Chapter 030: What Did Wu Chen Say to Lu Guangnian?

Chapter 030: What Did Wu Chen Say to Lu Guangnian?

“You—you’re the one who worked at a bathhouse! Your whole family worked at a bathhouse! Have you no shame, you mangy dog!” Liu Caixiu’s face flushed scarlet, shrieking and cursing at Wu Chen in a fit.

She had, in fact, worked at a bathhouse once—ten years ago now, and only briefly. After her surgery succeeded, she’d latched onto men with money, and marrying Lu Guangnian had come later still.

This was one of the secrets Liu Caixiu guarded most fiercely. Not the worst of them, but damning enough on its own.

“A little decorum, please. Everyone here is a civilized person,” Wu Chen said mildly. “You’re a woman of some standing now. Those habits from the years you spent working as a prostitute—might be time to leave them behind.”

“How dare you slander me! Defame me! I’ll—” Liu Caixiu lunged forward, swinging her handbag at him.

She’d been married to Lu Guangnian for years now—by any reasonable measure, she shouldn’t be losing her composure like this in public. Even if it were an act, she ought to have managed something with more polish.

But—

Wu Chen had spoken nothing but the truth.

Panic churned inside her, and the only way to smother it was with a bigger show of fury.

Smack-thud!

The bag connected—but not with Wu Chen. Someone had stepped in front of him just in time: one of Li Ruobing’s bodyguards.

Li Ruobing had brought a smaller security detail out tonight, fewer than during the day, seated discreetly in a corner of the restaurant—close enough to intervene if trouble arose, far enough not to overhear her conversation with Wu Chen.

The moment Liu Caixiu had started shouting, several bodyguards had already begun closing in.

They’d glanced toward Li Ruobing for direction.

But she’d given none—because Wu Chen had taken the trouble onto himself, and she wanted to see how he’d handle it. Liu Caixiu was nothing worth worrying over, a woman whose thinking barely held together. Lu Guangnian was another matter entirely—a man who held real power in Donghai.

The Li siblings were outsiders making their way in this city.

Lu Guangnian was the local power who could meet the Li family head-on, on equal footing.

That parity was part of why the Li siblings had bothered cultivating him at all—shared temperament mattered, but so did standing. Only equals could build a friendship with real substance.

Li Ruobing hadn’t known Wu Chen long, but she already sensed he wasn’t the type to chase some fleeting satisfaction without weighing the cost.

And yet here he was, in front of everyone, calling Lu Guangnian’s wife a former prostitute.

How could Lu Guangnian possibly let that pass without losing face?

“Mrs. Lu, please, calm down, calm down…” The bodyguard held Liu Caixiu back as she thrashed like something possessed, dead set on landing that bag on Wu Chen. He wasn’t about to let her succeed.

Crack!

A sharp, ringing slap.

Liu Caixiu had turned and struck the bodyguard across the face, shrieking, “Get out of my way!”

The bodyguard—nearly six foot three, forearms thicker than Liu Caixiu’s thighs—didn’t so much as flinch, his expression utterly unchanged. He simply repeated, calm as before, “Mrs. Lu, please calm down.”

Li Ruobing’s eyes narrowed faintly.

These men were her own trusted people, with her for years.

She rose to her feet.

Just then—

“Caixiu! What’s all this noise about?” A voice called out near the restaurant’s entrance—a man in his fifties, dark-skinned, dressed in a sharply tailored suit.

Lu Guangnian. Fifty-five years old, chairman of Donghai Juli Group, vice president of the Donghai Chamber of Commerce, a delegate to the Donghai Municipal People’s Congress, one of the central figures of Donghai’s business world, one of the city’s ten wealthiest men.

He’d come to Lao Pinxuan tonight to host guests.

The old-city renewal project on Dongcheng Old Street was something he had his sights firmly set on. But though his company was the largest local real estate developer in Donghai, it barely registered on a national scale.

Several major national real estate conglomerates were competing for the same project, forcing him to work every connection he had.

He’d been out front personally greeting his guests, and had let his wife go in ahead of him.

He hadn’t expected that the moment his guests arrived and he himself stepped through the door, he’d find his wife in the middle of some deranged attempt to strike someone. Under ordinary circumstances, whatever the reason, he’d have rushed straight to his wife’s defense—failing to back her would mean failing to back himself.

But—

His eyes had already landed on Li Ruobing, just now rising to her feet.

He understood most of it at a glance—ten to one, his wife had gone looking for trouble again and picked the wrong person.

Seeing her husband arrive, Liu Caixiu instantly cooled her theatrics, eyes brimming with tears in a heartbeat, transforming into the very picture of a wronged, put-upon wife. Lu Guangnian strode over quickly.

“Brother Lu,” Li Ruobing said evenly.

Lu Guangnian nodded to her, offering a faintly apologetic smile—he already knew this was his wife’s doing. If Liu Caixiu hadn’t been his wife, there was no way this feud with Li Ruobing would have dragged on this long; it would have been dealt with ages ago.

The eldest granddaughter of the Li family had only tolerated it this far out of respect for him.

“Honey, this little pretty boy insulted me! Said I was ugly, said I’d had surgery, said I used to be a whore!” Liu Caixiu threw herself into Lu Guangnian’s arms, sobbing with theatrical pity.

Lu Guangnian’s face changed at once, his eyelid twitching.

He was a billionaire, a successful businessman, a man of real standing across Donghai—and his own wife had just been called a former prostitute, in public, in front of everyone.

For a man, face mattered above almost everything.

And Lu Guangnian cared about face more than most.

If he didn’t show real anger now, outsiders might conclude he’d gone soft in the face of the Li family’s younger generation—he’d become a laughingstock in certain circles by morning.

Every eye in the restaurant was on this corner now, including the clients he’d brought with him.

The scene itself was humiliating enough already.

Handled badly, it would only grow worse.

“It’s fine, it’s fine, don’t cry, I’ll handle it.” Lu Guangnian offered his wife a few words of comfort, then pulled her aside, stepped forward, and asked Li Ruobing, his expression darkening, “Boss Li—your friend?”

He addressed the question to Li Ruobing directly, since he didn’t recognize Wu Chen, only that the two of them were clearly together.

Real anger had already stirred in him, though he was holding it in check for now.

In private, anything could be smoothed over with a conversation. But being cursed at, publicly humiliated in front of his own guests—that wasn’t something a few words could resolve.

Li Ruobing could hear the anger Lu Guangnian was suppressing—the shift in how he’d addressed her alone gave it away.

He’d called her “Boss Li.” In private, he called her “Ruobing.”

“My boyfriend. The pretty boy your wife mentioned,” Li Ruobing said flatly, meeting the confrontation head-on. If this cost her the friendship, so be it. She wasn’t afraid of that.

Something shifted in Lu Guangnian’s eyes. Li Ruobing’s… boyfriend?!

The way she’d said it—was she truly willing to risk their friendship over this young man? Was that really true?

“Pretty boy is exactly what he is! You’re thirty and still not married, and now you’ve picked up some twenty-year-old—if that’s not keeping a pretty boy, what is? Did I say anything wrong?” Liu Caixiu started up again.

Lu Guangnian turned and shot his wife a hard look.

“They’re ganging up on me, both of them, saying such awful things!” Liu Caixiu immediately dissolved into fresh tears.

Lu Guangnian softened again despite himself. “I’ll handle it. Just—don’t say anything more.”

At this, Wu Chen rose, waved the bodyguard aside, stepped forward, and extended a hand with an easy smile. “Boss Lu, allow me to introduce myself. Wu Chen.”

Lu Guangnian glanced at the offered hand, his expression carrying an unmistakable you’re-finished look, but he shook it anyway—gripping down hard.

Wu Chen used the grip to pull him in, shoulder knocking against shoulder, his left hand landing on Lu Guangnian’s right shoulder. He tilted his head close to the man’s ear and began speaking, low and quiet.

Lu Guangnian had meant to shove him off immediately. But whatever Wu Chen said made him stop cold.

Not only did he listen—he listened intently, his expression shifting through a remarkable range of changes.

Wu Chen spoke for a full two minutes. Lu Guangnian never once pushed him away, and at one point even tilted his head to ask something back.

Everyone in the room stood frozen, baffled.

A fight had seemed only seconds away.

What on earth was Wu Chen saying to him?

Whatever it was, it had calmed Lu Guangnian instantly—and left him listening with startling intensity.