Chapter 049: Li Ruobing Sends an Assist!

Chapter 049: Li Ruobing Sends an Assist!

The words “afraid your own brother will kill you” made something jump behind Lei Cheng’s eyes. His gaze went razor-sharp, fixed on Wu Chen without blinking, as though he meant to see straight through him.

“Which family are you actually from?” Lei Cheng asked, eyes narrowing. The easy warmth had drained out of his voice, leaving something cold and hard in its place.

It never occurred to him that Wu Chen might have approached him on purpose.

They’d met through a game, after all—and not even the official server. A private one.

A private server never held its popularity for long. The moment some whale started dominating it, players scattered within days.

That was exactly why Lei Cheng kept switching servers, and why he never played the same one for long. Given how often he moved around, and how carefully he guarded his own information, he simply didn’t believe anyone could engineer a meeting with him this way.

So the thought never crossed his mind.

One thing was certain: before they’d met in person, Wu Chen hadn’t known who he was. He’d shown no faith at all in Lei Cheng’s supposed abilities and clearly just wanted his own problem solved as fast as possible. If Lei Cheng hadn’t bombarded him with private messages like a madman, the two of them would never have sat down together at all.

Even meeting in person had been Lei Cheng’s own idea.

So… Lei Cheng thought he finally understood that odd look on Wu Chen’s face the moment he’d walked through the door.

That look hadn’t come from some shallow guess about why Lei Cheng kept his distance from the family. It had come from something closer to actual knowledge—as if Wu Chen genuinely knew all the ugly business buried inside that family.

And things like that only ever reached the ears of people who stood at a certain height, who moved among a certain weight class.

No wonder he’d looked so strange. He simply hadn’t expected to run into someone like that here.

“Boss Lei, relax.” Wu Chen smiled, took a sip of tea, and set the cup down before continuing. “I’ll be honest with you—I’m really not from any family. I don’t have the kind of background you’re picturing. But… I do happen to know a few things about your situation.”

He paused, then smiled again. “I really do have to say it once more. You said it first, but it’s true—we really are fated to meet.”

With that, a faint, knowing smile crossed his face.

“No background? You’ve got money, though, surely. What business is your family in?” Lei Cheng asked.

“Restaurants. Small stuff. Not worth mentioning,” Wu Chen said.

He wasn’t lying. His family really did run a restaurant—a little noodle shop in a small county town, exactly as unremarkable as he made it sound.

Lei Cheng studied him in silence for a moment, took another sip of tea, set the cup down, and said, “Forget it.”

Then that open, easygoing grin was back on his face.

That was simply how he operated.

His mind ran deep, and he was very, very good at hiding what he thought.

Saying he’d let it go didn’t mean he actually would. There was no chance he wouldn’t dig into Wu Chen’s background the moment they parted—not because he suspected a threat. Wu Chen was too young for that; sending someone this age to threaten him would be like handing him a gift. Impossible.

But he still needed to know who this man was. Which great family’s core heir was sitting across from him?

“Tell me about your woman’s trouble. How does a spokesperson end up getting hit by a car?” Lei Cheng asked with a laugh. “You’ll throw down millions in a game without blinking, and you can’t even lock down an endorsement deal?”

“Somebody got to us,” Wu Chen said, sighing before he smiled again. “Can’t help it. Business is hard enough these days without extra complications on top. And there are always extra complications. You’re in business yourself, Boss Lei—you understand.”

Lei Cheng nodded.

Of course he understood the scheming and knife-work that business dealings so often hid.

“Competition, then?” Lei Cheng’s hand drifted back to his teacup without him quite noticing. “Ramming her hard enough to put her in the hospital—that’s a vicious way to compete.”

“I wouldn’t really call it competition. But it was meant to slow the company down. There’s more to it than that.” Wu Chen kept it deliberately vague.

Lei Cheng’s mouth twisted to one side. “Dark. Damn dark. What did the poor spokesperson ever do to anyone?”

He didn’t ask what “more to it” meant.

He wasn’t that curious, and it had nothing to do with him anyway.

“It is dark. I’ve been stewing over it for days. I knew they’d try something, but I never imagined they’d go straight for the spokesperson—the new product’s face, no less, and the launch hasn’t even happened yet. Now we can’t use her at all,” Wu Chen said.

“Rough go of it.” Lei Cheng smiled. “Don’t sweat it. We only just met, but when Lei Cheng gives his word, it’s as good as nailed down. I’ll find you a spokesperson. I’ve got my own connections in the industry—just tell me who you want.”

He pulled out his phone as he spoke, ready to dial the moment Wu Chen gave him a name.

“Someone who suits the brand…” Wu Chen said, considering it.

“Oh, right, right.” That reminded Lei Cheng. “I never even asked—what’s your woman’s company called? What line of business? How big?”

He asked about size mostly out of habit. He already assumed it couldn’t be small.

“Cosmetics. High-end. Huancai Fashion—fairly well known around Donghai. As for size… valuation’s somewhere around one point eight to two billion, I’d guess. A boutique brand, really, nothing more,” Wu Chen said.

“Cosmetics, huh. Young, pretty, good skin, that’ll do it. One word from me.” Lei Cheng grinned—because women like that were exactly the kind he had plenty of.

“She needs to actually be famous,” Wu Chen reminded him.

“Don’t you worry about that, little brother. Your brother’s not blowing smoke here—I’ll get you a first-tier star. Someone hot right now. New generation, fresh off the vine.” Lei Cheng’s words came out crude, with a faint leer underneath them.

He was already scrolling through his contacts as he spoke.

“Hang on, I’ll get you—” Lei Cheng’s voice cut off mid-sentence. His head snapped up, eyes locking on Wu Chen.

“Something wrong? If it’s not convenient, Boss Lei, don’t worry about it. We only just met, after all,” Wu Chen said with a smile.

“No, no!” Lei Cheng said quickly. He kept staring, then asked, “What did you say your woman’s company was called again?”

“Huancai Fashion. Why?”

“Your woman’s surname—Li?”

“That’s right. What about it?”

Wu Chen put on a look of total confusion. In truth, he knew exactly why Lei Cheng had frozen.

“The Li family’s eldest granddaughter—Li Ruobing—that’s your woman?!” Lei Cheng finally got the whole question out.

“Yeah. That’s right. It’s her.” Wu Chen kept up the puzzled act. “Boss Lei, what’s gotten into you?”

“Ha! Hahahaha!” Lei Cheng burst out laughing. “If you’re from the Li family, just say so! No need to hide it from me—here I was wondering whose kid you were.”

“You know Ruobing?” Wu Chen asked, already knowing the answer.

“No.” Lei Cheng shook his head.

“Atai?”

“Met him once. Not close.”

“Then what’s so funny, Boss Lei?”

“Because… now I know exactly where you’re from,” Lei Cheng said.

He was lying. Wu Chen knew the real reason perfectly well.

The Li family had no connection to the Lei family whatsoever. There might be scattered contact between the lower ranks of both, but at the top there was no overlap at all—nothing to tie the two together, and the families weren’t even the same breed. The Lis belonged to the political and moneyed elite, wealth and power both, with people in high office. The Leis were purely a business family, nothing more.

Real industry took decades to build, which was exactly why old-money families like the Lis rarely bothered with it.

In terms of standing, the Leis fell well short of the Lis. But rich—genuinely, seriously rich—they were.

And the reason Lei Cheng was laughing was precisely that: the Li family had nothing to do with the Lei family.

Because any major force with ties to the Lei family eventually ended up in his elder brother’s network, never his own. The rift between the two brothers ran too deep for that.

Only someone with no connection to the Lei family at all stood any chance of becoming Lei Cheng’s own man.

“Strictly speaking, I’m not really part of the Li family. You’ve probably heard Ruobing doesn’t get along with them. I’ve just been helping her out, so…”

Wu Chen was still explaining when his phone rang.

He glanced at the screen, frowned slightly, and picked up. “I’m busy.”

Li Ruobing.

“You spent my ten million booking out an internet café to play games?” she asked.

Wu Chen froze for half a second. So she already knew. Not surprising, really—Wang Zhuangyuan answered to Li Ruotai, and mobilizing that many men to game with him all day would have been impossible to miss. Ruotai had almost certainly told her.

The moment passed, and inspiration struck.

Perfect timing.

Li Ruobing had just handed him an assist.

“Raise the stakes,” Wu Chen said flatly.

“Raise what stakes?”

“Ruobing, I’m not explaining anything right now. Just raise the stakes. Whoever loses between us kneels and apologizes. Deal?” He made a point of using her given name.

She’d called wanting answers. Wu Chen threw the conversation right back at her instead.

“Fine. Deal.” She hung up. That was her, through and through—unbending to the last.

“Asking to be taught a lesson…” Wu Chen muttered, setting the phone down.

“You talk to Li Ruobing like that?” Lei Cheng stared at him, wide-eyed.

Not knowing her personally didn’t mean he hadn’t heard the stories. The Li family’s eldest granddaughter was the kind of woman a man could spend years chasing and still have to handle with kid gloves once he’d won her.

And Wu Chen’s tone just now…

Kneel and apologize?

What kind of family did this man come from, that he could talk to Li Ruobing like that?

Did they have an army on standby or something?