Chapter 457: Mr. Wu Can Solve Cases Too?!

Chapter 457: Mr. Wu Can Solve Cases Too?!

Out on the balcony, Wu Chen pulled the glass door shut behind him.

“Hello, Boss Gu,” he said as he answered.

“Mr. Wu, Old Mao’s been in a car accident…” Gu Ruibo said at once.

“I know. Tang Jingbin called me.” Wu Chen went on, “Are you at the hospital? How’s Boss Mao?”

“I just spoke to the doctor. He hit his head. He had his seat belt on, so the rest of him isn’t really hurt. His head struck the edge of the door. They’ve bandaged him up, but he hasn’t come to yet.”

“When will he wake up?”

“Probably a concussion. Hard to say. The doctor said tomorrow at the latest…”

Wu Chen spent several minutes going over Mao Rusong’s injuries with Gu Ruibo. Gu Ruibo had a fairly complete picture. Mao Rusong’s bodyguards were all at the hospital too, right there beside him.

Whenever Gu Ruibo wasn’t sure about something, Wu Chen could ask, and Gu Ruibo could check with the bodyguards and pass the answer along.

As for today, Wu Chen was leaning toward not resetting.

Some things had to be allowed to happen. Only then would there be clues, and evidence to catch people with.

He asked about everything in detail.

Gu Ruibo even got photos of the crash scene from the bodyguards and sent them to Wu Chen’s phone.

Wu Chen looked through them. The rear right side of Mao Rusong’s Rolls-Royce was badly damaged, caved in by a good half meter. At that angle, the impact had been aimed at the back seat…

It had plainly been meant for Mao Rusong!

Yet Mao Rusong wasn’t badly hurt. His injuries could even be called minor.

That wasn’t luck.

Several things had come together.

First, Mao Rusong’s driver had reacted fast. As the heavy truck bore down on them, he had floored the accelerator. The Rolls-Royce had lurched forward, pushing the point of impact farther back and partly clear of the rear seat.

Second, the car that had been hit was a Rolls-Royce!

Its safety was beyond question.

A collision strong enough to cave in a Rolls-Royce’s side by half a meter would have smashed an ordinary sedan to pieces.

And finally, the most important factor.

Wu Chen had warned Mao Rusong.

Mao knew Wu Chen meant to deal the Qi brothers a killing blow and that things were going to get very serious, so he had been especially careful.

Normally he always sat on the right side of the back seat.

Today he had sat on the left.

So that half-meter cave-in hadn’t crushed him at all! It was only in the violent jolting of the car that he had struck his head, even with the airbags deployed.

Had he been sitting on the right today instead of the left, then even if he’d survived, there was an eighty percent chance he’d have been crippled.

Good!

The way things had turned out today, the hidden danger had shown itself, and Mao Rusong was basically fine.

No need to reset!

“Fuck, those two Qi dogs actually went straight for the kill…” Gu Ruibo, normally a very well-mannered man, ended up cursing the Qi brothers as he talked.

He and Mao Rusong were extremely close friends in private.

“When Boss Mao wakes up, have him call me. Until then, Boss Gu, don’t make contact with the Qi brothers…”

“All right… I’ll do as you say, Mr. Wu.”

“One more thing. Get a copy from the traffic police of the surveillance footage along the route the truck took, and send it to me. Boss Mao’s route after he left, too,” Wu Chen added.

“Uh…” Gu Ruibo froze.

Footage like that was easy to retrieve. Modern traffic cameras recognized plates automatically, and the relevant footage could be pulled up with a single click. With Gu Ruibo’s standing, getting a copy was naturally no trouble.

What made him pause wasn’t the difficulty.

It was…

What did Mr. Wu mean to do?

Solve the case?

Mr. Wu could solve cases too?!

Even if he really had a talent for it, he was in Donghai. What could he possibly learn just from watching surveillance?

Mao Rusong’s bodyguards had said the driver was wearing a mask and a baseball cap. What more could the footage show?

If it had been an ordinary hit-and-run, of course the key information could be found.

But this had been an attempted murder aimed at Mao Rusong!

Forget Wu Chen investigating from Donghai. Even the Modu police, Mao Rusong’s most capable trusted men, or Gu Ruibo himself would have a very hard time getting to the truth!

It wasn’t that Gu Ruibo looked down on anyone.

It was that if the Qi brothers had arranged this, they would have cut every thread leading directly back to them. The truck would be stolen or carrying false plates. The driver would almost certainly never be caught. He’d simply vanish off the face of the earth.

Staging a car accident was a standard tool of “big shots”!

If the driver couldn’t be caught, it was just a hit-and-run.

To the “victim,” it would simply be an accident.

Whoever had arranged it, anyone who dared touch Mao Rusong would have planned it down to the last detail. If evidence could be traced back to them, they’d have to be idiots!

And idiots like that wouldn’t have lived this long, let alone become big shots.

Gu Ruibo understood all the ins and outs of this. As he saw it, even if everyone knew the Qi brothers had done it, a full investigation still wouldn’t turn up any direct evidence.

“Mr. Wu, you’re planning to… investigate?” Gu Ruibo asked, still a little dazed.

“Yes,” Wu Chen said.

“But…” Gu Ruibo felt Wu Chen was being far too casual about it. He was in Donghai and hadn’t said he’d come to Modu. He only wanted to look at some footage. He hadn’t asked for anything else, and hadn’t mentioned any sort of full investigation.

How could he possibly find anything that way?

Gu Ruibo kept his doubts to himself.

There was no point. It was easy enough to get. If Mr. Wu wanted to see it, he’d get it for him and that would be that.

“…All right. No problem,” Gu Ruibo agreed, drawing the words out.

“That’s it for now.”

“All right, Mr. Wu.”

The call ended.

Wu Chen had only just lowered his phone and was about to go back in when it rang again. This time it was Zhuang Xiaodie.

She was calling about Mao Rusong too, and Wu Chen talked with her for another few minutes.

In the living room.

Wu Dahai, Zhang Xiujuan, and Wu Jiao were chatting with Li Ruobing again.

When Wu Chen came back in, his parents no longer insisted they absolutely couldn’t take so much money from their son. Refusing over and over would have meant they weren’t acting like family.

Besides, Li Ruobing had been talking them around while he was on the phone with Gu Ruibo.

Wu Chen wasn’t worried that thirty million yuan would knock his parents off balance. The Wu family might be called ordinary, but compared with a wage-earning household, they weren’t ordinary at all.

Whatever else you said, they had several million in assets, and in a small county like this, only a minority of families could say the same.

And Chen Jinye’s family was worth far more than thirty million. With a wealthy old friend like that for comparison, they weren’t likely to let it go to their heads.

They sat talking in the living room.

Before anyone noticed, it was past nine.

Wu Jiao’s excitement had worn off again, and she’d gone back to her room to watch her drama.

Wu Dahai and Zhang Xiujuan had always been early to bed and early to rise, so they went to their room.

“Son, Bingbing, you two get some rest too. Don’t stay up too late…” Zhang Xiujuan switched off the living-room light and added the reminder before going into the bedroom.

“Got it, Auntie,” Li Ruobing replied.

Only the television lit the living room now, though it wasn’t particularly dark.

“Do you think your parents will sleep tonight?” Li Ruobing lay back in his arms and turned her head to ask softly, smiling.

“Probably not.” Wu Chen smiled. “They’ll be fine in a couple of days. And I bet they’ll keep running the noodle shop anyway. Money or no money, they can’t sit still…”

They chatted idly for a bit.

“Oh, right. Second Master Tang called you?” Li Ruobing asked suddenly.

When Zhang Xiujuan had handed him his phone earlier, she’d mentioned the name Tang Jingbin.

He had gone out to the balcony to take that call, then out to the balcony again afterward. It felt as though something had happened.

“Yeah. Mao Rusong was in a car accident. Gu Ruibo called afterward too…” Wu Chen said.

“Mao Rusong?” Li Ruobing thought for a moment.

She knew who he was, but she didn’t know him and had never dealt with him.

“His accident… has something to do with you?” she asked.

Wu Chen gave her the general picture. He left out the secret three-way talks with Gu Ruibo and Tang Jingbin and only explained how the conflict had started, how three men had died, and how the Qi brothers had come to suspect Mao Rusong.

When he finished, Li Ruobing understood. Mao Rusong had… taken a bullet for him!

“How badly is he hurt?” she asked, watching his face.

“Minor injuries. Nothing serious.”

“Then… what are you going to do about the Qi family?”

“It’s all arranged.” Wu Chen twirled a strand of her hair around his finger, eyes on the television. “But I don’t think the Qi brothers were behind Mao Rusong’s accident this time.”

“Hm?” Li Ruobing paused. “Then who?”

“I’ll have to look into it,” Wu Chen said.

…

An hour later.

The sheets and duvet cover in Wu Chen’s bedroom were all fresh. Zhang Xiujuan had known in advance that her son was bringing his girlfriend home, so she’d gotten everything ready beforehand.

Li Ruobing had just showered and dried her hair. She came back to the bedroom in a bathrobe.

Wu Chen was sitting up against the headboard, the old laptop he used at home propped in front of him.

Li Ruobing came to his side, pulled the covers over herself, and glanced at the screen.

Surveillance footage?

“What’s this? Traffic cameras?” she asked.

“Traffic-tracking footage of Mao Rusong’s convoy and the truck that hit him. I had Gu Ruibo send it over,” Wu Chen said.

“Hm?” Li Ruobing paused. “What are you doing?”

“Taking a look. Seeing whether it was the Qi brothers or someone else.” Wu Chen said it lightly, clicking the mouse and switching between views.

“Taking a look…”

Li Ruobing’s expression turned decidedly subtle. “My dear Mr. Wu, you solve cases now too? And… what good is this footage? Whoever set it up, there’s no way you can spot the problem from surveillance alone, is there?”

“Want to bet?” Wu Chen asked offhandedly with a smile, eyes still on the screen. “I’ll give you the answer within ten minutes.”

Li Ruobing raised an eyebrow.

“Sure. Let’s bet.” She smiled.

She had long ago stopped wanting to bet against him. She lost every time. But as their relationship had deepened, her way of thinking about him had changed again.