Chapter 506: Chilled to the Heart

Chapter 506: Chilled to the Heart

“Arrange a time… Sure, Master Wu. Whenever it’s convenient for you…” Lei Cheng sounded cheerful, his rough voice full of courtesy.

The more courteous he was, the more distant he seemed.

“Then this afternoon, Boss Lei…” Wu Weidong said after thinking for a moment.

The two exchanged a few more words, settled on a time and place, traded a few more pleasantries, and ended the call.

After hanging up, Wu Weidong gripped the phone in his hand, his expression shifting uncertainly. Getting the low-key, cautious Lei Cheng to agree to meet had been easier than he’d expected.

But judging from Lei Cheng’s attitude just now, getting anything out of him might not be so easy.

Still, Wu Weidong could now confirm one thing: what Wu Chen had said earlier about Wu Yurong and Lei Cheng working together was definitely true.

Whether the specific details were exactly as Wu Chen had described, however, remained unknown.

As he thought, Wu Weidong picked up his phone again and dialed another number. It was his steward, Xu Shisong. The call connected almost immediately.

“Little Xu, bring a few people over and call Wang Zhiheng here… Mm… yes… you arrange it.”

Xu Shisong had been with Wu Weidong for thirty years. He knew his boss far too well.

Wu Weidong hadn’t needed to say much at all. Xu Shisong immediately understood that something was wrong with Wang Zhiheng.

Only a few minutes later.

A jumble of footsteps sounded outside the pavilion. Xu Shisong approached with four other bodyguards. Wu Weidong held a chess piece in his fingers, staring at the unfinished game on the table.

The five men entered the pavilion.

“Boss,” Xu Shisong greeted him.

The others stood ramrod straight, their expressions serious. None of them knew why the boss had suddenly summoned several people. They simply stood there waiting for orders.

Wu Weidong put down the chess piece and turned to look. His gaze swept across them before settling on the tall, thin, long-faced bodyguard in a black suit.

He was exactly thirty this year, had served in the military, wore his hair in a buzz cut, and looked sharp and capable.

The very image of a professional bodyguard.

It was Wang Zhiheng.

“Little Wang,” Wu Weidong called solemnly.

“Boss.” Wang Zhiheng stepped forward from the line and lowered his head slightly.

“Give me your phone,” Wu Weidong said.

Wang Zhiheng froze. He hesitated briefly, but asked nothing and took his phone out from inside his jacket.

“Unlock it,” Wu Weidong said.

Wang Zhiheng unlocked the phone with his fingerprint and handed it over.

Wu Weidong took it, tapped through the screen, and opened the call log. He found that Wang Zhiheng’s most recent call had been that morning. The other party was Xu Shisong, and it had been an incoming call from Xu Shisong.

Wu Chen had said that the bodyguard Wang Zhiheng would probably tip off his second son, Wu Yuning. Yet there was no such call on the phone.

There were three possibilities.

First, Wu Chen’s judgment was wrong. His information was wrong, and what he’d said wasn’t true.

Second, Wang Zhiheng had deleted the call record afterward.

Third, Wang Zhiheng had another phone.

Wu Weidong couldn’t simply assume Wu Chen was wrong. If Wu Chen was right, the problem was serious. He had to investigate.

As for deleting the call record… it could be erased from the phone, but not from the telecom company’s billing records. Once someone came under suspicion, deleting the record from the handset alone was meaningless. So if Wang Zhiheng was truly cautious…

“Anything else? This is your only phone?” Wu Weidong turned and asked.

“Nothing else. Just this one. Both SIM cards are in it,” Wang Zhiheng replied. He had hesitated before, but now he was exceptionally calm, showing no sign of nerves.

Wu Weidong turned his head and stared at him.

There was nothing unusual in Wang Zhiheng’s expression, as though his conscience were perfectly clear.

“Ha.” Wu Weidong suddenly laughed. Then he said, “Little Wang, do you know something? I’ve been betrayed many times in my life. I know that an innocent man who’s been falsely accused wouldn’t look the way you do right now. At the very least, you ought to be confused. But you seem to know exactly what I’m suspicious of. And you’re this calm?”

Whatever else might be said of Wu Weidong, he was still the highly respected Master Wu of Donghai, the city’s third-richest man!

He might not be a match for Su Ruiwen in scheming and depth, and perhaps not for Lei Cheng either, but a mere bodyguard wasn’t going to outplay him.

“Boss, I…” After hearing Wu Weidong’s words, Wang Zhiheng finally showed confusion.

But the steward Xu Shisong had already read the room. He raised a hand in signal. Before Wang Zhiheng could finish, two bodyguards behind him stepped forward and pinned him down.

It happened abruptly.

Wang Zhiheng instinctively started to resist, but the moment he moved, he stiffened again. His emotions were in violent turmoil…

Xu Shisong searched him.

Without much difficulty, he found another phone hidden inside Wang Zhiheng’s clothes.

“Unlock it.” Expressionless, Xu Shisong held the phone in front of Wang Zhiheng’s face.

Panic showed in Wang Zhiheng’s eyes. He looked at Xu Shisong, then at the phone, hesitating slightly…

Xu Shisong wasted no words. He forcibly pulled Wang Zhiheng’s right hand over and used it to unlock the phone.

It unlocked successfully.

Xu Shisong turned and handed the phone to Wu Weidong.

Wu Weidong tapped through it and opened the call history…

Empty!

He paused, then entered a number and called it.

Ring, ring!

The phone lying on the table began to ring.

Wu Weidong’s own.

Wu Weidong picked up his phone, looked at it, hung up, and checked the incoming number. Immediately afterward, he used his own phone to call another number.

The call connected quickly.

“Check a number for me. I want the call records…” After a couple of sentences, Wu Weidong gave the number of Wang Zhiheng’s second phone and hung up.

He had barely set his phone back on the table when—

Thud!

Wang Zhiheng suddenly dropped to his knees. He was completely panicked now. Once the call records reached Wu Weidong’s phone, he was finished!

There was no hiding it anymore!

“Boss, Boss, I… I…” Kneeling there, Wang Zhiheng couldn’t get the words out. His voice trembled.

“Do you often tip Little Ning off?” Wu Weidong asked, staring sternly at him.

Only then did the others present understand what Wang Zhiheng had done.

Beside them, the expressionless Xu Shisong reached inside his clothes and drew a handgun. The sound of a round being chambered made Wang Zhiheng shudder.

As Wu Weidong’s number-one confidant and the only man at Senlan Manor carrying a gun, Xu Shisong understood his boss better than anyone.

“Little Ning is my son, after all. I can’t do much to him, and he knows I can’t do much to him… But what about you? Are you counting on him to protect you?” Wu Weidong asked with a sidelong glance.

“Boss, Boss, I was forced into it, Boss… Second Master, he…” Wang Zhiheng’s face went pale with fear, and he began spilling everything in a rush.

…

At the same time, at the far end of the south corridor on the third floor of Senlan Manor’s main building.

Wu Chen stood with one hand in his pocket, looking out the window while talking to Lei Cheng on the phone. Lei Cheng had called him first.

“…Say whatever you want to say. Mm… it’s fine… I told him about it. There won’t be a problem…”

Immediately after ending his call with Wu Weidong, Lei Cheng had called Wu Chen. He needed to make sure what Wu Chen had told Wu Weidong—what he was allowed to say, and what he wasn’t.

Although Wu Weidong was Wu Yurong’s father, there were many things over which only Wu Chen had the authority to decide.

Aside from the matter involving Wu Weidong, the two also briefly discussed Lei You.

More than half a month earlier, when Wu Chen and Lei Cheng had first met and talked, Wu Chen had given Lei Cheng the crucial phone number connected to Lei Cheng’s car accident years ago.

By now, Lei Cheng had found that person.

And brought him back to Donghai.

They could now begin laying the groundwork to push Lei You into turning on Ding Ruilong. But they still needed one key person—someone close to Lei You—to “help.”

Wu Chen didn’t say much to Lei Cheng over the phone. There was no need to. They didn’t even need to meet face-to-face.

For someone like Wu Chen, who knew far too much about far too many people, coercion and inducement were simply too easy.

A phone number, a lover, a bank account… All he needed was one small opening. Work backward from there, investigate, and he could uncover a person’s fatal secret.

Click, click.

The crisp sound of high heels approached. The door to a bedroom on the third floor opened, and Wu Yurong came out. She had been waiting for Wu Chen. Hearing the faint sound of someone talking outside, she had stepped out to take a look.

When she saw him at the far end of the corridor on the phone, she didn’t go over.

“…Once Lei You is lured to Donghai, we’ll capture him…” Wu Chen said a few more words to Lei Cheng, then ended the call.

As he put away his phone, he turned around.

“Darling…” Wu Yurong called softly as she walked toward him.

Wu Chen walked toward her as well.

“How did it go, darling?” Wu Yurong asked gently when she came close. There was no one else in the corridor. She wrapped her arms around Wu Chen’s waist and looked up at him.

“There shouldn’t be any problem,” Wu Chen replied with a quiet smile. “The only potential complication is your mother. But… as long as the Old Master is willing to give them to you, your mother should… be all right, shouldn’t she?”

The shares were in Wu Weidong’s name.

Strictly speaking, however, the shares held by Wu Weidong were marital property. If husband and wife disagreed, it would be difficult to transfer all of them into Wu Yurong’s name.

Everyone knew that Han Yuzhi had always favored her second son.

But… in the end, the Wu family was still a family in which Wu Weidong and Wu Yurong called the shots.

And precisely because Han Yuzhi favored her second son, she was even less likely to stand by and watch him go to prison. So Wu Chen didn’t need to concern himself with Han Yuzhi’s part of the matter. He only needed to settle things with Wu Weidong.

Wu Yurong could handle the rest herself.

“My mother…” Wu Yurong began, paused, then smiled sweetly. “No problem.”

“Want to walk around?” she asked.

“Sure.” Wu Chen nodded.

Wu Yurong took him around the manor. They talked as they walked. Naturally, she asked what he’d said to her father, and Wu Chen gave her a casual summary.

For Wu Yurong, even after hearing the gist from Wu Chen, it was still difficult to believe her father, Wu Weidong, would transfer the shares to her anytime soon.

That wasn’t only because Wu Weidong was her father, which made her understanding of him less than entirely objective. She was too close to the situation.

It was also because there were many things she didn’t know.

Wu Chen hadn’t fully explained those things to Wu Weidong either. But he had given the old man enough to make him investigate, and what he found would include things even Wu Yurong didn’t yet know.

The more he uncovered, the more he would feel that the Wu family had too many internal problems and too many people capable of holding her back.

More than half an hour later.

After strolling around Senlan Manor with Wu Yurong, stopping here and there and seeing most of the estate, Wu Chen returned to the main building with her.

It was already after eleven.

Time for lunch.

In the antique-style dining room on the first floor, the servants had prepared a lavish lunch. The large table was covered with dishes. They weren’t exotic delicacies, just home-style food, but each dish had been prepared with great care.

Wu Yurong had brought someone home too suddenly, and Senlan Manor was out in the suburbs, where shopping was inconvenient. There hadn’t been time to make more elaborate preparations, so this was the best they could do.

“Mr. Wu, it’s just simple home cooking. Come, sit, sit…” Wu Weidong was already there when Wu Chen and Wu Yurong entered the dining room. He greeted Wu Chen with a smile.

Wu Chen and Wu Yurong sat side by side across from Wu Weidong.

Before long, Han Yuzhi came downstairs and entered the dining room as well.

Only the four of them ate the meal.

The atmosphere at the table was somewhat strange. Han Yuzhi had already spoken with her daughter and knew about Wu Chen’s relationship with her. Whatever she might think privately, she didn’t dare show any negative feeling toward Wu Chen in front of Wu Yurong.

Outwardly, she remained every inch the elegant lady, a smile on her face throughout.

Wu Weidong, meanwhile, was in an odd mood. Even his attitude toward his wife, Han Yuzhi, seemed slightly off. Something was obviously weighing on his mind.

Of course, strangest of all was the look that occasionally flashed through his eyes when he glanced at Wu Chen.

The “traitor bodyguard” had already confessed everything to him, and what he’d heard had chilled him to the heart.

He didn’t believe he owed his sons anything. Splitting the family fortune evenly had never been possible. The most capable child had to inherit the overwhelming majority of it if he wanted to ensure that the work of his entire life wasn’t ruined.

It wasn’t as though Wu Weidong had given his sons nothing. He had given them more than enough to live in wealth and comfort for the rest of their lives.

If Wu Chen hadn’t told him today, Wu Weidong would never have dared imagine that his second son had done so many painful things over the years for the sake of the family fortune.

He even had the feeling that his second son was waiting for him to die!

If he died, his wife, who favored their second son, would surely do everything she could to get the shares into that son’s hands.

Wang Zhiheng had been bought off by Wu Yuning three years earlier and treated as one of Wu Yuning’s own people. He had not only done things for Wu Yuning, but also knew a great deal. Under the pressure of fear, he had told Wu Weidong everything.

Wu Weidong had already verified what Wang Zhiheng had told him. As for the matters involving his brother-in-law, nephew, and the others, he would verify those as well.

Before they knew it, noon arrived.

Wu Weidong, who had spent the meal making polite small talk about one thing and another, suddenly looked up at Wu Chen and smiled. “Mr. Wu, I’ve arranged to meet Boss Lei this afternoon. Would you like to come along?”

Wu Chen, who had just leaned over to exchange a quiet word with Wu Yurong, looked at him and smiled. “No need. Brother Lei already called me. You two can talk.”

Cards on the table!

Wu Weidong was effectively telling Wu Chen: I’ve started checking.

And Wu Chen was equally open about it: Go ahead. Talk to him. Check whatever you like.

Ring, ring…

Wu Chen’s phone rang.

“Excuse me.” Wu Chen smiled, took out his phone, glanced at the screen, then answered. “Boss Mao.”

It was Mao Rusong.

“Mr. Wu, Ding Ruilong just called me,” Mao Rusong said, a trace of tension in his voice.

Wu Chen raised an eyebrow.