Chapter 055: What a Coincidence!

Chapter 055: What a Coincidence!

The matter was settled. Wu Chen had to tell Li Ruobing the outcome and have her transfer the twenty million. The matter of kneeling and apologizing could wait.

Because Wu Chen wasn’t sure he’d definitely go to Li Ruobing’s company tomorrow morning, but Lei Cheng would certainly send Tao Manying over—so Li Ruobing needed to prepare the reception in advance.

“Beep… beep… Sorry, the number you have dialed is temporarily unavailable.”

Listening to the automated message, Wu Chen frowned and glanced at his phone screen.

There’d been two beeps, which meant the call had connected. The “temporarily unavailable” afterward meant she’d hung up.

Not answering?

Hanging up the call?

Was she that angry?

Wu Chen blinked, then smiled from the corner of his mouth.

Ding-ling.

His phone suddenly vibrated. A text had arrived. Wu Chen opened it casually. From Li Ruobing. Only three words: “In a meeting.”

In a meeting again.

Li Ruobing had held a meeting this morning and was holding another this afternoon. That was actually normal. With such a major incident at the company, holding multiple meetings to organize senior management and discuss countermeasures was perfectly reasonable.

But—

When Li Ruobing had been in a meeting that morning, Wu Chen had called and she’d answered.

This afternoon she hadn’t.

Clearly her state of mind had changed. Wu Chen had said he’d handle things, proposed a bet, and she’d agreed. He’d said he needed activity funds, asked for ten million the moment he opened his mouth, and she’d transferred it readily. But then Wu Chen had used the money to rent out an internet café and play games—and that, Li Ruobing couldn’t understand.

“Women.” Wu Chen smiled and lifted his teacup again.

He was very pleased.

Because this was good. Very good.

The more Li Ruobing failed to understand his behavior now, the better. This was exactly how a sense of mystery and uncontrollability was built. And the less she understood at this moment, the more shocked she’d be tomorrow. The more astonished. The more unbelievable she’d find it.

He wondered whether afterward Li Ruobing would obediently kneel in the corner, pinch both earlobes with her fingers, and say like a wronged little bride, “I’m sorry. I was wrong.”

Just thinking about it was rather entertaining.

Wu Chen drank two more mouthfuls of tea. While thinking, he picked up his phone again and dialed Wang Zhuangyuan.

The call connected at once.

“Mr. Wu,” Wang Zhuangyuan said first.

“Who told Atai about me playing games?” Wu Chen asked directly. He knew—could even say he was one hundred percent certain—Wang Zhuangyuan hadn’t taken the initiative to tell Li Ruotai.

If he’d gone out of his way to tell Li Ruotai about Wu Chen doing something so absurd, that would run directly counter to his goal of building a relationship with Wu Chen.

But Li Ruotai must have learned of it first. People in Donghai’s underworld had no direct connection to Li Ruobing—it could only have been Li Ruotai who found out first.

So who’d said it?

Wang Zhuangyuan should know. After Li Ruotai learned the situation, he’d definitely have called Wang Zhuangyuan to verify.

“Mr. Wu, it was Crooked Zhao’s people,” Wang Zhuangyuan said hurriedly. “I suddenly moved so many young brothers to internet cafés near Huahe. Crooked Zhao had been watching me the whole time. Maybe he was afraid I was stirring up trouble, so he told Young Master Li. Young Master Li called me afterward to ask… so I told him the truth.”

“Mm. All right. Nothing else.” Wu Chen said, then hung up.

He’d really just been asking casually.

About what he’d guessed.

In this matter, no one had borne him actual malice. Crooked Zhao had been guarding against Wang Zhuangyuan, thinking Wang Zhuangyuan was planning something.

Wu Chen stayed at the teahouse another ten minutes or so before leaving.

Though he left later, naturally he didn’t need to pay. It was all on Lei Cheng’s tab.

The Lamborghini hit the road.

Wu Chen intended to head home.

Originally he’d had his own networking plan for today, but because of the sudden crisis at Li Ruobing’s company, he’d abandoned his original plan and switched his target to Lei Cheng. Now more than half the day had passed. The remaining time wasn’t enough for him to execute his plan perfectly, so he might as well go home… and work out.

Temporarily changing his networking target was, for him, neither good nor bad. It didn’t affect much.

There were still plenty of connections worth making. Aside from a few specific contacts, the order in which he befriended people didn’t really matter.

It was worth mentioning, though, that if one divided current Donghai connections by tier, figures like the Li siblings, Lu Guangnian, and even Mu Qianqian’s father Mu Sihai all belonged to the top tier.

Mu Sihai’s special status came from the fact that sometimes, judging whether someone’s connections were solid didn’t depend on how much money they had—it depended on what business they were in.

Lu Guangnian’s business was real estate. His relationship with Donghai officialdom was anything but ordinary.

Mu Sihai, meanwhile, was in pharmaceuticals. The pharmaceutical industry’s waters ran even deeper than real estate. So although Mu Sihai’s net worth wasn’t as high as Lu Guangnian’s, his connections, relationships, and influence were truly no worse.

As for Lei Cheng, whom Wu Chen had befriended today—

In Donghai terms, he should count as second-tier. Though he and Lu Guangnian privately called each other brothers, Lei Cheng wasn’t a Donghai native and didn’t have the super-family political backing the Li siblings did.

However… that was only Lei Cheng while lying low.

Even while enduring in silence, he already held that kind of status.

After all, even the current him had assets worth several billion.

And Wu Chen had already handed him the crucial intelligence.

Lei Cheng could choose to stop lying low. He’d definitely start laying plans immediately to take down his brother and seize power.

And once he brought down Lei You, he’d become the sole legitimate heir of the Lei family. Lei Zhenghui would have no other choice. Lei Cheng would inevitably return to Hongfa Group headquarters with the bearing of a king.

He’d inherit the entire family business.

At that point, Lei Cheng would no longer be second-tier in Donghai. His power and influence would completely surpass the likes of Lu Guangnian.

By then, among Donghai’s commercial families, probably the only one that could still wrestle with him would be the family of Donghai’s richest man.

Wu Chen looked forward to that day. At the same time, he believed that with the methods of this second “brother for life,” that day wouldn’t be far off.

At the intersection ahead, the light was red.

Driving the Lamborghini, Wu Chen began to slow and finally came to a gradual stop, waiting for the light. Several cars were stopped ahead of him.

Behind Wu Chen—

Behind him, a private Honda Fit kept about twenty meters’ distance from his car. A huge gap.

No special reason. Simply because Wu Chen was driving a Lamborghini Aventador. The car behind was afraid of rear-ending it. If they really hit the Lamborghini, even slightly seriously, selling their car wouldn’t be enough to cover it. They’d have to sell their house too.

“Hm?”

Wu Chen suddenly noticed that in the lane to his left, among the cars ahead and to the side, several looked familiar. The plates were familiar.

He turned to observe, then looked farther back down the left lane. He realized this was a convoy of more than a dozen black Mercedes vehicles—S-Classes, Mercedes commercial vans, Mercedes SUVs.

Even the license plates were consecutive numbers.

Flashy. Seriously flashy. Downright ostentatious.

Wu Chen knew whose convoy it was.

Not only did he know—anyone in Donghai with even a bit of awareness knew. This was the convoy of Su Ruiwen, chairman of Jinfu Jewelry Group and Donghai’s richest man.

This convoy often appeared on Donghai’s streets, though not every day. Generally it was only deployed for important events.

Wu Chen turned to glance toward the left rear. More than a dozen vehicles in the convoy. The main car was in the middle. Right now, sitting inside would be either Donghai’s richest man Su Ruiwen, or Donghai’s number-one heiress—Su Qingying.

“What a coincidence,” Wu Chen muttered to himself, then thought for a moment.

A real coincidence. Since he’d run into them, how could he possibly let this kind of “fate” slip by?

Reverse.

Back up.

Because the car behind didn’t dare stay too close to the Lamborghini, Wu Chen had plenty of room to reverse. After backing up more than ten meters, he was parallel with the middle of the Su family convoy.

The main car was right to the left of the Lamborghini.

Wu Chen turned his head again to look.

The main car was a black Mercedes-Maybach, same as Li Ruobing’s. Not that all rich people had the same taste—rather, that car was formal enough, businesslike enough. No one drove it casually in private. Whoever did looked like a chauffeur.

The sunshade on the Maybach’s right rear window was half-drawn.

A side profile was visible, beautiful as an immortal’s. Though long wavy hair obscured part of it, nothing could hide her beauty.

Among all the young women in Donghai whose looks could reach 9.5 points, you could count them on one hand.

This woman was one of them.

Su Qingying.