Chapter 054: Another “Brother for Life”!

Chapter 054: Another “Brother for Life”!

Lei Cheng would never forget that night ten years ago.

The heavy truck roaring toward them. The blinding glare of its high beams. The accident came too suddenly. The Mercedes S-Class Lei Cheng had been riding in was struck by the truck and sent rolling more than ten meters before catching fire and exploding a dozen seconds later.

At the time, Lei Cheng had been in the back seat with his wife. Up front sat the driver—also his bodyguard—and his assistant.

Four people. Three died on the spot.

Lei Cheng survived only because he was lucky.

As the car rolled, Lei Cheng hadn’t been wearing his seatbelt. He was thrown from the vehicle and landed in the roadside greenery. Though he suffered more than a dozen fractures and his neck was severely punctured by a branch, and though by the time the ambulance arrived he’d already lost massive amounts of blood—

In the end, he didn’t die.

He spent seventeen days in intensive care, then nearly three months in a high-grade nursing ward.

He survived.

While Lei Cheng was hospitalized, Hongfa Industrial was in constant turmoil. Personnel shifted. Factions stirred. Internal storms rose one after another. Even before the accident, Lei Cheng had already had open conflicts with Lei You over power—conflicts that had been building for nearly half a year, though they hadn’t yet torn the mask completely off.

So at the time, many inside Hongfa were saying Lei You had done it.

During his hospitalization, Lei Cheng cooperated with police questioning multiple times. He understood the progress of their investigation. His confidants reported to him regularly.

So he knew—no one was obstructing the investigation.

No one dared.

Because whoever obstructed it would become the prime suspect.

But they never found out who’d done it.

After causing the accident, the heavy truck had fled.

The truck was found that same night. It was a stolen vehicle whose owner had reported it missing two days before the incident. The original owner was interrogated overnight but ultimately cleared of suspicion and released without charges.

It truly wasn’t him.

As for whoever had actually been driving the truck that caused the crash—they couldn’t find him at all.

The only lead police had on the driver came from traffic camera footage along the route before the accident. It had captured the driver’s clothing and appearance through the front windshield.

Male.

Black leather jacket.

Black baseball cap.

White mask.

The camera had caught his face, but the surveillance image was relatively blurry, and the man had only exposed his eyes. Impossible to tell who he was.

Lei Cheng knew the mastermind was his elder brother Lei You. Though he had no proof, he was certain.

Because no one else bore him such hatred. Minor grudges weren’t enough to lead to murder.

And he wasn’t the one running the company, so it couldn’t have been a business competitor.

Lei Cheng also remembered that four days before the accident, he’d had a fierce argument with his brother Lei You in the office. Both of them had said harsh things in anger. Lei You had even brought up their mother’s death again.

Lei Cheng remembered the look in Lei You’s eyes just before he’d left the office.

The look of someone who wanted him dead immediately.

After being discharged, Lei Cheng had for a time committed many extreme acts, but he’d been stopped each time. Then he began investigating personally—not only all of Lei You’s confidants, but everyone inside the company who was even somewhat close to his brother or wanted to curry favor with him.

He understood his elder brother well.

He knew Lei You only trusted people who’d been with him a long time, whose backgrounds he knew thoroughly. Decisive when handling matters, but extremely cautious.

So if Lei You had moved against him this time, he probably hadn’t hired an outsider or professional killer. The risk would have been far too great.

Lei Cheng had a clear direction for his investigation at the time, but after nearly a month of effort he’d found nothing.

At best there were a few leads, but they all went cold the moment he tried to follow them.

Finally, when there was truly no other option, Lei Cheng used a very stupid but very effective method.

He compared photographs. Looked only at the eyes.

Using the traffic footage provided by police, he compared it against the company’s personnel files. Since only the driver’s eyes were visible, he compared only eyes. If they looked similar—as long as there was resemblance—the person went on the suspect list.

He focused on people who’d been transferred or had resigned in the months following the accident.

He found someone.

At the time of the accident, this man had been deputy supervisor of Hongfa Group’s Security Department. His name was Xiong Shengjun.

Five days after the accident, Xiong Shengjun was suddenly transferred away from group headquarters to Hongfa Second Manufacturing Plant in Beiyou Town—a subordinate factory under the group—where he became security manager.

That counted as a demotion.

Seventeen days after the accident—

Xiong Shengjun abruptly resigned. His stated reason: he believed he’d done nothing wrong yet had been transferred from headquarters, and he couldn’t swallow the humiliation.

And the seventeenth day after the accident happened to be the exact day Lei Cheng woke from intensive care.

That, too, might have been coincidence.

The real reason Lei Cheng believed Xiong Shengjun was the killer: after resigning, the man vanished. As if he’d evaporated from the world. Gone, all at once.

Even his ex-wife and son had no idea where he’d gone.

Xiong Shengjun wasn’t the only person to resign after the accident.

Nor was he the only one to disappear.

But he was the only one toward whom so many clues and suspicious details all pointed.

Similar eyes. A coincidental sudden resignation. A bizarre disappearance, as if he’d vanished off the face of the earth.

And on top of that—he’d always been trying to curry favor with Lei Cheng’s elder brother.

Lei Cheng didn’t think Xiong Shengjun had been killed to silence him. Lei You wouldn’t do that to someone who’d handled such an important matter for him. If working for Lei You meant getting killed afterward, who would dare take jobs from him again?

So at the time, Lei Cheng had believed Xiong Shengjun had probably taken a sum of money and fled far away.

Lei Cheng no longer remembered how long he’d pursued Xiong Shengjun, nor when he’d finally given up. He couldn’t find him. There truly hadn’t been a single trace. In the end he’d had no choice but to let it go.

When he gave up, he’d even suspected he might have been wrong.

Perhaps the man really had been silenced after all—buried on some nameless barren mountain, never to be found in this lifetime.

Ten years.

Before meeting Wu Chen today, Lei Cheng still had no news whatsoever of Xiong Shengjun. He had no evidence that could implicate his elder brother.

Until this very moment.

Lei Cheng had finally “seen” Xiong Shengjun again. Only a photograph. Ten years had passed. Xiong Shengjun was fatter than before, his face shape changed—but Lei Cheng still recognized him at a glance.

Sitting across from Wu Chen, Lei Cheng felt as though heaven had finally opened its eyes.

As if an invisible hand of fate had suddenly delivered Wu Chen right before him.

Lei Cheng had been waiting all along for a chance to turn the tables and avenge his wife—a chance that seemed almost impossible.

Yet Wu Chen’s appearance had turned that impossibility into possibility.

“Little brother, from now on if there’s anything you need, just say it. Don’t treat me like an outsider. From now on, you’re my brother for life.” Lei Cheng didn’t wait for Wu Chen to say more before making another promise. Then he suddenly stood. “I’ve got something to handle first. I’ll be in touch by phone.”

With that, Lei Cheng clutched his phone and hurried out.

In the few short meters to the door, he looked at the photo on his screen twice more.

Wu Chen watched Lei Cheng leave, his expression a bit odd.

Not that he found Lei Cheng’s behavior strange. Rather—Wu Chen had just realized that his new life had only begun two days ago, yet he’d already gained two “brothers for life” in succession. Yesterday Lu Guangnian. Today Lei Cheng.

Who knew how many more such “brothers” he’d end up with.

Lei Cheng left.

Wu Chen, however, was in no hurry. He picked up his teacup, leisurely took a sip, and after setting it back down, picked up his phone again.

Time to make a call.

To Li Ruobing.