And ally with the Tang family over it?!
By now the idea struck Tang Jingbin as so absurd it was almost comical.
“Then let me ask you this, Mr. Tang…” Wu Chen looked at him again. “Does the Tang family need an ally like the Gu family?”
“If it’s possible, nothing could be better,” Tang Jingbin answered decisively.
That required no great deliberation!
It would be like picking money up off the street!
Their circles were different. If the Tang and Gu families could ally, there would be very few disputes over dividing the spoils. And seen from Tang Jingbin’s position alone, it was a windfall landing right on his doorstep!
Because the Tang family was preparing to do something big!
Once it went after the Liu family, it would inevitably face a desperate counterattack, perhaps even a fight to mutual destruction!
Tang Jingbin was absolutely confident they would win. But the Tang family would certainly pay heavily for it! Victory was assured. How they would win, and at what cost, was harder to say.
So for the Tang family as things stood, the more allies the better, and the stronger its network the better!
Tang Jingbin would have liked nothing more than for every great family in Modu to be the Tang family’s ally.
But that wasn’t realistic.
Without trust, without common interests, why would anyone sign on?!
“Little Wu, stop beating around the bush. Let’s just speak plainly. I’m not doubting you, but even now I still don’t see it… what exactly are you planning to do, Little Wu? How did this business ever drag in the Gu family?”
When Tang Jingbin spoke again, his tone was far more eager and earnest.
Wu Chen had already raised enormous expectations in him!
However preposterous it seemed, however impossible to understand, Tang Jingbin now badly wanted the Gu family to stand with the Tang family as its ally!
He could already feel the urgency!
That was exactly the feeling Wu Chen wanted from him!
He hadn’t been beating around the bush just now. He’d been using his words to lead Tang Jingbin into guessing and reasoning out for himself what the Tang family needed. Only by bringing that need into the open could he fully stir Tang Jingbin’s emotions.
Tang Jingbin stared straight at him.
Wu Chen smiled and glanced at his watch. It was already 8:24. He had arranged to meet Gu Ruibo at nine, and Gu Ruibo certainly would not be late. If anything, he would arrive early.
Gu Ruibo was genuinely afraid Wu Chen might cause some irreversible disaster. That bore directly on his partnership with Wu Yurong, so showing up ten-odd minutes early would be only natural.
So…
“Gu Ruibo will be here in about twenty minutes. I arranged to have dinner with him here,” Wu Chen told him after checking the time.
“Gu Ruibo?” Tang Jingbin paused to think.
He’d met Gu Ruibo in Donghai a few days earlier and knew the two were on good personal terms. Gu Ruibo was close to Li Ruotai to begin with, so it was hardly strange that he’d get along with Wu Chen.
Beyond that, he knew nothing.
“So…” Tang Jingbin ventured.
“I need you to play along a little, Mr. Tang,” Wu Chen said with a smile.
“What do you need me to say?” Tang Jingbin replied at once.
Without a moment’s hesitation! If it meant winning the Gu family as an ally, it would be worth it even if the Tang family had to pay a steep price!
“You don’t need to say anything in particular. I’ll do the talking…” Wu Chen kept smiling. “All I need from you, Mr. Tang, is…”
The two of them conferred privately for another ten minutes or so.
In fact, Wu Chen didn’t say all that much. Tang Jingbin really didn’t need to do much, and the Tang family didn’t need to pay any price at all. It didn’t even need to make anything resembling a concession!
All Tang Jingbin had to do was play along a little!
Yet he had a great many questions.
Right to the end, one thing still eluded him: how could Gu Ruibo dare take it upon himself to represent the Gu family and side with the Tang family?!
Strictly speaking, Gu Ruibo didn’t have the standing. He was a core member of the Gu family, but still of the junior generation. It wasn’t that he could never take a side on the family’s behalf. But to do it on his own, without permission from his father, let alone his grandfather… where would he get the nerve?
The outside world was bound to read it the wrong way!
And besides, why?
Why would Gu Ruibo personally want to wade into these muddy waters?
Forget Wu Chen. Even if it were Li Ruotai’s affair, Gu Ruibo couldn’t possibly put himself on the line for Li Ruotai when it touched the overall direction of his family! Any core scion of a great family would be cautious!
After all, any core scion who made a serious mistake and brought major trouble down on the family risked being discarded!
Even Li Ruotai, a third-generation core member of the Li family, would be dropped as a successor and pushed to the margins if he made a grave error that cost the family dearly. If there was one thing great families never lacked, it was promising young people!
Someone like Ding Ruilong, who enjoyed the exclusive favor of his family’s Old Master, was a rarity.
8:45 p.m.
Ring, ring, ring!
Wu Chen’s phone rang. It was Gu Ruibo.
He was already downstairs and asked which room. Wu Chen told him.
Five minutes later.
The private-room doors swung open. Gu Ruibo left his bodyguards outside and came in alone. He spotted Wu Chen at once, but his gaze slid over to Tang Jingbin. “Second Master Tang, you’re here too…”
Gu Ruibo was very surprised. He even shot Wu Chen a questioning look.
He considered himself the closer of the two to Wu Chen.
Yet he had no idea why Tang Jingbin was here tonight as well.